The Brandenburg Archives

Information, excerpts, pictures and words that inspire particular WIP's of mine.

[megthemariner]

@ryebreadgf / The Truth About Grief, Fortesa Latifi / bone deep, m.v.e / Sidewalk, Richard Silken / @fridayiminlovemp3 / 60 hours, m.v.e / @itsblackleader / Salt, Nayyirah Waheed / @heavensghost

[lebornaciar]

Can you explain the Wild Hunt to me? I'm really curious about it. I keep seeing different people talk about it in different ways and I'm a bit confused.

you’re in luck–i actually spend a solid chunk of time earlier today explaining the wild hunt in my group chat. i’m going to paste that explanation here for you!

the wild hunt is a common folkloric archetype across most of europe which has also been brought over to the americas (mainly the united states). various different hunts have presence all across the celtic world, in germanic folklore, northern european folklore, spain, france, and many other places. the key feature of what makes a wild hunt a wild hunt is that they ride through the skies and on the wind and are usually in or accompanied by a storm. generally i have found that there are three main traits that characterize individual hunts: who the leader is, who the members are, and what its purpose is.

some classifications I’ve identified, with some examples–not every possible one, just something to give you an idea of what the descriptors mean:

the leader might be:

a deity (manannán mac lir, woden, gwyn ap nudd)

a folkloric hero (fionn mac cumhaill, king arthur, herne the hunter)

a legendary ruler or a real ruler who was mythologized (herla, theoderic the great)

the devil

a saint

or there may be no leader, and the hunt be composed of a mob. if there is a leader, they are nearly always male, but not entirely always.

the members of the hunt might be:

faeries

the restless dead

sinners specifically

demons and/or devils

the company of its leader (fionn’s fianna, king arthur’s knights)

a company of legendary heroes, saints, or folkloric figures

the purpose of the hunt might be:

rounding up the souls of the past year’s dead

warning of the dead to come in the next year

actually just hunting otherworldly game

hunting humans to steal away to the otherworld

collecting the souls of sinners and the damned

punishing its members by forcing them to ride eternally with no rest

literally just roaming around killing people

for the most part the wild hunt isn’t a mythological group, it’s folkloric–that is, not legends or myths or written literature, but the oral folk traditions and tales of the common people. this is what the american version of the wild hunt is–if you’ve ever heard the song ghost riders in the sky, it’s a piece of cowboy folklore that is fairly obviously derived from the wild hunt.

that’s the historical and folkloric information; the rest of this post is heavily upg-based, and entirely about my own experiences.

i deal with the irish hunts, which are largely faeries and/or the restless dead, and led by deities or mythological/otherworldly heroes. my personal perspective of the way the hunt works is that there are “local chapters” all around the world wherever faeries are found, and that the leader of each different hunt is a sort of “ultimate authority” over all hunts of that variety, and he chooses a new one to ride with each year.

i see most of the hunts as being a sort of unit of each local court–there are some fey who belong to the hunt and form the core of it, and then there are others who ride with it for a shorter period of time (a year, or seven years, or the like) who get the chance to join the hunt in recognition of some service or great deed.

my hunts are manannán’s, which is faeries and/or the restless dead collecting up the souls of the past year’s dead and warning of death to come, and sometimes taking people to the otherworld; nuada airgetlám’s, which is the tuatha dé danann and the aos sí hunting otherworldly game, and sometimes taking people to the otherworld; and the sluagh, a leaderless mob of faeries and/or the restless dead who just roam around the skies indiscriminately killing, maiming, and generally causing mayhem. manannán’s and nuada’s hunts are connected with the courts, while the sluagh I’ve always sort of thought of as being outside the courts–they’re exiles and solitaries and otherwise too antisocial to belong to a troop.

i hope that was helpful to you, and if you have any further questions feel free to ask!

[the-brandenburg-archives]

Character Aesthetics: Reilly “Rye” Jean Ikhanzo

“Do you think it makes me look dangerous?”

Khan spoke before Moto could reply.  “You always look dangerous, Reilly.”

***

If she let it, Reilly knew the night would swallow her whole. Heart and soul. She gave it all to the star strewn sky.

[the-brandenburg-archives]

Character Aesthetics: Keita “Moto” Yamamoto

Moto was a marked man.  And someday someone, or something, was going to come collect.

***

“I thought I was going to hate you.”  Reilly’s admission was whispered to the sky.

“Everyone is supposed to hate me,” Moto said.  “Hell, I think of the other three, Rov is the only one who honestly likes me.  They liked the idea of me more.  I was the perfect disastrous mess of a human being who would follow Khan down any path.”

[the-brandenburg-archives]

Character Aesthetics: Dimitri “Rov” Rovanoff

He was a miracle of flesh and bone.  He could finally feel himself. How could he have forgotten what it meant to be Dimitri Rovanoff?

He was so in love with being alive.

[the-brandenburg-archives]

Character Aesthetics: Tobias “Khan” Ikhanzo

Brown hair windblown and hanging in a fringe in front of his face, Khan did not look like an avenging angel.  Instead he just looked like a really pissed off teenager who was known to have anger issues and a propensity to solving things with his fists.

[the-brandenburg-archives]

Character Aesthetics: Karson “Bells” Bellevue

He hadn’t realized how little attention he’d paid to his own emotions, instead focusing on everyone else’s.  It was a rude awakening.  His emotions were an oil spill, toxic and sticky.

[the-brandenburg-archives]

Character Aesthetics: Khan Ravan Atash

And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope It's a shot in the dark aimed right at my throat 'Cause looking for heaven, found the devil in me Looking for heaven, found the devil in me

[ladyofvalyria]

a mix for witches  ☾ with blood stained hands and sooty hair she hides her spell book in the dirt beneath her garden; unattainable and unapologetic, she whispers hexes under her breath and leaves magic in her wake. to the witch in every woman || LISTEN HERE

[danger]

“Let me be your everlasting light Your sun when there is none”

[the-brandenburg-archives]

[hynpos]

Ok but imagine this: Persephone sending the flowers she grows to Hades while she’s away during the spring and summer. He dips them in gold so they’re preserved forever. He eventually has enough to fill the palace with bouquets of gold flowers when she returns.

[howitzerliterarysociety-deactiv]

Act my age? What the fuck is that, “act my age”? What do I care how old I am? The Ocean is old as fuck. It will still drown your ass with vigor.

Stimie (via howitzerliterarysociety)

[poudretteites-deactivated201910]

Updated Resource Masterpost

Astral Projection

Are you over-complicating astral travel?

Beginner Witchcraft

9 ingredients every aspiring witch needs

A witch’s library

Grimoire organization ideas

Cleansing and charging items

Basic herbs

Grimoire vs Book of Shadows ask 

This is just good for beginners to see imho

Banishing

Cast out evil incense

Books

Book recommendations

Candle magic

Candle magic omens

Candle magic guide

Charms

50 simple charms

Correspondences

Magical Metals: The Basics

Incense Uses and meanings

Herb magic: rose colors and magic

Magical correspondences of food

Yankee candle theoi associations

More incense correspondences

More incense by use

Cosmic Witchcraft

Cosmic Witchcraft 101: Tips for beginners

Cosmic witch tip

Cosmic Witchcraft 101: Lunar magic

How to make moon water

Cosmic Witchcraft 101: Solar Magic

Cosmic witchcraft altar and room ideas

Crystals

Cleansing and Charging crystals

Cultural Appropriation

On Smudging

Reminder about the term spirit animal

On the word “Gypsy”

Common culturally appropriative terms

Cursing

Cursing 101

Why hexing is the answer

“Just don’t curse” (pro-cursing)

Deity Related (not Pantheon specific)

Mythological book recommendations

Devotional acts don’t have to be high maintenance

Alternative Altars and devotions

A friendly gentle reminder

Modern ways to worship

Divination

Domino divination

How to read tea leaves

Divination symbolism

Ways to tell fortunes

Lithomancy

Green Witchcraft

Study tips for herbalists

Ways to help save bees

Herbal amulets

Herbs to use in sleep magic

Herb craft

Hellenic Polytheism

Veiling and binding

Hair and hair binding in Pre-classical Greece

Miasma

Breif deity prayers

Basic Hellenic supplies

Basic Hellenic offering ritual

Hellenic crafts for kids

Small things about the Theoi

2016 Hellenion Calendar

Little Devotional Acts for Gods

Advice

Theoi crafts: Poseidon

Theoi crafts: Demeter

Kemetic Polytheism

Some Kickass papercrafts

Kemetic holidays

Goddesses and Gods of the Ancient Egyptians

Shrine Basics

Daily Ritual Basics

Saying “Hi” to Netjeru

An informative post

Shoutout to kemetics…

What’s the lettuce thing about?

Kitchen Witchcraft

Moon cakes

Using soda in witchcraft

Magic pies

Magical uses for kitchen tools

An ask about soda in witchcraft

Ideas for kitchen witchcraft

Norse Paganism

Altars (possibly helpful for people who aren’t Norse pagans also)

Offerings and Devotion for Specific Deities [Mostly Hellenic ATM]

Offerings for Haides

Devotional acts for Hermes

Offerings/Devotional acts for Aphrodite

Persephone Offerings

Hymn for Helios

More devotional act for Hermes

Other Masterposts

A Spirit-workers holy grail

DIY Witchery masterpost

A huge masterpot !!Great for beginners!!

Cosmic witch masterpost

Protecting and shielding masterpost

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A masterpost for space witches

Resources for Hellenismos

Pie’s Hellenic Polytheism Resource page

Cursing masterpost

The master list of lists

Limited witchcraft masterpost

Potions

“Give Me Sunshine” Potion for happiness

Secret witches

How to hide an altar (Also: Altoid tin travel kits)

Discrete witch tip: charge your toothbrush

Herbal and floral waters (Also good as offerings to deities/lots of other things)

Sigil Magic

3 Sigils by witchofthunder

Homophobes cannot see me

Sigil FAQ

Spells

Banish the bullshitter spell

Jar spell to attract love

Herbal sleep and dream pillows

Spirit work/Necromancy

Herbs associated with the dead

The planchette did a spooky thing

Tarot cards

Twelve Olympians spread

Is an entity contacting me spread

I’m fucking perfect spread

Deity identification spread

Am I worth much spread

Ways to recharge your tarot deck

Using tarot for more than divination

Urban witchcraft

A post

Witch Tips

Witch Tip: Disabled tip

Making your room magical

Witchling tips

Witch tip (if you crochet)

A witchy tip (if you’re having guests)

Incense tips

Alternatives to lavender

[herhmione]

literally one of my favorite romance tropes of all time is character a is a really notorious gang leader/well known feared ruler of some kind etc and no one dares cross them or talk back to them etc because they won’t make it out alive but character b can literally get away with saying whatever they want and everyone knows it’s because they have character a wrapped around their finger and character a is gentle with character b and everyone wouldn’t dare laying a finger on character b because then character a would literally chop their head off

[herhmione]

bonus points if character b is just as ruthless and powerful as character a

[worriedgrl]

a concept: we are driving down the freeeway. it is raining outside and the windshield wipers are on. i am half asleep in the passenger seat watching you, a huge blanket pulled over my shoulders. soft music plays on the radio. i close my eyes and am at peace.

[lsunnyc-deactivated20191124]

can we take a moment to just think about how incredibly scary magical healing is in-context?

You get your insides ripped open but your friend waves his hands and your flesh just pulls back together, agony and evisceration pulling back to a ‘kinda hurts’ level of pain and you’re physically whole, with the 100% expectation that you’ll get back up and keep fighting whatever it was that struck you down the first time.

You break your arm after falling somewhere and after you’re healed instead of looking for ‘another way around’ everybody just looks at you and goes “okay try again”.

You’ve been fighting for hours, you’re hungry, thirsty, bleeding, crying from exhaustion, and a hand-wave happens and only two of those things go away. you’re still hungry, you’re still weak from thirst, but the handwave means you have ‘no excuse’ to stop.

You act out aggressively maybe punch a wall or gnash your teeth or hit your head on something and it’s hand-waved because it’s ‘such a small injury you probably can’t even feel it anymore’ but the point was that you felt it at all?

Your pain literally means nothing because as long as you’re not bleeding you’re not injured, right? Here drink this potion and who cares about the emotional exhaustion of that butchered village, why are you so reserved in camp don’t you think it’s fun retelling that time you fell through a burning building and with a hand-wave you got back up again and ran out with those two kids and their dog? 

Older warriors who get a shiver around magic-users not because of the whole ‘fireball’ thing but the ‘I don’t know what a normal pain tolerance is anymore’ effect of too much healing. Permanent paralysis and loss of sensation in limbs is pretty much a given in the later years of any fighter’s life. Did I have a stroke or did the mage just heal too hard and now this side of my face doesn’t work? No i’m not dead from the dragon’s claws but I can’t even bend my torso anymore because of how the scar tissue grew out of me like a vine.

Magical healing is great and keeps casualties down.

But man.

That stuff is scary.

[somethingdnd]

shit just got creepy

[celynbrum]

Or maybe magical healing doesn’t leave scars or damage. It is magical, after all.

So after years of fighting, your skin is still perfect. Unmarred. In fact, you’re actually in better shape than regular people who don’t get magical healing when they fall out of trees or walk into doors or cut themselves while cooking dinner. You’re in such good shape that it’s unnatural.

And the really good healing magic takes away more than just the obvious injuries. You first start noticing it after about ten years when you go home and haha, you look the same age as your younger sibling, that’s funny.

Not so funny ten years later when they look older. Or forty years later, when you bury them still looking like you did at twenty. When do you retire from this gig anyway? How much damage is too much damage?

How many times do you glimpse the afterlife, or worse, how many times don’t you? What do you live through, get used to, show no outward sign of except a perfectly healthy body, too perfect for any person living a real life.

How many times are you sitting in a tavern with your friends and you hear the whispers, because the people around you know. How can they not know? Your weapons shine with enchantments and your armour is better than the best money can buy and there is not a damn scar on you. You hardly seem human to them.

How long before you hardly seem human to yourself?

And you find yourself struggling to remember the places where the scars should have been, phantom pains that wake you screaming, touching all the old injuries and finding nothing there. It’s all in your head. Was it ever anywhere else?

How long before you’re fighting a lich or a vampire or some other undead monster and you wonder…

…what makes me so different?

[lsunnyc-deactivated20191124]

Here we go someone who GETS IT.

[venusian--eye-deactivated201606]

able-bodied people say the darnedest fucking things

[butch-king-frankenstein]

“what if we had the ability to repair any physical injury but it was actually scary, and bad”

[protom-lad]

What if magic didn’t have stupid edgy consequences because it’s fucking magic and can do what it wants

[butch-king-frankenstein]

by the way I should clarify that I thought the OP was fairly harmless and even interesting, I was more responding to the fucking “people would turn into monsters if pain didn’t exist” addition up there

[rasec-wizzlbang-blog]

more or less what I was thinking

[stridingsquids]

Magic needs to have consequences because otherwise it’s just a boring out for lazy writers. Being able to do anything without lasting repercussion makes for awful, awful use of magic as a storytelling device. Hell, even if it just makes the user tired, that’s at least something that can become a relevant factor.

[bugcthulhu]

it’s also far more entertaining