#a wizard did it. whatever. its a fantasy world. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

waterloggedsoliloquy · 6 months

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mutual 1: sorry the update for my webcomic this week is a bit late! i really had to rush it so it prolly looks really sloppy lol [some of the most sophisticated comic art ive ever seen]

mutual 2: call me uterine lining the way astarions cervix got me bleeding profusely

mutual 3: do you think nanowrimo will give me a posthumous pity publishing deal if i mention it in my suicide note

mutual 4: okay fine i finally started revolutionary girl utena

mutual 5: does columbo know the service he did for butch lesbians. for all of us

mutual 6: wish you were here [blurry picture set of conifer woods in early autumn evening, taken as if frantically running down a winding trail]

mutual 4: im pretty hardy i dont need the trigger list but thanks for looking out for me guys

mutual 7: good morning lovelies another day the wizard tried to best me and another day i successfully locked him in the spare bathroom lol hope u like drinking shampoo fucker

mutual 8: here is a zip of every yuri manga scan i have and here is a backup in case i get dcma'd. the himejoshi lifestyle will never die

mutual 9: i wish i could go back in time to the shinzo abe assassination and ask to hold the doohickey

mutual 10: here's my essay on how wanting to be loved is the same as wanting to be eaten. three paragraphs in you'll find out that this is 100% tied to an obscure beauty and the beast manga i've been reading lately and how much i want to fuck the beast

mutual 4: oh thats why there was the trigger list.

mutual 11: YOU CAN'T LOCK ME IN THIS BATHROOM FOREVER

mutual 12: why do i have to defend my thesis to people i dont even respect. im not dickriding you just give me the degree

mutual 13: its just me and this scab ive picked into my scalp against the world

mutual 14: my little dragon got glazed and is ready to go into the kiln! everyone wish him good luck!

mutual 3: nvm i am a beautiful genius. perhaps the most beautiful genius of all

mutual 15: i think we should give david lynch rpgmaker and whatever happens happens

mutual 16: kpeyboaatrds brpokem gpuys

mutual 17: also heres my work in progress glossary of mixtec words! i still have a long way to go but i love being able to preserve my roots even in this small way

mutual 4: i just finished the black rose arc. question: what

mutual 18: i need emet-selch to be my wife

mutual 19: i need glados to be my husband

mutual 20: visited the ocean today!!! <3 beach pics!!! there is a darkness growing within me

mutual 21: the forms for my legal name change came in. pls vote in this poll of what my middle name should be: Dill Pickle (Dickle for short), Optimus Prime, Tumblr User Gorgonicteratologist, Smeve

mutual 22: just finished my 100th book of the year! this weeks read was the uses of enchantment by the psychologist bruno bettelheim,

mutual 23: reeses penis butter cups lol

mutual 4: i need to hunt akio for sport

mutual 24: oouugghhrgh. hot. dog.

mutual 25: your favorite character or fictional other would want you to brush your teeth and wash your face so you're well rested and wake up feeling refreshed! make them proud!

mutual 26: being a delivery driver isnt the worst job ive ever had but i do keep wondering what itd be like to drive off into the wild blue yonder one day and not come back

mutual 27: weird dog? [phone picture of critically endangered stork]

mutual 28: i think the two phone line polls in front of my house are having a lovers tryst. no way to prove it tho

mutual 4: WHAT

mutual 29: while you bitches are balduring your gates or finalling those fantasies im doing what a REAL gamer does. playing a b tier rpg that came out in 2004 for the 18th time

mutual 30: ^ real. hamtaro ham ham heartbreak is a masterpiece of interactive art. im not even going to call it a video game at this point

mutual 4: THAT'S HOW IT ENDS?! ANTHY?

mutual 31: can you help me pick which drawing looks better: 34% overlay or 36% soft light?

mutual 32: new video essay out. its called disability in video game narratives: final fantasy 14's most reliable fault. i churned the script out over an all-nighter and my mic crapped out halfway through but by god i did it

mutual 33: my new zine bundle is out! if you buy it you also get a discount on all my game jam games! i really cant wait for you to play them!

mutual 4: yall should watch revolutionary girl utena

#cecil drawls #long post #i love you guys

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dduane · 7 months

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Re: Magic systems

kosmonaunt asked:

I have the weird hyper-fixation of wanting to know all their is about The Speech and just how everything works!! I love learning about how power systems work, and it helps since I’m trying to develop my own. I’m always stuck on soft or hard magic systems. Since I don’t know all there is to really know about my system. Do you have tips on crafting magic systems? How do you feel about someone being inspired by pieces of your system?

Inspiration is fine! What you want to make sure you do with whatever inspires you, though, is to work hard to make your own take on it different from or better than what you borrowed. Around here we refer to this as "the magpie principle:" if you're going to pick up and play with/make off with a bright and shiny idea, you need to be working to produce something even brighter and shinier as your part of the "exchange". Whether or not you succeed at this (or can succeed), either sometimes or never at all, isn't the point. The point is to always be trying.

As regards building magic systems: there were three different ones in the foreground or background of my first novel alone—all of them with features that at this end of time I can recognize as being inspired by elements of magic systems in other writers' work. But by the time I'd more fully developed them, each had become something unique. The system I'm probably better known for—the system based on the wizardly Speech and its use—sprang more or less automatically from the increasingly complex answers to the question, "What if there was a manual that could tell you the truth about/the secrets of what makes the world go?". (Because once you answer one question, another pops up. "Where did that manual come from? What're you supposed to do with it? What's wizardry for?" Etc., etc.) I've spent the last few decades, on and off, answering that question in ways that (intentionally) mirror the main characters' exploration of the art of wizardry, and what it means to engage in the business of errantry in a world that mostly thinks wizards are a fairy tale.

Before getting into describing my own approach to building a system, I needed to take a little time to look around and make sure I knew what you meant when you mentioned hard and soft magic. My best guess is that you're referring to what a lot of people are calling "Sanderson's Three Laws of Magic" (fairly enough, as Brandon calls them that himself). I had a look, and have come to the conclusion that they're more general guidelines than laws... as in each of his three essays on the subject, Brandon no sooner names his basic laws/principles than he starts punching holes through them to make room for systems that don't follow them rigidly. (And frankly I find this kind of endearing.)

With his first one, in particular, I have no quarrel at all: the concept that in one kind of magic, which for his purposes he defines as the "hard" kind, rules are extremely important. (Which is why I'm kind of horrified that he apparently got dogpiled about this take on a Worldcon panel, because to me it seems so intuitive. Some of the best fantasy storytellers I know, like this one, would agree with him.) Then later he gets on to the equally valid ideas that limitations on magic are really important, and that culturally interconnecting multiple systems is useful; and here too we're in agreement. This is reassuring to me, considering that I built my first four systems—all of which feature approaches resting on similar concepts—while Sanderson was between four and six years old. :)

People using Sanderson's Laws will look at the three systems in the Middle Kingdoms books and classify them as varying sorts of relatively hard magic, with their power rooted in two or maybe three different sources. (The blue Fire is a gift of the Divine, nearly lost since ancient times and much damaged, but now slowly being recovered: sorcery is a language-based art in which no one's terribly sure where its power comes from: and the so-called "royal magics" probably started out as a blood sorcery that over centuries was shifted toward very specific uses by the power of the demigod-descendants who employed it.)

The Young Wizards novels, though, feature an extremely hard magic deeply rooted in science and (more or less under the hood) very, very rules-intensive... while its power relies on correct use of the language used to create the Universe, and the active cooperation of the Powers still busy about that work. And this is the reason why, though people are going to naturally be curious about the Speech itself, no one's going to hear very much from me about its actual words.

This is because the Speech is canonically described as so powerful that its use is something you can feel in your body and mind (and theoretically your spirit): bone-shaking, life-changing, unmistakable. And there's no way that made-up words on the page can realistically be expected to evoke physical sensations like that in the reader... or like the sense of the universe going silent around you, leaning in to listen, as you speak your spell. The careful writer knows that it's unwise to attempt to produce responses in the reader that, when they fail, will only emphasize how that thing is not happening, and stands a good chance of shattering the illusion one’s trying to weave.

So a Speech-word gets dropped here and a phrase there, but no one's ever going to get enough of it out of me to try to build a spell. Readers are better at doing that work for themselves in their own heads, out of hints and whispers. Over ten books and their interstitial material, there are plenty of those scattered through the text: not to mention the most basic principles of wizardry, which are laid out before the end of the first chapter of the first book in the series. So I'll leave you to get on with deducing what you can from canon.

Meanwhile, if I was about to build a new system, I'd look at my main characters—in the setting of their home cultures—and ask myself for answers to these questions:

What do they want more than anything?

Why can't they have it?

What kind of power will help them get it?

When they do eventually get within reach of the power / the desired thing... what will its achievement cost them?

And will they pay the price?

...Because the payment of such prices is where you find out what your heroes are worth. (Or aren't.) The above arc succinctly describes, in broad strokes, both The Door into Fire and So You Want To Be A Wizard, and a good number of the books that follow them. (Because why abandon what works, or try to fix what's not broken?) :)

With answers to the questions above you can start feeling your way toward what you need—always looking closely at the cultures your characters spring from, and how those cultures will shape their response to the magic they seek. (Or that finds them.) Maybe it's no surprise that the preferred arc structure of a writer who was a psychiatric nurse will be deeply involved with questions of motivation: because motivation is at the heart of almost all human behavior. Find the motivation and you find the character's heart—and, often enough, what kind of magic they need to make their desire and intention overflow into triumph.

...There are quite a few "How to design your magic system" pages out there. You might glance at these to see if there's anything useful in them for you:

How To Build An Amazing Magic System For Your Fantasy Novel

How To Create A Magic System In Six Simple Steps

Building Your Magic System: A Full Recipe

How To Create A Rational Magic System

However, my favorite is the "So You Want To Write A Functional Magic System" page at TV Tropes, which is nicely arranged yet also completely nonprescriptive—a pick-'n'-mix jar of prompts, things other writers have done that've worked, and generally useful ideas. (And try not to vanish too far down the many interconnected rabbitholes...) :)

Now get out there, build the world, and make the magic(s).

#magic systems #building magic #magic #writing advice #fantasy

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jerreeeeeee · 9 days

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i feel like we don't talk about twosun enough. its inherently very interesting. this is the world that shaped our heroes. but the minutiae is easy to make up to suit your purposes and none of it ultimately matters to the narrative. trying to think of what we know about this world. there are 2 suns. a purple sky. it was a hard world (aren't all worlds?). there was a spaceship.

so what's the technological state of this world? hard to say. there's a spaceship, first of its kind, but how specific is that? is it the first flying ship at all, or only the first to leave the planar system? the light fell down a year before the starblaster took off, since the hunger came down right on that day. the ipre had the light for one year. how much did that contribute to their technological advancement? (i hate the idea of 'advancement' as if it's some inevitable linear progress but bear with me here, that's the easiest language to use). were they building ships beforehand? what else did they have?

here's how i tend to think of it: the ipre has the light. the ipre is already quite "advanced" for this world. here are things the ipre has, so by extension twosun has: bond engines, indoor plumbing, industrialized steel production. however i don't tend to think of twosun as a globalized world. so there are many places that do not have these things. and of course these are all things we think of as "advanced" but they also lack many things we think of as technological "advancement," like steam engines, or concrete. anyway.

i don't think its possible for the light of creation to have inspired all of this in only one year. this world was already well on its way. the ipre already existed, it already built spaceships. just not as ambitiously, and more rooted in magic than technology (the idea that magic is just science/technology you don't understand yet is very fun, but in this case i think magic is very much different, and has a longer history. although it can be used in tandem with tech, like in the bond engine).

and aside from technologically i tend to think of it as very politically fractured and chaotic. small regional governments with little reach, fraught and difficult trade, certainly no formal schooling systems (there are, like, wizard universities, all with different inscrutable systems, and then the ipre, and that's your choices for "education"). which is why there's more tech in some places than others.

the most interesting thing is, i think, the difference in lifespans among our crew. magnus, lucretia, and barry know only a more or less industrialized world (although i do tend to have barry grown up rural, that'd be one of those places all this tech hasn't quite reached yet), where there's an organization that sends spaceships with engines to different planes of this reality, and now with a little extra kick from the light, to different realities entirely. magnus has only ever showered with water from pipes indoors. he doesn't bat an eye at buildings made of all metal and glass. but lup and taako grew up in a medieval fantasy world. this shit's all, like, seventy years old max, and they've been around for nearly two centuries. they were bathing in big medieval washtubs as kids. their clothes were all handmade. merle too, although he grew up off the grid anyway. and probably davenport as well, but he would've been more immersed in tech, growing up in a gnomish warren. which is maybe why he was such a good pick for pilot of the starblaster.

but also: we see some of the same happen in faerun. even there it's not clear what the time period is. it's fantasy, all swords and sorcery. but there's trains and arcane engines and skyscrapers. again, not globalized, these things exist in isolated pockets. is it the light? did it still manage to have subtle influence all those years? is it just the luck of the millers finding a window into the plane of thought? is the real answer just that it's inconsistent in whatever way makes the most fun story? is it fun to play in the space of trying to make sense of it anyway?

#balance #mine #idk mostly i'm just tickled by the idea that the twins look like 27yos yet are constantly 'back in my day'ing the humans #except they legit grew up in the middle ages. lol #taz #the adventure zone #taz balance #its also kind of nice bc i dont have to commit to any one thing for twosun #like i can be like 'yeah indoor plumbing exists. but also the twins' childhood was a classic fantasy world'#and i find a less globalized world more interesting also bc of the twins' backstory #they traveled a lot canonically so there are probably lots of things/foods/goods in general they've encountered that no one else has #taako: yeah this is a mango. they grew in the tropics back home #magnus who grew up in one northern city and never left until the mission: a fucking what #this is. a stupid post

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resident-gay-bitch · 1 year

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My Handsome Boy

ASK: "hi… it’s me again, sorry :) i was wondering if you could do eddie x ftm reader where the reader gets bullied by jason and jason says stuff like “she’s not even a real boy” or idk and it’s just eddie comforting the reader, thank you sm i love ur writing <;3" - @ilovejquinn

pairing: eddie munson x ftm!reader

summary: Jason Carver is a transphobic asshole who decides to openly attempt to humiliate you in the middle of school. no matter how low the jock makes you feel, Eddie’s always there to pick up the pieces. your number one supporter, right from the get go.

warnings: Transphobia, use of transphobic slurs (‘tranny’ & 'hermaphrodite’)

Reader Description: trans f to m, Y/N = your name, L/N = last name, D/N = dead name.

The thing about Eddie is that he didn’t care about people’s differences. He was different himself. It’s why you initially took such a liking to him. It was way back in middle school, before you had even realised who you really were, when your hair still hung long, when you’d still put on pink shiny lip gloss in an attempt to fit in, when you still wore dresses and skirts everywhere you went. You remembered, it was right after the talent show, another student had just been booed off the stage for their ventriloquy act. You found it rather amusing, actually, but this kid had thick framed glasses, he was book smart, he always wore superhero shirts to school, and during his act he matched his outfit to his puppet and made jokes about sci-fi and fantasy books. The jocks didn’t like that. So they booed him off, none of them suffered any consequences of course. But you remembered, you were walking around the back of the school to your mum’s car, and you saw Eddie and his old buzz cut with a soft hand on the crying boy’s shoulder, his other hand cradling the puppet. You remembered over hearing what he had said when you walked past,

“I loved the joke you made about The Hobbit man, I love those books so much. My uncle got me the hard backs for my birthday. Maybe you’d like to borrow them some time, if you don’t mind my drawings and little writings in the margins.”

“You mean it?” The boy perked up.

“Hell yeah.” Eddie smiled.

“You can borrow my director’s edition of the Starwars films sometime, if you like that stuff too.”

“No way man! You have those?” Eddie grinned, “I’m jealous. How do you get this puppet to speak like you do? I think it’s really cool.” He tried to move its mouth with his hand.

“It’s– it’s pretty stupid.”

“No it’s not.” Eddie spoke with full sincerity, a wide smile spread across his face, “It looks really hard to do. You must have, like… magic or something to make it work. Are you a wizard or something?”

You thought he must have been the sweetest boy alive, because you knew damn well that he didn’t even see that boys whole act. He was backstage himself, practising for his own set. His band got booed off stage that day too. Yet, no one comforted him. So the next day back at school, you fought down all your nerves and walked right up to him at lunch. His table went quiet, eyes all dead set on you. No one dared ever talk to them, they were the freaks… the outcasts. But deep down, you knew you were one too, and you didn’t want anyone to feel as alone as you did.

“Uhm…” you started, and neither of them blinked, “I just wanted to say that… I– I thought your song was really cool yesterday. Did you write it?”

Eddie laughed, he full on laughed, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, “Why don’t you just fuck off instead of making more fun of us?”

“What?” your words caught in your throat, you didn’t understand why he was being so mean.

“Your song was so cool.” he mimicked in a high pitched preppy voice, “We get it. Satan’s music. Whatever.”

“No, I-” you swallowed the lump in your throat down, “I mean it… it’s not exactly my taste, but I still thought it was cool. Did you write it, or was it a cover? You said it was called Wicked World or something.”

Eddie’s face turned red, “You– you mean it?”

You just nodded.

“Ye-” He cleared his throat, “We– It’s a cover. From Black– Black Sabbath.”

You nodded, “I just wanted to tell you that someone thought it was cool.”

“Thanks.” He smiled sheepishly.

“I like your guitar too… It looks so cool.”

He beamed up at you, those big brown eyes looking deep into your soul, the slight pink in his cheeks. That’s when you knew you had a crush on him.

You were invited into his friend group after that, and after a couple months, you finally felt like you belonged somewhere… like you fit in. It took you a few more years to figure out that you weren’t actually a girl. And the first person you told was Eddie. You were terrified. Absolutely the most scared you had ever felt in your entire life. The first thing he said to you, after you explained your situation to him, was something you never expected,

“Do you want me to cut your hair? Or do you like it long, like mine?”

You looked at him, awestruck. Not a single response comes to mind.

“You want to look more like a boy, right? Or am I getting confused?”

“No, I-” You shook your head in disbelief, “I do want to look like a boy- I am… I am a boy.”

“Yeah.” He smiled, jumping to his feet, “If you want some boy clothes, you can have some of mine. Come on, let’s pick some out for you.”

Once Eddie helped turn you into you, you decided to face your parents. Eddie right beside you as you did. Your father didn’t really understand, but he tried his best and respected your choices. He slipped up a lot, but you knew he was trying, and that was all that mattered. You mum however, needed a little more time to come around to the idea. She left to live with her friend for a while, but when she was ready to return, she handed you your first binder. Goodbye bandages! Thank You mum!

You had your first kiss at seventeen. It was during a game of spin the bottle with Hellfire, plus a few stray outcasts from around the school that Jeff had invited along to his birthday party. The rules were simple, if it landed on the opposite gender, you had to kiss right there, if it landed on the same gender, you had to tell them a deep dark secret. When it was Eddie’s turn to spin, it landed on you. That struck a problem, no one really knew what to categorise you as. It hurt.

“He’s a boy.” Eddie said in full confidence.

“Yeah, but-”

“He’s a boy.” He smiled at you, standing on his feet and reaching his hand out to you, “Come on Y/N, I got the perfect secret to tell you.”

It was really the bare minimum, but since Eddie was the only one to give you that, it made your heart soar. He took you around the corner, the designated secret sharing spot, and smiled at you softly.

“You okay?”

“I am now.” you smiled.

“Good.”

“So, what’s your secret, Edward Munson? What have you been hiding from me?”

“Well… I never thought I would tell anyone this… ever. But, since you told me the scariest thing about yourself, it’s only fair.”

You nodded your head, smiling at him for assurance.

“I’m–” He cleared his throat, “I’m gay.”

Your eyes widened, your mouth hung slack for a moment. Your heart fucking skipped a beat.

“Is that okay?” He looked at the ground instead of you.

Obviously Eddie, you thought, “Why wouldn’t you be? Have you seen Robert Plant?”

Eddie looked up at you, his head tipped slightly and he raised his eyebrows, “Yeah… yeah I’ve seen him. Are- do you see Robert Plant like that?”

You nodded your head with a soft smile, “So… you into anyone?”

He swallowed thickly, “Maybe.”

You held your breath, “Who?”

Eddie looked back to the ground, his cheeks bright red, “Well… he’s really cool, he makes me smile a lot… he– he is super handsome, and probably likes my guitar more than me.”

You couldn’t help the small smile that creeped onto your face, you bit your lip to hide it and shuffled in your spot a little.

“Is that… okay?” He looked up at you slowly, “Do you mind?”

“Eddie,” you smiled softly, “are you that oblivious to the fact that I’ve had a crush on you since middle school?”

Those perfect eyes stared right into yours, slightly alarmed, a little taken aback, but mostly burning with desire, “Apparently I am.”

You laughed.

“Can we totally fuck the rules of spin the bottle so I can kiss you anyway?”

“When have the rules ever applied to us, Ed’s?” you smiled and pulled yourself a little closer.

Since that night, Eddie would never leave your side. To everyone else in the world you were just a couple of inseparable best friends, and a couple of freaks. But to each other, you were everything. Behind closed doors you would hold each other close, and you’d kiss, and you let yourself fall in love. The only other person to know about the two of you was Wayne, because he picked up on everything.

——————————————————————————

“Dude, no way.” you laughed, your voice deeper than usual, you had finally started on T a few weeks ago.

“Yes way.” Gareth smiled as you walked between classes, “I still can’t get over your voice man, it’s so weird.”

Your heart sank.

“Not like that!” He was quick to say, “it’s just different. I’m used to your voice being higher, you know. It just catches me off guard.”

A smile surfaced back to your face, “Yeah, I guess it surprises me sometimes too.”

It was the first day back at school after spring break, no one but Eddie and his band members had been around you since your voice dropped. So it was safe to say you got a few weird looks here and there, a few odd questions about it Eddie was quick to answer for you whenever he was around. It felt good, to finally grow into yourself a little more, but the amount of attention it got you felt horrible. You felt like a walking target, bright blinking arrows pointed right at your head from every direction and honking noises came out of the ground with every step you took. You were just relieved no one had picked a fight with you yet.

“L/N!”

Yeah, I spoke too soon.

“D/N L/N!” Jason Carver called out from across the hall.

Only a small number of people called you by your real name. You were used to it, but it still cut like a knife, every goddamn time.

“What?” you turned to him slowly.

He laughed, “So it’s true. Your nonexistent balls finally dropped.”

You rolled your eyes, “What’s it to you, Carver?”

“Ohhh, someones feeling sassy today, isn’t she?” that wicked smirk on the corner of his lips dug deep into your soul.

“He.” Gareth spoke up, correcting the jock.

“I hardly think so. She’s a fake. Not an ounce of man in her body.”

“And you think there’s an ounce in yours?” you hummed.

He glared at you, “Thats bold, coming from someone in your position, D/N.”

“Thats not my name.”

“I. Don’t. Care.” he shook his head, a small chuckle erupting from his lungs, “Your still a freak. Who cares what the freak wants?”

Your face started to heat.

“Awh, look at that, the Tranny’s gonna cry.”

You looked away, tears threatening to spill, “Fuck off, Jason. Don’t you have some balls to play with or something?”

“Hey!” He snapped, learching closer till he was right in front of your face, “Don’t you dare speak to me with such disrespect, you piece of shit.”

“Go away.” you whispered, eyes clamping shut as you tried to take a step back.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “don’t want to risk catching the hermaphrodite disease.”

He half laughed, half scoffed before walking back to his little parade of friends. Eddie came racing around the corner having heard about the previous interaction. He came to a screeching halt right in front of you, his hands landing on your biceps, his eyes scanning your red face, a certain tenderness in his expression that made your heart sink a little.

“What did he say?”

You couldn’t speak, you knew if you did you would only cry. He looked at Gareth who just slowly shook his head, sadness in his eyes.

“Come on, we’re skipping.” He grabbed your hand, and took your books from you, leading you through the halls and out to his spot in the forest behind the school, “I got you, sweetheart. You’re safe with me.”

You hurried along beside him, clutching onto his hand for dear life as you crossed the empty football field. When you arrived, he carefully sat you down on the picnic bench, pulling his jacket off and placing it down on the table before squatting down in front of you.

“You wanna tell me what happened? Or not yet?” his tone was soft, the gentle hum of his voice was the cushioning your heart so desperately needed.

You looked at him, eyes glassy, your vision blurring as tears spilled out, “Am I a disease, Eddie?”

“What the fuck?” a lump formed in his throat, “Did he say that to you?”

You nodded.

“No. no your not.” He grabbed your hands, “If you were, wouldn’t you think I would have caught it by now? You know… considering I’ve had my tongue down your throat and everything?”

“Eddie!” You swatted his chest, a small laugh was shared between the two of you.

“He kept calling me a girl.” you sighed, “Telling me I was fake and stuff. He made fun of my voice.”

“Are you kidding me? How could he make fun of that?” He smiled, “It sounds so good already. Maybe he’s just jealous you sound more manly than him.”

You half heartedly smiled, your hands still in his, tears still creeping their way down your cheeks.

“You remember I only like dudes right? So if you were a girl, or a fake guy, there would be no way for me to love you, sweetheart.”

“But I don’t look like a boy.”

“You do to me.” He smiled, “I think you are the most handsome boy I have ever seen… apart from maybe Robert Plant.”

You bit your lip, how did he always make you laugh when you felt so glum like this?

“It doesn’t matter what that fuckwad thinks. It doesn’t matter what any of them think, they’re all fucking losers. You, Y/N L/N are a boy, through and through, and I love you everyday because of it. Anyone who wants to disagree, doesn’t deserve to have you in their life. They don’t deserve to know such a beautiful person.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re my boyfriend.” You sighed.

“So fucking what?” He scoffed, shuffling a little closer, “Shouldn’t that make it more meaningful? The people that love you, and accept you… those people mean the most, right?”

You looked at your hands as you played with one of his rings, “I suppose.”

“I promise you, Y/N, you’re not fake. You’re just as real as I am.” He smiled up at you softly, “Yeah, you might have had to take a few more steps to get there, yeah… the postage company sent a few wrong parts-”

You laughed, your eyes fluttering shut for a moment and you took a breath.

“But that’s okay. Because deep down inside, you are a boy. You always have been, and you always will be.” He pulled one of your hands tight to his chest, leaning down to press a soft kiss on your knuckles, “I hate that there will be some people- a lot of people, that arent gonna like it… but none of those people really matter. None of those people mean anything. Me, your parents, the guys… we will always love you, and accept you, and let you be who you really are because you matter, and you are valid, and you are real.”

You took a shaky breath, more tears threatened to spill, but this time they weren’t tears of hurt, “You really think that?”

“Sweetheart, I know that.”

You shut your eyes softly, a small tear slipped from the corner, and then another, and then another. Eddie kissed your knuckles again, a swift hand came up to wipe at your tears. His hands cupped your face gently, the calloused pads of his thumbs brushed over the undersides of your eyes and the high of your cheeks, now wet with your tears. He whispered sweet hums of reassurance and shushs as he let you catch up to your emotions.

“I really love you, Eddie.” you whispered.

“I really love you too, my handsome boy.” He smiled so softly, you thought if you started at it too long you would break.

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dragon-swords-prophecies · 5 months

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Writeblr Re-Intro, 4th Edition

Hi! I'm copper or dragon or whatever else you wanna call me. Minor, he/him preferred but they/them also works. My main is @copper-dragon-in-disguise. I'm queer & neurodivergent.

Asks and messages welcome! I might take a while to respond to them but I like them. I mostly write fantasy, and my current main WIP is a steampunk fantasy murder mystery called Herald At Dawn. I also have a few back burner WIPs, which are all below the cut. (also, these all have taglists, if you're interested i can add you to them!)

Post subject to updates at any time.

My WIPs:

Herald At Dawn (#wip: herald at dawn)

Synopsis: 11 years ago a woman named Marisol Ekker was murdered by the wife of her son's father, Evelyn Belmont. Despite evidence to the contrary, Evelyn Belmont was acquitted, and faced no punishment. Nearly a decade later, investigative reporter Alexandrina McLelland approached Marisol Ekker's son, Nathaniel--who was 12 at the time of her death--, to write an article about the corruption present in the case. Shortly after the article is published a string of murders begins, with no seeming rhyme or reason to connect the victims. But the timing seem suspect, and as the fallout of the articles publishing hits Nathaniel, more and more people keep dying, until the killer targets somebody much closer to home than Alex would've ever guessed.

Herald At Dawn was originally done for NaNo 2023 (I did a half nano, 25k not 50k), and its a steampunk murder mystery with a dash of fantasy. Set in a city called Volimere, it tells the story of the staff of a newspaper called The Clockwork Herald, and their adventures with a murder. The main POV character is Alexandrina McLelland (she/her), an investigative reporter. It's gay as fuck and also the first in what I intend to be a series!

Backburner WIPs:

Some context: The first three are all inspired by dnd characters/campaigns, and are in the same world/universe. The fourth is also in the same universe & dnd inspired, but it doesn't have a specific character attached to it.

Frost & Fire (#wip: frost & fire)

Synoposis: The death of an ancient primordial dragon brings the greatest (if not that well known) adventurers of the last centuries together. Enna Helder-Kromlin, half-Elf thief and contractor for the crown of Halmond, along with her sister, Anne, leader of the thieves guild Oleski. Anastrannia & Redari Galendel, twin half-Frost Dragon, half-Elves, one a shadow ranger and one a shadow sorcerer. They must work together, if not get along, to stop a evil dragon named Dizerdrat from trying to claim the power released by the death for himself, because if he does his could conquer the world—and would.

Frost & Fire is my original WIP, and I need to rework the plot a lot, but I still quite like it. Its about two twin half-elves named Anne (she/they) and Enna (any pronouns) Helder-Kromlin , and their efforts to stop a dragon from using magic (that he got from killing another, different dragon who was as old as time, pretty much) to conquer the world (this one particular continent, but despite the fact that they're spectacularly well traveled for half-elf orphans neither of them have ever actually left the continent, so its the world to them). Along the way they meet Anastrannia (she/they/ze) and Redari (they/he) Galendel, two siblings who have a lot of secrets and know a suspicious amount about dragons. This has a wip intro, though it isn't super current, but I'm linking it anyway.

One of Copper (#wip: one of copper)

Synopsis: The current god of death, Illa, came to power during a war between the gods a thousand years ago. A wizard is now trying to start another one, aiming to kill a god and take their place. Illa does not want to see another celestial war. She has no direct influence on the mortal plane, however, and so she outsources the quest to a ragtag group of heroes, when the original group of heroes sends back a memo saying that they're retired, and she can come down herself and make them go herself if she's so insistent.

One of Copper is about a bard named Kairon (he/they) and his friends, Ash (she/her, 60-something blacksmith), Joshua (he/him, quarter-elf fighter with minor nature magic and a massive crush), and Elas (they/them, elf sorcerer who is mildly (read: Very) cursed) & their adventures. Originally this was gonna be high fantasy, then it was gonna be lighthearted high fantasy, and now its gone in the exact opposite direction into high fantasy except much sadder than the original. Its about Death trying to stop a war between the gods that a wizard is trying to start, because the wizard wants to become one. (the goddess of death is called Illa. she's inspired by the Raven Queen in d&d).

UNNAMED, aka Enna's Prequel (PREV: Angel's Daughters) (#wip: ennas prequel)

By the time they were 19 years old, Enna and Anne Helder-Kromlin had been accused of murder once, imprisoned at least three times, and orphaned twice. By the time they were forty, those numbers would be changed to six, fourteen, and one, respectively. They had only ever actually committed four of the murders they were accused of, as Enna liked to remind people. Unfortunately, they had also been the targets of a blood feud, gotten kidnapped then almost killed by a necromancer, and twice had to go into hiding.

This is the backstory of Anne and Enna. Its set approx. 10-20 years before Frost & Fire, and it shows how they ended up where they are now, and their adventures. This is directly based off the original d&d campaign I played with Enna as my PC, and the main plot elements are a necromancer named Eleanor, a murdered brother, blood feuds (of a sort), and various other things. This is unnamed. It was previously called Angel's Daughters, but that rather spoiled the ending.

Silence and Secondhand Souls (#wip: silence and secondhand souls)

Fate is an interesting thing. Some doubt it even exists. Not me. Not anymore. Souls don’t rest until they’ve told their story, and I’ve got a long way to go yet. My friends are dead and so am I, haunting a narrative I never got a choice in. How exactly did that happen, you ask? Let me start at the beginning. Or the end, rather. I died when I was 21 years old.

Silence and Secondhand Souls is a first person POV story, narrated by Alexandra Rovenowa. She is dead. This is the story of how she died, set seventy years or so before Frost & Fire. It is also the story of how history likes to repeat itself, and how sending kids on quests for the sake of the world is bad, and of a kind Death, despite it all. (This is my most dramatic wip. Its a tragedy, and I really, really like it.) This does not have a current wip intro.

#writeblr #writeblr intro #writers on tumblr #creative writing #my current one is almost exactly a year old so i figured it was time for a new one #i need to get the new intros done for the other four

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blackjackkent · 6 months

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OK, time for Hector to reap what he sowed by completely misunderstanding and agreeing to Gale's pickup line about showing him something 'magical.' 😂

Although actually, starting the conversation off, it doesn't entirely seem like he *did* misunderstand? So honestly, respect, Hector - it's not your fault, Gale is not being at all clear. XD We need to work on everyone's communication skills.

Hector finds him at the end of the evening in the midst of conjuring a small illusion - the image of a woman's face hovering in the palm of his hand.

"Who is that?" he asks softly.

Gale jumps, the illusion vanishing in an instant as he spins around.

"Oh! My, you startled me. I...I was miles away."

Hector gives a slight nod towards the wizard's now-empty hand. "I thought you wanted to show me something. Was that it?"

Gale stiffens slightly and looks away. "No, no," he says hastily. "She's no one, really. I was just...practicing an incantation."

Hector raises one eyebrow skeptically. [INSIGHT] "You don't have that look on your face when you're looking at 'no one.'" He's started to relax a little. Perhaps Lae'zel and Shadowheart didn't know what they were talking about - perhaps it really was just magic Gale wished to discuss.

Gale shakes his head, and his eyes take on a faraway look again. "What can I say? She's...she's Mystra."

Memories from his studies at the monastery drift through him, the knowledge of the pantheon as instinctual as breathing. Mystra - the mother of all magic, goddess of the Weave itself.

"I can't quite describe it, the need I sometimes feel to see her - to draw the filaments of fantasy into existence," Gale goes on. "No sculpture or painting could ever do her justice - only the fabric that she herself is and embodies - the Weave." He looks towards Hector again, a new light in his eyes as he speaks on this subject, something Hector has never seen there before. "Mystra is all magic. And as far as I'm concerned, she is all creation."

Hector has seen this light before, in the gaze of some of the more devout of the monks back at the monastery. It is not fanaticism, not quite - but a level of faith that borders on the passionate. "I didn't realize the depth of your devotion," he murmurs.

Gale nods vaguely, his thoughts still elsewhere. "Magic is...my life. I've been in touch with the Weave for as long as I can remember. There's nothing like it. It's like music, poetry, physical beauty all rolled into one and given expression through the senses." His eyes refocus abruptly on Hector. "That is why I asked you to seek me out, to offer you a taste of such wonders. Would you like me to show you?"

Hector breathes out slowly. Certainly, then, this is a demonstration of magic, and not whatever carnal adventures Lae'zel thought he was planning to delve into. And he is more than a little intellectually intrigued - he is no expert in magic beyond a few spells, and the curiosity that always defined him before this mess is being given space to rise to the surface again.

And yet, would that have been so bad? If he is to experience all the horrors of this world before he can find his way back to the safety of the monastery, why should he not experience some of its pleasures...

He shakes the thought away, nods slowly at Gale's offer. "Yes, I would," he says.

Gale smiles, and Hector finds himself returning the expression. "Then follow my lead."

Gale settles himself at Hector's side, extends his arms and performs a slow, complicated series of gestures which sends a burst of multicolored light swirling into the air before them.

Hector watches, then blinks in surprise when Gale turns to him and prompts, "Now you."

He looks down at his own hands, and then his brows knit with an expression of intense concentration as he mimics Gale's pose.

[ARCANA] Imitate the gesture slowly and as precisely as you can.

Still flustered by his earlier conversations, Hector's movements are awkward, a little distracted. Despite his concentration, his attempt at the spell does not go off.

Gale smiles, not unkindly. "Not quite. But this is the easy part. Shall we try again?"

Hector draws back, squares his shoulders, and closes his eyes for a moment. With the ease of practice, he centers himself meditatively, calming the agitation, the anxiety, rooting himself into the ground and the moment.

[ARCANA] Imitate the gesture again. Find the magic in the movement.

This time, he feels the power of the Weave catch itself up in the movements. The light bursts forward, and in equal reaction he feels a wave of warmth and calm slide through him.

Narrator: You feel something strange - like a kind word and a kind touch at the same time. It's warm and comfortable.

Hector's eyes drift half-shut. Gale speaks again, softer this time. "Now repeat after me. Ah-Thran Mystra-Ryl Kantrach-Ao." The words roll through the air, echoing back upon themselves. They shiver along his skin.

[ARCANA] You sense power in these words. Speak them deliberately.

The warmth deepens as the words resonate in his throat.

Narrator: Suddenly - the scent of rosewater and a sense of wellbeing. A sliver of Weave that tastes sweet on the tongue.

After the horrors of the day, this moment of peace and safety is almost overwhelming. He feels tears sprout in his eyes and swallows tightly to hold them back.

Gale is watching him intently. "Very good," he says gently. "Now I want you to picture in your mind the concept of harmony. As true as you can."

Hector's eyes flicker open as he considers the request. Harmony has felt so far away ever since the nautiloid found him. But here...it is quiet here.

[HISTORY] Think of the here and now - this unexpected moment of learning.

The warmth grows, the purple-blue light beginning to swirl around them, the camp and its people seeming suddenly very far away.

Narrator: You see - or is it sense? - the presence of a woman, the woman who hovered over Gale's palm. There's something like the anticipation of a kiss, then the pleasure of being cloaked in peace. You are safe. You are nestled in the cup of Mystra's hand.

Hector's breath catches. He is dimly aware that Gale is standing very close to him, their eyes locked, but for a moment he feels lost in that sensation of utter security.

Then the moment breaks, and Gale looks away, turning to take in the swirling light around them.

"You did it. You're channeling the Weave. How does it feel?"

It takes a moment for Hector to find his voice, to remember what words are.

"Effortless," he murmurs. "You're a wonderful teacher."

Narrator: The Weave connects you. The moment feels...intimate.

Hector swallows in a suddenly dry throat. Is this what Gale wanted? Was Lae'zel right after all? Is this a prelude to something physical, or even romantic?

It feels so safe, so warm. He doesn't want to leave that safety. He has been so afraid for days.

But his control, in spite of him, reasserts itself.

A satisfying end to a wondrous experience. It's time to let go.

Narrator: The Weave evaporates, and as it does so, you realize the night feels suddenly cold and lonesome.

The feelings slip away, the warmth and safety replaced by a chill that goes into his bones. He makes a soft noise of regret, closes his eyes.

Gale has withdrawn back into himself as the sensation fades. "There it goes," he murmurs sadly. "How easily things slip away from us, no matter how hard they were in the obtaining." He hesitates, meets Hector's eyes for a moment, and then smiles. Something unsaid hangs in the air between them.

"Good night," he says softly. "I enjoyed sharing a moment of magic with you." And without waiting for a response, he turns and retreats into his tent, leaving Hector standing alone in the moonlit night.

#bjk plays baldur's gate 3 #hector carlisle #well i'll be damned :P #hector was right after all #i rather like the way this ended up playing out #and i'm gonna go ahead and say gale is at least somewhat on the table for romance after this having happened #even if not though...this was a gift he desperately needed to find some equilibrium #so thank you for that gale

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dragoonhooman · 2 years

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Do you guys think William and Dakota call Tide at the exact same time every night except in different locations?

Maybe William is at the driver’s seat, feet propped up against the wheel and the blue light of the phone against his face and maybe Dakota is on the roof of the Winnebago, hugging his legs close to his chest and setting his phone on the space beside him, the ringtone spiralling up, up, up into the sky, perhaps even very faintly meeting the moon.

And the phone rings. And rings. And rings. And rings. And—

“Hello! This is Tide, if you’re hearing this message then I’m probably busy cooking beef stroganoff or forgot to charge my phone again. Anyways, please leave a message after the—“

[Beep]

And they both talk, about similar yet different topics. About chaos demons and cartoon dreams and new maybe-friends and accidentally freeing all the animals in the zoo and…

“Hi Tide.” William starts, low and soft as not to wake up the sleeping half-elf in the back. “I don’t know if you’re ever seeing these messages but uh—its been a couple days since I last checked in so I might as well sum up what we’ve been doing, right? So we met this lady—“

“—Her name was Minerva.” Dakota explains, lying down on the roof. I called her ‘On my nerves Minerva’ though, cause she was super mean and super SUS. But she let us go to Vyncent’s world though. Like his home dimension. And—It’s so SICK there—no pun intended cause it was all kinda dead there but like we also got all rpg, video game-lookin outfits and things. William looked like a wizard and made zombies just disappear and—“

“—We also met Vyncent’s mom. She was pretty cool, though apparently rats were a delicacy there? Like its not just a Vynce thing literally everyone did it. Steamed rats, boiled rats, raw rats. Oh by the way, we got the Greats out of Vyncent’s head there. As in all of them, Alphonse, Ram, Min, Chungus. We left them in the fantasy world, in their home, so Vynce can’t access his power anymore but—“

“—Now he has this sick as hell sword bro! Like it can glow and has a bit of the Greats’ powers in there too! Its so cool, man. I wish you could’ve seen it. After that we went to go and kill the Lich! He’s like the Overlord of that world! He—“

“—Was already dead. All the Lich did was use living things and kill them to fuel himself. It was a power source for him, and he was planning to invade Prime. Imagine if he did—Well he kinda did actually. Not like what you might’ve been thinking though. He got brought here, and we followed him so uh—that’s how we got back. We fought him some more, chasing him down into a play theatre. Did you know Hamilton was playing there? I saw Lin Manuel Miranda! I wanted to get an autograph after but well—“

“—We met these other heroes. Lightspeed and Wordsmith and Bookworm. Lightspeed was pretty cool, she helped me get my save back after Will and Vyncent literally DELETED IT. But then I almost got to kill the Lich and they STOPPED ME. Told us the Lich should get a trial or whatever then they’ll put him in jail. I don’t—“

“—Get it. The Lich came from an entirely different dimension! It literally killed things to keep itself alive and destroyed Vyncent’s world and they’re going to put it in jail?! Like that would ever work—It—It’s stupid. Just—I miss you, Tide. I miss your terrifying school alarms and your funny apron and all the beef stroganoff you somehow cooked even though we made sure we hid them all. I wish you’d answer me. I’m just—I’m just scared. I’m—“

“—Confused. Heroes are supposed to keep people safe and without killing them, right? But—I want to kill the Lich so bad. He sucks and he should be gone so he can’t hurt anyone else but—Wordsmith and Lightspeed say I won’t be a actual hero if I do that. But I am a hero, right? I don’t really know anymore. Wish you were here…dad.”

Then both, at the same time:

“Love you.”

And the message would end. And the phone would be clicked shut.

And the world became quiet again.

#jrwi #jrwi prime defenders #jrwi william #jrwi dakota #jrwishow #jrwi pd

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rollercoasterwords · 1 year

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im actually so glad u brought this up bc the “theyre literally wizards its not supposed to be realistic” is one of the most braindead takes ive ever seen from this fandom. wanting our characters to be believable representations of their time and situations isnt a crime

see like. obviously in the first place the discourse is silly bc other people writing fanfiction u personally don't like or enjoy is not hurting u + u don't have to read it, so it's weird 2 even complain abt someone characterizing a character in a way u don't like imo. BUT that aside what interests me in particular abt the specific "they're literally wizards!!!" take is like. the way it treats notions of "reality" in fiction + particularly fantasy fiction.

like....the thoughts r still marinating + i'm still figuring out how 2 articulate this but. even with fantasy stories that are "unrealistic" bc of magic or whatever, there's still like...an internal logic, y'know? like, in this context, someone saying they want a story to feel "realistic" obviously doesn't mean they want it to be an exact mirror of real life--they wouldn't be reading fantasy if they did. but every fantasy is still structured around a society with its own rules and norms, and characters following those rules + norms makes the story feel more coherent, which is largely what allows people to then suspend their disbelief when it comes to the fantastical + magical elements. sure, they're wizards, but because the story still reflects many basic realities that we're already familiar with from our own societies, we are able to explore those realities through a different-yet-familiar lens, and it makes the world itself more believeable--it's like the difference between the fantasy of barbie fairytopia and the fantasy of lord of the rings, y'know? obviously, they are both fantastical stories, but one feels more realistic than the other, because it more closely reflects real societies. and particularly in hp canon-compliant or canon-adjacent fics that are set in that magical universe, we know that wizarding society essentially echoes most of the biases of "normal" society. so somebody saying "it feels more realistic" is obviously referring to like....that internal logic within the fantasy story, y'know? and i'm not sure if the people going "UM but they turn into animals" are willfully misinterpreting the context of "realistic" here bc it's like. a pithy rhetorical move or if there's actually just a lack of understanding or some combination of both but. it's just odd to me.

#as i said still sorting thru my thoughts but. idk i've just been thinking abt this lately #i do think some people are perhaps being willfully obtuse but. i prefer to assume the best in which case #i'm like IS there just....a gap in understanding here? do people genuinely not understand why someone would want 2 read more 'realistic'#fantasy stories? obviously it is easy 2 assume that ur experiences r like. somewhat universal #so if someone only engages w fanfic + fantasy for pure escapism then like. i guess i understand why they might be confused #but then i'm like. why assume the worst of the people ur confused abt #yknow?#like if someone is reading or writing something for reasons u don't understand #why assume they're bad reasons and then shut down instead of like. asking abt it. or trying 2 understand the different reasons #that someone else might have 4 engaging w similar media 2 u....ugh idk 2 many thoughts not enough time 2 sort them 2nite #ask #ranting and raving

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ceph-the-ghost-writer · 1 year

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Magic System Inspiration Tag

The rules are simple: list the inspiration(s) for your WIP's magic system and, if you want, go into detail.

Tagged by @rosellemoon! Another innovative and interesting game to circulate. Had to really think about this one, and I'm still not sure I have any clear answers. Let's give it a go anyway.

Tagging @lividdreamz @blind-the-winds @vacantgodling @theimperiumchronicles @thatndginger @pluttskutt and leaving an open tag for anyone who might want to share.

Bits of culture/history: This is obvious maybe, but characters often build a practice around their backgrounds, or symbols, actions, and words that have significance to them, incorporating those into whatever methods they use to wield magic. Whether these things have objective power outside that context is besides the point (though that doesn't stop some characters from debating it). It's what it says about the one using it, especially the how and why.

Magic irl?: Some of the magic I write about is flashy, and its effects are evident. Other spells/workings can be extremely subtle, though. So subtle, in fact, that there's doubt whether they did anything at all. Was it just the power of suggestion? Someone seeing connections between unrelated events? Are results the end all be all, or does the true magic happen on other levels? Does it even matter really? These are concepts I like to tinker with sometimes. (The movie A Dark Song captures this pretty well, I think.)

D&D: While "magic" is a difficult concept to pin down, there are some broad categories people (mostly humans) divide it into. This is vaguely inspired by playing Dungeons & Dragons, along with other TTRPGs.

Witchcraft: A wide category that contains any traditions or practices that rely on working through "external" means: objects/materials, incantations, extensive knowledge of plants/animals/minerals/etc., or pacts/relationships with spirits and other non-human entities. Can encompass anyone from the local midwife to an Order of the Golden Dawn-style ritual magician. Despite its versatile applications and pool of practitioners, anything under this header is often seen as "lower". Supposedly because anyone could do it, or, more likely, because it benefits "higher" practitioners to create arbitrary divisions.

Sorcery: Wielded by people who have an innate power, usually over classical elements (earth, air, etc.), thanks to a piece of a dead god being embedded in their souls. More common on Arasind (high fantasy world) than Earth...for now. The cultures and nations of Arasind have various institutions and methods of honing the skills of sorcerers, mostly for military application. Within the Coven, all sorcerers are pressured to become enforcers or bounty hunters. Basically, if you can shoot lightning from your fingers or something, the people in charge desperately want you to do so on their behalf. Or...you simply become a person in charge. This is what's considered "higher" magic by some characters. Don't look too hard at the fact that something largely destructive and wielded by a few individuals born to it is considered superior. Probably means nothing.

Psychic powers: These are pretty rare, though most people will have a flash or two during their lifetime. Many who deal with them on a regular basis would agree they're often more trouble than they're worth. Well, except for psychic vampires and mind worms, who can do a lot more impressive, scary things with their skill sets.

Creature talents: These are magical skills that come naturally to non-humans (e.g. fey glamour, bloodborn hypnosis).

Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis and Patternmaster, The Neverending Story by Ende, as well as Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea: I think about these works a lot. There's no detailed rules to the magic/supernatural elements in them (at least that I know of), but none are needed. Magic or the fantastical isn't there to solve the characters' problems, or tie the plot up with a neat little bow. The fantasy stories I like best aren't escapes. They invite me to look at myself and the world around me in a different way. I can only hope my own writing reflects little glimmers of that feeling here and there.

#writing ask game #magic systems

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myrfing · 11 months

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like I GET people were and are weird about garleans not reacting in a 100% gratifying way and i also think the garlean reaction is realistic. but none of these questions are i think relevant to the core of the issue with the writing this is just baseline…yes the theme is trauma and they want to address trauma. the question is if/how/why. and who does this grace come from and why is it framed the way it is. i know im being like Well I Didnt to some guy who legit cant read my posts or whatever but i dont even see these questions as the crux of the general argument and only see them in sort of playthrough eyeroll mostly rhetorical frustrated sentiments in response to how the player is made to deal with them in a certain prescribed way. also these self-congratulatory takes are so quick to be like There is no referencing off of real historical events they intend to only deal with a single enclosed subject in a bubble. i do actually agree to an extent in that they don’t intend to directly, but disagree because I think they cannot escape their own influences and their own lens in which they see the world. that’s why you’re getting a What if the world was made of pudding type of writing with garlemald because biased writers (as are all writers) are attempting to write a near universally appealing storyline taken from a thread that has oscillated wildly over the years in terms of political commitment by picking up and repurposing what they have observed about real life and transforming them into disjointed elements in a fantasy story to write a Pain Begets Pain narrative that takes events that DO NOT WORK outside their real historical context and twists them and omits large parts of them to fit a fantasy. yes this will rub people the wrong way and come off as dishonest. it is dishonest to cling to a fantasy that something that at least resembles a fascist state was made that way by the people it then retaliated against. regardless of authorial intent this is a fucking weird and deluded and self-assuaging narrative that gets dropped with absurd conviction in a lot of media and serves people in no real way because it has no basis in reality, except to exonerate yourself as a member of an imperial power to say well, we were just unlucky and got traumatized first. we were like this because an outsider fucked us up first. especially when you then have to omit a canon statement that, while from a biased subject (fourchenault) correctly observes the most solid tidbit about the situation that the garlean fantasy of a national fatherland Of Garleans and in an innate nation was false. plenty of nations believe and push the idea that their nation is ancient and sanctified by its apparent immortal nature or mandated by the divine but they are not. yes it was far more likely that the land the garleans believe themselves entitled to was not their god given holy land and just a geographical area filled with myriad peoples who did not even have an idea of the definition of “Garlemald” at the time some were exiled northwards. and also frankly i think throwing down “it’s trauma and radicalization” says nothing that nobody already knows on some level nor do i think it paints the entire picture. aaand also you can’t so cleanly seperate the state from its people and especially when you in the other breath prescribe national trauma as the end be all explanation for Why things got so fucked. Which in this game it’s evil wizard by the way so why am I even talking about this. alright I just peeled a tangerine and there was a moldy side.

#you cant seperate the subject of national historical and generational trauma from a realistic history. lmfao

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corpsepng · 1 year

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Very difficult to be a fantasy/scifi reader and writer when the more I delve into the genres history, and research the origins that much of it is built on, the less fantastical it feels. So much fantasy is white/nationalist escapism.

No story is free from the insidious roots under its inspiration. Fantasy race systems are derivative of real life race science and eugenics. Much of the occult movement was built on thinly veiled evangelical panic. All parallel/portal world/lost civilization stories are derived from the Atlantean or Ubermensch, seeking a pure and perfect utopia with a pure and perfect people.

Even the seemingly innocuous magical adventures push into supremacist territories, that certain people can be- by varying means- better/more worthy than others.

But I don’t think any of these things should be necessarily avoided- in fact I think they need to be directly addressed and subverted, and it’s the responsibility of authors to do so if you consider your work a serious piece of fantasy/scifi. If you’re just writing fluff with a fantasy/scifi flavor on top, whatever. I have no opinion because that’s not what I read. But.

In my opinion, I find it lazy and irresponsible to cherry pick the labels and concepts from the fantasy/scifi grab bin with no awareness of what they mean and meant. ESPECIALLY in work that takes itself seriously. If you have aliens, orcs, goblins, elves, a chosen one, wizards, monsters, whatever- tell me why. Show me that you, as an author, made a deliberate and justifiable choice to include them, and understand the implications of doing so, and that you did not just pick them from a hat for the cool points.

#.txt #fantasy #I just. have a lot of criticisms for how modern fantasy is handled nowadays. there is so little attention to detail of world #take 5 minutes to think about The Implications dear god please #not naming titles either and don’t ask

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nivq87 · 7 months

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@gloompun

Sorry for all the pings as I try to figure out wtf I wanna do formatting wise.

I’m uncertain what your starting knowledge of it is so forgive me if I’m rehashing stuff you’ve already heard. Discworld is a set of books written by the late Terry Pratchett, and they’re all fantasy (which is more or less relevant depending on the book), comedy, and satire that riffs on a bunch of topics. Reccing a starter book is always a fun and tricky time because if you ask literally any discworld fan for a reading order you’ll get a very long answer and it’ll be different from the next guy because we’re all Very enthusiastic to get people to read it and Very opinionated on the ideal path.

That’s because with one exception (sorta), every book really does just stand on its own? There’s a bunch of mini series that do have continuity, but knowing what happened before is nice but really important because each book deals with what it’s about and he’ll tell you any important context as it comes up. Like I honestly read them first in whatever order I could borrow them from my library and what I found in stores or on amazon (back when they primarily just sold books lol) and that really does just work fine. I’ve got more to say but if you wanted to just stop reading here with my blessing to go crazy go stupid and just read blurbs until something vibes that’s A okay.

That said I would steer clear of the first 2-3 books he wrote for discworld, not because they’re bad (I like them quite a lot!) but because they’re not really representative of what the series becomes. He’s still very noticeably figuring out what he wants to do with this space in the first two, and is more firm on it through the third. By the fourth book, Mort, the foundations of the world are a lot more defined and it starts the voice of the books that carries until the last couple books when his health went on the decline. So like, if come bell or high water you decide to follow him through his process from the beginning because starting in the middle feels too off putting, you Can go for The Colour of Magic which is immediately followed by The Light Fantstic, but just know that the vibes’ll change. But it’s about this wizard named Rincewind who very much wishes things would stop happening to him and the disc’s first ever tourist Twoflower who Loves when things happen so he can take a picture of it and remember it for his memoire. Meanwhile Rincewind is trying his very best to not let them die.

If you wanted to start where I did, you can start with The Wee Free Men which is YA, and since most of them are not, it like, doesn’t have much to do with anything else going on for the first couple books in the Tiffany Aching series. The first book is about the coming of age of Tiffany, who recently decided that she wanted to be a witch because she likes knowing things, and the people in her community somewhat recently killed this old lady for being a witch, but was really probably just old and lonely in her isolation. As she’s making these resolutions a faerie queen steals her younger brother and she takes issue with that, and with the help of some funny little blue men that really like to test the age rating of this book, go on An Adventure to get her brother back.

If you want a lot to chew on afterwords as far as fanfic goes, you can start with the city watch series in Guards! Guards! and follow Samuel Vimes on his road to recovery from his alcoholism as he tries to live up to his ideals of what a watchman should be and oh gosh oh fuck oh beans why the hell is a dragon here burning shit? Better consult an expert, except that expert is a lady who breeds dragons but those dragons are a sneeze a way from a messy alchemical explosion and the group of ladies whose hyperfixation this is are like if quilting groups were horse breeders. I’m sure this won’t be relevant. Tumblr girlies love love love shipping vimes so if fan content is something you want to be sure of, this is a good pick. The city watch books also happen to be my personal favorites.

Speaking of tumblr girlies, everyone seems to be big into Monstrous Regiment again? Very fun one off (not part of a series) about Polly who is trying to recover her brother who went off to war, and basically mulans it to figure out where he is if he’s still alive. Except whoops! The new recruits she’s trying to fake it amongst are Also women who joined up for one reason or another. There’s a lot of queer and trans vibes here honestly which is pretty cool for something that was published in 2003. (Although not what I would argue is the first, that one is in the city watch books and I’ll expand if you want.

If the Tiffany books seemed interesting but you’re not in the mood for YA, then the witches series is like that but more mature, where Wyrd Sisters is a comedic riffing of hamlet and macbeth. (Technically the second book in the witches series, but the first is Equal Rites and is pratchetts third book that I mentioned is somewhat tonally different from everything else.)

In a similar vein if Rincewind trying to survive sounded fun, but you’re deciding to not start at the Very beginning like most advise, then Sourcery is the third book in the Rincewind series, someone too OP to exist hits the scene like a brick in a sock to the face… and Rincewind copes by… running away. Except there’s problems literally everywhere? Maybe more running will save him?

There’s more than 40 books, and that’s some starting points, but if you wanna click around and maybe get spoilers if you scroll too far, there’s also the wiki (which isn’t fandom blessedly) most of these have lil blurbs on em and quite a few have plot synopsis so if that’s territory you’re willing to tread here’s Literally Everything lmao. The only things on here I haven’t read at least once are The Science of Discworld mini series, so if there’s anything you want further opinions on feel free to dm me or something.

https://wiki.lspace.org/Bibliography

#why am i rambling #gloompun

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