There were multiple pretentious utterly stupid idea titles for this, incl
Fear and Loathing in the Sceptred Isles
Repression and Hatred at the Brass Embassy
Magic and Murder on the Streets of New Jerusalem
and none of them really fit, and nothing does, given how short this is.
To become an adult, in general, you are expected to engage in the ritual sacrifice heralded in the Bible, where God tyrannically teases a father with the murder of his child.
You must kill your poor innocent child -- the first one that you gave birth to, yourself.
You are not entitled to keep this child. You must sever the limbs, rip out it's heart, and eat it.
Perhaps it's better expressed as suicide, because of how tragic it is? I think the violence of it all can easily be designated as 'murder', though.
I don't know why this became such a thing. I think it's a thing in other countries, too, but England -- perhaps the rest of the UK too -- is an incredibly repressed place.
And sure, I'm biased... I've repressed more than most, but..
It's a hateful kind of shaming -- of anything different, of anything that changes your eyes in a moderately unpleasant way. Look at that weird thing - let's gawk at it, or laugh, or hit it till it stops moving.
The expectation is the same of your magical, younger self. The expectation is not that you grow and learn to play still as an adult -- understanding these things are not real -- but appreciating the joy all the same.
You cannot have fun. You must have fun in adult ways -- like drinking alcohol. You must not be too giddy. You cannot enjoy life too much, or else you are a distraction and a pain to the rest around you who don't.
You must never complain. You must conform. You must fit the identity of the average or you simply can not be.
Or you will be hated.
You must do what everyone tells yourself to.
Maybe it's just war-trauma that was inherited by us all.
Playing with Nerf guns and water pistols can still be super fun as an 'adult'. You don't have to cede ground. Things can still be fun :) One time I licked a girl's bleeding hand incase she was a vampire and I'd get to be immortal. I guess I'll find out eventually... But being a blood-drinker hasn't yet cured the bags under my eyes when I sleep for 5 hours, so QAnon is officially disproven.
The most important thing I have learnt is that.. you can just.. do anything. Nobody's going to stop you. They might give you the evil eyes, but realistically, who gives a fuck? Fuck them -- they're miserable souls who have long since shrinked behind their eyes and are piloted through pure animus. The phrase 'flesh-automaton' has never appealed to me more.
Living to me is a new magic all on it's own, too, and I discovered the book and the spells and the incantations. and for once, I feel alive.
And I guess people aren't as likely to kill you as I thought after all.
It is just about time for some pure unbridled fucking joy, I think.