#Modern Learning Methods

[vipschoolbaddi]

Role of Computers in Education

Computers are used in every field of work, and education is no exception. From creating a simple Word document to advanced codes, computers perform many major and minor operations in the education system. It helps students understand various complex things simply and straightforwardly.

Students now don’t have to be physically present in class; they can learn from the comfort of their homes. However, there are still many people who are unaware of the contribution of this technology to the education sector. If you are one among them, read this blog to learn more about the role of computers in the education sector.

[markscherz]

Bird-reptiles is a butterfly-moth situation?

Precisely! These kinds of situations show us how wrong we have been for so long about the relationships among various animals. The pretty little boxes we like to make are often very, very wrong, phylogenetically, i.e., they are not compatible with the *actual* relationships among the organisms.

Here are a few other mind-fucks that have come to light as a result of modern methods being applied to traditional categories that turned out to be wrong:

• Snakes are lizards

• Termites are cockroaches

• Birds belong to lizard-hipped dinosaurs (Saurischia), not the bird-hipped ones (Ornithischia)

• All tetrapods are fish

• Insects are crustaceans

[juniperpyre]

What are your thoughts on gender in the wizarding world? Do you think there’s a strong patriarchy, and if so how do you think it formed?

I feel wobbly about how powerful patriarchy would be in the wizarding world before answering this question. let's see what conclusion i come to lol

table of contents—you could skip to gender in the text if you don't want the connections to the real world and don't need the foundational ideology of my argument

1: where did patriarchy originate in the real western world? & what assumptions am I working off of?

2: gender in late medieval and early modern england & western europe

3: gender in the text 3.1: younger women 3.2: older women

4. conclusions

1. where did patriarchy originate in the real western world? & what assumptions am I working off of?

mona eltahawy called patriarchy "the oldest form of occupation", speaking to the way women & people classed as women (or gender deviant or ungendered) are treated as commodities to own. this BBC article argues that patriarchy was created as a way for the proto-state to leverage control over the population. the enforced social roles of males soldiers & female reproducers made groups bigger & more powerful.

I will take the article's assertion (it's very well sourced) that one of the first instances of patriarchy developing starts about 5,000 ago in Mesopotamia, when records show women disappearing from public life, at face value. then, ofc, in the mediterranean world we "soon" after see the Mycenaeans & Greeks & Romans, in that order, develop, all of which had patriarchal societies—tho to different extents.

as I have stated previously, the wizarding world loves Greek & Roman shit, as does the real western world (and we have! for centuries!). I like to consider their cultural norms, especially as they were interpreted during the Renaissance, when thinking about wizarding culture.

so, yes, the WW is patriarchal, since for at least 1,500 years, but probably more like 4,800 years. and for most of that time there was no wizarding world, just the World, and the WW had the same histories as the muggle world.

2. gender in late medieval and early modern england & western europe

so sorry, you've unlocked an info dump cutscene. it can be skipped.

I want you to imagine the traditional gender roles for men and women in western society. write them down, even. what should women be like? what is the inherent nature of women, if one exists, according to traditionalists? according to society at large? according to you?

in early modern england there was a HUGE shift in the perception of women and gender roles.

in "'The Good and Bad of that Sexe': Monstrosity and Womanhood in Early Modern England," by Alletta Brenner, the epistemological history of womanhood in the middle of the sixteenth to the end of the 17th centuries, is analyzed.

epistemology is about the study of knowledge, so think intellectual history, a history of what ideas and thoughts people are sharing and the patterns of those ideas and thoughts.

long story short: for about 1500 years, western culture regarded women as lesser versions of men, who are the perfect form of humans. male and female were not regarded as opposite, but two versions of the same thing. eve was made from adam’s rib, she’s a knockoff.

“Monstrosity and Womanhood” discusses two cultural differences between then & now that are significant to my argument. 1: people of the middle ages & early modern europe regarded the monstrous as a part of God’s creation, possibly frightening, but not unnatural. 2: women were regarded as too sexually driven, lustful temptresses. this is a stark contrast to the Cult of True Womanhood that we see in the 19th c, submissive, gentle, spiritually included, a soft place for her husband to find comfort in after being in the chaos of the outside world.*

(lily kind of embodies the late middles ages dangers of womanhood & it’s monstrosities in earth after rain.)

so, the answer to “what is a woman?” is changing rapidly right before the WW cuts itself off from the MW. I expect that, since the bio-essentialism of today started in the 19th century, post SoS, there is a significant difference in what the WW settles on.

the changing views on women in the MW are also influenced by and/or create the atmosphere wherein the witch trials are born. midwives and other women who transgressed their gender roles were targeted in the witch trials. the WW reacts to the witch trials by going into hiding (I don't believe this, I think it's part of the WW historical mythos used to uphold their society & it's fucking issues)

*this ideal of womanhood is only accessible by white middle and upper class women. other women are in many ways, monstrous, but they are also degendered.

3. gender in the text

in the books we see multiple examples of sexism, and a large chunk of these examples involve over-sexualization or sexual policing. our entry into WW culture, ron weasley, displays these views multiple times. he does not seem to believe that women are less intellectually or even less physically capable. he also doesn’t have a problem being defended by harry potter or hermione granger, or defending harry or hermione.

3.1 younger women

the threat of love potions is also brought up a few times throughout the books, and they are solely seen as a woman's weapon.

in Goblet of Fire, once skeeter turns on hermione, she asserts in a PUBLIC NEWSPAPER that hermione is possibly using love potions to seduce powerful men (pg 357). this is after harry's friendship with hermione is portrayed, again, in a public paper, as a romance (pg 225). hermione is pretty and smart when she's "with" harry, but when she is associated with a second man, thereby betraying the englishman who must be the hero of skeeter’s stories, she's ugly and smart enough to drug him. mrs. weasley, an adult woman and frequent caretaker of hermione, believes this and is cruel to her, a child.

over sexualization is used as a highly effective weapon against hermione. the WW easily accepts a young woman's sexuality as a threat to the men around her; she is voracious. i'm sure hermione being muggle born does not help.

merope gaunt is also accused, by dumbledore, of drugging tom riddle sr. with a love potion (pg 154 HBP). no evidence is given. we, the reader, are meant to assume the accuracy since dumbledore is making the claim. once again the sexual appetite of a young woman is dangerous. her misdeeds, brought about by choices made clouded with lust, only the short term considered, end up creating a fucking super villain. what's interesting is that this isn't only a belief of the characters in-text, it's the perspective of the author. nonetheless, dumbledore's quickness to blame a young woman's desire for driving her to violence and bringing misfortune, indicates that the sexuality of women in the WW is easily seen as dangerous.

i think this well establishes women's sexuality as a dangerous, insatiable threat in the WW culture. this is clearly a patriarchal ideology. the systematic reinforcement at the nuclear family level becomes clearer when we look at how the weasley brothers treat ginny's sexuality. they, just as men in the MW do, see their sister's sexuality as their business. however, this is not because men are a threat, but because ginny is unrestrained in her expression and exploration of her sexuality. I do not recall anyone ever worrying for ginny’s safety—women are competent and intelligent enough to defend themselves. 

here are two instances from HBP where we see the brothers judging their sister and trying to control her sexuality:

fred and george are selling love potions, but not to ginny, because she's used her wiles to collect enough men. ron is also reporting on ginny’s romantic endeavors to their older, of age, brothers (pg 91 HBP). Is this to leverage additional power and to control her? Later in the book ron doesn't want people to see ginny engaging in sexual behavior because of what they might think of his sister (pg 204). being a slut is bad in the WW too. :/

So, the two young women we focus on the most have their sexuality picked apart and policed.

3.2: older women

What of the older women? 

There are women in positions of authority in the WW, but most of the women who work and have positions of authority are not mothers in canon. The women with the most authority, mcgonagall, umbridge, arguably amelia bones though she is tertiary, are not mothers and remain, in canon, romantically unattached. pre-fudge there is a woman minister, who i imagine was put into power as a part of the glass cliff phenomenon, when shit hits the fan, women are more likely to be hired to oversee the shit hit everyone, and then be blamed. 

Marriage & motherhood remove agency. The important mothers of the series, lily, petunia, narcissa, molly, to a lesser degree alice and tonks, do not have children until they are married. Half of them definitely do not work. two have jobs, tonks and alice, and they + lily are in the order, activities unspecified. 

The lack of women occupying both domestic and public spaces indicates patriarchal control. There are two options. The married mothers we see occupying both spheres are all taking part in the public sphere with their husbands. Even tonks, who works were remus does not, is in the order with him. Mothers & wives are not unchaperoned.

It is also notable how young people are when they get married and have children. This is explained by war in the text. I posit that it’s actually another element of the patriarchal control of women’s sexuality. Since women are insatiable, those that are linked to a man must be kept under a higher level of control to ensure she stays loyal to her husband. Marriage in the teen years is younger than the average in MW in the 1970s (22.8 for women, 25.1 for men). the average age of women entering into their first marriage has consistently been 24 or older in england and wales since the 1550s—it dropped in the 1950s and 60s. 

Sidenote—during WW2 the age of marriage in the UK seemed to stagnate, and then it dropped at the conclusion of the war. 

We don’t have the stats for the WW, but we know james and lily married and had harry before 21, we know from the black family tree that narcissa had draco at the average age of marriage in 1970s MW UK, which indicates a younger marriage. We do not know alice and frank’s ages. tonks actually meets the average age for women in the UK in the mid 90s, but her husband and she are half bloods. it is possible that the average age of marriage in the WW is younger than the MW, especially among the upper classes. 

4. conclusion

The main element of patriarchy in the WW is control of women’s sexuality, because women are too promiscuous to control themselves, and this poses multiple dangers. Love potions, pursuing a man to near death, tarnishing the family name, etc. This has created cultural norms of younger marriage and women, especially upper class women, not working outside of the home once they are married. Women who choose not to tie themselves to a man through marriage may be seen as inherently less sexual, as adult women who do not marry are not put through the same scrutiny as women who express sexual inclinations. 

It is possible that we don’t see the scrutiny adult, unmarried women endure because harry is a child the whole time and does not think about his professors getting their backs blown out on the weekends. It is also possible that the women we see, namely umbridge and mcgonagall, put up a non-sexual persona to avoid this scrutiny, a childish feminine and de-sexed school marm respectively. I’d edge my bets towards the latter. 

Magic allows a significant portion of reproductive labor to be automated, and in the MW reproductive labor is designated to women and made invisible as an element of maintaining the nuclear family to uphold capitalism. Therefore women in the WW are partially freed from this element of capitalist patriarchy. 

Women are not seen as less capable with magic, intellect, or physically, so their voracious sexuality creates a greater threat. The patriarchy in the WW seeks to control their sexualities, but not much else. The desire to keep pure blood families “pure” likely increases the drive to control women’s sexuality in the upper classes. I’m not seeking to make this argument here, but I believe this element of policing would have evolved in the 19th century, parallel to the evolution of the bio-essentialist ideal women of the MW. the reason I am not making this argument here is that this post is long as shit, and making the point requires a lot of details about fascism and the history of the WW and MW.  

I do think patriarchy is “weaker” in the wizarding world, but still exists. Due to the SoS and magic much of the modern elements of capitalist patriarchy did not develop in the WW, instead, elements of the early modern patriarchy were carried over and intensified. At the same time, women in the WW always had a level of agency and power unreachable to muggle women, which carried over to the SoS society. Perhaps magical men treated muggle women how we treat marginalized women in the real world, and continued to do so after the SoS ended. Perhaps the WW is a secret upper class that exploits the MW without muggle’s knowledge. Perhaps.   

I can’t believe I didn’t talk about the witch trials at all. I have thoughts on those! They are forthcoming when i finish the wizarding world & colonial era meta.

[lbhslefttiddie]

me: we should get into hydrology or ecology or something geography related. we are good at geography and love stupid bullshit like that. its a viable career path with lots of options and historically speaking people do tend to be happier when they can afford to eat

also: okay but have you considered. going all-in on creative writing with a focus on programming and music design so that you could spend all your time creating video games in a basement somewhere

me: no i think i would like to have a stable income i think

also me: forsake everything to get into that interactive fiction course right fucking now

[kay9leo]

#MCtober2024 - Week 2

Based on @lamieboo's #MCtober2024 event (click on #MCtober for more info).

What are your MC / OC study habits?

Iñaki has a few methods of studying as you can see above. She usually doesn't like to review in groups (unless its with trusted friends) until she feels comfortable with the material on her own where she knows what she doesn't know and can bring it up to the review session. While on her own, she'll either will use flash cards, rewrite notes or teach Uturunku (her jaguar plushie) in her shared dorm room. Eventually Imelda joins in on her teaching session with Uturunku since the two girls are in the same class and share the same dorm. Once she gets more comfortable with Sebastian and Ominis as friends, you would often find Iñaki in Undercroft studying with the two boys especially when Midterm Season hits and the library is packed. She would usually be sitting on cargo crate box reviewing her flash cards or notes, waiting for the boys to show up. She also like doing reviews on charms, spells and dueling techniques with Sebastian by physically practicing them in the Undercroft.

Her other known study locations is her dorm room or the Slytherin Common Room with Sebastian when burning the midnight oil, the Room of Requirements (not often since it's out of her way) and the Great Hall with her friends who are in the other houses. She also likes white noise the noisy Great Hall provides. Iñaki vs History of Magic

Iñaki hates Professor Binns. She thinks he's the most boring-est person in the planet with how monologuist, plain and calming his voice is and hates how he can knock her to sleep. It is her goal to actually sit through class and stay up completely for once and take notes, but she can't. She always knocks out if she's trying to focus and ends up becoming Ominis' pillow once the two are friends.

At least Ominis is kind enough to share his notes with her as he takes them with a bespelled diction quill that he'll later transfigure the notes into braille. Eventually Iñaki gets her own diction quill like everyone else in class does.

After a couple of classes with Prof. Binns, Iñaki will eventually accept that she's either going to nap in this class period or try to get ahead and do homework from her other classes with her enhanced earbud on to listen to music while her diction quill does the work of taking notes down.

Iñaki's Girl Crew

Iñaki becomes especially close to Natty, Poppy and Imelda for different reasons:

Natty is the first friend Iñaki made while at Hogwarts. She and Natty bond over living in a foreign country far from their homelands and learning to live in a different world. Natty's friendship is important to Iñaki because she is one of the few people who really gets what Iñaki is going through and the same is true vice versa. It isn't surprising to see one going to the other to have a good cry over missing their homeland. Natty also was the one who helped her finish her animagus training in secret and saw her transform into a jaguar for the first time. At one point, the two would go running in the Forbidden Forest in their animagus form, baffling any locals as to where a gazelle and a giant cat came from. Natty is also the first person Iñaki says is her friend.

Poppy's friendship with Iñaki began after defending the kneazle in class. After they partnered up in Beasts class that same day, the rest became history. Poppy enjoys Iñaki's frank and playful nature and Iñaki's enjoyed Poppy's bluntness and kindness (it reminds her of home). The two girls end up bonding over being oddballs, caring for beasts and going over the different magical beasts and their tales around the world. Poppy especially loves it when Iñaki tells her stories about the magical beasts native to the Americas that you wouldn't be able to find in Europe and ends up making it a goal to see the thunderbird that lives near Niagara Falls one day.

Imelda Reyes at first is Iñaki's roommate. For about five minutes until Iñaki grumbles in Spanish "¡Ay!¡Por el amor de Dios! after stubbing her toe against her misplaced suitcase as she was moving in a week later after arriving at Hogwarts. Imelda was surprised to learn that the American spoke Spanish. Iñaki didn't realize Imelda was Spanish (Imelda holds duel Scottish-Spanish citizenship) and spoke Spanish as well. They became friends like a house on fire due to their Hispanic heritage (Iñaki's family is originally from Latin America who immigrated to the US. Imelda's father was the one who moved their family to the UK when he went play on Puddlemere United to be close with them). They only speak Spanish to each other as it makes them feel at home as they both miss speaking it while at Hogwarts (There's very few Spanish speakers there). The two spend a lot of time talking about their Hispanic Heritage while comparing and contrasting the differences in the cultures (Iñaki' is bicultural as her Latino roots hails from two different countries) and the Spanish language as well.

When Imelda found out that Iñaki has family in South America (but didn't realize Iñaki was a first generation/muggleborn witch) she immediately assumed Iñaki was good at quidditch due to the sport culture in that continent (quidditch is essentially the magical equivalent to soccer/fútbol) and tricked her into trying out for the team in having Iñaki play in pick-up quidditch games since it didn't seem like she wasn't going to try out because she seemed nervous about it (in Imelda's eyes). The moment Iñaki realized what Imelda was doing, she calls Imelda out and the two end up having a frank discussion as to why Iñaki didn't play quidditch (American racism is the reason why - Iñaki didn't want to play into the stereotypes and found she couldn't really enjoy playing the sport back in New York) despite being good at it (Iñaki played with her first-generation/muggleborn mage cousins on both sides of the famiy as a kid and picked up the sport pretty fast). In the end Imelda helps Iñaki get over her prior reservations on playing the sport but not enough for Iñaki to play as a starter. Iñaki ends up playing as the reserve chaser though and ends up as a starter in sixth year during her last year at Hogwarts.

The four girls accidently become a friend group through a class project. Iñaki had them all meet at the Three Broomsticks to discuss what they would be doing and it spiraled to the four girls realizing they were outsiders in different ways as they talked about their lives and bonded over feeling like a fish out of water at times with their peers. They ended up making outing to the Three Broomsticks for lunch to be a weekly thing after their class project was done as all four became close friends with each other.

...

More on Iñaki "MC" Martinez Cariaga

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I have this tea cup I made in highschool (it’s really cute and was designed more like those Japanese ones without a handle than it was those fancy English style with even more elements to them) but I never actually asked if the glaze we used was food safe (we all used the same glaze on those cups specifically because the teacher glazed those ones in particular and I don’t remember checking. I glazed and painted every other project but only one of them was something you would use for food and that thing broke a few years ago and was honestly more decorative) and this has haunted me ever since. It’s a super cute cup and I adore it, but I have no idea if I can use it for its intended purpose and while I could buy a lead testing kit I’m not sure how I would check for anything else that might have been in that glaze. I know the color used but not the brand, so that’s not really a help either. The teacher I had left the district after that year because our school district paid art teachers a shit wage and we rotated through them like elementary school kids needing new shoes every year. I’m not entirely sure how I would contact her, but even if I did track her down (something not entirely impossible from what I know about her life outside of teaching us for a year, I would feel slightly weird about it though, even though she was my favorite art teacher) but I highly doubt she would remember something like the glaze she used on one project her students made at a school she taught at for one year. I’m not sure what other testing kits I would need besides lead to confidently say it’s safe enough for my personal use, and it’s annoyed me for several years now.

[ifriqiyyah]

i don't really get the assumption that everyone who uses chatgpt is telling it to generate prose or w/e. if i want good fiction or poetry i know where to go for that and it isn't to a bot.

i use it when i need to complain about my emotional problems which are too embarrassing to tell a real person, and also ask it questions too specific for google, like about particular chemical elements or certain planetary placements in astrology or "recommend me music with sounds like [timestamp] in [song title]" lol

[ilajue]

drew over something i wrote for a class and liked :] sorry the cars are lowkey ugly, its because I fucking hate cars and cant be bothered to learn what they look like beyond ominous hunks of metal

edit: transcript of the poem by itself under the cut

6 Tips for Crossing the Road

Look both ways

The road is for cars. 

Make sure to look for them before crossing. Even when you have the right of way, cars have a lot of safety features and you have none. 

Use designated crosswalks 

The road is for cars. 

So is the crosswalk but, under brief and temporary conditions, you can use it too! Never jaywalk, never walk in the road, just hope there is a clear and functional sidewalk. 

Cross at the light

The road is for cars. 

There are rules and signs for them, but that can only go so far. Walk quickly and hold your breath and hope that the light doesn't turn. Make eye contact with drivers as their cars teem with potential energy, rumbling with disdain at the inconvenience of your crossing. Try to ignore the cloud of exhaust that you are in and they are above. 

Leash your pets

The road is for cars. 

Obviously. 

To you, it may be natural to sacrifice so much space to them but to your dog, it is not. His instinct is to explore freely. You must curb it. Modern US car models have such high hoods that the average child, let alone dog, is obscured. Even on the sidewalk, hold the leash tight because the sidewalk (if you are so blessed) is next to the street and the threat still looms.

Look out for road kill

The road is for cars. 

And no one was there to leash the deer. 

Or the raccoon. 

Or the cat. 

Did you know that the most reliable sample method for wildlife in an area is looking at the roadkill? 

Remember these tips

The road is for cars. 

Cars are everywhere. In the city. In the suburbs. In the country. In the woods (the US Forest Service manages more roads than the entire Ministry of Transit in China.) Cars are everywhere because there are roads to bring them there, which is great if you are a car and want to get from place to place fast without worrying about the in-between. 

Unfortunately, you are not a car. 

You are an animal. 

You are in-between. 

So remember to look both ways. 

[callmedrviper]

ooc: Oh, also-

Thinking about the Mad Science Bros and not long after they started working together, one of the more like slice of life/mundane moments would be Orochimaru getting Viper to drink tea. And because of Oro's society and such, it's actually GOOD traditionally made tea. And Viper realizes he really likes it. Which he tells Orochimaru and that he usually doesn't really like tea. When Orochimaru asks why and what in the world the difference could be, Viper is just like 'Well, this is more, you know traditionally made. Not like the tea bags and such.' And just-

It ends up with Viper explaining in detail the difference between traditionally made tea and more modern western made tea and how different groups of people go about making western tea and how not many people on his side of the world have electric kettles and then there's iced tea and sweet tea which has high sugar content and flavored teas which can be natural or artifical-

And poor Orochimaru is just sitting there openly perplexed and perturbed by all of this.

[cyber-soul-smartz]

Evolution of Project Management Tools: A Historical Journey

Explore the evolution of project management tools from handwritten notes to AI-driven platforms! Read our latest article for valuable insights and stay ahead in your career. Click to read the full article and subscribe for more updates!

[novelistwriter]

The Pirate King

DP x DC Prompt (picked up AC Black Flag, the sea shanties inspired me for this one)

The entire DC world knows of the historical figure known as Captain Nightingale. The youngest pirate captain to ever live, as the stories tell that he was just a teenager when he began to earn the respect of adult piretes with his combat skills and his magic. Captain Nightingale had the largest navy to exist during the time of his reign.

Captain Nightingale was a boy who had pure white hair and tanned skin. His pirate outfit was mostly black with white accents and an amulet around his neck that is said to guide him to whatever he desires, yet the hear didn't seem to bother him. And he remained looking like a teenage boy for decades before he just vanished, leaving his ship, his sword, his outfit, and his amulet behind.

The "artifacts" of Captain Nightingale's reign have been scattered in the modern era of the DC world. Ra's Al Ghul has the entire outfit of Captain Nightingale, Ra's Al Ghul himself, has lost many times to the young Captain after it was decided that the pirate Captain would become a problem to them. Lex Luthor is the current owner of Captain Nightingale's ship, having used all of his devious methods to obtain it. Selina Kyle had stolen Captain Nightingale's amulet from a museum across the seas before arriving in Gotham. The Wayne family has the Sword of Captain Nightingale, as it is rumored that the Wayne's of that time were somehow part of Captain Nightingale's crew.

Danny, sent to the DC world on a vacation because of overworking himself on his Ghost King duties, learns about his other vacation as a Pirate Captain through a Lex Luthor funded tour about his ship, the Sagittarius, on display like a trophy.

Danny debates whether he should rally his crew again or remain a normal person. His debate is interrupted by a sticky note appearing on his forehead that reads:

"Try not to kill anyone, My King

C.W."

It looks like Captain Nightingale is going to make a dramatic reappearance into the living world after all.

The Justice League is looking for a mysterious thief that has been stealing the artifacts of Captain Nightingale. They learned of the artifacts going missing through Batman, as Catwoman complained to him about the Amulet of the Pirate Captain she stole was now stolen from her. Then Batman learned from Talia that the outfit of Captain Nightingale was stolen from her father's personal treasury. The sword of Captain Nightingale was just recently stolen from Wayne Manor, and only the ship remains, which Lex Luthor us doing all he can to prevent it from being taken.

The Justice League needs to catch this thief to stop them, as they learned from Constantine that the artifacts could be used in a ritual due to their strong magical affinities.

The Justice League had rushed to Lex Luthor's museum, where they caught the "thief" in the act of stealing the ship of Captain Nightingale. A teenage boy wearing the outfit, which looks to be a perfect fit, of the Captain, sword hanging off the hip of the "thief," and the Amulet glowing brightly while hanging off the neck of the "thief." But it's when the "thief" turns around to face them as he's climbing the ships side that shocks them. It's the spitting image of Captain Nightingale that looks at them.

"Ahoy there, landlubbers! I am ashamed that my personal property has been kept as far apart from each other for so long. Didn't none of you respect others' property?"

The ship began to float as the boy got closer to the steering wheel of the ship.

"I've come to teach you all a lesson for disrespecting the dead, but I won't be doing it alone"

The boy had grabbed the sword from his hip and raised it high.

"Rise from the grave, me hearties!"

The ship of Captain Nightingale began to be filled with undead pirates, all looking at the Justice League. Then, right before the ship had flown away, they all heard the boy, no, Captain Nightingale himself, say:

"It is time to set sail once again! Prepare for the return of Captain Nightingale!"

[written-in-knife]

Love love love you Floyd jump ring fic- the leech boys deserve more love 🧜‍♂️

Would you be able to do a pre relationship of similar epic misunderstandings with Jade, maybe with Yuu not understanding merculture and/or Jade GREATLY misunderstanding human courting culture in his attempts to learn about land culture, I die thinking about how merpeople might misinterpret sayings like “the way to the heart is through the stomach” or “gotta get that ring” when enthusiastically trying to court

Rocks and Flowers

Jade Leech x gn!reader, pre-relationship

they/them pronouns, fluff, miscommunications/misunderstandings, a single use of my dear, poorly translated french damn you Rook

Word Count: 3616

I'M HERE I'M ALIVE. I'm getting ~*Diagnosed*~ finally. Lots of appointments this past week im so tired lmaoo Also I'm changing out all the character banners, so lemme know what yall think as stuff comes out

Jade had a baseline knowledge of land culture, of course. Before they came to land to go to Night Raven, he, Floyd, and Azul had all gone to land camp. It taught them how to avoid social faux pas with the people they'd meet on land, various human traditions, even how to walk. What it did not teach them was just how many turns of phrases the common language had. Some made sense, some even overlapped, but some were... notably harder to understand. And why were so many of them about ways to kill animals? He never bothered to ask questions, he knew they were just phrases that land dwellers often used to get their point across, and most of the time the meaning could be derived through context clues. Most of the time.

When Jade realized his own attraction towards you, he was hesitant to act on it. Land camp had explained a few things about human courting, but mostly in the context of how to avoid making acquaintances feel uncomfortable. He wasn't sure how exactly to go about it. He spent a lot of time trying to look things up online-- a mistake-- and in books, trying to figure out how humans even started their courting rituals let alone what the entire process entailed. He wasn't about to go around asking, knowing anyone who would be willing to give him an answer in the first place would also be the most likely to give him false information. So he was stuck looking through various books trying to find answers for you.

And he had no idea you were doing the same for him.

It was easy to fall for Jade once you got past the subtle menacing aura that was always surrounding him, and you fell hard. You didn't fully realize it yourself until you found that you'd listened to him talk about the mushrooms he'd found on his hike to fill out his most recent terrarium for two hours. You learned more about mushrooms in those two hours than most people would want to know in their entire lives, and you were excited to hear more. When you got back to your room that night, you started researching merfolk romance online-- A MISTAKE-- trying to make sure you wouldn't do anything to insult him. The only people you could ask about the topic were Azul and Floyd. Azul would almost certainly make you sign away something in return for the information, and Floyd... yeah, no. That's a nonstarter. So you ended up in the library, sneaking back to your dorm with books about merfolk courting rituals, both ancient and modern, praying no one would catch you on the way back.

Jade had read through the few informational manuals he could find on human courting-- one written by a merperson decades ago, and another that seemed to be angled towards preteen girls and had some truly terrible advice-- and had to move on to... more unconventional methods. Which lead to him reading romance novels in a far corner of the library. There were a surprising amount of them, many with musclebound men with long hair and a petite woman in his arms on the front. Jade opted for the other plentiful options that wouldn't blow his cover immediately. He was engrossed in his book, one hand propping his head up on the table and the other flipping pages, fingers lightly drumming on the cover as he read. It wasn't a terrible read, but it seemed wholly unrealistic. How would owning a dog get you a romantic partner? He was too deep into the book to notice someone lurking, barely keeping his composure as someone gasped loudly beside him.

"Monsieur Prémédité!" Not many people could sneak up on Jade, but Rook was definitely one of them. "I was not aware of your exquisite taste in literature! Comme c'est merveilleux!"

"This is actually quite far from my usual choice, I'm afraid." Jade corrected as Rook beamed down at him. He carefully flipped the book closed, back cover up, as two others approached from behind him. "Are you familiar with this one?"

"Oui! I find it most interesting how the dog is a pivotal part in the budding romance!"

Of course he does.

Vil leaned forward to skim through the description on the back, confusion growing on his expression at each word. "If this is so out of the norm for you, why are you reading it?" He asked.

"For research purposes." He admits, flashing the Pomefiore students a sharp smile.

"Un étudiant en l'amour?" Rook gasped excitedly as he quickly sat down across the table, lacing his fingers under his chin in intense interest as Vil rolled his eyes and straightened back up. "Monsieur Prémédité, je n'aurais jamais deviné! For what are you researching? Please, tell me everything!"

"Now you've done it..." Epel muttered from behind Vil, sounding exhausted.

Jade hesitated for a moment. The Pomefiore students would certainly be the ones to ask when it came to these sorts of things. They at least would be the least likely to lie to him about the particular subject. "I'm researching human courting rituals. There is little in the way of instructional manuals in our library, so I have turned to these." He gestured to the book in front of him before turning back to Rook, who practically had stars in his eyes. "Unfortunately, there isn't much to be gained from these, as it turns out."

"Are you trying to find information so you can court someone?" Epel asked, looking mildly concerned before Vil swatted him lightly upside the head with a mutter of "too blunt."

"Land boot camp never covered the topic, and I must admit, I've been dreadfully curious ever since I first heard the story of the mermaid princess." It was as easy for Jade to lie through his teeth as it was to breathe, piling on the pitiful tone and expression to try to play at least one of them for a sucker. "The stories never went into detail on how the land prince courted her, I thought I would find more information here, but alas..."

It was unsurprising that Rook took the bait, hand resting on his chest as he nodded along sympathetically. Vil rolled his eyes again and Epel muttered something about courting rituals to himself, neither nearly as invested in the lie.

"On land, courting must be bold!" Rook began without prompting as he stood from his chair, Vil only just keeping him from propping a foot dramatically on the table by grabbing his arm and pulling him back. "Loud proclamations of love! Flowers! Doves! Music!"

"And some people don't enjoy that at all." Vil sighed, shooing Rook down from his soapbox. "You just have to play to your audience. But it does often involve flowers."

"My Meemaw says the quickest way to anybody's heart is through their stomach." Epel chimed in, getting a quick glare from Vil at the accent slip.

"Your grandmother is correct on that front."

Jade stared for a moment at the phrase. Another he didn't recognize and wasn't exactly provided context clues for. The way to win your affections lies... in your stomach?

"The most common way to begin a human courtship is by bringing flowers, admitting your intentions, and inviting them out with you on a date." Vil explained further, Rook quietly waxing poetic about each point next to him. "Which is why it's more commonly referred to as dating, rather than courting."

"I see... This has been enlightening, I thank you all for your input." Jade nodded to them.

"Do let us know how it goes, Jade." Vil gave him a knowing smirk as he spoke.

Jade flashed back his own sharp smile, narrowing his eyes just slightly at the housewarden. "I've no idea what you mean, Vil."

Meanwhile, you'd found some fairly decent information on merfolk courting rituals, turns out their methods were significantly better documented than humans' were. Unfortunately for you, however, a lot of the courting rituals varied between the different species of merfolk and there wasn't a lot of overlap as far as you could tell. The biggest overlap you could find had to do with small gifts; pebbling, as some species of merfolk called it. It seemed to be finding something cool or pretty on the ocean floor and bringing it to the person you were courting, which sounded easy enough. You were already a fan of picking up cool rocks, it wouldn't be any trouble to just bring them to Jade instead of putting them on your windowsill.

Another common overlap you found was the importance of jewelry across all species of merfolk, but it seemed to be... maybe a little too important for just trying to date him. From what you could tell, giving a merperson jewelry was their closest equivalent to proposing, or maybe a promise ring? You weren't entirely sure, but it seemed like too much. Specifically to eel merfolk, the book you found talked a significant amount about a dance that you couldn't quite understand. It was definitely an underwater activity, as far as you could tell, but maybe dancing in general would be good enough on land? The way the book talked about it made it seem like it was common enough knowledge that no one would even bother writing down the details. You were too engrossed in the notes you were taking-- yes, you were taking notes on this-- to notice the floorboards on the other side of your door creaking.

"Hey Yuu, I got yer--" You scrambled to cover up your notes, the book, to be nonchalant about it as Epel walked into your room, holding your potionology notebook in his hands. He looked surprised at your panic as you blocked your desk with your body, definitely not looking completely suspicious. "--notes. What, uh... Whatcha doin'?"

"Nothing. Studying." You spat out, not moving from the uncomfortable position you found yourself in. "Thank you for bringing those back, you can leave them on the armchair."

"Or... I could just hand 'em to ya." He smirked, inching towards you and watching as you leaned backwards over your desk to keep hiding the evidence.

"Or you could just hand them to me!" You agreed in a tone too upbeat to be believable, snatching the notebook out of his hand as soon as he was close enough. "Thank you, Epel, but I really have to study so I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Sure, sure..." He nodded slowly, just managing to peek past one of your arms, smirk growing devious. "Ya writin' an essay 'bout merfolk courtin' rituals?"

"OUT. GET OUT." You shouted as your face began to burn, leaping up from your awkward position to shove him out the door while he cackled.

"Aw, c'mon, I ain't gonna tell nobody!" He protested. "In fact, I got some interesting information myself in the library today--!"

"DON'T CARE, GET OUT. TELL NO ONE." You shoved him out into the hallway, slamming the door shut behind him.

Out in the hall, Epel simply shrugged, smirking to himself as he walked away. "They'll figure it out eventually." It was nice to be the one in the know.

You were mortified but at least you were fairly sure he wouldn't run to tell anyone about it, you don't think you'd ever be able to live it down if Ace caught wind of this. You twisted the lock on the door into place before going back to your desk to continue your research, face still burning red as you flipped everything back to where it had been.

Vil had given Jade a decent jumping off point, but he found himself going back to the phrase Epel had used. The way to the heart is through the stomach. Of course that had to be a way to win your affection, but through your stomach? He hadn't read anything about the abdomen being involved in any courtship rituals, at least not the initial stages. Perhaps he had missed something? Maybe it was something lesser known that older generations did? It couldn't possibly be as simple as food, could it? The common language turns of phrases were never so simple, even the ones he understood. He turned the phrase over in his head for a few days, too busy analyzing it as he walked into his Ancient Magic class to catch who had put a rock on his desk. Why was there a rock on his desk? He stopped to stare at it for a second before glancing around at his fellow sophomores, none of whom seemed to be taking even a passing interest in his confusion. It had definitely been placed with purpose, squarely in front of his chair so there was no way of him missing it or mistaking it as being for someone else. He picked it up as he sat down, turning it over to examine in his hand as Floyd flopped down in the seat next to him.

"I don't suppose you saw who left this, did you?" Jade asked, presenting the rock for Floyd to see.

"Nah, couldn't give a shit less." Floyd grumbled, barely glancing at the rock before draping himself forward over the desk.

Jade hummed lightly, glancing around one more time before depositing the rock in his bag. He could maybe make use of it for a terrarium, if nothing else. He didn't think much of it the first time, but as the week went on, there continued to be rocks on his desks. Not ever in the same class either, so he could confirm that it was not an accident the first time. They were just small rocks that could fit in the palm of his hand, some of them having interesting patterns or colorations, some having interesting shapes, but they were still rocks. He kept the nicest few to put in his terrariums, the rest were left in his bag to bring with him on his next trip to the mountain.

By the end of the week, you were out of your coolest rocks that you were willing to give away. You were almost certain you were doing this wrong, leaving them for him to find instead of just handing them to him, but you were so afraid that maybe pebbling didn't apply to eel merfolk, or that the rocks weren't good enough. You didn't find them outside in the grass or still in the classrooms, so you considered that a win at least. And Epel was the only one smirking at you whenever Jade walked into the cafeteria or down the hall, so he hadn't told anyone what he'd seen. Another win!

You planned to spend your weekend figuring out how to go about dancing with Jade. The books weren't clear enough on what the dance entailed besides that it was done with tail fins while underwater, but it was very clear that it was done while courting. You were on the couch in the Ramshackle lounge on Saturday evening, rereading the courting book for any sort of clues you'd missed when there was a knock on the door. You quickly shoved the book between the couch cushions, making sure it was completely hidden as you got up and headed for the door, immediately glad you'd hidden the book as you opened the door to Jade standing on the front porch. He was dressed in the outfit he usually wore to go up the mountain, mud still on his boots from his hike and gloves dangling out of his pockets.

"Hello, Yuu." He said pleasantly, looking over your obviously startled demeanor. "I do hope I'm not interrupting."

"No, not at all." You waved him off quickly, trying desperately not to somehow give yourself away. "Just, uh... reading. What's up?"

You froze as he stepped forward, into your personal space, and placed a hand on your stomach, just above your navel. Even through your shirt, his hand was cool, sending a shiver up your spine. You stared wide eyed as he smiled down at you before reaching into his bag and pulling out a bundle of small flowers, presenting them to you. They were a little squashed from being in his bag, and it looked like he had picked them off the mountain himself. You felt the heat rising on your cheeks as you took them from him, the fact he’d taken the time to gather them himself was flattering by itself.

“I was given advice on how to go about this, and was told to just be straightforward with my intentions.” He began plainly. “I’ve found myself drawn to you recently, and would like to begin courting you. I was told it was called “dating” and that I should invite you out with me, if you’re interested?”

You could feel how hot your face was getting as he spoke, not believing your luck. Maybe you wouldn’t have to figure out that dance? Maybe you still should? Would it be rude not to? He, on the other hand, was getting nervous in the drawn out silence that your internal reeling was creating, worried he’d done something wrong. He wouldn’t show it on his face, of course, but he was getting uncomfortable.

“Oh, uh, yeah!” You spat out quickly, chuckling nervously as you realized just how long you’d let that moment drag out. “Definitely. When? And where?”

He paused for a few confused blinks, smile slipping as you watched a light dusting of pink grow on his cheeks. If he weren’t so close, you might’ve not even noticed. “I was... unaware that was something I had to plan ahead of time.” He admitted slowly, internally cursing himself for not asking more details when he had the chance.

“That’s alright!” You were quick to assure him, fiddling with the little bouquet he’d given you. “We can figure that out together, if you want?”

His smile returned at the offer, warmer this time, fonder. “I’d enjoy that.”

“Great!”

There was another pause as you looked down at the small blooms in your hands, then at his hand, which was still rested on your belly. You glanced up at his face, then his hand, then his face again.

“Hey Jade?”

“Hm?”

“What... What is this?” You tried your best not to sound like you disapproved as you glanced down at his hand again. What if it was something the books didn’t cover? Other than the dance-- and the inadvisable internet searches-- there was no mention of physical contact. There was dancing, there was biting which was less for courting and more for established couples, but not... this.

He pulled his hand away as if he’d been burned, the blush on his cheeks growing slightly. “Ah. That wasn’t correct then?”

“I don’t know? What was it?”

He groaned slightly, pinching at the bridge of his nose as he spoke. “Epel had said a phrase that I didn’t quite understand, about the stomach being the key to affections. Even Vil agreed that it was correct, I thought it must be a common courting method.”

You muttered the words to yourself, trying to piece the phrase together, biting your lip hard to keep from laughing when you realized what he was talking about. “The way to someone’s heart is through their stomach?”

“Yes, that’s the one. I’m not familiar with many common language phrases.”

“Food. The way to someone’s heart is good food.”

It really was that simple. Damn it. He let out an awkward chuckle, trying to hide his embarrassed expression from you by rubbing at his eyes. “I suppose I should’ve just looked it up, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay!” You laughed, wanting to reassure him. This was going way too well for him to back out due to embarrassment now! “It’s hard to find information on what’s allegedly common knowledge! I mean, I can’t figure out that courting dance for the life of me--!”

You slapped your hand over your mouth as you realized what you were saying, watching as Jade slowly looked up at you in confusion. You wanted to cringe all the way back up to your room as you watched him mouth the word “dance,” gears turning in his head as he looked you over, before a smile grew on his face. You broke eye contact as you realized he’d clicked everything into place.

“Yuu, have you been pebbling me?” He asked, tone equal parts teasing and astonished.

Well, this was going too well for either of you to back out due to embarrassment now, you supposed. You lowered your hand, narrowing your eyes at him with a smirk. “That depends, has it been working?”

He laughed, hiding it behind his fist as his eyes scrunched closed, and your heart absolutely fluttered. You really did fall hard. And so did he. He was flattered that you’d also done research on courting, relieved that you hadn’t gotten it quite right either, glad it hadn’t deterred either of you.

“It would’ve worked better if I’d know it was you, my dear.” He responded through his laughter, giving you a look of pure adoration. “Typically, you hand the items to people, not leave things for them to find themselves.”

“I wasn’t sure I was doing it right!” You defended lightheartedly.

“Well then,” he started as he held a hand out for you to take, which you did, of course, “how does dinner sound? Since food is the way to the heart.” He pulled you a little closer, tone dropping a bit as his smile grew. “Then, perhaps, I can teach you that dance.”

I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION TO USE MY WORK TO TRAIN AI

MASTERLIST

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How lock-in hurts design

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

If you've ever read about design, you've probably encountered the idea of "paving the desire path." A "desire path" is an erosion path created by people departing from the official walkway and taking their own route. The story goes that smart campus planners don't fight the desire paths laid down by students; they pave them, formalizing the route that their constituents have voted for with their feet.

Desire paths aren't always great (Wikipedia notes that "desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and exclusion zones, threatening wildlife and park security"), but in the context of design, a desire path is a way that users communicate with designers, creating a feedback loop between those two groups. The designers make a product, the users use it in ways that surprise the designer, and the designer integrates all that into a new revision of the product.

This method is widely heralded as a means of "co-innovating" between users and companies. Designers who practice the method are lauded for their humility, their willingness to learn from their users. Tech history is strewn with examples of successful paved desire-paths.

Take John Deere. While today the company is notorious for its war on its customers (via its opposition to right to repair), Deere was once a leader in co-innovation, dispatching roving field engineers to visit farms and learn how farmers had modified their tractors. The best of these modifications would then be worked into the next round of tractor designs, in a virtuous cycle:

https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/

But this pattern is even more pronounced in the digital world, because it's much easier to update a digital service than it is to update all the tractors in the field, especially if that service is cloud-based, meaning you can modify the back-end everyone is instantly updated. The most celebrated example of this co-creation is Twitter, whose users created a host of its core features.

Retweets, for example, were a user creation. Users who saw something they liked on the service would type "RT" and paste the text and the link into a new tweet composition window. Same for quote-tweets: users copied the URL for a tweet and pasted it in below their own commentary. Twitter designers observed this user innovation and formalized it, turning it into part of Twitter's core feature-set.

Companies are obsessed with discovering digital desire paths. They pay fortunes for analytics software to produce maps of how their users interact with their services, run focus groups, even embed sneaky screen-recording software into their web-pages:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-dark-side-of-replay-sessions-that-record-your-every-move-online/

This relentless surveillance of users is pursued in the name of making things better for them: let us spy on you and we'll figure out where your pain-points and friction are coming from, and remove those. We all win!

But this impulse is a world apart from the humility and respect implied by co-innovation. The constant, nonconsensual observation of users has more to do with controlling users than learning from them.

That is, after all, the ethos of modern technology: the more control a company can exert over its users ,the more value it can transfer from those users to its shareholders. That's the key to enshittification, the ubiquitous platform decay that has degraded virtually all the technology we use, making it worse every day:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

When you are seeking to control users, the desire paths they create are all too frequently a means to wrestling control back from you. Take advertising: every time a service makes its ads more obnoxious and invasive, it creates an incentive for its users to search for "how do I install an ad-blocker":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

More than half of all web-users have installed ad-blockers. It's the largest consumer boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

But zero app users have installed ad-blockers, because reverse-engineering an app requires that you bypass its encryption, triggering liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law provides for a $500,000 fine and a 5-year prison sentence for "circumvention" of access controls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Beyond that, modifying an app creates liability under copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, noncompete, nondisclosure and so on. It's what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

This is why services are so horny to drive you to install their app rather using their websites: they are trying to get you to do something that, given your druthers, you would prefer not to do. They want to force you to exit through the gift shop, you want to carve a desire path straight to the parking lot. Apps let them mobilize the law to literally criminalize those desire paths.

An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to block ads in it (or do anything else that wrestles value back from a company). Apps are web-pages where everything not forbidden is mandatory.

Seen in this light, an app is a way to wage war on desire paths, to abandon the cooperative model for co-innovation in favor of the adversarial model of user control and extraction.

Corporate apologists like to claim that the proliferation of apps proves that users like them. Neoliberal economists love the idea that business as usual represents a "revealed preference." This is an intellectually unserious tautology: "you do this, so you must like it":

https://boingboing.net/2024/01/22/hp-ceo-says-customers-are-a-bad-investment-unless-they-can-be-made-to-buy-companys-drm-ink-cartridges.html

Calling an action where no alternatives are permissible a "preference" or a "choice" is a cheap trick – especially when considered against the "preferences" that reveal themselves when a real choice is possible. Take commercial surveillance: when Apple gave Ios users a choice about being spied on – a one-click opt of of app-based surveillance – 96% of users choice no spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

But then Apple started spying on those very same users that had opted out of spying by Facebook and other Apple competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Neoclassical economists aren't just obsessed with revealed preferences – they also love to bandy about the idea of "moral hazard": economic arrangements that tempt people to be dishonest. This is typically applied to the public ("consumers" in the contemptuous parlance of econospeak). But apps are pure moral hazard – for corporations. The ability to prohibit desire paths – and literally imprison rivals who help your users thwart those prohibitions – is too tempting for companies to resist.

The fact that the majority of web users block ads reveals a strong preference for not being spied on ("users just want relevant ads" is such an obvious lie that doesn't merit any serious discussion):

https://www.iccl.ie/news/82-of-the-irish-public-wants-big-techs-toxic-algorithms-switched-off/

Giant companies attained their scale by learning from their users, not by thwarting them. The person using technology always knows something about what they need to do and how they want to do it that the designers can never anticipate. This is especially true of people who are unlike those designers – people who live on the other side of the world, or the other side of the economic divide, or whose bodies don't work the way that the designers' bodies do:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Apps – and other technologies that are locked down so their users can be locked in – are the height of technological arrogance. They embody a belief that users are to be told, not heard. If a user wants to do something that the designer didn't anticipate, that's the user's fault:

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

Corporate enthusiasm for prohibiting you from reconfiguring the tools you use to suit your needs is a declaration of the end of history. "Sure," John Deere execs say, "we once learned from farmers by observing how they modified their tractors. But today's farmers are so much stupider and we are so much smarter that we have nothing to learn from them anymore."

Spying on your users to control them is a poor substitute asking your users their permission to learn from them. Without technological self-determination, preferences can't be revealed. Without the right to seize the means of computation, the desire paths never emerge, leaving designers in the dark about what users really want.

Our policymakers swear loyalty to "innovation" but when corporations ask for the right to decide who can innovate and how, they fall all over themselves to create laws that let companies punish users for the crime of contempt of business-model.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/24/everything-not-mandatory/#is-prohibited

Image: Belem (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desire_path_%2819811581366%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[grey-sorcery]

New to witchcraft? Awesome! Here's some things you should pursue.

An understanding of sympathetic magic: Correspondences, their metaphysical and theoretical framework, and their derivation.

Magical systems that incorporate the entire gender spectrum.

Energy work that isn't based on visualization.

The means of manifestation: How, where, and when spells affect physical change. The physical mechanisms through which witchcraft manifests beyond just willpower/intent/wishes/etc.

The history and subsequent influences of, and on, popular contemporary practices like Hermeticism, "Ceremonial Magick"/Golden Dawn, Wicca, and New Age/New Thought/LOA/Reiki.

How to approach and practice magic with critical thinking skills.

Influence of consumerism on contemporary practices.

Divination as systems: all methods of divination beyond tarot, their statistical applications, and their different methods of use.

The anthropology of medieval Arabia, Europe, Near East, and Asia relative to the magical or occult publications of the era. What is purely religious, parareligious, or syncretist and what does that mean for the interpretation of the text?

The genuine limits of our knowledge of the ancient world, what's possible for us to know and what can't we know?

Conversations with practitioners of closed or semi-closed practices and perspectives of POC when it comes to what the western world would label as "witchcraft".

The differences and similarities between superstition and the practice of witchcraft.

An understanding of the influence of colonialism on modern witchcraft and the language used to discuss magic.

Critical Race Theory (CRT), Queer Theory, and systems of oppression.

Botany and herbology: An understanding of the physical and medical properties of plants.

Building a personal lexicon for modern and/or colloquial terms used in and by the witchcraft community to describe and discuss practices.

Spell design: What makes a spell a spell? What is the smallest or slightest action that can be considered a spell and why? What are the most important and influential elements of the design and application of a spell?

Altars: Their use, design, and potential; whether or not an altar would benefit your practice or goals for practice.

A critical approach to spirit work and astral projection, being able to discern between personal narratives and probable experiences.

A safe and solid community to become a part of. One that does not allow the influence of personal narratives (Without addressing them as such), doesn't allow for the mixing of adults and minors, and with established and enforced logical and reasonable rules.

Collect and cross-reference correspondences from as many sources as possible, then start to create your own.

Try to find a STEM subject that interests you and study it through any non-dogmatic avenues available to you.

The items highlighted in blue are things I highly recommend!

Here is a list of things to avoid.

This is, of course, not an end-all-be-all list of possible responsible and healthy pursuits.

You can learn more about me, find my master-post, check out my Patreon, and suggest content here.