#aztec offering

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Chicago Tribune TV Week, March 4-10, 1973, Section 10

[ometochtli2rabbit]

13.0.12.7.9

jun [1] MULUC/TOJ [water] - kalajun [12] KUMKU

galactic tone: unity

sun sign: OFFERING| shark/red/east

offer appreciation for all creation - MAYA

ce [1] - ATL [water]

Xiuhtecuhtli | Xiuhtecuhtli

xiuhuitzilin [hummingbird]

lord of the night: Itztli

trecena [ce(1)- ATL]: Chalchihuitotolin- EAST

x: chicuacen [6] - hueitecuilhuitl - NAHAU

"Offering Altar at the home of Frida Kahlo"

As water is used as an offering in both calendars, here are some songs that contain the word OFFER:

Doechii: Body Offer

The Clash: Lost in the Supermarket & Career Opportunities

First Aid Kit: Tender Offerings

Sufjan Stevens: Make Me an Offer I Cannot Refuse

Shakira: Hey You

AFI: White Offering

Chelsea Wolfe: Offering

Daft Punk: Instant Crush

Lorde: Sober II (Melodrama)

Merle Haggard: Too Used to Being with You

Patti Page: These Things I Offer You

Arctic Monkeys: Crying Lightning

Lorna Shore: Offering of Fire

Jessie Ware: Something Inside

Bloodhound Gang: Shitty Record Offer

Alessia Cara: Here

Hozier: Take Me to Church

TV Girl: Lovers Rock

The Avett Brothers: Offering

Reba McEntire: Till You Love Me

R.E.M.: Seven Chinese Brothers

Glen Campbell: Rhinestone Cowboy

Tanya Tucker: All I Have to Offer You Is Love

Dusty Springfield: All I Have to Offer You Is Love

Testament: Burnt Offerings

Eels: What I Have to Offer

Dream Theater: A Tempting Offer

Gordon Lightfoot: Somewhere USA

Alanis Morissette: Offer

Buck Owens: The Devil Made Me Do It

Elvis Presley: Puppet on a String

Elvis Costello: This Offer is Unrepeatable

Elton John: Love Song

Adele: Make You Feel My Love

Charley Pride: All I Have to Offer You (is Me)

Simon & Garfunkel: The Boxer

Meat Puppets: Love Offering

Bruce Springsteen: Thunder Road

Willie Nelson: Suffering in Silence

Johnny Cash: Ballad of a Teenage Queen

Billy Joel: My Life

Queen: In the Space Capsule

Marvin Gaye: Why Did I Choose You?

The Cure: So What

Dolly Parton: A Better Place to Live

Townes Van Zant: When He Offers His Hand

Nine Inch Nails: Ringfinger

Little Richard: The Most I Can Offer You (Just My Heart)

Waylon Jennings: The Last Letter

Etta James: My Dearest Darling

Billie Holiday: Everything I Have is Yours

[thegoldenshi-shi]

“Hay mil colores escondidos en las sombras más oscuras”

There are a thousand colors hidden in the darkest shadows

My annual Tezcatlipoca image. 

[edsonjnovaes]

Black Rock City: The Burning Man 2023 1.2

Black Rock City. A cidade mais incomum da Terra – As viagens de Antônio. 22 de jun. de 2022 Neste vídeo, Antônio mostra sua viagem ao deserto de Nevada, EUA, e mais especificamente ao evento, Black Rock City, também conhecido como Burning Man. Este foi um evento gratuito que aconteceu em 2019 e é realizado todos os anos. Não só a entrada é gratuita, como as comidas e bebidas também são…

[the-dance-of-italy]

Ask #1: have you ever been and/or are a Christian?

Not exactly Christian, I grew up more "Catholic" if the difference must be made.

Mom and grandmother often took me with them to church, but me being a slow understanding child I never really understood what I was doing there until much later.

México used to be mostly catholic, with pictures of our lady of Guadalupe and Saint Jude Thaddeus everywhere, so I was constantly seeing them everywhere. Mostly in businesses near popular markets having small altars to them. (Now everyone is mostly Christian and we have a problem with a huge Cult trying to form a political party, even tho there is a law stating that politics and religion can't mix.)

Also I have an uncle in another state so Grandma and I would often visit him during holy week and I grew very curious about the whole viacrucis procession)

I was never pushed into religion,I just opened the bible one day wondering about who was this Jesus guy everyone mentioned. My mom told me years ago, that the reason why I never had a baptism was because she wanted me to choose my own beliefs once I became older.

[thebubblesareevil]

Harley Quinn is Danny’s therapist

Danny needs therapy… desperately.

Jazz know this and acknowledges that it’s not a good idea for her to fill that role, so she goes out in search for the next best thing.

While in Gotham for college Jazz breaks into harley and ivys hideout and waits for them to return.

She waters the plants, she does the dishes and she even cooks some dinner setting the table just as they arrive.

The smells coming from the table prevent the immediate attack.

Jazz introduces herself and offers Harley the opportunity of a lifetime

“How would you like to be the personal therapist to a dead superhero?”

Of course jazz is more than willing to pay Harley (Danny gave her some Aztec gold for spending money while at school) but harley refuses to commit until she meets the kid

The 2 join jazz when she goes home for break, introducing them as some upperclassmen

(Her parents don’t really question it. Not bad parents just super accepting, they don’t know about Danny yet, though Danny stopped hiding it awhile ago)

Jazz brings them up to Danny’s room and knocks on the door

“Hey little brother, got a minute?”

A garbled yes comes from the other side and she opens the door to reveal half the room is missing and in its place is a gaping hole in reality where a large woman was cooking

“What’s up? New friends?” he asked looking down from where he was floating mid air reading a book about stars

“What’s with the portal?”

Danny just shrugged “lunch lady’s making spaghetti, want some?”

“Hell yeah!” Harley piped in. “Honey, I think we’re gonna get along swell”

Ivy just sighed.

The two move to amity so harley can have easy access to her favorite patient and Ivy ends up getting her own green house and somehow a job on the city council to reduce pollution and to push green areas in town

Do with this what you will

[alltoowsll]

lmao some swifties went and offered tlaloc (Aztec rain god) a friendship bracelet asking him to stop the rainstorms during the Taylor concerts in Mexico 😹

btw yes it worked

and yes, the people who did it are Mexicans, born, raised, who have lived their entire lives in Mexico

[yanderedrabbles]

My list of ideas, requests and fics that you can expect soon.

Yandere Roommates [dubcon] With your boss mysteriously firing you and your job applications getting lost in the mail, it's no surprise that you can't afford rent this month. Lucky for you, your roommates have a very generous offer.

Yandere Wild West Sheriff: Ain't you just the sweetest lil thing?

Yandere Dictator:  He's a high ranking member of the ruling party, with all the wealth and power denied to the working class. And when he says he wants you, that's exactly what he gets.

Dairy of a Vampire:  You've found a strange book in your husband's library, and on closer inspection, realise every entry is all about you. [Sequel to Letters from a Yandere Vampire]

Yandere Aztec Warrior x Āhuiyani Reader:  His body is sworn to war and yours to pleasure. How strange, that you find comfort in each other.

Yandere Sugar Baby:  It's not uncommon for a wealthy, older woman to take a younger lover. But the way he looks at you isn't normal at all.

Yandere Witch Hunter x Witch Reader: In a last ditch effort to save yourself from execution, you cast a love spell on the town's witch hunter.

Yandere Aliens [noncon] Human women are the most prized slaves in the galaxy, and when your ship crashes on an unknown planet, it's inhabitants are keen to find out why.

Yandere Southern Gothic Cowboy: He doesn't come to church and you never see him out in the sun. Who exactly is this stranger?

Yandere Rockstar: He's a rockstar punk who wants to fight the whole damn world. But all his songs seem to be about one special person.

Yandere Dragon x Princess Reader: This fairytale isn't what you expect.

Yandere Slasher [noncon] With all your friends dead and no way to escape, you offer the killer something else in exchange for your life.

Yandere Ex-boyfriend [noncon] You wake up to a ship over five hundred million kilometres away from your home planet and an ex desperate to prove his love.

Yandere Pirate x Mermaid Reader: You've seen her time and time again, leaning against the stern and staring out at the horizon. She always seems so melancholic. Maybe a song will help?

Yandere Soulmate: So what if you don't always get along? So what if he leaves bruises on bad days? You're meant to be his and he's not letting you go.

Yandere Firefighter: You owe him your life. Aren't you going to repay that debt?

Yandere Stripper: Beautiful, confident, deadly. When she says she wants you, she won't take no for an answer.

Devil Dogs always bite: A green card marriage to a US Marine ends badly. [omegaverse]

Yandere Harpy: Didn't your mother warn you that birds like shiny things?

Yandere Carnie: The only redeemable part of spending holidays with your distant and erratic father is the amusement park. You've loved it since you were a kid, but sinister disappearances and mysterious letters lead you to believe the carnival isn't quite as fun as it seems.

[Requested by @/saltyearthquakedeer and based on Stephen King's Joyland]

[prokopetz]

As a brief update on the quest for the origin of the term d66*, we have a possible lead on a pre-1989 instance of the term thanks to Tumblr user @esoteric-merit, but I'm going to need help from any French-speaking tabletop RPG fans who may be reading this: can anyone help us identify French-language tabletop RPGs published in or around 1982 with Aztec-inspired settings? The reporting party doesn't recall the game's title, though they're reasonably sure of the publication year, so we have a bit of detective work to do!

* i.e., as opposed to the mechanic itself; the idea of rolling a six-sided die twice, treating the first roll as the "tens" place and the second roll as the "ones" place to yield a number in the range from 11 to 66 has been around at least since the late 1800s; what we're looking for here is the earliest instance of the term "d66" being used to describe it. If you'd like to offer an example not discussed in the linked thread, please double-check that it was published before 1989 first.

[quarterlifekitty]

Genius genius genius idea for the university thing omg

Who would teach what because I'm so conflicted.

At first I thought Johnny would teach chemistry (I'm a sucker for fics that show how smart he can be) but then again art teacher Jonny giving reader drawings of them is just so ugh</3

Simon teaching history?? Maybe?? I just have a feeling he gets super into ancient Greece and Roman war tactics. Presents old artifacts to reader like a cat catching a mouse and reader being like "did you take this from the archives without permission???"

I can feel in my bones that Price would be a philosophy teacher. He's an older man! He's experienced a lot of things in his life and it's made him very introspective. And seeing such an interesting bird like reader makes him want to have deep and meaningful conversations!

Gaz as a physics professor possibly? (helicopter joke) but he has such a passion for the topic and the way he talks about it (despite how God awful that subject is) sort of woos reader in a way, he's just so charismatic! Maybe reader struggles, or maybe they don't, either way you bet their ass is pouncing on the opportunity to get private tutoring from him the second he offers it.

Anywho I hope you have a good day!! Mwah!!

MY DAY IS GOOD NOW

I had some thoughts about this man but I do love your takes!!

I think Johnny would be painting/art history/ceramics because those concentrations are artistic and make excellent use of chemistry! Maybe he used to be a restoration specialist, he's an expert in the chemical compounds that make up varnishes and glazes used in antiquity. And yeah. When you're at the pottery wheel he can sit behind you and guide your hands like in the movie Ghost. What about it.

Controversial opinion. Ghost as a fibers/fashion professor. While I think Gaz is conventionally the best dressed, Gaz dresses safe. Simon does make his own masks-- I think if he had the time and resources, he could get really into making his own clothing. And during your meetings he has you act his dress form, because he thinks a live model is always better, and it gives him a reason to touch and squeeze you.

I thought of Gaz as a sociology/social sciences professor. I think he's got a lot of empathy and is interested in the study of relationships. And if that gets him the chance to act out certain scenarios for the purposes of demonstration, all the better. If we're going full arts I could see him in theater studies as well.

I Initially thought of Price as the history teacher. I think he's got the british disease of being obsessed with foreign antiquity. And he's always going on about the rituals and practices of ancient civilizations... Did you know noble Roman couples would sleep in a special bed just for their wedding night? And then it would be displayed in the house as a symbol. He just thinks that's so neat. Aztec people sometimes used cacao as a very special, sacred courting gift. But yeah, him always coming to office hours meetings with a hot chocolate for you could mean nothing.... But i do LOVE the idea of him as the Philosophy teacher always getting lost on tangents... And he just wants your opinions on everything. The way he stares so intently as you speak. Such an interesting little bird, with such a fresh perspective.

[ifishouldvanish]

I saw that split moment before the fame's engulfed Olrox. There was a look of fear in his face before he was burned by her fire. It give some insight of how he probably remembering his life before being a vampire?

Point is, he doesn't look happy or ready.

See like, I actually don't read the look on his face as fear.

This to me is like, grit. Anger. Determination.

The clenched teeth, the intensity in the eyes. This looks very much like the face of a person who is bracing themselves for something they know they're not going to enjoy, but not something they fear.

Without getting too into headcanon territory, there's some cool details though I wanna highlight re: the mythological symbolism:

Just before Julia blasts him with fire, we get this shot of his blood dribbling onto the ground. We know that in the 'Aztec' religion, offerings of blood were common, that blood was the ultimate offering one could make to the gods. There's specifically this notion that one's blood gets returned to the earth upon death, thus fueling the cycle of life and death and rebirth.

That Olrox's transformation happens on what I'll call "hallowed ground" by virtue of his blood having been spilled on it, is very interesting to me and feels significant.

Then we get this sequence of flickering frames as he gets roasted. So to me, as I mentioned in my earlier post, this is a clear nod to being burned alive in the sacrificial flame. The Five Suns myth tells us how a few deities have taken turns sacrificing themselves to become the Sun by throwing themselves into the old god Huehueteotl's fire.

I bring up the sun stuff specifically because these frames... They don't look like ordinary fire to me. They look like full blown solar flares.

(Edit: the face in this first shot doesn't quite look like Olrox; could it be Huehueteotl himself, who is often depicted as an old man—much like we've seen Papa Legba appear when Annette is tapping into her power??)

And as Olrox seems to recover from the agonizing pain, his crouched, bowled over posture becomes this like, revitalized thing like he's the damned little mermaid. And the chaotic solar flares become this much clearer, dare I say... rising Sun?

Idk where exactly I'm going with this but there are just so many details about this scene that I love.

So... depending on the specific ritual/deity being honored, sacrifices would have their heart cut out. So there's this wonderful poetic beauty to Julia being left with this single, clean wound right in her chest, and that we get this gorgeous shot of her laid out like this. You know, like a sacrifice.

But what also feels SUPER significant is that like... this scene is our INTRODUCTION to Olrox. A big, bad vampire. And yet when he kills Julia Belmont, he doesn't take a single sip of her blood, despite having this giant puddle of it.

It's almost like... It's almost like??? He's leaving it there on purpose. Like an offering.

Again i don't wanna speculate too much here, but... Maybe it's meant to repay the god-like entity whose power he just tapped into to defeat her. Or maybe, it's a gesture of respect—an indication that he saw Julia as a worthy opponent who is thus a worthy offering to the gods. Or like, both.

Idk man, but I LOVE everything about this scene and the animation team deserves all of the kudos on earth for putting this together it's a masterpiece 🙏

[transgenderer]

i've recently become a disciple of the road spirit. do you have any wisdom to offer me as embark on this new chapter of my spiritual journey

oh kat, what a gift youve given me!

okay so. here's some precepts, off the top of my head

move with speed, but not *haste*. its not about getting to your destination faster, its about the joy of speed itself. as a corollary: speed up for no reason! who cares if it wont get you there faster?

also, while speed is important, grace is just as important! always thinking about fish, birds, dolphins, etc. things that movie in fluids, fluidly. gradual stops, smooths shifts in and out of lanes, softening turns, etc. obv sometimes practicality gets in the way here, but that's fine

obviously you shouldnt speed like, *in front* of a cop or anything. but cops are basically violating your freedom of religion. you cant bend to that! speed freely

music is not necessary, but it's good if it helps you get in the zone. something that rocks, or something very smooth. a bassline. its a bassline type activity. experiment! i like to leave it on shuffle and skip songs a lot: i think its consonant with the proper amor fati (i think of it as like an aztec thing. throwing yourself to the gods control) to driving: you can never really control what other drivers do. theyre like...fellow dancer, who are also obstacles. play with them but also around them. give them a lot of space, so your paintbrush isnt squished up against a wall

relatedly: road rage, even in its mild form, is not conducive to the right meshing with the road spirit. it centers ego! you merge with the road. you ride the road, the road rides you ("tell my car"?)

while obviously the road spirit is most *easily* accessible on the highway, it's present everywhere! especially backroads! speeding on a windy backroad is so fun.

this isnt necessary but i think its better to drive a real shitbox. the boundary between you and the road is thinner. also, they have spongier brakes (smoother stops!) and more haptic feedback

even if youre not moving, you can be close to the road spirit! notice the sky (or if youre in a tunnel, the curving wall above you!), the smooth curves of the road, your fellow drivers

when it's warm enough, i recommend having the windows down. windows up driving can feel like a distant video game; windows down driving is all-there, you can feel the speed on your body

[howling-goldendemon]

How I'm starting to believe in Greek gods

I just wanted to share my story, including some doubts because I'm not sure about some things. I have never been a really religious person, as growing up in a very religious family, i think even having some connection to Christianity when it comes to a town near where I live.

Anyways, as I was saying, I have never been that much about beliefs, always wondering about what else could be out there waiting for me.

After all, my family said that the most important part of being human is worshipping a greater deity, specially god; I decided to try to take that in mind while searching for a religion where I could feel kind of comfortable.

Despite the taboo that it is, i started with Satanism, my reason behind it being "I'm not comfortable in what surrounds me, maybe if I try the opposite...?".

I moved on to try atheism, it didn't feel right, something was missing.

Then I tried believing in Greek gods, this being the reason because of a famous musical based on The Odyssey.

I don't know why, but this one really felt like it called me, something in Greek gods drew my attention and respect.

I tried then making my first prayer, being it to Poseidon, I still don't know if I did it right or if I chose the wrong god to start, but my ask was for clear skies on the weekend in exchange of being able to make it rain as hard as he wanted on my 18th birthday, the reason for the ask was that there was going to be a camp; in the end, the camp was moved to next week, but it did rain in my birthday and the weekend was clear skies.

I am a little ashamed of this but I ended up asking again 2 times, this time to Zeus too, as the camp was moved to another date 3 times, this time i tried my best to not be disrespectful and I promised I'd try to make something in return.

The day of the camp, I made a quick prayer to Gaea, asking for a safe travel and general safety during said camp.

As soon as I got back to school, I got cherry incense, I am still new to this and today I lit up one of the incenses.

I was going to try Aztec gods, but I ended up feeling more comfortable in Greek mythology.

I am willing to make a tiny altar for Gaea, Poseidon and Zeus, As I feel like I still need to make a proper offering to all of them, I would've thought it was coincidence and I know it's not 100% true or reliable, but the weather forecast for those weekends I asked were written with a high probability of heavy rain.

It may have been coincidence, but I like to think it was a way to receive me with open arms in this religion.

Now for the questions:

Do I need to make separate altars for each god? I don't have much space, and I don't know what my family would thing of it if I made an altar they could see, I could fit one in my closet or a tiny table in my room.

What would I do with offerings? specifically food, I cannot leave it to rot, that feels kind of wrong, but eating or throwing it out feels too disrespectful, what is the common practice when it comes to food offerings?

Am I praying correctly? I tend to pray in this way: Treat the gods like I would treat a Teacher I respect a lot, with a lot of respect and trying to not ask for too much.

Is there a guide on what to pray to which god? I just wanna show respect by believing in every Greek god, regardless of if I ask for something or not, I wanna keep doing this.

Thank you so much for reading until the end.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

hi! for starters, i adore your blog! all of the tips are actually helpful, and your research is really well done! would you mind making a post about ritual sacrifice? thanks in advance!

Writing Notes: Ritual Sacrifice

Sacrifice - a religious rite in which an object is offered to a divinity in order to establish, maintain, or restore a right relationship of a human being to the sacred order. It is a complex phenomenon that has been found in the earliest known forms of worship and in all parts of the world.

A wide variety of animals have served as sacrificial offerings.

Example: In ancient Greece and India, oblations included a number of important domestic animals, such as the goat, ram, bull, ox, and horse.

In Greek religion, all edible birds, wild animals of the hunt, and fish were used.

In ancient Judaism, the kind and number of animals for the various sacrifices was carefully stipulated so that the offering might be acceptable and thus fully effective.

This sort of regulation is generally found in sacrificial cults; the offering must be appropriate either to the deity to whom or to the intention for which it is to be presented.

Very often the sacrificial species (animal or vegetable) was closely associated with the deity to whom it was offered as the deity’s symbolic representation or even its incarnation.

Thus, in the Vedic ritual the goddesses of night and morning received the milk of a black cow having a white calf;

the “bull of heaven,” Indra, was offered a bull, and

Surya, the sun god, was offered a white male goat.

Similarly, the ancient Greeks sacrificed black animals to the deities of the dark underworld;

swift horses to the sun god Helios;

pregnant sows to the earth mother Demeter; and

the dog, guardian of the dead, to Hecate, goddess of darkness.

The Syrians sacrificed fish, regarded as the lord of the sea and guardian of the realm of the dead, to the goddess Atargatis and ate the consecrated offering in a communion meal with the deity, sharing in the divine power.

An especially prominent sacrificial animal was the bull (or its counterparts, the boar and the ram), which, as the representation and embodiment of the cosmic powers of fertility, was sacrificed to numerous fertility gods (e.g., the Norse god Freyr; the Greek “bull of the earth,” Zeus Chthonios; and the Indian “bull of heaven,” Indra).

The occurrence of human sacrifice appears to have been widespread and its intentions various, ranging from communion with a god and participation in his divine life to expiation and the promotion of the earth’s fertility.

It seems to have been adopted by agricultural rather than by hunting or pastoral peoples.

Of all the worldly manifestations of the life-force, the human undoubtedly impressed men as the most valuable and thus the most potent and efficacious as an oblation.

Example: In Mexico, the belief that the sun needed human nourishment led to sacrifices in which as many as 20,000 victims perished annually in the Aztec and Nahua calendrical maize ritual in the 14th century CE.

Bloodless human sacrifices also developed and assumed greatly different forms:

a Celtic ritual involved the sacrifice of a woman by immersion, and

among the Maya in Mexico young maidens were drowned in sacred wells;

in Peru women were strangled;

in ancient China the king’s retinue was commonly buried with him, and such internments continued intermittently until the 17th century.

Bloodless Offerings. Among the many life-giving substances that have been used as libations are:

milk,

honey,

vegetable and animal oils,

beer,

wine, and

water.

Of these, the last two have been especially prominent.

Wine is the “blood of the grape” and thus the “blood of the earth,” a spiritual beverage that invigorates gods and men.

Water is always the sacred “water of life,” the primordial source of existence and the bearer of the life of plants, animals, human beings, and even the gods.

Because of its great potency, water, like blood, has been widely used in purificatory and expiatory rites to wash away defilements and restore spiritual life. It has also, along with wine, been an important offering to the dead as a revivifying force.

Divine Offerings. One further conception must be briefly mentioned:

a god himself may be sacrificed.

This notion was elaborated in many mythologies; it is fundamental in some sacrificial rituals.

In early sacrifice, the victim has something of the god in itself, but in the sacrifice of a god, the victim is identified with the god.

Examples:

At the festival of the ancient Mexican sun god Huitzilopochtli, the statue of the god, which was made from beetroot paste and kneaded in human blood and which was identified with the god, was divided into pieces, shared out among the devotees, and eaten.

In the Hindu soma ritual (related to the haoma ritual of ancient Persia), the soma plant, which is identified with the god Soma, is pressed for its intoxicating juice, which is then ritually consumed.

The Eucharist, as understood in many of the Christian churches, contains similar elements. In short, Jesus is really present in the bread and wine that are ritually offered and then consumed. According to the traditional eucharistic doctrine of Roman Catholicism, the elements of bread and wine are “transubstantiated” into the body and blood of Christ; i.e., their whole substance is converted into the whole substance of the body and blood, although the outward appearances of the elements, their “accidents,” remain.

Sir James George Frazer, a British anthropologist and folklorist, author of The Golden Bough, saw sacrifice as originating from magical practices in which the ritual slaying of a god was performed as a means of rejuvenating the god.

The king or chief of a tribe was held to be sacred because he possessed mana, or sacred power, which assured the tribe’s well-being. When he became old and weak, his mana weakened, and the tribe was in danger of decline.

The king was thus slain and replaced with a vigorous successor.

In this way the god was slain to save him from decay and to facilitate his rejuvenation.

The old god appeared to carry away with him various weaknesses and fulfilled the role of an expiatory victim and scapegoat.

Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, French sociologists, concentrated their investigations on Hindu and Hebrew sacrifice, arriving at the conclusion that:

“sacrifice is a religious act which, through the consecration of a victim, modifies the condition of the moral person who accomplishes it or that of certain objects with which he is concerned.”

Like Smith, they believed that a sacrifice establishes a relationship between the realms of the sacred and the profane.

This occurs through the mediation of the ritually slain victim, which acts as a buffer between the two realms, and through participation in a sacred meal.

The rituals chosen by Hubert and Mauss for analysis, however, are not those of preliterate societies.

Another study by Mauss helped to broaden the notion of sacrifice as gift.

It was an old idea that man makes a gift to the god but expects a gift in return.

The Latin formula do ut des (“I give that you may give”) was formulated in Classical times.

In the Vedic religion, the oldest stratum of religion known to have existed in India, one of the Brahmanas (commentaries on the Vedas, or sacred hymns, that were used in ritual sacrifices) expressed the same principle: “Here is the butter; where are your gifts?”

But, according to Mauss, in giving it is not merely an object that is passed on but a part of the giver, so that a firm bond is forged.

The owner’s mana is conveyed to the object, and, when the object is given away, the new owner shares in this mana and is in the power of the giver.

The gift thus creates a bond.

Even more, however, it makes power flow both ways to connect the giver and the receiver; it invites a gift in return.

German anthropologists have emphasized the idea of culture history, in which the entire history of mankind is seen as a system of coherent and articulated phases and strata, with certain cultural phenomena appearing at specific levels of culture.

Leo Frobenius, the originator of the theory that later became known as the Kulturkreislehre, distinguished the creative or expressive phase of a culture, in which a new insight assumes its specific form, and the phase of application, in which the original significance of the new insight degenerates.

Working within this context, Adolf E. Jensen attempted to explain why men have resorted to the incomprehensible act of killing other men or animals and eating them for the glorification of a god or many gods.

Blood Sacrifice is linked not with the cultures of the hunter–gatherers but with those of the cultivators; its origin is in the ritual killing of the archaic cultivator cultures, which, in turn, is grounded in myth.

For Jensen, the early cultivators all knew the idea of a mythic primal past in which not men but Dema lived on the earth and prominent among them were the Dema-deities. The central element of the myth is the slaying of a Dema-deity, an event that inaugurated human history and gave shape to the human lot.

The Dema became men, subject to birth and death, whose self-preservation depends upon the destruction of life.

The deity became in some way associated with the realm of the dead, and, from the body of the slain deity, crop plants originated, so that the eating of the plants is an eating of the deity.

Ritual Killing, whether of animals or men, is a cultic reenactment of the mythological event.

Strictly speaking, the action is not a sacrifice because there is no offering to a god; rather, it is a way to keep alive the memory of primeval events.

Blood sacrifice as found in the later higher cultures is a persistence of the ritual killing in a degenerated form.

Because the victim is identified with the deity, later expiatory sacrifices also become intelligible: sin is an offense against the moral order established at the beginning of human history; the killing of the victim is an intensified act restoring that order.

Another interpretation of some historical interest is that of Sigmund Freud in his work Totem und Tabu (1913; Eng. trans. Totem and Taboo).

Freud’s theory was based on the assumption that the Oedipus complex is innate and universal: It is normal for a child to wish to have a sexual relationship with its mother and to will the death of its father; this is often achieved symbolically.

In the primal horde, although the sons did slay their father, they never consummated a sexual union with their mother; in fact, they set up specific taboos against such sexual relations.

According to Freud, the ritual slaughter of an animal was instituted to reenact the primeval act of parricide.

The rite, however, reflected an ambivalent attitude.

After the primal father had been slain, the sons felt some remorse for their act, and, thus, the sacrificial ritual expressed the desire not only for the death of the father but also for reconciliation and communion with him through the substitute victim.

Freud claimed that his reconstruction of the rise of sacrifice was historical, but this hardly seems probable.

Sacrificer. In general, it may be said that the one who makes sacrifices is man, either an individual or a collective group—a family, a clan, a tribe, a nation, a secret society.

Frequently, special acts must be performed by the sacrificer before and sometimes also after the sacrifice.

In the Vedic cult, the sacrificer and his wife were required to undergo an initiation (diksha) involving:

ritual bathing,

seclusion,

fasting, and

prayer,

the purpose of which was to remove them from the profane world and to purify them for contact with the sacred world.

At the termination of the sacrifice came a rite of “desacralization” (avabhrita) in which they bathed in order to remove any sacred potencies that might have attached themselves during the sacrifice.

There are sacrifices in which there are no participants other than the individual or collective sacrificer.

Usually, however, one does not venture to approach sacred things directly and alone; they are too lofty and serious a matter.

An intermediary—certain persons or groups who fulfill particular requirements or qualifications—is necessary.

In many cases, sacrificing by unauthorized persons is expressly forbidden and may be severely punished:

Example: In the book of Leviticus, Korah and his followers, who revolted against Moses and his brother Aaron and arrogated the priestly office of offering incense, were consumed by fire.

The qualified person—whether the head of a household, the old man of a tribe, the king, or the priest—acts as the appointed representative on behalf of a community.

Serious illness, drought, pestilence, epidemic, famine, and other misfortune and calamity have universally been regarded as the workings of supernatural forces.

Often they have been understood as the effects of offenses against the sacred order committed by individuals or communities, deliberately or unintentionally.

Such offenses break the relationship with the sacred order or impede the flow of divine life.

Thus, it has been considered necessary in times of crisis, individual or communal, to offer sacrifices to propitiate sacred powers and to wipe out offenses (or at least neutralize their effects) and restore the relationship.

Example: Among the Yoruba of West Africa, blood sacrifice must be made to the gods, especially the earth deities, who, as elsewhere in Africa, are regarded as the divine punishers of sin.

For the individual, the oblation may be a fowl or a goat;

for an entire community, it may be hundreds of animals (in former days, the principal oblation was human).

Once consecrated and ritually slain, the oblations are buried, burnt, or left exposed but never shared by the sacrificer.

There are sacrifices in which the victim does serve as a substitute for the guilty.

In some West African cults a person believed to be under death penalty by the gods offers an animal substitute to which he transfers his sins.

The animal, which is then ritually killed, is buried with complete funeral rites as though it were the human person.

Thus the guilty person is dead, and it is an innocent man who is free to begin a new life.

Fertility. Another distinctive feature of the first-fruits offering is that it serves to replenish the sacred potencies of the earth depleted by the harvest and to ensure thereby the continued regeneration of the crop.

Thus, it is one of many sacrificial rites that have as their intention the seasonal renewal and reactivation of the fertility of the earth.

Fertility rites usually involve some form of blood sacrifice—in former days especially human sacrifice.

In some human sacrifices, the victim represented a deity who “in the beginning” allowed himself to be killed so that from his body edible vegetation might grow.

The ritual slaying of the human victim amounted to a repetition of the primordial act of creation and thus a renewal of vegetational life.

In other human sacrifices the victim was regarded as representing a vegetation spirit that annually died at harvest time so that it might be reborn in a new crop.

In still other sacrifices at planting time or in time of famine, the blood of the victim—animal or human—was let upon the ground and its flesh buried in the soil to fertilize the earth and recharge its potencies.

Building Sacrifices. Numerous instances are known of animal and human sacrifices made in the course of:

the construction of houses, shrines, and other buildings, and

in the laying out of villages and towns.

Their purpose has been to consecrate the ground by establishing the beneficent presence of the sacred order and by repelling or rendering harmless the demonical powers of the place. Example:

In some West African cults, before the central pole of a shrine or a house is installed, an animal is ritually slain, its blood being poured around the foundations and its body being put into the posthole.

On the one hand, this sacrifice is made to the earth deities and the supernatural powers of the place—the real owners—so that the human owner may take possession and be ensured against malevolent interferences with the construction of the building and its later occupation and use.

On the other hand, the sacrifice is offered to the cult deity to establish its benevolent presence in the building.

The organization of sacrificial rites in the different cultures and religions has undoubtedly been influenced by a number of factors.

Example. Economic considerations certainly have had some impact upon primitive peoples in the:

selection of the victim and

the time of sacrifice and

in the determination of whether the victim is consumed or totally destroyed and

whether the sacrificer is an individual or a collective group.

The importance of such factors is an aspect of sacrifice that deserves increased investigation.

Nevertheless, sacrifice is not a phenomenon that can be reduced to rational terms; it is fundamentally a religious act that has been of profound significance to individuals and social groups throughout history, a symbolic act that establishes a relationship between man and the sacred order.

For many peoples of the world, throughout time, sacrifice has been the very heart of their religious life.

Accusations of human sacrifice in ancient and modern times have been far more widespread than the ritual practice ever was.

The ancient Greeks told many myths that involved human sacrifice, which has led some researchers to posit that rites among the Greeks and Romans which involved the killing of animals may have originally involved human victims.

At the end of the 20th century, however, archaeological evidence did not support this claim.

Some early Christians were falsely accused of cannibalism, consuming sacrificial victims at nocturnal feasts, a misunderstanding probably due to the secrecy surrounding the Eucharistic rite and the use of the words body and blood.

From the Middle Ages until quite recently, Jews were often maliciously accused of having sacrificed Christian children at Passover, an accusation which has been termed the blood libel.

Sources: 1 2 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

You're too lovely, thanks so much! Hope this helps with your writing. Found all of this really interesting as well.

[creature-wizard]

A brief introduction to New Age spirituality (and some of the things wrong with it)

New Age can be summed up as spiritual movement that believes our planet is on the cusp of a new cosmic cycle (hence the term New Age) where humanity enters the next phase of its evolution. Its mythology incorporates a number of fringe beliefs and conspiracy theories, including Atlantis, Lemuria, ancient astronaut theory, and numerous conspiracy theories.

It was heavily influenced by the teachings of Helena Blavatsky, one of the main founders of Theosophy. Influenced by Victorian-age misconceptions about the nature of evolution, Blavatsky taught that we would soon enter the Age of Aquarius, where we would begin to see a new "race" of people who naturally had more powerful spiritual abilities, and then:

Then, as they increase, and their numbers become with every age greater, one day they will awake to find themselves in a majority. It is the present men who will then begin to be regarded as exceptional mongrels, until these die out in their turn in civilised lands ; surviving only in small groups on islands—the mountain peaks of to-day—where they will vegetate, degenerate, and finally die out, perhaps millions of years hence, as the Aztecs have, as the Nyam-Nyam and the dwarfish Moola Koorumba of the Nilghiri Hills are dying. (The Secret Doctrine, Volume II, page 445.)

You can see the influence of eugenics here - she's basically saying that when "superior" people arrive on the scene, then it's just the natural order for the "inferior" ones to die out.

New Age is rife with ideas informed by eugenics, including the belief that you literally have to "upgrade" your DNA to spiritually grow and the belief that humans are destined to become the most powerful beings in the galaxy because we were engineered from the best DNA each alien race had to offer. There are supposedly alien beings who are incapable of genuine kindness because it's just not in their genetic code, and these beings are said to walk among us. There are allegedly alien beings and even some people who cannot connect to the divine because it's not in their DNA.

I want to emphasize here that saying some people are just genetically incapable of kindness or experiencing God is the kind of thing people do when there's a bunch of people they really, really want to die. This is the rhetoric of genocide.

In fact, the evil aliens in New Age mythology, the reptilians, are based on antisemitic conspiracy theories. Depending on who you listen to, they're said to drink human blood and eat human flesh, or just feed on their life force or mental anguish. (Blood libel.) They're claimed to be behind everything described in The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. They supposedly disguise themselves as humans so they can exploit us. (Not all Jews are supposedly reptilians, and not all people accused of being reptilians are Jews, but Jews make up a disproportionate number of people claimed to be reptilians.)

David Icke, who is behind the reptilian alien conspiracy theory most people know today, wrote in his book The Biggest Secret (page 212):

The so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion were discovered in the last century and tell in incredible detail the events and methods of manipulation we have seen manifest in the 20th century. These documents were very much the creation of the Rothschilds and the reptilian-Aryans. But they are not really the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, they are, in truth, the Protocols of SION, the Sun, and the Priory of Sion. So much disinformation and aggression has been hurled at the Protocols and anyone who has mentioned them - including me - because the Brotherhood are desperate to discredit their contents. It is far too close to home. Hitler used the Protocols in part to justify the oppression of Jews, but he was given the Protocols by a Rothschild agent of Khazar decent called Alfred Rosenberg. I don’t accept that the Protocols are ‘Jewish’ in the way people have come to understand that term. They are the work of the reptile-Aryans and made to appear ‘Jewish’ so that we lose the plot.

Icke is also invoking a discredited hypothesis that proposed Ashkenazi Jews are descended from a group of Khazars who converted to Judaism. No one takes it seriously anymore, except for some people who try and use it to claim that Ashkenazi Jews aren't actually real Jews. It's a very ridiculous conspiracy theory because even if Ashkenazi Jews were descended from Khazars, they would still be 100% real Jews. The only people who think your "real" culture or ethnicity determined solely by your genetics are eugenicists. (Go look up blood quantum and the Mischling test.)

Moreover, the "Brotherhood" Icke refers to is a variation on Alexander Hislop's conspiracy theory that the Catholic Church is secretly a Babylonian mystery cult. Hislop was a Scottish Presbyterian minister who claimed in his book The Two Babylons that Babylonians were behind every religion that wasn't good, wholesome Protestant Christianity. He asserted, for example, that "Easter" was derived from "Ishtar" on the simple basis that they sound kind of similar. He also claimed that nearly every pagan god and goddess was actually based on Semiramis, Nimrod, and their son Tammuz (who was regarded as a reincarnation of Nimrod). Hislop's assertions also rely on a literal interpretation of the stories of the Flood and the Tower of Babel. There is of course to evidence to support any of these claims. This article briefly explains just how bad Hislop's methodology is. (By the way, each and every conspiracy theory that claims a Babylonian mystery cult is behind everything is derived from Hislop's work!)

The rest of the alien mythology New Age incorporates also has racist origins. The existence of large and sophisticated stonework like the Great Pyramids challenged the belief that Europeans were inherently superior to the non-white people they considered primitive. So people began to propose that others had built these structures for them. (Ignatius L. Donnelly, for example, proposed that they'd been built by Atlanteans.)

One of the first people to propose aliens was Erich von Daniken. In his 1968 book Chariots of the Gods?, he tried to spin various Sumerian myths and Biblical stories as historical accounts of alien beings. He listed a number of sites as likely to have been built by aliens, such as various pyramids and the moai of Easter Island. Most of today's ancient astronaut conspiracy theories are influenced by this book in some way.

Now here's the thing: the main methodology of ancient astronaut theorists is to look at an ancient structure and say, "Well, I can't figure out how humans could have built it, so it must have been aliens." And then from there, twist and distort local legends and myths - if the story talks about beings from the sky, then they must have been aliens. If a divine being had any kind of vehicle or craft, then it must have been a spaceship. Etc. Cultural and historical contexts are ignored and archaeological evidence is cherry picked.

Oh, by the way, before writing this book, von Daniken spent time in prison for embezzlement, forgery, and fraud:

A court in his native Switzerland found Von Daniken guilty of embezzlement, forgery, and fraud, sentencing him to three and a half years in prison. While operating a Swiss hotel. it seems he fraudulently obtained money by misrepresenting his financial assets, this experience in deception later proving invaluable in his literary career.

In any case, Jason Colavito noticed that von Daniken's narrative looked more like HP Lovecraft than real ancient mythology. Specifically, The Call of Cthulhu proposed that ancient gods came from space:

There had been aeons when other Things ruled on the earth, and They had had great cities. Remains of Them, he said the deathless Chinamen had told him, were still to be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific. They all died vast epochs of time before men came, but there were arts which could revive Them when the stars had come round again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity. They had, indeed, come themselves from the stars, and brought Their images with Them.

Meanwhile, The Call of Cthulhu was essentially Lovecraft's own response to Theosophy. Once you compare The Call of Cthulhu with Theosophy's teachings, it's pretty hard to miss that he was straight-up telling Theosophy where to shove it.

Another influence on New Age mythology was Zechariah Sitchin, who also claimed that Sumerian myths actually described alien encounters. It was he who spun the yarn that they engineered humanity to mine gold for them, and he published these ideas in his 1976 book, The 12th Planet. Dr. Michael Heiser's website sitchiniswrong.com explains how Sitchin distorted myths and language to support his narrative.

To try and give you an idea of what these people are doing, I want you to imagine someone coming up and telling you that JRR Tolkien was actually an alien contactee, and that the elves in Lord of the Rings represent an alien species he actually met. Even if you knew absolutely nothing about Tolkien or Lord of the Rings, you could research who he was as a person and it wouldn't take very long to work out that it wasn't alien visitations who inspired him, and you could easily read his books and see that the narratives just don't really suggest anything about alien visitors. So it is with the ancient cultures and texts ancient astronaut proponents plunder. Once you really get in and do the research, it's obvious that these people are cherry picking what they want to hear and projecting what they want to see.

Various ancient astronaut theorists have done this with all kinds of traditions from around the world, and it's become so prevalent that numerous people just take it for granted that these stories were actually all about aliens and somebody just covered it up. If you're one of those people, I encourage you to start chasing down the sources. Start searching for - and start demanding - citations and sources. I promise you, it's all going to go back to some racist white asshat or other. If somebody cites a holy text or legend or something, read it for yourself, and I promise you it won't actually say what you've been told it says. (You'll find that somebody just saw something talking about divine beings from the sky and projected aliens onto it, or otherwise pretend it says something that's just not actually in there.)

New Age mythology also incorporates a number of benevolent alien races. Most of them aren't too remarkable; they're mostly your one-note Planet of Hats aliens, not so much offensive as they are uninspired, bland, and even a little twee. They embody a very average western person's idea of what enlightened or advanced beings would look like. In channeled messages they often dole out generic platitudes couched in New Age jargon. Their advice is probably enough to satiate the middle class white people who make up most of their audience, but it's almost useless - if not insulting - if you have any genuinely difficult problems. Through their channelers, they deliver messages of miraculous wonders and changes ahead - always just a few years around the corner. Of course these promises never manifest, and of course the channelers keep on repeating them.

To be clear, the benevolent aliens were supposed to reveal themselves to humanity dozens of times by now. We were supposed to have miraculous quantum healing technology available everywhere by now. We were supposed to have a new economic system that would end poverty by now. The history of New Age is a history of failed prophecies and broken promises.

There is one genre of "benevolent" alien we have to talk about in specific, however - specifically, the Nordic type, so named because they are supposedly tall, pale, and blond. One might also say they look… Aryan. They pop up quite a lot. One notable alien of this type of Commander Ashtar, a high-ranking leader in the Galactic Federation of Light. Through the many people who purport to channel him, Ashtar has assured us that the evil reptilian aliens have already been defeated, and that a time of great peace and prosperity is just about to arrive.

Commander Ashtar, by the way, was first channeled by George van Tassel in the early 1950's. He published his sessions in his book, I Rode The Flying Saucer. Here are a couple of interesting quotes:

On July 18, 1952, Ashtar seemingly told us that we had to stop building hydrogen bombs or else they'd make us stop:

When they explode the hydrogen atom, they shall extinguish life on this planet. They are tinkering with a formula they do not comprehend. They are destroying a life-giving element of the Creative Intelligence. Our message to you is this: You shall advance to your government all information we have transmitted to you. You shall request that your government shall immediately contact all other earth nations regardless of political feelings … Your materialists will disagree with our attempt to warn mankind. Rest assured they shall cease to explore life giving atoms, or we shall eliminate all projects connected with such.

On August 22, 1952, Ashtar seemingly told Van Tassel to start preparing for disaster that never came:

You are constructed to work together without personal regard for individual property. You are instructed further to consolidate your unity to build structures possible to prepare for food storage due to rapid changes now affecting the financial, military and political conjunction. We advance you this information in the light of true love.

Obviously, nothing ever happened to justify any kind of prepping, and aliens never intervened to stop anybody from building nuclear bombs, which just goes to show that alien channelers have been setting us up for disappointment as far back as when boomers were babies.

Another aspect of the New Age movement that has to be talked about are starseeds. This is basically the idea that alien beings are incarnating into human bodies for essentially the purpose of spreading New Age beliefs to help the planet ascend to 5D. There are many issues with this whole concept. For one, there is a strong current of ableism - when you read any list of starseed traits, you'll inevitably see a list of characteristics more typically associated with ADHD, autism, and even just low-grade social trauma. Some proponents even go so far as to claim that autism and ADHD don't actually exist at all, but were made up to hide the reality of starseeds from the populace. Young children who are believed to be starseeds are expected to show advanced spiritual powers and wisdom, and I should think it's pretty obvious how placing these kinds of expectations on a young child - especially one who is probably struggling with neurodivergence-related issues already - could cause some psychological damage.

Moreover, the whole starseed myth is rooted in white colonialism; specifically, the idea that "primitive" cultures need to be taught true spirituality by more advanced or enlightened peoples. It's the whole "we need to send missionaries out to bring those poor unenlightened Natives to Christ" mentality in a new hat. The aforementioned distortions of cultural beliefs serves a purpose here, too; if they can just convince people that their own traditions are actually about aliens, then they'll have to convert. This is also out of the Christian playbook; for example, Christians would try and project Jesus into Kabbalah to convince Jews to convert. (Dr. Justin Sledge talks about this in his online lecture, The Dark Side of Perennialism.)

I don't think many New Agers (if any) are particularly conscious of the colonialism happening here. As far as they understand it, they are simply spreading the truth which will help usher in this new era of enlightenment and prosperity. But that's what makes it to insidious - this glittering truth they've actually fallen in love with is actually a pack of lies.

Also, many practices and beliefs within the New Age movement make it incredibly easy to manipulate people. Teaching people that information contrary to their own teachings is all the work of an evil conspiracy stifles critical thinking. Teaching them that they can always use their feelings and intuition to tell what's true or false makes them vulnerable to emotional manipulation.

Many New Agers also practice various techniques to try and learn about their past lives, including hypnosis and similar forms of trancework. There is no evidence that these exercises can help anyone remember really remember much of anything; in fact, people mostly seem to confabulate things based on what they expect to see and what they've been generally exposed to. A number of people "remember" encountering the reptilian aliens described by David Icke - the ones we've established are based on the conspiracy theories promoted in The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion and The Two Babylons, and recycle the old blood libel canard. (If you'd like some examples, you can see them over here and over here.) Interestingly, there is some research that suggests people who believe they have past life memories actually have a poor ability to recall where they learned information, which further suggests that these people are just confabulating from things they've seen or heard in this life - they just forgot where they encountered it.

Also, the pseudohistory and conspiracy theories in New Age mythology are often used to promote a lot of medical quackery. Vaccines are often claimed to be mind control technology or meant to poison us (another conspiracy theory with antisemitic roots), while treatments with little to no evidence to support their efficacy are promoted instead, such as homeopathy, colloidal silver, or whatever this week's alleged panacea is.

Now to be clear, not each and everything New Agers do is inherently bad. Many practices associated with New Age can have psychological benefits, provided they don't become spiritual bypassing. We know that meditation is good for you, and I personally find that speaking "light languages" is cathartic. There's even evidence to suggest that energy healing promotes relaxation, if nothing else. If somebody's practice is helping them in any way (even if it's just helping them relax and focus) and it's not hurting anyone else, then I think they should keep doing it. We need all the tools we can get right now.

The problems lie with the conspiratorial and pseudohistorical narratives the belief system pushes, and the uncritical acceptance that mystical or spiritual experiences that seem to confirm them should be taken at face value. These things to justify the oppression of minorities and the erasure of their cultures, justify colonialist attitudes and behaviors in general, and promote dangerous medical quackery. It's these things specifically that must be challenged and fought.

[mochinomnoms]

original request jade leech x gn!reader [tags] – fluff, suggestive [cw] - a tad more explicit compared to the last ones [wc} – 2,875 prompt 18: “Is this normal here?” “Only for the emotionally unavailable folk.” “Ah, so it is.” note - i think i blacked out and woke up to this. jade is just so, aaaaaa!!! a floral inconvenience

Teonanácatl mushroom – In Nahuatl, teonanácatl can be translated to “flesh of the gods” and were sometimes used by the Aztecs as a hallucinogen and aphrodisiac.

Despite your best efforts to not say anything, to not complain, to not even give a hint of what was bothering you, it was obvious to everyone that you had the hanahaki. 

It was even more obvious who for, considering you were sprouting up bell-shaped brown capped mushrooms instead of the traditional flowers. 

Of course Jade’s favorite mushroom would be one of the psychedelic ones. Of course, you had to accidentally swallow a piece of one when spitting them out. 

You could’ve dealt with that, honestly. Strange visions? Check, you got them leading up to every overblot. Distorted vision? Fine, you know Ace’s messed with your vision once or twice while practicing spells. Even the weird sensations every touch, breeze, and vibration in the air caused were somewhat bearable. The magic that seemed to consume the surrounding air made your skin tingle weirdly, you could deal.  

What you couldn’t deal with, was how horny they apparently made you feel. Without fail, depending on how much of the mushrooms you managed to swallow before spitting the majority of them out, five to ten minutes you’d feel the effects. 

Paired with the psychedelic effects, it was torture. You were overstimulated and on edge constantly. Even without the weird trips, the mushrooms were apparently a potent aphrodisiac.

It left you squirming as Jade, the current bane of your existence, stared at you from across the flight field.

Thankfully, none had come out from your throat today, so you were present and alert for once this week. 

“You know Prefect,” Azul spoke up, sitting next to you as the two of you sat out of flight class. You, due to your condition, and him for falling 10-feet off his broom. 

“The flower sickness is quite an easy fix, have you not visited the nurse yet?” 

You shook your head, watching Floyd hang upside down on his broom, screeching as Jack and Silver attempted to ease him into a soft landing. You snorted as the foot that was hooking him to the broom slipped, making him fall on top of Jack. 

“Nah, it’s fine, I don’t think she could deal with the constant lucid trips, last I went she just told me to get this potion for my symptoms, but they’re all flower based!”

Azul raised a brow as he watched you lay on the grass and stretch your limbs until you resembled something of like a starfish. 

You groaned, “They all account for like petals, thorns, or pollen messing with your immune system, but not for fungus and spores… I need to just straight up get rid of them.”

“May I offer some advice—”

“For your prices? No the fuck you may not—”

“—as a mutual friend between you and Jade?” You shut your mouth at the mention of the teal-haired man while Azul continued. “The best and quickest fix is to just tell him your true feelings. It’s the one true, guaranteed cure to your sickness.”

“You say that like you're familiar with it.” If you noticed the tips of Azul’s ears turn purple, you didn’t say anything. “Is it really that normal here?”

Azul scoffed, giving you a wry smile. “It’s only for the emotionally unavailable sort of folk.” 

“Ah, so at this school, it most definitely is.”

The two of you chuckled while Floyd stomped over to your resting spot, visibly limping. 

“Maaaaaan this sucks!” The twin threw himself over Azul, who buckled to the ground under Floyd’s weight. 

“Ow! Floyd!”

“Coach Lobster says I sprained my ankle and can’t go to basketball club later!” Floyd whined, wrapping his lanky body around Azul, who was less than amused. 

“I’ll be stuck at the dorm, I don’t wanna deal with a whiny Jade!”

He turned his attention to you, sneering. “Hey Shrimpy! Go fix whatever ya did to make Jade upset! He’s been acting like a lovesick brat since ya stopped talkin’ to him, it’s gettin’ real old.” 

You scoffed, “I didn’t do anything! And why’s everyone acting like we’re a couple? We’re just friends, sometimes friends don’t talk for a bit!”

“Friends?!” Azul hissed, eye twitching as he gave you an incredulous look. “Some ‘friends’ you are. Based on the sounds I hear coming out of his room late at night, I highly doubt that.”

“We’re friends with benefits!” you cried out, looking behind you to see if anyone noticed or heard your outburst. As you did, Azul and Floyd shared a confused look. 

“Friends with…benefits?” Azul asked. 

Floyd nodded, also questioning your words. “What’s that?”

Despite your best efforts to explain the concept, the two couldn’t comprehend the idea of casual intimacy with an acquaintance or friend. Apparently it was a strictly human concept, as Floyd put it: “Why’d you wanna do that with someone other than a mate? Merfolk aren’t built like that!”

You left class with more questions than answers. Questions you probably could’ve had answered if you spoke with Jade. It didn’t help that Azul and Floyd kept giving you concerned looks as they quietly spoke with Jade, who kept glancing at you with a neutral expression.

Mostly neutral, his brows were furrowed as he spoke with his brother and friend. 

Oh well, a little mystery never hurt no one!

Stomping over to the Mostro Lounge, you kept looking over your shoulder for Jade. Even with everything Azul and Floyd said, you weren’t mentally prepared for a conversation with him. 

You’re sure that when Azul asked you to come to his V.I.P. Room, it was for some ruse to get you and Jade together. But he also mentioned you taking up extra shifts at the bar, and you were always in need of a little extra cash. 

However, that would be more interaction with Jade, and you’d rather deal with another bad shroom trip than confront any of your feelings for him. But…money.

“Hey! You!” You tapped the shoulder of one of the lounge employees, who recognized and greeted you with a smile. 

“Ah! Prefect!” The purple-haired man smiled. “Azul said he was expecting you! Go right ahead to his office.”

“Thanks!” Walking through the lounge into the hallway leading to the private rooms and Azul’s office, the eerie silence was unsettling. 

Usually there’d be at least a few employees walking around, either serving food to one of the reservable rooms or checking in with their housewarden. Even passing the employee lounge made you uneasy, as no one was there despite the lack of dinner rush. 

You did make it to Azul’s office with little issue, knocking on the door as you announced, “I’m ‘ere, Azul! Can I come in? 

You received no answer. Apprehensively you opened the door, surprised to find it empty. Entering and closing the door behind you, you decided to be nosy and look at what Azul had on his desk while you waited. 

He was probably here recently, based on the cup of tea on his desk. The door opened up behind you, so you turned to greet Azul with a wave and smile before freezing. 

Really, you should’ve known better than to trust Azul to mind his own business. You curled in on yourself as Jade entered the office, a pleasant smile on his lips he locked the door behind him. 

You decided that nonchalant and cool was the best approach in this situation. 

You greeted Jade in a polite, monotone voice. “Leech.”

“My, my, Prefect. So cold.” Jade gave you a sad look as he pursed his lips. “We haven’t spoken since our trip two weeks ago, was my company so terrible that it warrants your avoidance?”

His tall frame towered over you as he stalked closer and closer, forcing you backwards until your back hit the desk. You could hear the tea cup and saucer clink as you did. Jade placed his hands on either side of your hips, effectively trapping you against Azul’s desk. 

“W-well, I’ve been busy—

“Why, I’ve been absolutely beside myself! We had such a wonderful time camping out those two evenings that I'm left wondering if I did something wrong.” 

Jade softly spoke, a mischievous gleam in his gold eye as he leaned down to coo in your ear, “Especially since you, oh, so enjoyed my tongue in your—”

You decided that nonchalant and cool was actually not the best approach, based on the numerous mushrooms popping up from your skin and in your mouth. 

Jade whipped his head back, rubbing his chin from where the mushroom smacked into him while popping up at the crook between your chin and neck. 

He grinned as more and more bell-capped mushrooms sprouted down your exposed arms and neck, even along your head as they fashioned into a mushroom crown. 

You froze, then started hacking as too many mushrooms filled and fell out of your mouth, though you could feel yourself swallow some on instinct. “Shitshitshit, I ate some, oooooh fuck me—”

“I did two weeks ago, you seemed to enjoy it—”

“Shut up! You know that's not what I meant!” You groaned, rubbing your face as Jade leaned back in to place his hands on your hips, rubbing small circles. 

“Heh-heh, I know. You must forgive me my dear, you are entirely too easy to rile up.” He grabbed your hands so that Jade could make eye contact with you, smiling a bit softer at your red face. 

“It’s your fault you know!” You huffed, frowning (or pouting in Jade’s vision) up at him. “You and your stupid mushrooms…”

“Oh? I beg to differ.” You yelped as Jade lifted you like a rag doll and sat you on the desk. At this angle, Jade didn’t need to strain his neck as much to lean down. 

“I’d argue that this entirely your own doing. After all, nothing was preventing you from speaking to me other than your own ego.” 

“That’s not—” you angrily huffed, half-heartedly shoving Jade. “That’s NOT it and you know it.”

The eel mer frowned, a rare annoyed expression on his features. He took a deep breath, reaching for your hands to softly and tenderly draw circles into your palm. Jade tended to do this when his mind was full of thoughts, tracing random shapes into your skin. 

He was especially fond of doing so after your late night meet ups: bare bodies flush against one another in an afterglow as he lulled you to sleep with sweet words, tracing out his name and hearts against your back. 

If you thought too much into it, sometimes you think he was tracing your first name with his last, usually done after a particularly rough night. 

You didn’t want to think too much into it though, all those nights. Jade was simply indulging your soft heart. 

“I don’t, actually. Can you imagine my ire when my beloved partner not only started sprouting psilocybe mexicana, but it was from hanahaki. Do you know the implications of that to me?”

“Look, I’m sorry that I’m sooooo emotional and am ruining your ‘cool’ and ‘intimidating’ reputation!” You cried out, pushing his hands off of yours to cross them, looking to the side.

“I didn’t mean for my feelings to get so out of control. The first rule to being friends-with-benefits is to not catch feelings, and I broke it.”

You shrugged as you continued.

“I had them before, but I thought that if we just got involved casually, I’d get over them eventually…it’s not my fault you talk and act so sappy…like you want me to fall more in love or something…” 

Jade was silent, which in itself wasn’t unusual for him. What was, was the troubled, nearly distraught look on his face. You’d be annoyed at how pretty he still was if the expression didn’t freak you out. 

“Most likely because I was under the impression that we were courting. You are aware that I have been addressing you as my mate for several months now, yes?”

Time froze, though it might have been the effects of the mushrooms starting to hit. Or a combination of the shrooms and your brain trying to process the words that just left Jade’s mouth. 

Mate. Floyd called you his brother’s mate. He’s actually been calling you his mate.

“What?” You squeaked out, voice meek and tiny. “Mate? Like, your partner-type mate? Like, this is the person I’m marrying-type mate?”

Jade let out a chuckle, cutting the distance between you until his face was right up to yours. 

Startled, you grasped on the lapels of his uniform, trying to steady yourself as you leaned back. Jade’s arms were splayed on the table as he once again trapped you against the desk. 

Though this time, intentionally you’re sure, he settled himself between your legs as you, subconsciously mind you, loosely wrapped your legs around his hips. 

Jade smirked as he watched you cough out another handful of mushrooms, though he was disappointed to see none were bitten this time around. 

“Allow me to, how do you humans say? Ah, yes, open your eyes to the situation.” 

Jade grabbed your chin, forcing you to make eye contact with his stern gaze. “I do not involve myself with other people to such an…intimate extent casually, especially as a merperson.”

“This thing you call ‘friends with benefits’? As a concept it’s entirely human. Merfolk? If we see something, if we like it, then we make it ours and you?” 

Jade chuckled, leaning down and taking your earlobe into his sharp teeth. 

“Little human~” he purred. “I made you mine the moment we blessed my bed with your sweet cries.”

You shivered from the points of his teeth as he tugged, sighing as he let go, up until his lips met your pulse point at the crook of your neck, suckling down. You could feel his pleased hum vibrate through your spine as you mewled in response. 

Heat pooled in your belly while your skin felt like it was simultaneously on fire and freezing, though you couldn’t be sure if it was the effects of the mushroom or Jade. 

“J-Jade, stooOOoOop i-it,” despite your protests, you tilted your head to offer the rest of you like a present, little gasps escaping your lips as his lips trailed down, following the mushrooms that adorned your clavicle. 

“What if Azul o-or your—o-ooh fuck—or your brother walk in?”

Jade leaned back with a closed mouth smile, admiring the red marks adorning your neck. 

“Let them, so that every time you forget what you are and what you mean to me, the image of my mate bent over this desk is burned through their heads, so that it implores them to remind you of what you are.”

Pushing you until you laid flat on your back, Jade hovered over you with a grin and beheld your flushed face. 

You slid your hands from his chest to loop around his neck, bringing Jade down to meet your lips before he stopped. 

You furrowed your eyebrows at him, eyes widening as he stuck his tongue out to reveal a singular mushroom. He must have hidden it under his tongue after swiping it from your neck earlier.

“Wait, Jade!” You gasped as he bit and swallowed the fungus. “It’s a psychedelic—”

“And an aphrodisiac, I’m aware.” He hummed, a pleased look on his face.

“Land flora is so fascinating, I’d hoped to introduce this one to you over the summer, to experience it together, back home in a nice, private little grotto.”

Jade pressed his lips to yours, surprisingly gently, as you returned it with a growing intensity. His right hand reached up between your embrace to undo the buttons of your shirt. 

“Oh well, I suppose we can share an experience here. Isn’t the thought of someone walking in exhilarating?”

Once your shirt was open, and your chest exposed, Jade took the tips of his fingers between his teeth and yanked his pristine white glove off. He trailed his exposed hand, starting with a squeeze at the base of your neck, and slowly gliding down. 

His pupils were slowly blowing out as the effects of the mushroom started to take hold, his breath increasing as you grew more and more needy from the aphrodisiac. 

“Jade, please~” you tried again to yank him down for another kiss, this time succeeding as your lips clashed against one another. 

“Jade…I need…” 

“Shhh. I got you.” Jaed cooed, hips grounding against yours as your kiss intensified. “I got you Y/N, my little human, my pearl, my mate—”

“Hey Jade, are you two almost done talking, I’d like my office back—ACK!” Azul shrieked at the sight of you two over his desk, Floyd popping his head out from around the now open door. 

“Hmm? Ewwwww!” Floyd made gagging sounds as you quickly redressed yourself, Jade looking amused at the situation.

“You’re supposed to talk it out, not get it on! Go somewhere else! It’s bad enough that I can hear you through the walls, you’re like three rooms down from mine!”

Jade let out a chuckle, wrapping his hand around your waist once you were up and buttoned up. 

“Of course, I wouldn’t want to bother you. Come, my pearl.” You were dragged out of the room, wincing at the other two with an apologetic look. 

You apparent ‘mate’ was guiding you to the exit of the lounge, to the direction of the pools. 

As he leaned down to whisper into your ear, you could feel his grip tighten on your hip, causing a pleasurable buzz to crawl up your body, your lucid high growing stronger. 

“Why don’t we see how my merform handles the mushrooms, and then see how you can handle me, hmm?”