October 2020 Illustrations ヽ(• ‿ •)ノ

Once I change, you’ll stop changing. What do you think you’ll be? A flea, I hope.

PANTALAIMON + favorite forms (S1-S2)

Witchy Tips: How to Make a Sea Altar

Craft stores supply many natural, sea-related items for you to use. However, if you live within a few hundred miles of the coastline, an annual “pilgrimage” to the shorelines to collect.

seagull feathers

sea shells

driftwood

dried seaweed

sea glass

loose sand

sandstone

pressed palm leaves

dried coconut

The difference between a sea themed table and a altar are the intentions and the energy you put into it. To make your altar start by pouring ocean water lightly over your altar to “refresh” the ocean energy, burn coconut incense to raise tropical vibrations, play “Sounds of the Ocean” soundtracks and meditate near your altar.

When using items for a spell try using sand in the color that matches your intention. If your a water sign, add your zodiac sign to a candle. Add a mermaid or a water goddess to it. Move the items around and or change them out as needed, do not let it get stagnant, it needs to flow just like the ocean and streams.

daemons | EURASIAN OTTER

individuals with eurasian otter daemons tend to be introverts. they are resourceful, risk takers, inquisitive, and playful. they value privacy, freedom of thought, and opportunities.

requested by anon

Large Daemons (Golden Compass)

I wonder how people with larger Daemons get around in everyday life. Anyone want to consider the possibilities with me? I’m talking things horse sized and above. I imagine some aspects of life (walking through a university with many rooms, for example,) might be hard. What /is/ the distance limit a daemon can be from it’s owner?  I imagine some people could become drivers for horse carts and such if their daemons were horses. Or could they? would a horse daemon pull a cart? would the crush of people make it too risky for an accidental brush against someone?

🐚🫧🌊

AMBROSIA BAKED CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

I want to dedicate this recipe to one of my good friends, who is no longer here to see it. I just want you to know, I miss you greatly.

Her favorite movie growing up was Percy Jackson. She talked about how Percy Jackson would drink Ambrosia and for him it tasted like warm chocolate chip cookies that his mother used to make him.

She always suggested me to do a recipe on it for my blog, when I first started it.

Even though she will never see this, I’m sure she would have loved this recipe. I can firmly say this recipe is made with every piece of love in my heart imaginable.

Please enjoy…

Ingredients

3 ½ cups flour

½ cup browned butter

½ cup softened butter

½ tsp sea salt

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1 ½ cup brown sugar

½ tsp expresso powder

2 large egg

½ bag milk chocolate chips

1 bar chopped chocolate

1 tsp baking soda

¼ cup condensed milk

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F.

On a stove brown your butter and remove from heat to cool. Cream your softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Now cream in your browned butter. Beat in egg, vanilla extract, and condensed milk.

Add and mix in all your dry ingredients until just incorporated. Fold in chocolate and scoop cookies into even balls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. 

Put it in the fridge 1 hour to overnight before baking.

Bake for 8-15 minutes, or until golden brown and completely cooked.

Please enjoy these cookies! And remember to cherish the ones you love the most!

True death is when a person can love no more, so long as you can love, the person will stay alive, in your memory.

ok but can we just talk about how deep reggie’s abuse of his children goes? like first, we have ben, who has repeatedly established himself to be the kindest and most understanding among his siblings. despite the fact that klaus has been treating him more of a show pony than a brother for most of season 2, ben still tries to be the angel on his shoulder and offers advice when he can. he even lets it slide when klaus tells their siblings that he didn’t travel back with them, even though it’s so obvious that the remark hurt, because klaus of all people knows just how much ben misses their family, misses being alive.

but the minute klaus insinuates that he sounds just like their father, he finally shows an emotion that is anything but calm, and even goes so far as to attack his brother. this alone should be enough of an indicator as to what kind of man hargreeves was in life.

oh, and should i add that reggie just upped and decided to turn ben’s funeral–a painful occasion on it’s own–into yet another scarring life lesson for the ones he’d left behind? just imagine being shy of seventeen and having at least half the guilt in the universe weighing you down, and ben–who is right there–just wanting to tell all of them that it was “never your fault, diego, please don’t listen to him, we both know you’re better than that,” but of course he can’t, because he’s nothing more than a ghost now, so yes, welcome to powerlessness.

five goes missing and what does he do? nothing. absolutely nothing, aside from having a painting commissioned, but who’s to say it wasn’t a memorial like ben’s statue and more of a warning to the other children instead? something along the lines of look at how this brat disobeyed me; do you want to disappear, too?

there’s luther, who even after everything their father has done to them–to him, most of all–still manages to make up bland, half-baked excuses that he himself is starting to lose faith in, and all that rage and resentment keeps stewing inside him until he reaches his breaking point, rips off his shirt, and yells at his father to look at me! look what you did to me! and it’s even more heartbreaking because reggie does look, he just doesn’t care

let’s move on to allison. it was mentioned at one point that she was something of a daddy’s girl growing up, and even though we aren’t really shown much of their time together, remember when he made her rumor vanya? how she clearly didn’t want to? imagine being so heartless as to instruct a four-year-old child to wipe her sister’s precious memories, all because you were scared of being unable to control her.

and who’s to say there were no repeats after that: of allison turning people’s minds and bodies against them, every single one under her father’s orders as part of her “training”, and when allison fails because her conscience has finally caught up with her, who would stop him from hurting her?

definitely not her siblings or grace, and certainly not pogo.

moving on: oh god, klaus. it’s really not a no-brainer why his son barely has any respect for him, even going so far as to put out his cigarette in his father’s ashes as a final fuck you, because who could respect somebody who forced you to confront your worst fears at thirteen with no safety net whatsoever, even as you screamed yourself hoarse in that damp tomb, with only your nightmares for company

later on, when klaus honest-to-goodness dies and meets him for the first time after so many years, what’s the first thing reggie does? insult him. no “i imagined it’d be a few more years before you joined me here” or “are you okay? why are you even dead, son?”

instead, reggie debunks his accusations as excuses and outright states that he will not accept a single one. instead, he reminds klaus that he is–and always will be–his father’s greatest disappointment, that him never achieving his full potential was klaus’ fault and his alone.

and when klaus chastises him for being so harsh on them and leaving luther on the moon as an easy out for his shortcomings, what’s his greatest takeaway? that he should have burned every single package luther sent back to earth instead of keeping them under the floorboards. 

no apologies, no owning up to his mistakes whatsoever. 

he just deflects his child’s accusations, and even attempts to gaslight klaus once more into thinking that everything he did was to make them stronger and how dare you disobey me, i made you children what you are today and this is how you repay me? what a bunch of disobedient and ungrateful brats you all are indeed

don’t even get me started on vanya’s treatment at his hands. otherwise we’ll be here forever.

and then, we have diego. 

time and time again, diego has proven himself to be tough and capable; whose soft interior is something of a privilege bestowed only to those he truly cares for. and even though he’s come so far in life and helped so many people, the minute reggie takes a shot at him with a few select words? 

nope, never mind, he’s eleven-years-old and back at the academy again.

the man sitting in front of him may not be their father just yet but it’s the exact same words he’s heard for most of his life, the exact same weaknesses gleaned from a single glance, and even in an alternate timeline, his father just knows where to strike, every observation landing dead center like diego’s precious knives. 

(and judging from his siblings’ reactions, this speech is just a rehash of something they’ve all heard before, but it definitely doesn’t mean that it’s going to hurt their brother any less.

no, it will hurt more because he’d actually thought he was finally untouchable after all these years.)

i mean, just look at him: at the way his shoulders shrink inward subconsciously, the excited light in his eyes fading, his stutter reappearing. and despite the fact that he has spent a decade away from this bitter old man, it only takes a minute for his hard earned self-worth to crumble, and suddenly it’s so clear to us just how deep his self-esteem issues go:

because aware or not, everything diego has done and said so far (“he’s an asshole; i’m amazing”) has simply been his way of coping with the fact that no matter how many acts of heroism he performs as an attempt to live up to the “perfect superhero” mold reggie forced them to fill at such a young age, their father will never view them with anything less than contempt, not even luther who barely had to work for approval and their father’s twisted version of “love” because he used to be his loyal lapdog favorite, and that is the real reason why i’m gonna hate this jackass forever, in this essay i will

Recently I have been watching Fullmetal Alchemist and I've bumped into some memes about the best and worst dads in anime. How would you sort out the best and worst dads in the Animorphs universe?

Animorphs Dads From Best to Worst According to Me

Walter. He's so kind and goofy and supportive with Cassie. He's the ideal sort of dad who both gives his kid lots of space to grow up in her own way, but is also willing to talk about whatever might be bothering her.

Steve. We know he's very sweet and forgiving almost to a fault, patient with kids and bratty adults alike. Loses a point for responding to Tom's personality swap in #1 with "sooomebody's got a giiiiiirrrllfriiieend" because that is not the way to get your teenager to open up to you about dating or alien invasions.

Noorlin. We don't know much about him — he's got one scene in #8 — but he seems like he's doing his best to support Ax during that single Skype call. Loses a point for jumping instantly to "you know you gotta kill Visser Three" upon learning that one of his kids is dead and the other is marooned, but overall seems solid.

[space left intentionally blank to separate the good dads further from the crap ones, because tbh none of them are mediocre]

Elfangor. Look, I get that most of his separation from Tobias isn't his fault, but his interaction with his kid consists solely of recruiting said kid into a war that Elfangor himself accidentally started. Not a great look.

Peter. Only ranks above Dan because he eventually gets his shit together, but I'm also unwilling to excuse how long he takes to get his shit together. It's not his fault that he's dealing with major shit between Eva's "death" and meeting Nora, but he nevertheless needs to do a lot more parenting of Marco and a lot less getting parented by Marco. Also, "book-smart man who never bothered to learn how to cook or clean because he's always had a partner to do it for him" is even less of a good look in the 19damn90s.

Dan. There is some excellent social commentary in Rachel's parents' (ex-)marriage around Dan getting 50% of the credit for doing 0.1% of the work. The scene in #7 where Dan brings junk food for dinner to try and bribe his daughters while Naomi rushes home from her extremely challenging job to discover her ex is here to announce that he's fucking off to some other state and won't even be around for one weekend a month anymore... that just speaks volumes about their respective parenting. Dan's not obviously absent like Elfangor, but in many ways his half-assed parenting (including through putting tough emotional decisions on Rachel so he doesn't have to deal with them himself) is worse than accidental abandonment.

I’m reading His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman for the first time and it just occurred to me that like…. my depression would be alleviated so much if I had a daemon??? Like imagine having a physical manifestation of your soul that has known and loved you since birth reassure you when you’re alone and scared and sad because you’re never actually alone… like most people, my depressive episodes are always worst when I’m alone in my room with no one and nothing but my cruel depressive thoughts. That depression prevents you from reaching out to people and telling them how you’re feeling and prevents you from really hearing or believing people when they try to help you but imagine having a daemon there to hold you and comfort you and tell you that your cruel thoughts about yourself aren’t true and they should know because they know you better than anyone. Having a physical voice there to contradict those cruel thoughts would be so amazing like wow I always sort of wish I had a daemon from a “who wouldn’t want a talking animal companion!” perspective but now I wish I had one because it would make my whole life better to never have to be completely alone with my own thoughts.

Many of the political attacks on trans people—whether it is a mandate that bathroom use be determined by birth sex, a blanket ban on medical interventions for trans kids or the suggestion that trans men are simply wayward women beguiled by male privilege—carry the same subtext: that trans people are mistaken about who they are. “We know who we are,” Page says. “People cling to these firm ideas [about gender] because it makes people feel safe. But if we could just celebrate all the wonderful complexities of people, the world would be such a better place.”

Page was attracted to the role of Vanya in The Umbrella Academy because—in the first season, released in 2019—Vanya is crushed by self-loathing, believing herself to be the only ordinary sibling in an extraordinary family. The character can barely summon the courage to move through the world. “I related to how much Vanya was closed off,” Page says. Now on set filming the third season, co-workers have seen a change in the actor. “It seems like there’s a tremendous weight off his shoulders, a feeling of comfort,” says showrunner Steve Blackman. “There’s a lightness, a lot more smiling.” For Page, returning to set has been validating, if awkward at times. Yes, people accidentally use the wrong pronouns—“It’s going to be an adjustment,” Page says—but co-workers also see and acknowledge him.

Whatever challenges might lie ahead, Page seems exuberant about playing a new spectrum of roles. “I’m really excited to act, now that I’m fully who I am, in this body,” Page says. “No matter the challenges and difficult moments of this, nothing amounts to getting to feel how I feel now.” This includes having short hair again. During the interview, Page keeps rearranging strands on his forehead. It took a long time for him to return to the barber’s chair and ask to cut it short, but he got there. And how did that haircut feel?

Page tears up again, then smiles. “I just could not have enjoyed it more,” he says.

ELLIOT PAGE for TIME Magazine › 2021 interview by Katy Steinmetz, photography by Wynne Neilly