Love that came from the stars

Destiel as Stucky quotes

What is a glamour?

Stemming from the old Scots word, a “glamour” (always spelt with the British “ou”, as we are referring to the spell not the trait) is a kind of magickal spell or enchantment that a person casts upon an object, a person, or themselves to confuse, bewitch or obscure the senses of other observers. For instance, a pickpocket may use glamours as a means of assisting in the avoidance of detection, and a secret Witch may use a glamour to hide their spell supplies. Glamours are also one of the primary spells that the Fae Folk use to hide their presence, and also to make mischief and cause harm to intrusive or blundering humans who offend them. 

Why have I never heard of this before?!

Probably because it’s not very flashy and, by its very nature, it’s centred around concealment. Glamours are very powerful, very useful spells, but they don’t involve love or money or luck or happiness and so they tend to be overlooked by most novice or self-taught Witches. They’re also quite hard to perfect, and so many more experienced Witches give up before they have mastered them.

They are simultaneously very simple spells to perform, but very difficult to perfect, as they require significant effort of Will and a lot of practice but if you achieve a true glamour it can be one of the most powerful spells in any Witch’s arsenal. It’s also worth noting, however, that glamours do not conceal things from machines. Machines like metal detectors, security cameras and proximity detectors don’t have minds, and as such they cannot be fooled by magick that affects the mind and how the brain perceives senses. They also work poorly on animals, especially cats. Do not try to fool a cat with a glamour. Dogs are often confused by glamours, but generally see through them with time, and snakes and lizards are completely immune as far as I can tell (since their minds are not concerned with things that glamours affect).

OK, but how do I cast a glamour?

The first step is, as with all spells, to decide to do it. Decide “I am going to cast a glamour”. Know it in your soul, know that what you will do is magick, it is a glamour, and that it’s purpose is to hide yourself. Glamours on yourself are generally the easiest to start with, because they are the easiest kind with which to tell when something needs improving. 

Secondly, you must visualise strongly - and I mean REALLY strongly, let it consume your being - the purpose of the glamour. Fill yourself with the knowledge how how it will work, what it will do, how it will work. If you are looking for a glamour of imperception, whereby you attempt to make yourself hard to see by convincing the minds of people around you that you are utterly uninteresting and forgettable, fill yourself with that. Let to complete and utter truth of that ring through your head; 

“I am forgettable, I’m not even here. You don’t remember me, I’m utterly boring, I’m just another part of the background. Everything about me is empty and dull. There is nothing here”

And similar such truths. Let your Willpower make them true, let their truth fill the world around you through the strength of your visualisation.

Thirdly, sustain it. This is the hardest step, but a glamour will only last for as long as it is sustained and remembered. If you are visualising a glamour on something that moves or changes (such as yourself) this can involve literally constant reinforcement - never ever stop thinking those reinforcing statements and pouring all your Willpower into them. For objects that are more static, for instance a chest containing spell supplies, this can simply involve a period of refreshment every evening whereby you place your hands upon it and refresh the enchantment you’ve placed upon the chest, reminding it of how completely ignorable and boring it is, reminding it that nobody will open it because nobody will care enough to try, that nobody will notice it because it’s so dull it’s not even there. 

That seems REALLY hard, is there a simpler way?

The short answer is, no. This is why glamours are often quite unpopular - despite their obvious power and usefulness, the sheer effort of Will that goes into the construction of a glamour, and the amount of practice you need to get really good, can scare off a lot of Witches from truly persisting. Those who need glamours are often the only ones who are really any good at them - the best glamour-caster I have ever known developed her skill during her life as a pickpocket, when she used glamours to avoid getting caught. The simple fact that she has no criminal record attests to their efficacy! But, it took her a very long time to get that good, and most Witches simply don’t care enough to try.

However, I urge you to do so! It’s such a rewarding skill, even if only so that you can be the undisputed champion of paintball and laser tag in your friend group because nobody ever sees you in the shadows. 

So there you are! The ancient, powerful, and mostly-overlooked art of glamours! I hope this helped all you lovely Witches!

Star Trek fans absolutely anytime a Vulcan touches someone's hand:

You GUYS. Mr. “computers and logic are the best 5ever” Spock literally thinks that for Jim to be anything less than a good man/captain is impossible because iT’S ONLY LOGICAL, even though it’s really not. His firm truth is that Jim is one of the best men he knows. Even faced with the ‘infallible’ COMPUTER telling everyone that Jim is guilty of killing a crewman without reason. 

I mean just look at this dialogue from the tos episode “Court Martial”:

SPOCK: Lieutenant, I am half Vulcanian. Vulcanians do not speculate. I speak from pure logic. If I let go of a hammer on a planet that has a positive gravity, I need not see it fall to know that it has in fact fallen. SHAW: I do not see what that has to SPOCK: Gentlemen, human beings have characteristics just as inanimate objects do. It is impossible for Captain Kirk to act out of panic or malice. It is not his nature. SHAW: In your opinion.  SPOCK: Yes. In my opinion.

Spock is completely convinced “logically,,” that Jim is the best person he knows and can do no wrong - as sure as if gravity exists. That’s huge. and then of course one of the judges calls him out on it - “In your opinion,” he clarifies. And even though Spock knows that his logic is a bit flawed, he admits that yes it is in his opinion - not based on pure logic at all, but on EMOTION. Because oh look at that Spock is in love with his captain. At the very least - he respects the hell out of him, possibly respects him more than anyone else that Spock knows.

In this movie, it was almost 6 billion Vulcans that died at once. He FELT that.

BOTH Spocks felt that.

(no major spoilers for the movie, a couple of references to Spock Prime’s backstory in TOS in case you’re planning on catching up with the 60′s)

Star Trek Beyond is definitely my favorite out of the three reboot movies. I did enjoy the first a lot, but most of my joy and approval came from the recasting choices, so subsequent films already have that going for them. The second had a lot of problems, but I still adored the role reversal scene, and that’s pretty much the only thing I remember from it thanks to my beautifully calibrated sieve of a memory.

Beyond tried to be a lot of things, and it succeeded at a surprising number of them, considering. And it succeeded at being Star Trek a lot better than the first two did, in my opinion.

It also succeeded in being, by turns, an action movie, a campy comedy, and a horror movie (“the call is coming from inside the house” *jump scare*), as well as the best kind of Mary Sue fanfiction.

It was a little Serenity and a little Guardians of the Galaxy, although a lot of the tropes that lend those feels were originally Star Trek anyway, so Beyond just steals them back. Starlord may be the most famous for blasting anachronistic rock music in space, but Zefram Cochrane did it first! (Star Trek: First Contact.)

I continue to love the way the actors interpret the characters, including the differences, big and small, due to the timeline.

My mom and I just recently finished a rewatch of TOS, so the storytelling and the characters are all pretty fresh in my mind, and one in particular I want to draw attention to when discussing the differences in Spock’s character in particular is All Our Yesterdays, the second-to-last episode (3x23), in which Spock is pulled five thousand years into the past. In a time period in which the subconscious emotional link with the rest of the Vulcan race connects him to a Vulcan planet rife with violence and emotionality, Spock becomes violent and emotional. This is in contrast to Spock Prime in his native timeline, where the subconscious emotional link with the rest of the Vulcan race connects him to a calm sea of logic and discipline, except in great extremity, like the destruction of the Intrepid (The Immunity Syndrome, 2x19), and other large-scale events which cause widespread ripples in the emotional state of the Vulcan race as a whole.

Reboot!Spock is Spock, but he is vastly different because the Vulcan collective subconscious is a much smaller body that has taken much larger emotional blows, and so is much more easily thrown off kilter by any one Vulcan’s emotions. This also allows for more influence on his behavior by other people he’s shared emotional intimacy with. Reboot!Spock is less Vulcan, and I think, under the circumstances, that is only logical. And it’s fascinating to watch how it continually changes the dynamics between Spock and the rest of the crew.

I love the new characters, and the way the nonhuman characters’ abilities come into play in interesting ways.

there’s something...

familiar...🤔

Makes sense for Omegas!

Honest to whatever god there is, stop sending me asks with like 20 questions in them. Whatever I have in my inbox now, I will answer. My three braincells can only handle so many trains of thoughts at once.

If an alpha like “knots” and mates with an omega does that mean they won’t want to do it with anyone else? 

Depends on your AU. Depends on whether the Alpha and Omega are bonded to one another. I would think that if an Alpha is bonded to something, they could only knot with who they are bonded with. Or they would get a smaller ineffective knot if they aren’t with the person they bonded with.

Helps weed out the cheats tbh.

Will it make like other alpha/omegas scents unbearable for them?

Again, depends on your AU. Depends on whether the Alpha and Omega are bonded to one another.

I would imagine that if bonded, during sex they are probably effected, but not entirely enough for them to stop. My AU, mates have separate scents from one another. Although, they often scent their mates and that lasts a long while and if they life together the scent sticks around for days.

Will the omega get pregnant after the alpha comes in them once? Or like will it take a couple of tries before they make a baby?             

Oooh, very interesting concept. I can see it though! Sorta like a runt of the litter.

And that’s the tea.