#areyoustupid

💀 Breaking News: Some of you are out here living life on tutorial mode, making the dumbest f*cking decisions imaginable, and still wondering why sh*t keeps going wrong.

🚨 Don’t know if you qualify? Let’s check.

1️⃣ Do You Ignore Reality Because It Hurts Your Feelings?

✔ Do you believe the gender wage gap is real? ✔ Do you think “words are violence” but support actual riots? ✔ Do you get offended by jokes but laugh at TikTok “kill all men” trends?

💀 If you answered YES, congrats! You are officially living in delusion and might just be retarded.

2️⃣ Do You Make the Same Dumb F*cking Mistakes Over and Over?

✔ Do you date walking red flags, then cry about “all men/women being trash”? ✔ Do you take financial advice from people who are broker than you? ✔ Do you ignore sound advice because “you don’t like the way it was said”?

🔥 Reality doesn’t give a f*ck about your feelings. You keep touching the hot stove and acting surprised when you get burned.

3️⃣ Do You Believe the Internet Is Real Life?

✔ Do you base your entire personality on Twitter opinions? ✔ Do you think retweets and Tumblr discourse change the world? ✔ Do you engage in online debates like they’re Supreme Court cases?

🚨 If your “activism” consists of yelling into the void online while doing f*ck all in real life, you might be suffering from digital retardation.

4️⃣ Do You Refuse to Take Responsibility for Your Own Life?

✔ Are you always the victim, never the problem? ✔ Do you blame “society” for why you’re broke, out of shape, or single? ✔ Do you demand that other people change instead of improving yourself?

💀 The world isn’t unfair. You’re just dumb and lazy.

5️⃣ Do You Get Angry at Facts?

✔ Do you rage at statistics that don’t fit your worldview? ✔ Do you call everything “problematic” instead of acknowledging reality? ✔ Do you shut down conversations by screaming “bigot, misogynist, incel, racist” instead of making a coherent argument?

🔥 Facts don’t care about your emotions. Cope, seethe, and stay losing.

🔥 Final Verdict: Are You a Retard?

✔ If you got offended reading this, yes. You are. ✔ If you recognized some of this but are willing to fix it, you might have hope. ✔ If you read this and nodded, congrats—you’re one of the few people left with common f*cking sense.

🚀 The good news? You can stop being a retard. The bad news? Most won’t.

I hear this a lot. More than you’d expect, really. I ran into a similar problem five or six years into my own practice, and I’ve gotten similar messages from other witches at around the same general period in their own journeys. (I think The Fifth-Year Slump might be a thing, but really it can happen anytime.)

We all get to a point where we feel like we’ve stalled somehow. We’ve learnt the basics, we’ve run out of Witchcraft 101 books to read, we’re looking for the next step and not finding it, we haven’t had a reason to cast a spell in a while…it could be any number of things. And it’s very frustrating. Makes a witch want to hang up their boots.

For those of us with mentors or a local witchy community to offer guidance, it’s a little easier. There are extra resources and knowledgeable people to turn to, and that can help buoy things along until the slump passes.

For solitary practitioners, even with an online support system, we can be left feeling like, “Well….now what?”

What I’ve found to be helpful is getting back to my roots. By this I don’t necessarily mean starting over, but instead, going back to the things that made me want to be a witch in the first place, the things that made me turn my face to the autumn wind and wonder if I could fly.

Here’s a short list of suggestions to help you work through your slump:

Try something new. If your current line of study isn’t doing anything for you, branch out! Curious about the history of magical practices? Always wanted to try divination? Go for it! There are lots of places like Sacred Texts and Project Gutenberg were you can read books for free. See if something new grabs your interest. Nothing revitalizes a practice like having something new to explore.

Play in the dirt. For witches whose practice revolves around plants, getting into the garden and working the soil can make a world of difference. Go out and pull weeds for a bit, or plant something new, or just sit and soak up the sun with your plants. Pick up a potted plant or some kitchen herbs that are easy to grow. Tend them and harvest them. Seeing little bundles of drying herbs and flowers hanging about always makes me feel better.

Get out of the house (if you can). Stir things up with a little fresh air and a mini road trip. Go visit a local park. Take a stroll through the woods. Visit a sacred site. Is there a particular spot within easy travel distance that makes you feel witchy and powerful? Go pay it a visit and see how you feel.

Attend a gathering. If time and energy and finances allow, see if there’s a pagan (or at least pagan-friendly) festival in your area. The largest concentration of gatherings usually happens in spring and fall, so these might be the best times to go looking. It doesn’t have to be a full-on rite or anything elaborate; it can be as simple as a local street fair. Sometimes just seeing and interacting with other practitioners, even on a momentary basis, can give us a helpful and refreshing boost.

Curl up with an old favorite. This one is going to sound silly to some folks, but I swear to you, this is probably the most effective method on the list. If you’ve hit a slump and nothing else is helping, pull out the books and movies and music that make you feel witchy.

Doesn’t matter what month it is, it’s always a good time for The Worst Witch or Halloweentown. Loved Practical Magic or The Craft? Watch them again. (Don’t be ashamed, I love them too.) Reread that book that made you want to cackle over a cauldron. Harry Potter? The Abhorsen Series? The Enchanted Forest Chronicles? The Discworld Witches? The Black Jewels? Do it. Put on a playlist with a witchy feel while you’re running errands or cleaning or chilling on the computer. Anything that floats your broomstick. There are plenty of them to be found on Spotify.

Whether it was hearing “Seven Wonders” at just the right time, or a poignant remark from Granny Weatherwax that really hit home, or that one episode of AHS: Coven, these things affected you in a profound way for a reason. Revisit them. Say hello. Don’t be surprised if the magic is still there. Because it’s still in you too.

VULTURES ARE LOVELY AND I WILL BREAK THE ARMS OF ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE. THEY ARE GOOD AND ESSENTIAL TO THEIR ECOSYSTEMS OTHERWISE THERE’D BE ROTTING BODIES EVERYWHERE AND A FUCK TONNE MORE DEADLY DISEASES.  AND THEY’RE FANCY AS FUCK.

LOOK AT HER. SUCH A FANCY SWEETIE. 12/10

I love all birds so very dearly and always have ;A; yes even the potoos  So I try to draw as many variations in shapes and sizes as possible. However, Peregrines have an always will by my ultimate favourite because I cant break 20+ years of adoration that easily.

Favourite Vulture though: Cinnamon Cinereous Vultures, because they are huge and fluffy with lovely faces.

(This lovely lady though from the Hawk Conservancy in Hampshire, has the bird form of rickets because her former owners didn’t give her the right nutrition and exercise as a young bird, so her bones and muscles didn't develop right meaning she’s never been able to fly ;o;)

Sometimes, it may help to have a look at fossils, which was one of my methods to determine my tyrannosaur species. I knew from dreams, that my tyrannosaurid had proportionally longer arms than Tyrannosaurus rex, while the ornamentation on the head looked a bit like Albertosaurus / Gorgosaurus, while the body was more robust. (I didn’t have these long legs that Gorgosaurus has.)When I finally came across some pictures of Daspletosaurus, the puzzle was solved because it did fit 

It was Lapidot fanart!