The Crafts: Wixes, Spells, and the Weaponized Placebo Effect

Gladly.

The mistake a lot of people make when dealing with bureaucracy-spirits is assuming that the people they talk with, call, etc. are the bureaucracy. They are not. They are the attendants of the bureaucracy, and can coax it into accepting certain things by being careful with their words, but they are not the bureaucracy itself. The bureaucracy is a set of rules in a set of three-ring binders somewhere. If you are dealing with bureaucracy, politeness, persistence, and finding out as much as you can about the set of rules (several bureaucracies, especially the government ones, publish portions of their rulebooks online) is the key.

The thing about a government is that it powers public-spirits by siphoning off a fraction of its residents' vitality. This is also known as "the social contract" or "taxes". Libertarians exist because this siphoning is, while public knowledge, usually ignored; they prefer the bald-faced tooth-and-claw of private organizations to the more subtle "theft" perpetrated by the government itself, I think because at least the former is honest about what it is, and devote their lives to making sure people know and get angry about the existence of The Taxes.

But now we're getting into politics, and that best belongs elsewhere.

Personally, I don't begrudge the government the little vitality it gets from me. It seems to recognize I don't have much to spare and gives back more to me than it takes. (It helps that, again, I'm good at talking to bureaucracies, and in turn they have done me favors.)

I'd move to San Francisco but that city's government-spirits are terrible at urban planning. I prefer the kind of cities like Baltimore and Chicago that aren't as rich - government-spirits are theoretically Lawful Good, but without some Chaotic to keep them on their toes they tend to slide towards Lawful Stupid.

 

It's interesting to read about people feeling like certain places are home. For me I always grew up right on the shore of the east coast but that never really felt especially homey to me, I don't have much attachment to the ocean at all. However whenever we go through the Appalachians on trips as soon as we hit the hills and the trees, it's very much a sort of spiritual experience to me. No place has ever felt more like home to me, and put me at such peace. It's just a very 'I once lived and died here, my soul is here, one day I want to come back home again' sort of feeling.

Right now I live in a metro area and it's nice from a convenience stand point, and it's nice from a very 'people' standpoint. There is a lot of diversity, a lot of mingling cultures and new things to see and try and taste, but it isn't satisfying on some level. I would miss things about it, but I don't want to be here forever. I'm definitely glad I'm near DC instead of any other city though. I used to live near New York and visiting there was a nightmare. Too dark, too crowded. DC has a lot more daylight because there is a height limit on the buildings, and has reserved a lot more space for parks so there is more greenness. It's still not home, but I don't feel nearly as suffocated and uncomfortable.

 

Very much this. My parents lived for a long time inside the old Bronze Age boundaries of Wallingford in Oxfordshire, right next to the Kinecroft, now a public, grassy parkland but as the name suggests once a field for cattle, perhaps where they were kept awaiting market. One corner of the area's substantial Saxon-era fortifications makes up two sides of the park; only earthworks are left but there was apparently a substantial wall atop it at one time. You can feel the history there, that's for sure, a couple thousand years of it at least. All those feet, all those bodies, all those desires and hopes and fears. The Royal Mint was there during the Civil War, and the castle was destroyed in a long siege, only little bits of ruins left. My mother has seen ghosts in the house many times.

London's like that, too, especially in the older parts of it. Like by the Tower, where there are still Roman walls surviving.

 

It is so weird for me to read about such... attachments and resonances with places, probably because I grew up moving from country to country. I liked some places more than others for different reasons, but like, I don't remember feeling personalities or home in the cities I grew up in. Any "feelings" I get now with buildings and places are something I've started more noticing recently, when I commented to my dad that I don't like walking in one of the nearby parks and he said that he also felt it, and how we both avoid one street near the supermarket for all that it is full of offices and should be safe, because walking down it feels unsafe and like the buildings (new) are watching us.

Well, that is partly true, I have always felt at one, in true peace, in one place, Lake Titicaca. Since this is basically a huge sacred lake, and that I tend to just kind of contemplate in happiness with the wind and the water, I reckon that it is a big source of natural energy. Like, it is seriously an important lake, the Incas said they originated from a cave in the lake, other peoples have different traditions, but it is special and I feel it, as well as my dad.

I have more to say but I'm feeling weird so my words are running out so eh.

 

@Raire Part of it for me probably has to do with the fact that my family's been settled within about fifty miles of here for a hundred and fifty years, or thereabouts. We're about as settled as they come, in the US, and moving around was really never a serious possibility when I was growing up.

 

I'm ... gonna poke my nose in here, toss in my two cents on what @ADigitalMagician said earlier, and go back to quietly lurking.

Some background on me: my mom grew up in a very Christian home: Baptist (of the liberal non-hateful-sign-waving variety), single parent. She and my dad (raised United, switched to Baptist) instilled this in my childhood home growing up (and still today). I am not so much a congregating Christian right now, and I have some issues I need to hash out with faith/religion/etc., but anyway. That's where I come from on the spiritual front.

It seems to me that a lot of modern (western, European-cultured) Christians don't believe in magic - they are of the opinion that it is/was all pagan nonsense and superstition. My Mom has never thought of it that way. Her message to us kids was that witchcraft is a thing, there are definitely Other Powers, and most importantly, you do not fuck with them. Do not even poke them. This was couched in the "we are taught not to practice witchcraft", of course, but there was definitely a "this is not a joke" vibe to it. She was also very clear that most people in our communities would think we were completely off our rockers if we started talking about spiritual warfare as if it were an actual physical thing, so keep it quiet and life is a lot easier.

My mom and I can sense things. That's... about as specific a description as I can give. My best story is the time I was cuddling with my then-bf (super forbidden cuddle time omg) while my parents were out and we were babysitting my three younger siblings. Some time around midnight, I think, I sat bolt upright in bed, convinced something was threatening my little sister. I went upstairs to her room (she was asleep) and told it to fuck right off in the name of Christ. It duly buggered off and I went back to bed, a little shaken. There have been other incidents of similar sorts, but that was the most dramatic. (We're pretty boring. Newer house, fairly strong faith in it, I guess nobody/nothing wants to bother - or we've got friendly stuff.)

Then there was the time there may or may not have been something in my head and we got rid of it. (That story's over in the multiple-personas thread in Top Serket!)

Anyway. I'm not so convinced of the purported dichotomy of the universe anymore, but it's kinda comforting to know that occasionally I can make things go away if they're being nasty.

Oh, and I've always appreciated having dreamcatchers over my bed...

 

@Kaylotta Sounds a bit like my mom! She was raised Southern Baptist and, when I asked her about magic/witchcraft/etc. sometime in my teens, her (paraphrased) response was "Yeah, there's stuff going on there, and our family has to be particularly careful not to get caught up in it because it's forbidden to Christians but we already have a bent for it." She seems to have this thing where she knows when people are going to die, so....

I've got all the spiritual sensibility of a rock, though. Possibly less, actually. It's interesting to hear/think about but that's it for me. I don't even "feel the presence of the Spirit" the way a lot of Christians do. =/

ETA: Fellow lurker BTW, I've been following this thread with interest for a while but I don't usually have anything to add.

 

And with my silouhettes deck now safely on its way (it was in LA yesterday, says the shipping tracker, so it's going to be here within the week), I apparently felt the need to go looking for my next dream deck.

Which turns out to be this one because wow, inventive tarot shit is my favorite.

 

I can't not think "transparent tarot, or transparot" when I look at that.
I'm so sorry.

 

what are you talking about that's fucking amazing.

 

that's awesome!

 

@Morven You know runes, right? If so, do you have a resource that you could share on the names of them? I know I have seen them called various things over the years and would like to know if the ones I mostly use are at least close enough to right I won't get laughed at.

 

Wikipedia's actually pretty good on that; look at their article on Runes and its links to the number of different runic alphabets used over the years. There are at least five of them; the Elder and Younger Futhark, the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, Dalecarlian runes, medieval Scandinavian runes (used alongside the Latin script until at least the 15th Century in some places) and there are a few related scripts as well. Oh and Tolkien's Dwarven runes, if you're including invented scripts. Which have Unicode mappings for the unique character-forms, BTW, because geeks.

I suspect part of the issue is that many of them indeed have several different names depending on era and source.

 

I was specifically wanting the Elder Futhark, mostly because I was considering working up a bit of a spellwork to help with the "Streaming is scaring the crap out of me." When I used to use runes for divination they were something I was personally really receptive to, and I've always had an affinity for language in spellwork.

 

I tend to either use the Elder or the Anglo-Saxon; the latter is best, for obvious reasons, when writing English in runes for whatever reason one might wish to (e.g. in pondering the runes that make up a name, and their meanings, and what they might mean together, which is sometimes useful or reassuring or entertaining).

 

Since it came up (as usual) while talking to my dad, here's the story of my best friend as a kid.

When I was a kid, about 5, my parents had to move out of dad's family's house on account of it getting hella crowded which my same-aged cousin being put in their custody and people coming and going on business related to that and my great-grandma, who was bed bound and needed house calls regularly. My dad's agoraphobia was starting to get to the point he couldn't handle being outside much or around strangers so this was especially a problem for him. Since dad couldn't work and mom was working min wage shit jobs and this is California where breathing is expensive, the options looked like panic attack central or the streets. My Great-Aunt Audrey stepped in and said they were NOT going to be on the streets with a 5-year-old, nor were they going to be on the streets alone with me living at Grandma's (especially not after all the trouble they went through to get me back from my Nana) and let us live in one of the trailers on her property. All she asked was that they put money towards the bills when they could.

My Great-Aunt is amazing, by the way. She's 108 now. Note I'm using present-tense, as in she's still alive. Sadly she's starting to slow down, she can barely walk and has alzheimer's, but that only started in the past five years or so. She has been sharp and strong and kind my whole life and it really hurts to be reminded that she's still mortal and has been around for a long time. We had to convince her to move into a care home because we were worried about her living alone. This woman is made out of IRON. (There's also a little magic on her side, through her husband. He actually dowsed the well on the property her house and the trailer were on. I share his birthday and he died either a little before or shortly after I was born. From the stories I've heard he was also a really cool dude and I'm sad I never got to know him.)

Anyway, the house and two trailers were on this big property that used to be farmland. It went from the street up to the hill and a little past, most of it up to the hill was pasture and old farmland. She'd rent out the pasture to the Cow Guy, and the farmland had two old grapevines (it's wine country out here) and a blackberry bush, with another bush in front of the trailer we lived in, which was at the top of the hill. Then there were two lovely corkscrew willows, the other trailer behind one and the old house behind the other, and then a space with the old greenhouse, a pepper tree, a stump that had been there since forever, and Audrey's house, with more farmland past that where her garden was.

I was a lonely kid, I was weird and already had a messed-up childhood and didn't really know how to interact with people who weren't messed up. I never really went over to other peoples' houses and the trailer wasn't exactly cramped but I preferred to be outside. I played all over that whole property, but since I've always been weak there was only one tree I could climb: the left willow, which had a V low enough for me to reach and juuust strong enough to hold me. I couldn't go any higher, but I could hang out there and did quite a lot. Another tree, a loquat tree that grew next to my willow, had a trunk that grew out at low angle that I usually played on (I could walk right 'up' it) when I was feeling adventurous, but the willow was a place to rest. I took a lot of naps up there.

Remember when I said there were nature spirits I used to play with? There was one in each of the willows. I didn't know the other one so well, since her tree was unclimbable and if I wanted shade there was was the one I could. When I had bad days I'd tell my willow all about it. When I was feeling sick and it was warm out sometimes I'd climb up there and nap for a while. If I was feeling sad and didn't want to worry my parents I'd cry and didn't feel like I'd have to justify it the way I do around people. The spirit was one I mostly just felt, a sort of calm motherly presence, but I did see (her? Both willows struck me as feminine. The tree at the park, the loquat, and pepper tree all felt masculine) once. I'd nodded off and startled awake and there (she?) was, like a figurine grown into an almost-human mold the way they did with mandragora dolls but covered in leaves, looking down a branch at me. I remember gasping and going "Oh, it's you!" and when I blinked she was gone but there was a feeling like laughter.

I really, really loved that tree. No matter what happened in my life it was always there, strong and steady and safe.

As I got older, and after my sister was born, my parents started to fight more. As my mom put it they love each other, they just can't live together. They'd always send me (and my sis, after she was born) over to Audrey's when things got bad so I/we wouldn't have to see it. I/we'd watch a movie or hang out for a while and by the time I/we went back home things were... somewhat OK again.

One night it was really stormy and pretty late when they started fighting so sended me over wasn't an option. I really, really hated to see my parents fight and was naturally really upset that they were! And I couldn't do anything about it. They both were trying to hold it in for my sake, but that just turned it into a quiet snark war and I wasn't stupid and picked up on it so it upset me anyway. Finally one of them exploded and the shouting started...

And then there was this huge CRRAAAACK! from outside, followed by the sound of something hitting the door. HARD. We all went running to investigate. The door, since it was a trailer, opened outward rather than in, and on trying it we discovered something heavy was blocking it. Half of it was also a window that slid up, and dad and I were the only ones who could fit through. Since I wouldn't be able to lift anything heavy enough to block the door like that, dad had to very carefully climb through, dodging the offending object, while not falling down the stairs. This was a joint effort as mom and I helped keep him steady while he found his footing and discovered the problem: the willow, my willow, had split nearly in half with one of the sides having fallen towards the trailer, hitting the stairs and blocking the door. Dad moved her enough that we could open the door and the next day he and mom got her the rest of the way off the steps. The argument that was building up dissipated since dad had Saved the Day by unblocking the door. I still played on the fallen trunk for a while, but not long after my parents formally split, my depression started to manifest and my ability to cope with both the split and the bullying started deteriorating, and I started spending more time indoors.

I was and remain convinced she knew I was upset because my parents were starting to fight and sacrificed herself so they would stop. The other willow was close by, near enough they were probably tangled up at the roots, so hopefully she just moved in with her sister next door rather than dying. I think one of the wands mom made from her is still in storage somewhere.

Tiny Laz had the strangest, but dearest, of friends.

 

Deck finally came, whoo! It's gorgeous, and also adds an extra card, which is a squirrel, which I completely adore.

The booklet is also dual language English and Chinese, which is cool! It's also got slightly larger cards than my other decks (they're taller than my Llewellyns and I think wider than the Homestuck deck, which is hiding from me) which is neat.

 

Oooh what. That sounds really neat.

 

Was reading through my previous posts and just wanna thank you guys for being so accepting. I mean, I didn't expect you guys to not be, but a lot of this is stuff I don't talk about because it's downright weird and not a lot of people share that life experience. Seriously every time I talk about it I end up going "goddamn I sound like a shitty YA protag" and question my reality. My therapist doesn't even know about the whole replacement-priestess-heiress thing re: my childhood kidnapping (there were a few compounding issues, namely my mom's mental illness, and we've talked about that instead).

I'm always real wary about talking about the weirder stuff so I mostly just keep it to myself. I feel like a hypocrite because I avoid 'crafty' forums because it's full of kids with superpowers (you lifted a car with your brain? Mmmmhm yep I believe you) even though a lot of other wixen don't believe some of the stranger stories I have.

So yeah, y'all are super cool.

ANYWAY back on topic: I have a weird Thing where tarot has to be gifted so I can't buy my own decks. I don't know why, but decks I've bought for myself never seem to 'connect' properly. So I can't use my Homestuck deck for actual tarot :(. I mostly keep it for a shuffling stim or as a random generator when I'm stuck writing (also the art is nice).

Maybe next month when I have money we should do a deck exchange for us tarot addicts. :D I've been feeling a little disconnected from my main deck, since I got it when I was 13ish and a lot has changed since then. (Also it keeps losing cards. My moirail still has one because it escaped while we were reading for each other. So yeah, I think it's time.) And I like buying things for people!

 

I am glad we're cool for you.

I do admit my definition of strange might be a bit skew but it's more about how the tale is told rather than what the tale is, if that makes sense? And you tell it like it is.