Okay so since a lot of people are interested in witches and Niko was asking me for some help in situating his witch within the canon, and only the manga actually lays out specifics of what it's like to be a witch? Here's the rough rundown (that I'll come back and edit to make all pretty and shiz later on):
-Multiple witches can share the same animal theme.
-Witches have a strong affinity to their animal theme, and it's something they take a lot of pride in. The most traditional witch outfits as seen in the canon prominently feature their animal theme in some form, which can be actually featuring parts of the animal on their clothing, tattooing it on themselves, or having an outfit whose silhouette/style strongly recalls the animal theme. Witches who are in hiding among humans will of course need to adapt to human clothing.
-The animal theme usually also informs the magic theme their witch spells are centered on. Medusa the snake witch used vector attacks. Eruka the Frog used tadpole bombs. Angela the Chameleon Witch could turn invisible. Mizune the Mice Witches, their beam whiskers.
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WITCHES ARE NOT ALL LONE WOLVES WHO HAVE 0 QUALMS WITH KILLING ANOTHER WITCH. ARACHNE KILLING A WITCH FOR HER SCIENCE EXPERIMENT PISSED OFF THE COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE ENOUGH TO MAKE THEM WANT TO KILL HER STILL 800 YEARS LATER. WITCHES IN GENERAL CARE ABOUT THE WELL-BEING OF THEIR RACE. WITCHES WHO PURPOSELY HURT OTHER WITCHES ARE BRANDED AS TRAITORS. -Maaba has created a separate Witch Realm using her Spatial Magic
-Yes. That's right. There is an entirely separate Witch Realm with witch infrastructure where witch society resides with its own gigantic witch court to enforce laws against other witches.
-Some witches probably have never even stepped outside of the Witch Realm unless absolutely necessary.
-This does not mean that your witch has to spend most of her time in the Witch Realm. There are many examples of witches who wish to spend time hidden in the human world who are much savvier about how things work (the Gorgon sisters, and the two hostess witches), as well as witches who probably don't spend as much time outside the witch realm and thus are more prone to committing "passing" faux pas (Medusa asking Eruka and Mizuno sisters if they wanna get killed walking around Death City in their full witch outfits, even with Soul Protect on).
-Allow me to repeat this again: Some witches prefer to hide themselves and pretend to be humans and thus are familiar with how humans work. Other witches avoid interacting with humans, and that's when you get situations where they might accidentally reveal that they're not really human.
There is a lot of diversity in the extent of interactions with humans and familiarity with human cultural customs. -Some form of witch "law enforcement" is seen apprehending Death the Kid and the four witches that go with him.
-Witches have their own code of conduct and those who break it are brought before a (massive) court of their peers.
-Only a witch is able to
open up a portal into the witch realm.-It's assumed that Witch Mass occurs in the Witch Realm (need to gather every last witch in existence? why hold it in the "real world" where DWMA is trying to kill them when they have their own safe haven?)
-Every. witch. goes. to. Witch. Mass.
-No, seriously. Even Kim Diehl went to Witch Mass (and brought her weapon). Medusa gives 0 shits about any of them and went, and brought Crona. Angela the lil kid witch managed to make it to Witch Mass (even if accompanied by her bodyguard).
-We can extrapolate from this that even if we currently don't know the exact biology of witches, a witch WILL be reached by someone to be told that she's a witch and that The Sway is the way of the witches. I mean,
someone taught Angela how to open the portal even if she lived all alone except for Mifune.
-So when you're trying to write your witches history, it's a really safe bet to assume that witches will know in some way from an elder that they are witches, exactly so nothing like "oh crap, she discovered magic powers at age 15 and burned down an orphanage
on accident and DWMA sent out a team to kill her" happens, or at least with as little frequency as possible. The witch realm exists for the preservation of witch kind; individual witches might hate some or a lot of other witches, but it's not necessarily a rule that all witches are out for only their own skin.
A witch society exists in the Witch Realm, after all.
-The extent to which witches will stick their neck out for another witch just based on the fact that they are of the same race is up for debate. What can be reasonably inferred, however, is that it is in the best interest of all witches that girls who will grow up to be witches receive some kind of breakdown on their powers and the dangers of DWMA, because one witch fucking up means that much more heat on all other witches. The safest assumption to make here about how witches may regard witches they are not specifically friends with is: "Here's the tools you need to survive, good luck."
-Idk, because Angela was stated to be too young to be truly affected by The Sway and there's already a heritable bent to other aspects, we can assume that The Sway is like witch puberty?
-The Sway is an inherent tendency to be destructive and to manifest destructive magic.
-Unless your witch's magic has the exact opposite effects of chaos and damage and harm (i.e. Kim Diehl has
healing magic), she will likely naturally come under the effects of The Sway. Angela is essentially the canon guinea pig for the hypothesis that "WELL if there is a knowledgable support system that tries to curb her destructive powers as much as possible, maybe she won't turn out like most other witches," but it is not guaranteed.
-This does not mean that every witch immediately is "EVIL FOR THE EVULZ, KILL EVERYONE!1!! I BATHE IN THE BLOOD OF MY ENEMIES NIGHTLY". The two hostess witches are really ditzy, flirty, fun-loving, etc.
have not been shown committing any kind of violent acts thus far, but still declare that their nature falls under The Sway and that they are completely remorseless for being themselves.
-A contribution from Niko to further refine this point: "I'd argue that the hostesses are pretty chaotic in their own way. They certainly lead Spirit into temptation - not that he needs the help - and Maka doesn't seem to be too keen on that whole aspect of his character. That's pretty unpleasant and destructive in an emotional-spiritual-ethical sense."
-Once again, in summation: Just because your witch falls into the 99.8% that develops under The Sway does not mean it means they always act like uncontrollable serial murderers. "Destruction" does not always have to be straight out physically destructive; fucking with Shinigami's order and "the way things are" as defined by DWMA is the very distilled essence of witch deviancy and destruction.
