It's Weird To Expect Lb To Be Able To Read Cn Mind And Called Her A Bad Partner For It. But It's Even

i’ve loved mlb since i was 14. i’ve sat through the repetition, the cringe, the plot holes, and defended it too. but that season 5 finale was truly awful. they tried to conclude so many storylines at once that they ended up fumbling every single one. not to mention completely back-seating adrien. imagine not knowing how to utilise one of your main characters. how the hell are you going to call a show “les adventures de ladybug et chat noir” and then not include chat noir in the biggest finale so far.

i had a shred of hope left for this show, at least for this arc, and it was for naught.

I keep getting spiraled on the motives of Gabriel writing that letter and his final moments. He obviously wrote it after the whole alliance ring shtick began, after he was hit by the cataclysm. My immediate thought is that he wrote it right before he shipped Adrien off to London, since it was inside a photo album inside a box for furniture to be moved, which implies it was when they were moving away his things.

I can only imagine that he wrote that as a "If everything goes to shit this is my back up plan' which is fair tbh. Maybe his plan wouldn't work 100% and the cataclysm would get to him before he could revive Emilie. Since he accounts for Nathalie also still being in the picture I imagine he didn't think she'd die so... Fast? Suddenly? Maybe he thought she would still be weak and frail and sick but alive to guide Adrien after he found the letter.

So far this is all well and good but now when it comes to his final scene with Maribug and him asking for her to not Adrien know the villain that he was, I'm of two minds about it. The first one is that, somewhere deep deep down in his rotten pathetic weak little heart, he really meant it and hoped Adrien wouldn't find the letter and he'd get to die and be with Emilie in the afterlife. Which is. A fair interpretation but you'd need to pay me a lot of money to believe Gabriel Agreste has any actual remorse for what he did lmao.

My second interpretation is that he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. It's not that he 100% wanted to control the narrative of how Adrien found out his misdeeds (though I think that's a valid interpretation), but in my head he just thought like-

"hey, I have an emergency plan in place with that letter right? Might as well go out faking a sacrifice and guilt trip this 14 year old girl, gaslight my son's memories and later down the line if he finds that letter, my chances of him actually bringing me back are way higher! Win win!"

In other words it wasn't a selfless sacrifice (obviously) but more so a, "I'll do this good deed so I might get something better in return later down the line" deal. Which I think fits his overall character narrative imo.

🍇 Subtle Dionysus Worship 🥂

Drinking grape juice or wine; fruity drinks also work; raise a glass to him

Eating food that you love, especially comfort foods

Hosting or attending parties

Hanging out with loved ones

Celebrating your accomplishments, big or small

Having a candle that reminds you of him (no altar needed)

Putting on grape-scented or fruit-scented perfumes/colognes

Wearing jewelry that reminds you of him

Seeking community; LGBTQ+ support groups, gamer groups, fandom groups, etc.

Having a bull, leopard, goat, or cat stuffed animal

Decorating parts of your room with real or fake ivy vines

Growing a plant, especially ivy or vined plants

Wearing showy or lavish outfits; wearing outfits that make you feel good about yourself

Taking care of your mental health; finding new and healthy ways to cope with issues

Keeping a mental health journal

Keeping a picture of him in your wallet

Having leopard, bull, or big cat imagery around

Taking a hike/walk in a local forest or nature preserve

Taking a walk at night, especially on a new or full moon (only if safe in your area, please)

Dancing, especially to songs that make you feel wild, free, and expressive

Listening to energizing or expressive music

Watching/reading musicals or plays

Performing in a musical or play (including backstage and tech)

Taking your medications; setting reminders for them

Taking care of yourself physically and emotionally

Learning to accept both the "dark" and "light" parts of yourself

Being kind to those outcast by society, especially the homeless and addicts

Volunteering at a homeless shelter

Engaging in activities that bring you joy, especially those that are looked down upon

Finding ways to be rebellious, especially towards authority (don't do this if it risks your own safety)

Expressing yourself in little ways if unable to be open about it (wearing a bracelet that represents your gender identity, shoelaces that are pride flag colored, etc.)

Embracing all the unique things that make you who you are

Support LGBT, homeless shelter, environmental preservation, or humanitarian organizations

Volunteer at a homeless shelter

-

May add more later! This is my list of discreet ways to worship Dionysus. I hope it helps, and take care! 💜

Link to Subtle Worship Master list

going to center my human experience around female experience. befriend and build deep relationships with women. enjoy women’s art and writings. listen to female artists, speakers, and role models. read books about women, watch movies about women, and donate to charities for women. work with women, study with women, plan trips and outings with female friends and colleagues. support female creators and buy artworks of women. i am going to enjoy my life so much by caring for and being cared by women.

When you step into sunlight, you honor Apollo. When you admire the moon, you honor Artemis. When you admire cloud shapes, you honor Hera. When you smell petrichor, you honor Zeus. When you laugh at a joke, you honor Hermes. When your body twitches to dance at a particularly upbeat music, you honor Dinoysus. When you enjoy the first bite of your breakfast, you honor Demeter. When you choose your peace over any conflict, you honor Athena. When you warm yourself up by sheltering yourself in blanket, you honor Hestia. When you listen to Ocean sounds, you honor Poseidon. When you smell flowers, you honor Persephone. When you admire the coolness of first day of Autumn, you honor Hades. When you wear your favourite jewellery, you honor Hephaestus. When you smile, you honor Aphrodite. When you exercise, you honor Ares. When you light a torch in a dark room, you honor Hekate.

Your body is a shrine to Gods, your being an act of devotion for them. You, by yourself, are enough for them.

Broke Witch Tips - Magic on a Budget

As capitalism sets its sights on the witchcraft community, it’s easy to get caught up in all the stuff that companies try to sell you.

Alas, not all of us have the money to spend on expensive items. If we're being honest, you probably don't need such items to begin with.

For those that are curious, however, let's talk about how to do magic on a budget.

First things first, reframe what you think magic is.

Magic is not what you buy.

It’s not pricey crystals, expensive altar tools, and pretty bottles. As fun as those are, they aren't necessary to practice magic.

All you need to create magic is yourself, your intentions, and your actions.

Still, I said I would talk about how to do magic on a budget, so here are some tips that I have picked up along the way as a broke witch.

Broke Witch Tips

Upcycle what you already have into magical tools. Plenty of the stuff you already own can be used for magic. Make a simmer pot in that old cooking pot. Use the kitchen spices as your herbs in spells.

Thrift stores are great for finding cool bottles and boxes to put your herbs and other magical items in. Also great for spell bottles/jars!

You don’t need every herb under the sun, many of the most accessible (and cheapest) herbs have similar, if not the same, correspondences as the expensive ones.

Buy herbs from the grocery store or farmers market, if possible.

If you have a green thumb, grow the herbs yourself!

Tarot cards can be expensive, but you can use a deck of regular playing cards for cartomancy if needed! There are also options such as tarot apps and websites that allow you to use their digital tarot decks for free.

Make your own tarot or oracle deck if you're artistic and have the time/energy to do so!

You don’t need to have an expensive cast-iron cauldron, just find a fire safe bowl or container. For me, I use a handmade bowl that I got at a fair in my hometown! Works like a charm.

The dollar store is a great place to find inexpensive candles, usually they’re tea lights but you might get lucky and even find some chime candles.

If you're working with deities: plenty of them like hand-made items for offerings! So you don’t need to go out and break the bank just to buy an expensive statue.

This is not a post to shame the folks who own expensive things for witchcraft. I’m sure most of us would agree that if we had the money to go all out, we certainly would! This is just a post for those of us that can’t afford costly goods but would still like to have physical items when practicing magic.

Feel free to add your tips for practicing low-cost magic!

Have a lovely day <3

haha I always have it on me ⚡

potterheads grab your wands

The defendant may speak now!

Your honour I would like to present some evidence to the court on the words of the accused.

The many times he has abused his son, manipulated him and used his very poor mental stability in his gain.

Chat Blanc, where he showed his son his dead mother in the basement, threw him in the air and beat him with a stuck until he got knocked into the Eiffel Tower and fell to the ground.

After that he used his very poor emotional and mental state to akumatize him. He then proceeded to turn his son agains his best friend/love of his life into betraying her and getting him her earrings. The poor boy didn’t know what to do after everything he experienced in the span of 2 minutes and tried to destroy himself which resulted in a world ending catastrophe.

Exaple 2.

Once again after discovering his son’s secret identity the only thing this man had in mind was how to use this to his gain. He took him to their basement to see his dead mother. After the shock that Adrien had experienced, in the span of a few seconds his father ONCE AGAIN used his extremely poor emotional and mental state to akumatize him. He then proceeded to use him to take the earrings from his girlfriend to bring his dead wife back.

all the posts about megan fox and sabrina carpenter getting cheated on being in utter shock that this would happen to women like them. because they’re too beautiful and they’re exactly what men want and how could this happen? as if it has ever mattered whether you’re the perfect woman or not. men are now calling sidney sweeney and margot robbie “mid”. it’s a waste of your whole lives as women to try to reach their standards. they’ll want to fuck you one second and they’ll hate you the next, no matter how hard you try. looking beautiful to them means nothing.

Have you written a general guide about khernips? All I do is extinguish a wooden match in water because snuffing a flaming brand has been referred to in mythology, but some people on Tumblr have very different ideas like incorporating all kinds of herbs or mixing ashes into it. I'd love to read your take on what was done in antiquity.

I haven’t, but I can! Because the concept of khernips is so linked to ritual purification–because khernips is the method through which we become ritually clean–we will also discuss the practice of katharmos and the notion of ritual pollution: miasma. 

Within Hellenic practice, miasma describes the lingering aura of uncleanliness in regards to a person or space through which contact is made with the Gods. Miasma occurs whenever the space or person comes into contact with death, sickness, birth, sex, excessive negative emotions and bodily fluids. It also comes from a lack of contact with the Hellenic Gods. Not the actual acts of dying, sex and birth cause miasma but the opening up of the way to the Underworld (with births and deaths) as well as contact with sweat, blood, semen, menstrual blood and urine pollutes us. Miasma is an incredibly complicated and involved practice and it’s often misunderstood. The most important things to remember about miasma is that it holds no judgment from the Gods, and that everyone attracts miasma. It’s a mortal, human, thing.The practice of purification is called katharmos (Καθαρμός). The process of katharmos is elaborate because the process not only involves the physical but also the emotional, mental and spiritual. In modern practice, it usually starts with a shower, but this is not a historic necessity. Step two is the preparation and use of khernips. Beyond the practical, there is a large mental component to katharmos. It means leaving behind negativity, worry, pain and trouble before getting in contact with the Gods. The greatest barrier in understanding miasma and katharmos, to me, is our modern frame of mind. On the one hand, we know too much about personal hygiene, about the human body and about science as a whole, on the other hand religion has become something separate from life in general. As a result, we colour ancient Hellas with our ‘hygiene brush’. Secondly, not everyone has faith, our society does no longer revolve around it, and as a result, we–as modern religious people–struggle for a mindset of simple, all-encompassing, unquestionable worship. There might be a few remnants of ‘Original Sin Thinking’ lodged in there as well.

After a lot of research into the workings of miasma, I have come to the conclusion that miasma is linked to distraction. Anything that takes your mind off of the Gods during ritual can be considered miasmic. For example, the ancient Hellenes agreed that murder causes miasma (when not committed as part of a war, soldiers were not tainted with miasma for killing their enemies), but only once other people became aware of the fact that you had committed an act of murder. As such, if you were exiled and you travelled to another town where no one knew what you had done, in essence, you were not miamic to the rites and people around you. We all incur miasma, every single day of our lives. It has nothing to do with sin, shame or guilt. Miasma is a consequence of living. We breath, make decisions, come in contact with others, and along the way, we become too human–for lack of a better term–to petition the Gods. The divide between the purity and cleanliness of the Theoi and our human mortality and imperfection keeps us away from Them. Miasma is not about being physically dirty, although that is a part of it, and katharmos is not about becoming physically clean, although that is a part of it as well. Katharmos is devotional. It not only helps you get in a ritualistic mood, it prepares the room and your body for it. Even if you do not understand the use, it’s a vital part of Hellenistic worship.

Khernips are the traditional way to cleanse yourself from miasma. As far as basic information goes, khernips is created by dropping smoldering incense or herb leaves into water. When throwing in the lit item, one can utter ‘xerniptosai’ (pronounced 'zer-nip-TOS-aye-ee’) which translates as ‘be purified’. Both hands are washed with khernips and you can wash the face as well. The vessel holding the khernips is called a khernibeionas (Χερνῐβεῖον). 

Artwork has taught us that khernips was often applied just outside the temenos, with hands being washed in a bowl or water poured out of a jug while the supplicant washed their hands. The water was collected from a moving source of water, which could be a natural spring, a river, or even the sea. Moving water was considered sacred, and often viewed as an extension of the body of a stream/river/sea God(dess). For my video tutorial on how to prepare and apply khernips, go here.

As with anything concerning miasma, most books on ancient Hellas and/or Hellenic religion don’t mention khernips at all, or under a synonym. As with miasma, I am going to assume this is because the evidence of its existance is so flimsy besides a resounding 'it was used and important’. My rather vast collection of scholarly material is silent on any details beyond the basic information already provided. As such, I am forced to speculate based upon what I know. Personally, I tend to mix tap water with sea water into a large vessel from which I take a measure every evening to use throughout the day. I drop the smoldering firebrand (a match when traveling, a bit of burning wood or herbs when home) into the measure poured our, not the vessel itself. So, in short, I prepare the base in advance but the actual mixture on the spot. I only use one measure one day, after that, I dip it out onto the earth and replace it with a fresh batch before my evening rituals.

Khernips is important, and it’s important they are properly prepared, but in the large scheme of things, I feel it’s more important you actually perform the ritualistic motions without a specific part of it than skipping it altogether. So, no, you can’t make khernips without dropping something smouldering in, but that doesn’t mean you can’t wash before ritual and improvise a little. Drop herbs into the water and wash with that, drop essential oils in it, if you don’t have herbs. Find something to make the water special, and then use it to cleanse yourself. Just go through the motions and focus on the rites ahead. That is its function and it should be used as such.