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sixminutestoriesblog · 8 months

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witch balls

When I was a child visiting little tiny New England towns was different than it is today. These days when I walk down a carefully curated Main Street in some wind swept, coastal town you can barely smell the salt in the air anymore and every shop you step into is pristine air-conditioned and smells like a department store used to, all faint traces of new plastic and underlying pungent scent of whatever it is they paint large shipments of clothes with to keep them during shipping. Most of them are still set up to look old, in fact many of them are in old buildings, but the weight of all those years isn't really allowed to show through. It's all ocean cottage core now, neat and white painted and artistic sea glass and sandpipers in simplified wooden statues, wire legs frozen instead of blurring with motion. Don't get me wrong. I love ocean cottagecore. I would decorate my whole house in it if I had the money. And the little shops, pristine and pretty, absolutely have a sweet appeal to them, not willing to give up their personality for the sterilization of 'Big City' box stores. I do miss however, what tourist shops in those same little towns used to be. Less plastic magnets for the refrigerator shaped like whales and sweatshirts of labrador retrievers declaring them a specific colored Dog and more -

half forgotten not-quite-antique shop, hidden down some narrow salt smelling alley where the stones that make up the road are uneven and there's a dusty smell to the cracks of the wood floors that never goes away. As a child going to a 'tourist shop' in one of these towns was like walking into a magic shop, a true magic shop, with books of breathtakingly beautiful paper dolls as detailed as any old fairy book illustration, imitation scrimshawed whale teeth, old time candy, books about lady pirates and clever glass marbles full of painted fish. The things those old shops offered felt local, magical, impossible to find in any other town in the entire world. Childhood colors everything more vivid than it probably was but I still think of longing and a child's minor spending money in a world of treasures when I remember those shops.

In one of those shops, as a child, I saw my first glass fishing float.

At the time it was being sold as a Portuguese fishing ball, a better buoyant for nets and lines than cork or wood. I remember, distinctly, the surprising weight of it when I picked it up. I was used to glass being fragile, light, airy. The fishing ball was none of those. It had a weight to it and a solid feel to it that said it was fit to ride the choppy waters of the icy Atlantic and do its duty, tide in and tide out. Storms weren't going to break and drown this glass. It would ride the waves forever and when it finally broke free of its net, it would find the shore, in itself or in pieces as polished sea glass. These balls were sturdy and I fell in love with them. The first time I could finally afford one was a triumph and the rare times I managed to find them in shops, as the years and the advance of more proper 'souvenirs' advances, I snatched them up even if it meant my spending money for the rest of the trip would be lean. Finally, eventually, the balls disappeared from the last shop and I thought my meager hoard was all I'd ever see of them again, an old relic that was already being phased out before I'd even discovered them as a child.

Imagine my surprise when, years and years later, a friend, helping me fix my bathroom from some water damage, saw one of them where I had it hanging in the window and seemed surprised to recognize it. He called it a 'witch ball'. I corrected him but he was adamant. And so, thanks to the internet, I rediscovered my glass fishing floats - with a new name and a new story to go with it.

Witch balls are hollow glass balls. They can range in size, I've seen some as small as rounded shot glasses and the older ones seem to be about as large as my fishing balls, which is about the size of a cantaloupe. Like fishing balls, they're not made for perfection, in fact, the bubbles and imperfections in the glass blowing process are considered part of their selling points. They tend to range in colors, with modern day witch balls being an absolute riot of colors or a beautiful gradual shift from one color to the next. They've been around for quite a long time as well. There are accounts of witch balls hanging in English houses, especially sea-faring ones, as far back as the 17th and 18th century, though they were often known as 'watch balls' back then and not quite as riotously colorful as modern ones, tending to be more often made of green or blue glass. Sometimes they would have salt or herbs put in them before they were sealed but the main thing witch balls needed were stands. In fact, something I just learned, the way to tell a kugel (friendship) ball and a witch ball apart is to look for the glass strands inside the ball. Witch balls need those strands to be effect. Witch balls are, after all, created to be traps.

The idea was that you hung your ball inside your house, often in an eastern window but sometimes from the rafters or set on top of a stand. Than, when evil things tried to enter the house in the night, they would be distracted and then captivated by the way the light of the moon played against the glass of the ball. Sometimes, the evil had to touch the glass, sometimes being ensnared simply happened automatically once their gaze was fixed on it. Either way, the evil would find itself pulled into the glass, trapped in the maze of the strands inside and unable to escape. There it would remain either until the morning sunrise burned it away or until the glass ball was broken, freeing it to continue its harm. Not all witch balls worked that way. In some cases, the glass was made to be more reflective with the idea that evil things, as we've already read, didn't have reflections and couldn't bear the reminder or that the glass would turn aside the evil gaze and reflect it back on its creator.

There is some speculation that glass Christmas ornaments may be tied into something similar as well, although, humans also simply like hanging sparking objects up for no reason but 'pretty' as well.

Bottle Trees serve the same general purpose and can still be found in parts of the Southern US, a tradition brought over from the Congo during slavery times. The belief is that blue bottles hung on tree branches will entrance and capture evil spirits inside their depths and hold them there where they can't cause any harm until the morning sun burns them away with its rising.

As a last note, I should point out that calling my collection 'fishing balls' wasn't necessarily wrong. While some of my later purchases did have strands in them, my early ones from childhood didn't. Apparently there's a very invested set of people who collect Japanese fishing floats on the West Coast of the US and Canada as well.

#folklore #superstition #cottagecore #witch ball #witch balls #watch ball #bottle tree #fishing floats #glass fishing float #ukidama #bindama #sea #ocean #ocean folklore #sea superstition #sea folklore

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strrwbrrryjam · 4 months

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disclaimer: these are results from google. there were loads so i just picked at random from "most watched anime" lists

please reblog and put your answers in the tags <3

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spoopdeedoop · 7 days

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WYD WHEN MY GANG PULL UP !!!

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glitterdustcyclops · 20 days

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okay knowing the "go on instagram live and defend elon musk" was a setup from mike trapp makes it at least five times funnier

#chocolate watches things #dropout #game changer #“GIVE HIM THE BINGO BALL SAM”

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retquits · 2 months

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hey, thank you akira toriyama ☁️

#my art #akira toriyama #dragon ball #i don't watch much dragon ball anymore #but the respect and heartbreak i'm experiencing for this man's legacy is hard to put into words #oda's send off for him has been sticking with me all day #in his words:#“may heaven be the joyous world jut as you envisioned it.”

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bet-on-me-13 · 3 months

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You know how the sky changes color when Danny transforms?

So! This is just something that came to me literally 5 seconds ago.

When Danny Transforms, the Sky and color pallet of the world around him changes as well right? The Sky turns Green, and the buildings turn Purple and the such, and I like to think that the everyone feels a sense of Death when it happens.

Now imagine this scene.

Danny had moved to Gotham, and he was making sure to stay under the Radar. He didn't want to reveal that he was a Ghost, since the GIW was still semi active.

But right now, he was about to he attacked by Joker, so he really didn't have a choice.

He transformed.

The sky turned green, the buildings turned purple, and everyone in the vicinity felt a sense of pure Death in the area.

Off to the side, one of the Bats saw that, and mumbled to themselves, "Oh my God, he has a Domain Expansion."

#Dpxdc #Dp x dc #Dcxdp #Dc x dp #Danny Phantom #Dc #Dcu #JJK #Jujutsu Kaisen #Domain Expansion #Idk which one it was #But I think it would be funny if it wasn't even one of the Kids #What if it was Bruce?#Or even Joker himself?#Idk but this scene popped into my head when I was watching Dragon Ball Super and Shenron was summoned #The Sky turning black reminded me of the sky changing in Danny Phantom and this came to mind

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unknownsigils · 4 months

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you’ll be the leper, and you’ll be the healer / you’ll be the hero, and the tragedy

#ninjago #lego ninjago #art #procreate art #digital art #nya ninjago #nya smith #nya jiang #ninjago nya #maybe watching all of skybound with paperbooart was a bad idea. NOT!!! im having a ball

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lightningcrashes · 8 months

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SPENCER REID Criminal Minds | 14.15 "Truth or Dare"

#criminal minds #cmedit #criminalmindsedit #mggedit #spencerreidedit #criminalmindssource #criminalmindsgifs #dailytvedit #cinematv #tvedit #spencer reid #*#this ep is soooo bad but hes pretty so idc #my followers watching me shift through like 6 different pieces of media a month:#idk how i feel abt this coloring but WHATEVER #fuck it we ball

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yourangle-yuordevil · 4 months

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Give a prize to this angel for resisting endless temptations every day.

#aziraphale #good omens 2 #crowley #we watched Persuasion and it's basically Good Omens season 3 👌😔💯/💯#Jane Austen would ship them #Crowley is probably asking genuinely and not even flirting #but if he ask Aziraphale “how's the book that you are reading” Aziraphale is already hearing wedding bells #Quando i flirt che funzionano sono i corteggiamenti dell'epoca Bridgerton aiutate Aziraphale per favore ha già pronto il suo carnet di ball #good omens #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #persuasion #good omens comic

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ordi3nary · 11 days

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zzzzz

#hypnos hades #fanart #hades game #hades 2 #hades #art #PLEASE I BEG OF YOU I NEED TO ROMANCE HIM #please please please please #ahem #anyways #i watched the technical test and blanked out and 30 minutes later this was on my laptop screen #i have an essay due in less than 2 hours but we ball #hypnos my baby boy.... ough.......#crawls back into the crevice from whence i came

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brainrotdotorg · 1 year

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kim kitsuragi would take bowling SO fucking seriously. that man would act like he doesnt give a shit about the game at first but every time he throws the ball he does the thing where he holds it up to his face before going into a deep lunge as he rolls it, he stays in the lunge until the ball hits the pins. if he gets a strike he will get the most smug look on his face. harry gets a gutterball and kim tells him "better luck next time, detective. we can put up the bumpers if you want."

#disco elysium #the visual of kim in a bowling outfit came to me.#like a vision from god.#and him in that low fucking lunge with his arm out just watching the ball roll.#if his ball gets in the gutter he gets so fucking embarrassed.

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nelkcats · 9 months

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Therapy needed

Danny needed therapy, that was pretty obvious. After the whole "my future self killed everyone because my family died" thing it became pretty obvious that he needed to acknowledge his traumas and deal with them properly before another Dan happened or his emotions just exploded. The fact that his parents wanted to kill him and no one would acknowledge his death was making things worse.

So he asked his sister for help, but Jazz being annoyingly responsible commented that he couldn't become her patient, something about how personal feelings could cloud her judgment and family can't give each other therapy. Danny thought it was a bit hypocritical considering she used him as a lab rat with her psychology books but decided not to say anything.

The fact that Jazz could not be his therapist made everything 10 times more complicated. First of all because Danny had a trauma with psychologists (and wasn't that ironic? He blamed Spectra for that), and secondly that no one would believe his whole life story or keep it a secret. It was unfortunate that the Yetis were general health doctors and not mental health doctors because that would have solved his problem.

Just as he was about to give up and continue to treat his traumas as a recurring joke, Jazz introduced him to someone. Her name was Harleen Frances Quinzel and she was completely crazy, but according to Jazz she was excellent at her job. Danny had his doubts but in the end he agreed to have an appointment with her.

Strangely, Harley Quinn lived up to his sister's expectations, not being upset when Danny asked to change the decor of the place (Spectra had done a number on his head, common offices became uncomfortable for him), nor when Danny almost froze her by accident. Harley was patient, attentive and considered all his suggestions, accepting or denying as needed. Danny liked it.

The only complaint the halfa had were about the stalkers on the roof who were always watching him on his way to and from Harley's house, it was getting very annoying. One of them panicked when Danny came out crying - couldn't a ghost face his traumas in peace!?