#i do think they are in modern times though

[natsredbra]

guitar player nat omfg...

OHH my god…….(fem!reader, bit of nsfw)

she’s soso cocky, and when she first tries to talk to you you think she’s a greaser😭😭

once you do get to know her though, you couldn’t help your poor heart that fell in love

totally the type to show off

“Babe, look what I can do!” “Want me to play a song for you, hm?”

she gets so dramatic when you don’t act jazzed

still, you go to her rehearsals allllll the time, and her band mates love you

she trusts you to tell her when she’s off pitch (as if you’d know)

overtime you get used to sleeping and napping through hugeee noise, since they practice at your place as well

definitely taking you out to eat with them after they’re done (they call you the first lady!!)

Nat so buys you one of those “With the band” shirts

and you eat it tf up

literally her biggest supporter once the band takes off

and she loves you sm

like half their songs are about you

thinking about all the other bandmates being players and wtv and Nat is all like i gotta go home to the wife

brings you to the stage all the time

at first (if modern!au) you got sm hate cause all the catty girls are into Nat and shi

but overtime people fall in love with you as well😭😭

imagining the edits of your little snippets stepping onto the stage being captioned “Nat we understand.”

you get a huge following too for the whole rockstar girlfriend aesthetic

even Nat’s ig is more you then her

okay okay…….

imagine hitting a bong with her backstage, either after or before a show

if it’s before the show, you go down on her for motivation

if it’s after the show, she goes down on you for a job well done

also packs in one of her shows and wears loose pants so that only you know

like she looks hot enough fucking shredding that guitar, she did NOT need to do that smh.

ahdhshhs railing you to give the lead singer ‘inspiration’ for the lyrics (cause you know all their songs are nasty.)

and then taking you out on a cute date!

overall, guitarist Nat may seem like some fuckgirl you cannot trust, but really she’s a total sweetheart

definitely someone you can spend your life with

[sst4rdst]

synopsis : modern au scaramouche places nicotine patches on you so you would get addicted to him. pairing : yan scara x reader (no gendered pronouns used for reader) warnings : yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, scara is kinda cringe ngl, forced addiction. author's note : inspired by this ask @allfearstofallto received! (btw go check her works they're really good, just saying).

it starts as nothing. a lingering discomfort when you’re alone, a tension in your muscles that refuses to ease, a dull, unshakable exhaustion that follows you even after a full night’s sleep. it’s easy to dismiss at first, easy to blame on stress, on a poor diet, on the weather being too cold or too hot. you don’t think much of it—not when it’s just a headache here and there, not when the nausea comes in brief waves, not when your hands shake just slightly as you reach for your morning coffee.

but then it worsens. slowly, gradually, deliberately.

there are days when the discomfort turns unbearable, days when you feel like something is clawing at the inside of your ribcage, desperate to be let out. your body betrays you in ways you don’t understand—your heart pounding too hard, your breathing shallow, your fingers twitching when you try to hold a pen, a fork, a phone. it’s maddening, this constant state of unease, like you’re missing something vital, like a part of you has been carved away and you’re left grasping at empty air. you rack your brain for a reason, for some kind of explanation that makes sense, but nothing adds up. there is no pattern to it, no logical cause.

except, there is. because it always, always gets better when you’re with him.

the moment scaramouche steps into the room, the tension in your chest unwinds, your headache fades, your trembling stops as if it was never there. you don’t even have to do anything—just being in his presence is enough to soothe the worst of it, like he’s some kind of drug you didn’t realize you were taking.

you hate the thought. you hate the dependency, the way your body reacts to him like an addict finding their next fix. but there’s no denying it, not when the relief is so immediate, not when it feels so good just to exist near him, to hear his voice, to feel his gaze settling on you with that same unreadable expression.

he notices. of course, he notices. he’s always watching, always analyzing, always a step ahead of you in ways that you’ve never quite been able to grasp.

“why do you always come to me when you feel like shit?” his voice is flat, unimpressed, but there’s something underneath it, something too pleased, like he already knows the answer but wants to hear you say it anyway. he’s lounging on your couch, legs crossed, one arm draped over the back, looking like he has all the time in the world to entertain your pathetic little problem.

you swallow, rub your temples, frustrated with yourself, with him, with this whole situation. “i don’t know,” you mutter, though you do, you just don’t want to admit it. “i just—fuck, i feel better when i’m with you. like, physically.”

the corner of his lips twitches, and for a second, you think he’s going to smirk. but he doesn’t. he just watches you with that same half-lidded gaze, fingers tapping against his thigh in slow, deliberate movements. his nails are painted black today. he only does that when he’s bored.

“how pathetic,” he murmurs, and there it is—that cruel amusement, that mocking edge laced into his words like a knife hidden in silk. he tilts his head, voice dropping just enough to send a shiver down your spine. “you seriously need me, huh?”

you don’t answer. because what is there to say? it’s true. it’s humiliating and infuriating and it makes you feel small, but it’s the truth. you do need him. or at least, your body seems to think so.

you don’t know that this was never an accident. that the first time you felt those strange aches, those unbearable withdrawals, it wasn’t some random affliction—it was him. it was always him.

you don’t know that it started with a tiktok. some stupid, throwaway video that he barely paid attention to at first, some joke about how nicotine patches could be used to make someone dependent, how withdrawal could be weaponized. you don’t know how the idea latched onto him like a parasite, burrowing into his thoughts, refusing to let go until it became something more, something twisted, something actionable.

you don’t know that every time he touched you—every casual brush of fingers against your arm, every moment he pretended to fix your collar, every instance where he pulled you just a little closer than necessary—he was leaving something behind. a small, colorless patch, barely noticeable, perfectly hidden beneath fabric and routine. a dose just strong enough to matter. just strong enough to make you crave him.

you don’t know any of this. but you do know that you always end up back in his presence. that no matter how much you tell yourself you don’t need him, your body betrays you in the end.

[amazingdeadfish]

Do u think u could make an opera version of mayor? I've seen a few artists make diff opera wukong/Mac designs but I think a opera mayor design would look very cool :D

Not gonna lie, I was nervous to do this, but, I don't regret trying out this challenge.

RAMBLES + (literally only two) REFERANCES BELOW THE CUT:

The costume is based on the classic armor outfit in Chinese Peking Opera. Since, we all know that the Mayor doesn't actually have that many identifiable characteristics or, much of a role in the LMK show other than being LBD's foot soldier or, thrall. So, I had to reflect that in what's probably an incredibly basic interpretation for what their design could be (because if you actually see the insane level amount of detail in peking opera outfits, you'll understand that this drawing is heavily simplified and lacks detail).

The mask, is, also simple. I tried to look at numerous references and get my head around the insane amount of possibilities of patterns and designs and what they mean, as well as what the colours symbolize, but all that's important is that blue symbolizes stoicism, black for integrity, and white symbolizes evil (but of course these meanings for colours have leeway in between depending on what source you look at. There is no definitive answer).

The mask is also important because it creates the most visual distinction from Mayor being a Jing instead of a Sheng (male protagonist). And, even though it's a basic mask, I did create it to imply an almost 'skull' shape to it. But it's discrete and, you have to be looking for it to be there (which I suppose fits because, Mayor being LBD's thrall wasn't revealed straight away)

Now okay look, I'm- I'm not an expert on peking opera at all, I had to do a bit or research to do this in order to actually understand what I am doing when it comes to designing an outfit for Mayor. You might see a hint of his Chief costume in the chest plate I decided to keep, and all those skull motifs to show that he is a thrall of Lady Bone Demon. But in short, he is a warrior, a soldier, a chief of war, and he fights and works for Lady Bone Demon. He is to be a character with heavy, dramatic armor, and a mask to not only symbolize his role in whatever theatre show he lands himself in, but also for the shrouded identity he has and, well, not exactly being the most in-depth or open character in the show :))).

Anyways, here's a beta design back when I legitimately had no idea what I was doing and had done like zero research apart from looking at references I lied and, thinking Mayor would have a 'lighter (less heavy) and less decorative outfit (clearly I changed my mind later on):

I am, glad I did not follow through with this design. This is, not a peking opera outfit. Not a conventional one at least, that would reflect who the Mayor is (because this mf is conventional as hell, fitting in with modern times with his suit and all).

And here are the, uh, two references I used (obviously there's more but, these two were the ones I really picked apart and analyzed and, have clearly referenced):

And yes, I copied the pose on the right.

Design is welcome for critique (again, I am not an expert on peking opera (it's such a vast, complex, and wonderful artform that the more I found out the more I was intimidated by) and possibly subjected to be redesigned later on should I look back on this months-years later and cringe horrifically.

[yunsound]

The Third Installment to the Oubing Saga- Yunbing

PRIOR EXPERIENCE NEEDED!

Entry ticket: reading this post and acknowledging that the following is about to be 18+. No, I'm not writing anything explicit, but it's going to be some mentions of sex. Move on.

After finishing Ne Zha 2025 (or the 2019 version if you're a real one), did you feel overcome by the gayness? Did you wonder why the fuck anyone would ever look at their best friend like that? Did shoujo anime music start playing in the back of your head?

...yeah you're not alone.

As previously mentioned, Oubing is currently China's biggest fandom ship (I stay hopeful that this wave of hype will last longer than it did in 2019). I also trust that you all understand why that is.

Seriously, I've never seen any piece of Chinese media except for straight up BL THIS gay.

Let's count on one hand how many BL tropes these movies include.

Red/blue

Soulmates

Only friend

Enemies to lovers

Friends to lovers

Oh oops, we ran out of fingers! Next hand.

Friends to enemies to friends to lovers

Forbidden romance

Demon x angel

Two halves of one... thing

...bondage? I suppose? If you know you know THE scene.

Oh wow look at that we ran out of fingers again. MOVING ON TO THE NEXT HAND-

Okay, I'll stop here. All of this makes Oubing technically a very vanilla ship (ignore the bondage that's mostly a joke. Though you WILL see a lot of art involving Ne Zha's red sash in... different usages) and very sweet. Pure love, I suppose.

Do you know about Shangmei Oubing, a variation on Oubing featuring different adaptations of Ne Zha and Ao Bing? Well now you do. Read this post to figure out what I'm talking about.

If there's a spectrum of the wholesome-ness of Oubing ships, Shangmei Oubing is in the middle. Yes, it's very toxic, but technically Ne Zha does really love Ao Bing a lot, just in the wrong ways.

On the OPPOSITE end of that spectrum, we have Yunbing.

Yunbing is the ship between Ne Zha and Ao Bing from the 2021 movie New Gods Reborn: Ne Zha. The movie itself is on Netflix- it's kind of a mid movie, I'm NGL, but the animation is pretty good.

I haven't watched the whole movie (how do I know it's mid? Because I saw some clips and they made me sigh out loud) so I'm maybe not the most reliable critic, but it's just not peak storytelling, okay?

Yunbing is 80% made TF up (headcanon ships are the best ships) because in the movies they hate each other, like TRUE hate, not gay hate. I'm talking GENERATIONAL hating.

If you ignore canon, though, (my favourite thing to do), you are left with Yunbing, which is honestly really fucking yummy.

Here's a quick overview of the background and dynamic of the ship/movie/characters without spoiling the plot of the movie.

The main character of the movie is called Li Yunxiang (remember that Ne Zha's dad is Li Jing, so technically his full name is Li Nezha prior to him fucking himself up via sashimi-ing his flesh from his bones).

Li Yunxiang is the reincarnation of Ne Zha in a modern setting in the fictional East Sea City (Donghai City). He doesn't know or remember being Ne Zha. He works as a deliveryman I think, or a smuggler or something low-paying and dangerous I think.

In East Sea City, water is in shortage due to the Dragon Clan (now a rich family business) hoarding it. The third son of this Dragon Clan (his name is De San) is, you guessed it, the reincarnated Ao Bing.

Actually I'm not sure if he's reincarnated or if he's just been here the whole time hating.

De San, unlike our polite nice Ao Bing from Ne Zha 2019/2025, or the terrified victim Ao Bing from Shangmei, is a huge bitch. He's also a girlfailure. He's not some mass-murdering psychopath, but he's a spoiled rich brat who lives and breathes capitalism and privilege.

Look at his stupid face. Isn't he punchable? No, despite the blonde hair, the director has confirmed he isn't mixed or foreign, he's just an idiot who bleached his hair.

He was supposed to be some sort of dominant playboy daddy character but the entire nation of China just immediately saw the potential for girlfailure brat bottom and I guess that's where my brain went too.

After Ne Zha pulled his tendons out, his dad paid some SERIOUS money to make him a mechanical tendon. Let me tell you I don't know why but this shot of his metal spine is SO fucking sexy

Sorry for thirsting on main, IDK what it is but it's getting to me.

De San still wants revenge on Ne Zha for pulling his fucking tendons out so he spends like 10000 hours trying his very best to kick Li Yunxiang's (confused) ass and never manages to get there, it's so funny.

See, the main reason this ship is so delicious is the dynamic, not their interactions because this is ACTUAL hate, I'm talking they'd kill each other in an instant with NO hesitation. The sexual tension is through the roof. Okay, they're both straight, but you DON'T HAVE TO BELIEVE IN THAT DOCTRINE.

Mild spoiler alert!

There's a scene in which Li Yunxiang gets one over De San by making him crash his car. As De San goes flying out of the car in intense pain, he glances over at Yunxiang, who's looking back at him.

Instead of giving him a middle finger or a thumbs down, Yunxiang fucking gives him a finger heart. IK it's supposed to be mocking but it's so funny, especially the BLATANT rage on De San's face afterwards.

The appeal of this ship is just the hate sex. This is a ship 100% meant for gooners, if you'd prefer sweet vanilla hand-holding and blushing you probably want to go back to regular Oubing.

Why does De San have such pillow princess potential? First of all, look at him. What the fuck is that waist to shoulder to leg ratio?

Second, in the Cantonese dub, he calls his father (Ao Guang) "daddy" (in English btw). Sorry, what? You are a twenty-something year old fully grown man. It is fairly common for rich Cantonese people to call their father daddy (according to my rich Cantonese friend) but it's a little much.

Third, he's such a failure it's hilarious. Spoiler alert: there's a whole scene in which his father calls him a failure and he's like "wait what". He's kind of dumb and pathetic despite being arrogant and proud.

Very princess-like. Chinese version of Drarry, basically. They also both really like cars! TBH if they weren't Ao Bing and Ne Zha's reincarnations they'd probably be really good friends.

Generations of hating each other is such gay behaviour, WHY is that other man on your mind over thousands of years??

Some of the popular headcanons for Yunbing:

Yunxiang calls De San "third princess" or "princess" because he's such a... princess

In the middle of like, fistfighting each other they somehow transition to having sex without knowing how

De San slaps Yunxiang in the face and he's like "on the other side too"

"Only I can be the one to kill him, fuck off!" *surprised look* "No that's not what I meant-"

Inappropriate usage of the metal spine (which is probably more sensitive and delicate...?)

I recommend, if you're looking for Oubing content (of the decidedly not workplace friendly variety) and if you like ENEMIES to lovers (emphasis on the enemies part) that you go through the AO3 Yunbing tag (云冰, I'll link the AO3 tag here directly).

If you want recs please ask me, I am so passionate about all three iterations of Oubing.

To quote a XHS user:

Oubing: Pure love

Shangmei Oubing: Pure fear

Yunbing: Pure hate

[isabellovelaces]

Wolf 359 characters and their fave musicals

From an MT major who has hamlet due tomorrow 9 am

(Warning some of these might be too niche)

Eiffel - Back To The Future

Now walk with me for this one. It might seem too on the nose but I mean, it’s not your traditional bway musical, the music is very modern, based on a film he likes and probably has seen a thousand times before, and for what I’ve heard it has A FLYING DELOREAN !!! So yeah, I think he’d really like this musical

Minkowski - Rent

She’s canonically a theatre kid and she DEF gives me Sondheim fanatic vibes but if she had to choose a favorite (I don’t think she’d have one, it would change depending on the day) then she’d say Rent because it’s probably one of the shows that made her fall in love with theatre, besides the whole “no other road, no other way. No day but today” message too.

This was the hardest to do so here are some honorary mentions:

Wicked, Sunday in the park with George, Les Miserable, into the woods, come from away

Hera - Love In Hate Nation

Okay I might be biased because I did this musical last summer BUT hear me out. It’s about this bunch of badass girls in a juvie hall in the 60s who fight for revolution against society norms (and end up burning down juvie hall). Plus, a cute love story between two of the girls!!

I just think she would enjoy a catchy badass musical about girls singing against the system !!

Hilbert - Chess

A musical about Russian and American spies in a love triangle and play chess?? Sign him up

Tbf I don’t even think he’d enjoy musicals but if he did I think he’d enjoy chess.

Lovelace - In The Heights

Pushing the afro latina Isabel Lovelace agenda, I don’t think she would enjoy traditional musicals but things like pop/rock and hip hop modern musicals could get a pass. In the heights it’s the perfect balance for her of Latin, hip hop and broadway.

Jacobi - Sweeney Todd

Listen, this guy knows which classical music piece uses literal canons on their orchestra, he would love this one due to all the litters of fake blood that there are. I also like to think he’s a fan of the sopranos for Sweeney, if you’ve ever heard the opening at least, you know the iconic crescendo. Besides it’s a dark musical I think he’d like.

Honorary mentions: Hamilton, it’s the hip hop and rap that would catch him

Maxwell - The Book Of Mormon

The Reverend’s daughter??? Yes. She understands the satire of it, the irony and dark humor. Even though I think at first she would have been skeptical about it but once she gave it a chance it was a hilarious piece with a great soundtrack

Honorary mentions: Moulin Rouge. Idk I just think she’d like the musical

Kepler - Company

As a theater kid Kepler truther, he is another Sondheim fan, specially to compare him to ALW. But I think he can appreciate every piece of musical theatre even if he will always say the old musicals are way better. I think he’d like company since it is a musical about a man his age and his life struggles with such a fantastic and iconic soundtrack

Honorary mention: Cabaret. Ironic, but he’d love everything about it too.

[sir-adamus]

I think it's weird that Z-A is going to have two starters from the same generation while Arceus' starters were each from a different generation.

yeah a lot of this trailer seemed pointed at establishing that what we saw in Legends Arceus isn't grounds to assume the way other Legends games are going to operate

the starters are 2/3rds Gen 2 instead of all being from different gens

it's set after the events of XY instead of being a century or so before like Arceus was to DPPt; a semi-futuristic setting instead of a historical one

we're solely contained to the one city as opposed to having big open wild areas

battling mechanics have once again been altered, now with more focus on player positioning and distance and how that effects the efficacy of moves (which, by the way, is a consideration that makes so much sense in hindsight)

because we're in the 'present' still, we're not going to see ancestors of familiar characters but instead we'll just see those familiar characters in among the new ones (AZ in the trailer, i can't imagine Clemont won't show up considering his gym is at the center of the city, we see the Looker Detective Agency at one point which means Emma/Essentia has to be a presence - probably older and an established superhero at this point)

a rival isn't just the player character you didn't pick (as was the case in RSE/ORAS, DPPt, HGSS sort of, Legends Arceus, and pointedly, XY); while they keep the default hairstyle they have a wholly different look and different eye and hair colour (complexion-wise they look like the palest option you can normally pick - with the pale blue eyes and blond hair - so maybe there'll be other differences depending how you initially customise your character)

the story in Arceus was you helping a newly settled area and building a pokédex at a time when the concept was new; catching them all is how you complete the story. in Z-A we're assisting the redevelopment of a modern city, so while we'll almost certainly have a Pokédex (we do have Rotom Phones after all), it's most likely not going to be a primary focus for this one (likewise, Arceus was entirely absent after the beginning until you completed the Pokédex, while it looks like Zygarde is going to be a recurring presence through this story - though if the title is any indication, we may have something new to contend with)

it really all feels like a ways to establish that no, we can't predict the formula for how Legends games are going to be like we can for main titles; they're gonna be changing things up every time beyond the core mechanics of the game being primarily capture based with less focus on battling

[npuppet]

LaDs rambles #6

Songs/mini playlists I think fit each LI + YouTube links (I don’t have Spotify)

‼️A lot of songs are explicit so listen at your own digression‼️

⭐️ are personal favorites (recommended)

(It starts out with overused Insta songs lol) (I branch into more niche songs out I promise)

Zayne:

Disease by Lady Gaga (obv) (“I could play the doctor, I can cure your disease, If you were a sinner I could make you believe”) (die Astra)

⭐️Digital Silence by Peter McPoland (what if Foreseer was in modern time and was a desperate to warn MC of her future?) (“They’re gonna blind date everyone until you love them too”)

Arcade by Duncan Laurence (“Loving you is a losing game” huh? Man)

Wash. by Bon Iver (“Where ice snaps and the hold clast are known”) (It just fits the calmness he has I dunno)

Changing of the Seasons by Two Door Cinema Club (not because he fell out of love with MC but he doesn’t seem to remember as much as the other LI’s) (“The door is open, you whispered to me, As you stood frozen in deep uncertainty”)

Christmas Kids by Roar (“The Christmas kids were nothing but a gift, And love is a tower where all of us can live”) (just thinking if Zayne did remember)

⭐️Cursed Romantics by Maude Latour (bc who said Zayne can’t be girlypop?) (“‘Cause I’m obsessive when you call me “baby”, Your love is poison and no don’t can save me”)

Heavy Eyes by Zach Bryan (I just know Zayne would have tired eyes if he didn’t deal with his myth trauma right) (“Remember all the days we had, I say it ain’t so bad, Keep those heavy eyes soft and kind”)

⭐️Am I Dreaming by Metro Boomin, A$AP Rocky and Roisee (Dawnbreaker and Zayne) (“One of a kind, one of one, the only one, Got one shot and one chance to take it once”)

Rest of the LI’s under the cut

Caleb:

Fourth of July by Sufjan Stevens (based on Caleb and MC being experimented on and MC dying over and over, tragic and existential) (“What could I have said to raise you from the dead?…And I’m sorry I left, but it was for the best, though it never felt right”) 🙂

⭐️i am not who i was by Chance Peña (“so if I fly to far, Will I still have a place inside your heart?…Will you love me for who I am not who I was”) (it’s him, it’s Caleb)

SPIT IN MY FACE! by ThxSoMch (man will do and tolerate anything to be with MC I mean) (“I don’t know what to say except you’re mine mine mine mine mine”)

⭐️Nobody’s Solider by Hozier (this song fits him like a glove, like his whole deal is that he’s trying to wrestle control back in his life) (“Holding my world together with a bootstring, Living the dream”)

Freaks by Surf Course (after he left MC in the explosion) (“My head is filled with parasites, Black holes cover up my eyes”)

Broken by lovelytheband (“I like that your lonely, Lonely like me, I could be lonely with you”) (our obsessive king)

⭐️Tangerine by Glass Animals (he would get on his knees anyways-) (“You only look at me properly now, When you’re drunk watching movies, Where are you? What happened?”)

Sweet Talk by Saint Motel (at this point I think I’m just giving him a degradation kink…) (“Yeah, well, I’m not scared, I’m not going nowhere, Yeah, you might want me to drop dead, but I dont even care”)

She Said No by BoyWithUke (mmm angsty) (“I don’t blame you, I hate me too, but I can’t, Do a lot to change it or the thoughts in my head”)

Sylus:

Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High by Arctic Monkeys (just based off of reckless MC) (“Incapable of making alright decisions, and having bad ideas”)

⭐️Like Him by Tyler the Creator (but very Dawnbreaker coded too so) (based on when MC got flashbacks in the story with Sylus but still doesn’t remember fully) (“How could I miss something that I’ve never had?”)

MILLION DOLLAR BABY by Tommy Richman (bc why not) (“I could clean up good for you, Oh, I know right from wrong”)

The World We Knew by Frank Sinatra (when MC went on a rampage after Sylus left, she’s real for that) (“Each road we took turned into gold, But the dream was too much for you to hold”)

Used to the Darkness by Des Rocs (just feels like Sylus)

Adventure of a Lifetime by Coldplay (ok but hear me out) (“I’m a dream that died by light of day, Gonna hold up half the sky and say, Only I own me”)

Bury Me Face Down by grandson (vengeful dragon) (“Wanted with a bounty on my head, But somehow someway, I’ma keep moving along”)

⭐️City on a Hill by Mon Rovîa (Sylus trying to comfort MC abt their past) (“Who was by your side, When the fire subsides, And it rains in your head?”)

⭐️Gold by Spandau Ballet (what was going through Sylus’ head when MC started to like him back lol) (“Nothing left to make me feel small, Luck has left me standing so tall”)

Rafayel:

Sex, Drugs, Etc. by Beach Weather (something I think he and MC should listen to on an open hood convertible kind of night by the sea) (“Dressing up for polaroids and cigarettes, Socilaize, romanticize the life”)

Softcore by The Neighborhood (kinda based off of the theory that Rafayel wears safety pins) (“You’ve been my muse for a long time, You get me through every dark night”)

⭐️All I Want by Kodaline (“When you said your last goodbye, I died a little bit inside”) (ow)

Here With Me by d4vd (another slow heartbreak song what’s new) (“I wish I could live through every memory again, Just one more time before we float off in the wind”)

Applause by Lady Gaga (bc I’m on a Lady Gaga binge lol) (“Pop culture was in art, now art’s in pop culture in me!”)

⭐️Blood // Water by grandson (I think alternative fits Rafayel) (“The price of your greed, your son, and your daughter”)

Drama by Spencer Sutherland (Raf is just feeling himself)

Love Me Less by MAX (I think it’s fitting since he’s not as forthright with his underground activities as Sylus is)

Xavier:

I Love You So by The Walters (I think it fits his 5* Outcast’s Voyage and just his story in general) (“I’m going to pack my things and leave you behind, This feelings old, and I know that I’ve made up my mind”)

Army Dreamers by Kate Bush (based on that the people who came with Xavier all had dreams but turned into Wanderers instead) (“We’ve a bunch of purple flowers to decorate a mammy’s hero”)

Towards the Sun by Rihanna (“Shadows chase me far from home, I remember when my heart was filled with gold”) (also funny that the movie this song is from is based on aliens lol)

⭐️When Will I See You Again by Shakka (song is literally made for my poor boy) (“Shooting stars never fly for me, My hearts on Mars, kinda hard to see”)

Alien Boy by Oliver Tree (just bc) (“I still make it work, But it’s overrated and somehow, played out”)

⭐️Are We Ready? (Wreck) by Two Door Cinema Club (I dunno sometimes the lyrics aligned with his story to me) (“I saw the world today, It comes in green and gray”)

Jealous by Eyedress (our jealous possessive king lol)

All LI’s:

Mind Over Matter (Reprise) by Young the Giant

Harpy Hare by Yarlokre (yup)

⭐️Chamber of Reflection by Mac DeMarco

her by JVKE

Again and Again by The Bird and the Bee (need I explain?)

ALL GIRLS ARE THE SAME by RØNIN (lmao)

⭐️Mr. Feel by John Michael Howell

can’t slow down by almost monday (kinda a song I imagine MC, Caleb, and Zayne playing on a roadtrip when they were younger)

Aphrodite by Ethan Gander (yearning my favorite (: )

We’ll Meet again by Very Lynn (obv)

MC lol:

Daydream by Gunter Kallmann Choir (MC and Sylus)

GONE, GONE / THANK YOU by Tyler the Creator (give girl a break yknow??)

Wasted Summers by juju<3 (after Caleb left her in the explosion)

I wanna be your lover by €CHO€D 4W4Y (yessir)

⭐️Apple by Charli xcx (once delulu, always delulu)

Sunshine by OneRepublic

Sick of Being Young by Krooked Kings

Feel free to leave ur songs u attribute to the LI’s ((:

[geschiedenisish]

I LOVE this post. I really, really do. I hope you'll read this and hear my thanks.

Personally, I already knew most of this stuff. Kinda came upon it on my own. I knew the global stuff was problematic and the local stuff was so cool and underrated and, more importantely, on the verge of being forgotten in favor of algorythms, anti-science and capitalism.

My local area doesn't have a lot of folk magic. I have searched, but it has been catholic since 900 AD, so most of the pre-christian stuff nowadays is probably hidden somewhere in our local catholic celbrations.....

I do wanna add that most of your grievances with Wicca are problems with religion in general. Especially the "it's still problematic" takes. In the Netherlands, Western Esotericism did all of that bad stuff, but they also more or less founded most of the modern Dutch left. These people are products of their time. And they try to fight their times in some ways, but not in other ways. Their progressivism doesn't negate their bigotry. They exist parallel. A feminist movement doesn't become less feminist because they're racist. They just become problematic. But that doesn't make the feminism less impactfull.

But again, I agree with most of your points, especially the later ones.

I also think the whole FOCUS ON LOCAL STUFF is a good take, but not a perfect take.

I myself haven't always felt welcome in the community I grew up in. So hearing "just do research on your local area" does really hurt when "the local people" gatekeep "local culture" excluding me/us, even though I was born here.

This happens to people everywhere. I think it may be a reason why they turn to Wicca. To tap into this worldwide movement. So yeah, most of your points are great, but we need to do some thinking on that last point.

I'm using my whole unviersity career to find out what my local identity means to me, so yeah, this is not an easy task.

"Listen to what your elders have to say", can mean exposing you to all kinds of bigotry. My area, being rural catholics, has unironically used "protect local culture" as a dogwhistle for "keep the village white", even if they themselves don't realize that.

Folkloric practices and local culture can also run into the same problem as wicca's 'ancient cultures'. Again, I HAVE made posts about how the area where I grew up used it's catholic, rural idenity as a kind of 'this is the way things have always been' propaganda. They romantize the way things were around 1900 AD. Which, spoiler, is absolutely not how things "had always been". They also talk about "traditional clothing" that wasn't worn before 1880. But they act as if this fashion had always been this way, which just isn't true.

So why 1900 AD? Because around 1900, these rural communities were fighting in a culture war against the gouvernment. And it was a culture war. They wanted to make clear they were very white, very catholic, very rural and very anti-progressivism. They were fighting liberalism and socialism, and were encouraged and by the big guy in town; the Catholic Church. To not listen to those socialist, but 'keep traditional' which they have been doing from 1900 until now, especially the elderly.

Just to say; don't stop thinking and/or learning about this subject. Because it is incredibly difficult. And be open to changing your religious practices because they are problematic. When you're open to change like that, you will get closer and closer and closer to something that DOES really work really well!

Also do wanna add, once again, that you are ignoring the great work done by esotericists. In the same way that there are so many people who have fought against or within the catholic church. I feel like it is a ladder. Like, you can fight within the catholic church against christian, but a estoricist is always gonna be better than a christian, and a pagan is always gonna be better than a spiritualist.

So yeah, nuance, but at the end of the day. LEFTISM IS THE MOST IMPORTANT. ;)

Yes, I Hate Wicca.

A hopefully comprehensive guide to all my strifes.

More often than I care to admit I find myself quarrelling with people over my seemingly baseless hate for all things popular and simple. I'm accused of being a pretentious traditionalist, of being a snob, even of being a white supremacist on grounds of talking about European culture as a replacement for conventional witchcraft. I will not deny that I am a touch snobby and pretentious - such is my biggest flaw - but I am not a white supremacist, and my loathing for many seemingly innocuous witchcraft practices is not for nothing. It is because I hate Wicca, and everything related to and derived from it, and I have good reason to. Today I would like to introduce you to every single reason I have to loathe Wicca passionately, so that I can hopefully defer future debate partners to this post instead of retyping the same arduous messages.

What is Wicca?

Per the r/Wicca subreddit:

Wicca is a neopagan religion based on ancient pagan beliefs. It's an earth-based religion that believes in a God and Goddess as representative of a greater pantheistic godhead. Wicca includes a system of ethics and teaches that we all are ultimately responsible for our own actions. We believe in gods. We believe in magic. We believe in multiple realities. We practice alone, or in groups. We practice witchcraft.

I chose the r/Wicca subreddit for my first primer because it's easy to accuse people of misrepresenting a faith if you do not allow the community to speak for itself on what their faith constitutes. As much as I hate Wicca, and do not think it is redeemable, I have no desire to be accused of letting my hate set the tone of my arguments against it. I don't want to give militant Wiccans leeway to claim that I speak on their behalf and therefore my points are wrong. The Wicca subreddit is a large community and often referred to by Wiccans, and it features this brief description of 'The Craft'. In any case, though Wicca nowadays is divided and will be described slightly differently by everybody you ask about it, the description provided by the subreddit is a pretty good example of common ground between all Wiccans. That description mostly matches up with how the average Wiccan would describe their faith. My personal description of what Wicca is would look slightly different. I would take care to note, for one, that Wicca is a form of Western Esotericism, more specifically Western Occultism. [1] I also find it important to note that whether or not Wicca is an earth religion, or nature religion, is of some debate, and not all consider it such. What is also subject of some variation across traditions and individuals is whether or not The Craft is pantheistic: some people accept the two gods of Wicca as figureheads for every pagan god in existence, others simply worship them as one single masculine god and one single feminine god. 'Witchcraft' is also a term that has no set definition - I can only assume that the mention of it on r/Wicca intends to broadly refer to most or all forms of magic accepted within Wicca.

Worth noting is that Wicca has spread very far beyond the confines of British Traditional Wicca (BTW), which are streams of Wicca that still adhere strongly to their roots. What is and is not Wicca is something that is of some debate among Wiccans themselves. That's why I think it is highly important to establish a few definitions that we'll be using for the rest of this post:

WICCA: I'll admit to using this term loosely. When I say 'Wicca' in this post I'll mainly be referring to the community of people who consider themselves Wiccans, i.e. the Wiccan religion. I may also use it to describe the broader influence of Wicca, however.

WICCA-DERIVED: I'll mostly use this term when I don't want to paint something as being inherently Wiccan, just related to or derived from it. Wiccan practices often escape the bounds of their respective culture and then grow into staples of various traditions that aren't meant to be Wiccan at all. When referring to such things I'll refer to them as derived from Wicca, or similar.

Wicca's Origins

To understand the history of Wicca we have to travel back a bit further than its founding: to the 16th and 17th century Witch Hunts in Europe. I have another post on this same blog detailing the relationship between Wicca and the Witch Trials, which I highly recommend reading to get a better understanding of the accusations of antisemitism I will be making shortly. At any rate: the witch trials happened across Europe and its colonies throughout the early modern period, after a time of much disaster. As I state in my other article:

Before the early Church turned its hateful eye to the concept of 'witches,' it was firmly on jews. Jews, alongside other heretics and oppressed minorities like the Rroma, were considered utterly worthy of damnation. They were seen as antagonistic to the Church, going against everything the Church stood for, and furthermore as misanthropic, greedy, unreliable enemies. They were the scapegoats for many disasters and indeed frequently accused of practicing magic or poisoncrafting to invoke these disasters on the 'Good Christian Folk'. Furthermore, and this may sound familiar to you, jews were accused of 'consorting with the devil' and murdering children in order to consume their blood to mock the Eucharist, often referred to as blood libel. It was often claimed that this (nonexistent!) practice was done on the Shabbat, alongside other practices twisting and mocking those done in Church on Sunday. The persecution of Jews in Medieval Europe was horrific and seemingly endless, having origins in antiquity and reaching a peak during the Crusades, and another when the Plague ran rampant. Jews were banished, forced to convert to Christianity or brutally murdered, not infrequently by burning or strangulation.

It is fairly easy to see, with some research and critical thought, that it wouldn't logically be real witches being murdered during the witch hunts. For starters, it's hard to believe that there were really people out there flying through the sky on brooms, to mythical locations, to dance naked under the full moon, have sex with the devil, and cannibalize children. There were of course those people who confessed to having done such things, but they were under threat of torture. Indeed, this archetype of the 'witch' has its origins in the Church's loathing for non-Christians and heretics. As Lily Climenhaga states [2]:

"Magic" acted as a description for individuals or groups who did not subscribe to the perceived societal norms of the medieval Christian community. Jews and heretics, the principle Others within Medieval Europe, existed outside of the societal norms and played an important role in the formation of the Christian perception of witches and witchcraft. Common elements existed between stories surrounding Jews, heretics, and witches. These beliefs created the preliminary conditions necessary for the mass persecution and intolerance toward witches and became inherent to the idea of the witch as the diabolical Other within Medieval Christian thought.

Furthermore, the stereotypical image of the witch is directly derived from hateful depictions of the marginalized. The conical, wide brimmed hat that we often see a cartoon witch depicted with actually comes from the conical hat known as a judenhut (jew hat), which was compulsory for many jews to wear in the Middle Ages. [3] Then there is of course the typical red or black hair, short and stocky figure, buckled shoes, large hooked nose, green skin, et cetera. All of this to say: It was not witches being hunted during the witchcraze. There is no such thing as a human person able to fly on broomsticks, cause storms at will, magically steal money from a distance, and curse someone to death with one glance. The medieval and early modern 'witch' is a mythical figure used to justify the persecution and eradication of the already marginalized. This idea is fairly commonly accepted now, as it should be, but it wasn't always.

In 1828, German lawyer and professor Karl Ernst Jarcke proposed the witch-cult hypothesis: a now discredited theory that the people persecuted and murdered during the witch trials were not marginalized innocents, but rather members of a pan-European pagan religion. He posited that this pagan witch-cult was older than Christianity, but had been driven underground by it, and only came to light when the accused of the witch trials confessed to witchcraft. This hypothesis was affirmed and adapted by other scholars throughout the 19th century but remained of moderate popularity at best, until 20th century Egyptologist Margaret Murray became one of its most avid proponents, incorporating it into many of her works. Most notably, she featured it in 1921's The Witch-Cult in Western Europe and 1933's The God of the Witches. [1] Murray's writing is the origin of many Wiccan motifs, such as the thirteen member coven, the Horned God (based on the works of James Frazer) and the cross-quarterly gathering. Furthermore, as a radical skeptic and rationalist, Murray wished to strip the witch-cult hypothesis of all supernatural notions. [4] She claimed that the secret society of witches were not Satanists but nature-worshippers, and that the gatherings were actually orgies, where a priest dressed in ritual skins and horns fornicated with all the gathered women. She also proposed that these rituals were actually benevolent fertility rituals for the good of the witches' communities, and there was little to no malevolent magic involved. She was also the one to introduce the idea that the people who confessed to curses and other malevolent magic were actually witches who had forgotten their own original intent, or had been misinterpreted by the court. [5] Murray herself [5]:

For centuries both before and after the Christian era, the witch was both honoured and loved. Whether man or woman, the witch was consulted by all, for relief in sickness, for counsel in trouble, or for foreknowledge of forthcoming events. They were at home in the courts of Kings [...] their mystical powers gave them the authority for discovering culprits, who then received the appropriate punishment.

These writings were a turning point for the associations of the word 'witch'. Prior to these hypotheses, 'witch' was a bad word, an insult even, reserved only for people - especially women - believed to have evil intentions and use spiritual methods not sanctioned by the Church for their own benefit. The use of the word 'witch' nowadays, as a self-imposed title for anybody using any magical means, can be traced back to this pivotal moment in time. While Murray did great PR for the nonexistent witch archetype, erasing the idea that their practices were Satanic and supernatural, she unfortunately did much harm to marginalized peoples by propagating the idea that it was not them being persecuted, but some mythical clan. Therein lies my first problem: Wicca minimizes the impact of what it calls the 'Burning Times' on marginalized peoples and instead adopts all this suffering for itself, painting the 'witch' as a marginalized, oppressed, and beloathed historical figure, when it's the very people who would've been doing the burning who founded, shaped, and maintain Wicca. In doing so, it also adopts various words, like Sabbat(h), which is a word unique to Judaism and has been weaponized against Judaism since the Middle Ages. Despite much criticism, even from Murray's contemporaries, she was invited to write a highly influential piece for the Encyclopaedia Brittanica in 1929. She used the opportunity to promote her hypothesis as fact, and it quickly grew so influential that according to Jacqueline Simpson, the ideas got to be "so entrenched in popular culture that they will probably never be uprooted." [4] But we haven't even gotten into when Wicca was actually founded, so let's get to that.

One of, if not the only contemporary fan of Margaret Murray's hypothesis, was Folklore Society fellow Gerald Gardner. He was an interesting and well-travelled man, having come from a wealthy family, growing up with nursemaids and a family firm. As a result of his illnesses (namely asthma) and constant travels abroad during childhood, he never received a formal education, nor did he attend school. Instead, through his travels and family acquaintances, he developed quite the interest in spirituality. At first he developed an interest in the Buddhist beliefs of the Singhalese natives on his tea plantation, later in British and Celtic folklore from his relatives the Surgenesons. In his biography, it is revealed that it is from these relatives that he learns that his grandfather, Joseph, was rumored to be a practicing witch. [6] Different accounts of Gardner's life had it that it was also rumored within his family that a Scottish ancestor of his had been burned as a witch in 1610. [7] A few years after this time with the Surgenesons, Gardner was initiated as an Apprentice Freemason in Ceylon. He quickly rose in the ranks, but eventually lost interest in the Masonic activities and resigned in 1911, presumably because he wanted to leave Ceylon. [6] After this he moved around Asia a fair bit more, taking a great interest in Indigenous beliefs there, and even participating in some of their tattoo and ritual traditions. During this time of travel, Gardner also decided to take the Shahada, the Muslim confession of faith and, technically, final step in the process of becoming Muslim; but Gardner never became a practicing Muslim, mostly using the Shahada as a means to gain trust from the locals in Malaya. [7] In 1927, Gardner's father's health deteriorated, and he went back to Britain to visit him. During this time in Britain he researched various spiritual and religious movements, namely Spiritualism and Mediumship, and he reported many spiritual encounters with whom he interpreted as deceased family members. [6] [7] He attended many Spiritualist churches and seances, and had a number of spiritual experiences that, according to his biographer, changed his interest from a purely amateur anthropological one to one of genuine personal belief. [6] He became re-involved with Freemasonry, and started taking a serious interest in magic. When he, after his retirement, officially moved back to Britain, he started pursuing magic there with some seriousness. He became involved in such things as nudism, and, in September 1937, he requested a Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph. D) from the Meta Collegiate Extension of the National Electronic Institute, an organization based in Nevada. This organization was widely known for providing illegitimate degrees and diplomas through mail order, for a fee. After this he began to introduce and style himself as 'Dr. Gardner' despite having no academically recognized qualifications. [7]

He started allowing spirituality to shape his life, such as when he bought land on his beloved Cyprus because he came to believe that he had actually lived on the island before, in a past life. He wrote a book referencing this as well, influenced by his dreams: his first novel, A Goddess Arrives, followed a British man in the 1930s who had, in a past life, been a bronze age Cypriot. [7] When World War II became an imminent threat, Gardner and his wife moved to Highcliffe, just south of the New Forest, to escape potential bombings. [7] He becomes involved with the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship, a magico-religious tradition in Western Esotericism. The Fellowship had been founded in 1920 by George Alexander Sullivan, based upon a blend of Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Freemasonry and his own personal innovations. [7] It requires mentioning that Western Esotericism and all of its more modern traditions (Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Freemasonry, Occultism, et cetera) are inseparable from white supremacy. This is something fairly well-recorded, if shrouded, and so complex I am hesitant to delve into it in great amounts of detail. It is, however, pivotal for the reader to understand that many of Western Esotericism's greatest thinkers from the Middle Ages onward were antisemites, racists, misogynists, colonialists, and even nazis. Western Esotericism also had a gigantic impact on 20th century race studies, and the idea that there was such a thing as a superior or aryan race. Defenders and fans of Western Esotericism are quick to point out that there are also many non-white thinkers in Western Esotericism that were pivotal to its formation, and I would never deny that. I am, however, denying that what Western Esotericism has turned into is productive. Having been founded upon the backs of indigenous and marginalized peoples, by appropriating their practices and denying their suffering, such as the appropriation of Kabbalah and the denial of the persecution of jews, shaped by men who were famously evil, such as Aleister Crowley, and used as pseudoscientific justification for some of mankind's greatest atrocities, I cannot stand with Western Esotericism. Ever. It is true that Western Esotericism has been the victim of white supremacy as well: Freemasons being persecuted and incarcerated as part of the 'jewish conspiracy' in Nazi Germany for example, but at the same time the connections between Esotericism and the nazi, half-Nordic, half-Hindu German Faith Movement cannot be denied. Folkish and Odinist 'traditions' find their roots in nazi occultism as well, as they sprang from the desire for a Pan-Germanic ethnic identity. These faiths persist to this day, attracting many different types of people and turning them into white supremacists or even neo-nazis.

Back to Gardner. During his time with the Rosicrucian Order he had also joined the Folklore society, where he published some works and became member of the governing council, where he was a distrusted man. He had also joined the Historical Association. [7] He ran into some quarrels and troubles with the Rosicrucian Order and found himself increasingly cynical of their practices, especially when Sullivan claimed that World War II would not come the very day before Britain declared war on Germany. [6] There was, however, a select group of people within the Order with whom he got along quite well. [7] Biographer Philip Heselton theorized upon who this group could be and claims they may have been Edith Woodford-Grimes, Susie Mason, her brother Ernie Mason, and their sister Rosetta Fudge, all of whom had originally come from Southampton before joining the Order in Highcliffe. Per Gardner himself: "unlike many of the others [in the Order], [they] had to earn their livings, were cheerful and optimistic and had a real interest in the occult". He was "really very fond of them", claiming he "would have gone through hell and high water even then for any of them." [6] It was these very people who took him to the house of a woman Gardner calls 'Old Dorothy' Clutterbuck, a wealthy local to the New Forest area. They, according to him, made him strip naked and take part in an initiation ritual, wherein he caught the words 'Wicca' and 'Wicce', which he recognized as the Old English words for witch. Though research by the likes of Hutton and Heselton shows that the New Forest Coven, as Gardner calls them, were likely only formed in the 1930s, Gardner took this experience as proof of the witch-cult hypotheses which he had learned about from Margaret Murray's writings. [7] Gardner spent a significant amount of time with them but only ever described one of their rituals in detail, one intended to ward off the Germans from coming to Britain. It is attested in both Bracelin's and Heselton's biographies. Gardner went on, after these events, to also become involved with druidry and be ordained as priest in the Ancient British Church, and he conducted some rituals according to the Lesser Key of Solomon with his nudist and occultist friends. [7] In 1947 Gardner was introduced to Aleister Crowley, a man of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the founding father of Thelema, a Western Occultist new religious movement. Crowley is one of those ubiquitous, evil figureheads in Western Esotericism that people prefer not to give too many words to. His history with occultism, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and sexual abuse is too vast to summarize in one paragraph. Still, Thelema persists to this day, as do Crowley apologists. Crowley elevated Gardner to the IV° of Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) and issued a charter decreeing that Gardner could admit people into its Minerval degree. The charter was written in Gardner's handwriting and only signed by Crowley. [6] [7] [8] When Crowley passed away, Gardner appointed himself the leader of the O.T.O.. He would, however, lose interest in leading the O.T.O. within a few years. [7] During this time Gardner also travelled through America, especially in hopes of learning about Voodoo and Hoodoo. [7]

Gardner wished to spread his newly founded Wiccan religion, and wrote another work of fiction in order to do so. He described various Wiccan rituals in this book as 'High Magic' and based it heavily on the Solomonic Keys. He was also working on a scrapbook which he did not intend to publish, which he called 'Ye Bok of Ye Art Magical'. Therein he wrote down various Wiccan rituals and ceremonies, and this book would later form as the prototype for the Wiccan Book of Shadows, a term he himself coined. He claimed the book to be of ancient origins to his followers. During this time he also gained his first initiates, and the first covens were formed. [7] During this initial time of true organized religion, Gardner ran into several problems. People important to him left his faith due to his actions with the press, and he had quarrels with some members who recognized that many of his rituals and such had been adapted straight from Thelema. [4] In 1954, Gardner wrote arguably the most influential work on Wicca: Witchcraft Today. It was his first non-fiction work, and contained a preface by Margaret Murray, the woman who had popularized the witch-cult hypothesis on which Wicca was built. In this book, Gardner praised Murray's theories, and added some of his own: namely that the European belief in faeries was actually because of a hidden pygmy race living alongside mankind, and that the Knights Templar were actually initiates into The Craft. [7] After this, Gardner started cultivating larger scale attention for Wicca. He invited the press to write about his religion, and most of the tabloid articles produced painted him and his cult in a negative light. They were made out to be devil worshippers, cultists, et cetera. Nevertheless, Gardner persisted, and encouraged the press to write more. He thought the publicity, even if negative, would help prevent the 'Old Religion', as he called it, from dying out. [7] [8]

In 1960, Gardner's official biography, Gerald Gardner: Witch, was published. It was penned in its entirety by Gardner's friend Idries Shah, a Sufi mystic, but Shah used the name of one of Gardner's High Priests, Jack L. Bracelin, because he was wary of being associated with witchcraft. In 1963, Gardner visited Lebanon. On his way home, he had a heart attack on ship, en route to Tunisia. He was buried there, the funeral only attended by the ship's captain. [9] Many authors have speculated on Gardner's life since his passing. Though he was devoted to his only wife, Donna, it was claimed that Gardner spent many evenings 'cuddling up' to a young High Priestess named Dayonis. Biographer Philip Heselton claims that Gardner had a longterm affair with Edith Woodford-Grimes, nicknamed Dafo by Gardner. This theory was affirmed by Adrian Bott. [10] Gardner was one of, or possibly the first person to use what Wiccans know as a 'Craft name', a magical name used for magico-religious purposes in Wicca. Gardner was known as Scire by his followers. Reportedly, Wicca was not known as Wicca at the time of its initial development. Gardner often referred to his adherents as 'the Wica', but the religion was only ever referred to as 'Witchcraft', capital W.

In Wicca's founding lies my second problem with it. Wicca was founded by a white man, based on a combination of Western Esoteric notions and experiences, Spiritualism, Mediumship, appropriation of indigenous European, Asian and even American spirituality. It was built on a hypothesis that denies the suffering of marginalized peoples and claims it for nonmarginalized, white, privileged Europeans instead. It poses itself as something with roots in academics, while the founder had never enjoyed any form of education and possessed a fake PhD. It was influenced heavily by cults, occultists who are generally acknowledged to be terrible people, and pseudoscience. It claims to be ancient, but was founded in the 1900s. And, importantly, it contributes heavily to white supremacy through the idea of a pan-European cultural identity and pan-European pagan religion.

Wicca Today: Innocuous Propagation of White Supremacy

Wicca has grown exponentially since its founding, now being by far the largest pagan religion actively being practiced in the modern era. It has both organized covens and solitary adherents across the world, and most people who have access to the internet will have heard of Wicca once or twice. Wicca is, truly and undeniably, inescapable in pagan and magical spaces. It's easy, and common, for adherents to claim that Wicca is not what it once was. 'Yeah, the origins are bad, but that doesn't make the whole Craft bad,' is a favored argument against the idea that Wicca's origins make it inherently irredeemable. I disagree strongly with this, and always will; something that was built with bricks made of appropriation and lies can't be separated from those evils. If you took the appropriation out of Wicca, it would cease to be Wicca. Deconstructing Wicca would leave you with a blend of Freemasonry, Thelema, folk magic, Christianity, various Indigenous beliefs, Kabbalah, Occultism, and some misrepresented paganism. If you take the appropriation and harm out of Wicca, it simply ceases to exist. Nevertheless, many people think Wicca can be separated from its evil origins. That's why in this section of the article, I'd like to delve into why that is not true, and how Wicca continues to do harm in this day and age.

For starters, of course, Wicca has not ceased to be appropriative simply because time has passed. Rather, the appropriation gets increasingly less attention, until it becomes so integral to the Craft that people don't even notice or stop to think that it may have come from somewhere that never wanted it to be taken in the first place. A prime example, which I've already touched on very briefly, is the use of the word 'sabbat', in reference to 'Wiccan' holidays. As I wrote in my other post about this topic:

The very root of this word is the Hebrew ש־ב־ת (sh-b-t). It is the root word for many words pertaining to rest and not working (or more broadly: 'cessation'). This word evolved into שַׁבָּת (shabát), which translates to Saturday or weekly rest-day, normally. This word, also often spelled Shabbos from Ashkenazi Hebrew, travelled through various antique languages (Ancient Greek -> Latin -> Old French) directly to Middle English, where it became 'Sabat', and later Sabbath. While this word, in its travel through Europe, has influenced some words, you'll notice that it has also stayed one unique word, with a unique meaning: the Jewish Rest Day. The Sabbath, Shabbos, Sabbat, Shabat, et cetera, will always and has for most of its history been the word uniquely reserved for Saturday in Judaism. To those not very well read on Judaism, it may be helpful to know that Judaism is what is considered a closed practice. It is only permissible to practice Jewish religious tradition, and to a large extent, Jewish culture, if you are a Jewish convert. By extension, that should clue you in on the nature of the word and holiday of Shabbat.

This word, which should have stayed what it was meant to be, a word for the Jewish rest day, first became associated with the archetypal witch during the late Medieval period, when jews, and later witches, were accused of going to Sabbaths or Synagogues to perform evil rituals. Though there were attempts by the likes of Margaret Murray to claim that the word 'sabbat(h)' as used by 'witches' was not in any way related to Judaism, those claims have been strongly disputed. Murray claimed in her 1921 book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe that 'sabbat' actually came from Old French s'esbattre, meaning to frolic and amuse oneself. This theory has no proof, nor is it readily academically received or accepted. The word in conjunction with witchcraft is deeply hurtful to Judaism and jewish people across the globe, as it reminds them of the persecution they faced when their faith and culture was considered evil and worth being killed over. I highly recommend reading Why I Don't Call Them Sabbats, Why You Should Stop, and Other Thoughts on Problematic Aspects of Western Witchcraft by Nile Sorena for more thoughts on this topic, as well as Jews and the Witchcraze by Jewitches.

The Wheel of the Year, the cycle of yearly Wiccan holidays (the very ones referred to as 'sabbats', which I refuse to do and will not start doing), is just as appropriative as the use of the word sabbat, but, hilariously, it is also quite magically and religiously dysfunctional. The Wheel of the Year is a Wiccan invention, initially based on the works of James Frazer, Robert Graves and Margaret Murray, the latter of whom was a big proponent of the theory that 'witches' gathered on cross-quarterly days, something that is still a big motif in Wicca. These theories were adopted by neopaganism by Gardner's Bricket Wood Coven and the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, a neo-Druidic group founded by Ross Nichols. Supposedly, these people harmonized the eight primarily holidays described by the former academics to create an easy-to-use calendar for neopagans in Britain. [11] In the 1970s, prolific Wiccan Aidan Kelly gave names to some of the previously unnamed Wiccan equinoxes (Mabon and Ostara) and the Wiccan summer solstice (Litha). [12] This leaves us with the contemporary wheel of the year, which looks like this:

There are many reasons I find the Wheel of the Year appropriative and dysfunctional. For starters, Wiccan lore claims that the spokes-on-a-wheel structure is borrowed from Celtic mythology, but there is no evidence that Celtic myth ever depicted the passing of time as a wheel. Nevertheless, there is no inherent problem with viewing the passing of time as a wheel; cycles are very important in paganism across Europe. More cumbersome than the supposedly ancient wheel structure, is the combination of pagan holidays from various only passively related cultures. Beltane (Bealtaine), Lughnasadh, Samhain, and Imbolc are Celtic; specifically Gaelic. They all work well in conjunction, and were historically celebrated by the same people(s) throughout their years. Yule is Germanic, being celebrated by the Norse, continental Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon peoples. It was not in any way historically related to the four primary Celtic festivals, and doesn't work in conjunction with them very well, as many things that made Yule significant to the Germanic peoples, were celebrated during Samhain by the Gaels. Mabon is a contrived festival, filling an autumnal gap. The Germanic peoples did not have a specialized holiday for the autumn equinox, nor did the Celts, so Wiccans filled this gap with a 'lesser Sabbat' in the 1960s, named 'Mabon' by Aidan Kelly in the 1970s. [12] It was named for Mabon ap Modron, a figure in Brythonic mythology. As Wicca is wont to do, it paints itself and its traditions as incredibly ancient and cultural, and Mabon is no exception to this rule. Wiccans generally paint Mabon as a 'Celtic harvest festival' filled with rich traditions of sacrifice and preparation for winter, but factually, nothing is less true. Mabon (ap Modron) as a deity has nothing whatsoever to do with the autumn equinox, and there is no solid record of consistent autumn equinox festivities as celebrated by the Celts (nor by the Germanic peoples, for that matter). Noteworthy also is that on top of this usage of the name of Mabon for an unrelated festival often being deemed appropriation by Welsh and other Gaelic people, additional offense is often taken to the likening of the 'Mabon' celebrations to Thanksgiving, as many leftist people involved in Celtic culture have no respect for, nor wish to be associated with, colonialism. Ostara is an almost equally contrived festival, based on a single attestation by a Christian in England, Bede, who claimed in his work The Reckoning of Time that there was an Anglo-Saxon goddess named Ēostre, to whom a spring feasts were dedicated during the month of Ēosturmōnaþ (modern April). Litha, too, finds its origins in Bede's The Reckoning of Time. Per Aidan Kelly himself:

Summer was also rather easy. The Saxon calendar described by Bede was lunisolar. It usually had twelve months, but in the third, fifth, and last month of an 8-year cycle, a 13th month was added to keep it (more or less) in sync with the solar years. The last and first months in the calendar were named Foreyule and Afteryule, respectively, and obviously framed the holiday of Yule. The sixth and seventh month were named Forelitha and Afterlitha; furthermore, when the thirteenth month was added, it went in between them, and the year was then called a Threelitha. Obviously, by analogy with Yule, the summer solstice must have been called Litha. (I later discovered that Tolkien had figured this out also.)

Now, there is nothing wrong with being inspired by various open, European cultures and using that inspiration to create something new. Traditions don't have to be centuries old to be valid. What makes this thing that Wicca does appropriation, is that it refuses to acknowledge its traditions as modern, and its inspirations as cultural. This started way back in its origins, when Murray popularized the witch-cult hypothesis and Gardner espoused it, and it survives into the modern day with Wiccans either refusing to admit or pointedly ignoring the fact that their traditions are modern and were established in the modern period.

Wicca also breeds tolerance for cultural (mis)appropriation. When one is not taught to feel any animosity toward appropriation like the use of the word 'sabbat(h)' outside of its original context, even when the usage of the word is of active detriment to the people to whom the word originally belonged, one will feel confident doing other, similar appropriation elsewhere as well. This is why you'll often notice that it is Wiccans, and people who practice Wiccan-derived practices, who end up appropriating such things as white sage, dreamcatchers, sound bowls, reiki, et cetera. Some of those things should never be used by people who are not native to the culture those things come from, such as white sage, which is not only strictly closed but also a severely endangered plant; others are open to foreigners, but should be treated with respect and acknowledged as belonging to a certain culture. Wiccans who readily appropriate such things are often unable or unwilling to provide substantial information on where those practices or items come from and why they should be within their rights to have them, except through arguments which minimize the cultural value of something. A great example of this is this famed argument: "white sage can't be closed, it's a plant. Plants belong to the earth, and the earth belongs to everyone. I should be allowed to use white sage." Ignoring the fact that white sage is endangered and white sage in stores is generally poached, which entirely negates the 'respecting the earth' aspect of that argument, this argument also diminishes the cultural importance of white sage to Native Americans.

A different reason that appropriation runs rampant in Wiccan communities is, actually, white supremacy. The goal of white supremacy is to homogenize the white race into a single white cultural and ethnic identity, so that all white people may band together and rule over the inferior races, as it were. People think that white supremacy has to be quite drastic, only recognizing it in such things as fascism and neo-nazism, but in actuality, white supremacy is propagated in many far more innocuous ways. The wish to eradicate minority languages, various conspiracy theories about aliens, many commonly accepted forms of pseudoscience, and many forms of cultural appropriation that are popular to this day are huge cultivators of white supremacy. Something does not need to explicitly state, or even have the intent or desire to create a homogenous white ethnic identity to further white supremacy. This topic is so vast and complex it is impossible to summarize in any effective way in this post, which is why I encourage all magical practitioners and pagans to see witchcraft as highly intersectional an do their research about white supremacy and other harmful ideologies that survive in western spirituality to this day. Folkism and Odinism are great examples of not explicitly, but undeniably white supremacist spiritual organizations that further white supremacy by attempting to create a universal Germanic (and then European) cultural and ethnic identity. Wicca also engages a lot with the idea of various pan-European identities. This is particularly visible in two ways: one, the idea that there is a pan-European witch-cult that has survived from prehistory into the modern age. Magic, throughout Europe, as well as paganism throughout Europe, is highly variable and culturally dependent. Though it follows many of the same themes, as it does mostly have its roots in Proto-Indo-European common origins, it is distinctly different. If Europe had one, shared, culture, our world would look very different. Indeed, Europe is just as culturally diverse as any other place, even if nowadays (thanks to white supremacy) that is harder to see. There is not and never has been one singular secret society of witches in Europe. Instead, folk magic, which is culturally and linguistically dependent, and extremely variable across Europe, has survived under the radar of the church into the modern era, and it is one of Europe's most beautiful assets when it comes to illustrating our cultural richness. The second way that Wicca propagates pan-European identities is through their dual divinity system. Wicca's divinities, the Great Horned God and the Triple Goddess, who both are also, in turn, appropriated from Gaulish and Celtic lore respectively, are often said to be a sort of figurehead for all pagan divinities and serve as a sort of shorthand way to worship them all, in a soft pantheist way. The Horned God or Lord, the divine masculine, represents all male pagan gods, and his counterpart represents all female pagan gods as the Divine Feminine. Now, pantheism is not inherently problematic, but when one tries to reduce every pagan divinity in existence, gods which all have wildly different cultural and historic backgrounds, to two deities, without even being so courteous as to make those deities liminal and featureless, I fear that does turn into a problem. No, it is not possible to worship every single pagan god in existence by paying respects to just two deities who are mostly modern inventions. Every deity and every religion, every culture, has distinct needs, requirements, and ways of paying respect, and attempting to reduce all of that to the idea that two gods can serve as a prism and replacement for all the gods which have ever existed is a major flaw to this religion as well as a serious indicator of a strong tie to white supremacy.

But there is another problem to the dual divinity system of Wicca, which is gender essentialism. On top of cultural variability being completely forsaken by this prism-pantheistic idea, it also completely fails to acknowledge that there are many deities across Europe and across the globe which do not conform to the gender binary. The abrahamic God Himself is a great example, but so is Loki, a deity who is oddly well-beloved by Wiccans despite the religion's bioessentialist nature. So are Hermaphroditus from Hellenic myth, various South American divinities, even deities in Tagalog lore. As a matter of fact, gender-neutral depictions of divinity have been found on Celtic gold. [13] Divinity itself, as a concept, has no gender. Rejecting the gender binary has also been crucial to magic and witchcraft across Europe, see for example crossdressing being a prerequisite to successful Seidhr practices, and the associations of men practicing seidhr with unmanliness and even homosexuality. [14] Rejecting the gender binary was a powerful act when it came to magical skill, as it furthered ones journey into the liminal and undefined, the strange and 'other', which is where all manner of magical creatures resided. In fact, the residents of the Otherworld, the Faeries themselves, are not too keen on gender binary. The Divine Male archetype of aggressor, protector, avenger and ruler is one that, in Faery Courts, is generally represented by the Queen, not the King. If there even is a King. I find this ironic, considering Wicca's desire to be closely associated with Celtic mythology and antiquity. The concept of Divine Femininity and Divine Masculinity is also directly contradictory to feminism. To attempt to reduce a woman to nothing but the soft, sensual, sagely, nurturing caretaker is undeniably misogynistic. The idea of a Divine Masculine, too, is antifeminist, though only in the sense that it is entirely patriarchal. Men are leaders, providers, and warriors, according to the gender essentialist archetypes that the Divine Feminine and Masculine reference. This is harmful to men, as well, because it places them in the position of needing to be manly and invulnerable at all times, much to the complaint of both men and women in the modern age. It is simply unproductive and anti-feminist, in a way that is hard to ignore. The bioessentialism of Wicca goes beyond just the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine archetypes of their deities, however. There is a strong emphasis within Wicca on depictions of genitalia, and many Wiccan authors and figureheads draw comparisons between really any long object and a phallus, believing that everything in magic has to eventually circle back to fertility. Wands are phallic, athames are phallic. The average Wiccan supply store will have penis shaped candles, penis carvings of various crystals. Wicca propagates bioessentialism the likes of which are not seen in any other form of paganism, not even historic paganism. This attitude towards the nonconforming and emphasis on the gender and sex binary make many people feel excluded from Wicca. Trans people, nonbinary people, really any queer or gay person, of any sort, can experience Wicca as a hostile environment. Wiccans may argue that it isn't transphobic by saying that they are including both sexes and never intentionally exclude trans, gay and nonconforming individuals, but what they fail to realize is that the binary, any binary, is outdated. There are more than two gender identities, and there are more than two sexes. Intersex people can never feel included when the religion so heavily affirms that there is, or should be, only penis and vulva.

Furthermore, Gardner himself was a flagrant homophobe, and well-known for it. Lois Bourne, a High Priestess of the Bricket Wood Coven, Gardner's own coven, wrote this about him: [15]

Gerald was homophobic. He had a deep hatred and detestation of homosexuality, which he regarded as a disgusting perversion and a flagrant transgression of natural law ... "There are no homosexual witches, and it is not possible to be a homosexual and a witch" Gerald almost shouted. No one argued with him.

Wicca Tomorrow: Cultural Erasure and Loss

Admittedly, none of what I've said so far has truly captured my biggest, and primary, reason for hating Wicca as much as I do. Other than the fact that I myself am indigenous, and have felt the effects of white supremacy, cultural erasure, and homogenization of white peoples all my life, other than the fact that I am queer and in a gay relationship, other than the fact that I have family who were victims of the holocaust, other than the fact that I am, at my core, an intersectional, radical leftist - the thing I hate the most about Wicca is its potential. Not potential for greatness, mind. I hate Wicca's potential for destruction. I already get to witness it in action every day, and it strikes fear into my heart like nothing else.

I, personally, have always believed that the first antidote to white supremacy, in an ironic but poetic spin, is love for one's own culture. White supremacy, in an attempt to make the white man feel at home in his whiteness and like he has one thing (superiority) in common with all other white men, strips him from his local culture. He is forced to view himself as part of something great, something that spans all of Europe, or all of Germania, or what have you, and he is made to turn a blind eye to what he already has. Local culture. His language, more specifically even, his dialect. His mother's lilt, and his father's flowery cadence. His neighbors. Their celebrations, their cooking traditions. His city. Its architecture, its communal sites, its judicial system. His land. Its medicines, its foods, its magics. The animals upon it. His companions, his livestock, rarely even his foes. Everything a person truly needs is within walking distance when in nature. Every ecosystem is equipped with everything we could possibly need, from a varied diet, to our medicines, to our shelters, to our hygiene products, all the way to the very things that keep us in check. That is not coincidence: we were grown, woven fiber by fiber by that land, that soil, over thousands, millions, billions of years. We do not need the whole world, there is no reason to try to conquer it. But we want to colonize, and so we must make larger and larger teams, clans, armies, races. The man from Truthan must become Cornish, then Celtic, then English, then British, then European, then white, then better. He would have been better off, happier, had he stayed Cornish.

In the worldwide community of people who take an amateur and personal interest in magic and paganism, Wicca is white supremacy's most effective tool in stripping people of their local culture. Wicca did not become this by design; shoddy and evil though its origins may be, I do not think Wicca was created with the intention of homogenizing and radicalizing the white race. However, in the 1950s, when all cultural magic in Europe were flying low under the radar of the church, hiding in families, in villages, in cookbooks and journals, in visits to the local keening woman to cure the evil eye the neighbor gave your cow, Wicca was the first community, first organized religion, to wave a flag and loudly and proudly proclaim to be pagan, to be witches. To do magic. It was the first to associate itself with those labels and voluntarily take them on, to be known by them. Through this singular association with those terms, it became the first thing people thought of when they thought about magic. Because the magic of the common people, the folk magic, is never termed magic by the ones doing it. "This rowan stick in my windowsill against lightning? Magic? You mean that stuff those witches in London do?" Nowadays, as the first form of magic and paganism to go mainstream in Europe since Christianity's taking over, Wicca is ubiquitous when the amateur goes to research magic and paganism. When the internet came along, this became a bigger problem than it may already have been before the digital age. Now, when people are introduced to the concept of modern magic and paganism, when they go to research it, they will only find Wicca. Not for utter lack of sources on (other) cultural magic, on the contrary: there are plenty, but one needs to use specific key words to find them. More scientific, more academic, more secular. When one wants to research cultural and specific magic, one must assume the author does not believe himself, nor does he believe you do. Wicca, however, has resources that do assume the researcher is interested in practicing, which is yet another reason that people go to Wicca rather than something else. They won't find the folk magic, and if they do, it won't be as comprehensive, accessible, entertaining, and personable as Wicca. Wicca will always win, because it was never challenged in the first place. This has led to a huge disparity in the amount of people who know about and/or practice Wicca, and the amount of people who know about and/or practice folk magic and/or cultural paganism. And as Wicca gains more and more popularity, both because it was always set up for success by chance, and because it subtly purveys white supremacy in a way that most people do not even recognize, it will continue to smother cultural, traditional, and folk magic.

Wicca's Reach: Contemporary Magic

Many people who would not consider themselves, or do not identify as Wiccan, still get called that by me in an intentionally derivative way. Not usually to their faces, but when I am discussing reasons why I do not like Wicca, I find it hard to draw a substantial, or even relevant, line between people who identify as Wiccans, and people who do not identify as such but still, functionally, are. Due to Wicca's chokehold on the first several pages of Google when you look up most things pertaining to magic, most practitioners of magic are essentially Wiccan without the label. They do not associate with Wicca intentionally, but they have no idea how to access, or any awareness of the existence of folk magic resources, and so end up practicing the magic Wicca teaches. In witching communities, well-known Wiccan authors are considered staples to read, such as Scott Cunningham. Authors that do not call themselves Wiccan (anymore) but do promote the magic are just as popular, such as Arin Murphy-Hiscock and Nathan M. Hall. These authors all have the same fatal flaw, which makes them Wiccans and automatically unreliable in my eyes: they promote the very idea which Wicca all but created, that there is one, single, universal way to do magic. That you, a Hawai'i Native living on the Islands, will do the best magic you've ever done with this set of European herbs that do not grow on your own soil. With this set of half-baked, appropriative Laws and methods, contrived out of a mishmash of appropriated indigenous practices and European traditions; like the Threefold Law, which is nothing but a cheap and terrible misinterpretation of the Dharmic concept of Karma. Except Wicca doesn't call them that. It calls the herbs staples, essentials. It calls the half-baked rules Ardanes and Magical Theory. Nothing is more ironic to me than a supposed nature religion telling people to forsake the nature around them in favor of the 'universal subsitute' Rosemary (salvia rosmarinus), a plant they've never even seen in real life save for in the jar in their spice cabinet.

Nowadays, thanks to the omnipresence of Wicca, there is a whole new magical tradition, yet unnamed. It consists of all those secular practitioners of magic who do all of their research via resources actually pandering to practitioners, all those people who claim 'we are the daughters of the witches you couldn't burn', all those people who have never heard of or hardly ever think about magic that isn't 'witchcraft'. I like to refer to it as 'contemporary magic', or sometimes 'modern magic', in a context where the label contemporary could be cause for confusion. This 'modern magic' is that more-or-less universal, monotone, Wiccan derived, secular magic that most people would term 'witchcraft'. The magic you see on TikTok. The spell jar magic. The cord-cutting magic. The lemon hex magic. The 'spiritual but not religious' magic. The sound bowl and smoke cleanse magic. The light and love magic. The 'white' magic. Magick. This magic is not culture-less, not at all. It is its own culture, as it were, and not only that, most of the spells, rituals and rules it has have their origins in European culture. But this magic is, in a way, anti-culture. Colonial. It smothers and endangers local magic, more relevant magic, and spreads like wildfire because it is so easy to never have to research beyond Wicca. What makes this modern magic inherently harmful is that it, too, is appropriative. The resources that provide you with this magic, which like the religion that sprouted it, is a huge, sometimes dysfunctional and clashing mosaic of culture, do not actually inform you of the origins of any of the practices that they teach you. They teach you what to do, how to do it, what materials to use, et cetera, but they don't teach you where these rituals came from, why these plants had those associations, what culture sprang this curse. And contrary to popular belief, those things are crucial to magic. The cultures at hand deserve to be honored for what they've given, and every culture has the right to be preserved. Culture is important elsewhere, but it is fundamental to magic. Magic cannot exist without culture. Gods are nothing but a lens to view the world through, magic is nothing but a response to struggle in a language that every human shares: the language of wonder and learning. Magic, at its core, is nothing but humanity's ability to feel amazed, and learn from the elegant language the earth speaks to us. And it is propagated by our ability to speak, to share, to teach to one another. Mother to daughter, brother to sister, chieftain to peasant, wife to warrior. Carry this, eat that. Don't do this, don't go there. Wicca does not acknowledge this importance of culture, nor does it make any efforts to teach the practitioners of it and its derivatives what cultures it was built on and off of. That is the crux and definition of cultural appropriation.

Wicca will continue to spread. I think one of my toxic traits is that I resigned myself to this idea a long time ago, much like how many people resign themselves to the idea of white supremacy or climate change. I can't help but see Wicca and the damage it does as irreversible. Wicca occupies the first pages of any google search about magic, the first thought anyone has when you self-identify as a pagan or practitioner of magic. 'Witch' as a word is completely different than it once was, as is the word sabbat. It feels inescapable, and this weighs heavily on me as somebody whose culture, too, is growing lost in part due to the priority of Wicca over cultural magic. I started writing this post in hopes of getting out all my grievances with this tradition. Ten thousand words and a great many sources later, the wound Wicca carved into me when I realized people would choose it over the valuable cultural knowledge I have and want to preserve no longer throbs, it just aches emptily. If this post manages to change one person's mind on Wicca, it has done its job, and I can die happily. If this post motivates one person to look beyond Wicca and glance at the rich and wild world of cultural magic, especially their own culture, I'll spend eternity in the afterlife gloating.

If there was one thing I wanted the reader to take away from this post, it is not that they should hate Wicca and actively fight to eradicate it. It is that culture is beautiful. All cultures are beautiful. There is no such thing as 'white culture' and we should strive to dismantle that, but the way to do that is to acknowledge the real culture. British culture, English culture, Cornish culture. Low Saxon culture. Silesian culture. Yakutian culture. Tibetan culture. Qazaq culture. Yup'ik culture. Irish culture. Amazigh culture. Cree culture. Sámi culture. Maori culture. Aymaran culture. Muscogee culture. Zulu culture. Find what is rightfully yours, because no matter who or where you are, there is culture in your ancestry, and there is culture in your neighborhood. You are entitled to it like you are entitled to air and water. Learn about the plants that are native to your area. Learn about the medicines your peoples used when conventional medicine was not available to them. Learn about their faith before Christianity, learn about the way they thought the universe came to be and what made humans human. Eat cultural foods, both yours and not. Talk to your elders, and really listen to what they say. Try to remember the weird superstitions and turns of phrase you grew up with. I promise it's there, and I promise it's beautiful. I promise it will make you feel at home.

In the following weeks I will try my best to dedicate some posts to the beginnings of folk magic. How to get involved, where to look for resources, what makes a good resource, what keywords to use when searching, what to do when it feels like there's nothing out there for you, how to find which culture you are a part of. Until then, I will leave you with my sincerest gratitude for reading this ridiculously long complaint.

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Doyle White, Ethan (2016). Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. 

Climenhaga, L. (2012). Imagining the Witch: A Comparison between Fifteenth-Century Witches within Medieval Christian Thought and the Persecution of Jews and Heretics in the Middle Ages. Constellations, 3(2). 

“The Dehumanization and Demonization of the Medieval Jews.” Medieval Antisemitism?, by François Soyer, Arc Humanities Press, Leeds, 2019, pp. 45–66.

Simpson, Jacqueline (1994). Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her, and Why? Folklore, 105:1-2: 89-96.

Murray, Margaret Alice (1933). The God of the Witches. S. Low, Marston & Company, Limited.

Bracelin, Jack (1960). Gerald Gardner: Witch. Octagon.

Heselton, Philip (2012a). Witchfather: A Life of Gerald Gardner. Loughborough, Leicestershire: Thoth.

Valiente, Doreen (2007) [1989]. The Rebirth of Witchcraft. London: Robert Hale.

"Britain's chief witch dies at sea". News of the World. 23 February 1964. Archived from the original on 8 September 2018.

Heselton, Philip (2003). Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration: An Investigation Into the Sources of Gardnerian Witchcraft. Capall Bann.

Lamond, Frederic (2004), Fifty Years of Wicca, Sutton Mallet, England: Green Magic, pp. 16–17.

Kelly, Aidan. About Naming Ostara, Litha, and Mabon. Including Paganism. Patheos.

Ambiguous Deities on Celtic Gold, Numismatic News. February 27, 2023.

Price, Neil (2002). The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Uppsala: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University.

Bourne, Lois (2006). Dancing with Witches. London: Robert Hale. p. 38.

---- If you enjoy my work, please consider purchasing or commissioning some of my written resarch, ordering a reading, or commissioning my art. Click here to see the options. Thank you!

[cynical-rain-frog]

Unrequited love (Xiao x hanahaki fem reader) Part 1

TW: blood, vomit

Modern highschool AU

Summary: Xiao and lumine start dating and you develop hanahaki disease.

Authors notes: This has been sitting in my drafts for months so I thought Id just release this and make more if people like it

Word count: 546

For those who don’t know, hanahaki disease is a fictional disease that causes flowers to grow in your lungs when your love is unrequited. These flowers will continue to grow until you die or your love is returned.

______________________________________________________________

Xiao was your first love. On the first day of highschool you sat next to him in class. Despite not knowing each other, you two became fast friends. He was quite reserved at first but it seems he was as desperate to make friends as you were. You two bonded and started hanging out after school. You would stay up to the early hours of the morning just talking and rambling to each other and you would text him every day. On the outside Xiao seemed cold and rude but in actuality he was very sweet and attentive. He would notice you weren’t wearing gloves on cold days and give you his. He would always have sweets in his pocket for you. He would keep pace next to you during Phys Ed just to continue talking to you even though he was much more athletic than half the kids in your class. Soon enough you found your face burning every time he smiled at you, Your ears turning red every time he laughed, and leaning on his shoulder when riding the bus home felt much more intimate. Maybe he would notice how you feel? You were never very vocal about crushes, as you hated rejection, so hopefully Xiao would catch on soon.

Yet that never happened.

A few months into sophomore year Lumine transferred to your school. She immediately caught the entire grade’s attention, including Xiao. You noticed how his eyes lingered on her as she walked past him or the way he started trying his best in Phys Ed when she was looking. When you asked him about it he said that he "Was just trying to stay in shape". As much as you wanted to believe him, there was still that doubtful feeling deep in your stomach. Or maybe it was a different feeling. You started noticing you were much more short of breath as of late an Phys Ed was harder than ever. You also had a bit of cough that wouldn't go away.

One night you were sitting on call with Xiao. It was almost midnight and you both were getting really tired. During a lull in conversation, Xiao sighed.

"I think I like Lumine", he breathed.

You sucked in a breath and pretended you didn't hear him.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"Noth... nothing, nevermind."

"Ah.", You hoped your voice didn't give you away as you continued," Well... I'm feeling pretty tired..."

A breath

"Night..?"

"...Goodnight."

A moment passed and your phone screen went dark. You felt the burn of tears behind your eyes. The darkness of your room weighed down on you as drops rolled down your face, getting your pillow wet.

You had almost calmed down when you went into a coughing fit. You coughed for a few minutes and soon you felt like vomiting. struggling to stand your feet carried you to the bathroom where you coughed over the sink. After a while you coughed something out.

It floated down...

down...

down...

down...

into the sink.

A flower petal. You blinked a few times and finally caught your breath. A flower petal? How is that even a thing? You were probably too tired and imagining things. you decided to stumble back to bed to get some sleep. You'll think more in the morning

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

Thanks for reading! I appreciate it!

[wahhzo]

FINALLY... I OFFER UP TO THEE... THE SACRED HEADCANON POST!!

i do have a Lot more, but just wanted to compile a few together and draw em as a group. more of these silly guys to come!!

(also check out @minkshame and @holy-reference-in-a-username bc they greatly influenced my headcanons for these guys!! amazing artists and writers!!)

EDWARD GUINTO

• Half-Filipino, Half-British

• Asexual but other than that he dgaf (he/she/they)

• Freelance Animator and Comic Artist

• AuDHD 👍

• Stopped shaving in solidarity with Tom!!

• Stopped wearing earrings after a few years...

• Only one responsible for the house keys lmao

• Multiples of the same green hoodie (zip-up and closed)

THOMAS REEVES

• Half-British, Half-American

• Omni, transmasc (he/they)

• Part-time at records store, freelance composer

• Hair is styled like that bc it is damaged from years of dyeing and straightening 😔

• Stopped shaving bc of. Depression

• Broken nose bridge from a fight w/ Tord (pre-25 FT)

• Pierced his, Edd's, and Tord's ears when they were teens (Matt was too scared)

MATTHEW HARRISON V

• Half-British, Half-Scottish

• Pan, and gendefluid (he/she)

• Hair stylist and nail tech

• Used to straighten hair, doesn't anymore (whines to Tom about his hair)

• Braids his hoodie strings :- >

• Assigned cook and baker for everyone (they are his test subjects also.)

• AuDHD and OCD 👍

TORD LEONARDSEN

• Norwegian

• Asexual, biromantic, and transgender man (he/him)

• Mechanical engineer

• Autism and OCD 👍

• Pock marks bc he picked at his it constantly

• Pronounced upper lip!!

• Scars on hands from. Work, fighting, and tinkering 😭

• Sleeper build... Worked out a lot after he moved out

[uhcasual]

quick juniors in modern drip

[sailormoonandme]

#honestly. i think sometimes that. people just hate to see girls winning (being powerful)#male heroes are almost always paired with weaker women and no one bats an eye#those women have to be saved time and time again and no one bats an eye#and those tropes DO come from sexism where those women are often not characters but plot devices#whereas mamoru is treated like an actual character#and there is absolutely nothing wrong with having the romantic interest being there just for emotional and moral support#as long as they are treated like characters#female romantic interests are not given that treatment most of the time. mamoru is#and sure I LOVE joking about how takeuchi made mamoru pathetic on purpose but#he isn't even THAT pathetic#he just happens to be dating the most powerful being in the whole universe what is he supposed to do? 😭#sailor moon#and of course the fights are not gonna be focused on him#this was written by and for girls guys we're guests here

The vibe I personally got from the above (which I FULLY admit I might be misinterpreting and mean no offence if I have) is that the 'Mamoru is useless crowd' is coming sexist men who are saying it because they myopically expect a man to be strong and dominant and a woman to be weaker and submissive. Again, perhaps that was me misreading the intention behind the statement. However, if that was the intention (or close enough to it) I feel there are some important nuances to be taken under consideration here. Most particularly with the 'this was written by and for girls guys we're guests here'.

The first is that whilst the manga was 100% made for a female audience and happened to catch some male readers too,* the anime (the most famous and influential rendition of the franchise) was not.

Obviously, being the early 1990s you had a predominantly (though it should be noted, not exclusively) male staff who were adapting the source material, chielf among them being the 3 male over all directors of the anime. Their work was also responsive to the actors, and we know that in the case of Mamoru and Rei's voice actors their performance definitely influenced how they were consequently written and characterised.

Finally, the anime was not aimed exclusively at a female demographic, it was casting a wider net. To be certain, young girls was definitely their primary audience, and overwhelmingly so. But they absolutely had a mind towards aiming it at young boys and older family members as well. Whilst reading a manga is 9 times out of 10 a solitary experience, back in the pre-streaming days an anime TV show going out in the evenings was inevitably going to be more of a family affair as it was the glowing box in the corner of the living room everyone shared in.

Moving, on in my observations of the fandom from the last 15 years (I became a fan in 2010) the 'Mamoru is useless' crowd, whether they are saying it scathingly, mockingly or in an attempt at analysis have not overwhelmingly been male fans. As you would expect from a brand made by, about and exclusively/primarily for a female demographic the vast majority of the fanbase are women. Therefore, inevitably, the discourse and narratives surrounding the fandom or brand are almost exclusively generated and perpetuated by them. Of course, there ARE male fans who also perpetuate these narratives as well, but they are ultimately a minority within the fandom.

To be perhaps a bit scathing honestly, rather than coming from a place of prejudice wherein you expect men to be dominant and women to be passive, the 'Mamoru is useless' crowd seem to me to actually come from two places:

a) Post-modern/irony/meme internet culture which seems a bit allergic to sincerity and/or actually engaging with the material in proper context (snarkiness is the golden rule to live by)

b) Prejudice from women towards male characters

And the thing is this isn't really a matter of stereotypes being perpetuated so much as it is a matter of demographics.

The way the 'Mamoru is useless' crowd discuss or treat the character is practically identical to how a contingent of the Spider-Man fandom (which I am deeply familiar with) treat Mary Jane, or how I have observed some Superman fans treat Lois Lane. In both cases they are a minority and I'd like to believe the same is true of the Sailor Moon fandom, with the Mamo-haters being a mere vocal minority.

However, my larger point is this. If you have a franchise made by one gender, about a character of the same gender (especially if it is from their POV), aimed at an audience of the same gender, the audience are inevitably going to be both more sympathetic to their POV and also potentially less sympathetic to their love interest if they are of the opposite gender.

As I said, I am deeply familiar with the Spider-Man fandom (I am talking the comic books as well as adapted media, like I can tell you Mary Jane's ringtone) and honestly the Mamoru-bashers (again most of whom were women) were extremely similar to the Mary Jane-bahsers (most of whom were men).

Obviously, the specifics of their statements varied (though there were commonalities) but it amounted to the same thing.

By default, side with the main character, condemn the love interest whenever they were not 100% supportive and affirming of the main character (even if their point was valid). Maybe Usagi should study more rather than go out on dates. Maybe Peter Parker shouldn't fight the villain when he has a concussion.

Bash the love interest for being pointless to the narrative. 'He just throws roses and leaves!'/'She is just there to look pretty!'

Also bash them if they got 'too involved'**. 'He saves Sailor Moon every episode. This is sexist because it reinforces the idea of damsels-in-distress'/'Why can't Spider-Man psychoanalyse himself? Why does Mary Jane (the psychology major who has known him since he was 18 and, as an actress, is used to getting inside peoples heads) HAVE to be the person who tells him to let go of his crippling guilt (which is connected to childhood trauma) due to not saving someone this issue?'

Zero in on tiny actually insignificant traits or out of context moments of their characters and exaggerate them. See Mamoru being a jerk to Usagi for the first half of the first season when he didn't know her very well and then he NEVER treated her like that ever again for the consequent 170+ episodes/See the same handful of out of context comic book pages where Mary Jane is arguing with Spider-Man

Be utterly ALLERGIC to looking at situation from the love interest's POV. 'Why did Mamoru (the dubass 18 year old kid who grew up a lonely orphan which has given him obcious trust and social skill issues) have to break up with Usagi without telling her the truth! All that happened was he got frequent visions (like the ones that told him about the Silver Crystal in season 1) where a scary disembodied person told him and showed him that if he keeps dating Usagi she and the whole world will die.'/'Why can't Mary Jane stop being an angry bitch and be totally fine and supportive of her husband going out to fight a gang of super powered serial killers whilst he has a concussion and 3 broken ribs?'

This isn't a problem exclusive to either character, fandom or even contingents within the same fandom. Seiya bashers are very much a thing within Sailor Moon fandom. You best believe there are Rose Tyler haters within Doctor Who. Hell, I have seen no end of female Spider-Man readers apply all the above bullet points in the inverse, side with MJ (or whatever female character is in question) whilst bashing Peter Parker without looking at things from his point of view; or just bash Peter in general 'he is SO dumb for doing this thing that actually most people in that same situation with the same knowledge base as he had would do loloolololololololololol'.

It is a very sad and frustrating fact, but the default setting of fandoms is that the average audience member is going to default side with the main character or more frequently whatever character is of their gender, without ever trying to make the leap into looking at the OTHER person's POV.

Finally, I think 90% of the time the tropes and patterns we can observe in how the narratives themselves treat the superhero love interest character are simply a matter of a domino effect.

You are making a superhero story.

What do superheroes do? They save people and/or fight villains. Therefore, the optimal combination is they are saving people from the villains.

What is more engaging to the audience than saving random civilians? Saving characters the audience know.

What is even more engaging than that? Saving someone the audience know and care about.

How do you make them care? By investing time into who the person being saved is.

What is the optimal way of doing that? By making them a supporting character who therefore appears frequently.

What could justify them appearing frequently? They are part of the superhero main character's social circle, which raises the emotional stakes even higher as there will now be a direct personal cost to the hero's failure.

If they are going to be a supporting character probably the role they have in the hero's social circle should be one that naturally lends itself to drama, conflict and emotional engagement, regardless of if they are in jeopordy or not, what should that be? Well, if they are a love interest this means you can tell stories about them building a relationship, having ups and downs in that relationship, deal is jealousy, deal with romantic rivals and attach a subtextual emotional stake for the character's future as this love interest may well be who they marry, have children with, etc. This is therefore potentially even more potent than a friend or parental figure.

Are love and war perrennial topics most human beings are inherently interested in because, as ultimately very smart apes, we have evolved to be violent to survive and/or reproduce offspring so our genetics also survive? Yes we have, which is why sex and violence sells and also why action orientated stories (including superhero fiction) so often incorporates at least some romance elements.

Oh hey, what gender is your superhero going to be? Well, since most superheroes (including Sailor Moon) were created at a time where male or female were the only only two options people knew about or accepted, I guess one of those two. Probably the one I myself am (since statistically most people are cisgender) because it makes it easier for me to write them and writing is incredibly difficult as it is and I need to do it quickly enough to make money and afford food.

So what sexuality are you going to select for them? Well, since most superheroes were ALSO created at a time where heterosexual was the only socially acceptable option, I guess that one. But even if I was able to write my character as not heterosexual, I'd still give them a female love interest if they were male and a male love interest if they were female because statistically most people are heterosexual and/or grew up in a heteronormative society therefore it is very likely I myself have experience dating women (if I am a man) or men (if I am a woman) and I should probably stick with what I know because writing is incredibly difficult as it is and I need to to quickly to earn money to afford food.

Doesn't all the above make it extremely likely that if you are a man writing a superhero story you are going to frequently wind up writing a damsel-in-distress just as a consequence of following what would be the most narratively logical and engaging for your audience? Yes, it would.

Doesn't all the above ALSO make it extremely likely that if you are a woman writing a superhero story, or a man making a 1992 anime adaptation of a superhero created by a woman, you are going to frequently wind up writing a dude-in-distress for the exact same reasons? Yes it would.

Doesn't ever doing the damsel/dude-in-distress trope fundamentally undermine the agency and worth of the love interest character? Only if that is mainly or ALL they amount to, but NOT if they have a character in their own right, even one who's main role in the narrative is as a love interest (much the way Luna's main role is Usagi's mentor or J. Jonah Jameson's main role is Spidey's boss). To single them out because their main role is love interest is, if anything, an example of double standards as the same logic is not applied to any other supporting characters who are not love interests. Obviously, the top priority of any good superhero story is the characterisation and role of the main character, with the supporting characters existing to in fact support them in that capacity, not share truly equal priority. This is why my story is called 'Spider-Man'/'Sailor Moon' as opposed to 'Spider-Man and Mary Jane and J. Jonah Jameson'/'Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask and Luna'

Is there any precedence for writing superhero narratives like that, wherein you have supporting characters who' can be good characters in their own right but whose fundamental purpose is to ultimately uphold the main character? Yes there is, for example the Epic of Gilgamesh which is literally over 4000 years old.

It sounds as if criticism of the damsel/dude-in-distres trope should be nuanced and taken on a case by case basis wherein we put the specific narrative under examination into its full and proper context.

.

.

.

...Yes...

You choose a gender for your character. You choose a sexuality for them. You perhaps make the narrative choice to give them a love interest, because romance is a subject human beings have been engaged by love and war since forever, and

*Something some observers (IIRC including Takeuchi herself) attributed to the input from her male editor.

**Obviously as a fan, I DO want Sailor Moon or Spider-Man to be characters mainly saving the day and solving the problem in the story. But there is a balance and nuance to this. If Spider-Man is massively defined by his scientific intelligence I'd expect him to be the one to solve the scientific problem. If Usagi is massively defined by her empathy, I don't want Mamoru's to be the one shooting the heart shaped magic weapon powered by his compassion.

Mamoru is NOT useless in the Anime Part Tri: Power & Worth

Last time we compared Anime and Manga Mamoru's power levels in order to dissect the idea that anime Mamoru, in being less powerful than Usagi is unworthy of being her romantic partner.

However, there was a lot more I wanted to unpack from this particular idea the 'Mamoru is useless' brigade are prone to pushing. Specifically on the very notion of linking power to worthiness.

Power Creep

This is one of my shorter points but, its seems rather insane to suggest that Mamoru needs to be of a minimal power level to be worthy of Usagi.

Usagi in both versions is at least functionally the most powerful entity in the known universe. Even if we go arc by arc, she is almost always the most powerful person on the good guys team. The time period before she obtained the Silver Crystal was only time when the gap in power between herself and the other Senshi was in any way close, and even then it depended on who you were talking about. Mercury was clearly weaker than Usagi, her attack was a glorified smokescreen. Was she unworthy of Usagi's friendship? Were Makoto and Rei the MOST worthy of Usagi's friendship because they were the most powerful Senshi?

Did they all become progressively less worthy of her time and affection as Usagi steadily grew ever more powerful across the series? In Crystal Tokyo, when Usagi could transform the barren frozen Earth into a glittering utopia, did she have 0 friends because she was now just THAT powerful?

Was Star Serious Laser just so powerful that it meant Seiya ranked highest of all for Usagi's affections? After all, I do not see anyone arguing that Seiya was not powerful enough to be worthy of Usagi's love...almost like there is a double standard in play...

And how demeaning of Neo-Queen Serenity, who was so powerful she could terraform a lifeless planet Earth into a glittering utopia, to allow the now incalculably weaker King Endymion to have sex with her and thereby conceive Chibi-Usa.

Or...does this work by you simply have to be of a minimal power level and then you can be worthy of Usagi no matter how powerful she gets?

Please enlighten me fellow Moonies?

Power DOES NOT = Worthiness

Finally...isnt it just plain old reductive to equate power with worthiness?

Sailor moon is a super hero at the end of the day, so let's look at examples from other superhero fiction. In fact, lets look at the most famous example within the genre.

Superman is by far and away the most famous (though not necesarilly popular) of all superheroes across the globe. Superman can fly, has super streangth, super speed, enhanced durability, heat vision, x-ray vision and sometimes can freeze stuff with his breath. And whilst the exact degree of all of those abilities has varied (originally he was stronger than ten men, later he could pull multiple planets at the same time) he has always been mindbogglingly more powerful than even the most elite of human athletes.

And who has he frequently been paired up with from the past 85 years?

Oh, that's right. A human woman, Lois Lane. She might be extraordinary in her own way, but she isn't going to be bench-pressing a tank anytime soon.

Ah, but there are those who reject the most famous superhero couple in pop culture for that very reason, arguing that Superman should instead be with someone who is powerful in their own right like he is. Someone like, say, Wonder Woman?

The problem here being that...well...Wonder Woman is almost always weaker than Superman. By a WIDE margin. At the end of the day, she is incredibly strong but her strength has limits whilst Superman's are in fact dependant upon circumstances. If he absorbes enough yellow sunlight he is functionally limitless in how powerful he can become. So...is Wonder Woman unworthy of Superman too?

Regardless, let's instead turn our attentions to something more comparable to Sailor Moon.

In Dragon Ball Z the Goku and Vegeta and Gohan can annihilate whole Solar Systems but Mary human women, falling for them because of their strong, wilful and aggressive personalities.

In Yu Yu Hakusho, written by Naoko Takeuchi's husband, the main character is a demonic prince basically and falls for a normal human.

How about all the boxers, MMA fighters, wrestlers and action movie stars who marry people who are not in those kinds of professions, people who are physically weaker than them?

All of them unworthy too?

Power DOES NOT = Worthiness, regardless of gender

Ah, but these are all where the man is more powerful. But...if we argue that the situation is different in the reverse...isn't that just a classic (say it with me folks) double standard?

Are we to seriously entertain the rather backwards argument that a man is not worthy of a woman's affection if they are weaker than her?

If so let's look at some other examples.

She Hulk has dated normal humans Wyatt Wingfoot and John Jameson.

Carol Danvers has the power of a star and has fallen in love with War Machinw, who is a man with high tech armour nowhere close to that power level.

Jean Grey has been more powerful than her lovers Cyclops and Wolverine since even before she became the Phoenix, a cosmic entity so powerful it consumes stars for energy.

Wonder Woman has the power of the Greek Gods and her frequent lover, and in her original canon husband, was a regular human soldier.

In Cutey Honey F, the magical girl reboot of the classic 70s anime that helped inspire Sailor Moon, Honey can annihilate and create anything she can want. She is in love with a demonic prince, but ultimately marries a normal man and private eye who always had her back despite being put of this depth with the threats they faced.

And what about all the women in real life who have married, or remained married to men with disabilities? Men who by any metric are physically weaker than their wives? For example, all the women that married or remained married to soldiers who were horribly injured during either World War? Or, any of the wives of Stephen Hawkins, with even his first wife aware of his illness.

All of which is to say...maybe Mamo is worthy of Usagi's love regardless of him being less powerful than her.

Conclusion

Mamoru in the anime...

Is.

Not.

Useless.

Please.

For.

The.

Love.

Of.

<insert whatever/whomever you worship here>.

Fucking.

Stop.

Claiming.

He.

Is.

[anghraine]

I was talking to my students and then some family members about how the death of Elizabeth I and succession of James was necessarily an occasion of upheaval, even when it wasn't necessarily violent or flirting with treason or whatever. For one, the death of a monarch that will lead to a new dynasty (even a related one!) is not quite the same as a familiar figure inheriting the country's rule from their parent or grandparent. It's usually a bigger change, with dynamics of loyalties and affiliations shifting around—that's part of the reason Elizabeth delayed acknowledging James as her heir.

Typically, you'd see courtiers etc deserting a dying monarch in order to signal their loyalty to the new monarch, even if the old one wasn't actually dead yet. Elizabeth's reluctance to share royal power was fundamental to her reign and her public image, so it's not at all surprising that she would be loath to encourage that kind of desertion in any particular direction.

Of course, another thing that complicates the Elizabeth -> James succession is that she had reigned for a long time (44 years iirc). By the time she was dying, a good number of English people had few personal memories of life under any other monarch, and those who did would remember the abrupt and unstable reigns of her predecessors, Edward and Mary. So James's accession came with uncertainty about what exactly it would entail, and a lot of late Elizabethan/early Jacobean drama in English is very concerned with questions of what obligations the governed owe to their monarchs (obedience? loyalty? are those always the same thing?), but also what obligations monarchs themselves have to their people.

This seemed especially pertinent to Lear, in which multiple characters defy capricious orders from a monarch or other authority out of loyalty: Kent challenges Lear and is banished, so skulks around in disguise to continue serving him, Edgar also skulks around in disguise after Gloucester renounces him and ends up offering what comfort he can to his father, and Cordelia returns to Britain with the French army in her ultimately futile attempt to help Lear. Meanwhile, Lear loses everything, is driven to take shelter in a peasant hovel, and starts to contemplate how his own failures as a king resulted in, well, peasant hovels.

Anyway, now I'm thinking about what a wild figure Elros must have been as, specifically, a monarch to the Númenóreans. He lived for five hundred years. Even his own children (also half-Elves! sort of!) and other descendants who benefited from his lifespan didn't live as long, and most Númenóreans during his earlier reign wouldn't have come near to it. Undoubtedly there were Elves who had known Elros in the First Age who were baffled at him choosing mortality and DEATH, and meanwhile on Númenor, there are all these people living out their extended lifespans under the reign of a half-Elf king who was ruling their people at their birth and would still be ruling after they died of old age. We know Elros retained his half-Elvish characteristics as well, so they've got this visibly Elvish, barely-aging, eternal king who looks like Lúthien as part of the fabric of life for centuries.

Yes, he's literally the first king—but for a lot of earlier Númenóreans, he's also the only king they will ever know. It takes him an incredibly long time to weary of the world as other mortals do. By the time Elros finally gets weary of Arda, and willingly lays down his life and passes to the unknown fate of mortals, Tar-Amandil is stepping into some very big shoes.

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

Kept thinking about the decline in popularity of Christmas caroling from the 1800s to now and came to the following conclusions:

Would not go caroling in any time period:

Hickey

Gibson

Golding

Wall

Des Voeux

Fairholme

Crispe

Collins (would like to, but is too shy)

Would go caroling in the 1800s but not in a modern AU:

Goodsir

Hartnell Bros

Diggle

Morfin

Weekes

Hoar

Tozer

Dundy

Crozier (coerced into it by Fitzjames)

Jopson (moral support for Crozier)

Would go caroling no matter the time period:

The Franklins

Gore

Magnus

Lane

Fitzjames

MacDonald

Irving

Hodgson

Little (coerced into it by the former two)

(List not meant to be exhaustive. I left out anyone I was undecided on. Additions and edits welcome!)

[electroniccollectiondonut]

I have not been in this fandom long enough to reasonably judge others' takes however. "EPIC fans are so silly to characterize odysseus as feeling guilty for his actions don't you know he's a war criminal" is definitely a wild one. like first of all to each their own so settle down and let people enjoy things ok. and secondly making choices with a bad outcome, even knowingly and deliberately, does not exclude the possibility of feeling bad about it later. in fact it makes for a much more in depth character because then you get to explore what he does or doesn't feel guilt over, and why, and if that guilt ever edges into regret or not.

[kirbo-kirbstar]

Oh man this kinda happened to me once.

I was on a date with my first (and currently only ever) partner. At one point we had our first kiss, like I think the first romantic kiss ever in either of our lives? Anyway usually that stuff is hyped up in modern culture but I was kinda having ace squeamishness in the moment so it was more like a peck and I’m still kinda embarrassed that I couldn’t give his first kiss the justice he deserved lol 😬

Anyway he also eventually said “I love you” for the first time to me and I kinda had a little aro breakdown at that instant and immediately hugged him. Like, I really couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t get myself to say it back because in that moment it didn’t feel true, but I couldn’t dare NOT reciprocate in some way. He was my best friend and I did love him indeed but I knew he meant a different love in that moment and I just wasn’t sensing I could generate it myself in that moment.

So yeah, I gave him a really big hug. He was a bit confused at first but he held the embrace. We stayed like that for who knows how long. He gave me words of encouragement about how I was a really great person and all that, and to this day I still appreciate that.

But yeah at the time I wasn’t entirely sure why I was feeling so off about intimacy, but I had my suspicions. He was very supportive the whole time through. We dated for nearly a year and I did my best to satisfy him even if I didn’t feel I had the same kinds of feelings. He was cool with it, but eventually we realized that actually he did need the feelings reciprocated after all. So even though that led to our break up, I’m glad we figured that out sooner than later.

Aaaaaanyway yeah I know at one point in the relationship I asked him if he ever thought I wasn’t loving him enough, and he said he didn’t feel that way, so yeah who knows how much of what I felt was my aromanticism was actually self doubt (the asexual thing became pretty obvious though so yeah he had good reason to split regardless). My mom did criticize me a ton for not being romantic enough though lol. Plus idk I feel like I only put him on like an ever so slightly higher rank than my other friends???? It’s been a while so I don’t remember, but ima be real my ideal relationship is just a guy friend that can kiss me sometimes 😭

But all in all, I think we learned a lot about ourselves from that relationship. We’re still on good terms though we don’t talk as much anymore (life is busy and naturally pulls old friends away). I hope he soon finds a good partner that’ll reciprocate all the endless love he had for me cuz damn that guy was such a keeper. Honestly I was into him because I liked him, not because I felt like I needed a boyfriend.

Though I guess it would be nice if I run into another chill guy to be with, but whatever I guess.

aro culture is dating as a teenager because you haven't realized you're aromantic and hearing your partner say "i love you" for the first time and awkwardly replying "thanks :)" because you don't return their feelings and don't want to lie to them

.