#dying rirhait noise

[semiotomatics]

i meant to make some big well-written post abt it but unfortunately my brain was otherwise occupied experiencing The Horrors so instead, have some wordvomit

this past monday marked twenty years since i went on a field trip to the library and ran my hand along a bookshelf in the children's fiction section and found a book called So You Want To Be A Wizard* and brought it home and read it cover to cover in like. a day. and i couldn't even begin to explain how that day has shaped my life but i do just wanna acknowledge it and say that i'm so glad my friend let me borrow her library card (cause i didn't have my own yet) so i could bring the book home and i'm so glad my mum special ordered the rest of the series from the local independent bookstore almost immediately after i finished it and i'm so glad i discovered the forums and i'm so glad i found so many cousins on tumblr—including my best friend and platonic soulmate @astraldepths—and i'm so glad i got to help plan and execute crossingscon (twice!!) and that i got to meet so many of you in person—INCLUDING DD HERSELF—and i'm just. so glad i discovered this series

i have like twelve copies of SYW but i think my favourite is the twentieth anniversary edition (which is now, itself, twenty years old—wild), because it contains both the short story Uptown Local, which i adore, and an afterword by DD, which i have read entirely too many times. anyway, i wanna share a quote from that afterword, bc it seems fitting:

Wizardry, too, changes with the times, because its practitioners do...and indeed it must change, to keep up with the Lone Power, Itself never averse to using new means to Its old end. Even the Wizard's Oath will seem to change from time to time, altering its appearance according to species, age, cast of mind, and (sometimes) simply according to where you're standing, in time and space, when you examine it. But beyond that, as the series continues, I can promise that some things will always stay the same—the knowledge of a partner's dependable friendship; a shared go-for-broke determination to get it right when the Universe is watching; and the glad adrenaline rush caused by the sudden incursion of the unexpected...as when you run your hand down a row of books on a library shelf and one of them catches your finger.

so yeah. in lieu of a more coherent post abt it, i just wanna say. thank you @dduane. for everything 💚

#this has been an original post #personal spewage #young wizards #dying rirhait noise #*technically i discovered High Wizardry first and read the first page and was like ''i feel like i'm missing something'' lol #then i noticed it was the third book in a series so i went looking for the first #but anyway #my point still stands #also if you saw the version of this post where i tagged the wrong diane duane: no you didn't

[ohthewhomanity]

Currently rereading the Young Wizards books for the first time in years and here is what I’ve read so far in a nutshell:

So You Want to Be a Wizard: New York is amazing! Cry about a white hole and a car.

Deep Wizardry: The ocean is amazing! Cry about a shark.

High Wizardry: Space is amazing! Cry about a bird. I mean, she’s okay, but still, cry about her.

A Wizard Abroad: Ireland is amazing! Cry about some side characters we never really got to know, I guess, but you might as well save your tears for the next book. You’re gonna need them.

#not looking forward to the next book but I gotta #I just gotta #young wizards #dying rirhait noise #not you dd

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: This Is Our Wizardry

Diane Duane’s Young Wizards books meant a lot to me as a kid, and they still do. I’m rereading the series again for the first time in years (specifically the New Millennial Edition ebooks, which I highly respect Duane for creating). While writing this blog post, I’m halfway through the third book, High Wizardry, and I’ve realized that while I have changed in many ways over the years, my childhood self and my current almost-thirty-year-old self have one thing in common: we both think that this is the best book in the series.

That’s not to say that I don’t like the other books. But there’s something about the third book – the one with the computers, the one about the little sister, the one where they go to space for the first time – captured me like none other.

But why? Is it because Nita puts on a WALL-E t-shirt in the first chapter? I do love that detail – if you’ve ever interacted with me at all then you’ll know I love WALL-E with all my heart – but it’s more than just that.

Is it because I, too, am a younger sister and a too-bright-too-early bookworm, and so I related well to Dairine Callahan? It’s certainly part of it. I can be just as territorial as Dairine, and god knows I’m just as nerdy (if I could tell Dairine that I was a writer for the Galactic Starcruiser…!). However, my bookishness is much more Nita’s love of words and escaping into a story than it is Dairine’s desire to know so much that the world can never hurt you.

Is it because the Doctor shows up in this book? Nah, I didn’t know what Doctor Who was yet when I read this book as a kid. But, again, I do love that detail. Diane Duane really is one of us.

What truly grabbed me about this book is the idea that is first put into words in this book – an idea that is central to the worldbuilding in this series.

When the Powers offer wizardry to you, it is because there is a problem in the world that you are the perfect person to solve. You will need help to solve the problem, and you will receive that help. But the point is that the world needs you, as you are, here and now. You don’t need to be someone else. The world needs you – your mind, your heart, the decisions that you will make. All you need to do want to help, and to say yes when the call comes.

And this is true of all wizards, all the people who serve life and slow entropy. This isn’t a “chosen one” situation. Dairine isn’t “more” important than anyone else. Nor is Nita, nor Kit. But their importance is undeniable. This resonates with me as strongly now as it did then. I never wanted to be THE chosen one as a kid. I never thought that I was more important than anyone, and to this day, I hate the idea of someone else, anyone else, thinking that I see myself as superior to them. But even when I was little, I wanted to know that I mattered. I wanted to know that I was special and important in the same way that all people who do good in the world are special and important.

As an adult, I have learned the power of being willing and able to be the right person in the right place at the right time. I know I can make the world better for the people around me with my writing, with my thoughtfulness, or even just with my smile. I believe, more strongly now than ever before, that anyone who wants to can do the same. It’s a power we are all given, if only we choose to accept it. This is our wizardry.

#thursday thoughts #young wizards #fantasy #dying rirhait noise #fiction #novels

[professorsparklepants]

Anyway while we're all dealing with the bullet Diane Duane just threatened us with I'm dusting off my "Nita is going to be planetary" theory to display on MY digital mantelpiece

#lectures #young wizards party #young wizards #dying rirhait noise #do we still use that tag? its been a while

[acelessthan3]

Not bot spam in one of the Young Wizards fandom tags!

#dying rirhait noise #young wizards #it's one thing to see it in hashtag-gaytwink or whatever #but in the DRN tag?! #how did they even FIND us?!

[lonepower]

@ young wizards fandom how are we liking the hot new meme

#somehow this appears to not have been made yet??? which baffles me #this meme was MADE for ed #this has been a post #dying rirhait noise #is the like... shitpost/miscellany tag right? god i am so not up to date on this fandom sjfjdndb #young wizards

[imaginariumgeographica]

I originally read young wizards because of you. Give us more Young Wizards thoughts.

omg really anon i love that for both of us!

I honestly feel like i have not had a new young wizards thought in ages (y'know not like, when i like, see a whale and go 'nice yw reference' or whatever) but hmm, lemme think for you.

Okay, have you seen the mars flower? Some wizard went on a date to visit curiosity and accidentally dropped a flower ;p

#mars flower is one of my favourite recent msl pics and hands down one of my favourite geo pics #like yes i have a mars cloud bias fine fine #anyway anon im sorry i couldnt have like a good cool meta thought and instead made the flower about YW #i should be honestly as a literal mars scientist be having a lot of YW thoughts tho shouldnt i #its not my fault i spend all my time at the south pole and in gale crater two places not in AWoM #or maybe they are and i've forgotten it's been a while #asks #im gonna #not you dd #to be safe #im also gonna #dying rirhait noise #cause id forgotten about that tag and it amuses me

[jedi-from-mimas]

Nita Callahan, book 2: I’m too young to die!! :(

Nita Callahan, book 8: alright time to nuke some aliens with my own life force :)

#in this house we love and respect nita callahan #young wizards #dying rirhait noise

[luxpenumbra]

#young wizards #dying rirhait noise #fuckin #heck #that part in wizards dilemma where kit shows up w ponch and just heckin #fairest and fallen #one more time #greeting and defiance

[crossingscon]

Guess what? It's @dduane's birthday! Happy birthday, DD :)

#diane duane #young wizards #young wizards fandom #dying rirhait noise #boy is that tag still active? #its been a minute

[katieannwrites]

Young Wizards fans will get this...

I’ve decided that this is Tom and Carl.

#young wizards #tom swale #carl romeo #dying rirhait noise #happier than mamvish in a tomato patch #oscar isaac #pedro pascal #tom/carl #carl/tom

[semiotomatics]

god, started going thru my #dying rirhait noise tag and looking at posts from 2013-2016 and i just. what a time to be alive, yknow? like i still cant believe we organized an entire convention, let alone 4.5 of them (cc: slipping sideways gets a half mark bc it was virtual lol). i wasnt around for all of them, but that first one was just. truly something else. im still so grateful for this series and this fandom and just. everything. yall are my people 💚

#this has been an original post #personal spewage #young wizards #dying rirhait noise #cant wait till YW11 comes out so we can all scream together again #in the meantime tho: i still love you all sosososo much #my favourite bunch of people

[autisticace]

A Young Wizards Meme:

Data: *EXISTS*

Spot wants to know your location.

#Young Wizards #Young Wizards Party #Am I doing this right? #dying rirhait noise

[goonlalagoon]

So You  Want to be a Person of Assorted Magic-Wielding Profession? || Part 1 || Young Wizards / Discworld

Ages back, someone in the YW slack group suggested the concept of a Young Wizards/Discworld crossover, predominantly so that Nita and Tiff could meet and generally kick ass.

I promptly wrote three and a bit scenes and then forgot about it until now so uh...have the start of a fic that will definitely have two more installments and probably more at some point?

(Read on Ao3)

(part two)

------

Words have power. This is a well known fact across the universe, and those of a Wizardly persuasion know it rather more literally than most (1). Regrettably, despite first hand knowledge of the power of the written word and a tendency to love books or other collections of words, few have given much thought to the effects of jamming hundreds of pages full of writing in to a confined space.

Words have power…

Nita Callahan wasn’t paying much attention to where she was going, because she had her chin propped on top of a pile of books for re-shelving and couldn’t see her feet. Her attention was fixed on the shelves and neat rows of colourful book spines either side of her, looking for the right place for the book on top of her pile. Well, mostly fixed.

The rest of her attention was on the conversation she was having with Kit, her Wizardly partner, closest friend and boyfriend, who was bored to death in the office he’d been stuck in for his work experience.

Ugh, why are we doing this again…?

School policy. Aren’t you supposed to be working?

On what? My pinball score? How very productive. I could be doing something useful right now, Neets! Nita rolled her eyes to herself, amused. She had to admit that she shared some of his frustration. When you spent most of your spare time, and some of the time you were supposed to be doing other things with like school and homework, on the full-time job of slowing the heat death of the universe, a week of mandatory work experience felt just a little pointless.

Not least because you knew you could actually be working on, say, developing a spell matrix to filter air pollution out of the New York Metropolitan area.

It hadn’t helped that both of them had forgotten about the forms until the morning they were due thanks to an emergency Errantry (2). Nita had gotten lucky. The old library near her house was an old haunt, and the librarian had been both amused and pleased to offer her a week’s placement for the start of the summer at very short notice. Kit had overslept and hadn’t managed to get anything arranged, so had been assigned somewhere thanks to a volunteer parent.

Hey, I did say I could ask my dad for you.

I know…but I figured it’d be too close to asking your family, and then I’d just’ve been in trouble for taking the cop out option…

It would have been the cop-out option.

He snickered, and Nita tripped, books scattering over the floor.

“Ow. Well, that was totally my fault.”

Neets? Nita! You okay?

Yeah, yeah…just fell. Wasn’t looking where I was going. She rubbed her knee ruefully. That was going to bruise, she could tell. Look, I actually do need to work. See you later?

Dinner at mine? Mom’s doing the chicken thing.

This day is looking up! Enjoy pinball.

She scrabbled for the dropped books, putting them back into their alphabetised pile and scowling when she realised she must’ve gotten one out of order - she’d already shelved what she thought were the only two ‘Bs’ for the afternoon.

Oh well…I’ll stick it at the bottom and just shelve it on my way back to the front desk.

She continued on her way, trying to pay more attention to where she was putting her feet while also scanning her pile of books for any other missed letters. It was therefore a while before Nita realised she was no longer in the library - at least, not the library she should be in.

Later, when she explained this moment of realisation to anyone, she would always feel faintly foolish when she explained that she actually only noticed because an orangutan knuckled past at high speed.

*****

(1) ’Words’ being the local closest analogue for ‘modules of expression formulated such that, when applied enactively, can alter the universe - or at least small, localised and amenable parties thereof’

(2) All errantries are emergencies, some are just more of an emergency than others. Nita had over the years developed an internal meter that rescaled this from ‘minor problem’ to ‘literal end of the world’ (3)

(3) In practical terms, this coding actually ran from ‘ugh I still have to study for that math test’ to ‘even dad says I don’t have to do my homework after this’

#Young Wizards #Discworld #not you DD #my writing #young wizards party #dying rirhait noise #This was really fun and I have half a page of very excited notes #but I don't think there's much...plot or coherency? #so rather than writing everything and then posting I'm just gonna...throw stuff up as and when #sywtbapoamwp

[lizzieraindrops]

CrossingsJam returns!

Dai, cousins!

For those of you who will be at @crossingscon 2019 in Montreal and are interested in hearing or making some music while you’re there, we’re having another concert/open mic! 

Anyone interested in the scheduled concert part is welcome to join! We can always use more voices and instruments. We’ll be doing some old classics and a few new things. You can find us in the #yw-songsmiths channel if you’re on the Young Wizards slack, or message me or @imaginariumgeographica here. Please contact us ASAP if you want to be part of the concert!

You can sign up for the open mic at the event itself, so prepare your songs, your personal Oath recensions, and spur-of-the-moment slam poems. We’ll hear you there!

#young wizards #crossingscon #dying rirhait noise #crossingsjam #crossingsconcert #operation grenfelz back to canada again #young wizards party

[acelessthan3]

Okay maybe I've just never looked for it, but Green Lantern/Young Wizards crossover/AU just because all the fun that can be had with just the wizard's/lantern's oath

#not you dd #dying rirhait noise #i think those were the two main tags... #like if the Doctor can show up at the crossings #and there is proof in the reblogs on this website that The Author Herself is at least somewhat fond of GL