#like she should be able to use both if all magic comes from psychic energy

[mdrnwitch]

TVDU power scalers make no sense, especially when it comes to witch abilities. Especially because the lore is so messy. Like, everyone overrates their faves because the writing around individual magical abilities is so inconsistent, and it's so annoying.

[chell10xo]

Well it’s been a while since I posted so I thought I’d go all out on this blog. I’m going to discuss, soul connections, astrology, inner work and the 7 chakras and a little bit of tarot.

In 2018 I began going through another spiritual awakening, I stumbled across the term twin flames and I was quite taken back by it. I always grew up thinking we all had one soul mate and it was a fairytale kind of love but the deeper I dove into spirituality my beliefs began to change.

We can have several soul mates but only one twin flame. The common theory for twin flames is that the soul splits and reincarnations into two different bodies for soul evolution. A twin flame is a mirror soul, a reflection of you , the good and the bad. Your twin will shed light on everything that you need to heal and what you try to run from and eventually they will help you to ascend. There is no other connection like it. They usually come in and out your life triggering different stages of spiritual awakenings and to ensure you continue doing the work you signed up before reincarnating on Earth.

The twin flame journey isn’t easy, there are many different stages and there is usually a runner and chaser dynamic going on. One of the main lessons is to learn that twin flames will always be connected it’s only their ego that separates them from each other.

🖤A soul mate is usually a relatively easy relationship, you grow together and are able to overcome challenges, the relationship brings stability, peace and love they are usually a life partner that you settle down with.

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-🖤Karmic people are the ones you will meet through out your life, the union between karmic people can often be intense and short lived. The reason being is that they cross your path to teach you something valuable and it is up to you whether you want to learn the lesson. Sometimes we keep meeting the same people in different bodies so that we are forced  to pay attention to what they are trying to teach us.

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🖤Catalyst twin flames A catalyst twin flame is a term used for someone who may be very similar to your twin flame, they may belong in the same soul group or share the same vibrational energy. They also trigger inner work

- You may find yourself meeting karmic people during retrograde seasons.

- South node in astrology represents our past lives, where we came from and where our souls last resided. I would look at personal planets, moon, mars, mercury and Venus aspecting South node to see what karma you have to unravel. I would look at harsh aspects usually squares, oppositions or conjunctions to the south node.

- Venus square south node would be a good indicator that you shared an emotional bond with this person in a previous life time.

🖤Megan fox and machine GK synastry 🖤

An article published on 22nd July 2020 - the date is definitely a synchronicity since 22 22 is considered a twin flame number, In the article Megan claims that MGK is her twin flame. She recalled feeling an instant connection with him.

“I went deep right away. I knew before I even did his chart, I said to him, he has a Pisces moon. I could tell by his energy,” she said.”

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.yahoo.com/amphtml/entertainment/megan-fox-connection-machine-gun-kelly-immediate-twin-flame-194629807.html

MGK also captioned a picture of them both on Instagram as

“waited for eternity to find you again... 🔪 💫❤️ 🔪 “

So let’s look into this magical connection they share.

With MF and MGK both having Taurus sun’s, they will share similar personality traits which will bring harmony. However their rising signs are quite different since Megan has Capricorn rising and MGK has Gemini, the Gemini energy and sun in his 11 denfentily gives MGK more an edgy style.

When have a soul tie with someone we are able to communicate with them telepathically but between twin flames the telepathic connection is very powerful.

Mental connection -

🌚Sun conjunct telephus - in 11th & 3rd house - telepathic connection, understanding, knowing

🌚Mercury conjunct mercury in 12th &4th house - psychic connection , mental connection, depth , understanding

🌚Both have mercury in Taurus , creating a conjunction this means similar ways of thinking / communicating

🌚Neptune in 8th trine mercury in 4th- telepathy, imagination, romance, dreamy , depth

Physical connection

⚡️Sun in 11th opposite Pluto in 5th

Electrical, life changing, obsessive, fated , magnetic , explosive

⚡️Megan’s mars falls into MGK 8th house

Sexual chemistry, exploring taboos, depth, intensity, reading the subconscious mind, sharing secrets , sexual tension

⚡️MGK Mars in Pisces is trine MF Pluto in Scorpio

Satisfying each other’s desires, intimacy, power games

⚡️Mars in 11th - squaring Pluto in 8th composite chart - experimenting, powerful emotions, bringing out each other’s shadow/ darker side, knowing what triggers one and other

connection -

🖤 Megan’s Leo moon is conjunct MGF south node - 3rd house of communication .Any personal planets aspecting the south node can indicate past life encounters. The moon represents our emotions and connections we have with others and since it’s touching his south node this can indicate an instant connection, familiarity and deep bond.

🖤 Jupiter expands and blesses everything it touches, if aspected positively. MGK Venus in Pisces is exactly conjunct MF’s Jupiter in Pisces - this aspect would give a dreamy, fairy tale kind of love and with a dash of Jupiter for sure it would be expand their love for each other.

🖤 MGK Alma which is another term for soul is conjunct MF’s Neptune in Capricorn in her 12th house. As mentioned earlier the 12th house is known as the karmic house. Capricorn’s ruler is Saturn which also known for representing karma in astrology. Now let’s switch it round. Their Neptune conjunct Alma also falls into MF’s 7th house. Now taking in both placements, I would say this is a spiritual connection.

Fate, destiny and karma

The vertex is used in astrology to identify fated events, karma and destiny. Scorpio is considered the most interned sign of the zodiac because of the powerful energy Pluto carries.

Her Pluto is conjunct his vertex in his 5th house of fun, dating and romance. This is likely to be a life changing relationship filled with passion and. They will be strongly drawn to each other and with this conjunction also falling into MF 9th house, this union would more than likely transform her beliefs and lead her to search for spirtual guidance to make sense of their connection.

-South node conjunct union in Libra (spiritual reunion)

-Venus square Chiron (deep healing)

Elements

Fixed - Taurus , Scorpio , Leo , Aquarius

Mutable - Pisces , Virgo , Sagittarius, Gemini

Cardinal - Cancer , Aquarius, libra , Aries

🌚Feminine signs - Earth + water

💥Masculine signs -Air + fire

Usually with twin flames you will notice similarities or oppositions within the chart.

Both sun signs are in a fixed sign

🌙 Megan’s moon is in her 7th house which is a cardinal house

🌙 MGK Moon falls in his 10th house which is also cardinal house

🌪MF Venus is in Pisces & MGK Venus is in Gemini both are mutable signs

💥Megan’s mars falls Into her 1st house & MGK mars falls into his 10th both cardinal houses.

💥Megan’s mars is in Capricorn MGK mars falls into his 10th house which is the house of Capricorn.

🌙Mercury in Taurus are both in water houses 12 & 4

🌙Ruler of Megan’s DC is in cancer and her moon is in her 7th house.

🌙Ruler of MGK 7 house is in Jupiter which is in his 1st house

Alma means soul in Spanish it also considered the second moon in astrology.

🌙Megan’s Alma is in her 1st house

🌙And MGK Alma is in his 7th house

It is not clear whether they are actually twin flames but they are likely to share a soul connection. It will be interesting to see how this relationship plays out in the future as no twin flame journey is a walk in the park.

Astrology can not determine who your twin is.

Every twins journey is different, some are meant to be together in this life and some are not it all depends on the soul contract, all twins will have different strengths, weaknesses and connections which will show up differently in each individual chart. I found some asteroids which seem pretty interesting. You can go over to Astro. Com (extended chart) and calculate synastry between you and whoever. Asteroids should be in conjunction, opposition or squaring personal planets.

💫 Telephus 5264 - what a magical asteroid, it represents intuition, telepathy your inner voice.

💫 Psyche 16 - the Greek translation of soul. This asteroid can also indicate shadow work that one is yet to do.

💫 Juno- your ideal mate, a soul mate, a life partner, the one you’re likely to marry.

💫 Moria 638 - associated with destiny, fate synchronicities and karma

💫 Alma 390 another term for soul, connected with the heart , it can reveal information about your recent past life.

💫Urda 167 is similar to the south node as it is connected to past lives

💫 Child 4580 , child can represent our inner child and how to nurture , heal & connect with our inner child.

💫DNA 55555 , shows genetic information

💫Memoria 1247 - this is an astroid that holds memories of your past life

💫Union 1585 , reunion , being drawn to another , fate

💫193 Ambrosia , associated with healing, Devine masculine and feminine energy , eternity

💫ALTJIRA 148780 ,Shananic journeys , visions

🪄Numerology / synchronicities / dreams

-Some are born on the same day

-same life path numbers (this isn’t always) try calculating the numbers also

-Seeing repetitive numbers what are associated with twin flames - 1111/111/1212/1221/1313/2222/

-Reunion on the 11th month or 11th day etc

-months or days calculated between birth date may be meaningful

-having visions / dreams

-astral projection

-meeting/ unions during astrological events - new moons / full moons / portals

Dealing with separation / dark night of the soul

Energy work is a vital part of your spiritual journey. For those who feel they are on a twin flame journey then it is important that you balance your chakras especially if you are hoping for a reunion after separation or going through ‘the dark night of the soul’ or if you want to ascend high enough to meet a soul mate.

Everybody has 7 energy points in the body which is known as the chakras.

💜The crown chakra is associated with the planets Jupiter and the sun (Neutral)

👁The third eye chakra is connected with the moon and and Jupiter (feminine)

💙The throat chakra is associated with mercury (masculine)

💚The heart chakra is connected to the moon and Venus (feminine)

💛The solar plexus chakra represents the sun and mars (masculine)

🧡The sacral chakra is associated with Venus and the moon (feminine)

❤️The root chakra is connected with Saturn (masculine)

Use your astrology chart to connect with your chakras and find out identify your strengths and weaknesses. A person who has Neptune positively aspecting their personal planets may have an active third eye chakra which makes them in intuitive , spiritual and psychic. But they may have harsh aspects to their moon where they may shy away from emotionally intimacy, be guarded or have conflict feelings. They will need to do more work on their heart / sacral chakra through out their life time for spiritual healing.

An example of this would be moon square Saturn as it can indicate mother wounds, if you don’t heal then over time you can create and an emotional wall , this where the heart chakra becomes unbalanced or blocked. By observing where your moon is in your chart you can find where you will find comfort in life and what makes you feel content.

Your birth chart is a guide of what you need to heal, the more healing you do the less likely you are to keep recycling your experiences as you will raise your vibrations you will attract your soul family, be able to manifest the life you desire and ascend higher.

I’ve written a list of how the planets can relate to our shadow side.

🪐Pluto - what we desire, obsessions , secrets

🪐Lilith - Lilith is the wildness that resides within all of us, she holds the key to the closet that holds all your skeletons. She appears as taboos, addictions, obsessions, lust, and desires

🪐Chiron -the teacher and also the healer

🪐Saturn - what we fear , what we resent , karmic patterns

🪐Venus- What and how we love

🪐Mars - our drive , aggression

🪐Mercury - our mind

🪐Neptune - how we escape

🪐Squares and oppositions - challenges , work that we need to do -

🪐8th / 12th house

Shadow work

Our shadow side is the darkenss that lies with in us. It’s something that karmic partners usually trigger with in us and our twin reflects our dark parts which helps us to ascend. In astrology we could look at the astroid Lilith sign and placement to understand our darkest parts and what triggers us , or we can look at Pluto or even the more harsh challenging aspects such as squares which sometimes makes it difficult for others to understand us or even for us to understand our selves and why be behave in certain ways.

Shadow work usually rocks up as

-healing childhood trauma/ wounds

-recognising toxic patterns , how we self sabotage ie

-acknowledging

-facing our ego

-embracing our wild side

-Devine masculine / feminine work

-Taboos sexual desires

Tarot cards I Associate with twinflames/soulmates /karmic

-Queen of wands and king of wands / devil (twin flame energy )

-The emperor (Devine masculine)

-The empress (Devine feminine)

-2 of wands / 3 of cups / 10 of cups for reunion

-Judgment -karmic

-The lovers /2of cups / ace of cups - soulmate

-Dark night of the soul / the tower

-separation 8 of cups , death

Happy new moon guys, thanks for reading. Please feel free to share your experiences/ thoughts 🖤🪐⚡️.

[earnestly-endlessly]

Cherik angst!

Ooooh the angst!! The cherik fandom has an abundance of angst fics and I could probably make a list of hundred fics to recommend, but these are some of my favourite angsty cherik fics. I should warn you though, some of these require tissues.

Cherik Angst

Everyday Love in Stockholm – tahariel

Summary: Magneto is the ruler of the posthuman world.

His only secret? Charles Xavier, the human he's kept locked in his bedroom ever since his right-hand woman, Mystique, came to him pleading for mercy for her stepbrother, who accepted her mutant form and protected her as a child. The human he started fucking after Mystique was killed in battle, despite the guilt he feels at contaminating even this last promise to the woman who was integral to his life's work and happiness.

Boden’s Mate – kaydeefalls

Summary: "Shaw has information that we need, and we need him alive to extract it," Moira says, and there it is: the job is on the table. Extraction.

XMFC/Inception fusion AU. Erik is an extractor, Alex is his point man. They're assembling a team to go after the most dangerous mind in dreamsharing: Sebastian Shaw. But unless Alex and the team can keep him in check, Erik's desire for vengeance might just rip the whole job apart around them -- and then there's the shade that haunts his dreams...

Ritual Self-Torture – TurtleTotem

Summary: Shaw is King, Charles is his royal consort and Erik is a Knight/Lord. Shaw is sterile but his kingdom can't find out, so he asks Erik to impregnate Charles.

He doesn't know Erik and Charles are in love.

The Winter of Banked Fires – Yahtzee

Summary: Charles Xavier has returned from the dead -- but is lost within his own mind. Rogue has cast aside her own power and doesn't know where she fits in the world any longer. The production of synthetic Cure means mutantkind itself is newly at risk. And Magneto, turned human against his will, is in despair until the day he feels a familiar consciousness tugging at his own

Us – Pangea

Summary: “Charles,” Erik says, and if his voice hits a pleading note then who can really blame him, “Charles, it’s me.”

It takes several longer moments before Charles musters up the strength to answer, breath stuttering horribly as he tries to breathe. He’s shaking, entire body trembling.

“Erik,” Charles says, his voice cracking, “Erik, I want to die.”

Enigma – Yahtzee

Summary: Erik dies, or finds a reversey-time mutant, or a magical time travelling device, and wakes up in the past. This time, though, it's before he ever met Charles - in fact, it's before his mother died.

He can save his mother that one time (thanks to his mastery over powers carrying back), but what does Erik do after that? Does he stick around, or escape and run to find Charles again (and hope everything doesn't go wrong)?

By Faint Indirections – kianspo

Summary: Erik is in his ~50s, and lonely and bitter. He survived the Holocaust and was only ~14 when the war ended; and even ~40 years later, living in a country that helped to end WW2 and the Third Reich, homosexuality is still a taboo topic. Then one day, he stumbles over Charles, who is young(early 20s) and bright and smart and cheeky and full of energy and beautiful. And moving in the same street where Erik lives.

Lonesome on the Shelf – ikeracity

Summary: After three years of marriage, Charles has to admit that his relationship with Erik has significantly cooled off. These days, they're barely ever home at the same time and it seems like every conversation they have turns into an argument. Charles misses the way they used to be, misses the spontaneous dinner parties and the surprise morning sex and the wake up calls in the early mornings to catch the sunrise. But it's going to take two of them to fix this marriage, and some days, it seems as if all Erik wants is to be rid of him.

A fic about rekindling marriage.

When the Spell Breaks – kianspo

Summary: Erik, a high-profile lawyer with a successful career, meets a 21-year-old grad student in a bar, and within a few short months marries him. He and Charles are blissfully happy, until Erik's boss runs a background check on Charles and discovers he's been cheating on Erik. Charles denies everything, as there was no affair, but Erik doesn't believe him and throws him out. As Charles tries to figure out how to survive and stay at school that he can no longer afford and makes a lot of bad if not plain dangerous choices, Erik has to fight his own battle of discovering the truth and winning Charles back.

The Tower and the Hurricane – dreamlittleyo

Summary:(Post-movie AU.) Five years after Shaw's death, Erik's predictions prove painfully accurate. Violence rages on both sides of the human/mutant conflict. In a world ravaged by war, it doesn't really matter who's more at fault. Charles struggles to teach his students a better way, but what choices will he make when peace really isn't an option?

The Attempt – Yahtzee

Summary: Charles knows everything about Erik, knows how obsessive and self-destructive he is, how Erik would do anything, give anything, in his quest for vengeance against Shaw. But he also knows that Erik loves him in ways that aren't exactly platonic.

I'd like to see a completely straight!Charles, out of pure love and care of Erik, initiate a romantic relationship with him. It can be because he wishes to give Erik something positive in his life or because he thinks it might help change Erik's mind about Shaw, the reason is up to author. Also, while Charles finds intimacy with Erik strange and awkward, he does enjoy the new, non-romantic layers that have developed in their relationship.

Apple Seeds – pprfaith

Summary: Charles, Erik, apple seeds and Shakespearean love affairs.

Ashes, Ashes – winterhill

Summary: Post-apocalyptic AU — When the bombs fall, and mutually assured destruction occurs, it turns out that Shaw was right and radiation does enhance mutant powers. Snapshots of the XMFC main ensemble in the time after the bombs: Erik decides to stay, Moira thinks she might be the only human left, Raven is having trouble sleeping, and Charles is losing his mind.

Warnings: nuclear holocaust: death (death in general, not a specific character), cancer, burns, medical procedure, mutant powers gone awry

Five Bullet Points – Sperare

Summary: It was supposed to be Erik locked away in a prison one hundred stories below the ground.

Charles was never supposed to be there with him.

Tequila on a spaceship – faerie_ground

Summary: In 2014, Charles Xavier gets brutally murdered and Erik Lehnsherr spends the rest of his life mourning his death.

In 3014, Captain Lehnsherr and CMO Dr Xavier are colleagues, best friends and maybe a little more besides that aboard the Magneto I.

The Tower and the Hurricane – dreamlittleyo

Summary: Post-movie AU.) Five years after Shaw's death, Erik's predictions prove painfully accurate. Violence rages on both sides of the human/mutant conflict. In a world ravaged by war, it doesn't really matter who's more at fault. Charles struggles to teach his students a better way, but what choices will he make when peace really isn't an option?

Simple and Uncomplicated – Pookaseraph

Summary: Erik and Charles had been fuck buddies for some, but when Charles is in an accident he figured their relationship would be over. Erik's visit to his bedside in the hospital changes his assumptions even as he has trouble believing Erik is sincere.

Lazarus – Clocks 

Summary: Erik is 19 when he says ‘I love you’ for the first time.

It would take five long years before Charles says it back.

Broken Eternity – CractasticDispatches

Sumnmary: It starts with being alone. It shouldn’t, perhaps, but it does because, of course, alone is what no one ever wishes to be.

Shout it Out Loud – dreamlittleyo

Summary: (Movie-Concurrent AU.) When Charles forges a telepathic link between himself and Erik, the two men find themselves bound together by more than just destiny. With the world on the brink of war, Charles and Erik struggle to cope with a psychic connection that may well be permanent.

Call Me By His Name – sinuous_curve

Summary: Charles wakes from the absence of noise.

There is an empty space in his room, beside his bed. Not quiet as in an abandoned room, but utterly, featurelessly blank. Like a box made of unblemished, impenetrable metal and Charles knows before he opens his eyes.

The Longest Word – septicwheelbarrow

Summary: "I'm Charles Xavier," he says, smiling from ear to ear. Then he gestures to his wheelchair. "Terminal spinal osteoblastoma, reaper due to collect in a year."

After some time, the man gestures at himself with a sardonic smile. "Same, one year. Lung." And then, reluctant, as if trying to keep his name to himself, "Erik."

I reject your reality and substitute my own. Doesn't really work that way, both ways.

Copy – chantefable

Summary: Charles wakes up without his memory. His sole caretaker, Erik, claims to be his husband, and tells him he's recovering from a car accident on their honeymoon.

Slowly falling for Erik again, Charles begins to regain his memories. He starts to notice strange things about his body, Erik, and their secluded mansion.

Myosotis – SomeCoolName

Summary: When Charles got back from Cuba, he lost the two things which made him stand: his legs and the love of his life, Erik Lehnsherr. Charles can get used to the wheelchair but he won't ever be able to get pass the loss of Erik.

"I wish I never met him" is something Charles says one night, maybe a bit drunk, absolutely wrecked for sure. It's a bit silly but Charles figures out his only solution is to use his own powers to erase Erik from his mind, progressively.

Except one day Erik comes back to the Xavier mansion to win him back. And even if Charles doesn't want to stop forgetting about him, Erik will do anything he can to convince him otherwise.

Das Haus am See – sareyen

Summary: The Lake House AU:

Erik is an estate planning lawyer who takes some time off to get away from the big city after his marriage fell apart. He lives in a picturesque lake house by Chautauqua Lake for almost two years, before moving back to New York City. This is in 2019.

Charles is a famous but very private author stuck in a creative rut, and moves to his lakeside estate for a short while to try and find a reason to write again. This is in 2017.

By magic or fate, Charles and Erik discover that the letter box at the lake house has the ability to send letters through time, between Charles in 2017 and Erik in 2019. Through letters that transcend the barriers of time, Charles and Erik fall in love. Charles vows to find Erik two years in his future, and Erik promises to wait for him. Two years - just two, meagre years.

But, fate is fickle, and time waits for no one.

Appropriate Boundaries – Yahtzee 

Summary: Charles has been having serious problems with back cramps in the year and a half since he's been in a wheelchair. His doctor prescribes massage therapy. But when Charles meets his masseur, Erik, in some ways they begin to heal each other. So how do you cross the boundaries between professional touch -- and the personal?

Unbound – Cesare, helens78

Summary: Thousands of miles apart, Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier form a soulbond. But when that bond is severed five years later, they have to spend the next ten years trying to rebuild their lives alone.

Do You Love Me – cgf_kat

Summary: Charles and Erik have been married for 25 years, thrown together by a mandatory post-apocalyptic pairing system attempting to increase and strengthen the population. They have seven children. They have never spoken of love, but change is on the horizon.

A Quiet Riot – cloudstroke (aQuired)

Summary: Erik can't stand the fact that his father has brought home a boy less than half his age.

But mostly because he's madly in love with Charles Xavier himself.

[the-angery-sapphic]

Alternative ending to 06x13

What should have happened.

Here’s to another day of failing to catch Nyxly.

Kara thought to herself bitterly. After she woke up in the med-bay with Alex and Lena at her side, all she wanted to do was go home and wait for the next day. She wasn’t even sure she could sleep tonight, given everything that’s happened today, from losing the courage totem to creating a psychic connection between her and Nyxly. She shutters when she remembered the flashes of blood, the panic in unfamiliar eyes, looking down at the stained knife she doesn’t remember having. Kara shakes her head, lost in her own thoughts when she realized somebody was talking to her.

“Kara? Kara are you alright?”

Her head snaps up into gorgeous seafoam eyes and feels security with the weight of a hand against her collarbone. “Yeah, yeah I’m okay” Kara replies slightly breathless. Lena raises her eyebrow, unconvinced. “Do you want to come over for dinner?” Kara asks, trying to redirect the conversation. Luckily, Lena took the bait, smiling as they left the tower together.

After finishing dinner, they moved to the couch. Lena smiling as Kara handed her a plate of dessert. “I don’t know how I didn’t pass that trial” Kara laments, the events of the day still eating away her thoughts. Luckily, Lena seemed to be on the same boat. “I don’t get it either! You literally went to the Phantom Zone to save humanity”. A cold shiver runs up Kara’s spine at the mention of the dreaded place. “And yet, there was still something I was doing wrong” Kara says dejectedly. Lena straightens in her seat, and Kara was put off at the glint that appeared in the woman’s eyes. “Actually, there might be a way to stop Nyxly without you needing to pass the test” Lena states airily. Kara peaks with interest, resting her chin on her hand.

What.

Lena’s a witch? She’s kidding. She has to be kidding.

Kara blanches in shock, before internally laughing at herself. Of course she is, at this point what skill doesn’t Lena have? The scientist however appears troubled with the information, and Kara then remembers Lena’s issue with magic.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it yet.” Lena states with strain in her voice, and Kara went immediately from wonder for this amazing woman, to protective. Kara nods sagely, and lets Lena continue.

“I feel that I owe it to everyone to learn as much as I can, and I thought I could start with seeing if I can untether you from Nyxly.”

Kara looks down as she remembers the flashes of blood, her hand gripping a knife, to a panicked father’s eyes as a rock makes its way to the pit of her stomach. She would love to lose this bond, to get rid of the pain and never think about it again. However, she knows she can’t, she owes it to the world to use every resource at her disposal to put a stop to Nyxly, no matter the pain she feels. She looks up to Lena’s hopeful eyes and lowers her hand to rest on top of a paler one, and her chest fills with warmness. “I will take all of your help with magic, but I think I want to stay connected with her.” She feels Lena’s argument before she hears it, and continues. “It could be an asset, if I’m able to feel what Nyxly feels maybe I can figure out what she’s planning” Lena’s eyes fill with concern and pain. “But it could be painful and dangerous” She laments. Kara feels her chest flutter at Lena’s concern, however, regrets the stress she causes her. She wants to soothe the worry lines that form on Lena’s forehead, she wants to pull her close and kiss her brow and reassure her that she will be okay, that she will always be fine, even when she isn’t. She settles for looking down at their hands still linked together, “Nyxly is not like any villain we have ever faced, and if it gives us an advantage then I am willing to take that risk” Kara says with conviction in her voice, her Supergirl voice. She looks back up to Lena’s soft eyes, and see’s a mix of concern and adoration. Control yourself, she says to her own elevated heartbeat, and the flush of warmth that spreads from her chest to her core. Rao, I hope I’m not flushing, is she noticing anything? She can’t stop staring into Lena’s eyes, and her gaze lowers to her lips when she realizes that Lena is speaking, and she should probably be listening.

“I don’t know what that gauntlet was about, because you are the epitome of courageous” Lena says with reverence, and

oh,

she’s pretty sure her whole body is on fire now, and she can’t maintain eye contact anymore, looking down as an uncontrollable smile graces her features, with flushed cheeks. However, before she can compose herself, a sudden pain enters her temples, and she feels it. Anger, unfiltered anger. Her head is throbbing in pain as she grits her teeth. She can barely hear Lena’s voice over the ringing. “Kara? Kara are you alright? Is it happening again?” She musters enough conviction to respond, “She’s angry, Nyxly’s angry” Kara grits out before another shooting pain enters her temple. Kara whimpers, and hunches over. Lena takes both of their plates and sets them on the coffee table, before Kara feels hands on her shoulder, gently forcing her to lay down. She expects to feel her head hit the firmness of the couch’s armrest; however, she feels herself laying on something softer. She manages to open her eyes blearily and see’s that she is looking up at Lena. Her eyes gently tracing Kara’s features. I’m laying on her lap, Kara realizes, my head is in her lap. Kara then realizes that if she wasn’t in intense pain right now, she would be freaking the heck out. Before she could say anything else the pain intensifies, and she turns, burying her face in the Luthor’s stomach, as she lets out another whimper, the soft scent of jasmine quietly invading her senses. She feels fingers gently scratch at her scalp, and goosebumps run down her body as she lets out a choked moan. The fingers pause for a second, before they continue, not giving Kara the time to overthink it. The fingers run from her scalp to the soft baby hairs at the nape of her neck, gently scratching, and all thoughts die in Kara’s head. She feels boneless, and it’s getting harder and harder to stay awake. Lena must have sensed that she was trying to stay awake, because she pushes blonde hair away from her face, before she’s leaning down to whisper in her ear. “It’s okay Kara, let go, I’m here”, before she feels a soft pair of lips press down on her brow. Kara doesn’t remember any of the pain at this point, she feels her energy seeping out of her body, and surrenders herself to the woman lulling her to unconsciousness. She purrs when she feels her nails scratch gently at her nape as a reward. With one last sigh of relief, Kara is asleep. Dreaming of red lipstick and warm sea foam eyes.

Somewhere on a spaceship, Nyxly is wondering why she feels gay all the sudden.

[lady-sphinx]

Few things are less understood than the hieros gamos – the “sacred marriage”.

Considered to be the “Holy Grail” of sexual rituals, is it within reach of comprehension and explanation?

One of the most intriguing, nebulous and controversial topics of history and magic is the “hieros gamos”, “the sacred marriage”. Believed to incorporate both sex and ritual, it should not come as a surprise that throughout history, it has attracted many – and often, those who should truly well stay clear of it.

Its fame has meant that the theme was used by Dan Brown in “The Da Vinci Code”, where he described it as how “man could achieve a climactic instant when his mind went totally blank and he could see God”. Brown is not the only one who has linked the experience with tantrism and the withholding of orgasm. He is, of course, also the man who considered Mary Magdalene’s vulva to be the Holy Grail. The quest to define the hieros gamos foremost is one of answering the question who and when it was performed. Some – including Dan Brown – link it to temple prostitution, while others see it as the king of the country who marries “the land” – in the form of a high priestess – to rejuvenate it.

For the Greeks, it was more abstract. They considered it a marriage between the gods and hence apparently outside of the reach of ordinary human beings.

It was only in the Jewish and medieval tradition that the hieros gamos became linked with magic and ritual and it is therefore here that we find the current obsession with it. As such, in 1605, Cesare della Riviera wrote that “in Europe, the tracks of these ancient rituals pass through the Gnostic schools, the alchemical and cabalistic currents of the Middle Ages and Renaissance – where numerous alchemical texts can be read on two levels.”

What is the hieros gamos?

At its core, the sacred marriage is more of a sacrament than a ritual. It is a marriage between husband and wife, but is of a sacred nature: it is a marriage blessed by the gods, with active participation of those deities, present in the act of lovemaking between the two humans. Focusing on the king having sexual intercourse with the high priestess is thus largely a misnomer, as the king was equally a high priest, and the queen… a high priestess.

In the 20th century, Carl Gustav Jung studied the hieros gamos through the Rosarium Philosophorum, a series of twenty woodcuts, printed in Frankfurt in 1550. The images have a clear sexual and royal nature: a king and queen are depicted with the sun and the moon, sharing a bed, performing sexual acts, as a result of which they become one, and are transformed.

And it is with these woodcuts that we come to the core of the hieros gamos: indeed, the primary purpose of the sacred marriage is that two equals, twin souls, a husband and wife, reunite through the hieros gamos. In short: the hieros gamos, or sacred marriage, was not a marriage of just any human beings, but of twin souls.

They – like so many other religions – believed that each human being possessed a soul. That soul was half of one unit, which consisted out of one male and one female half. This meant that for every human being alive, there was a perfect twin soul. The quest in this lifetime was to find that twin soul, and be reunited with it. This was the truest of loves; the greatest quest. If not the Great Work of Alchemy.

The alchemist Nicolas Flamel stated that he was only able to accomplish the Great Work while in the presence of his wife Perenelle, but it was equally accepted that the majority of marriages here on earth, was not between twin souls. Once the twin souls had found themselves, apart from understanding the true depths of love and kinship they shared throughout their many lifetimes together, the hieros gamos would be completed at some point.

What was it? It was seen as God personally “attending” a sexual activity, in which the human beings – male and female – each get “infused” by the divine essence of the male and female component of God.

The best-known historical example of such a sacred marriage is between King Solomon and Queen Sheba. The story relates how the Queen of Sheba travelled from her homeland to meet Solomon, to perform the hieros gamos with him.

This story is discussed by Kathleen McGowan in her fact-based novel “Book of Love”. She relates that ancient traditions stipulate God had both a male and female aspect: El and Asherah. Tradition relates that they desired “to experience their great and divine love in a physical form and to share such blessedness with the children they would create. Each soul who was formed was perfectly matched, given a twin made from the same essence. […] Thus the hieros-gamos was created, the sacred marriage of trust and consciousness that unites the beloveds into one flesh.”   

Echoes of the sacred marriage can be found in the Song of Songs, directly linked with Solomon and describing love making. The title highlights it was the holiest of all songs, underlining its importance. Margaret Starbird has pointed out that there are strong parallels between the Song of Songs and poems to the Egyptian goddess Isis. Of course, both Solomon and Sheba and Isis and Osiris were twin souls, and hence able to experience the hieros gamos.

The Song of Songs became very important for the Kabbalists, specifically following the Book of the Zohar, which saw the Song of Songs as a prime example of the hieros gamos. It is in the Zoharic Kabbalah that God is represented by a system of ten spheres, each symbolizing a different aspect of God, who is perceived as both male and female. The Shekina was identified with Malchut, which was identified with the woman in the Song of Songs. Her beloved was identified with Yesod, which represents God’s foundation and the phallus or male essence.

Within the Jewish religion, Malchut and Yesod are El, the fatherly creator god, and his consort, Asherah. He was identified with the bull and She with the mother goddess. Indeed, women who have experienced the hieros gamos note that they have experienced this mother goddess energy, some even mentally visiting some of her sanctuaries during the experience. The imagery also reveals how long our ancestors have been familiar with this sacred marriage: the link between the bull and the earth goddess is visible on the walls of Catal Huyuk, built in the 8th millennium BC.

The hieros gamos should therefore be more appropriately labelled the reunion of twin souls, while incarnate in the body, through sexual activity, involving the active participation of the male and female aspect of God: “What God has put together, let no man separate.”

Those who have experienced such union find it largely impossible to describe – “beyond words”. They are, however, capable of breaking down the experience in some components. The man will become one with El, while the female melts with Asherah, the “Queen of Heaven”. During this union, it is entirely possible that Asherah or El is more prominent in one partner than in the other.

During these encounters, the sexual activity exceeds – and is different from – a normal orgasm; it is normally more intense, prolonged and multiple, whereby the orgasm itself is more energetic, rather than physical. However, the presence of this divine energy should not be seen as a form of possession; normally, the human sexual energy is equally present, and the sexual experience is a balance and interplay between both energies. To put it crudely: the hieros gamos is a foursome: two human beings, and El and Asherah operating with and through them.

Where does this leave the reputation of the hieros gamos as a form of temple prostitution? Asherah has been linked with the Mesopotamian Ishtar, whose cult did involve sacred prostitutes. However, should we perhaps see in these women initiatrices: women who prepared and taught certain methodologies as to how sacred sexuality should be experienced between partners, so that their union could lead to a sacred marriage?

Interestingly, the world’s oldest poem, “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, relates how when Gilgamesh discovers the wild man Enkidu, he sends him to Shamhat, a priestess of Ishtar. She was instructed to teach Enkidu how to live as a cultural human being, suggesting that our ancestors identified culture specifically with how to make love properly – the hieros gamos way.

These examples, and the example of Solomon and Sheba, make it clear that the quest of the hieros gamos is not open to anyone: it is only the bailiwick of twin souls. It is why Flamel noted that it was only possible to be performed with Perenelle, clearly not only his wife, but also his twin soul.

It is also not so much ritual, but total union of body, mind and spirit: the two parts of one soul become united in the body, thus accomplishing in the body what they were at the beginning of time: a unity. The Great Work. And this union was “blessed” by the sacrament of the hieros gamos, in which God themselves, present at the separation of these souls at the beginning of time, reunited and blessed the two lovers.

So even though tantric yoga as such has nothing to do with it, tantrism does know about this state of perfect union and has labelled it Samadhi. It is the state where the respective individualities of each of the participants are completely dissolved in the unity of cosmic consciousness – the two units are reunited. For tantrics, the deities are not El and Asherah, but Shakti and Shiva.

Because it is “restricted” to twin souls, the hieros gamos might not hold the sexual and ritual appeal that many would like to give it. But it is nevertheless the most important sacrament of all, as it was the completion of the quest of the soul in life: to find his twin soul and reunite, and within this love, continue their life, combined.

People who have experienced the hieros gamos agree that this is a unique experience. One person stated that during the hieros gamos, both partners experienced total orgasm, though this was without any physical activity – through a physical connection, the other partner experienced perfectly the sexual stimulation the other person was sending in the mind – in short, the partners were both not only reading the other person’s mind, but interacted within that mind – as one unity of cosmic consciousness. Another person described it as “utter bliss” or what “heaven” must have felt like.

The feeling of “heaven on earth” may indeed be what the hieros gamos was all about: the twin souls in heaven, experiencing their divine union on earth.

As above, so below?

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #147: Gorgon

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making the one goddess of the three goddess alliance who actually had some skin in the game, Gorgon! This misbegotten monstrosity of a Medusa is made of a Undead Warlock for some scary surprises and the ability to make all her enemies into statues as well as a Rune Knight Fighter for a bit of help winning at basketball.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: Purrsonally I purrfurred Tamamo Cat, but ny’all can pick whichefur you want!

Race and Background

Sadly there aren’t any large player races, but we can still go Yuan Ti for all the goodies you get from there! As a snerson (snake person), you come equipped with Darkvision, Innate Spellcasting for Poison Spray and Animal Friendship (to snakes) at will. Starting at third level, you’ll also be able to use Suggestion once per long rest. All these spells use Charisma to cast. Finally, you get a defensive buff thanks to Magic Resistance and Poison Immunity. The former gives you advantage on saves against magic, while the latter makes you immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition.

Since you’re the only goddess in the alliance that believes in the destruction of humanity, we’ll call you the Goddess Alliance Cultist, but we’re messing with the background a bit, so instead you’ll get proficiency with Athletics and Religion.

Ability Scores

If you want monstrous Strength, you better be ready to invest a lot in it. As a walking apocalypse, you’re pretty scary-that’s Charisma. You can’t be a video game boss without plenty of Constitution either, so make that #3. Your strongest weapons are based on your eyesight, so make Wisdom next. Surprisingly enough Guda didn’t try to defeat the giant rampaging monster with a math quiz, so we’ll just have to assume your Intelligence is average. That means we’re dumping Dexterity. You are literally a giant target, it’s not that surprising. 

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: Fighters start off with a better hit die, plus you get proficiency with Strength and Constitution saves as well as Intimidation and Survival checks. Your Unarmed Fighting Style lets you punch people for 1d6 damage, or 1d8 if both your hands are empty. You’re not big on “weapons”, so that’s fine by you. You also get a Second Wind, letting you regrow some snake heads as a bonus action. I might be getting my myths mixed up.

2. Warlock 1: Quite a bit of your power is coming on loan from Tiamat, and she literally can’t die, making you an Undead warlock. This gives you Pact Magic, spells you cast with Charisma that recharge on short rests. You also gain a Form of Dread, transforming a little bit into Tiamat for 1 minute. While transformed, you gain temporary HP, can force a wisdom save (DC 8+proficiency+charisma mod) to frighten a creature you attack once per turn, and you become immune to being frightened yourself. You can transform proficiency times per long rest.

Going back to spells, you get a lot of them thanks to your background. For cantrips, you get Fire Bolt and Vicious Mockery, and for first level spells you get Burning Hands, Dissonant Whispers, and Hellish Rebuke. There’s a lot of fire in there, but we can reflavor it in a couple of levels, don’t worry. 

As far as spells we can choose, you get Blade Ward to make up for the 9 AC you’re rocking by gaining resistance on most physical attacks, Eldritch Blast to shoot snake hair at your foes, Armor of Agathys to make attacking you a losing proposition thanks to your temporary HP and counterattack, and Arms of Hadar for more snakes, turning the area within 10′ of you into a snake pit.

3. Warlock 2: Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations, letting you customize your eternal servitude how you see fit. We’re swapping one next level, but use the other to get Armor of Shadows, boosting your 9 AC to an amazing 12 AC! Wow!

You also learn the spell Hex, cursing someone to deal 1d6 extra necrotic damage and giving disadvantage on one kind of ability check.

4. Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge, letting you slap an extra action onto your turn once per short rest. Raid bosses can cheat the action economy a bit, everyone knows that.

5. Warlock 3: Gorgon did give us a bit of trouble when it came to their pact boon- she doesn’t use weapons, doesn’t rely on familiars, and she’s definitely not a bookwyrm. By process of elimination, you’ve earned the Pact of the Talisman, giving you a trinket that can add 1d4 to a failed ability check proficiency times per long rest.

That alone isn’t particularly scary, but the invocation Rebuke of the Talisman lets you deal a bit of psychic damage and push an attacking creature away from you as a reaction.

You also get the prerequisite flood of second level spells- from your background, you get Crown of Madness, Enthrall, and Flaming Sphere. Honestly I think Enthrall works for you- it’s not like there’s something out there that’s more distracting than you, right?

You also learn Hold Person for baby’s first petrification.

6. Warlock 4: If your AC’s really going to be that bad, we should at least use this Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Constitution for better HP. You also learn Infestation to summon your first Demonic Beasts (they’re just small) and Earthbind to stone up flying creatures enough to force them to land.

7. Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks get another invocation and third level spells! From your background you get Fear and Haste, both of which are actually in character for you! You also learn to Summon Lesser Demons for some small-fry demonic beasts. Just remember you don’t actually count as a demon yourself in D&D, so they will happily kill you as soon as anyone else.

You also get the invocation Cloak of Flies, giving you a poisonous 5′ aura that you can invoke as a bonus action once per short rest. The aura gives you advantage on intimidation checks, but disadvantage on all other checks, and deals damage to anything within it equal to your charisma modifier. Just be glad Guda didn’t summon your other sisters.

8. Warlock 6: Sixth level undeadlocks are Grave Touched, meaning you no longer need to eat, drink or breathe- the full servant experience! You can also replace the damage of any attack with necrotic damage, and while your Form of Dread is up, you add an extra die of damage to the attack as well!

You also learn how to make a Spirit Shroud, dealing extra necrotic, cold, or radiant damage on all attacks you make within 10′ of yourself. You also slow down creatures that start their turn in the shroud.

9. Fighter 3: As a Rune Knight, you become a Rune Carver, letting you stick runes on weapons, armor, jewelry, or other small objects for small bonuses-you can also invoke them once per short rest for bigger bonuses. 

The Fire rune doubles your tool proficiencies, and you can also invoke the rune add extra fire (or necrotic) damage to the attack. If it fails a strength save (dc 8+proficiency+intelligence modifier) it becomes restrained, and takes extra fire damage each turn.

The Stone rune gives advantage on insight checks, and gives you extended darkvision. You can also use your reaction to charm creatures who end their turn near you, leaving them incapacitated if they fail a wisdom save.

More importantly, you also get Giant Might, using a bonus action to grow to Large size for a minute. While transformed, you have advantage on strength checks and save, and deal an extra d6 damage per weapon attack. You can transform proficiency times per long rest.

10. Warlock 7: Seventh level warlocks get fourth level spells. From your background: Confusion and Wall of Fire. Neither are great for us, but you also get Shadow of Moil, making attacking you an even worse idea thanks to a necrotic counterattack.

You also get the invocation Protection of the Talisman, letting you add a d4 to a failed save proficiency times per long rest.

11. Warlock 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Charisma for better spells, and to make it easier to control your new spell, Summon Greater Demon. For up to an hour, you can summon a demon of CR 5 or lower. If it continually fails a charisma save each turn, it will obey you. Otherwise it’ll run wild. Honestly? Both work for you.

12. Warlock 9: Fifth level spell time! You know what? Since we’re not making a Tiamat build, we might as well have some fun with the primordial sea while we still can. Dominate Person, Danse Macabre, and Minions of Chaos will help you raise a Ushiwakamaru Alter army in whatever flavor you prefer- living, undead, or elemental!

13. Warlock 10: Our last undead goody makes you a Mortal Husk, giving you resistance to necrotic damage (or immunity while using Form of Dread). On top of that, once per 1d4 long rests you can blow up your body when you hit 0 HP, dealing necrotic damage in the area and reviving yourself with 1 HP. It’s one hell of a guts skill, but it does give you some exhaustion.

We also continue our Ushiwakamarufication tour with Negative Energy Flood, a spell that deals tons of necrotic damage and turns a target into a zombie if it kills them. It can even heal your existing zombiwakamarus! 

14. Warlock 11: Your Mystic Arcanum gives you the option to cast Flesh to Stone once per long rest. If a targeted creature fails a constitution save three times, they become stone. If they succeed three times, they escape. If you keep concentration on the spell for the full minute while they’re petrified, it lasts until dispelled. 

15. Warlock 12: Our last warlock level is another ASI, which we’re putting into Constitution for better concentration checks and more HP. You also get the invocation Sculptor of Flesh, letting you cast Polymorph once per long rest. Have you ever wanted to actually be a giant snake? Now you can! (You can also do, like, a T. Rex, if you wanna powergame.)

16. Fighter 4: Another ASI already? Bump up your Strength for better punching. That’ll be relevant soon.

17. Fighter 5: It’s soon! This level gives you an Extra Attack each attack action, for two punches per action, or four in a turn with Action Surge.

18. Fighter 6: Use this ASI to bump up your Constitution for even more HP.

19. Fighter 7: Seventh level rune knights can use their Runic Shield to force a creature to re-roll their attack when they hit an ally. You can do this proficiency times per long rest. You also get the Hill rune, which has absolutely useless passives, but you can invoke it as a bonus action to get resistance to physical attacks for a minute.

20. Fighter 8: You thought we were gonna max out our constitution this level, right? WRONG! Grab that Tough feat for an extra 40 HP!

Pros:

Thanks to your Spirit Shroud being forcibly maxed out, you have terrifying short range damage options. With an action surge, your Form of Dread, and two eldritch blasts, you can deal 16d10+24d8 Necrotic damage in a single turn, and that’s not even including any critical hits! That gives you an average damage just shy of 200, and a possible maximum of 352. Plus rolling that many dice is probably really satisfying.

Adding to that, you have plenty of other reasons for enemies to avoid melee range- your counterattack game is wild. Armor of Agathys, Hellish Rebuke, Shadow of Moil, Cloak of Flies... getting too close to you really is dangerous.

For a mostly spellcaster build, you are incredibly thick. With over 200 hp and a couple different ways to give yourself protection from most attacks, it will take a lot of hits to topple this kaiju.

Cons: 

Speaking of a lot of hits, you’ll be taking those! Your AC is only 12, 14 at best if you’re hasted. Of course this problem could be solved with some heavy armor, but I doubt they make it in your size.

You also have a heavy focus on Necrotic damage, meaning that your options will become much more limited against undead, Aasimar, and demons.

Speaking of, you summon Demons. That’s kind of a deal breaker for a lot of adventuring parties. It’s not even like you could keep a low profile for plausible deniability, people are going to notice the big snake lady hanging around the demon attacks.

[tipsycad147]

Sleep Paralysis. Legends, Dangers and Magic

By The Alchemist

Sleep Paralysis sounds pretty modern as a term. However, it’s old as time. Nocturnal Witches, both ancient and modern, are quite familiar with both the term and the state itself. Priests and Priestesses of the Ancient Times, knew all about this pretty frightening state. What did they know back then? Do we know the whole truth? This article will try to shed some witchy light on this dark subject.

Sleep Paralysis and Nocturnal Witchcraft

The Nocturnal Witchcraft is full of surprises, dangers and opportunities. Although it’s not for everyone, the Craft of the Night is enticing and has so much to teach all of us. We’ve learned the Light is Good and Darkness is Bad. This mistaken belief is what tears us apart from the inside. You see, Darkness is as good as the Light. Both give us the balance we need. Don’t be mistaken. Darkness is essential. Do not mess Darkness with Evil. Don’t give in religious propaganda. Light can also be evil and deceiving.

Green Witchcraft II: Balancing Light & Shadow, by Llewellyn Publications, get it from Amazon here

In the Ancient times, priests of the God of Healing, Asclepius, used to initiate a sleep state for their worshippers in order to find the cure of their disease. Darkness was essential to find the cure. Moreover, priests of Hades, God of the underworld, went over a similar procedure in order to contact the Souls of the Dead and learn more. Darkness is equally sacred as the Light.

Sleep Paralysis in Witchcraft and the Old Religion

The first documented account of Sleep Paralysis is written on a Chinese book of Dreams in the 4th century b.C. Since then, ancient Greek and Roman doctors have written about this experience. Sleep paralysis was always linked with supernatural forces and entities from another Realm.

Sleep Paralysis ONLY occurs at Night.

This is quite interesting and it was noticed from the ancient times too. That’s where the word ‘nightmare’ comes from!

What Does ‘Nightmare’ means?

The world ‘nightmare’ which now just means bad dream, is actually a world for Sleep Paralysis. It comes from ‘night’ and the Scandinavian ‘mara‘, which is the female demon, a succubi, who loves to sit on a sleeping person’s chest, suffocating him or her. This creature is also known as ‘the Night Hag‘, ‘Old Mara‘ or ‘the Old Hag‘. It’s difficult not to notice the same word, ‘mara‘ is the sanskrit word to describe the Lord of Evil, similar to ‘Satan‘.

victim of sleep paralysis and astral demons

Astral Demons and Sleep Paralysis

All over the World, the same story goes on and on. In most cases a spirit sits on your chest trying to such your vital energy. Most of the times this is a female entity but in many cases it’s also a male or an animal entity. Due to Witchcraft, these entities might either be:

Astral Demons feasting on someone’s astral energy

Psychic / Astral vampires draining your vitality

Evil Witches attacking their victim causing a ‘psychic attack’, probably engaging in Witch Wars

An Evil Witch’s familiar attacking the witch’s victim causing a ‘psychic attack’, probably engaging in Witch Wars

Who is Old Mara. A Night Demon of misty Scandinavia

According to the Nordic belief, ‘Mara’ is a damned woman who is cursed to travel around at nights and sit on villagers’ chests, causing them nightmares while snuffing their vital energy. Hence, she is a succubus, a female astral demon of vampiric nature.

One of the oldest yet very famous artwork of sleep paralysis, is Henry Fuseli’s 1781 painting ‘The Nightmare’. This painting features probably all the infamous symptoms of sleep paralysis. In this painting we can clearly see a demon – ‘Mara’ – sitting on the chest of sleeping lady. What we can also see are several quite strange and otherworldly creatures sneaking in her bedroom.

The Astral Demon of the Night in Melanesia

Far far away from Norway, in Melanesian islands, sleep paralysis is interpreted as ‘kana tevoro‘ which literally means getting eaten by the demon. Again, this is a damned spirit who is somehow bound in the material plane becoming a hungry ghost to haunt the living relatives who keep grudge with.

According to their customs, this possession might get handy! Hence, people around should say ‘kania, kania‘ which means ‘eat, eat!‘ in an attempt to prolong the possession and have the chance to chat with the soul hence looking for answers in the matter of why he or she has returned.  Here’s when it get’s even creepier. The individual awakening from the experience is asked to pursue the soul of the dead relative. This confrontation is believed to be the only solution. There is actually a 2014 short movie about that story!

The Astral Demon around the Mediterranean Sea

In Greece, it is believed that sleep paralysis occurs when a demonic old lady named Mora (again remember sanskrit Mara, the devil), sits on the victims chest trying to steal it’s breath and energy. A little South from Greece, in Egypt, this spirit is believed to be the spirit of an evil African Queen (probably one who possessed magical powers like Bilqis – Queen of Sheeba ). In Turkish culture, sleep paralysis is often referred to as karabasan (“the dark presser/assailer”).

Nightmare (1800) after Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare (1781).

Night Witches, Witch Trials and Sleep Paralysis

Sleep paralysis was used as ‘evidence’ during the Witch Craze in Salem. In 1692 accused witch Susan Martin had told Robert Downer that “some She-Devil would shortly fetch him away”. About that night, Robert Downer said that “as he lay in his bed, there came in at the window, the likeness of a cat, which flew upon him, took fast hold of his throat, lay on him a considerable while, and almost killed him.”

According to these accounts, Evil Witches brought demons, who possessed these people causing them sleep paralysis.

What is Sleep Paralysis?

But first things first. Let’s give a definition. Sleep paralysis is the feeling similar to waking up, hence being conscious yet unable to move or speak from a few seconds up to a few minutes. Some people may also feel pressure on their chest, belly or a weird sense of choking. It occurs when a person passes between stages of sleep.

When does it Occur?

Most likely, Sleep paralysis occurs in the Nighttime. It usually happens during the Witching Hour, which makes things even more ‘magically’ complicated.

A Witch’s View on ‘Sleep Paralysis’

Sleep Paralysis is indeed a bewitching time. No matter how hard scientists try to explain what is happening, the stories speak for themselves. Yes it can be traced back to the transitions or REM and NREM sleep states, yet this does not excludes the magical phenomena which co-exist.

These hypnagogic states, were always useful in Witchcraft, as we have managed to isolate our senses, paralyzed our material bodies in order to have full access to our magical potential and astral energy. ‘Sleep Paralysis’ can be caused with Hypnosis as it’s such a powerful state of awareness. In fact, deep meditation tries to imitate this state.

As previously discussed in our article on Astral Projection “…the Truth though is that, Sleep Paralysis is only a step before Astral Projection. While in Sleep Paralysis, your body is totally relaxed but the Astral Body is activated. Thus your magical and psychic powers are on alert identifying entities and creatures around you of the same essence, the astral essence. Of course it comes natural to get scared by a negative entity therefore wake up and remember what you’ve experienced in the state of Sleep Paralysis.”

In other words, sleep paralysis is much more common. You are just more capable of remembering a scary experience rather than a relaxing one.

Conclusions:

YES, these scary creatures you see are real. They are actually astral demons and vampiric entities.  That’s why we have protection rites all over our magazine.

YES, these entities try to suck your energy either you’re sleeping or not.

NO, this is not what causes the paralysis. You are just transiting between sleep conditions. It’s a hypnagogic state EXTREMELY useful.

YES, thanks to your higher awareness due to sleep paralysis, you are able to recognize these creatures.

YES, you are safe! Especially when in sleep paralysis or while astral traveling you are more protected than usual because you are more aware of your spiritual self and you can conjure powers from your Guardian Angel.

Witchy Solution: In order to protect yourself from these entities, one needs to place a silver dime under his/her pillow. Silver is believed to keep vampiric demons away.

In conclusion Sleep Paralysis is safe and the doorway to the Astral Plane.

Have you Ever Experienced Sleep Paralysis?

https://www.magicalrecipesonline.com/2018/05/sleep-paralysis-legends-dangers-and-magic.html

[pokemon-ninjago-world]

Headcanon/Pokéninjago version of Lloyd’s identity crisis during season 5 of Ninjago

Got ab 12 likes on the announcement post so here we are: This is an essay-sorta-thing about something I thought and wrote some six years ago. It’s been so long since I wrote this I feel cringy reading it, but it’s tenable in Pokéninjago lore. It’s kind of a mix between my headcanon for the show, and canon of my AU, which is why there is mentions of “evolving” and Pokémon types.

Things to take into account:

Idk if there should be content warnings, but depression mention at least. Otherwise, this is pretty much as intense as season 5 went, just a little more angsty I suppose.

I must say that my version of Lloyd and his identity crisis were inspired by a certain artist’s version of him and by a comic they made about the Child’s Play episode’s aftermath. I don’t dare name the artist, since they don’t wish to be linked with the Ninjago fandom anymore, but some of you might know who I’m referring to. 

I do not know how psychology stuff actually works, all of this was made on grounds of a couple of high school psychology courses and a lot of imagination `:D

I wrote this originally in Finnish and let Word translate it, so this might be v clumsy at points.

Most of the text is under the cut!

                                                  ~***~

When Lloyd was just a small cub, closer to three years, his mother had left him in his father's care. Misako knew the boy would become the Green Ninja and Garmadon would become the Dark Lord. That is why she went looking for any ancient knowledge to avoid the final confrontation. Although her heart was torn since she had to leave her loved ones, she knew that she couldn’t just sit on her hands, and that perhaps she was the only one that could prevent the decisive battle between good and evil. It was also her wish that the father and the son could spend as much time together as possible. Thus, Lloyd's earliest childhood memories are about his father, and his recollections of his mother are blurry, obscure, and fading away as he grows up, or mixing with other memories.

            Dad meant everything to little Lloyd. Although they lived in the same monastery with Lloyd’s uncle as well, whom he also liked, his own father was still the greatest. Garmadon also loved his child deeply and wanted him to have a happy life. Although the poison in his veins was starting to get a hold of him and he was increasingly drawn to the Golden Weapons, his love for Lloyd and the desire to be with him in anticipation of Misako's return kept him away from them for much longer than if the boy had never existed.

                    When Lloyd "evolved," he lost some important years of his life, during which a youngster usually developes a picture of himself and his changing body. Lloyd's body changed in a single moment and even though his mind also changed to some degree, it was still mostly on the same level as before, since artificial aging did not bring him the years of experience that growing up normally would. From that moment on, he had to form himself a new image of himself. Frankly, he was facing a fierce identity crisis.

                     After the episode Child's Play, Lloyd adopted an identity whose foundation was flimsy and unstable. It consisted of a few simple pillars that supported his image of himself. Some emotions, thoughts, and memories that he could not, wasn’t able to or didn’t dare to deal with, secretly and slowly gnawed at those pillars like erosion. They grew into doubt that settled into the cracks like rockfoil.

                     That flimsy foundation for his self-image, consisted of these elements: I am the Green Ninja. I'm the strongest ninja of all. I’m the son of  sensei Garmadon. I’m the grandson of The First Spinjitzu Master. I'm one of the Elemental Masters. I'm a student of Sensei Wu. I'm one of the five elemental ninjas. It's my destiny to protect the world from evil.

                     This made it easy for Morro to destabilize and crush Lloyd’s self-esteem. Morro proved himself to be stronger and more independent than Lloyd, and that he could win him over and over again, no matter how hard Lloyd tried to fight back. Lloyd felt weak and desperate. Two pillars of his self-image collapsed to the ground and the masked emotions and doubts that chipped away at the other columns began to grow and intensify: He was not the strongest ninja and was therefore unable to protect the world from this evil.

                     This also affected his view of him as the Green Ninja. Although logically he still was just that – the Golden Weapons and his powers had proven it – he could not help but think that maybe Morro really was supposed to be the Chosen One. His identity was cracking, which ate away at his strength and self-esteem. Being a Psychic Type, his greatest strength resided in his psyche, and whenever his mind was in an unstable and vulnerable state, he couldn’t do his best, even if he had used everything he had learned. Losing his father fairly recently had already struck a dangerous notch in his mental stability.

                     Even though Lloyd was still his father's son, it didn't feel the same when he was no longer with him. Finally, he was only driven forward by his relationship with his other loved ones. He had to do everything he could to stop Morro from harming his friends. By protecting them he was also protecting the last intact remnants of his Self.

                     Lloyd did everything he could to resist Morro's possession. From time to time a memory of his friends and the will to keep them safe increased his "self-control," weakening the ghost's hold on him. However, a long, grueling time in constant motion, without water and nourishment, poisoned by a cold, vindictive spirit, steadily filled his mind with anguish and despair. Doubts penetrated deep into the tears of his self-image, breaking everything old until he no longer knew who he was. Only with the last bits of his mental strength could he interfere with Morro's possession so that he failed to clear the other ninjas out of his way.

                     Then, when Morro broke away from Lloyd's body, the Espeon felt like nothing more than an empty, broken shell floating aimlessly in the dark, beachless sea. He was unable to live up to any of the expectations and goals that had been set for him. Now, he was used as a trade-in item in the market of the world’s destiny. He longer had the strength or power to save even his best friends. He was as helpless as a newborn pup and all he could do was to stand by and apologize when he was traded for Realm Crystal.

                      Somewhere from his past, he dug up one last spark of strength. Already as a child, he had been left alone with unfriendly people, who then had ignited that stubborn flame in him: the desire to fight the cruel, unjust and repressive world. His body still had more strength than his mind, and this momentary burst of grit made him kick the Crystal out of Morro's hand. This, however, caused him to end up in the freezing stream, all his energy used up. There was not much left but a primitive desire to survive and a little strength to keep his head afloat before the cold numbed his muscles.

                     Lloyd's mind was in shambles. Images, memories, shattered fragments of his adopted identity… they all churned in his tired, blurred consciousness. Unintentionally, he began to go through the feelings of uncertainty, fear and inadequacy that he had denied from himself for years. The present seemed more surreal than the memories. He relived moments that had had a revolutionary impact on his life: When the golden weapons pointed him out as a Green Ninja; when he grew up under the influence of Tomorrow's Tea; when he met his mother and became to know her; when he unleashed the Golden Dragon in the Temple of Light; how he fought the Overlord who was possessing his father; how he harnessed his True Potential; got his father back; lost Zane; reunited his friends again and felt great togetherness with the other Elemental Masters. When he lost his father again. And when Morro possessed him.

                     Lloyd was lost. If it wasn’t for his friends and their care, he would have sunk deep into depression (and, on the other hand, drowned or, at the very least, died of hypothermia). When Kai carried him out of the FSM’s tomb, it triggered a very clear memory of the day when the Master of Fire had fulfilled his potential and Lloyd had been identified as the Chosen One. That day, Kai had come to save him from an erupting volcano and carried him to safety. Now, Lloyd felt like he was that little scared cub again, who had for a moment thought he was going to burn to the ground in the boiling lava of the volcano. He remembered how Kai's closeness had brought a feeling of immediate security around him. Even though the mountain had raged and wanted to kill them both, Lloyd had known he didn’t have to be afraid. Kai was there. He'd protect Lloyd. There was no reason to fight the fear anymore, he didn't have to pretend like he was tough. He was carried by someone older and stronger, whom to rely on.

                     The feeling was so intense, the memory so vivid that Lloyd was overwhelmed by an inexplicable, immense grief. The sadness of being forced to give up a carefree childhood so early on, to take on an enormous responsibility and assume a role that seemed too demanding for such a small boy to perform. He had had to grow up way too soon. He started shaking from holding back the tears. He didn’t mind since he thought Kai was probably assuming that he was shivering from the cold. But when Kai said quietly and understandingly: "Shh... It's okay... Don't worry about it," the last wall of pride and fear fell, and Lloyd could no longer repress his weeping.

                     At this point, he slowly began to build a new identity on the ruins of the wrecked one. He understood that even though he was the Green Ninja, it didn’t make him greater or more important than the others. He had more magical power than anyone else, but he was still only a person just like them. He could hesitate, too, and fail. There was no way for him to do anything more than what he was capable of, mentally, physically, and skill-wise. That’s all there was to offer, and if it wasn't enough, there were others whom he could rely on. Others, who would catch him when he ran out of strength. He wasn't the last link to hold the whole structure together.

                     These ideas developed slowly in Lloyd's exhausted mind. Slowly, he got stitched back up from the fragments of his previous self-image. This time, however, his new identity was not something that was given to him from the outside, in which he would have had to fit himself, but it was a solid, authentic self-image created as a result of self-reflection. It was still obscure, uncertain and seeking its form, and its growth was overshadowed by fear. But the conversation with his father drove away that last fear. The fear that Morro was supposed to be the Green Ninja instead of Lloyd. His father assured that Lloyd’s qi had no influence on how he should live and act. He should live the way his heart told him to.

                     In the end, although Morro managed to beat Lloyd one last time, this time he did not break down. He was more intact now, he had more inner strength, and he knew for sure he wouldn't be abandoned. That the fate of the world wasn't really up to him. He may have been part of the story, but after all, he wasn't the protagonist, at least not the only one of them.

[thewonkywitchescauldron]

Candles, Candles and More Candles

Candles have been used in the craft for centuries and to this day candle magick is one of the simplest forms of spellcasting, it doesn’t require a lot of fancy ritual or ceremonial tools so

it's perfect for beginners or for a quick spell when you don't have the time or space to do a whole ritual.  Us witch's LOVE a candle or two....or three.....or four. We tend to have a candle for every occasion and all sorts of sizes, shapes & colours too.

We use candles for practically every spell we perform in some way or another, whether it's part of the spell or just as a focal point in your space.

 Anyone with a candle can cast a spell. Think about birthday cakes, you always have candles on the cake which you then blow out and make a wish. That would have been your first candle magick spell as a child without anyone even knowing it. We still do it now and no-one even thinks of this as a spell, but that’s such a simple form of candle magick, yet many religions or even just people still have the conception that witchcraft is devil worship, dark and malevolent. Witches don’t believe in the devil and most of us don’t throw curses and hexes around like you're led to believe, but my friends, if another practitioner is throwing something negative towards another witch there could be a war of the witches let me tell you. However most curses and hexes don’t even come to fruition as witches tend to have a defensive in place just to be safe.

But back to the topic of candles….within witchcraft candles don’t even have to be special shape, size or colour, but these elements can add to your intention to give your spell some extra strength and power. With candle magick even the size doesn’t really matter unless you want one that burns for a particular amount of time for a particular spell. Really big candles may actually be counterproductive. For instance, a candle that takes three days to burn can be highly distracting to someone working a spell that depends on the candle burning all the way down for quick spells rather than long drawn out ones (which of course do have their purpose). Small birthday candles can also be used especially when out and about so if you want to make a travel altar, these are the candles that are amazing to have and they come in a variety of colours and shapes.

  Typically, a short taper candle or a tealight candle will work best. In some cases, a spell might call for a specific type of candle, such as a seven-day candle or a figure candle to represent a particular person - a form of sympathetic magic. But if you haven’t got a particular colour, size etc then a simple white unscented tealight will do.

One of my favourite candles to use is the ‘Pull-Out’ candle, these are great because you have a large surface to scribe onto the candle, dress with oils, glitter, herbs etc. they really do look good when you go to town on them and they are in a safe container which when the candle has finished burning you can reuse. The burn for a long time and you can make the candle spell last for as long as needed from several hours to days.

  An important thing to remember is you should always use a brand new candle for each spell you cast if it is part of the spell or ritual and not candles that you burned at, say, the dinner table or in the bathroom the day before. A candle picks up vibrations from the items around it once it starts to burn. If a used candle is already tainted by vibrations it will lead to a negative or ineffective magickal outcome. So always start fresh.

Now let’s talk about Elemental Energy within Candles as they are often only seen as the Fire Element but thinking about it as a symbolic object, the candle is a well-balanced representation of all the Elements.  The wick and the base of the candle represent the Earth Element, which is necessary to keep the flame both grounded and able to stay lit.  The wax, which transforms from a solid to a liquid and then to a gas, represents the shape-shifting characteristics of the Water Element.  The Air Element, in the form of oxygen, is necessary to keep the flame alive, and is often made visible in the smoke emanating from a burning wick.  The flame itself, of course, quite literally represents the Fire Element. Add the Element of Spirit, by charging the candle with your intention, and you have a magical tool that embodies the totality of the Universe in one small package.  So as a whole candles play a massive part in the craft when you actually think about it. All the elements rolled into one, literally multi purpose for any spellwork you want to perform.

- Colour within Candle Magick - Many witches like to use colour to symbolise their magickal intent during spellwork. Colour is especially utilised in candle magick. You can use colour correspondences to help choose the colors of your candles, altar decorations and more when planning a spell or ritual. Colours can also be used in home decor and clothing choices to bring their energies into your everyday life.

Red - Passion, courage, strength, intense emotions , love, physical energy, health, willpower. Pink - Affection, friendship, companionship, spiritual healing, romance, spiritual awakening, partnerships. Orange - Energy, attraction, vitality, stimulation, adaptability, encouragement, power, road opening. Yellow - Intellect, inspiration, imagination, knowledge, communication, confidence, divination, study. Green - Abundance, growth, wealth, renewal, balance, prosperity, employment, fertility, health, good luck. Blue - Peace, truth, wisdom, protection, patience, healing, psychic ability, harmony in the home, understanding. Purple - Spirituality, wisdom, devotion, peace, idealism, divination, enhancing nurturing qualities,  balancing sensitivity. White - All Purposes, Peace, innocence, illumination, purity, cleansing, clarity, establishing order, spiritual growth, understanding. Black - Dignity, force, stability, protection, banishing and releasing negative energies, transformation, enlightenment. Silver - Wisdom, psychic ability, intelligence, memory, spiritual development, psychic development, meditation, warding off negativity. Gold - Inner strength, self-realization, understanding, intuition, success, health, ambition, finances, good fortune, divination. Brown - Endurance, solidity, grounding, strength, balance, concentration, material gain, home, companion animals. Grey - Stability, contemplation, neutrality, reserve, complex decisions, binding negative influences, reaching compromise.

In addition to choosing the colour of your candle, you can enhance your spellwork in a number of ways. Dressing the candle with a magickally charged oil is a long-standing tradition, and it adds the benefit of magickal scent to the equation. Many practitioners like to follow this up by rolling the dressed candle in corresponding herbs to add even more magickal power.

If using tealight candles you can also add the oils and herbs on top of the candle or melt the candle wax on a hotplate then add the herbs and oils into the wax, then let it cool again ready for your spellwork.

Beeswax candles are one of my firm favourites and if you roll them yourself you can add the oils and herbs sparingly into the candle as you roll. This gives the candle an extra special touch. Or of course if you’re buying a pre-rolled one you can add the oil and herbs to the outside.  *Be Careful* When burning candles with flammable oils and herbs this can make the candle burn quickly and more intense so please be careful and keep the candle away from flammable objects and have a holder for the candle that can take the heat if need be.

Candle talk can go on for so long when you get into them and if you're anything like me I use all sorts of colours, shapes and scents on a daily basis from subdued lighting to casting spells. A witch needs her candles, better yet, she won't be without them.

Stay Magickal & Blessed Be WillowMoon The Wonky Witch

[happikattwuzheere]

was gonna try and do multiple characters in one post but nope! i have too much to say. also the pictures are all different sizes so its rly hard to get the photoset to look appealing, so we’re starting w/ blue. and also a colored pic of what adam looks like when he’s not a deer. boy’s tryin not to stand out. which goes great up for him right up until it doesn’t. lmao. i’ll talk a bit about him too w/ stuff that didnt get mentioned in the starter post about him and gansey, but this is mostly gonna be about blue. 

SO. 

there’s this fey entity, right? i don’t have a name for them, but they’re not...they didnt START the fey/human conflict, but they are benefiting from it, politically speaking? and when maura was younger, despite other witches being like “girl dont choose sides, we’re witches, we guard boundaries but we don’t choose sides,” was hotheaded and brash and went “ok but fuck that though” and one thing led to another and she ended up getting a curse on her firstborn. Oops. that’s where the kissing curse comes from, here; i’ll get into that much later in a text post probably but gansey’s survivor’s guilt thing doesnt come from him actually dying in this au it’s from something Else, but blue will still kill him if she kisses him, just, for different reasons, it’s an actual curse this time and not something to do with the nature of who they both are. 

her father’s still a tree light, but like, she actually knows that from the outset? because. they live in cabeswater. the tree lights are all around and accept her as one of their own even if she can’t turn into a tree, and as a result of that, she’s got some cool perks. 

a) extremely resistant and/or outright immune to a Lot of fey bullshit 

b) still boosts psychic energies and magical powers like in canon

c) the absolute safest person to be traveling in cabeswater ever, because the forest itself loves her, and also if you mess with her within the borders of cabeswater a bunch of tree lights will physically manifest and be like “hey buddy wanna think twice about that”

but she can’t use magic herself, still, which actually works in the favor of herself and the coven--witchcraft is in a sort of weird spot, culturally, where it’s both feared and often hated, but also understood to at times be necessary, especially by rural peoples like those of the village. im taking a very discworld spin on the witchcraft, because i love discworld and you can’t stop me, and so the attitude is, like. its frightening ancient magic and the church hates it but when there’s an emergency and someone’s on the border between life and death, or something is trying to pass into this world from another, etc etc etc, then you gotta suck it up and call on a witch because they’re the only ones who can deal with those things. so. the coven is tolerated, both because it’s too big and powerful to actually fight but also because it’s extremely needed when you live in a village right next door to fey lands. you NEED someone watching the border. however that doesn’t mean anyone wants to be seen publicly talking to a witch--but blue’s not a witch. she’s a witch’s daughter, but she’s not a witch herself, which is a step removed enough that she can go into town and run errands and also people will maybe pull her discretely aside and tell her if something’s coming up that the coven should know about, and it all works very neatly with her acting as a sort of liaison. very important role she plays, which is why gansey tries talking to her after his initial attempt to speak with the coven directly fails. 

speaking of the coven itself: i’ve been calling it the fox way coven, even tho it probably wouldn’t be called that because there’s no road called fox way that the coven is built on, it’s a big magic house out in the fairy forest, BUT they do have a fox theme because i love foxes and this is a gift i have been given. if people have familiars in this coven, they’re foxes rather than cats, because as wonderful as cats are u cant have them and foxes in the same house that will go bad. but also there’s a v small number of them, like maybe three or four total out of the much higher number of women living there, who are fey blooded like adam, but who become foxes rather than adam’s deer. persephone is one of these! (it’s worth noting the reason why they become the same animal is because of a combination of coincidence, intentional theming, and mostly just because like, virtually all of the residents there aside from persephone are related to either maura or calla) 

anyway the point is, because of this, blue’d seen enough feyblood transformations that when, one day when she was 9 or 10, on a visit to town, she saw the most distressed, disoriented fawn wobbling around frantically and was able to very quickly recognize that that was, in fact, a person who had probably turned into a deer for the first time, and responded by very calmly informing him that she knew who could help and leading him home. this is where those last two pictures come from, and how adam’s apprenticeship started. 

like, there was a lot of arguing from the witches immediately--of course we’re going to teach him how to become human again but we aren’t really going to take him on in the coven are we? he’s a boy, he’s some local kid we know nothing about, what happened to keeping it in the family, he’s the wrong animal and we’ve got a whole thing going on--at which point persephone parted everyone like the red sea, took one look at adam, went “mine now” and despite a lot of grumbling that was the end of it. she took him on a bit of a tour of cabeswater a few days later, after he’d had time to think it over, and he felt so drawn to the forest that he agreed to the apprenticeship.

so he’s technically persephone’s apprentice but like in actual practice he’s being taught by the entire coven lmao, ANYWAY

adam being adam also had a backup plan for trying to get out of the village--even at ten he figured witchcraft might be a first way out of there, he was already thinking about it, but by thirteen when the good ole abuse started (and at which point the last whispers of dissent died out very quickly amongst the coven, nope, adam is one of us now, do you want us to very threateningly hang out in your front yard sometime because we can do that--what do you mean no, let us do this,) he was also like. i dont think this is a guarantee of getting out of here i need a second job. and the thing is, as was mentioned in the original post, the fey blood also means adam’s got issues with iron; it’ll poison him if he’s stabbed with it but it also reacts to his skin touching it like a hot stove. he’s fine if there’s a layer between his skin and the iron, but if he touches it directly, it’s Bad. so ofc this headstrong idiot takes an open spot a t a metalworker’s in the village because adam is the king of making bad decisions. the witches have a betting pool on how long it’ll take him to out himself. “its fine i’ll wear gloves,” he says. “it’s the perfect disguise no one will expect someone with fey connections to work near so much iron,” he says. “i have everything perfectly under control,” he says.

anyway he totally forgets to wear gloves before grabbing an iron tool while his dad and his boss are both in the store and in clear view of him and that’s why he was getting chased by hunters when gansey rescued him 

also he and blue tried dating when they were like 13-14 and it ended about as badly as in canon and they made up later and by the time the story starts they’ve settled into very much being weird siblings. adam starts hanging out with gansey initially to try and basically spy on him, figure out why he’s here, but ends up rly liking the guy and deciding his reasons are sincerely to try and help people, and he tells this to blue who starts immediately accusing him of having a crush on the lordling and being a class traitor, because she does NOT like gansey at this point and really the nobility all prefer wizards to witches which is a stupid idiot decision and frankly the fact that this lordling is apparently enamored by some random deer is hilarious to her, but even moreso is the fact that adam actually defends the lordling to her, like, “wow adam its hilarious that the lordling’s friend thinks that you have charmed the lordling because from my perspective it looks the other way around” “shut uuuup you’re not listening im serious, like, yeah ok he put his foot in his mouth really hard when he talked to you but im telling you i dont think the whole i-wanna-understand thing is an act” “idk if i can trust you through those rose tinted glasses buddy. tell me again about that time he called you princely?” “oh my god” 

this is turning into rambling but. thats the gist of the witches and blue esp thank u for coming if u made it this far here’s a bonus persephone fox 

[thorne93]

The Stars Made Us (Part 30)

Prompt: In this world, you’re one of the “lucky” ones who got a soulmate, but what if the universe gives you more than you bargained for?

(Prompt challenge – You live in a world where your soulmate can write on their skin and you will get the writing on your own and vice versa. Where they can wash away the ink on their own skin, however, the writing is forever scarred onto your skin until you meet face to face)

Word Count: 3007

Warnings: angst and language throughout, fear, violence

Notes: This was supposed to be for @sorryimacrapwriter​​​​​  and their challenge like a year ago, I think? I still loved the prompt though and have been working on this story for quite some time. This aesthetic was made by @dontshootmespence​, thank you so much! Beta’d by @like-a-bag-of-potatoes​​​​, couldn’t have done it without you, as well as @carryonmyswansong​​​​​ and @arrow-guy​​​​​ and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​​​​​

Also, I’ve never really liked the whole soulmate AU thing idea, but this felt so right and it was amazing to write. I hope y’all love it too!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Charles found the closest parking he could and ran as fast as he could to the door of the sanctum. He tried to let himself in but it was locked. He pounded on the door.

"Strange! Open the door!" he ordered loudly, not caring who stared at him on the street. 

A moment later, the door wrenched open. 

"Hi, I'm sorry, do I know you?" Stephen asked.

"You Stephen Strange?" he asked.

"Depends on who's asking."

"I'm Charles Xavier. Heard of me?" he questioned.

"Charles? Yes. Why?" 

"Is Y/N here with you?" Charles asked as he pushed past him to go into the sanctum.

"What? Y/N? No, why?" he asked as he turned to face him, closing the door. 

"Then she's missing."

"Missing? Wait. What happened?" 

"I don't know. I got home from work and she wasn't there. Our house looks like we had a break in, but she's nowhere to be found." He ran his hand through his hair as he paced in thought, trying to think who might've taken you.

Stephen was silent, his eyes slowly casting down the ground, shifting left and right in thought. 

"And she didn't just leave?"

Charles frowned at Stephen as he stopped pacing. "I'm not 100% sure how she acted while she was with you, but she's never made a habit of wrecking my home and disappearing. Correct me if I'm wrong on that."

"No," Stephen muttered. "Quite the contrary. She leaves a place cleaner than it was when she walked in."

Charles nodded, biting his lip in thought, his hands on his hips. "You can say that again. Fuck! I don't know where the fuck she could be. I don't know who would've taken her. Maybe Erik but he's not the hostage type." 

"Erik?"

"Old colleague who hates me, but we haven't had contact for a few years," he dismissed.

As Charles paced, running his hand through his hair, he felt something on his wrist. He looked down and tore his sleeve back. 

It was your name and an address he didn’t recognize. 

“Shit,” he muttered. “Okay, we gotta go,” he said urgently, starting to make his way out the door. 

“No,” Stephen suddenly said from behind him, not moving a muscle. 

Charles turned around. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” he asked, clearly irate as he walked back towards him. 

“I said no,” Stephen responded, a little firmly. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said,” he responded, nodding before he cocked his arm back and threw a closed fist at Stephen’s jaw.

Stephen stumbled a bit from the blow.

"Jesus!" he cried out. "The hell is the matter with you?" 

"Me? She is your soulmate for Christ's sake! Whatever happened between you two is in the past. She is in trouble, we have no idea who took her or how many of them there are. She might be fighting for her life and you and I are arguing about going to save her!" 

"She isn't mine. This isn't my problem." 

Charles shook his head. "What? Because you can't have her all to yourself? Are you a child? She isn't a toy that you can play with when you want and cast aside when someone else wants her. You bloody asshole." He glared at him. "You broke her heart twice and you don't have the goddamn decency to save her life? Forget the fact that you used to be a fucking doctor. She's your soulmate. You can't bullshit me all you want but I know you love her." 

"Yeah well that doesn't change the fact that she chose you."

"She chose both of us, you bloody fucking idiot," Charles retorted. "You were just too consumed by your goddamn ego to see that. You had to have her all to yourself. It was either all or nothing." 

"What? Because I want monogamy  with my soulmate? Sue me."

"This isn't a normal situation, Strange! If you can't accept the fact that she loves both of us and she should be able to have both of us then you don't understand or respect her at all. I love her with all my heart, and I know she loves me back. She's proven it time and time again, it's why I didn't keep her chained to her and encouraged her to find you. She's destined for both of us but you're too shortsighted and selfish to see that." 

Stephen didn't respond.

Charles shook his head. "Jesus. Fuck this. I'm leaving. She needs help and I'm going, with or without you." 

Charles turned and made his way for the door. Muttering obscenities under his breath. He didn't have the time or the patience to convince him to come with him. You were out there somewhere, possibly hurt or worse and he didn't have the time to waste. 

"Wait," Stephen suddenly called out. "I'm coming with you." 

He stopped for a moment, letting Stephen catch up before they got out of the sanctum and into Charles's car, driving as quickly as they could to where you were. The GPS said it would take three hours to get there. 

This was going to be a long drive. 

Stephen and Charles drove on the interstate in a tense silence. Stephen didn't like the uncomfortable atmosphere so he decided to break the ice a bit. 

"So what's your plan?" he asked, a bit of condescending in his tone. 

"Plan? What plan? I came home to a ransacked house and the love of my life missing. Hank called the police and I came to find you. I don't have a plan other than to find her and make sure she's alright."

Stephen rolled his eyes. "Fantastic. Just go in guns blazing."

"Oh, I'm sorry, this is my first rescue mission. Sorry I don't have a plan. Let's hear all your bright ideas." 

"First of all, what can you do?" 

"As in...?" Charles prompted, annoyed.

He sighed. "As in powers. Can you do anything? I happen to be a Master of the Mystic Arts so we have that going for us."

"You're going to be Master of getting your ass kicked if you keep up the ego and the attitude," Charles muttered. 

Stephen stared at him, clearly angry. "I'm sorry, I thought you wanted to save her. I'm trying to be proactive here and get a strategy going. "

A sigh left him. "Fine. Yeah, okay. I'm a telepath. I'm supposing Y/N never told you."

Stephen shook his head. "No, she didn't. What does that mean?" 

"It means I can read minds, stop time, make myself or others invisible to others, I can put others to sleep, make others do things, take away memories, restore memories, cause pain and paralysis, and if push comes to shove, I can kill someone, it's called a mind bolt. I take all my psychic energy and shut down their brain."

For the first time, Stephen was actually scared of someone other than Kaecillius. Quite the feat, as he'd never truly known fear in his life, except for failure. 

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” Stephen asked, scoffing a bit. 

“I know you are,” Charles said with a smirk. 

This made Stephen uncomfortable. He didn’t think he could hear his thoughts like that, just, at a whim. 

“Oh, come now, I’m not going to kill you,” Charles responded with a smile as he glanced at Stephen. “Not while Y/N needs saved at least. I’ll use you for your powers and then I’ll kill you.” 

Stephen nodded. “Ha-ha, very funny.” 

“Speaking of which, what are your powers?” he asked curiously.

“Why don’t you just probe my mind and look?” he asked, a bit sarcastically. 

"Because I'm going to try very hard not to get into that mind of yours, even though I desperately want to. To find out why you're the worlds biggest ass." 

He gave a dismissive nod before perching his eyebrow up. "I'm not exactly sure how to describe it. I use magic and sorcery to conjure objects, weapons, and shield. I can create a mirror dimension which means I can go into a world that mirrors our own but nothing bad can happen to the outside world. Very useful for destructive fighting."

"So we may have a chance after all between the two of us."

"We should, but Y/N can handle her own."

"Yes, I know, which is why it bothers me she was taken. I think I saw gunshots in my walls. From what I gathered of her time with you at that temple she knows martial arts and the sorcery, and yet they still took her." 

"Can you not just use your mind to reach her? To figure out what's going on?"

"It doesn't work that way. I have to be relatively close to them. I do have a device that can project my powers but it's back at the house. Ultimately I don't think it'll help. Seeing where she's at or who she's with won't help too much." 

Stephen nodded in response. 

Several more minutes went by without a word from either one. 

"Can I just know why?" Charles asked. 

"Why what?" 

"Why you won't share her?"

"Is it really not obvious? I want all of her. I don't want her time divided between me, you, and work, and other social obligations. You and I both know that relationships are hard enough without adding another romantic interest in the mix. Seeing each other, making enough time for each other..." 

"Actually, I don't really know. I've never really dated anyone."

"Never?"

He smiled, a bit amused and proud. "Never. I had a girlfriend in highschool for a small bout, but I've never dated anyone outside of Y/N, not seriously."

"Interesting." 

"So you think that just because she can't devote 100% of her attention to you she'll somehow prove as an unworthy mate?" 

"No, I just don't want to have to fight for her attention and affection. That's all. Doesn't it bother you?"

"Does what bother me?" he asked, entirely confused.

"When she left to see me. When she was with me for six months at Kamar-Taj. I know you missed her because you two had a couple of fights about it. So it had to have bothered you."

"No, if she was away on a business trip it would've bothered me. It had nothing to do with you." 

"Why not?"

"Because she isn't property. She is free to love who she loves. She chooses to come back to me time and time again because we know we love each other equally, above all else. I trust her, and whether she loves you or not, or anyone else, doesn't change any of that." 

"I don't see how you're okay with this."

"I know it's unconventional, but whether she loved you, me, or someone else, she's going to go where her heart takes her. She always has. So, instead of standing in her way and making it difficult on her, I decided very easily to let her have both of us. If my options are to have her and share her, or not at all, I'm going to pick whatever option gives me her. I can't bear to be without her. I did it once and I never intend on letting it happen again." 

Stephen's eyes cast down for a second. "She is amazing. I'm not trying to make it appear as if I don't want her. In my mind it's not so much have part of her or none of her, I just don't see how it could all work with her running between the two of us and her work. I don't see how it's fair to any of us. If I'm having a shitty day but she's with you, then I don't have the right to pull her away." 

Charles pursed his lips. "I can see why you might think it's that way."

"Or if if we're lying in each other's arms, is she wishing she was with you? Or does she wish she was making you dinner instead of me?" 

He hummed in response. "All fair questions to have."

"Well, you can read her mind, what does she think?" 

"I never read her mind. Some things slip through the cracks that I can't help, but I never intentionally read her mind."

"Oh."

"But I don't have to have that ability to know that's not who she is. She was fated for both of us. She gives 100% to who she is with in the moment, and then, if time allows, she goes back to the other. I mean, you saw how she was with you. She tended to you night and day, but still managed to call me. The moment she didn't need you there constantly, she made more time for me. Now that we're both better from our ailments, I don't see any reason it shouldn't work. She doesn't have to feel torn between us if we don't make her that way."

"But wouldn't it hurt you if you two were having dinner one night and she suddenly said she wanted to see me? She wanted to leave your presence and see someone else?" 

"Why would it? It doesn't bother me if she wants to see friends or go out for drinks with Hank." He shook his head. "Stephen, you need to stop thinking in this all or nothing mentality. She loves both of us, at the same time, as a duality. We both complete her in different ways. When you want to spend time with friends, does that mean you detest her presence? Does it mean you love her less? No. So why is it any different for her?" 

"Maybe I'm being selfish. You got ten years with her, uninterrupted. Then you got eight months, of nothing but her attention and love. I'd just like the same."

Charles laughed. "You did get the same. She didn't see me face to face for months. She only called a handful of times. And we also had ten years of being pen pals, it's vastly different than being in the same home together. You and I have had roughly the same face to face time with her."

"Yes, but yours wasn't a tug of war with another man."

"Neither was yours. She was adamant about staying with you." He took a deep breath. "I don't think it's the idea of sharing me at all. I think it's the same fear I had when she was with you at the temple. When I got the call she was going to Nepal with you."

"Yeah, and what's that?" Stephen asked, sounding uninterested. 

"You're afraid that if you do have all of her, that one day she'll want me back and you'll lose her. So to avoid the pain of her abandoning you, you just pushed her away."

"Is that the mind reading or the psychoanalyzing?" Stephen inquired.

"It's having a brain and a heart and going through the exact same insecurities. When she said she was leaving with you, I suddenly worried about us. I worried I wasn't good enough. That she'd love you more. That she'd never come back." 

Stephen nodded slowly, waiting for him to explain how he got over that fear.

"So... what did you do about it?"

"Well, other than fighting with her like an ass about it like I'd done a few times, I finally realized that worrying about her leaving wasn't going to convince her to stay. If she did love you more or leave me or whatever the case may be, my concern for that wouldn't change her decision. So, I let go of all my fears, insecurities, and doubts. As I said, I love her and I trust her. I know she loves me back very much so all I can do is hope she doesn't leave. It is a lot better than stewing over possibly losing her and a lot better than losing her altogether when I could simply share her." 

Stephen nodded, quiet in thought now. 

"We're almost there," Charles informed once they were ten minutes away. 

"Strategy?" Stephen asked. 

"I'll scan the area for minds, and determine what they're thinking. Once we know that, we can go in." 

Stephen nodded and just a few minutes later, they pulled into what looked like an abandoned lot. Charles stopped the car and closed his eyes, focusing on minds. He heard Stephen's mind, but nobody else's. 

"I don't hear anything," he informed, shaking his head. 

"What? But the address sent us here," Stephen responded, confused, his eyes narrowing as he looked around. 

"I know," he agreed, feeling something was off. 

The two of them got out of the car and looked around. It was an empty bit of property except for a metal structure sticking up out of the ground that looked like it led to an underground bunker. It was small, almost like a bomb shelter. 

"Wanna try that?" Stephen asked.

"Can't hurt," Charles said.

"Well, arm your mind lightning or whatever it is you can do," he responded. 

"Mind bolt," he corrected. "Get ready with your impressive light show," he shot right back with a tiny grin. 

The two men walked over to the bunker and opened it up. It stepped inside to a small room that only had an elevator in it. Stephen looked to Charles for confirmation to push the button, he shrugged in response, and Stephen pressed it. The elevator showed up after a few moments and the men stepped in.

"Do you have anything yet?" 

"No," Charles responded. "Just you." 

The men looked at each other worried, and also frustrated. How much time did they have? Were they already too late? 

They hit the only button that was on the elevator and rode down, getting more anxious with every ticking second. Finally, the elevator that seemed old and rickety opened into what appeared to be a crisp, white, state of the art facility. They walked forward, the only way they could go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[stygiantarot]

Winter Witchcraft

(Taught in @thealexandriarchives on 1/17/20)

Winter. The solid dark earth, bright swirling snow, prickling sharp ice, stark reaching branches, echoing warm silence. It can appear in a variety of different ways around the globe depending on the local season. I shall do my best in today’s class to give inspiration and tools that apply to as many persons as possible. I apologize in advance if this Midwest USA witch is a bit too used to intense winters and forgets to adjust as much for those in more temperate zones.

When it comes to the season of winter, it is most commonly associated with snow, ice, cold, all those Hallmark style holiday card scenes with snowmen, scarves, and white covered buildings. At it’s core however, winter is really just your area’s fallow period. It doesn’t have to involve cold or snow; just the time when things are not growing (or not growing as much). Locals may tend to be more inclined to stay indoors; regardless of the weather, and just be more lethargic and measured in their time.

When it comes to incorporating winter and it’s attributes and power into your witchcraft, the main ingredients you’ll want to work with are:

Dirt: Fallow dirt is mighty! Like a hibernating bear, it’s carefully collecting all those nutrients and minerals and saving them up for spring to share in full with local flora and fauna again! It is stable, strong, and patient. A good ingredient for spellwork involving breaking a habit, defensive protection (long term wards especially!), prosperity and abundance spells; especially slowly building ones like a long term money spell, spells or glamours relating to hiding or camouflage, encouraging a relationship to remain stable and grow, and many more. Though it should be strictly collected/harvested during the winter, you can store it year round and it retains it’s Winter attributes.

Snow/Ice: The most obvious winter witchcraft ingredient, this will mostly be used in a melted water form but some examples I’ll offer use solid snow and ice and the melting of it is part of the spell. It’s a good ingredient for: cleansing, freezing a person or problem, healing, banishing, creativity boosting (especially in physical crafts). Like with winter dirt, you can only collect during specific times but can store year round. You can even refreeze in your freeze if you have a spell that requires it to melt in some fashion that you want to cast in spring or summer.
Specific types of snow and ice correspondences: https://orriculum.tumblr.com/post/ 168151692633/winter-correspondences.
My own post on using snow in witchcraft: https://stygiantarot.tumblr.com/post/181955654194/ we-just-had-our-first-real-snow-here-in-ohio-and

Stones: Stones found in winter can have a special sort of power to them. Despite being unchanged physically year round (besides temperature), stones absorb energies readily. They are attuned to what is going on in the locale seasonally despite not directly changing themselves. It is because of this physical permanence that they are more easily able to be energetically sensitive. I like to use them especially in divination work (whether directly in creating runes or oracle sets or indirectly in boosting divination power and focus). They hold that deep quiet and patience of the season deeply under their hard surfaces. They also make excellent spellwork batteries and anchors for warding or enchanting.

Sticks/Pinceones/Flora castoffs: Those things that trees and shrubs drop are especially potent in winter as well. A weathered stick, a prickly pinecone, even some nuts and seeds are cast off during the fallow season and can be used in spellwork. These tend to be good for intentions relating to growth, protection, spirit work, psychic prowess boosting, and creativity as well as associations related to the plant it came from.

Cold weather Flora: Evergreens, hearty flowers like heather, and witch hazel, and early flowers like snowbells or daphne; there are still some plants that thrive even in chilly temps or fallow growing periods. Keep a sharp eye out in your local area for what remains or becomes vibrant during your winter and you can incorporate it into your spellwork. It would have the attributes of that plant, but “jazzed” up a bit during the season of winter when it remains strong amongst other flora that wait for spring or summer.

Citrus/Spices/Seasonal kitchentry: Despite it’s bright sun and summer associations, most citrus fruits are winter growing and this is an appropriate time to incorporate them into drinks and foods to bring some sun into your fallow period. It can help with healing (anti-depression especially), inspiration, solar magic, and creativity. There are also the warmer spices like those used in mulling ciders and wine that are good to use during this season to inject warmth and power into your spellwork. Take a look at what might grow or be commonly used in cooking during your area’s fallow period and incorporate them into your kitchen work in drinks, food, even baking!


Now to build spellwork and crafting ideas. The following are from my own grimoire that you may use or be inspired by!


Snowmen poppets: draw or write a taglock on a piece of paper and put it into a snowman! The intention of the spell takes effect on the target as the snowman melts.

Snow cleansing baths: put a bit of snow in your bath for a soothing ritual bath. Imagine all your worries falling away like a gentle snowfall drifting from the sky.

Winter Jar of Dirt: collect some winter dirt into a special jar, leave a bit of room at the top and put in scraps of paper that outline things you need to have growth or be more stable throughout the year. Feel free to double down by drawing some sigils on the jar for growth and stability.

Create a tool: use a winter stone or collection of them to create a tool for your practice. This can be a divination set, a spellcasting battery, an enchanted focus stone, even a painted offering, etc!


Use that crockpot or bake!: This is the time to do something warm and slow. A soup in a crockpot, a slow roasted dinner, those favorite cookies or brownies you remember from days of yore. You can also focus on a warm drink recipe; chocolate, cider, tea, coffee, wine, etc! They all can be made intentioned with spices and flavoring additions while they warm up to toasty soothing temps!

Room and floor sprays: use a bit of snow or ice, added to standard water, along with winter focused herbs and spices infused and put in a spray bottle for room spray or fl oor wash. You can focus the intentions as needs but a good one would be a pre-cleansing treatment for that “spring cleaning” physical cleaning many do! Or an energizing or inspiration spray to keep out seasonal blues and lethargy.

Enchant a blanket: Take a favorite blanket and enchant it with comfort, warmth, and peace for you to cuddle with during chilly evenings. You can do the same with a favorite towel for after warm baths or showers!


The methodology in creating crafting and spellwork ideas is to think about that fallow period and what you can “harvest” from it; whether it being something directly like snow or dirt. Or something indirectly, like the quiet, the introspection, or even the longer nights to do more lunar focused magic. Spirit work is another strong association in winter months. The slower and quieter season allows for easier connecting often to those not of physical form. Trying visiting a graveyard, park, or museum during your fallow season and seeing what you are able to sense.

Winter is also the time to take stock of your own life and spirituality- just like the earth does during its fallow period. Catalogue and cleanse your tools while you consider if there are any more you need or any you might pass along because you no longer use them. Clean and reorganize your storage and altars or shrines. Spend some time adding to your grimoire or journal those entries you’ve been putting off. Do some shadow work or divination. Write down some clear spiritual goals you’d like to focus on this year (good to put in your Jar of Dirt 😉 ) Do extra research on that area you’ve been debating on delving into.

However, don’t let yourself become too isolated. It’s normal to want some additional space in fallow periods, both personal and seasonal. But it’s important to still have some regular times that you get out of your own headspace. Set reminders for yourself to reach out to your favorite people to at least have a chat even if you don’t have the ability to get out of the house. Connect with online friends and community. Share ideas, thoughts, stories. Go see a movie or to a museum.

Letting winter into your bones doesn’t have to be chilling- it can be like that first breeze when you step outside. A surprise, maybe you gasp for a moment. But it’s exhilarating and revitalizing and reminds you of the beauty and wonder of nature. Even when nature is quiet and stark, she’s there. Just waiting for you to reach out and find her secrets and power to lend you. Go forth and Do the Magic.

Orriculum’s Winter correspondences: https://orriculum.tumblr.com/post/153243108238/winter- witchcraft


Some other Winter inspirations:
 https://ofcloudsandstars.tumblr.com/post/153908846876/゚-winter-witchy-things-to-do

[tigerkirby215]

5e Akali, the Rogue Assassin build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Jessica “OwleyCat” Oyhenart. Made for Riot Games)

(Shit meme by yours truly.)

I mean honestly it’s about time I go around to this. With the year nearing its end (thank fuck) here’s a build I had planned pretty much since the Soulknife subclass was shown. Yeah spoilers I guess Akali’s a Soulknife Rogue because she throws a shit load of knives. No she isn’t an assassin, despite the name of “Rogue Assassin.”

GOALS

You can never have too many kunai - We need a hell a lotta kunai and shurikens to throw at our enemies. Remember that part where I said “Akali’s a Soulknife Rogue?”

Smoked 'em - We’ll need to be able to turn invisible and stay invisible while still being able to hit our foes.

Quick and deadly - You’re quick and deadly like a ninja, with dashes over and around just about everything and swift executions. Almost like you are a ninja.

RACE

Akali is a human, no matter how much training in stealth, spirits, and singing she has. She is however from the magic land of Ionia filled with magic people, and since she probably got some spiritual training from Shen I figured that’s good enough justification for me to grab a Dragonmark! A Mark of Passage Human gets a +2 to Dexterity and a +1 to another ability score: we’ll go for Charisma for K-Pop stans. You can also learn a language of your choice and Sylvan makes sense to speak to the spirits.

You have a Courier's Speed for +5 feet of movement and can add a d4 to Acrobatics or motorcycle land vehicle checks thanks to Intuitive Motion. But the main feature of note is Magical Passage for Misty Step in your pocket once per Long Rest. You know me: gotta have Flash available.

If Dragonmarks aren’t an option: Variant Human with +1 to DEX and +1 to CHA is good enough. Take the Mobile feat at level 1 instead of later in the build, and perhaps invest in Fey Touched or something when the time comes for that feat I don’t know.

ABILITY SCORES

15; DEXTERITY - You run and jump around and throw a lot of knives. Almost like a ninja.

14; CONSTITUTION - Be it Gunblade or Riftmaker, Akali is deceptively survivable. That and even ability scores are nice.

13; CHARISMA - Charisma is tied to performance for Korean raps in whatever band you joined this time. Look I’m not saying I want Akali in Pentakill but...

12; WISDOM - Shen tries to teach you a lot of Wisdom and I’m sure at least some of it got through to you.

10; STRENGTH - ‘Kali got abs. Being a ninja requires 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, and a 10 kilometer run every single day.

8; INTELLIGENCE - Ninjas don’t normally have a good math and science program. The answer to how many kunai you brought is “yes.”

BACKGROUND

While you may have once been part of the Kinkou Order you have since decided to go rogue. When you��re part of a ninja organization killing people is cool, but if you do it on your own you’re just a Criminal. You get proficiency in Stealth but I’m going to suggest replacing your Deception proficiency with Arcana for some teachings thanks to Master Shen. You also get proficiency in Thieves’ Tools (though if you want to min-max I’d perhaps swap this out for something out) but I’m going to suggest replacing your gaming set with a Disguise Kit, because my lord Akali has a lot of skins.

Be it your old connections from the Kinkou Order or a new informant for assassination contracts you have a Criminal Contact that can easily supply info, and who you always have a direct line to. They send the target, you get the kill.

(Artwork by Alvin Lee, Pan Chengwei, and Bo “chenbowow” Chen. Artwork made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ROGUE 1

wOw ThE cHaRaCtEr WiTh “RoGuE” iN tHeIr NaMe Is A RoGuE?!?! Blatantly obvious information aside Rogues get proficiency in four different skills! Take proficiency in Acrobatics for ninja stuff, Perception for warding, Intimidation to scare little Noxian kids (hey ninjas are scary!), and Performance for Korean raps.

You also get Expertise in two of those skills: naturally you need Stealth to be a ninja and Performance to be K-Pop artist, so take expertise in both of those. You also know the secret code language of Thieves’ Cant, which only other ninjas (or just regular old Rogues) know.

But of course you can’t be a ninja without knowing how to Sneak Attack. If you attack an enemy that’s distracted by an ally or have advantage to hit a weak point, you do an extra d6 of damage. Don’t worry: your assassination potential only gets better with time.

LEVEL 2 - ROGUE 2

Second level Rogues get Cunning Action for some ninja speed. You can now spend a Bonus Action to Dash, Disengage, or Hide.

LEVEL 3 - ROGUE 3

Yeah spoilers I guess Akali’s a Soulknife Rogue because she throws a shit load of knives. No she isn’t an assassin, despite the name of “Rogue Assassin.”

3rd level Rogues get to choose their Roguish Archetype and Akali is a Soulknife because it turns out psionics is the fastest way to get a shit load of throwing knives thanks to Psychic Blades. When you take the Attack action you can make a psychic knife in your hand that does a d6 of Psychic damage, and you can either use it to stab in melee range or throw it up to 60 feet.

If you attack with the blade you can make a smaller blade to attack with as a bonus action. The damage die of this bonus attack is 1d4 (instead of a d6) but other than that it pretty much works the same. The Psychic Blades vanish immediately after hitting or missing, and they leave no mark on their target, which is just a nice little bit of ninja flavor.

You also have innate Psionic Power which... takes a bit more to explain that “funny psychic throwing knife.” You have Psionic Energy die equal to twice your proficiency bonus, and you can use them on the following abilities:

Psi-Bolstered Knack lets you boost your skill checks with legally-not-Bardic Inspiration, as long as you’re proficient in the skill.

Psychic Whispers lets you coordinate in team chat and set up ganks.

I’m not going to go too deep into these abilities because they’re listed in the subclass and if you don’t know what the subclass does buy Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything and read it yourself. “See? Balance.” And speaking of balance your Sneak Attack damage now increases to 2d6!

LEVEL 4 - ROGUE 4

4th level Rogues get an Ability Score Improvement but because it’s the 4th level in a Rogue build we’ll instead be taking the Mobile feat. Along with a 10 foot increase to your movement speed you can also cross over difficult terrain (cough walls cough) without spending extra movement if you Dash. But most importantly if you attack an enemy in melee range you can run away from them without provoking an attack of opportunity, even if you miss!

Yup XP to Level 3′s meme explains it better than I can. Sneak attack and run away: keep to the shadows and never stand still.

(Artwork by Jennifer Wuestling. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 5 - WARLOCK 1

What? Did you think that we’d be going for pure Rogue levels? Ha ha Warlock levels go brrrrr. Regardless a connection to the Spirit Realm manifests as powers of the Archfey, such as Fey Presence to Charm or Frighten anyone within a 10 foot cube with an epic rap battle.

And you also get Pact Magic, which comes back on a Short Rest! You get two cantrips at first level: For a Shuriken that inflicts Deep Wounds on those who idolize Eldritch Blast take Chill Touch, because a ninja should always have the right tool for the job. For some ninja trickery grab Minor Illusion to manipulate the shadows to your whim.

For your leveled spells Hex will cripple your foes to make it harder for them to run while also making your strikes deadlier, and uhhh... that’s about it, really? I mean, Sleep from the Archfey list is pretty nice for a sleep bomb but you really don’t need it. We’ll be holding off on leveled spells for a bit.

LEVEL 6 - WARLOCK 2

Second level Warlocks get Eldritch Invocations... hey wouldn’t it be funny if we just didn’t take invocations? I mean, feel free to grab some basic stuff like Armor of Shadows or Devil’s Sight for a time, but again we’re going to want to wait for...

LEVEL 7 - WARLOCK 3

Third level Warlocks get their Pact Boon and while you may never have gone to an official school you were sure to keep all the teachings of Master Shen in a tome. A Book of Shadows from the Pact of the Tome to be precise!

While Pact of the Blade would probably make more sense I’m pretty sure you can’t make your Psychic Blades into Pact weapons. That, and we need a multitude of features from Pact of the Tome more.

Picking up the Pact of the Tome will let you learn 3 cantrips from any class’ spell list. For a quality assurance guarantee on your skill checks take Guidance for that extra boost you need. For some natural Ionian magic Druidcraft will let you feel the spirit in the earth and the trees. And I know there are some spells I seem to stick into every build but yeah: Message is still good even if you have telepathy, for some silent resourceless communication between allies.

Oh and remember how we took no invocations last level? That’s because we’re going to be grabbing both Aspect of the Moon to confuse Diana mains as well as remain alert through the night without needing to sleep, and Book of Ancient Secrets to have some ninja tricks you can prepare over 10 minutes by Ritual Casting. I’d suggest Alarm and Comprehend Languages as the most in-character options but you can get more ritual spells by picking them up and inscribing them into your book (with some really damn expensive ink.)

You can also finally go and pick up those spells that I’ve been ignoring! Darkness is good for a magic smoke bomb (as long as you’re okay with blinding yourself and your allies too) and while perhaps not the most in-character Mirror Image is a damn good spell to up your survivability. And while we may already have Flash once per long rest I won’t ever complain about more Misty Step.

LEVEL 8 - WARLOCK 4

4th level Warlocks get an Ability Score Improvement: time for hee-hoo Athlete Feat that I take whenever I want a +1 in DEX but don’t know what to do. But believe it or not there’s actually a reason for it this time: Akali is an athlete, and you need to be able to perform feats of acrobatics like a ninja. Because again: you are a ninja.

You also get another spell along with another cantrip: for your cantrip Mage Hand will let you do a little bit of spirit-jitsu to reach the kimchi on the top shelf. As for your spell Pass without Trace was added in the Tasha’s extended spell list but you don’t really need it. Your friends might but for the most part I’d again suggest waiting for next level.

(Artwork by Zeen Chin. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 9 - WARLOCK 5

5th level Warlocks get another Eldritch Invocation and to be sneaky like a ninja One With Shadows will let you turn invisible if you stand still in the dark. Alternatively (if you think Stealth Expertise will carry you) you can take Far Scribe for some more secret shadow messages.

You can also learn third level spells like Blink for a slightly unreliable Smoke Cloud that’ll shroud you randomly, or Fear because ninjas are scary.

LEVEL 10 - WARLOCK 6

6th level Fey Warlocks get Misty Escape. As a reaction when you’re hit you can drop a smoke bomb to turn invisible and then teleport up to 60 feet. You remain invisible until the start of your next turn unless you attack or cast a spell, and can use this feature once per short or long rest.

You can also prepare another spell and for a ninja flashbang grab Hypnotic Pattern to daze everyone in a 30 foot cube. What? Ninjas can use flashbangs.

LEVEL 11 - WARLOCK 7

7th level Warlocks get another Eldritch Invocation and we can finally run across the universe to whoever we marked with our shuriken. Or at least 30 feet closer. Relentless Hex lets you teleport up to 30 feet and arrive within 5 feet of an enemy you have Hexed, as long as you can see them. While you can dash for this distance or Flash (Misty Step) this will let you get past any difficult terrain or obstacles with ease.

We can also finally get what we came for: a smoke cloud we can attack from while still being invisible. Take Greater Invisibility for invisibility that remains even after you attack. Yes this does mean as a Rogue you’ll have Advantage on all your attacks (to Sneak Attack), and yes the aesthetic of stabbing people with psychic knives that leave no mark while you yourself are invisible is freaking nuts. There are other 4th level spells you can take (Dimension Door and Shadow of Moil being two worth mention) but your other spells are still good. It’s up to you what you do as again I only own the build, not your character.

(Artwork by Alvin Lee. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 12 - ROGUE 5

At long last we’re going back to Rogue! 5th level Rogues can use their reaction for an Uncanny Dodge to take half damage from an attack. Remember that you only have one reaction per round, and this is the same reaction that you need to use for Misty Escape. So decide if disappearing but taking full damage is more valuable than taking half damage.

Your Sneak Attack also increases to 3d6, and you know those Psionic Energy die of yours? Well they’re now d8s! Finally!

LEVEL 13 - ROGUE 6

6th level Rogues get Expertise in two more skills. Acrobatics is an obvious must but I’ll leave the other skill up to you! Make your own build, even if it’ll probably include Riftmaker. (But when in doubt I opted for Perception personally.)

LEVEL 14 - ROGUE 7

7th level Rogues become masters of dodging skill shots thank to Evasion. If you make a Dexterity save and succeed, you take no damage. If you fail the save, you only take half damage! Additionally your Sneak Attack is now 4d6.

(Artwork by Pyeongjun Park. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 15 - ROGUE 8

8th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement. Hey about we cap that Dexterity score which has been sitting at an 18 for the past 6 levels? Deadliest knives, most agile of dodges, and BADDEST of dance moves. (Wait no that’s Charisma.)

LEVEL 16 - ROGUE 9

9th level Soul Knife Rogues can improve their weapons to Soul Blades, giving a few new uses to your Psionic Talent die. Homing Strikes will let you add your talent die to a missed attack, potentially allowing you to hit. If the talent die causes your attack to hit, you spend it.

Psychic Teleportation on the other hand will let you roll a Psionic Talent die as a bonus action to teleport an unoccupied space you can see, up to a number of feet away equal to 10 times the number rolled. This feature spends the die no matter how far you teleport. And finally your Sneak Attack increase to 5d6.

LEVEL 17 - ROGUE 10

The nice thing about Rogues is that they get more Ability Score Improvements. For MORE dancing increase your Charisma to show them what you’re made of. I’ll keep making jokes about K/DA don’t worry.

(Artwork by Atey Ghailan. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 18 - ROGUE 11

11th level Rogues get Reliable Talent to turn any roll of 9 or lower on a skill check you’re proficient in to a 10. As per standard whenever I hit 11 in a Rogue build I like to make a list of your lowest possible roll so...

27 on Stealth or Acrobatics

25 on Performance

19 on Intimidation

17 on Perception

15 on Arcana

With results varying based on your choice of Expertise, of course. And if somehow that isn’t enough to make a skill check, your Psionic Talent die increases to a d10 along with your 6d6 Sneak Attack!

LEVEL 19 - ROGUE 12

Hey more Ability Score Improvements! That means you can nearly max out your Charisma just before level 20!

LEVEL 20 - ROGUE 13

13th level Soul Knife Rogues get the ultimate stealth tool: the Psychic Veil. As an action you become invisible for 1 hour unless you dismiss this effect (no action required). You remain invisible unless you deal damage to a creature or you force a creature to make a saving throw. You can use this feature once for free per Long Rest, and have to spend a Psionic Energy die to use it again.

Now some might say this is a weak ability since you have Greater Invisibility, but that spell only lasts a minute. This ability is far more useful for infiltration and out-of-combat uses, as with a full hour of being unseen you should be able to get into most places that you shouldn’t be. But if you think “a second level spell extended to 1 hour” isn’t a good capstone just remember that your Sneak Attack does increase to 7d6. And that... you know... You could just go Rogue 12 / Warlock 8 if you don’t like the level 13 ability.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

They can't stop me. I mean, they can try - 45 feet of movement with the ability to dash and teleport, with Athlete helping you scale up walls and Mobile making difficult terrain a non-issue. And yeah the Mobile feat in general makes you incredibly slippery.

I make problems... disappear - Who could’ve guessed that a permanently invisible Rogue would be dangerous? With a dozen tools to play keep-away you can easily be in multiple places at once and make your enemies unable to know where to strike.

I'll make this look like magic - You’ve got a nice bit of utility too with some great skill checks (boosted by your Psionic talent!) along with a ton of cantrips and the ability to learn any ritual spell you may find.

CONS

There are over 300 pressure points on the human body - You have a lot of features that are more for flavor than actual practicality, notably Relentless Hex which uhhhh... just Dash? You also have abilities which aren’t that strong, like weak Warlock spells we didn’t swap out (feel free to do that yourself) and Psychic Veil generally being a mediocre ability. (Nothing you can do to fix that.)

I was just warming up - Your stats aren’t awful but also aren’t fantastic... well except for your Intelligence: that’s pretty bad. And without any saving throw proficiency and a surprisingly limited amount of skills for a Rogue you really won’t be helpful outside of your area of expertise.

You don't get back what I take - Almost all your class features run on limited resources. Most of your Rogue abilities rely on your Psionic Talent die, and while you may have a lot you can only get one per Short Rest. Similarly you only have two Warlock slots, which even if they come back at the end of a Short Rest it leaves a lot to be desired. Frequent tea breaks are nice and all but you can quickly exhaust yourself without breaks.

But you are quick, silent, and deadly. All the skills of a ninja in one package. Dive in, make a clean cut, and get out before they know what hit ‘em. Akali’s that girl. 'Kali go grr. 'Kali don't stop. 'Kali don't skrrt. True Damage we do it, and maybe if you perform well enough you can get into Pentakill too. Look I’m not saying I want Akali to be in every band that Riot makes, but Pentakill Akali would be equally cool and hilarious.

(Artist unknown. Made for Riot Games.)

[thisiswhatwereupagainst]

We come from the land of the ice and snow From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow This is Snowbird aka Narya aka Anne MacKenzie, a founding member of Marvel’s Alpha Flight and one of my faves. Here’s a post all about her!

Snowbird is the daughter of a moral man, Richard Easton, and the Inua goddess Nelvanna. The Inua are the gods of the Canadian north in Marvel canon. While their name is clearly from the term “Inuit” they are not a pantheon (originally a trinity but then expanded) from any real-world culture, but they are drawn in such a way to suggest they are meant to reflect Indigenuous Canadian peoples, and when they are expanded from a trinity to a true pantheon, real-world Inuit deities like Kadlu and Sedna are added to their number. This raises some problematic issues all around, but it is what it is, so moving on--- Nelvanna is the only female member of the original trinity as they appear, and thus was tasked with conceiving a half-human child with Richard Easton when he stumbled into their realm after finding an ancient artifact at a Canadian archeological dig near the Arctic Circle, since Richard was a man. The reason they needed a half-human child was to combat The Great Beasts, immensely powerful entities. They had been trapped thousands of years ago in a prison realm by the Inua, but in modern times the magicks holding them began to weaken. Knowing the Great Beasts would break free soon, the Inua wished to produce a champion, a demi-goddess child born of both man and god, belonging to both worlds, who could fight them on this plane. Nelvanna successfully conceived a child with Richard, but he was driven mad by the experience of consort with the divine, and he lived out the rest of his life as a hermit until he attempted a ritual to summon one of the Great Beasts. This succeeded, but his life force was consumed in the process, and his remains settled on the bottom of the salt lake where the Great Beast called Tundra once stood. Richard’s spirit would live on as an evil entity, which Snowbird eventually faced and put to peaceful rest at last. But back to Snowbird---obviously, the baby that Nelvanna conceived was Narya, who became Snowbird. As Nelvanna was about to give birth, she summoned Native Canadian shaman Dr. Michael Twoyoungmen to a place of power to assist her. The being she gave birth to was unstable, a transmorph, lacking real form, and Michael knew that he had to mystically bind it to Earth or else it would have never been able to possess a human form. He did so, and the baby at last assumed a human form, that of a little blonde girl with alien features who was already a year old. Having been bound to the land of Canada itself at her birth gave Snowbird her greatest weakness----she could not leave the boundaries of Canada without weakening and, if she did not return soon enough, death. Michael raised Narya alone in a cabin in Banff National Park, where she began to learn the customs of Earth and how to use her fantastic powers---specifically, she could shapeshift into a snow-white version of any animal native to the Canadian Arctic lands. She notably preferred to eat what she hunted in her animal form, not joining Michael or his guests, the Hudsons, at dinner. But she had stranger qualities still---at only three or four chronological years, she already looked like a young woman, albeit a strange elfen one. After Michael explained to the Hudsons that Narya was not only a metamorph but a demigoddess, James Hudson invited them both to join Alpha Flight. They agreed, and were given the codenames Shaman and Snowbird. While her primary goal was always to battle the Great Beasts as she had been born for, Snowbird also dutifully served the interests of Department H and the Canadian government, and to this end took on a human identity, that of Corporal Anne MacKenzie. She used her shapeshifting power to adopt a more fully human appearance, and worked at an RCMP post somewhere in the North West Territories of Canada. However, she had the ability to sense whenever one of her enemies, the Great Beasts, awakened, and would leave whatever she was doing immediately to do battle with these monsters. This ended up costing her her job, though she likely cared little. Snowbird had a cold, distant, aloof persona, almost alien, and at one of her teammates expressed that she gave him “the heebie jeebies” to which her foster father Michael said he was not alone in, suggesting that others were regularly unnerved by her. Indeed, Narya was very much as inhuman mentally as she was physically. Alpha Flight (1983) #3 describes her as such: "Her innermost memories dwell beyond human comprehension, and she remembers the oldest snows." She seems to innately know all her own powers, even those she never used before---such as the ability to compel others to aid her against the Great Beasts should she wish--and to know that her destiny is to fight The Great Beasts, which she will automatically do despite any fear she might have. While it is possible Michael taught her the latter, it is just as likely that she simply was born knowing it. Other powers she displayed were: - Flight - Resistance to extreme cold - She's able to sense magical energies, disturbances to the land she's tied to, and the proximity of her teammates - If her teammates invoke the Great Spirit, she senses that and will come to their aid. - Post-cognitive vision, being able to see what happened in the past in a place. For instance, she looked at a plane crash and was able to basically play it back before her eyes as she looks at the wreckage in order for her to figure out what caused it. It seems there's a limit though, as in another issue she can't do it because whatever happened was 12 hours or more ago, which she can tell by tracks, showing she has tracking skills, likely from her wildnerness upbringing by Shaman and animal-like abilities - As mentioned, she can magically/psychically compel others to help her fight the Great Beasts against their wills While Snowbird originally hoped that once she vanquished all the Great Beasts, her time on Earth would be done and she could ascend to the paradise where the other Inua dwelled, her path changed when Doug Thompson, a colleague from when she had been Anne McKenzie, professed his love for her. Though she originally denied him, she eventually revealed her real self, Snowbird, to hi. She tried to tell him that she could not return his affections, but Doug simply grabbed and kissed her – the first kiss Narya ever received. Taken by surprise and filled with human emotions she had suppressed to this point, Snowbird could no longer deny that she was attracted to Doug too, however, she wanted him to fully know what he would get involved in and showed him her so True Fires, her godly form, a strange and terrifying sight to behold. Yet Doug loved her still, and so once all the Great Beasts were slain, she returned to him and wed him, asking him to teach her to be human. But in doing so, she bound herself to a mortal man, and thus the Inua, whom she had longed to join, cast her out for this sin. Eventually she became pregnant, and just as she had grown up rapidly, so too did her pregnancy rapidly advance. The birth was dramatic, with Snowbird rapidly shifting out of control, displaying her True Fires in her agony. The Inua appeared and offered Snowbird one last chance to join them in Paradise; ridding herself of the stench of mortality. They warned her that after the child was born they would have nothing to do with her. Afraid and suffering unbearable pain, Narya almost agreed – except that she was afraid of losing the people she loved and who loved her back. Snowbird told her mother that she couldn’t leave what she had found on Earth and with that, the Gods left. Narya still needed to reach sacred ground before she could give birth, just as she too had been born in a sacred place. Due to her own resentment of her father, Talisman aka Elizabeth Twoyoungmen, Michael’s daughter, tricked her. Dr. Strange had brought her to a place of power, yes, but it was a place of power because there was an ancient sorcerer buried beneath the frozen wasteland. Strange did not know this, but Talisman did---and said nothing. Soon the birth was set in motion, and almost instantly, Pestilence, spirit of  the ancient sorcerer, possessed and corrupted the child. Talisman knew this would happen; her plan was to watch her father try and fail to save the day, and then step in to do so herself. Yet she found herself unable to best Pestilence either, and he beat Alpha Flight, including his own “mother”, and fled, taking his new body, that of Narya’s unnamed son, with him. As horrible as this was, Nary considered this might be a blessing in disguise. She thought that perhaps if she abandoned her child and husband, then the Inua might reconsider rejecting her, and welcome her back into their fold. Understandably, her husband was upset by this, and angrily stormed off, vowing to find their son himself. He said he now realized that not being human, he could not expect Snowbird to know what motherly love meant. And yet, it turned out, she did---though it saved neither her nor her son. While the rest of Alpha Flight were busy with another mission, Shaman and Snowbird located Pestilence in the mining town of Burial Butte. Once they got there, the pair learned that Douglas, Snowbird’s husband, had gotten there before, and had been infected with a fatal disease by Pestilence. Pestilence had realized that the baby’s pure spirit was slowly overcoming his influence. Only by it being killed could Pestilence could roam free and possess someone else again. To this end, he controlled Snowbird, and forced her to kill him, releasing his spirit, while the body of the child, her child, perished at the claws of its own mother. Snowbird died too, shot down by Heather Hudson in a too-late attempt to stop her from killing her “son” and releasing the sorcerer. Pestilence escaped, but mother, father, and child were all dead. Alpha Flight laid the family to rest in beautiful glass coffins, and, at their funeral, the Inua appeared, offering the dead Snowbird one last chance to join them in their Paradise. Snowbird’s soul, however, demanded that her husband and child must be allowed to come with her as well, or she would not come at all. Though no mortal had ever been allowed in the Inua Paradise before, her divine family made an exception for the first time, and allowed her mortal one, and all their souls went to dwell there in happiness together for eternity. As with many Marvel characters, death was not the end for Snowbird. Pestilence possessed her soulless body briefly, before being forced out by Shaman, at which point the soul of Walter Langkowski aka Sasquatch, another deceased member of Alpha Flight, took it over. No longer housing a divine spirit, Snowbird’s body became that of a human-looking woman---but still a woman, with Walter’s soul inside. So for about two years, Walter went by Wanda. Yeah, he was walking about in the dead body of his teammate, don’t think about it too hard. Perhaps also due to her divine nature now being absent from her body, “Wanda” Langowski did not get any of Snowbird’s powers with her body, but instead retained his--er, her?--own, that of shifting into a Sasquatch, albeit a white one now. Wanda became Walter again eventually, and years later, Snowbird was discovered alive in an A.I.M. laboratory. Alpha Flight and Wolverine freed her and took her along to Department H, where excessive tests revealed her to be indeed really Snowbird. What A.I. M was doing with her and how she came back to life has yet to be revealed. The canon explanation is that she has regenerative powers that went to work while she was buried, but this doesn’t track at all because, again, her body didn’t stay buried, Walter was running around in it. Apparently the writers just...forgot this, and for extra irony had WALTER of all people be the person who came up with this explanation. Seriously. I just go with the idea the Inua brought her back for God Reasons and she doesn’t know why yet and then A.I.M. got ahold of her before she could rejoin her team. She also lacks being bound to the Canadian lands anymore, and I miss that limit, I thought it was cool. I like a lot of things about Snowbird. Firstly, I think the fact she can turn into animals, that’s really cool, and the limits of them always being Canadian helps temper it, and I think them always being white is a neat touch. I like that she’s WEIRD and INHUMAN and unnerves people, I like that her design is meant to be CREEPY INSTEAD OF PRETTY and I like that she actually FALTERED in being a good mother in a really HORRIBLE way that women (at least heroic/good women) don’t usually get written as even considering without becoming villains for it, I like that when she does show humanity it’s not just compassion or maternal love, it’s also BEING A DICK LIKE HUMANS CAN BE . She’s a pretty cool character and I’d like to RP as her one day. I also have some thoughts about why I think she, as a character who is literally meant as the embodiment of Canada itself, should be rewritten/re-designed as a Native Canadian woman, but those are for another post---this is just about who she is as it is. Which is a neat character with a pretty design! Fun fact: In the Ultimates universe, it’s Danielle Moonstar who is a member of Alpha Flight bearing the codename Snowbird. Instead of the powers of 616 Dani or Snowbird, she wields the ability to create and control blizzards, which she uses to overpower that universe’s Storm.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #91: Ryougi Shiki (Saber)

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re going a bit out of our way to an entirely different Nasuverse production, Kara no Kyoukai, to build the mysterious  『Ryougi Shiki』, a.k.a. Void Shiki, a.k.a. Ryougi Shiki (Saber)! Shiki is the host personality of both Shiki and Shiki, and due to her connection with the Root, is effectively omniscient and omnipotent. She’s trying to keep her potence down to what a servant could do at the moment, so don’t expect a power build.

Check out Shiki’s build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: Second verse, surprisingly different from the first.

Race and Background

Shiki is obviously a human, but she’s a human implanted with an additional personality as well as the origin of 「　」, so you’re probably closer to a Kalashtar. I would’ve thought “person with an extradimensional intelligence inside of them” would be a bit niche, but I guess I was wrong. Regardless, you get +2 Wisdom and +1 Charisma. Your Dual Mind gives you advantage on all Wisdom saves, your Mental Discipline gives you resistance to psychic damage, and you can use your Mind Link to speak to a creature within ten times your level in feet telepathically, provided they understand a language. This is a great way to get around that pesky language barrier. You can also spend an action to give a creature the ability to speak back telepathically for up to an hour, and you can only give one creature this ability at a time.

Finally, as a Kalashtar you are Severed from Dreams; you sleep, but don’t dream, so spells like Dream don’t work on you.

As the most reclusive of Shiki’s personalities, and the one with the greatest knowledge of the universe, you’re a shoe-in as a Hermit. This gives you Medicine and Religion proficiency, as well as a great secret of the world chosen by your DM.

Ability Scores:

Put your highest score into Wisdom, you’re literally omniscient and it’s a more useful ability score than Intelligence. Second is Dexterity- you move faster than most people can see, and you’re really handy with a sword. Third is Intelligence, because you’re still omniscient. Your Charisma isn’t that high, but we won’t be using it for much besides multiclassing anyway. Your Constitution is also pretty low, we just needed other stuff more. Finally, dump Strength. You don’t really get out much- it’s hard to go to the gym when you’re letting someone else run your body.

Class Levels

1. Monk 1: Your power comes more from your knowledge of other’s lines of death and your skill rather than brute force, so we’re going Monk instead of Fighter. It’s also way easier to fight in a Kimono this way, thanks to your Unarmored Defense giving you an AC of 10 + your Dexterity mod + your Wisdom mod. You also gain Martial Arts, making the minimum damage you can do with a monk weapon or your fist 1d4. You can also make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, and you can use Dexterity instead of Strength when attacking with a monk weapon or unarmed strike. 

You also have proficiency in Strength and Dexterity saves, as well as Acrobatics and History. You’re nimble and know everything, a powerful combo.

2. Monk 2: Second level monks learn how to use Ki points to dash, disengage, dodge, or make two unarmed blows as a bonus action. You also get Unarmored Movement, helping you move 10′ faster when not wearing armor. New to Tasha’s you can also use a Dedicated Weapon with your martial arts, picking a non-heavy, non-special weapon to use as a monk weapon at the end of a long rest. We’re still not proficient with a long-sword yet, so we can’t quite use it yet, but we’ll get there.

3. Sorcerer 1: We’re popping into sorcerer for a bit to awaken your Aberrant Mind, letting you cast Spells using your Charisma as the casting ability and also make Telepathic Speech. You can use your bonus action to link yourself with another creature nearby. Afterwards, for a number of minutes equal to your sorcerer level you can speak telepathically with them as long as they’re within a number of miles equal to your Charisma modifier. The bond lasts a number of minutes equal to your sorcerer level, and only one creature can be affected by it at once. It might be technically possible for something to run over a mile away in less than a minute, but that seems like an edge case. It’s a bit confusing, but this telepathy has a longer range than your other telepathy, at the cost of lasting a shorter time.

For your spells, pick up Message for yet another way to speak to your party, Dancing Lights, Light, Sleep, and Minor Illusion for some dreamlike effects, and False Life to turn your magical energy into your lifeforce.

The aberrant mind is especially useful because you also get some Psionic Spells for free. At first level you get Arms of Hadar, Dissonant Whispers, and Mind Sliver. Most of those aren’t that close to what you need though, so thankfully you can also replace one of these spells with any divination or enchantment spell of the same level from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizards spell lists. So let’s toss out Dissonant Whispers and replace it with Identify; you know literally everything, including what the cool magical artifact you just found is.

4. Sorcerer 2: Second level sorcerers are a Font of Magic, giving you Sorcery Points equal to your level that you can spend to regain spell slots now, or other neat effects later. Speaking of spells, pick up Shield for more AC- it’s not that in-character, but we needed something replaceable for later. You should also replace Arms of Hadar with Detect Magic to further expand your omniscience.

5. Sorcerer 3: Third level sorcerers learn two Metamagic options to enhance their spells. Distant Spell lets you double a spell’s range or turn a touch spell into a 30′ range, very useful for extending your spying spells even further. You also pick up Subtle Spell, which eliminates the need for verbal or somatic components. You don’t use magic to learn things, you just know, that means you shouldn’t let anyone catch you casting.

You also grab 2nd level spells this level: Magic Weapon lets you slice though lines of death instead of flesh to avoid resistances and deal a little more damage. You also get the psionic spells Calm Emotions and Detect Thoughts. We don’t really need to calm people down though, so replace that right away with Locate Object so you’ll never lose your car keys again.

6. Sorcerer 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Weapon Master feat, bumping up your Dexterity and also giving you proficiency in four weapons, including the Long-sword.

You also grab True Strike, because it’s hard to dodge an attack when you can’t even see what it’s aiming for, Mind Spike for more psychic damage and omniscience, and replace Shield with Shadow Blade for a more magical monk weapon as well.

7. Monk 3: Speaking of monk stuff, let’s head back there for our subclass. Monks that follow the Way of the Long Death study death and incorporate their findings into their martial arts, and it’s really easy to study death when you’re able to see it in person. When you take the subclass, you learn the Touch of Death, gaining temporary hp when you reduce a creature’s HP to 0 within 5′ of yourself. You can also Deflect Missiles to reduce incoming damage or throw it back at them for a ki point.

8. Monk 4: Use this ASI to round out your Dexterity and Wisdom for a better AC and better swordplay. You can also Slow Fall to reduce your falling damage by five times your monk level, or use Quickened Healing to turn your Ki points into health based on your martial arts die and your proficiency bonus.

9. Monk 5:  At fifth level, your Martial Arts grows to a d6, and you can make an Extra Attack with each attack action. You can also make a Stunning Strike with your melee attack, spending a ki point to force a constitution save (DC 8 + your wisdom modifier + your proficiency modifier) against being stunned.

10. Monk 6: Sixth level monks can make Ki-Empowered Strikes, making your unarmed attacks magical. It’s not incredibly useful, since you could already magic up your sword, but hey, now you can save a spell slot. You can also signal the Hour of Reaping as an action, frightening everything within 30′ of you that fails a wisdom saving throw. You’re an omniscient swordswoman who can see the death of all things, and may or may not even exist. That’s pretty scary.

You also get an extra 5′ of movement. It’s not quite as scary, but still pretty useful.

11. Sorcerer 5: Fifth level sorcerers can use the new Magical Guidance, spending a sorcery point to re-roll a failed ability check. You know everything, so you should succeed at everything; that’s why it’s so boring.

For spells, you get Haste as your normal spell for doubled speed, +2 AC, an extra action per turn, and advantage on dexterity saves. You’re fast, what can I say. You also get new Psionic Spells, Hunger of Hadar and Sending. You have plenty of ways to speak your mind already, but let’s replace Hunger of Hadar with Clairvoyance for more all-knowing goodness, letting you place a sensor in a location you’ve been before or an obvious place you haven’t been, like around a corner. You can see or hear through the sensor, but not both at once.

12. Sorcerer 6: Sixth level Aberrant Minds get Psionic Sorcery; you can now cast Psionic Spells either by using a spell slot or by spending sorcery points equal to its level. Doing the latter lets you cast it without verbal, somatic, or unconsumed material components. You also have Psychic Defenses, giving you resistance to psychic damage and advantage on saves against being charmed or frightened. This almost entirely overlaps with the Kalashtar abilities you got at level 1, but who knows, maybe there’s a weird spell out there that charms with a constitution save.

For your spell, Blink loosens your grip on this reality, causing you to blink out of existence at the end of your turn if you roll eleven or higher on a d20. At the start of your turns and the end of the spell, you blink back into reality for more fighting. It lasts up to a minute, and isn’t concentration, so pair it with your favorite buff to really become a frightening anomaly. 

13. Sorcerer 7: Seventh level sorcerers get fifth level spells, like Far Step, which gives you the cool anime-level speed we’ve been looking for. As a bonus action each turn the spell is up, you can teleport up to 60′ away for speed so blinding people literally can’t see you do it. You also get Evards Black Tentacles and Summon Aberration as Psionic Spells. Neither are in-character, so replace the one you’ll use less with Arcane Eye for one last way to learn things you shouldn’t. This spell creates a magical sensor within 30′ of you, but you can move it as an action with no limit to how far it can go. 

14. Monk 7: We’re done switching around classes now; back in Monk, you learn Evasion, which gives you half damage on failed dexterity saves and no damage on successes when you’re trying to avoid damage. Your connection to the Void also gives you Stillness of Mind, letting you end a charming or frightening effect as an action.

15. Monk 8: Pick up the Tough feat for 2 extra HP per level- you’re a monk and your constitution is bad, you’ll really want this.

16. Monk 9: At ninth level you can run over liquid or up walls thanks to your Unarmored Movement Improvement. Just be sure to end your turn somewhere solid.

17. Monk 10: Tenth level monks have a Purity of Body, making them immune to diseases and poisons. You don’t have to deal with poison, Shiki does. You should probably apologize to her one of these days. You also get another 5′ of extra movement, because why not.

18. Monk 11: Eleventh level Long Death monks have a Mastery of Death; when you would hit 0 hp, you can instead spend a Ki point to stay at 1 hp instead. You’re pretty hard to kill, which is just as well- I don’t want to force your DM to have to figure out what happens when the origin of the universe dies. Also, your Martial Arts increases to a d8, for stronger unarmed attacks and more healing.

19. Monk 12: Use your last ASI on more Dexterity for a higher AC and more deadly weapon.

20. Monk 13: Your capstone feature is the Tongue of the Sun and Moon, letting you understand and be understood by anything that speaks a language. I’m almost getting tired of saying this, but you’re omnipotent; Duolingo should be pretty easy by now.

Pros:

You have 50′ of movement normally, the ability to dash or teleport as a bonus action, and access to the haste spell. You’re pretty goddamn mobile, is what I’m trying to say. And unlike a lot of these builds, you can run straight up walls and teleport into the air, so vertical mobility isn’t that much of an issue for you. As long as you don’t mind falling.

You have plenty of options to heal yourself, and you have to die almost a dozen times before you actually stay down. As befitting of The Thing the Universe Is Recorded On, you’re pretty hard to kill.

You’re not as omniscient as you should be, but you’re still really good at learning things you shouldn’t.  With plenty of divination spells that you can cast subtly, you’ll be able to spy on events without anyone knowinng you were ever there.

Cons:

A lot of your buffs and divination spells require concentration, which would be annoying enough even if your constitution wasn’t bad in the first place.

Your best way at dealing with flying enemies is to throw yourself into the air and hope you land okay. I mean you’re a high level monk, so it’s not that big an issue, but it’s still not dignified.

This build is a little bit complicated, with different kinds of points to keep track of. Have fun keeping your sorcery points, spell slots, and ki points all straight.

[ranishoo]

part 8 it takes Vex a couple days to heal and he's almost completely silent the entire time, Arya grew attached to Kaerou quickly and has been awkwardly making them all spend time together and tensions are high, meanwhile Syl is digging for information, some offhand deals and pi work finding a trail of arcane energy leading to a rich noblemans house that matches Liuvo, and they plan their attack. Vex is still injured and is told to hang back as much as possible to avoid irritating his wounds knowing there was no way to keep him from coming, so Arya is left to break them in, but on the way Vex starts feeling ill, then faint, having visions of a man in his position, someone he loved taken from him and held hostage, and the rage he felt that made it almost impossible to breath and falling to his knees. He blacks out for just a moment, but the life of this unfamiliar man flashing before his eyes, almost all memories centered around another man whose face was always obscured and voice distorted. Kaerou snaps him out of it, insisting he go back to rest but he refuses and carries on (Here Before by Vashti Burnyan)

They stay undiscovered until getting to the master bedroom, finding Liuvo dressed up and sitting like a doll before the doors close behind them Liuvo getting up in jerking motions as if being puppeted, drawing his scythe and lunging at them. Arya can see the magic strings controlling him and has everyone distract Liuvo while he severs them, but Vex is having the most trouble dodging him and refuses to fight back, refusing to kill someone he cares about again like he had his mentor, and Liuvo manages to slash him across the stomach, a deep cut and reopening his previous wound, he takes the opportunity to grab Liuvo and twist his arms behind his back and restraining him while Arya cuts the rest of the strings, slowly bleeding out. (Mine - MAKKU)

forgot you sent this and hey bud what the FUCK

so I'm still working on what happens after Leslie burns the lab to the ground, so a lot of this info is iffy and might change a bit, but afterwards she struggles with a deep depression and guilt by herself for several months.

one thing I should probably mention but never did bc I didn't think I'd be getting this in depth about Leslie is that she and Delvon have a psychic link (this is relevant I swear). during her first year in the past she managed to get herself into a magically induced coma and the only way Delvon could get her out was to enter her dream himself, which was only possible by permanently linking their minds through a process called tethering. that would mean for the rest of their lives they'd be able to hear the other's thoughts, feel their emotions, pain, share their dreams, literally everything. he knew he was overstepping boundaries in doing this, but if he didn't she would likely die in her sleep. so he did it, and both of them felt immense guilt for it, him for forcing this situation on her and her for driving him to the point where he felt he needed to lose his independence and privacy for her. so when she left, she learned how to put up mental and emotional walls to block out some of the feelings and thoughts she could sense, basically trying her best to cut him off. both of them constantly feel like they're missing something though, bc thanks to how the tethering process works, they now can't feel complete unless they have access to the other person; they can exist if one dies or blocks the other out, but it Fucking Sucks to get used to. so on top of everything else, Leslie is feeling horrible that she's cut him out of her life completely bc she knows how this feels for her, so she can only imagine how rough he must be feeling all the time with a large chunk of his senses and emotions now missing. the only hint one gets of the other is if one of them feels incredibly strong emotions that Leslie can't block out (like Delvon randomly got immense anguish when Addie died), or occasionally they see each other in their dreams, although Leslie tries her best to avoid interacting with him, even if it means not sleeping at all.

so anyway, Leslie has very little money as she was essentially a glorified prisoner at the facility, so eventually hunger drives her back to taking on minor jobs wherever she can. one job was to repair the fence for an orchard, and the elderly man gave her a few peaches as an extra thank you since he could tell she clearly was in a bad spot. she takes them and leaves, and several miles down the road she finds a dog looking hungry and lost. she cuts up one of the peaches and gives it to her, as that's the only food she has, and then she continues on her way, noticing every so often that she can see the dog out of the corner of her eye.

that evening when she sets up camp the dog hesitantly stands on the other side of her fire, just watching her. she doesn't pay it much mind as she figures if the dog wanted to hurt her she would've done it by now. but then she turns her back for one second and turns back to find the dog is eating peaches out of her sack. she wants to be mad but she can't bring herself to feel anything but pity, so she feeds the dog and ends up keeping her, naming her Peach (she jokingly says it's short for Peach Thief). later on she theorizes that this must be the hunting or guard dog of someone who died, because no one in their right mind would abandon a dog so well trained and loyal, but finders keepers right?

I don't have many specific songs for events during this period (yet) but some general vibes are