The Girl With Kaleidoscope Eyes

Language and Culture

You have your land and your people. Now onto what kind of people they are and what they sound like. Culture is the greatest worldbuilding tool you need to master. Language is extra spice.

Culture

Culture is a collection of customs and attitudes formed over time. Culture forms around a land, metaphorical cling film if you will. Land influences culture.

Entertainment: What amuses your people? Bull fighting? Gladiators? Tasteful plays?

Food and drink: What food is common? Is there a delicacy popular in the region? Pasta is Italy’s delicacy. Beer is a common drink in Germany

Taboo: The no-no of society. What can’t be spoken about or done? In Harry Potter, the name of Voldemort is taboo. In our world, for most of us anyway, incest and cannibalism are the major taboos

Myths: Are stories that explain things without evidence from science. The Egyptians thought that a dung-beatle rolled the sun across the sky. Celtic cultures believe that a death is sounded by the scream of a banshee.

Games: What games are played by children or adults? Are card games popular or board games? Is it popular to watch games or gamble on them? How often are they fixed?

Traditions: What do your people do? Do they have holidays? In Incan tradition, human sacrifices were common. On a light note, the Greeks held the Olympics ever few years. Is there traditional ceremonies or words one says on a daily basis?

Values: The Spartans valued Spartan behaviour. Renaissance culture valued skill and honour. What is the important concepts of your people? Strength? Honour? Intelligence? Do people get treated differently when they don’t follow the values of the land?

Meeting and greeting: How do people say hello? Is there a word or saying? A signal? And goodbye?

Language

Language is the heart of a land. You don’t need to create a large lexicon of made up words and rules. You can. I did once, it was fun. You don’t need to show the language in every line. A word here and there can add spice to a story. Language effects accents and way of speaking.

Salt and Sage are two of the most popular, traditional and trustworthy ingredients a witch can use to cleanse their space, cast a circle or guard their altar.

Sage is native on all continents beside Antarctica and Australia, there are also up to 900 different varieties of it! So it is unsurprising that nearly every culture has its own use for it.

Getting your hands on sage is also ridiculously easy. Most well stocked supermarkets have more than enough of the stuff to smoke out a church.

Yet not everyone can or wants to burn it. (which is perfectly fine, don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t be a witch without sage!)

The smell is also rather similar to Weed (by that I mean it smells exactly the same, like seriously it’s insane) which can be a problem if you have strict parents or nosy neighbors. People have called the cops on an old acquaintance from coven-days long past more than once for that smell.

So what to use when sage is out of the question?

One answer to that would be Fir (Abies sp.). More often found in the norther hemisphere. There are 40 to 47 different kinds of fir trees. They are fond of heights. Either the sap/raisin, needles or wood can be used. It’s something you will come across when you study the Good Neighbors. It’s used to ward of fairys and spirits (and evil spirits). It’s a popular raisin for making incense and also rather easy to come by. Often found in bath oil too! The first green tips of the plant are also used as medicine against colds or can be eaten!

Frankincense (Thus album in latin, plant Boswellia sp.) is also a good substitute incense, first used by the ancient Egyptians during rituals. A cleansing allrounder so to say.

Both of the options above are good substitutes for sage. (They also smell better in my opinion)

Now Salt is the go to tool of witchcraft. It cleanses, protects and is at least twice as popular as sage, if not even more so. Many witches have the notion that throwing salt at a problem will most likely fix it. And they aren’t wrong! If the rock is big enough…

But sometimes even salt can’t help you. The fey for one are at times unimpressed by it. Also if you (like me) grew up by the sea then you know that some Things aren’t scared of a little salt water.

Plus as a secret witch clean up can be a bi*ch to handle. So what to use?

Chalk! Chalk is a great substitute for salt, it is easy to use and clean up and has about the same protective characteristics as salt. It wards of evil (the devil even) and it can be used to purify things.

A chalk circle is often just as effective as one made from salt.

Ash (from wood or herbs) is a powerful tool for cleansing or warding. The lighter the colour the better.

Milk, white wine or coconut water are great for cleansing and pepper can ward of the bad just as well as salt could. But a pinch of salt always helps both with taste and with protection.

So here are some substitutes for anyone that might be interested or needs them. I’m always looking for more so feel free to share your thoughts and experiences!

above is a list of suicide hotlines from around the world. please do not feel as though you are alone, it is important to remember that you are not alone and there are thousands experiencing the same thing you are. there is always someone who is willing to listen to you and stand by your side during these dark times.

there needs to be a constant and ever growing conversation about mental health and how harmful and deadly it can become. we need people to no longer be scared to reach out, to speak, to share, to no longer feel trapped and suffering in silence, scared of what others may think.

“You don’t look African”

Considering Africa is a continent with 54 different countries and over 3000 different ethnic groups, it really shouldn’t surprise people that there is no one set look for an African. 

Afar people:

San people:

Amazigh people:

Oromo people:

Hausa people:

Masai people:

Edo people:

Wodaabe people:

These are just 8 of the over 3000 ethnic groups in Africa, and you can already see how beautiful and varied the people of Africa are.

and that floored people and the psych went onto say that what she meant was that self esteem is a concept that actually includes a vast array of things and labelling them all as one thing is really limiting and prevents actual improvement

you could have real strong pride in the things you create and hate your body

you could hate your creations but also want to share them with people

you could not hate yourself at all but not take care of yourself, engage in reckless self endangerment

thats all bundled under ‘self esteem’ but saying ‘i need better self esteem’ doesn’t mean anything

whereas if you say ‘i need to work on ways to keeping myself safe, refusing to act on destructive urges’ or ‘i want to be in a place where i believe compliments trusted people give me’

thats concrete, thats a goal.

So my school is v White but also v liberal

Anyways we’re also a very academic/professional-driven institution so a lot (not all) of our students are taught about things like intersectionality, feminism, acceptance, etc through academic settings

And this boy, Ryan Wolfe, apparently took an issue to that and he published his opinions in the student-run conservative review website

Here are some of the topics he wrote on:

- how to “survive” social justice

- how intersectionality is fake

- SJWs want the most oppressed people to be in power because they’re the most special

- why the women’s march wasn’t inclusive (and why all the conservatives on campus were great for not causing riots when two of the leaders of the march came to campus)

- how BLM is ruining public perception of police officers

- “how to survive college as a conservative”

- conservative professors speaking out about being outnumbered and the minority

Anyways, total fuckboy

So back during the 2016 election season, the few conservatives we have on campus got together to host a panel about the future of the Republican Party and how it isn’t racist or whatever

And this panel is made up of entirely white people

So someone (I forget who) started a joke comparing them all to saltines

And Wolfe (the saltine) went off on them on twitter doing the typical fuckboy thing and complaining about how safe spaces don’t exist and saying that the panel wouldn’t be a safe space for anyone (ironic, no?)

And AFTER THE PANEL SOMEONE (her name’s Bri) JUST GOT UP AND HANDED THE GUY A BOX OF SALTINES WITH HIS FACE PHOTOSHOPPED ONTO THE CRACKERS

And THIS BOI GOES AND TRIES TO COMPLAIN TO THE ADMINISTRATION ABOUT FEELING UNSAFE ON CAMPUS AND UNABLE TO EXPRESS HIS OPINIONS LIKE BOY WHAT DO YOU THINK A SAFE SPACE IS

Our diversity and inclusion committee (also our committee for addressing prejudice-related harassment on campus) was like lol r u serious and he was like yeah

So they were like fine I guess we do technically have to do something if it’s harassment so they did the same thing they always do for smaller harassment cases on campus (two steps: 1) separating the students, 2) mediated meetings) the third step was the judicial case and the University was like nope we’ve already addressed your ridiculousness as much as we’re willing to sorry bud

And then he went and cried to Fox News and I got a text from my dad at 11:30 at night “racism at wake forest has gotten out of hand this is not acceptable” and I got to go down this rabbit hole of finding out about all this mess just like the rest of you and boy it gave me such a good laugh

(Also people are now calling him “Cryan” instead of “Ryan” so if you want to get that going please do)