#earth magic productions

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

The Earth Magic Times - Earth Magic Prod. - Vol. I, No. 3 - Fall Equinox, 1988

[qqueenofhades]

Where is that text post about procrastinating on a task for literal months only to find that it takes less than 10 minutes to complete and is so very easy. Because etc etc I am in this picture and I don't like it.

[oneesanmarket]

Binan Koukou Chikyuu Boueibu Love! Love!: Yumoto Hakone -  Oedo Onsen Story Badge

Size: 6 cm

Price:5€/10USD

(Shipping price Not included)

Units Available:1

(Send us a message or comment if you’re interested)

[lunasapphire]

My newest order has arrived!!! - Herbal products will forever now be my favorite! I got a soap bar, a mini soap sample, and some muscle relaxer rub!

They don’t break out my sensitive skin, they smell good and aren’t overwhelming scented, they save the earth from plastics, most support small businesses, they maybe cost a bit more but you are paying for handmade products with natural ingredients and less ingredients! No chemicals! No toxins!

And best of all, you can connect to the universe with them:)

[foecomettrails]

[tavina-writes]

favorite things about 2024 loch thus far?

oh man nonny so many things:

Ci Sha's Guo Jing. I love everything I've seen thus far of his Guo Jing and I think overall the casting was really strong for this production. Every LOCH adaptation has its misses when it comes to overall casting, but thus far all the characters I've seen and their characterizations have been strong and on point, and Ci Sha as Guo Jing has been excellent.

JingRong and their relationship chemistry. Any version of LOCH has to sell you on Guo Jing and Huang Rong's relationship and how much they just think the other person is the greatest person they've ever seen. Like bar none, this is the most important thing that cannot be missing, and this version of JingRong is just SO SO SO CUTE and I am so happy. IMO they join Barbara and Felix (LOCH 83 JingRong) and Zhou Xun and Li Yapeng (LOCH 03 JingRong) among my picks for Favorite JingRongs over the years.

Ming Dao's Hong Qigong. Gotta say, he's becoming a real fave of mine. There's something about his Qigong that strikes a good balance between being a hero and being like well, a real guy who's spent his entire life as a beggar yknow? Like that's commitment to a lifestyle that kind of mostly sucks!

Flashback sequence to HYS and baby Rong'er. DESTROYED BY THIS K THANKS.

[flightofaqrow]

tag refresh, relationships ( ‘+’ is platonic, ‘x’ or ‘ship name’ is romantic/sexual, ‘branwen twins’ is face value lol )

[ms-demeanor]

any thoughts on the new post that staff went scorched earth on which is now making the rounds abt tumblr live? it basically screenshots all the tos and claims if you've ever opened the app (or in some rbs, unsnoozed live) tumblr has gotten your data. on the one hand i feel like this is fearmongering, but on the other its true that MOST sites have your data as is so its pretty standard. you seem pretty knowledgeable abt data gathering so i was wondering abt your take

This is going to be pretty unkind but watching tumblr users interact with staff and live is a great primer on how conspiracy theories happen.

Nobody on this fucking website knows how to read a ToS, nobody on this website knows how anything fucking works (sorry, this is not a dig at you but how would tumblr "get" your data from you clicking or unclicking live; the only data that tumblr has on you is the data that you have put on tumblr what data do people think that clicking the "new" button is scooping up that is anything beyond interactions or posts or IP addresses which are the things that tumblr already has information about like you do not introduce new information into the tumblr ecosystem by clicking a button you haven't installed anything you haven't changed permissions on your browser if everyone is so goddamned scared about live stealing their data i strongly recommend they stop using anything but public internet through an anonymizer and making sure location data is shut off on all of their devices and anyone who is flipping their shit about the type of data that live is collecting but who is using chrome on any device needs to chill the fuck out about live and flip the fuck out about google)

this is like that post about twitter's content policy that circulated the other day or that post about deviantart's content policy that circulated ten fucking years ago nobody knows how to read legal documents and nobody knows how to read technical documentation and this comes together into unholy matrimony on the no reading comprehension at all moral panic website

live never violated the GDPR it was just rolled out in the US first but the entire userbase decided that because it hadn't been rolled out simultaneously in the EU and the US that it was SO UNSPEAKABLY PRIVACY VIOLATEY THAT THE EU HAD BANNED IT FOR ITS CRIMES with, like, nothing whatsoever backing that up because, again, even at its most intrusive Live collects about as much data as Twitter or Yelp, both of which are *capable* of meeting GDPR standards with that level of data collection (even if musk sometimes makes decisions that violate GDPR).

Live is significantly less intrusive than any facebook product, than Amazon, and than any Google product. If you use youtube logged in, don't worry about live, the horse is out of the barn and tumblr is the least of your worries *regardless* of live. If you regularly use Google as a search engine please god learn how to evaluate and compare risks across platforms because Live is like a coughing baby compared to about a dozen things that most highly online people interact with every single day.

If you don't want to use live don't use live. Clicking the button doesn't magically transfer your secret FBI file to tumblr and even agreeing to the ToS doesn't share anything that tumblr doesn't already have if you don't continue to interact - if you don't interact with live after agreeing to the ToS it's not collecting any data except your non-interaction.

For everyone who is losing it over Live just turn off your goddamned location on your fucking cellphone and turn off your location on your goddamned computers and that's it, you're good, you're fine, relax. If your response to "turn off your location" is "but I need it for _____" then don't worry about Live, whatever "_____" is was already collecting and selling your data.

Do you use an activity tracker? Congrats, you have much, much bigger privacy issues to worry about than tumblr live.

Okay but also I yelled about that post and the very many ways in which it was incorrect in January.

And I happened to take an archive of the page at that time because I'm a paranoid motherfucker.

And if you want my guess as to why staff went "scorched earth" on that post it's probably because if you scroll down to the bottom of the page on the archive, OP calls on everyone looking at the post to send a kind fuck you to the CEO then tagged his tumblr.

If you look at the other posts that went scorched earth in relation to tumblr staff they were also posts that very pointedly directed a lot of ire at a single staff member.

I don't think that any individual tumblr staff members are above criticism and I don't think that staff as a whole is above criticism but part of learning to read a ToS is understanding that someone can be shitty and vague and use TERF talking points and skirt the line and be technically okay under the ToS while someone can have a legitimate gripe about another user being horrible and manage to violate the ToS by accidentally spinning up a harassment campaign or suicide baiting someone.

Shitty people like nazis and terfs thrive on being edge cases. They are very good at finding a boundary and standing juuuuuuuuust on this side of it and going "la la la I'm not violating the ToS, you can't stop me!" and that blows and it leads to a lot of people encountering a lot of shitty stuff on a lot of websites but personally I'm pretty glad that there's a lot of gray area because when you cut out gray area that's when you see things like It's Going Down getting banned as extremist content alongside white supremacists. Please continue to report nazis and terfs, and when possible go deep into their pages to report because a pattern of behavior is more likely to get recognized as hate speech than a single post that gets reported a hundred times. Please block as many people who it's harmful for you to interact with as possible because it's clear that staff is not going to do the kind of work protecting users that users would like staff to do.

However I just can't get angry on behalf of a blogger who got nuked for saying "Hey everyone who hates this feature that we all hate please go tell the CEO to fuck himself at this URL specifically" - that is an extremely clear violation of the ToS because it is absolutely targeted harassment.

So now tumblr-the-userbase is going off on its merry conspiracy way skipping through fields and lacking reading comprehension and saying "users are getting banned for reporting the crimes of tumblr live and its gdpr violations" and ignoring the fact that the post was nuked because the last line was saying "hey everyone, let's all individually tell the CEO to fuck off in messages sent directly to him that are certainly not going to include any threats, exaggerations, gore, etc. etc. etc."

If I were to make a post that had 50k notes and the last line was "and while you're at it, please send tumblr-user-ms-demeanor a personalized message telling them why they're a terrible person so they know what we think of them" it would absolutely be reasonable to say that was harassing that user. And that post did it with the CEO. Who is not above criticism (and I have my criticisms! I don't think he really gets tumblr and that's a problem!), but jesus fucking christ don't tag the goddamned CEO or any other staff member in a call to action asking users to send them messages saying "fuck off" this is literally the stupidest thing I've ever seen a tumblr conspiracy theory coalesce around.

Anyway thank you for giving me a place to vent i've been getting more and more pissed about this for three days. Everyone feel free to kindly tell tumblr user ms demeanor to fuck off.

[ladyshinga]

“lol you realize Barbie is only a marketing movie, right? it’s just SELLING STUFF, you know that right? capitalism? lol?”

You’re too late.

Like, you’re not wrong, but you are wildly late on this one.

No one is under the impression that this movie isn’t marketing a toy line.

But that toy line? Has been on this earth longer than you’ve been. Barbie is old. Barbie is everywhere. We’ve all seen a commercial if not owned at least one Barbie doll in our lifetimes (or a knock-off you get emotionally attached to even if the weird mean girl down the street keeps making fun of it) (fuck you Christie that doll was a hero)

Advertising is everywhere. I can’t turn the TV on without ads, even on streaming services that used to brag how ad-free they were. I can’t browse social media without ads. I can’t see a movie or a show without products being “subtly” shown off.

We’re haunted by ads at every goddamn turn, we can’t even talk to an old friend from high school without them trying to sell us something.

If you think you’re making some radical grand statement by pointing out that Barbie is a toy line made by a big company that wants to sell more things... bud. We know that.

We know.

Greta Gerwig seems like she had a lot of fun with this movie, the actors had a lot of fun, the set design is fun.

No one is looking forward to Barbie because we think it’s some kind of beautiful radical anti-capitalist message just WAITING to break the world of its delusions of consumerism. God, could you imagine?

We’re looking forward to a bunch of actors dressed in pink having a lot of fun. We know the movie will make people want Barbie stuff, maybe they’ll go out and buy it, maybe they’re too broke because the world is expensive right now and we’ve got bills. But if “this movie will advertise things to you” was a dealbreaker we’d never see anything.

Because Barbie isn’t unique in this. A LOT of modern movies just want you to buy things, or admire/join the American military, etc etc. Money runs things here. Even capitalism stans know it runs everything (though they’re generally okay with it). Ads are our lives even when we use ad blockers and do our best to ignore the ones we see.

We’re seeing Barbie because it looks silly and fun, not because we’re putting it up on a pedestal expecting it to change the world. And we’re kidding and being silly when we DO act like that. Because goddammit, IT’S BARBIE. We’re acting like we acted when we played with dolls as kids, we’re PLAYING, we’re having fun. When I was a kid I absolutely pretended my Barbies could save the world and were magical and powerful. Didn’t mean she actually was.

These are toys. And we like to play. That doesn’t erase the capitalist motivations of Mattel, but it doesn’t have to mean we “support” their evils. We want to play, we want to enjoy play, even when we’re trapped in a capitalist hellscape where like 80% of our day to day fun is sold to us

[superdorkcat]

Upcoming Magical Girl Projects

Magical girl fans are finally eating good after years of starvation. So good, in fact, that I decided to make a list of magical girl projects in development.

The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies - The most imminent of these projects, since it's premiering only in a few days. It's the story of the forbidden romance between the magical girl Byakuya Mimori and Mira, a high-ranking official of an army trying to take over the world.

Mermaid Magic - In a new western magical girl show from the same studio as Winx Club, Princess Merlinda, with her friends Sasha and Nerissa in tow, ventures to the human world in order to find a way to save her homeland of Mertropia from the ghost pirate Barbarossa and his monster horde. Dropping on Netflix next month.

Acro Trip - One of several new magical girl series coming out in the Fall 2024 anime season, Acro Trip follows Chizuko Date as her efforts to increase appreciation for her idol, local magical girl Berry Blossom, takes her down a "dark path filled with strange folks."

Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. - Kana Sakuragi is having a hard time finding work, botching over 15 different job interviews. However, her luck changes when a series of events lands her a job at the magical girl company Magilumiere.

The Story of the Girl Who Couldn't Become a Wizard - The third of the magical girl anime coming out in October, MahoNare for short tells the story of Kurumi Mirai as she tries to become a wizard anyways after failing to get into her school's magic division.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie - Walpurgisnacht Rising - The fourth PMMM movie, which will pick up where Rebellion's massive cliffhanger left off. It's currently set to come out sometime later this year.

Cute High Earth Defense Club Eternal Love! - The magical boy series is getting a new movie in winter 2025 as part of the celebrations for its 10th anniversary. While the movie will "consist entirely of new scenes that will be newly drawn," exact plot details are unknown. (Added August 7, 2024)

Mahou Tsukai Precure: Mirai Days - A new installment in the Precure franchise, Mirai Days will serve as a sequel to Mahou Tsukai, the thirteenth season. Even though it's premiering early next year, specific plot details are currently unknown.

Princess Session Orchestra - A TV original coming next year, Princess Session Orchestra is based on a concept by Akifumi Kaneko, one of Symphogear's co-creators. The land of Alicepia's peace is destroyed when monsters called Jammerwocks attack, prompting a trio of young girls to step up the plate to protect the realm.

Winx Club - The western magical girl classic is getting a CGI reboot. While comments by Iginio Straffi imply that certain characters who were introduced later in the original series (such as Roxy and Nabu) will appear earlier, no specific plot details have been revealed so far. The series is coming to Netflix late next year.

New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt - Panty & Stocking is getting a second season after over a decade that's coming out sometime next year with no specific plot details revealed yet. (Added August 7, 2024)

Project Symphogear Next - A new Symphogear movie was announced late last year. However, no further details have been revealed.

Hua Xianzi: Zhi Mofa Xiang Dui Lun - A co-production between Tencent Video and Toei Animation's Shanghai branch, this anime is being billed as a "remake" of Lunlun the Flower Fairy. That being said, promises of "a fresh story and characters" make it sound more like a reboot.

Studio Pierrot's new anime - Studio Pierrot, which has made a variety of magical girl anime from Creamy Mami to Tokyo Mew Mew, has announced that they're creating a new TV original magical girl anime. No specific details have been disclosed, but the caption for the teaser image ("I want you to sing once more...") implies that it'll be a magical idol anime.

Lolirock season three - After Lolirock's second season ended with a cliffhanger all the way back in 2017, it seemed like the story would never get a proper conclusion. However, the series's creator and director, Jean-Louis Vandestoc, announced on his Instagram in 2023 that creative meetings for a third season have begun.

Magic Knight Rayearth revival - TMS Entertainment is making a new Magic Knight Rayearth anime in honor of the franchise's 30th anniversary. Unfortunately, it's currently unknown what the format will be.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card season two - The sequel to the magical girl classic is getting a second season that will adapt the rest of the manga.

Magical Girl holoWitches - A multimedia project starring six VTubers as fictionalized versions of themselves who work as both streamers and magical girls who save people when they get trapped in the magical Holocas World. There was a four minute extended trailer in May, but the anime's proper premiere date is unknown.

Ojamajo Doremi 16-20's - An adaptation of Ojamajo Doremi's light novel sequel series, which follows the girls as they grow from being in their mid-teens to early 20s. Interestingly, the format for the adaptation (TV show, movie, or streaming series) will be based on the reception of a music video featuring the girls as adults.

[prokopetz]

Okay, so a thing about Tolkien's Middle-Earth is that, for elves and other beings of comparable metaphysical stature, the "distance" between an act of will and its tangible result is shorter than it is for mortals. The universe is just more inclined to play along with how they want it to work, which is why they're not lying when they claim not to know what magic is even though the products of their craftsmanship are by any reasonable standard supernatural – they just make stuff, and it works the way it does because that's how they intended it to.

This has a number of fun worldbuilding implications, like inventors having tangible authority over things crafted using their techniques, regardless of who does the actual crafting, because they literally willed the principles which allow those techniques to work into being, or the fact that when powerful beings die, sometimes stuff that depends on techniques they invented stops working. However, there's a bigger implication that that's generally gone unaddressed:

Elves can't do science.

Like, it's straight up impossible. A Tolkien elf cannot construct and carry out a meaningful experiment of any sort – it'll always works the way they expect it to, but only for that particular elf. Confirmation bias is an insurmountable barrier.

I want to read a story about the elf who figures this out and it bothers them terribly.

[lieutenantfloyd]

How they react when you’re on your period (Headcanons)

Characters: Gambit, Deadpool, and Wolverine.

Warnings: tooth rotting fluff, domestic bliss, mentions of pain, mentions of blood and getting stabbed (thanks, Wade!) — Reader is gender neutral but has a uterus!

Authors Note: Got kinda caught up with life and writing and forgot to post for a week, but I'm back now lol

Gambit:

Remy is the biggest, softest teddy bear ever when it comes to you

seeing you tired and uncomfortable feels like a punch in the gut for him, so he makes it his mission to right things

Anything you need or want, he'll get for you

Need better painkillers? He's already at the store.

Just want to take a nap together? He’s dragging you to the nearest soft surface and holding you for hours

He cooks you all of your favorite comfort foods and keeps pints of your favorite ice creams stocked in your freezer

He’s a big, strong guy, and because of his mutation he's always super warm to the touch

Not only does that make him fantastic to cuddle, but he becomes your personal heating pad (and he loves every second of it!)

Remy would go to the ends of the earth to fulfill even your slightest whim, meaning this man won’t sleep until he’s convinced you’re as happy, well fed, and comfortable as can be :)

Deadpool:

whoever said laughter was the best medicine is 100% right

his first line of defense is to distract you with humor

Wade is very used to blood and everything but the way you’re expected to just go about your day like everything is fine while you’re actively bleeding out is crazy to him

so crazy that he honestly finds you kinda scary (which in turn makes him find you even more sexy)

because of that he’d basically becomes your dedicated house husband for a week every month, frilly printed apron included

he’s doing laundry! (with too much soap)

he’s cooking dinner! (it’s burnt on one side, raw on the other, and somehow both over seasoned and extremely bland)

he’s giving you a massage at the end of each day! (theres no catch here. His hands are literal magic)

If your cramps get too bad, he even offers to let you stab him so he can better sympathize with you.

though if you accept, it’ll just leave you both on the couch to groan in pain

Logan:

Logan, bless him, genuinely wouldn't know what to do at first

He knows it's just nature, but that doesn't make seeing you in pain any easier to deal with

It's not long before he becomes committed to fixing it (or at least easing your discomfort)

He'd secretly spend hours researching what he should do in his current situation

only to show up at your door that evening with big gift basket full of your favorite treats and products

Logan is a stoic man, so learning that he memorized all of your favorite things nearly brings you to tears

(but your tears turn into laughter when you see how panicked he is at your reaction)

after you take some medicine, you grab the snacks he brought you and settle in for a cute movie night

this is the only time he’ll let you decide what to watch, and he only groans loudly (no claws this time) when you pick something cheesy or romantic :)

[hannieehaee]

Thinking about doting woozi awakened something in me hnnng something about a tsundere man being soft is so fucking cute like you just KNOW he'd be so awkward abt it at first but as soon as he knows that you like it and even WANT IT from him he'd be the softest man on earth

content: bf!woozi, established relationship, pure fluff, woozi is starving for affection and doesnt know how to react to it!!

wc: 610

a/n: i know this wasnt a request but i had to turn it into a little drabble bc im so obsessed with him and wanna take care of him so badly i just need to manifest that need into writing</3

masterlist

the first time you took care of jihoon was subtle. it barely went noticed by him at first, but when he realized, he couldn't help but recoil to himself. it was odd, really, to have someone care for you in subtle ways. it wasn't expected.

in reality, it had been quite simple. walking into his home studio, he almost missed it due to his organizational habits, but upon closer inspection it was obvious. you had cleaned up.

not only had you done the usual superficial upkeep that he was accustomed to doing, but you'd dusted! you'd moved every figurine, every bit of equipment, every movable object, basically, and dusted it before placing it right back where it belonged. the air smelled clean too, courtesy of your good taste in cleaning products.

the cleanliness gave him a newfound energy, especially due to knowing it had been your act.

next time he saw you, he was a bit embarrassed to thank you, but still managed a hug and a suspicious 'love you' murmured against your lips without any further explanation.

~

cleaning his home studio became a more common occurrence after a while. jihoon had at some point formally expressed his gratitude for it, but also added the lack of need for it. he felt badly having you clean for him, so he shyly stumbled his way into telling you that it was okay! he wouldn't want you to tire yourself with such a task!

this was met with a squeeze at his hip and a giggle as you let him know that you didn't mind. he was rarely at home while you worked from home, so cleaning just became a natural part of your day.

he accepted this with warmth in his stomach. it was nice that it didn't feel like a responsibility to you. you just did it because you wanted to help him. he liked being helped.

this came along with various other acts of service you'd do without question. acts which continued to make jihoon's heart flurry with a mixture of gratitude and bashfulness.

the list was quite long, once he took a minute to really think about it.

you'd drop in with lunch for him and his bandmates every so often (which was quite a feat considering the number of friends he had), you'd brush his hair any time he let it grow a little more (claiming you just had that magic touch — which, granted, you did), suddenly he'd have socks on his feet when he woke up on a cold night, would find a brand newly knitted scarf on his way out the door in the morning, his kitchen would be stocked with his favorite coffee mix. there were too many tiny details to count.

jihoon always tried to return the favor, but would always feel like he lacked. no one in this world could compare to how doting you were, he'd decided.

worst of all was the viscerally embarrassing way in which he'd react at your acts of service.

he'd always known himself to be bad at receiving love, but he had thought that being with you would teach him a thing to do. the reality was, though, that the stuttering and the blush on his cheeks would just become a staple every time you so much as removed an eyelash from his cheek.

he sometimes wondered to himself, did you realize? how affection-starved he was? how much he truly appreciated your affections despite being the worst at verbalizing this gratefulness?

but the answer was found in the kiss pressed to his cheek any time he'd stutter his way through a 'thank you, i love you.'

[ennn]

Recontextualisng the Ballad and Road with the Con and the Hex

I know some folks are upset or disappointed that the Witches' Road here was revealed as the product of Agatha's long con and Billy's Hex magic – that this seems to devalue or invalidate what was being explored about covenhood and sisterhood, or maybe "made it all about a guy".

Here's how I've processed it:

The heart of a good con is a story that rings true

The first version of the Witches' Ballad that Nicky performs for others already has a certain darkness to it. Because even though it was born from their love, the song was used to con and kill witches.

After Nicky's death, Agatha further expands the Ballad for her new deadly long con, adding more flourishes to it, including the mention of "death's hand in mine". It's dark, enticing, powerful, magical. Very much on brand for Agatha Harkness.

What's interesting are the changes between this version and the Sacred Chant version we got in Episode 2. And it's these more recent changes that seem to trip up Agatha with the coven.

For example, the version Agatha used across many years (the one overlaid with her killing witches) does not contain the lines mentioning:

"wake thy power earthly and divine"

"a coven true / two"

" fire, water, earth, and air" – Agatha's earlier version does contain spirit however

I think this speaks to how the Ballad and legend of the Road have gotten away from Agatha. At the heart of the con is a story, and this story has out in the world for centuries.

And it's not like Agatha would have stopped it: For the con to work, the story has to spread. The more witches who know about the Road and the Ballad, the more witches Agatha can target.

But people tend to change the stories they come in contact with, making it their own.

Consider that the story under the long con didn't even come from Agatha: a random witch interpreted the Ballad as a way to get to the Witches' Road, and the Road as an actual place. The con worked because Agatha saw what people wanted, a Road to what they want.

People infuse stories with their own dreams and desires, interpret and transform them to fit with their own lens. That there are apparently multiple versions of the Ballad in the show (more than we see as they mention Lorna's version being the most popular) speaks to this, I think.

The Sacred Chant version of the Ballad is probably a relatively recent attempt by Agatha to update the song she uses given the more modern interpretations of it. She knew about Lorna's version and how popular it is, so I wouldn't be surprised if she pulled elements from that.

So Nicky and Agatha created the Ballad, and Agatha developed it as as a killer con, but over the centuries, I'd say that the Witches' Road has become something bigger than two people.

This lore and ballad has become part of this world's witchy history and culture, reflecting the community's hopes and dreams, beliefs and fears: First with its promise of glory and reward – because that's Agatha's hook – and then thanks to artists like Lorna, with the promise of love that never dies, love that cannot be turned.

So what if the Road doesn't really exist? There are stories that are true that never happened. That doesn't make them less true or important.

It was probably... not helpful that we only get Agatha in full asshole mode addressing this reveal. Her dismissing the song as not meaning anything might be the biggest outright lie she’s ever told, given that the song began with Nicky.

Remember Agatha lies. The Road is not just a con and the song actually means everything, especially to her.

And it is significant that it is the Lorna Wu version of the Ballad – the version Billy is shown listening to – that the Hex Road is built around. It is this version that brings the Ballad back to a place of undying love and family and hope, promising "I'll see you at the end".

We probably wouldn't have gotten the Road we did get if it wasn't for Lorna Wu’s selfless love and sacrifice for her daughter. Because that’s the version Billy connected with. Not the ones Agatha used for her long con.

What's real is what you make of it

So Jac Schaeffer has mentioned that this twist was inspired by The Usual Suspects movie. Not just how the reveal was done – with Agatha framed as the mastermind figure who knew all along (camera wink) and Billy piecing the revelation together from clues with growing horror – but more importantly, how it didn’t detract from how the viewer felt about the characters and what they went through:

When you learn it was all a made-up story, it doesn’t undermine your experience of the movie. You still care about Gabriel Byrne’s character, you still care about Edie, and you care that Fenster died.

Does the Witches' Road being a creation of Billy's chaos magic, led by his subconscious invalidate what the coven went through, what these women and this boy did together?

I don't think it does. Because the experience this coven had was real. Their emotions, decisions, triumphs, lessons learnt, the moments of connection they had with each other — all of it was real to them.

Schaeffer wrote for the Black Widow movie and I'm reminded of the scene where Yelena rejects the idea that her family wasn't real because it was rooted in them being deep undercover:

That wasn't real – who cares. Don't say that. Please don't say that, it was real. It was real to me.

With the exception of Agatha (and Rio at least by Episode 8) who were aware that the Road was a hex, there was no filter on what the coven took away from the Road.

After all, chaos magic bends reality and creates.

Consider Jen at the end of this journey. She may never know the Road was conjured by Billy and rooted in a con of Agatha's but she did have her arc and incredible growth – to the point where she was committed to saving Agatha as part of her coven in the earth trial.

Jen got her power back and embraces being a witch again, as a sister in the craft, because of their shared experience on the Road.

For Lilia, her divination magic didn't care where the Road came from or what conjured it. Outside the hex, she still had the vision to place a sigil on Billy, and later the vision of her coven – the coven she needed – and their destiny together.

Lilia's beautiful journey, her remembering herself and her power, is still intact.

For Alice, she still discovered the truth about her mother's quest to keep her safe from her curse. And with the help of her coven, Alice did lift her curse. She did let go of her anger and found new peace in with a coven.

All of that is still real and still happened.

Agatha is more complicated because she knew from the start that the Road was a Hex. But this is also a deeply hurt love-starved person who also allowed herself to believe for a brief period that Billy might be Nicky despite all evidence to the contrary, until Rio made it clear otherwise.

Did Agatha genuinely find herself caring about this coven by the end of Episode 4? I think she did. I think the fear of losing Billy that episode was genuine too, as was her regret and remorse for killing Alice, because she did feel the loss of that coven relationship that had just started to form.

Agatha's knowledge of the Hex further explains why she lashes out at Billy after Alice's death, aside from his moralising. The spirit trial was a product of his subconscious after all. It was just set up for tragedy because of how the Hex worked (more on that below).

Ultimately, the bonds these witches did make with each other, them coming together as a coven even for a limited time, did matter I think. Jennifer, Alice, and Lilia had their arcs.

Agatha's is more of a mess – and that's a whole other discussion to go into – but I'd say that she's made progress on her arc. With Jen healing Billy, Alice stepping up to protect her, the earth trial moving her towards acknowledging the indiscriminate nature of death. She did see and feel what a coven could be for her, and she does remember them, and what could have been.

The magic of the Road

I think part of the magic of the Road was how it seemed to have purpose in bringing a coven together. How "the Road changes for the coven". Well uh it still did... just with different mechanics behind the curtain.

As a reference point: Why did Wanda create her Hex? To get a reality where she could have a happy family. Why did Billy create the Road? He immediately needed somewhere to escape the Salem Seven, but ultimately he wanted a way to find Tommy.

Note that it's not like Billy made up a version of Tommy just waiting at the Road. His Hex doesn't have a solution or answer, his Hex manifests a Road to find a way forward.

It helps to contextualise the Road as not only the product of out-of-control magic, this Road is also a manifestation of:

a genuine love and curiosity for witchcraft, including its culture and history (let's not forget Billy is a witch who doesn't have a coven)

a need for family and community

a desire to help others find personal growth or what they are looking for (Billy is a good kid that's been raised by a loving family)

Most importantly, as a telepath Billy isn't creating the Road only for himself or using only his own thoughts: with his mind-reading his subconscious is pulling from the coven members around him.

That's why the trials are designed for the coven members, with the spirit trial being so weird because Billy has trouble reading Agatha's mind. And what does Billy learn at the start of Episode 5 with the Salem Seven reappearing? Agatha killed her own coven and doesn't seem remorseful about it at all.

Safe to say Billy's subconscious did not like that.

I hear Schaeffer has confirmed this thinking in a recent interview with House of R, saying there were deleted lines in Episode 9 with Agatha explaining that the trials were informed by Billy's subconscious mind-reading. Agatha was not a fan of how Billy's subconscious wanted personal growth and team-bonding.

So while we were joking about the Road forcing these witches to get therapy, it actually closer to what was happening than we realised. It just wasn't driven by some mysterious cosmic force or divine entity, but by a kid subconsciously who meant well.

There's perhaps something to be said about how there isn't a magical Road already existing out there for Witches to find themselves.

Unlike sorcerers in the MCU who pull magic from the universe or other dimensions, the magic of witches comes from within.

[chinesehanfu]

[Hanfu · 漢服]Chinese immortal Hanfu <电母/Mother of Lightning> Based On Yuan Dynasty Taoist Temple Mural<永乐宫/Yongle Palace>

【Historical Artifacts Reference 】:▶ China Yuan Dynasty Taoist Temple 永乐宫/Yongle Palace Mural<电母/Mother of Lightning>

⚡【电母/Mother of Lightning】⚡

电母/Dianmu (Chinese: 電母; pinyin: Diànmǔ; lit. 'Mother of Lightning'), also known as Leizi, is the Chinese goddess of lightning, who is said to have used flashing mirrors to send bolts of lightning across the sky.

She is married to Leigong/雷公, the god of thunder. She is one of the gods who work together to produce the phenomena of thunder. Other companions are Yun Tong (Yún Tóng, 云童, lit. the "Cloud Youth/Kid"), who whips up clouds, and Yu Shi/雨师 ("Rain Master") who causes downpours by dipping his sword into a pot. Roaring winds rush forth from a type of goatskin bag manipulated by Fengbo/风伯 ("Earl of Wind/Wind Uncle"), who was later transformed into Feng Po Po ("Old Lady Wind").

Legend

Dianmu was once a human, who lived with her mother. One day, she was dumping rice husks, because they were too hard for her mother to eat. When the short-tempered thunder god Leigong saw her dumping the husks out, he thought she was wasting food, so he killed her. When the Jade Emperor found out, he was infuriated at Leigong's careless murder. The Jade Emperor revived Dianmu, making her a goddess. Dianmu was made to marry Leigong, who took on the responsibility of caring for her. Dianmu's job is now to work with Lei Gong. She uses mirrors to shine light on the Earth, so Leigong can see who he hits and makes sure they aren't innocent. This is why lightning comes before thunder.

In other depictions

Dianmu also appears in Wu Cheng'en's late 16th-century novel, the Journey to the West; she appears during the events of the Slow Cart Kingdom (車遲國, Chechi), where three 'Animal Strength/Power Immortals', "Tiger Strength", "Deer/Elk Strength" and "Goat/Antelope Strength", three demons who disguised themselves as Taoist magicians to deceive the King of the Kingdom of Chechi, by means of having ended a seemingly-endless drought through the means of a legitimate magic tablet that can control the weather by summoning gods in control of various aspects of the weather, including Dianmu, accompanied by Yún Tóng (云童, lit. the "Cloud Youth"). Once Sun Wukong interrupts the summons, Dianmu and her fellow weather deities help the Buddhists instead of the demons in their rain-making competition.

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📸Photography post-production :@小何力

👗Hanfu & 👑Crown：@雁鸿Aimee

💄 Makeup：百丽 （临溪摄影）

👭Model：@清音音音音

🔗 Weibo:https://weibo.com/1615560544/O267AzTqM

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[foecomettrails]