Most readings go over great! However, there is definitely some level of etiquette expected. Here’s a list of some things that can instantly turn a reading sour!
For the Querent…
💎 Be Disrespectful. This should really go without saying. If you’re getting a reading, treat them with respect! They are providing a service just like anybody else you would give money to. Even if they’re doing it for free, they’re still taking time out of their day to help you out.
💎 Cram Questions. Typically, it goes one question, one card, with more cards providing more insight or addressing different facets of a single question. It makes a reader’s head ache when someone purchases a single card draw, but sends the reader a billion questions. They’re trying to get the insight of a ten-card spread for basically a dollar, and from the reader’s end it feels like they’re being slighted. It’s simple: if you want more insight and more detail, choose a reading that fits your needs.
💎 Fight the Reading. There are two ways people do this: fighting the message, and fighting the reader. In the first, if the cards say something the querent doesn’t like, and they get upset, trying to get the reader to “fix” their answer. This mostly comes from people who wanted a tarot reading for self-affirmation, rather than insight into a problem. If you want a feel-good tarot sesh that’s fine; be sure to either purchase a reading designed for that, or let your reader know you’re not up for bad news right then. The second comes from fellow readers! The reader will be going about their business and the querent will say, “I read tarot and that’s not what that card means.” It may seem like a kind gesture at first, but not all decks have the same meaning for every card and the reader’s intuition and unique interpretation are just as important as the card. If the meanings were set in stone for every card, we wouldn’t need to go to other readers!
💎 Treat the Reader Like a Hack. Skepticism is understandable. Skepticism is completely fine! A lot of skeptics end up getting tarot readings either for the novelty of it, or because their friend dragged them into it. It’s okay to approach a reading with a healthy amount of reservation, waiting to see what’s in store before totally investing in it. However, there’s a line between being skeptical, and being a jerk about it. Don’t spend the whole time trying to “expose” your reader as a fraud, constantly critique on how vague or not they’re being, and just steamrolling over the message they’re trying to give you so that you can feel superior somehow. It doesn’t make you look like a hero, it makes you look like someone I impersonate with an annoying voice to my friends over dinner.
💎 Ask Questions that are Clearly Out of Line. Tarot can get pretty heavy sometimes. A lot of experienced readers have at least one story of someone who really opened up to them about dark subjects, and they worked through it together. A lot of different subjects are acceptable, but some just… really aren’t. My friend had a querent approach him online, all but straight-up saying they were meant to be together and asking for a reading about their future. I’ve had people approach me asking for me to diagnose their illness. If you have a question about a potentially triggering subject, please please ask your reader if they are comfortable reading for that topic before just unloading a graphic description on them. Also, don’t hit on your reader. It’s the occult equivalent of hitting on your waitress.
For the Reader…
💎 Minimize the Querent’s Concerns. This person came to you with a question in mind, and is putting their trust in you. What seems trivial to you may be a big deal to someone else! If someone approaches you asking what they can do to bond with their cat more, don’t make them feel silly for choosing that question; that’s their prerogative. If they’re concerned enough about it to get a tarot reading, maybe there’s more to it than meets the eye!
💎 Judge Their Question (to their face.) I won’t say “don’t judge them at all,” because often that’s impossible. We’re only human, after all. Let’s say your querent is considering leaving their long-term relationship for a sketchy but passionate fling. You might think this person has garbage priorities, but I promise any lecture you feel like giving them, they’ve already heard. They’re not paying you to nag or bestow your personal ethics onto them. They’ve already done whatever they’ve done, and now they would just like some insight before moving forward. It’s not a reader’s job or a reader’s place to place moral judgement on a reader. (It’s a lot like being a therapist… everything is neutral and confidential, unless there’s evidence of abuse or potential harm to the querent or someone else. If the querent did/is doing something illegal, that’s a different matter.)
💎 Be Disrespectful. Again, this should go without saying. Our querents deserve a little dignity! It’s okay to laugh with them, should the atmosphere allow for it, but never laugh at them. A querent’s feelings are perfectly valid and should be treated as such. They are not inherently foolish or less wise than you, so let’s all agree to not present ourselves as these sages of wisdom helping the poor little mortals.
💎 Half-Ass It. Someone is actually giving you literal money! We get that you’re tired. We get that you hate the question, but literal shapeshifting master of darkness Aku could kick down the door to your Tarot Shack, slap down a five dollar bill, and ask for a reading on his love life. You would still be ethically obligated to actually try and give a reading based on what the cards say, and in a reasonable amount of depth that someone who doesn’t read tarot would feel like they got a sufficient amount of insight. Basically, you’re offering a service. Give it your all!
Hey guys! So recently as I’m sure a lot of you know, the 1930s style of animation has made a resurgence in the forms of Bendy and the Ink Machine and Cuphead! So I’m just making this to show where it comes from c:
Before you start though, I’ll be mentioning Max Fleischer in this post, and you can find out more about his life in the book Out of the Inkwell. I don’t have it myself as I’m pretty poor, but I’d love to read it soon <3
Was It Walt Disney?
It depends on what kind of style you’re thinking! Walt Disney’s work began with an animation known as Alice’s Wonderland (1923).
which, looking onto his future works, is a lot more different. The cartoon look is there; however, those famed Pac-Man eyes aren’t, neither are the rubberhose limbs and thick black characters. Those came into his work later on with his Mickey Mouse shorts such asPlane Crazy (1928) and the first animation to feature synchronized sound,Steamboat Willie (1928). The bouncy animation is there, squashing and stretching all the characters and objects!
Though, Steamboat Willie was actually not the first animation to feature Synchronized sound! That would be credited to
“Oh, Mabel, Mother, Pin a Rose on Me” (1924)(Which I actually can’t find…Here’s the song though!) and later on, My Ole Kentucky Home (1926).
There is a lot of…Drama….surrounding the relationship between the studios of Disney and Fleischer, but this isn’t going to be about that (though I may touch on it), I would definitely recommend looking it up though, it’s very fascinating.
Around this time, the scary looking Lip-Sync animation started to come along and the styles were fairly similar, though the Fleischer Car-Tunes were a lot more, in my opinion, clean, however didn’t fully stretch their characters as much as Disney had been doing later on.
Who are Fleischer Studios?
Fleischer Studios first opened around the 1920s as Inkwell Studios. It was created by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, whom were Born and Raised in Poland. In 1914, Max Fleischer created the Rotoscope, a device that could allow the animator to create smoother productions as they had been drawn over Filmed reference.
Using this Process, they created the Out of the Inkwell (1918 - 1929) series, starring Koko the Clown!
Max included a lot more Live Action in his animations than Walt Disney and even revolutionised the way it worked due to his own inventions, including The Stereoptical Process (which I’ll show more on later), that gave him a good edge forwards during their prime. However, due to A Series of Not Quite Fortunate Events, he never quite overcame Disney and, unfortunately, his studio met a sad end.
What other Cartoons did they make?
Fleischer Studios made a surprising turn with bringing in Less Live action footage over time and creating more Lovable characters such as Bimbo The Dog and Betty Boop (1931). (Betty Boop being another can of worms entirely with the problems her design created and the blow it dealt the studio)
It was around this time that people could start to notice the style’s true beginnings. The famed Eyes had begun to appear, the Clearly Animated Flat props and characters over the detailed painted environments, and the rubberhose stretchiness of their movements.
Bringing in Cuphead as reference, both Hilda Berg and Cala Maria were heavily inspired by Betty boop’s design as mentioned by Studio MDHR’s Jake Clark in their GDC (Game Developer Conference) talk, which I’d definitely recommend watching.
Besides these characters, perhaps one of their other most Well known characters wasPopeye the sailor man! featuring Sinbad, a character I’m fairly sure inspired the design of Cuphead’s Captain Brinybeard.
In this animation you can see every part of the style’s inspiration. The watercolour backgrounds, the flat Cel characters and their stretchy, rubbery movements, and, shown in the image above, the Two-Tone Technicolor process (A secret in Cuphead for those who don’t know). This was another issue between Disney and Fleischer, as well as their own Financial problems with Paramount Pictures, so they had to resort to using cheaper methods, resulting in the above image being created by layering a negative-spaced film reel through red and green filters (basically, it was complicated back in the day, no easy layers then).
I’d definitely recommend looking up more Fleischer cartoons too if you’d like inspirations for your own works or for the animation practise, such as Swing you Sinners(1930) which I honestly think is one of the biggest influences in terms of the recent style too!
Why does Disney have this style in their animations now?
Honestly I couldn’t tell you that myself, as personally I myself am not really a huge Disney fan. Considering his past with the studios he worked in or rivalled, I never really had a soft spot for him. However, I like to hope that he took inspiration from Max Fleischer. Max was unfortunately met with the worst circumstances with working under Paramount Pictures, The Great Depression hugely hitting his work, and his relationship with his brother Dave deteriorating. (honestly I wish this studio was still here and Paramount not).
You could say the style was stolen, or developed, or inspired, being shown in Mickey Mouse’s more updated designs as well as just a general staple of “Old Animation” with the eyes and Thick Black characters. Either way, it’s the fact Fleischer inspired generations with the little miracles he created that is the important thing. I wish people would stop attributing these qualities initially refined by Fleischer to Walt Disney and giving him more credit than he deserves, but that’s just my own opinion.
Should we keep making animation in this style, or move on?
Please keep making things in the old rubberhose animation styles. Yes it’s an old aesthetic and yes it’s not…the best out there, but it’s an incredibly endearing look that I think is a love letter to the old days of animation.
You will get those who pick at the details of how it doesn’t fit quite with the style (With Bendy being a victim, his proportions and shapes being very inaccurate if put into the Fleischer/Old Disney style), however, it’s how you bring that style and adapt it to the modern world, how you make it so that you’re not merely just going by the original rules of how you create these characters and worlds. Yes, Cuphead strictly stuck to these details as beautifully as possible, but Bendy was, though I’m not a fan of his design myself, a great addition and evolution of the style into the modern day.
As nice as it is to remember these styles for when they came from and what they were inspired by, it’s always nice to know it’s just that, a style. You can continue to create in that style as much as you want!
However, if you ever want to say/credit where the style came from, though Disney did create a style similar to this and adapted some of its individual aspects into their work later on after, the Vast majority of it comes from Fleischer Studios. It’s a common misconception, but an understandable one considering the studio no longer exists and how popular Disney is.
If you ever have more questions about it, go ahead and ask! I’d love to research more about animation and give you information on any specifics within the studio, the troubles they faced within themselves/with eachother or other studios that were present back then :D <3
Here’s is my altar set up for now!
In the blue set of drawers I have extra incense, candles, cloth to make offering parcels, then in the glass case I have two sets of handmade runes (Im still learning exactly what to do with them)
In the metaphysical world, Spirit Quartzis a crystal of Harmony and Alignment. It takes all the crystal energies of the main stone and amplifies them over and over again in all the tiny points, each reflecting light back and forth to one another so all can bathe in the combined radiance of the whole.
Spirit Quartz is a comforting stone, assisting at death to guide the soul through the dimensions of the afterlife and into the hands of those waiting to welcome it home. It also provides solace and understanding for those left behind.
Spirit Quartz cleanses other stones and enhances their energy in healing layouts. It harmonizes well with all members of the Quartz and Beryl families, as well as Moldavite which speeds its effects
Lucid dreaming and astral travelling are both intensified when Spirit Quartz is placed under the pillow or on the bedside table during your sleep hours. To improve dream recall, or for inter-stellar travel, try combining with Herkimer Diamonds or Celestite.
Samhain is comiiiiiinggggg and i’m one excited witch!
Samhain (pronounced ‘sow-in’) is drawing very near, and as its my favorite holiday i can’t seem to make enough posts about it. It begins at midnight on October 31st, and celebrations often go on until November 2nd. It is the witches new year!
Some historic traditions:
Just like at Beltane, bonfires are lit in high places on Samhain, like at hilltops, and around them rituals would take place. During this community ritual, people would take flames from the bonfire and use them to relight the hearths of their homes. They did this to bind the community together. They would also use these fires for divination in their rituals.
In Gaelic regions, during household festivities many rituals that took place were intended to divine the future of everyone there, for example apple bobbing. (If you don’t already know this, Apples are strongly associated with ancestors and the other world.) The first to bite into an apple was the next allowed to marry!
As you most likely have heard a zillion times, The veil between our world and the next is thinner on Samhain. This is true, Samhain is a liminal time, and that means the barriers separating the world of the living and the dead and other spirits can be crossed more easily than at any other point in the year. It is said that entities called ‘Aos Si’ can slip from their world into ours, through a summoning or their own will. During Samhain it is traditional to leave libations for any aos si that have come into our realm. This is usually in the form of food & drink, like a plate of soul cakes, a small portion of a meal and a cup of wine. Due to this thin veil, it is a time for honoring those who have passed. It is widely believed spirits of loved ones will come and visit their former homes and seek hospitality from those within. Places should always be set for loved ones who have passed at the table on Samhain. I even set a place for a spirit I feel in my home. People will often hold a “dumb supper”. It is a silent meal during which you set a place for visiting spirits, and invite them to join you.
Traditional Samhain Activities
Bobbing for Apples- The fewer tries it took to catch an apple, the sooner you’d fall in love or marry. If the apple was crisp and crunchy, the participant would have a happy marriage. If it was soft or rotten, it was bad news for your love life future.
Peeling the Apple- You peel one long strip of skin from an apple and then throw the peel over your shoulder. Whatever letter the peel resembles is said to be the first letter of your soulmates name.
Hazelnut Divination- Couples would throw hazelnuts into a fire, and if it burned it predicted a long and happy relationship, and if it cracked open it showed a rocky road ahead.
Samhain Correspondences
Colors: Red, brown, gold, yellow and orange.
Herbs: Rosemary, mullein, rue, mugwort, calendula, tobacco, apple leaf, sage, wormwood, tarragon, bay leaf, almond, hazelnut, garlic, mandrake root, yew, sandalwood, pumpkin, pennyroyal, pine needle, cedar, chrysanthemum, & hemlock.
Symbols: Lanterns, candles, acorns, bones, photos or memoirs of passed loved ones, Jack O’ Lanterns, corn dolls and corn stalks, scythes, cauldrons, spiderwebs, masks, oak leaves and mirrors.
Food & Drinks: Apples (or foods with apples baked in), potatoes, corn, nuts, turnips, pumpkins, mead, cider, mulled/spiced wine, tea.
Things to do: DIVINATIOOOON GIRLLL(scrying, tarot reading, rune casting, pendulum reading, etc.), holding a dumb supper, lighting a bonfire, looking into your past life,leaving offerings for spirits, cooking, feasting, dressing up in a costume.
Animals: Black cats, owls, bats, stags, ravens, crows, spiders and black dogs.
I would like to add a note to be cautious on Samhain. If you have a black pet please keep it inside, lots of sick people will harm these animals on this night. Please be careful with spirit work as well, the veil is very thin and as you would normally with spirit work protect yourself, but x10 on samhain. Carry a gris-gris, Create your circles, Keep blessed salt around, Make sure you end conversations with the Ouija and it won’t hurt to keep a silver coin on it, like they say it keeps evil spirits from coming through. Treat spirits, creatures and humans around you with respect.
Blessed be, I hope everyone enjoys Samhain!! Note your favorite samhain activities and traditions, and please note any traditions passed down to you!
A magickal circle is an energetic construct that you build or envision around yourself before working magick, doing a ritual, some like to cast a circle before meditating or reading tarots. For a solitary practitioner the circle is typically 5-6 ft in diameter, but the size expands based on the size of the group. It can be defined physically, energetically, or both.
Circles provide protection and serves as a container for your personal energy as well as the energy you conjure.
Please remember that this is just what i personally like to do when casting a circle, but that there are many methods.
Preparation for circle casting
1. Determine how much space you will need.
2. Cleanse your area. Vacuum, sweep, throw away any trash in the area.
3.Make sure you have everything you need for your ritual! Theres nothing more frustrating than having your circle casted and realizing you’ve forgotten an herb or any supplies you need for the work you’re about to do.
4. Purify your area. Light purifying incense, sage, sprinkle salt and holy 💧. Most importantly, Visualize the negative energy dispersing. If you don’t focus & visualize, your physical actions will have little effect. Visualization is hands down one of the most important things in any and all magickal workings!
5. Now its time to cast your circle!
Visualize protective energy coming from within you and direct it towards your casting arm. Focus it through a casting tool (Athame, wand, or ✋) and visualize a beam of energy coming from it and settling on the ground. Trace your circle with this energy, 3 times in a clockwise direction. Once for protection, once for focus, and once for power.
Call the 4 quarters
Face North and say “I call to the North, to the element of 🌏. Grant me (us if not practicing alone) your endurance, your strength.” Sprinkle salt onto your altar or crumble 🌏 into a bowl on your altar.
Face East and say “I call to the East, to the element of Air. Grant me your creativity and your intuition.” Light incense, wave a fan,or drop feathers onto your altar.
Face south and say “I call to the South, to the element of 🔥. Grant me your passion and your energy.” Light candles.
Face west and say “I call to the West, to the element of 💧. Grant me your empathy and your emotion.” Pour blessed/storm/🌙/natural 💧 into a bowl or into your chalice.
Now would be the time to call on any deities you’d wish to work with. You can call any Goddess or Angel by personalizing this to them. I typically do not personally work with deities, but if you were to want to, Call to them similar to how the Elements are called. Ex. “I call to Gaia, Mother Goddess, Spirit of 🌏.” and then place an offering symbolizing them, so for Gaia you might place grain on your altar as an offering.
If not solitary, now would be the time to invite others to the circle. The group leader typically invites others in by a series of phrases, although i know every coven has their own method fine tuned for themselves, This is just the method i’ve seen used and am familiar with. Ex. Group leader:”Children of the Goddess, I now invite you to enter our circle.” Each member will be asked “How do you enter this circle?” The response should be “In perfect 😍 and perfect trust.”
Now its time to raise energy. This is the most important part of this process.
Here are a few ways! There is no wrong way to do this part, and there are SO MANY ways. You can fine tune this all to you.
Witches Rune Chant
“Darksome night and shining 🌙,
East, then South, then West, then North,
Hearken to the witches’ rune;
Here i come to call thee forth.
🌏 and 💧, Air and 🔥.
Wand and pentacle and 🗡️,
Work ye unto my desire,
Hearken ye into my word.
Cords and censer, scourge and 🔪,
Power of the witches blade waken all ye unto life,
Come ye as the charm is made.
👑 of Heaven, 👑 of Hell, Lend your power unto my spell,
and work my will by magic rite.
By all the power of Land and Sea, By all the might of 🌙 and ☀️,
As I do will, So mote it be;
Chant the spell, and be it done.
Eko, Eko Azarak
Eko, Eko Zamilak
Eko, Eko Karnayna
Eko, Eko Aradia”
Meditating to raise energy. Visualize energy building and building by 👀 by 👀 warm, yellow light fill your body until its expanding out of your body and filling the dome above your circle and visualize it filling with energy.
🎶 or Drumming, Dancing and Chanting.
Once you reach your desired energy level, it is time to get into whatever spellwork or ritual you desire to preform!
ONCE YOU FINISH YOUR WORK SAY GOODBYE TO THE ELEMENTS AND THANK THEM FOR THE POWER THEY BROUGHT. ALWAYS SAY GOODBYE AND THANK ANY DEITIES CALLED ON.
I like to walk the circle the opposite way of its casting three times, and voila!
Keep in mind that this is just my method! There are many methods and this is just one of them.
