#aleisters bs

[whenloveand-deathembrace]

Bros so fruity and for WHAT

(this is only a handful of the gay ass pictures of bam in my gallery I have plenty more 😭)

[bittertomato]

OTP this, OTP that. My OTP for Mikoto isn't KamiKoto or MikoKuro or MikoMisa or MikoHaru or MikoTen-- can you tell I don't know the ship names for the last two?

It's Mikoto x Communication

[grey-sorcery]

New to witchcraft? Awesome! Here's some things that you should avoid:

Divine [insert gender] or Sacred [insert gender]

Wicca (Especially "Wicca is ancient" bs)

Anything from Lewellyn Publishing

Visualization used as if it was energy work

Godphoning (talking to a deity for someone else, especially when it's non-consensual)

Spirit Animals

Spirit Shops

Spirit impreg

"Raising/higher Vibrations"

Contemporary/Western Reiki

New Age / Age of Aquarius

"Ascended Masters"

"Reptilians" (Aliens/pre-human terrestrials)

Emerald Tablets

Theosophy

New Thought

Anything related to Aleister Crowley

The Kybalion

"One True Way"

Witchcraft requiring a womb

"Men can't be witches" (Especially if they include trans women in this statement)

The Law of Attraction/Assumption

Spells purely with correspondences (Most spell candles/jars)

Appropriation (Dreamcatchers, Lilith, "Qabalah" or non-Jewish Kabbalah, Chakras, Kundalini, Yoga, Western Druidry, White Sage, voodoo, Hoodoo, etc outside of appropriate cultural context.)

"Black" or "White" magic

"Fae Council"

Claims of being a changeling

"Witchcraft requires sacrifice"

"Blood magic makes spells more powerful"

Reality Shifting

Magic/theology that requires self-harm

"Coven" (Especially if it's online)

If you see anyone endorsing anything on this list that is highlighted red, BLOCK THEM immediately.

[cryptotheism]

Wouldnt supporting Aleister Crowley today be supporting a racist today? Like what if some occultists were avidly spreading nazi bs but their work was on point, would you buy and talk about their books too?

I don't buy their books, I usually get them secondhand or pirated, but yeah I own a lot of Occult texts written by modern and historical racists. I feel that it's important, even necessary, to understand the fascist preoccupation with the occult. In fact, at a certain point, I think it's actively irresponsible for an occultist to NOT read those texts with a practiced and critical eye.

[traegorn]

I posted 1,398 times in 2022

509 posts created (36%)

889 posts reblogged (64%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@traegorn

@gingerblivet

@hockpock

@libraford

@rose-in-a-fisted-glove

I tagged 234 of my posts in 2022

#witch - 99 posts

#witchblr - 98 posts

#witchcraft - 91 posts

#witchtok - 59 posts

#wicca - 14 posts

#nonbinary - 10 posts

#genderqueer - 10 posts

#the bs-free witchcraft podcast - 10 posts

#youtube - 8 posts

#crystals - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#accidentally stabbing myself with a pencil while putting my hand in my pocket while running a training for 20 new contractors at my old job

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Ah yes, @llycaons has become today's volunteer.

One, Tumblr runs off of ad revenue. You have two choices on this site to support it -- be okay with seeing ads or pay for ad-free. Harassing advertisers actually helps no one, because it discourages folks from running ads.

Which means tumblr makes less money, and as the site is already losing money that could lead to its eventual shut down. You don't have to like the ads, but you literally signed up for this.

Two, according to your account you are an adult. You are capable of blocking blogs you don't like seeing, blocking tags you don't like, or even installing an ad blocker and circumventing the system that pays for the site you're actively using. Curate your own experiences my dude, and stop trying to force other people to do it for you.

Three, I like a lot of the stuff I've seen blazed to my dash -- so nah, you're just objectively wrong. Get a bigger sample size next time.

Now fuckle on off, Fuckalong Cassidy.

983 notes - Posted November 27, 2022

#4

The uselessness of Witchcraft Author "Blacklists"

Every once and a while I see a "Witchcraft Author Blacklist" either in the tags or getting passed around here on Tumblr, and never in my life have I thought it was a remotely useful thing.

Because every single time, they lack and semblance of nuance. Like yesterday I ran across one that literally equated Scott Cunningham with Stephen Flowers. Yes, Cunningham, a person who wrote some things that need to be read critically is, apparently, as bad as a literal fucking Nazi whose books help fund the AFA.

Like are there Cunningham books I wouldn't recommend? Absolutely. Should most of his works be read with a critical eye and take into account the state of the community and available information when he was writing them? Yes. But... like... there's a huge fucking difference between these two things.

Also, this list claimed because Cunningham wrote about Wicca his works were somehow homophobic. Have there been homophobic Wiccans? Of course - but Cunningham, an openly gay man, was not one of them.

Additionally, there are people who get included on these lists where I wouldn't recommend anyone read their books to learn witchcraft per se, but their works have important historical significance.

Like Gerald Gardner - should anyone learn from Gardner? Fuck no. His works are full of misinformation and outright bullshit. But it literally is where the modern witchcraft movement was birthed, so there is value in understanding where we came from.

Aleister Crowley falls into this category too - harder even. Crowley was gross as heck, but how can you understand what in the modern community is still descended from his works or propagating his gross ideas... if you're unfamiliar with his works?

Also, he's super dead, so it's not like he's benefiting from someone reading his stuff.

It's just so deeply frustrating that people make these lists to start with. Like, I have written or talked about how certain authors should be avoided -- but I always do my best to include context, reasons, and explanations why. I will specifically explain why I don't think they're valuable to read. Making a laundry list where you make unsourced or unexplained claims about a huge list of people doesn't help someone understand what might be wrong with them.

Also, my recommendations are usually about how a new witch shouldn't read their work, because it's about not having the experience to see what is and isn't bullshit in what they read yet. They don't have that baseline yet. That doesn't mean that some of these books might not be significant or worth reading at some point in their journey. Just not at the start of it.

It's just... a complete lack of nuance. Like I don't recommend Silver Ravenwolf because her books are, frankly, poorly researched and bad. I don't recommend Stephen Flowers because he's a fuckin' overt WHITE SUPREMACIST whose publications have been used to fund the AFA. These are not the same. When we pretend that they are, we are doing a massive disservice to all of us.

It... it honestly feels like Christian purity culture repackaged. If you can't handle nuance, I don't think you can really handle that much witchcraft to start with. The world isn't black and white -- there are overt evils out there, but most everything else is a shade of gray and pretending otherwise is poisonous.

1,264 notes - Posted August 29, 2022

#3

So there's a thing that a lot of tumblr users don't know about -- older ones because it didn't used to be like this, and newer ones because... they're new?

Anyways -- one of the biggest pains of Tumblr is that finding old posts can be hard. The search is terrible, and is overall useless. The easiest solution to this has always been that you can go through your "archive" -- for example here's mine: https://traegorn.tumblr.com/archive

Notice how that URL starts with my username. Longtime users will be like "Of course it does. That's your Tumblr URL." But here's the thing -- a lot of new accounts don't have that. Like, if you type it in (minus the /archive part) it kinda works still -- but it redirects you from username.tumblr.com to tumblr.com/username. And from there, the archive function does not work.

You see, to make your "Tumblr Blog" an actual, well, blog you have to turn it on manually now.

To do that, on the web, go to your blog settings and find this one:

Turning on "custom theme" will enable your blog to function and give you all the features.

Now there are reasons some folks might not want to do this. First off, that does mean sites like Google will be able to spider your blog and things can end up on public searches. If you don't want your Tumblr activity public do not turn it on. That's a choice I leave up to you. But, like, also... I've seen Tumblr accounts ostensibly set up to promote people's works but not have this turned on making the audience they're trying to reach less likely to find them.

But this is a thing that used to always be on. I found out one of my old sideblogs had it turned off that I never wanted it to be set that way. The choice is yours, do what you want.

I'm not your mom.

4,288 notes - Posted November 14, 2022

#2

People who get mad at seeing any post blazed are so funny to me.

This site works because either someone pays for ads, or you pay to not see ads. That's what pays Tumblr's bills.

4,533 notes - Posted November 1, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I'm here.

I'm queer.

I'd like to go back to bed now.

11,183 notes - Posted July 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[cloudselkie]

What do you think about magick / Aleister Crowley / wicca? I've heard bad stuff about it and was wondering if you could tell me more?

Aleister Crowley himself was a sexist and racist. But I think it's worth reading his work (since he is dead and can no longer benefit from sales) because his racist and sexist ideas have trickled down to influence the modern witchcraft movement. It's important to know what those ideas ARE so you can spot it when you see it and call bullshit, lol.

As far as the spelling of magick/magic, I associate magick with Crowley and therefore don't use it. I also don't feel the need to differentiate between stage magic and magic magic.

Wicca is kind of a mixed bag. Its founders included some appropriative shit in rituals, and there's definitely the whole god/goddess thing which is very gendered and some people may find that off-putting. BUT. There are some really cool Wiccans today who are working hard to practice a more inclusive form of Wicca. I I am not Wiccan myself, so I am not a good resource, but if you want to know more about Wicca, I HIGHLY recommend following @traegorn and listening to their podcast, BS Free Witchcraft. You will find some excellent information there!

[macarensesangles]

thinking about my mage insert again tbh. Some thoughts about seth and his tragic canon-bending widderslainte backstory

he’s got DID as ive mentioned before and i have no real desire to go into specifics about any of the childhood abuse aspect (like as in i havent come up with it and don’t super plan to) beyond that it was bad, he had some sort of near-death experience that served as an Awakening (mage term) as a teenager, like 18-19 maybe, and that after that he was taken in by his Mysterious Euthanatos Mage Mentor (actually a relative). seth has amnesia about big portions of this and does not really question it bc, yknow, DID.

when his mentor finds out he’s got an inverted avatar he very nearly kills him, but seth manages to convince him that maybe he was reincarnated for a purpose, like to redeem himself. normally his mentor would call BS on a widderslainte saying this but admittedly seth is a little pitiable, and also there’s the added context of them being family and seth’s whole abuse backstory. so he lets him go, and justifies this to whatever other mages are involved with him (unclear) that seth will lead them RIGHT TO the nephandi actually and it’s a GENIUS PLOY and he’s TOTALLY not just being soft (lie)

seth immediately goes to join a group of hollow ones in LA bc i like setting everything in LA bc im crazy and also it’s where my groups vtm RP is so im attached emotionally. anyway the hollow ones he hangs out with are all painfully stupid and sort of theatrically edgy bc i think that’s the funniest outcome here. not necessarily POSERS but like, kind of the way jhonen vasquez satirizes 90s goths. he doesn’t really do magic actively bc he’s concerned about the whole “everything i touch is subject to my disgusting vibes” aspect of magic with an inverted avatar so he mostly does a lot of research and tome sourcing for these guys, except he’s much better educated, and kind of losing his mind bc they keep asking him for stupid shit like books by aleister crowley. sort of the vibe of like a theoretical physicist attending an event where everyone present has sourced their understanding of alternate universes as a concept from comics or marvel films. it’s sort of unbearable.

aidoneus ropes him in by being Not Stupid. they genuinely get along as colleagues and despite aidoneus’ sort of romantic involvement with Seth 1: Victorian Dandy Serial Killer, the whole thing they have going is more friendly in nature. when aidoneus finally reveals he’s a vampire and wants to embrace seth, Seth is like WHAT ABOUT MY MAGE APOTHEOSIS AND SPIRITUAL JOURNEY AND UNFUCKENING OF MY SOUL 🥺, and aidoneus is like “that’s impossible, but fine, i’ll give you a hand with it and if in a couple years we hit a dead end im making you a tremere whether you like it or not, mister.”

as for the whole Victorian serial killer thing...his past life was not a nice guy once he went nephandus LOL. i still am thinking about who he was and what precisely pushed him over the edge but after that he did do a whole lot of serial killing. and he WAS a dandy and he WAS very twinkish. also super blond. his name was edwin.

[whatisonthemoon]

Two Segment Episode(s) on Religious, Spiritual, and Fascist Psychological Operations

The Liminalist # 219: Fake Blueprints for Revolution (The Shadow Ideology of the Elite, with Recluse)

https://auticulture.com/the-liminalist-219-recluse/

Return conversation with Recluse of VISUP about extreme right-wing shadow politics on east & west coasts, the hidden ideological template peaking through UFO narratives, occultism, & supposed liberal-progressive values, & the many lies of Peter Levenda & Aleister Crowley.

F I R S T   S E G M E N T 

Part One: Spooky Social Network (0 – 31 mins)

Suspicions about Peter Levenda, disagreements over alien abductions and Crowley, Association of Former Intelligence Officers, To the Stars Academy, David Atley Phillips or Maurice Bishop, the coup d’état in Chile, Operation Condor, Richard Dody, John Alexander & non-lethal weapons, Stillwell & JSOC, Michael Aquino, the Typhonian tradition, demonic space gods, Chris Knowles on Cracker, intelligence social network, plausible deniability, Levenda’s early years, Knights of Malta & the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Charles Willoughby’s G2 & the OSS, Philip Corso & Gladio, The Secret Life of Plants, Stanley & David Ferrie & child abuse, Christian Identity Theology domestic terrorism network.

Part Two: The Evolutionary Drive of Madness (31 mins – end)

Levenda’s game, the rehabilitation of the CIA, a religious end game, Jacques Vallee, Kenneth Grant cosmology, In the Mouth of Madness, Pasulka’s American Cosmic, the transformation of society, Strieber, Castaneda, transhumanism, disembodiment, Jeffrey Epstein & the scientific community, the coming of the Beetles, Nick Land, accelerationism, Puharich & Spectre, genetic tampering, the ideology of sexual abuse, the evolutionary drive of madness, Manson the outsider, dreams of the zombie apocalypse, the pluses of cannibalism, The Necronomicon & The Satanic Bible, Sinister Forces, Levenda’s orientation, MKULTRA & the American Security Council, the right & wrong way of approaching knowledge.

S E C O N D   S E G M E N T .Part Three: Spy Games (0 – 20 mins)

Sinister Forces, the metaphysical & the parapolitical, synchromysticism, the tools of occultism, the perils of Necronomicon, Levenda’s changing position with occultism, propaganda & truth, what the books deliver, the Tom de Longe project, anticipating a Hilary presidency, Annie Jacobson’s Area 51, the UFO red herring, abolishing the line between reality & fantasy, spy games, Russian fake news about psi, targeting the American public.

Part Four: We Need to Talk About Crowley (20 mins – 48 mins)

Let’s talk about Crowley, Cecil family & royal intelligence, hidden power positions, the Society for Psychical Research, the Round Table, Crowley’s high-level endorsement, General Fuller, UK Nazi groups, Scottish League for European Freedom, Neal Billy MacLean, World Anti-Communist League’s occult groups  & Yakuza ties, the Moonies & drug money, the Iron Guard & Julius Evola, Las Tecos, strange ideologies, The Star in the West, the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, Crowley researchers ignoring of Fuller & far-right allegiances, Crowley as a fascist progressive pioneer of liberal values, the enigma of Crowley’s promotion.

Part Five: The Hollywood Connection (48 mins – end)

Rebranding Crowley, the Hollywood connection, Crowley’s dark side, the Moonies & Christian fundamentalism, Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein & Hubbard, Charles Manson, drugs, and pedophilia, the Family as a prototype for militia group, ground zero for Christian Identity Theology, Manson’s parole officer, Haight-Ashbury Medical Clinic, Son of Sam, Roy Kohn, New York sex parties, Mindhunter, behavioral science BS, high-level propaganda, reasserting the fiction, Fight Club & solider of the apocalypse archetype, fake blueprints for revolution.

[thenightmareismyreality]

This photo of Zelena and Malakai is so dang precious 🥺

[moonlit-ruby]

Pentagrams

(what I have learned so far)

⛥ sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, pentacle or star pentagon

↳ although Trae Gorn distinguishes a pentagram as the 5-pointed star (encircled or not) symbol and a pentacle as a physical object (e.g amulet/talisman)

⛥ History

In early Sumerian script, or cuneiform, a pentagram represented the word 'ub', meaning "corner, angle, nook; a small room, cavity, hole; pitfall"

Pentagrams are said to have been used as a symbol or sign of recognition by the Pythagoreans, representing the concept of health

The pentagram is often used when depicting the Seal/Ring of Solomon - a ring that was said to be engraved by God and that gave Solomon the power to influence demons and spirits, or to speak with animals

↳ although a hexagram is likely more historically accurate

Historically, Christians used pentagrams to represent the five wounds of Jesus or the five senses

Pentagrams are mentioned in the 14th-century English poem 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'

A downward-pointing pentagram partially comprises the North rose of the 13th century Amiens cathedral (top left) where it is said to symbolise the Holy Spirit descending upon believers.

An image showing a male figure inscribed over a pentagram and with five astrological symbols was shown in Agrippa's 'Three Books of Occult Philosophy'

A pentagram is used in Taoism to symbolise the relationship between the five phases or elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, water (named Wu Xing)

⛥ Modern usage:

Used as an apotropaic symbol/charm to deflect or protect against evil.

A symbol of faith for Wiccans (a symbolism that has also been seen historically).

A symbol for the Baháʼí faith (The Báb and Bahá'u'lláh sometimes wrote in the shape of a pentagram).

Used in architecture by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Symbolizes the universe for the Serer.

The Druze use a multicolored pentagram.

Appears on many flags (eg. Morocco and Ethiopia) and in the emblem for The Order of the Eastern Star (top right).

⛥ Orientation:

Éliphas Lévi (19th century) declared that a downwards-pointing pentagram represents evil, while an upwards pointing pentagram represents good.

↳ His Tetragrammaton pentagram (bottom right) symbolised  the human being/microcosm

However, Aleister Crowley saw the downwards pointing pentagram as representing the descent of spirit into matter

Others say the pentagram only ever represents safety from evil and that the orientation of the pentagram changes nothing

Please feel free to message me with corrections, additions, or suggestions for further reading.

[Sources: Wikipedia, BS-Free Witchcraft Episode 1]

[unwiltingblossom]

Code: Realize Route Review - Van Helsing

Round two of the Code: Realize routes/character reviews. This uses information from the main game + extra scenes in the main game. I have the first sequel fandisc, but I haven’t played it yet, so that content isn’t included.

Abraham Van Helsing

I have determined Van Helsing is the correct/expected second route. Similar to Impey, his route doesn’t spoil anything, but it does hint at Germain’s route and sets up Victor’s. (Victor’s route will spoil Van’s)

Van Helsing got the immediate VA boost, which was good, because his introduction was the first jarring experience of making a choice that meant nothing. “Come Out/Stay Hidden” has no difference except a couple paragraphs of dialog and which people get affection points. That’s to be expected in a free mobile game, but for a game with a $50 price tag (even considering the bundled fandisc) it’s pretty unforgivable. The lack of animation and repeat backgrounds/misc CGs also show through in this route whether it’s your second as is likely to be expected or especially if it’s third like mine was.

Not to go on a tangent, but the fact that the boys don’t even get unique bedrooms despite each of them getting at least one scene in their bedroom is a travesty.

Anyway, back on topic. Van is a fun little tsundere route, but the trouble with his route is that you spend most of it waiting for a payoff that barely happens, due to the plot they decided to go with. Transferring tsundere into manpain makes for a rough route when it’s the same length as everyone else’s.

It’s interesting that this route departs from the others where it has multiple villains that Van has to go through before the final villain, instead of just sending endless waves of Twilight mooks and giving one big boss at the end. Unfortunately, if you’re a fool like myself and first played Victor and Impey before him, you’ll be disappointed that Cardia isn’t really ‘shaped’ by Helsing. Despite the focus on self defense and martial arts - which will come in handy in other routes - Cardia’s role is pretty similar here as in Impey’s, minus engineering stuff: stand back, let Van Helsing be awesome, worry about him.

I found his bad endings easier to avoid in general, except against Jack the Ripper. Mostly because the choices were again pretty weird. You can kind of guess ‘don’t resist’ is the correct choice from his lessons about when to surrender (if you forget that it’s literally Jack the Ripper, and you don’t let Jack get near you with knives) - but good luck if you’ve done Germain’s route before this, because like with Impey and Victor’s routes, the same dilemma has the opposite answer in Germain and Van’s route. The second bad end Jack can give you (because what’s more fun than one bad end instantly after you start a route? Two!) is just some serious BS, though, I’m calling it right now. “Do you stay and try to get the door open or abandon it and look for another route” is absolutely a ‘damned if you do or don’t’ dilemma, because either route can and will result in death in a horror movie...but when you stack on that the narrative says “This is a dead end with only one door that has faint light behind it” before giving you the option to decide whether you should keep struggling with the door while Jack closes in or abandon it and look elsewhere is just unfair. (Spoiler: it wasn’t a dead end, she could have kept running and does so)

On the bright side, the story does eventually let Cardia be more violent in Van’s route compared to others, as the climax of the story has her grab a man’s throat with her bare hands specifically intent on murdering the heck out of him if necessary. But man is there a lot of ‘just stay out of Van’s way’ up until then.

The route’s really slim on romance, but it has lots of angst and feels in its place, and it’s the route Delly gets to be more than just ‘that kid who pops his head up and sasses sometimes before he goes back to house-sitting or something’. Even in Lupin’s route, Delly barely gets to do anything onscreen. Since Delly is glued to Van’s side, he basically fulfills a role somewhere between little brother and son to Cardia through the route and it’s pretty cute. Even in the ‘normal’ ending, Delly is the one who’s there.

The only iffy moment isn’t much of one, because it’s a pretty weak trap. You’re supposed to stay and help Delly in one scene - failing to do so will just get Van injured - while in another, staying and helping him will get you a bad end. That said, it’s not so bad, because the former doesn’t give you a bad end and in the latter case you should know the flow of things well enough to know you should chase after Van. (Weirdly, in Code: Realize, it’s basically never that a bad end results in a boyfriend dying, even when it would makes sense)

Speaking of bad ends, Victor’s normal end isn’t a sucker punch choice designed to mess with you, as Impey’s feels like...but man is his lazy. His isn’t the only route that does it, sadly, but nothing feels quite so much like they wrote the True Route first and went ‘what if we just MESS WITH them for the Normal End’ as Van’s. It’s tedious because you have to track through a bunch of identical stuff for a microscopic amount of change pre-epilogue, whether you started with Normal or True End (but especially if you start with True End, the only reason you’d bother with Normal End is to see epilogue Delly. Maybe two lines of writing is even any different at the Normal End cut off point, compared to just playing through True End and seeing ‘the rest of the scene’)

Overall, Van Helsing’s route is extremely thorough in exploring both Van and Delly, because it’s extremely plot relevant to know basically everything there is to know about Van Helsing in it. It’s really great for getting the player to fall for Van. It’s very weak on romancing Van Helsing, though, because when you get into a tsundere route your expectation is that you’re gonna break through to the dere, but that really doesn’t happen. You wanna see Van Helsing’s dere? You can see it from Isaac’s lab all the way up until Azoth appears. Most of that time Cardia isn’t with Van...and in Germain and Lupin’s route it’s confirmed Van behaves pretty similarly when Cardia goes ‘missing’ in those, so unless the game is implying everyone falls for her no matter what (which sometimes I think it is), it’s not that helpful.

Van’s love of Cardia isn’t secret to the player - Azoth immediately calls him out about it, which is what makes him push Cardia away for her safety, when Cardia almost dies to save Van they have a sweet moment, the final choice in the route has his anguished declaration of ‘you’re important to me’ in the rain, and the climax of the route has Azoth using Van’s unspoken love for Cardia against him, resulting in Van attempting to kill himself to protect Cardia. Unfortunately...that’s all you get until True End, extra scenes, and sequel fandisc stuff.

My main criticisms of the route are these:

1 - Cardia’s training under Van Helsing doesn’t come into play, and she’s instead expected to stand back and let her boyfriend be awesome like with Impey’s route, but she doesn’t get to be an engineer on this one, so it’s all her running from danger or through it to get to Van. Arguably, the scene where Cardia has to sneak through a fortress full of Twilight soldiers to help spring Impey from his cage in Impey’s route would have fit better in this route (with Van captive) than his - and to support that, you have to use one of Van’s lessons to succeed in that! To know the answer for one of Van’s bad end choices, you need an answer Lupin provides, which is impossible to have on first run.

2 - Van’s route is very slim on actually romancing him. If Impey’s route has him CONSTANTLY confessing and having Cardia refuse to accept she’s in love with him because it’s embarrassing, Van’s is the opposite where he refuses to accept he’s in love with her but Cardia is incredibly determined.

3 - The Normal End, although so easy to avoid you pretty much have to get it on purpose, is nonsensical in its cause-effect relation to the choice you actually make to trigger it (unless it’s really triggered by overall affection points, like Lupin’s is) and is extremely lazy, just cutting off the True End at a point that would make the story end sadly instead of happily

4 - Just screw everything to do with Jack the Ripper’s section except the moment when Van Helsing finally manages to rescue her and looks cute. It was an awful section, Jack’s design is ugly, and it overall makes no sense. Sholmes doesn’t solve an easily solvable criminal case we later learn he’s tracking extremely closely, Azoth wants a crazy woman killer to capture and keep a woman without killing her, Jack goes from ‘I won’t kill you’ to ‘Nevermind killing time’ without any real reason to it, and the choices you’re given seem designed specifically to bait you into getting the bad end first. ALSO - we later learn that Azoth expected Van to kill Jack and this would have hurt his psyche for some reason, when killing a serial killer in the midst of actively murdering women doesn’t really seem like something that would at all harm a soldier’s psyche. And he set up a bomb in the room with his recording anyway.

5- NOT EVEN ONE ‘FAKE’ KISS. NO KISSING. NO TOUCHING. Because Cardia neither removes her poison, nor has it weakened temporarily in his route, no one gets to touch her. Because Van pretends he isn’t in love with her the whole time, he never even does the Lupin hat kiss thing. No kisses. No touches.

Overall the route is good, though. Its big twist is 100% ruined if you play Victor’s route first, because nothing Van can say will change the fact that Aleister causes two bad ends all on his own in that route, but it’s still a fun route to play through and the lack of Van Helsing fluff can be fixed in the fandiscs. By the epilogue and the extra scenes, Van is full dere in his slightly sarcastic and prickly way, it’s just a shame we couldn’t get more of that.

[whenloveand-deathembrace]

Ville is literally the most perfect angelic looking man ever and you can NOT change my mind.

[writinglionqueen]

RAW Recap (5/18/20)

~kicking things off with Randy Orton about his proposal to face Edge

~Edge interrupts in the middle of it to talk about the difference between him and Randy

~Edge accepts

~Murphy (with Seth) versus Aleister Black

~Seth says “Your welcome” to Rey

~Humberto Carrillo comes out to call Seth on his BS about caring for Rey and defends his idol

~Humberto versus Murphy

~Murphy wins

~Murphy attacks Humberto after the match and Aleister comes out to save Carrillo while Seth leaves the ring calmly

~Charlotte to face Ruby Riott

~Charlotte wins

~Viking Raiders and Street Profit in Viking games

~Asuka and Kairi celebration for Asuka’s championship

~Nia Jax interrupts

~Asuka attacks Nia

~Truth calls out Bobby Lashley

~Bobby Lashley versus Truth

~Lashley wins (MVP claps for him in the back)

~Lana goes berserk backstage

~Bliss Cross versus the IIconics for the tag titles

~Bliss Cross win by DQ

~Nia attacks Kiari backstage

~Asuka attacks Nia

~Shayna Bayzler versus Natalya in a submission match

~Bayzler wins

~KO Show with Zelina and AAA (about their fighting)

~KO says they’re not his only guest, that Crews is also to be on the show who comes out running to beat up the triad

~Apollo and KO versus Garza and Andrade

~Crews gets the win

~Andrade attacks Theory

~Garza joins Andrade against Theory

~Zelina tells Theory he’s useless and she shouldn’t have believed in him

~Murphy vs Aleister Black

~Seth draws Theory to be another disciple and Theory attacks Black

~VR and SP’s hatchet throwing comes to a conclusion

~Drew McIntyre versus Baron Corbin

~Bobby comes out to tell Drew he wants Drew’s title

~McIntyre wins while Bobby watches

[princessniquane]

Ok so who would y’all pick to face the Undertaker, if he had an actual last match? Aleister Black, Bálor (Finn Bálor), or Bray Wyatt (as The Fiend)? No bs projects or anything hokey.

[the-beastslayers-queen]

I hate this deal thing Vince has with the SA government/regime

Here’s why:

Sami is banned because of his Syrian heritage

Aleister is banned for his Lilith tattoo on his back.

The women are banned from competing because the men are afraid they could inspire hope in the women native to the country to rise against the patriarchy and rebel against the sharia laws that govern the country.

The fact that the ones in power killed a journalist so brutally and hasn’t suffered enough punishment for their actions.

And the fact that Vince surely knows how bad it makes him and his company look to still continue with this BS when the world knows the truth about everything wrong with this country and how many human rights violations it has against it.

I watched SSD, but I only watched it to show support to the talent that was able to compete, even if they decided to refuse they could be fired if they don’t have the clout that those like Daniel Bryan has to be able to refuse without being punished. And this also on top of the stupid booking that has been happening for so long, causing so many talent to ask for their releases, allowing their contracts to expire, or to just sit out what’s left of their contracts instead of continuing to perform because they have had enough of Vince being stuck in his ways. Step down from the driver’s seat Vince, before you watch your company flounder and sink as AEW provides a better product than you have been able to produce in years. Trust your talent to be able to portray their characters without the micromanagement.

[whatamessz]

The former Lives of Murdoc A. Niccals (pt. 2)

pt. 1 is here

I’m glad you all are interested, so here is the next part! I’d also like to add that, in this pt as well as pt 1, I tried to find parallels to Murdoc’s canon biography (or fanon, in one or two cases), so have fun searching and interpreting or just ask me. 

Also this time I’ll only cover one era. I know I said I thought about Murdoc being a fellow of Aleister Crowley and him fighting in World War II and I wrote several approaches, but even if there are defo interesting parallels in Murdoc’s biography to Crowley’s (not only with the whole occultism but also about Crowley being bisexual and working his ways around it with magic rituals or a wild stay in Mexico or him being a mountaineer that let me think of Murdoc’s trip to the Andes etc etc etc) I struggled finding interesting significance for Murdoc as a backround figure in that life. Still lmk if you want to hear my attempts.

There are some CW’s, so take care: mentions of period typical homophobia; mentions of brief Na/zi party sympathies (I hope you see how I don’t include that for shits n’ giggles)

Between World Wars (1925 - 1933)

Interesting and troubling times that touch on a few points I’d like to address. From around 1900 to 1933 Berlin was the epicenter of one of the first global gay and trans rights movements. Curtesy to several historical figures, but especially the doctor and sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, who opened his “Institut für Sexualwissenschaft” (Institute for Sexology) in 1919 (if you watched/read “The Danish Girl” or know about Lili Elbe, you might know about the institute too). His theory was, that trans- and homosexuality weren’t chosen or a disease, but inherent and therefore those affected deserved rights and support. Hirschfeld gathered a broad circle of supporters and worked closely with women’s rights activists. The institute harbored the largest library on the subject at the time.

The ultimate goal of Hirschfeld and his like-minded colleagues was the abolishment of § 175 (effective from 1871 to 1994) of the german criminal code, which penalized homosexual encounters.

The institute even survived World War I. By the end of the 19th century, Berlin already had its own, surprisingly public ball culture, but Hirschfeld’s yearlong efforts as well as the thriving economy of the Weimar Republic liberated the social climate for queer people in Berlin a lot more. In the 1920’s, Berlin had the world’s biggest gay- and lesbian quarter. That and the overll party scene attracted an international clientele.

Enter Murdoc. Born around 1900 into GB’s working class, on top of that, struggling with the norms and expectations of a heteronormative life style pretty early (my interpretation from all the canon hints will always be he’s bi or pan). In GB, it was possible to legally pursue homosexual acts since 1885 through section 11 (pls correct me if I tell bs here). London still had it’s own, vibrant queer culture at the time, but afaik it was a more repressed than in Berlin (again, tell me if I am wrong).

1914 WWI broke out. Reportedly, even minors as young as 16 were drafted for military service. I imagine Murdoc was about to be drafted in 1917/18 but was caught fooling around with another boy and therefore, while not strictly punished, found inept for military service. In November 1918 the war ended, but Murdoc faced more and more pressure from his surroundings bc his preferences had become known, so he decided to find his luck in Berlin. And he probably did in the gay party scene of the city.

Downsides of this scenario? Two major points:

The antisemitism of 19th century was still very present. There were so many famous jewish artists, doctors, scientists, writers etc. assembled in Berlin who had immensely shaped the cultural progress of the time, but still they were an easy scapegoat.

Second point was, that the economy wasn’t thriving for a long time. The majority of Berlins population lived under gruesome circumstances in poverty and criminality was at it’s peak (something I imagine Murdoc would have struggled with too). In 1929 the Great Depression hit Germany too and it ultimately helped the political right wing (the german Na/zi party N/SDAP) rise, like crisis are prone to do. This is kinda bleak now, but I find it hard to discuss away Murdoc’s former canon probable right-wing sympathies, or at the very least ignorance. So this is where my suggestion now comes from, that he might first sympathized with the rising party, that got elected into the german government in 1933. That was until he had to realize that people like him where among the very first victims of the new movement and I think he had to learn that the hard way. As soon as the N/SDAP got elected, a mob of Na/zis raided Hirschfeld’s institute, waving flags and shouting parols, not only bc of his advocacy for queer people’s rights, but also bc he was jewish. Hirschfeld fled into exile and never returned. His remarkable library got publicly burned in May 1933 and §175 was aggravated later. After that, I imagine that Murdoc had an unpleasant encounter with a few rightwing lads that made him finally change his mind. He returned to GB quickly and later got drafted into the British army. Members of the LGBTQ+ community in Germany finally were pursued and interned in concentration camps, flagged with a pink triangle.

Ok, I used it this time to talk about a period I really care about and I used to do a lot of research back in uni, but I still think this could fit Murdoc’s characterization. 

I can’t make promises on my motivation, but if you have any more suggestions or want me to cover a certain period, just tell me.

Tell me if you find inaccuracies too, I love to learn.