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[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

I think a fun 'expectation vs reality' moment of spirit work is the fact that sure, spirit and astral work can be mysterious, emotionally/physically/spiritually daunting/lifting/challenging etc etc but on the flip side it can be just as meme-filled and hilarious and a lot more mundane you might have thought it would be

I have a spirit friend, who, whenever he comes over to my pod he is amused but exasperated that he is constantly treated like a child by the scouts. It doesn't matter how many expeditions he's helped out on, bro is like family to this pod and thus they treat him like one would a little brother/nephew

Freaking out if I'm in the water and see a seal just knocked out and then realizing 'oh, they are just asleep' once I remember that seals can sleep underwater for a good chunk of water and selkies can too

I've gone to talk to a banshee friend only to find her in the middle of heralding and our exchange was essentially 'oops sorry, girl, I'll come back later?' 'Yeah okay, see you'

Me: *meeting my first dullahan* Oooh can I see your horse? Dullahan knowing damn well I don't know the horse will also be headless: Sure thing >:3c

I was confident enough in my Japanese to try speaking to a kitsune in it. The ancient ass Japanese I heard being said back to me in return made me rethink my life choices

My first successful astral experience was me falling into the sand after taking one step in it

Whipping out some sort of currency from my astral fanny pack of sorts only to be told 'oh we do trade here' (I like to be covered on all fronts, alright)

Stuff like that really has me going 'damn I am deep into spirit/fae work, huh?'

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

Feel free to answer in whatever way works but: what you imagine for yourself in 10 years? With time (and our world being unpredictable) the most I imagine myself is just being able to sleep okay and calm at work.

Hhhmmm I think much the same.

A nice and stable career in education, an apartment of my own that I share with my cats and one of my mothers and drinking lavender chamomile tea on saturday mornings during or autumn or just chilly enough to justify a warm cup of it while looking out across at the buildings close by

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

Rashida Tlaib is a powerhouse. Her grandmother just passed away under occupation (her words) but she’s still organizing for HEAL Palestine— an initiative providing Health, Education, Aid, and Leadership opportunities in a collective effort to help heal Gaza’s youth.

A donation to HEAL Palestine will help shelter, feed, and treat injured and sick Palestinians who have fled military violence, and who are in dire need of basic necessities including food, clean water, and medical supplies because of Israel’s cruel blockade. currently HEAL is working to open a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and a new maternity department in Rafah, plus sponsoring medical teams to go to Gaza.

In addition to funding urgent needs, a donation will support long-term solutions and projects in Palestine as well, such as mental health and mentorship for children who’ve been living with trauma their entire lives, and programs to rebuild Gaza’s education and health systems.

Here’s the link to donate.

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

I once listened to a podcast where the person said to close your eyes and remember when you were most happy so the answers they got ranged from people saying when they in highschool and were more outgoing, going for walks in nature or dancing as a little kid or drawing. For me I imagine myself under sunlight and unsurprisingly, I like sun exposure. What would you say makes you happiest that you know you should get around to doing?

Easy answer, the ocean! It's fills me with the most peace and happiness I could ever describe

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

Have you dabbled In Shintoism? That you work with Kitsune reminds of Inari Okami. I think I heard once that because Shinto is practised outside of Japan that their messengers do go abroad. Have the Kitsune you work with mentioned them by any chance? Especially if there's anything to be avoided in regards to worshipping?

I personally haven't. The kitsune I've met personally worship a different deity so I can't really help you there. As for if I dabble in Shintoism myself, I have not. I'm interested in the practice but it's never gone beyond a vague interest

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

Hello, do you know how one can open and develop Astral eyes and Astral ears?

Trial and error and a lot of practice. A LOOOT of practice. There's a lot of methods out there one can find and all I can say it's trial and error figuring out which methods give you the best results. What works for someone else might not work for you and what doesn't work for someone else might end up working super well for you

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

One thing that makes my grimoire so readable is that I doodle in it, stick washi tape inside, etc. That way it's not just row and rows of text. It also helps if I'm doing a quick flip through trying to find a specific page of information that I need like spell correspondences or something like that

I love doodling pictures for my spells especially.

My grimoire also tends to double as a witchcraft/spirit work-related diary as well to discuss spirit encounters, astral adventures and things of that nature. I usually never doodle for those sorts of entries but I think I'll start doing that actually! Seems like a fun way to make even diary entries fun and colorful.

But I imagine that one day I'll eventually get a notebook that's specifically a record of different spirits species. I think that would be really fun to make. Maybe I'll have that be a binder though so I can add pages over time in case I discover a sub-species/need some sort of addendum made and things like that. Oh hell yeah that sounds really fun now that I'm writing this out. I might get myself a binder next week and some loose paper to start making this 'bestiary'.

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

The Magical Girl Guide to: Faerie Witchcraft

A post a long time in the making, it's finally time for it to get out of my drafts. I've talked about specific faeries in the past but never a sweeping generalization on faerie witchcraft it, so let's change that this 2024.

Faerie witchcraft at its core is a path of witchcraft that revolves around communicating with the folk, working with them, calling on them and leaving them offerings as thanks for their assistance. That is the biggest generalization I can make about the path, but what that core looks like can be very different from faerie witch to faerie witch. So, let's talk about the faeries.

(As always, these 'magical girl guides' isn't the 'end all be all'. These are barely the tip of the iceberg. Always look at other's experiences/UPG and of course make sure to do more extensive research beyond a post on Tumblr.)

What are faeries?

Faerie, Faery, Fairy, Fae, Fey, Fay, it doesn't matter how you spell it, we are all referring to the same thing ー the Good Neighbors.

By definition, faeries are "is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, generally described as anthropomorphic, found in the folklore of multiple European culture a form of spirit, often with metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural qualities."

There are no real single origin for faeries so much as a collection of folk beliefs from all over.

Terminology

Other Way to say Faerie

Ao sí/Aes sídhe

Daoine sídhe

Sídhe/Shee/Sìth

The Good Folk

The Good Neighbors

The Fair Folk

The Folk

The Gentry

The Good People

Greencoaties

Changeling - a substitute left by a faerie after kidnapping a human. Can sometimes be one of their own, other times it is glamoured rocks and sticks. Was used as an explanation for stillborn children in the past.

Seelie - the "faerie good guys" in stories.

Unseelie - the "faerie bad guys" in stories.

The Wild Hunt/Sluagh/Underfolk - a group of supernatural hunters in a never-ending hunt/chase. The perception of the Wild Hunt changed after the introduction of Christianity to the isles.

Wild/Solitary Fae - faeries with no Court affiliations, not to be confused with the Wild Hunt.

Trooping Faeries - live in communities and are known for singing and dancing.

Faerieland

Also simply referred to as Faerie, this is the home of the faeries.

Thought to be divided into the four Seasonal Courts of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. The Spring and Summer Courts represent the Seelie Court while Autumn and Winter represent the Unseelie Court. These lands are considered to be eternal displays of the season they are.

faeries in folklore

We would literally be here all day if I talked about faeries in folklore. Y'all know faerie folklore and mythology is ancient X'D so this category isn't really all that important.

In these stories, faeries can be anything from benevolent to tricksters to someone out to get it back in blood.

faeries in media

Just as expansive as the faerie folklore post. Faeries are becoming more and more frequent in pop culture with books such as the Folk of the Air series by Holly Black, The Spider Wick Chronicles also by Holly Black, Sarah J. Maas' ACOTAR series and even in older TV shows like True Blood.

Hell, I'm working on a novel that has to do with faeries.

UPG

Since starting my own journey working with the fair folk I've come to learn that your fae working experience is shaped by the fae you go out of your way to interact with, the fae local to your area, what the folk feel comfortable sharing with you and what they feel comfortable letting you share with others.

A faerie witch whose experience centers around the flower faeries local to their area is going to be different from a faerie witch whose experience centers around Unseelie fae. Same for someone who only focuses on transactional relationships with the fae (ex. leaving out home baked goods weekly for a brownie, the brownie takes care of the home and that's the extent of their relationship) vs a someone where their path focuses on enveloping themselves in faerie culture and learning about it on a more personal level (ex. befriending a Court local to your area).

For me personally, my fae work experience centers around wild fae like selkies and death fae like banshee and dullahan. Both of which are very personal and has me enveloped in the cultures of these faeries. No transactions here but something deep and personal, like family. It's influenced the witchcraft I've chosen to incorporate into my craft as an eclectic witch and things I experience on a daily basis. (I do have guides on both selkies and banshee if you are curious. Dullahan post is in progress.)

Because of this, your prospective relationship with fair folk and what that may bring in your life is going to be very personal to you, I've found. There will be some overlap, of course. You'll run into someone and go 'oh damn, me too!!'. But it will still be special and unique to you.

It can be as personal as you want it to be. It can be as impersonal as you want it to be. It's up to you.

As such, I can't really make a generalized UPG post about what working with fae is like. There are so many kinds of faeries out there that it would take forever to complete! And one person's daily UPG can look vastly different from someone else's.

I don't believe it's as rampant as it used to be in witchcraft-related spaces as it was in say 2016, but there will always be people who will say things like 'avoid working with faeries in general' or 'fae work is only best for the experienced. If you're a bigger, fuck off'. But I personally think that, like with any craft, as long as you take the time to baby step your way into it, study as you go along, then fae work isn't something that should be gatekeeped to the experienced.

Seelie vs Unseelie: A Lesson in Faerie Morality

There's a huge misconception about these two faerie categories that Seelie means 'good faeries' while Unseelie means 'bad faeries'.

So the best thing someone can do when stepping into the world of fae work is completely disregard that notion. You can meet Unseelie fae who don't mind mortal company and then meet a Seelie faerie who doesn't fuck with humans in the slightest. I think it would better to think of it as faeries who commit to the right or left-handed paths and even then that's putting human morality on it. Human morality and faerie morality are not the same and the faster you realize that, the better it'll be for you.

What you might find atrocious, faeries might go 'that's not so bad'.

What you might find 'not so bad', faeries might find despicable.

Unseelie courts tend to be a bit less welcoming than Seelie courts in a general sweeping overgeneralization. That’s not to say there aren’t Unseelie fae that wouldn’t interact with humans, but a good majority probably won’t be happy to see a human frolicking about the place unattended. So if you ever feel the desire to visit an unseelie court, I’d wait until you’re more experienced working the fae and having the etiquette down

How important is etiquette?

I've personally found that the closer you are to a faerie, the less important etiquette is.

I don't speak to my selkie friends the way I speak to the flower faeries that are local to my area. The way I talk to banshee I know is very different than how I talk to banshee I don't know.

So yes, it is important to learn the proper etiquette to avoid angering a faerie. But the closer you get to the specific folk in your lives, should the relationship go beyond acquaintanceship/transactional, you'll find yourself speaking a bit more casually with them over time.

Faerieland: A Personal Dive

The home of the Good Neighbors.

You can go to Faerie by way of the astral or by slipping into a pocket of Faerie found in our realm (ex. you're on a nature hike and suddenly you've found yourself walking into a revel).

You could write a 50 page dissertation on the courts of Faerie and still not be done covering it. There are hundreds of Courts outside of the main few that you'll hear tossed around by fae workers and folklore enthusiasts and even with those known few there can be dozens of Sub-Courts.

I've met faeries from the Flower Court, a Summer pixie who came from a specific sub-Court called the Lake Court. I've heard of fae workers talking about Winter Sub-Courts that have to do with specific wintery holidays. So yes, there's definitely more than just the Seasonal Courts.

I always let people who frequent this blog what I can and cannot do and what I have and have not done. So in the spirit of keeping things transparent, I've only ever visited two Courts in Faerieー the Autumn Court and the Death Court. I can't really tell you much direct information about the other Courts because of that.

So I can't really give any 'here's a place I recommend visiting in Faerie' beyond a simple 'avoid any place embroiled in politics'. Any court going through serious issues whether that’s a change in power or what have you, won’t be the best place to visit.

Stick to well-populated places to start. You’ll likely find less problems there than say remote areas of Faerie. Just know, Faerie can be as terrifying as it is beautiful.

As for leadership, that looks different from Court to Court, Seelie to Unseelie.

I usually hear more about matriarchal rulership in Faerie, but there are faerie kings.

Who counts as 'Fae' and who doesn't?

If they consider themselves fae, they're fae. If they don't consider themselves fae, they aren't. That's really all there is to it. I've met merfolk who consider themselves faeries and I've met merfolk who consider faeries separate entities from themselves.

So in my experience, I've found that you just learn what the entity in question thinks of themselves as and respect that.

I'm just trying to keep faeries out my space tbh

You'll find the old timey methods to be very suitable. Iron, salt sprinkled around and so and so forth.

And should be out and about in nature, and you want to enjoy a hike without the fair folk messin' with ya, I'd recommend keeping an item of clothing inside out, carrying rowan or iron charms. And keeping to the trails. Faeries are more likely to avoid areas with heavy human foot traffic.

suitable offerings

The disclaimer here is that these are general offerings that most faeries should like. Should you ever find yourself working frequently with a faerie or find yourself the companion of one, there could be other things that they specifically like or dislike. But you usually can’t go wrong with:

General

Anything from nature like flowers, leaves, etc.

Tea

Honey

Cream

Berries

But should you be trying to get the attention of a faerie of a specific species, fine tune your offerings to that type of faerie. Seashells for selkies, bones for dullahan and so on and so forth.

how to gain the attention of a faerie

1) old fashioned offerings

2) astral travel

3) spirit attraction spell

I’m not a promoter of conjuring or otherwise, forcefully bringing a spirit to your vicinity. Think about it like this: you’re at a wedding. You’re best friend in the entire world is getting hitched to the love of their life, and you’re among the audience. You’re welling up with emotion and pride for your friend to have made such an important milestone in their life when… Suddenly, you’re not at their wedding anymore.

No, instead you’re looking at some random stranger who summoned you to their home who say it’s because they’re interested in working with those of your kind. You wouldn’t be too happy about this, would you? 

Not only is conjuring or summoning bad for the entity, it can be bad for you if this entity isn’t easily forgiving of being torn away from their personal life to your home and you can end up paying the consequences for it. Instead, I recommend a spell that attracts entities to your home or if you’re sufficiently prepared, astral travel it up.

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

personally, ive been focusing on interacting with huli-jing and kitsune! your kitsune post was super helpful, and i was wondering if you had any more upg or experiences? so far ive only been pathfinding in the astral, and i always manage to fall asleep right in the middle of our convos lol

TAT ngl the best way to combat falling asleep in the astral is trying to rest before you astral OR be in a position where you'll be comfortable but not so comfortable that you'll fall asleep any time soon that's the best remedy I've got for it fjdnsfjn

As for any other experiences...

I think I about covered most of it in the kitsune post. Anything I have left are just funny little anecdotes.

Here are is a helpful post from a mutual, @sakurasorceress, though that cover the differences between yokai categorized as urban, rural and "wild". The post is from an old blog of theirs but between the two of us, they're the yokai expert.

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

I've been pretty absent on this blog but let's chat y'all while the tumbling is still good to to tumbl. Send asks, I'm bored. Let's talk the craft or the astral or about faeries (I'm in more of a faerie mood than usual because the novel I'm writing lolololol)

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

They are already selling data to midjourney, and it's very likely your work is already being used to train their models because you have to OPT OUT of this, not opt in. Very scummy of them to roll this out unannounced.

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

Ppl: “Glaze and nightshade all your art!!”

Also ppl: * does not mention that you need to have a fucking NVIDIA GPU and running nightshade on one image takes at best 20 minutes*

Like the online version of glaze/nightshade requires an account. And last time i checked they arent accepting new accounts because of the high pressure.

Like i make my art on my ipad. My MacBook is from 2014. If i tried to download and run nightshade on my decade old macbook and go throufg 10+ years of artworks i might as well just set it on fire.

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

What is this about the tumblr staff wanting to sell art data to midjourney?

An ex-colleague of mine mentioned yesterday that there may be contacts between Automattic and midjourney in that direction, but nothing is public yet and I don't have any more info. They probably won't have anything specific to share either, since they left the company weeks ago too. That being said:

I have no reason to doubt my ex-coworker word, they are a trustworthy person.

Tumblr's CEO has been absurdly enthusiastic (comically, even) about AI, and is a big fan of LLMs and 'AI' companies.

A deal with midjourney could solve tumblr financial issues (not the same company, but openAi is paying up to 5 million/year to news companies to use their content as training data... tumblr generates several orders of magnitude more content than any newspaper or any media company and it only would need a 20 to 30 million per year deal to be profitable)

So I don't have any extra info yet, but I'm keeping my ears open.

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

With the latest dumblr news, are you considering leaving the site? Are there any other places you might go to?

It's something i'm considering yeah OTL I'm just not really sure what platform I'd go to since it would ofc be convenient if it's another site similar to tumblr in terms of how posting works, etc. but beggars can't be choosers I guess. I can always learn how to operate a different site

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

Hi, Tumblr. It’s Tumblr. We’re working on some things that we want to share with you. 

AI companies are acquiring content across the internet for a variety of purposes in all sorts of ways. There are currently very few regulations giving individuals control over how their content is used by AI platforms. Proposed regulations around the world, like the European Union’s AI Act, would give individuals more control over whether and how their content is utilized by this emerging technology. We support this right regardless of geographic location, so we’re releasing a toggle to opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use this content for model training. We’re also working with partners to ensure you have as much control as possible regarding what content is used.

Here are the important details:

We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from Tumblr and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner. 

We want to represent all of you on Tumblr and ensure that protections are in place for how your content is used. We are committed to making sure our partners respect those decisions.

To opt out of sharing your public blogs’ content with third parties, visit each of your public blogs’ blog settings via the web interface and toggle on the “Prevent third-party sharing” option. 

For instructions on how to opt out using the latest version of the app, please visit this Help Center doc. 

Please note: If you’ve already chosen to discourage search crawling of your blog in your settings, we’ve automatically enabled the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.

If you have concerns, please read through the Help Center doc linked above and contact us via Support if you still have questions.

[todayinmagicalgirlhistory]

UPDATE

Thank you for all your support and kind wishes these past few days — here's an update about what's been happening since a couple days ago.

There is a huge influx of refugees from Khan Younis coming into Rafah, so Hussam has been using the fund from the paypal and buying items for people in need like:

Tents,

Mattresses,

Blankets,

Nylon tarps to cover tents (as tents tend to leak from the rain otherwise)

I (@/fairuzfan) mentioned in an earlier post that Hussam doesn't take videos of these purchases as they are urgent and on the spot but he told us that he will send a video soon.

Please consider donating today. Your donations go directly to helping people in need with NO middle man in between!