#jasper-the-menace

[yorubaby]

I follow you because we have shared friends and I heard about the shit you were going through and decided that I wanted to be friends with someone so cool. So now I lurk in your activity page.

~Jasper

Ahh! Shared friends, man. They are great.

Also, I genuinely enjoy seeing your daily notifications. I would notice if they went away fr.😭😂

I hope you're having a beautiful day, Jasper!!

[maple-and-pie]

Happy birthday! May this year be kind to you!

~Jasper

Tyty! It is just a chill day as I just am recovered from being sick, so I am taking it easy. I got some cake tho!

[breelandwalker]

Hey Bree! I was wondering if you've ever felt like your craft needs expanding beyond what you already do. I'm currently in such a mood myself, but I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on the "maybe I should improve in other places beyond where I'm already good" feeling. (BTW, I am still waiting eagerly for the second volume of the Sisters Grimmoire, since I loved the rest of your books so much!)

~Jasper of @jasper-pagan-witch

Oh yes, on the regular! Usually it takes the form of an itch to research something new or make something I haven't tried before. I mean, I know my niche and I know my skills, and that's where I usually spend my time. Play to your strengths and all that.

But every so often, it's good to at least try branching out, just to explore and experience new things. Even if it doesn't end up being my cup of tea, I always learn something in the process.

(I have SEVERAL things cooking at the moment, it's just a matter of which one's going to boil first and when I'll have time to season it properly!)

[crimsonsongbird]

From the pop culture paganism section:

What headcanons about the entity you worship/work with do you love? What do you hate?

Does the fandom influence how you perceive or interact with your entity or PCP in any way?

From the pop culture witchcraft section:

What's your favorite PCW spell?

Do you invoke pop culture entities for your spells? How often?

From the general/both section:

What discourse from the fandom do you absolutely despise?

Do you have a series you love but don't/wouldn't touch for PCP/PCW? Why?

~Jasper

Hello, Jasper!

Pop Culture Asks:

What headcanons about the entity you worship/work with do you love? What do you hate?

Answered here. I prefer to stick to my own UPG and avoid headcanons from other people.

Does the fandom influence how you perceive or interact with your entity or PCP in any way?

Answered here.

What's your favorite PCW spell?

Answered here.

Do you invoke pop culture entities for your spells? How often?

Well, a lot of the spells I've made involve using an entity's energy. So I think I've invoked those entities while making those spells. I definitely know that I channeled their energy and messages to get the spell just right. So I guess whenever I write a spell, I'm invoking that entity!

What discourse from the fandom do you absolutely despise?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Naruto is not romantically in love with Sasuke. I don't give a flying fuck about how much the fandom loves the ship. Naruto has said, numerous times, that he sees Sasuke as a brother. A BROTHER. Does he love Sasuke? Absolutely! Naruto loves and cares for his friends deeply. They are the reason he fights so hard. But he is not romantically in love with Sasuke. (I don't think he is romantically in love with Hinata either, but that's another rant).

Do you have a series you love but don't/wouldn't touch for PCP/PCW? Why?

Much like DC comics, I'd probably avoid working with Marvel comics as well. Though part of me really wants to work with Captain America because he fits my hero vibe, the fandom is a hot mess right now. I'd probably avoid touching that franchise, at least until things calm down.

Thanks for the ask, friend!

~Crimson

[arnaerr]

I'm so sorry that people are being gross to you and your characters. People online keep forgetting that these are real people behind the screens and blogs. I hope you have a better day now.

Thank you so much! <3 I'm not really worried about people like that since I post my art on the internet for a long time already and got my dose of bullshit to deal with by now lol. I just feel that since I have a bigger audience, it's in my power to remind people about the basic human decency towards artists, bc I know how it can hurt the ones who only started their journey. So my day is still wonderful 💘

[veshialles]

Was there a tipping point for Hyacinth, one decision that really sent her story crashing?

Or was the point that she was always going to end up here? That it wasn't just one big thing, but the culmination of a thousand little cuts?

~Jasper

It was a bit of both, truth be told! My original thought processes when building her as a character were: "what if I made a girl who Gets Worse™" and "Oh shit what if she was a space witch also!" But I have a lot of details about how it all went wrong. Anyways! time to psychoanalyze my own OC

So, Hyacinth's upbringing definitely brought with it a thousand little cuts for sure; orphaned in a traumatic shuttle crash at a young age, growing up in the slums of Marseille, France, feeling alone and abandoned, ending up forced to do morally questionable things just to survive and get enough to eat, fell in with a local street gang that had connections to a larger criminal empire. And, well, when you spend so long "just trying to survive", you might find that the mental switch for your fight or flight response could get permenantly set to "Fight", especially if your circumstances have you trapped in an environment that reinforces and even rewards your aggressive reactions and you've never sought counselling in your life because you didn't have access to those resources (and later because you think you're above "all that mushy crap".) Such as the case was for her, unfortunately.

When her biotics came in, Hyacinth (by then already well immersed in the crminal underbelly of Alliance and UNIN territories) began to make a name for herself as "La Sorciere de La Viste" and suddenly that scared little kid, tired of being pushed around, decided to become something to fear. Taking part in shakedowns, heists, smuggling rings, extortion rackets, hit jobs, the lot of it; doing whatever she could to gain an edge. A reputation which served her gang well, but soon caught the attention of the Alliance Military, who sought her out for questioning (and recruitment). They offered to clear Hyacinth's extensive criminal record if she signed a plea deal, in exhange she would get 3 full meals a day and consistent living arrangements, and while it took some intense prying on their part because of her "authority issues", she eventually accepted the offer and betrayed her old gang.

No less than a month later, the Alliance shipped her off to Jump Zero "Brain Camp", where their trainers honed Hyacinth's biotic powers into a deadly weapon, and she chose to specialize in Vanguard tactics. So now, all that rage and pain and hurt was being concentrated into raw mass effect fields with one goal: cripple the enemy with overwhelming force. She showed such proficiency in this that, after some years of dedicated service, Hyacinth was recommended for the N7 Program. Her hardheadedness served her well in some tests, and caused her to nearly fail in others, but eventually she did pass, through sheer force of will. Clawing her way up from a scrawny street rat to a fully fledged biotic warrior.

A few years later, Alliance Command shipped her off to the front lines of their conflict with the Batarian Hegemony, where she saw some of the bloodiest battles she would witness until the Reaper War. Which, as desensitized as she was to violence, did obviously leave her with even more physical and psychological scars for sure (not that she would ever honestly admit it, of course). All of this culminated to Hyacinth being put in charge of the final assault, where she ordered her unit to mercilessly pursue the Batarian forces stationed there, wiping them out at the cost of most of her unit's lives. There were rumours that her terrifying display of biotic power during the firefight could have created a "friendly fire" situation when she tore those Batarians to shreds, and while it was never fully investigated, she earned her unofficial title, The Witch Of Torfan.

The final tipping point though, in my opinion at least, was when Ashley died on Virmire. Because although her ruthless tendencies were alive and well in the pursuit against Saren, when Hyacinth was travelling with the Normandy crew, she finally had some sense of "normalcy". She didn't exactly "soften up" but she did allow herself to get closer to her crewmates than she normally would have on any given mission, because before she figured there was no point to it. The places she got assigned to were usually temporary posts, with temporary CO's and temporary squadmates, most of whom might probably die in the field anyway, so she tended to think "what's the point?".

But, over the course of her Spectre-authorized investigation, Hyacinth got very close with Ashley, who became someone Hyacinth could let her guard down around and actually have a (fairly) open dialogue with. Although they didn't agree on everything, they got along well and had some inexplicable raw chemistry, and Ashley even took to calling Hyacinth "Skipper" as a flirty nickname. (thank you modding community 💕)

If things had turned out differently, maybe she would have done at least some healing, or maybe she would have stayed the same. But when the fateful call came in, and Hyacinth was forced to make a choice, she ran back to the bomb-site. Not to save Kaidan, but to defend the team's main objective and ensure the facility's destruction. She hoped Ashley by some miracle might make it out alive, having seen her resourcefulness in the field first-hand. And when Ashley didn't make it back to the Normandy, instead of facing her grief and loss and taking responsibility for the call she made, Hyacinth chose instead to turn around take out all of her rage on Kaidan, lashing out at him in the conference room after the mission, in front of everybody, starting the bitter rivalry between the two of them that will likely never truly end. (yes he just survived the Cerberus Attack in my pt, and yeah she's a kinda pissed about it)

Hyacinth's loss on Virmire was what really "cemented" her ongoing train-wreck of harsh choices, because it was at that point when Hyacinth began to truly believe, whether she realized it consciously or not, that she was unworthy of "having good things" and "being the better woman", and that just maybe she was incapable and/or undeserving of changing her ways, and that the universe was an inherently cruel place as she had always believed. And by reinforcing that narrative in her mind, Hyacinth spiraled into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and would continue to make terribly harsh choices under this justification, with each Renegade action hammering this belief ever further into her psyche.

While Hyacinth did eventually find love and understanding again in Jack - a woman who, like her, had lead a similarly harsh life of violent crime, was hardened by it, and even understood what a life with biotics could be like - their tender connection borne from common struggles still wasn't enough to turn Hyacinth away from the path she was on. (At least she was a good influence on Jack?? Somehow??? something something cautionary tales I guess idk. thank you again, modding community💕)

I guess, in a way, the other major reason why she is Like That™ is because, at her core, Hyacinth never really stops being that scared little kid, struggling to eke out an existence in one of Earth's many forgotten gutters. She is still reacting to every potential threat and problem like a hammer to a nail, still willing to manipulate and betray her "allies" if she thinks it would give her an advantage (oftentimes without fully considering the full implications, and later on simply not caring about the long-reaching effects). Because she's simply never learned how else to operate.

So yeah, long story short; Hyacinth Shepard's unhealed trauma and apathetic/pessimistic worldview informs a LOT of her decision-making. And even though her regrets and sins will haunt her to the end of her days, she holds onto the core belief that she deserves to be haunted by what she has done, and the belief that she doesn't deserve to get better. And that's the tragedy of it all. Because like, it really didn't have to turn out like this. She was handed so many chances to do differently, to make a better choice, but when you take all of those events combined, it acted like some kind of horrible cascading domino effect for her, and because of that, it probably couldn't have turned out any other way for Hyacinth, sadly :(

[obsidiannebula]

Mutual, what is this TLT thing? You seem to like it and I have 0 idea what it is.

~Jasper

The Locked Tomb! The series with all the necromancy and lesbians and necromantic lesbians that I'm always putting all over your dash. It's extremely good, does some very clever things with POV esp after the first book that I will never stop freaking out about. Lot of gore and body horror, as a warning, I skim over some parts because the gore/body horror is extremely well-described and I apparently have a limited tolerance for it lol but it's not for shock value! The way necromancy works in this universe is so interesting

But have I mentioned it's good, and that I like it? Eh, you already know

[crimsonsongbird]

JAREN'S JOURNEY

To help you find your calling in life. Inspired by Jaren Rakdoson from Blood and Songbirds by Jasper (@jasper-the-menace).

What You Will Need:

1 red candle, any size 

Matches or a lighter

4 rocks, any size, shape, or color

💎 Settle in a quiet, comfortable place where you will not be disturbed or distracted. Ensure that all your spell ingredients are within reach and that you are not near any flammable objects.

💎 Arrange the four rocks in a diamond shape on a safe, nonflammable surface, then place the candle in the center. Carefully light the red candle.

💎 Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, then exhale for 4 seconds. Repeat until your breathing is calm and even.

💎 Gaze into the candle and think of a time you were forced down a path that did not resonate with you. Perhaps a family member or mentor guided you down a path of their choosing, not giving you much say in the path you walked. Oftentimes the path we are most called to is not the one others would have chosen for us. 

💎 Now think of how Jaren often acts impulsively, diving into many situations without much thought. Is he acting out of stupidity? Or is he acting out his true calling in life? Many times the act that we do impulsively is the one that brings us the most fulfillment; it is often the act that both empowers and inspires us. Have you ever acted impulsively to accomplish a certain goal of your own choosing? Did you feel fulfilled after it was completed? 

💎 Remember that your calling in life does not have to be a grandiose one. Jaren may be out there literally saving lives and fighting wars across different planes, but that doesn’t mean you have to be doing the same. Sometimes our life’s calling is to turn a passion or hobby into a career. Or to help others in our own unique way. 

💎 Now pick a rock in the diamond that calls to you most. Place your dominant hand over the rock while being mindful of the lit candle in the center. Focus your desire to find your true calling on the rock and channel that powerful energy into it. 

💎 Once you feel the rock is full, remove the rock from its place in the diamond and hold it to your chest. Repeat the following, “Just as the rocks guide and protect Jaren during his journey, allow this rock to do the same for me. Should I ever stray from my own life’s path, this rock shall guide me back.”

💎 Extinguish the candle and clean up your space. The spell is now complete. Carry the rock with you whenever you need a compass to find your way back to your calling. 

OC Spell Commission for @jasper-pagan-witch