not to be an unhinged Capricorn of a writer, but I really love getting rejections. I'm taking up space as a writer! I'm getting feedback! often I get to know if I got to a second round or not, and if they actually want to see more of my work. sometimes they even suggest other markets to send the piece to that it might fit better!

I've never gotten a mean rejection—even when they're form responses, they are usually quite nice, and stress how many submissions the market or agency receives. and I understand that, but a lot of folks don't. just because you were rejected doesn't mean the reader didn't like the piece—because of how many submissions virtually every market and agency gets, there are dozens of reasons why they have to say no to things, even things they love.

and every personalized rejection I've gotten has actually made my day, because it is genuinely lovely to know that someone read my work and gave it enough thought and consideration to say something specific about it. because I get excited when anyone reads and thinks about something I've written! even if it's just one person!

like do I want the things to get accepted, yeah! cuz I like the pieces and I want other people to read them! but the disappointment of not having the thing published isn't personal, it's professional, and meanwhile I'm gaining a lot of insight into my writing just on statistics for getting a lot of rejections. I don't think that any given rejection is a reflection of me personally.

For gwendoline

4. Does your OC have a failed friendship or relationship they still think about? What happened? Is it an unresolved regret or is there a chance for reconciliation?

So I had to sit on this one for a long while because I was trying to think about if Gwen had any because honestly, it's really only up until mid-ARR that she really starts building stuff outside of herself. She's not super interested in relationships or friendships initially, as she's more concerned about her work. Sure, her work does involve helping others - she starts off as a chirurgeon for a sort of medical underground in Gridania that helps out people the Conjurer's Guild refuses (like Ala Mhigans, or Seeker clans) - but she doesn't get attached for her own safety and the safety of her patients.

But in all honesty, there is something in there that I realized as I got thinking about her. Her family doesn't have an issue with the fact that she's a chirurgeon - they all are, to some degree, be it conjury or alchemy - and that's not the issue here. The issue is her grandfather, who is still alive.

Gwendoline's grandfather is a patriarch type that maintains the Lacroix name. Gwen's parents were a marriage of business, and he expects of her the same thing of her (which yeah gl, she's a demi-lesbian). I do write that Gridania isn't the most open? It's not as bad as Ishgard, but nowhere as good as Ala Mhigo or Limsa Lominsa, so Gwen is closeted with her family (save her mother, actually). She's 29 in ARR and still not engaged, which drives her grandfather fucking mad because she's an only child. In part this is because she is a daughter and the Lacroix name wouldn't carry on through her unless they got someone who was willing to join the family than the other way around, but also she's doing nothing to further the interests for the family. Again: not a problem that she's a chirurgeon, just a problem she's married to her work and not some lord.

The broken relationship comes in as she prioritizes her chirurgeon work and Warrior of Light work above that of the family. She used to visit her family more often during her adventures in ARR, but that peters off especially after Post Stormblood. That was a long gap of not seeing them and her coming back having helped the Ala Mhigans really pissed her grandfather off given the Autumn War.

But the worst of it was her doing, as a parallel to Surkie's story because yeah I'm being fun here.

The reason why Gwendoline cuts her grandfather off and devotes herself more to The Great Work in Thavnair than any further work with official Gridanian channels (she still does the under the table stuff tho), is because she was made aware that she had an uncle she was never introduced to - because that uncle was disowned. And for what horrific crime was he disowned for?

He married a Duskwight woman.

That's literally it. It's the bullshit Wildwood stuff that no one in her family told her about as that incident got her aunts and uncles significantly tighter knit so that disowning didn't sting as much.

And Gwendoline found out about this through talks with her mother, who told her that Seraphin was a spitting image of Gwen's disowned uncle's lover.

Because that's their kid.

Seraphin is Gwendoline's cousin. They don't realize this until they're in their 30s because Gwen's uncle was disowned and scratched from family records, while that same uncle has been dead for two decades now thanks to the Garlean occupation of Ala Mhigo - one of the victims of the Velodyna clan massacre, of which Seraphin was one of the few survivors at age 4 thanks to the Eldridge family. So while it's not the "oh god suddenly siblings" stuff that Surkie and Katsu have to reconcile, Gwen now has to reconcile that she spent the last few years driving a further wedge between those two sides of her family unknowingly since she and Seraphin did not get along at first, and that was entirely due to the fact that she is a noblewoman and he's the son of war refugees. It caused an ideological clash that took them years to work out. This information just makes it sting all that worse, and understandably so for Seraphin since. I dunno, her side of the family could have had a bit of empathy and thought to reach out, reconnect, and help? But no, the Velodyna clan is now nearly extinct thanks to the Garleans.

So when all of this comes to light, Gwendoline - a very loyal woman to family - refuses to engage with her grandfather. It causes issues with her parents; she's nearly cut out of the family, as well, but this is part of why she pours her focus into Thavnair to help Nidhana as a way of saying to them "You've lost me and I refuse to play a part in this any longer".

So unless her grandfather makes some substantial change, there will be no reconciliation. And hilariously? In that regard, it makes her a lot like her late uncle.

hi, i'm fairly new to witchcraft and i was wondering if you could give me some tips on getting started/link me to reputable sources? i'd hate to accidentally disrespect someone or something.

Hey there! Thanks for your ask. Don't worry too much about the fear of treading somewhere you shouldn't be if you remember this metaphor: Witchcraft is going to be a unique experience to you and it's going to feel a lot like you are building something with a structure, like a house. Everyone's path is kind of like their own house. As long as you don't break into someone's house, or even someone's neighborhood (especially the neighborhoods with a lot of fucking theft and trespassing) then you are good. You can ask for advice or borrow sugar from your neighbors ;) but you do that by what you are doing now: kindly knocking on the door and asking.

I think everyone gets really into trying to follow traditions and such but it's best to start the first few years building a relationship with yourself and your energy before you start the whole reading and researching (and I will get more on this later) along with connecting to deities as well. Everything else is just adding on to your craft but I feel like if you have a solid foundation understanding your own energy then everything else comes naturally. Also once you understand your energy and your connection to magic and nature around you, trying to dig through other cultures and practices won't seem as appealing. It will start to be clear that those cultures created languages and well, cultures, around their relationships with magic and the local nature surrounding them, and you will essentially create your own unique traditions based on your relationship with magic and the local nature surrounding you. It will become apparent that the 'universal energies' everyone talks about is really about how the universe and energies manifest through you and less about finding other cultures accessible because they talk about these same energies. If you think of it like art class it's kind of like how everyone uses the same mediums of art utensils like paints and crayons, but there's a difference between using the same paint and flat out stealing the finished painting from someone else and calling it your own. You should use these first few years to discover your own painting style. (Also other witches I meet that have similar approach to magic as I do all have the same sort of connection and understanding since it's like we are all tapped into the universal energy but it's beautiful cause it manifests uniquely through all of us so it's like the same way nature creates many unique plants, many unique animals or landscapes yet it's all apart of one earth, we are all unique witches reflecting the earth, planets and elements but all kind of the vibe and understanding).

To elaborate on the reading thing, the reason why I am against doing endless research when you first start is because like 85% of witchcraft is subjective since most of it is based off of people's connection to their energy. The part of magic that is not subjective is the relationship to local nature since plants and other elements of nature have their own spirits and actual physical properties that can heal you, bring you to other realms, poison you, transform you etc. The best way to learn from this is less from magical books and more from herbal medicine books, alchemy, farmer's almanacs and indigenous knowledge (as long as you are not taking plants from them that are being over harvested to the point that it's inaccessible to even them.) But anyway aside from the physical realm, the energetic realm is really a big personal experience. Even you asking me this, this is mostly based off of my years of experience practicing. I am a multiracial witch that is nomadic and have lived in different climates among different countries and cultures and am first generation with not much connection to my immediate heritages. So I had to create my practice from (literally) the ground up. My magic came to me when I was super young and I didn't even think of it as witchcraft then I felt more like I was bending energy and circumstance. I was first an energy witch before anything. My witchcraft practice came from nature, the cycles around me and nature's spirits. Though I may not connect with a culture cause my relationship to that is complicated, I find my practice empowering cause no matter where I go when I adapt my practice to the bioregion, I will always be in sync with the magic there and not really fear of appropriating anything since it's kind of connected to the source of nature. My main deity is the earth, if I have a pantheon it's the planets, I am really into astrology and I work with all different types of elements and natural spirits. Working with nature also grounds magic for me since most of my witch years I got used to doing just mostly things with energy now I have physical things to ground it in. ANYWAY with all this being said, now that you kind of understand where I am coming from, it's going to influence the information I am going to give you.

(Also with the deities thing, just in general do not try to connect with spirits until you have a good understanding of your own energy and how to protect yourself. It's ok if you are coming from a culture or family that has connections to a deity and you have protection within that culture but alone with no protection you can find yourself in trouble because there are a lot of predatory spirits- and spirits are definitely tricksters- that like to get to take advantage of inexperienced and unprotected people and will pretend to be deities but will suck energy from you. You just need to know some good shielding and warding and discernment but until then, avoid it. Plus you do not need deities at all, like it should be a mutually beneficial relationship. Devoting your energy towards an entity for the chance for more power or protection, if the deity even feels like it, cause apparently it's not even guaranteed, feels a bit like joining a gang to me that's not even for your full benefit.)

Also sorry, usually my responses to these questions are fucking long, but the thing is, it's a loaded question. You are essentially asking me how to embark on a spiritual and magical journey that will transform your spirit and help you understand your energy and connection to the universe around you lol. I did answer this before, very extensively so I am going to link it here cause I think I did an ok job the first time. To summarize the main points in that post I will put them below, but I also will first add a new point I did not have in the original post:

Getting Started:

I. Tools

II. Basics

III. Exploring Yourself

IV. Exploring your Roots

V. Exploring Local Nature

VI. Resources

-------- New Point:

I. Tools This one is gonna be short cause, to get started you really just need 2 things. 1- Yourself!!! You are the source of magic! You literally got energy going through your veins and to get started with energy work that's all you gonna need. And 2- a magic journal. Yes you can call it a ~Book of Shadows~ but if you start getting anxiety like you gotta make it look fancy or some shit then don't. Especially when you are starting out you just need a book, or, actually not even a book, but take a second right now to right-click on your desktop and make a ~Folder of Shadows~ where you can save pictures, take notes and write future insights and spells and put it in there. We are in the year 2020 after all. I have a USB where I keep tons of notes, videos and pictures. I have a section of 'magic' on my iphone where I put notes for ideas or rituals when I am on the go. I have magic journals I take with me if I am going into the woods to channel ideas or to write down rituals if I am having a gathering and want to have notes. Its also ok to have more than 1 magic journal. This is a great opportunity to get that cool looking journal you wanted (or actually fill an empty journal you never had the courage to write in cause it's too nice looking) with random notes for magic. Having a book of shadows/computer folder of shadows/phone notes of shadows etc. is going to be helpful for keeping track of stuff while you build your own path.

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Honestly one of these days I am going to make a long ass Witchcraft 101-103 and 201-203 post with the 101 focusing on getting started and figuring your magic out and the 201 more on learning about specific subjects like herbology, astrological transits, tools and crafts and how it can expand on your craft. (Along with actual books and resources cause 201 is DEFINITELY when you actually have to start reading, researching and getting into books, experiments and resources, and not only from subjective stuff but a few things that has some roots in science as well like plants and chemistry). 

If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask and I can elaborate. 

Have a good time explorin! <3