Open Sorcery

Month: April 2026

  • I had this odd realization during my post-writers group smoke break today.

    I think I – as well as my system as a whole – approach making art the same way that jazz musicians play music. I was thinking about this because the piece I ended up writing today in group pulled heavily from “My Island” and yet putting an entirely different spin on it, and it got me thinking about all of the different times that I’ve done that while making music especially.

    And honestly, if I had to sum up my approach to just about everything in life, I would say that I approach most of my crafts like a jazz musician even though I don’t technically play jazz. I don’t believe in just one final product or making a recording or a piece the be all, end all. A single song can inspire me for over ten years and I’ll keep coming back to it lyrically, musically, poetically, even, in a sort of self-referential game of call and response, making something new with each iteration and reexamination.

    In the process, I’m building a recursive universe the longer I make content and art.

    I fucking love jazz.

    -Allēna

  • The things I do for content..

    Today, that was getting sunsick. Emerson and I went to a bookshop downtown after our original plans fell through, and I got…kind of irradiated making a video while I was waiting for him to finish up inside.

    I have to be awake at 10 AM tomorrow for writer’s group and I did not nap today like a fool.

    Pray for me, if you’re into that. If you’re not, send me good energy, I guess.

    I need to shut my eyes now. I am so, so tired..

    -Allēna

  • The people have found our Patreon.

    I can’t say that I’m exactly surprised at the results, as Eight set up an After Dark tier years ago and people have been clamoring for me to…reveal more of myself, as it were, for some time now, ever since I released the first round of videos teasing “Apocalypse You”.

    So if more… midnight revelations are your thing, head over to our Patreon and check it out. 😘

    -Allēna

  • Since I am a tired dumbass and it doesn’t seem to be my day with the braincell,

    here is a second post to tell y’all that you should subscribe to Open Sorcery if you enjoy what we have to say since I didn’t add it in the last post and I STILL can’t figure out how to edit the site so that it’ll let me edit posts directly from WordPress after I’ve posted them without completely breaking everything again.

    So, if you’ve been creeping for awhile and you enjoy this website, please subscribe. Huzzah!

    We’ve also been thoroughly WebFingered, so if the Fediverse is more your speed, follow us wherever the hell makes your little heart palpitate. 💛

    Ashley Halliwell
    Ashley Halliwell
    @opensorceryy@opensorceryy.co
    901 posts
    0 followers

    Now, I’m going to hopefully stop procrastinating and haul my extremely fatigued body into the fucking wet box now that it’s almost 2 AM. It’s shower time.

    Goodnight, all.

    -Allēna

  • I finally figured out how to get pages on this site back to where I need them to be.

    I apologize for any inconvenience if y’all were trying to read Lavender and Scissors or access any of the other pages on this site. I fucked them up a few nights ago and have been trying to resolve the issue pretty much nightly since.

    Yay, I love learning new things on the fly!

    In other news, we’ve been under a flood watch and portions of Milwaukee are underwater. I keep seeing posts about basements getting flooded and restaurants needing to close down. We’re in for more storms later today, which is just horrible considering all of the water that’s already been dumped on us. I’m worried about all of my local friends and followers.

    If you live in the city or you’re being affected by flooding elsewhere, could you please let me know that you’re safe somehow, either in the comments of this post or via a direct message on one of my social platforms?

    -Allēna

  • apocalypse whenever the HELL you want (because why ever not???)

    It is with great pleasure, pomp, and circumstance that I announce the release of “Apocalypse You” on our Patreon page. Paid subscribers to our Patreon can grab a copy at their leisure 💛

    Juneau, this one’s for you.

    -Allēna

    If you enjoy our work, go ahead and subscribe to Open Sorcery while you’re at it!

  • I don’t know why I’m writing tonight. I don’t even feel like I have anything worthwhile to say about today.

    except for the fact that I am so goddamned tired that it feels like my organs have been scooped out and replaced with nothing but fatigue.

    Fuck everything.

    -Allēna

  • It hits me like a rock…

    There’s a certain song on my YouTube Music likes that brings back a ten ton brickload of memories every time I hear it. “Hits Me Like A Rock” by CSS takes me straight back to August of 2017 every fucking time I hear it.

    I don’t quite remember how I came across it exactly, but I do remember that it was via Spotify somehow around the same time I entered into my first T4T relationship shortly after my 20th birthday and the total eclipse of the sun on August 21 of that year. I remember listening to it incessantly while I wrote what I later called the August Draft of the Third Prophecy along with Brazilian Girls’ cover of “Whip It” by Devo. I think I listened to both of those of those fucking songs they’re stamped into my viscera somehow. I was only with that girl briefly, but she fucking loved the Third Prophecy and was a phenomenal kisser, and she ended up inspiring a solid third of our 2017 album Mago. I hope she’s doing well.

    What a month. What a time.

    -Allēna

  • “digital immortality”

    25 people with more money than sense
    are trying to ascend to godhood again
    and we, the other 99%, dare them to do it –

    in the same week that a
    man in ontario, california sets fire
    to his workplace screaming “you could have
    paid us a living wage”

    (careful,
    he’s a hero)

    we will all have bread & roses when you
    upload yourselves to your digital heavens
    to preside over an eternity of ozymandian
    digital sand

    we will feast on the grapes of wrath you
    kept from us when you hang yourself
    by a noose of your own hubris

    may your wait-list be short
    and your eternity be long
    and ultimately fruitless

    -Allēna

    4/11/2026

    Fediverse Reactions

  • I watched a PBS documentary about the fascinating late Congresswoman from New York, Bella Abzug yesterday.

    I am Feeling Emotions about it.

    First… Why did I never hear of her before? She fought for so much shit for women and AFAB people, like for them to be able to have their own FUCKING credit, for them to be able to be legally addressed as Ms., thereby freeing them to not be addressed relative to their marital status, and introduced the VERY FIRST nondiscrimination bill for LGBTQ+ people in the workplace.

    Before that, she was a lawyer who made a name for herself attempting to appeal a conviction for a Black man accused of rape, even going so far as to write to the President at the time. It unfortunately was unsuccessful, but women at the time DIDN’T GO TO LAW SCHOOL and didn’t FUCKING DO THAT SHIT.

    She fought for EVERYONE. SHE BELIEVED THAT NOBODY IS FREE UNTIL EVERYONE WAS FREE, and I believe that, too.

    She was, unfortunately, a Zionist, but the documentary addressed that she had conflicting feelings about that, even back in the ’70s, because Israel was doing fucked shit aided and abetted by the States and toeing too close to the Holocaust for her taste, but she was Jewish and believed strongly in a homeland for her people. So I don’t know how to reconcile that part of her life, and it seems that neither did she.

    She had a husband who deeply loved and supported her. She had two kids with him and still did all this. And everything I’ve mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg.

    What a complicated, fierce, and important lady. She was also famous for her hats!

    -Allēna