kindness is strength

PLEASE REPOST INSTEAD OF REBLOGGING!

CURRENTLY PLAYING:

samar solomon  —  fandomless mage oc  —  @royalmagus  —  moderate activity

wendy the good little witch —  harvey comics/casper canon  —  @wellwitchings — low activity

HAVE PLAYED:

the cheshire cat/dinah —  alice’s adventures in wonderland/syfy’s alice  —  @xlivestogo-archive —  inactive  

frankie travers  —  charles perrault’s “diamonds and toads”  —  @plaguedaughter  —  scarce activity

daphne greengrass — harry potter — @crowninglaurel — inactive

mephistopheles — faust — @soulbeneficiary — inactive

the oracle at delphi — classical mythology — @pythiian — inactive

MIGHT COME BACK:

claire temple  — netflix marvel  —  @ourladyclaire​​  —  scarce activity

dorothy gale  —  emerald city  —  @skydelivered — inactive 

WOULD LIKE TO PLAY:

zatanna zatara — dc/vertigo 

kat harvey — casper — @mindedmanors — url saved !

helena — mirrormask — @tightropedrawn — url saved !

seems that i have been held in some DREAMING state; a tourist in the waking world, never quite awake.  no kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber,   until i realized that it was you who held me under.    felt it in my fists, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids;    shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my ribs.         no more dreaming of the DEAD as if death itself was undone.      no more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden.   no more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world. 

Someone asked me today whether it helps to replace the racist terms “white magic” and “black magic” with “positive magic” and “negative magic.” While that’s a lovely idea, unfortunately, it doesn’t entirely fix the underlying problem…

The notion of “good” and “bad” magic does, in fact, go beyond the terms “light” and ”dark” or “white” and “black.” If you replace the words with “positive/negative” and then refer to “death magic, graveyard dirt, curses, and animal sacrifice” as “negative” then you’re literally calling lots of Africana traditions and other practices or religions “negative.” That’s part of why they were called “dark” in the first place.

Let’s break down some of these stereotypes of “bad magic” one by one:

Ancestors are really foundational to African religions and to the magical practices and diasporic religions that developed from them. Working with ancestors is technically “death magic” since you’re working with the spirits of your family who have passed away. But really there’s nothing evil or wrong with that, it’s lovely! Gathering graveyard dirt is a way of connecting with ancestral spirits because in many African religions, the earth and one’s ancestors are interconnected. Goofer dirt/graveyard dirt is a part of that spiritual and material interconnection. These sorts of practices are often labeled “evil”  and “creepy” when removed from the sophisticated and rich spirituality of their actual cultural contexts then misunderstood.

These negative stereotypes even apply to cursing and animal sacrifice. Many think “it’s a given that those things are wrong or unethical,” which comes from an uninformed Eurocentric set of assumptions. I personally don’t curse, but I am curse-positive because I support anyone’s right to choose to curse. Curses, jinxes, hexes, and crossing magic are a big part of the hoodoo tradition because it’s a tradition developed by black people during slavery, many of whom used magic for self-defense against their slave masters and oppressors. For black people, fighting this oppression with magic has been a way of regaining agency in a world of slavery, segregation, and systematic racism for centuries. When people just label “cursing” as “bad,” it completely ignores the context from which that developed and still exists for rootworkers and the magical traditions of marginalized groups all around the world as well.

Finally, with animal sacrifice, that’s been a part of many African religions for a long time and is still a part of how many practitioners of diasporic Africana religions (including myself) make offerings to their deities. It’s not just slaughtering animals in a careless way and then disposing of their bodies as waste… At least within the Ifá tradition, I know that the animals are treated ethically with great care and appreciation. They are killed because their ashe (energy) and spirits return to Olorun to send your message and the ashe to the orishas, where they will rest in peace afterwards. They are killed in an ethical manner similar to halal/kosher slaughter (as quick and painless as possible) and deeply appreciated and blessed by all involved. Typically, they are eaten afterwards as shared communion with the orishas or put into the wilderness to return to the cycle of life and be eaten by animals. They aren’t wasted or forgotten. They are treated far better than most animals that are eaten at a dinner table every day, many of whom are horrifically butchered and taken for granted. (I’m a vegetarian btw!)

So as for replacing “white/black” terminology with “positive/negative” to refer to magical traditions and practices, I think it all depends on what you’re calling “negative” because if it’s based on popular stereotypes of what’s “bad,” it’s still going to end up perpetuating racist stereotypes.

What’s the alternative? Personally, I refer to specific practices that I would or would not do myself rather than lumping them all into one group and putting a judgment on it. In other words, I don’t talk about the notion of “bad” or “negative” magic at all. For instance, if you don’t like working with the spirits of the deceased, you could just say “personally I don’t practice that” instead of labeling it “bad” as a blanket judgment on other people’s practices without knowing the context.

Sophie

Convinced she’s fated to be a failure by pervasive societal messages

Depressed and anxious to the point that leaving the house terrifies her

Constant excuses to not talk to people

Wears one color and it is grey (like her soul)

“I’m eighteen but I’m ninety at heart”

RAGE

Has to get away from her home so she moves into a terrifying moving castle bc it’s free and at this point why not

*everything’s on fire* “This is fine”

I KNOW EXACTLY HOW THE WORLD WORKS o wait shit fuck

Feelings? What are those? I only know cleaning.

Howl

Fancy degree that he has to move to another world to use

Loves his blood family but just… can’t be around them 

“Why don’t you have a real job”

Cannot handle responsibility

Is responsible for things anyway

“Howl we have no money” “I’m going to buy a skull”

Embodiment of Do It For The Aesthetic ™

also “treat yo self” 

Just Can’t anymore and has a meltdown over his hair (aka everything else in his life)

“Oh no I care for all these people why”

Overcharges rich people and undercharges poor people bc the system sucks

Last night on earth? Time to get wasted.

“I don’t care” he says caringly, while caring deeply.

Michael

Anxious bab

What is happening why this plz help

Stresses out over his homework only to find out the papers had gotten mixed up and he was doing the wrong thing

“I guess this now” :/

Better at adulting than the actual adults

Loves his gf so much and is so openly happy about it

A bit useless in a crisis

Tries so hard, gets so far

Found family is the best family

Calcifer

“I’m being exploited!”

Complains about everything

Bored. Just. So bored. Give him attention.

Used to be literal star but things went wrong and now he’s living in a fireplace

Eats everything and anything. 

“Guys I have arms be impressed by my arms”

Creates a castle for the Aesthetic that also looks like it’s about to fall apart and frightens people.