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fipindustries · 4 years

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The ludomancer

So you heard of parahumans fans using their own lives to come up with triggers and create their own fan capes? well, that is more than well trodden ground so i figured lets take it an extra notch and figure out my own fan practitioner, my own fanctitioner! (disclaimer: many of of the personal details here were either exagerated or fabricated for dramatic effect)

backstory

i had open heart surgery when i was 6 months old, and if niccolette belanger is anything to go by, having big openings in your flesh at a very young age is free real state for persky spirits. Just imagine this giant entrance direct to my chest, leaving my heart ridden with holes and openly exposed.

Now this was in a very modern hospital in and incredibly sterile enviroment so is not like there were a lot of grisly phantasmagoric spirits crawling all over the place, you i was covered head to toe in technology, multiple wires and tubes and god knows what else all poking out of my chest, back in those days i was more machine than human. So with that in mind i like the idea that perhaps some fairly young spirits of electricity, technology, science and artificousness got inside me.

nothing too wild and powerful considering these things were all relatively recent by the standards of the practisce, but enough to have an influence. The general result is that i would be naturally inclined towards STEM fields, mad scientists, math and engeneering as a kid. I would constantly find myself getting involved into these enviroments (even when i didnt want to) such as going to a course in robotics, going to a high school soecialized in mechanics, studing computer science in college, etc.

my life would go on more or less like normal, the spirits slowly growing inside of me but always kept in check by my own essense and sense of self. Until...

Awareness

i changed careers and went to live at a college dorm in the middle of nowhere, five kilometers away from the nearest city, a small oasis of technology in the desert and the central hub for the Wi Fi of my state. As the years went by i became more and more isolated, my Conections grew weaker, my own sense of self got thinner and thinner (exacerbated by me finally questioning my gender identity). my prescence on the world was almost non existant, spending most of my time in my dorm in my computer not interacting with anyone, browsing ever incresingly more niche or obscure websites.

in this oasis of technology in the middle of nowhere, with my personal conections and sense of identity growing weaker, the spirits within me started to grow stronger and stronger, starting to screw with my very perception of reality, pushing things so that i would start to go down weird rabbit holes online, reading strange texts in impossibly formatted websites that would introduce strange ideas about the nature of reality, some times even downright attempting to posses me (i would try to rationalize these episodes where i would experience derealization as just panic attacts).

The spirits of technology would introduce me to forbidden ideas online, dangerous memetic cognitohazards, basiliks that would force me to perform obscure rituals to summon demonic entities from lost planes of reality, not aligned with human values. They would try and convince me that reality was a simulation and coax me to pierce the veil and see the true subyacent reality, that subatomic particles were capable of experiencing suffering, that i could be tortured for eternity if enough people were kept from getting dust specks in their eyes. If things had gone like that for much longer i would have probably ended up summoning or becoming an Ex Machina and probably an entire wing of the college campus would have been condemned.

Luckly in my college there just hapened to be a young dabbler who got wind of my situation. They took notice of me and were kind enough to put me in touch with an online community of witch hunters who specialized in cases like mine (the dabbler didnt take care of it themselves because they didnt want to accidentally reveal to me more than strictly necessary about the magic world, the group of witch hunters had a lot more experience solving this problems without the karmic burden of awakening someone)

The witch hunters were a fairly niche group within the larger community of witch hunters. They specialized in bayesian techniques. Using the tools of rationality to dispell illutions, glamours, mind tricks and half truths. They established firm rules for thinking and percieving the world so that Others wouldnt be able to decieve or manipulate them. Calling bullshit on the impossible. Their organization, the Magical Interference Restriction Institute, coordinated the efforts to develop safe protocols for the practisce in the digital age.

They exorcised most of it, gave me a few basic mental tools and rituals to keep the spirits in check and recommended me to try and forget about the whole affair. But fat chance about that, by this point my eyes had been opened.

The awakening

When i finished college and moved to a different city i did everything in my power to enter in contact with the practitioner world again. Walking around the city, reading craiglist adds, looking into different organizations. Of course i wasnt acting blindly, i was guided by some of the things that i had picked up during my posessions, the things the spirits had revealed to me, the forbidden texts that i had read and some of the advice the witch hunters gave me.

Eventually i managed to follow conections and came across a small cabal of practitioners who put the front of a board game club to recruit people and have a place to reunite while looking legitimate and not arising suspicion from the mundanes. The way the club would work was that on the front it was a normal place to play things like Catan, Carcassone, king of tokyo, etc. But on the back room they would “play test” new “games” between the senior members of the club. when in reality they would workshop new rituals to perform.

They would focus on a fairly recent branch of magic caled Ludomancy. Focused on the idea that any boardgame is in the end a ritual. it would be this communal activity with rules and mechanics, supported by the illution and the beliefs of the players who would manipulate symbols and idols across intricate diagrams.

they saw my experience with rules, logic and technology applied to magic and saw enough potential in me that they allowed me to join. Their awakening ritual is a bit different than most since they customized it based on their findings and experiences with rituals. Instead os sitting in a circle the circle is inscribed in a board. The piece that you use to move through the board has to be carved by you and has to be composed of elements that represent you and that are meaningful to you and it has to hold within a couple of drops of your blood.

You throw the dice and move across the board and depending on what places you fall in on of the cards will be drawn from the multiple decks. These cards will either give you challenges to overcome to prove yourself, make declarations and impositions on the kind of practitioner you will be once you awaken or just be criptic messages and riddles that wont be relevant or mean anything to you until many years down the line. You have to overcome the challenges, answer the questions posed by the cards and most of all, play the rules cleverly so that you can make your piece reach the center of the board and scream jumanji to complete the ritual. Now the rules of every awakening playthrough change and they can be incredibly intricate and complex, it can take a lot of cleverness of a lot of luck to finish this ritual but once you do you find yourself in a much firmer and powerful grounding than most begginers do.

the practice

i would probably focus on shamanism, collecting spirits here and there, slow and steady accumulation of a power base. i would like to get into constructs, acumulating spirits, helping them grow, give them a bit of my own power to help the process along, like sacrificing one drop of blood every week, or establishing small rituals of worship, and then mix and mashing them together to build more complex spirits, also i would probably offer small favors to the local practitioners in exchange of tibdits, trinkets and sources of power, always keeping it low profile and not too ambitious, something like helping with a ritual here and there, being a pair of extra hands, mostly giving help establishing magic circles and drawing diagrams, running small errands, sending messages. it would help let other people know that im not too much of a concern and hopefully they would let me be

if you need help or want to make an exchange with me you could come to my house and i would offer to play a game (usually one i made up) and in the process of playing the game i would perform the magic that you need or arrange the cosmological and quintessential pieces inside and outside of you according to your request.

My implement would be a set of D&D dices that i can use to make a bit of augury, affect probabilities, dictate outcomes and, in times of need, cheat at my games a bit. the rest of my equipment would be booklets and notebooks filled with my own designs, rulesets and texbooks, lots and of graph paper and one actual RPG supplement that i would use to bluff some of the more out of date Others by claiming that i have tomes filled with arcane spells and a full compendium of magicl creatures.

eventually i would try to diversify, focusing more on crafting and building, going more for the angle of the toy maker rather than game designer. I would build complex structures in papercraft, small mechanisms with cardboard, intricate contraptions with some clockwork and some springs.

i probably wouldnt get a familiar, i just dont see my self commiting to a life long companion. i would desperatly try to establish a demesne but that would also be rather complicated since i dont see my self owning property any time soon either.

#pale #pact #parahumans #wildbow #fan art #fan fic

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robotslenderman · 4 years

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Ship meme, nicked from someone on the CoNY tag

Strauss/Maddy

Trope applies, trope kinda/sometimes applies or is one-sided.

Explanations for some of these under cut:

Mutual pining -- Maddy thinks Strauss is way out of her league for a while. Strauss is fond of her for quite a while without realising he is. Pining ensues. Especially after they’ve fallen out.

Family disapproves -- Tremere outside of the LA Chantry strongly disapprove along with a few within it, but Strauss has been established long enough nobody does anything. Meredith thinks Strauss is shifty as hell but lets it be.

Would die for each other -- Maddy is there. Strauss won’t be there for a long time. Dude is 700 years old, it takes a long time for him to get there for someone, any relationship less than 50 years old is basically a new one.

Opposing worldviews -- Maddy thinks Kine are friends, not (just) food. Strauss strongly disagrees and considers this personality trait of hers as childish, as it’s one usually associated with fledglings and Maddy never quite grows out of it. He finds it exasperating and a little embarrassing. It’s to the point where he’s completely fine with her sleeping with kine because they “don’t count” and it’s just playing with one’s food.

Opposing personalities -- I mean, one’s a Tremere who’s quite calm and likes to bide his time and keep his head down, the other’s a Malk whose chief weapon is a goddamn sledgehammer. You do the maths.

Relationship doubts -- Sometimes Strauss just has moments where he realises he’s with a Malkavian, and one that’s less than a century old, so he has a bit of a “WTF?” moment. He always gets over it. It’s just really not how he saw his unlife turning out. He gets these for a few decades, if they last that long.

Mutual interests -- Mostly reading, kindred gossip and kindred history.

Study buddies -- Once it’s apparent the Pyramid is not coming back, Strauss teaches Maddy a few blood magic tricks on the down low. She is strictly forbidden from actually using it. The second she uses any of it everyone and their mother will know who taught her. Of course, the rest of the Tremere suspected this was the case long before he actually does it, but he doesn’t want to give them proof on a silver platter.

Lovers to enemies -- More like “Friends to enemies.” They briefly have a falling out due to the machinations of a Tremere in the LA Chantry that wants Strauss’s job and gets it by basically exploiting Strauss’s weakness for Maddy, and Maddy’s ignorance (since Strauss kept her in the dark about a lot of Tremere stuff, even stuff that’s common knowledge to other vamps). It results in a rift between the two and Strauss’s reputation completely ruined among the Tremere, and a lot of resentment between the two. Ironically, it’s his weakness for her that lets them patch things up later.

Slow burn -- As of VTMB2, they’re still not together, and won’t be for several years more. It takes Strauss a long time to recover from the Pyramid being blown up, and it’s not until he realises that it’s not coming back, ever, that he starts relaxing his "Tremere/Pyramid first” mindset enough to let a non-Tremere closer.

#Maximilian Strauss #Madeline Jones #VTM #VTMB

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aelaer · 4 years

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☕ Which version of the mystic arts do you prefer, the one where you have to be worthy to use magic (a rule that only seems to apply to Stephen, unsurprisingly) from the comics or the MCU one in which all can learn and practice. Also, what do you think of the 'shouting your spells' thing? In the comics some (most? Everyone?) people need the ability to speak to do magic, not in the MCU. 👀

MCU, 100%.

However, I think that not everyone can learn magic *well* due to just individual inability. For instance, I *could* learn an instrument but I'd never learn it very well because I'm tone deaf and I don't think that's something you can fully correct. Another example is that people will only learn up to a certain level of math because their brain cannot fully comprehend more advanced mathematics, and we all have a different level of "I don't comprehend this anymore".

I view magic in the same light - everyone has potential, but everyone's ceiling of just how much they can learn differs. It's not necessarily tied into IQ as we've seen how the traditional IQ measurements don't really work for all applications of everything that can be learned in life - like music, for instance. Some very intelligent people can't play an instrument and some more "average" level IQ folks are musical geniuses. And there would be a percentage of the population that just couldn't do magic due to emotional intelligence and IQ, or just overall lacking in the core parts of intelligence as outlined in the multiple intelligence theory.

This wouldn't be like Harry Potter where you just have it or don't have it, but rather that the individual's ceiling of ability just isn't high enough for the core components of making magic, of which I imagine dips into several areas of intelligences based on the theory named above.

And those that have the perfect combination of it all end up being gifted and made for the Mystic Arts.

In regards to shouting spells, we've seen in more than one franchise that speaking spells works a lot better in written media than movies and TV. Take Harry Potter; spells were shouted throughout battles in the seven books, including the last battle. The film completely nixed that by the last film.

And imnsho, the Harry Potter spells sound way cooler than the comic book spells Stephen uses. There is a bit of silliness, especially in older comics, with the spoken spells that would take away from the seriousness that the MCU is trying to build. All the MCU humor is situational or through character commentary, not because the world itself is inherently silly. If the world itself was silly and not meant to be taken too seriously, the stakes for the fictional universe mean a heck lot less to the viewer.

That's not to say that I think Stan Lee and Steve Ditko didn't take their craft and character creation seriously. I'm pretty sure they loved their jobs and put amazing effort into it. But they were writing in a time where the comic writing style, when looked at in the 21st century, sounds ridiculous in several instances. Part of that is the names of the spoken spells, especially if it was every. single. time. a. spell. was. cast. The fight scenes would be a lot of yelling that, again, even Harry Potter ended up nixing for every battle spell in the films. I think it'd get old and take away some of the battle drama because they'd not have the years of history and emotional build up that the forbidden spells of Harry Potter did. They'd just be silly words.

And that's my two cents on magic.

#stephen strange #mcu #harry potter #meta #magic #ask #answered #mdcbd #aelaer's stephen headcanon

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ducklooney · 5 years

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Halloween specials related to the classic Disney universe

This applies mainly to the world of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and their friends and acquaintances. For the most part, I'm going to pay a little attention to classic shorts and episodes from various series related to the classic Disney universe, with Halloween specials. To be honest, I'm not a fan of that holiday, I prefer Christmas and Easter rather than Halloween, but again I can't help but avoid cartoons about that holiday, which really has great specials, not to say too much. Since I can't process all of these specials, and I don't have the time to do so, and I'll talk about Halloween for the second time about the series I like to watch. I apologize for this and let's get started: 1.Trick or Treat This is Donald's brief shown in 1952. It portrays Huey, Dewey and Louie trying to get candy from their uncle, but Donald unfortunately cheated on them, and they try to use the witch Hazel to cheat on Donald (Donald cheated and the witch now takes revenge). I think most of them know this and I won't talk about it (that's why there aren't many pictures related to it, since there are already pictures) so much, just to say I liked this short.

2.Ducky Horror Picture Show It's an episode from the original Ducktales, 1987 version, related to Halloween where the monsters partly help Scrooge around the house on his harbor, but then they take over his house and make a mess. Somehow, Scrooge and Huey, Dewey and Louie manage to calm the monsters, and Scrooge made a deal with a werewolf and a vampire around the business, and they made a fairground with Money Bean, where King Kong (the giant gorilla) was.

3.Hot Spells Episode from Darkwing Duck. In this episode, Darkwing Duck and Gosalyn help Morgana with her new presentation regarding her new magical powers, but Morgana unfortunately fails. Morgana's father and her nanny also come to her presentation. Here is a further description extracted from the Disney Wiki:Darkwing and Gosalyn go with Morgana to her old magic alma mater, where Morgana is to present her paper on a profound magical breakthrough. While there, Gosalyn is allowed to participate in some classes because of her natural affinity for the unnatural; but quickly finds the underpinnings of magic, complex mathamatics, too boring for her tastes. Bored because getting used car salesmen and politicians aren't a challenge. Bielzebub finds out about Darkwing and Gosalyn being at the school, and decides this is his chance to move up in the rankings of top villain-by getting Darkwing once and for all! Gosalyn tries to find a short cut to learning magic without the hard math involved, but is hoodwinked into using forbidden spells when Beelzebub disguises himself as the school janitor. By using the forbidden spells she allows of Beelzebub to steal Darkwing's soul. Can Gosalyn and Morgana find some way into tricking him into letting Darkwing go?” Overall, Morgana and Gosalyn save the Darkwing Duck, the so-called devils are defeated, and Gosalyn has learned the lesson of not dealing with magic, as well as negotiating with the unknown, especially if the devils are involved, because once a pact with the devil means a lifelong accident, and is a message do not negotiate with the devil. In the end, Gosalyn received the sentence that she could not buy new comics for a while.

4.Hallow-Weenies

The episode from Goof Troop also seems very funny to me. Here's a description from the Disney Wiki, and the pictures explain it enough:”Max, P.J., and Pistol get off of a haunted house ride at a Halloween carnival. Pistol wants to stay and ride one more but her brother reminds her that they don't want to be late for trick-or-treating.The kids stop at Pete's new property, an old, scary-looking mansion, which he wants to turn into a new hotel. Two contractors jump out the window of the attic, frightened and telling stories of ghosts in the house. Pete angrily dismisses them and scares them off. Max and P.J. decide they want to come back at night to go inside.Later that night in front of the mansion, Max convinces a nervous P.J. to go in. As they approach the front door, the door swings open and a floor board knocks them inside. They move slowly up the stairs. When the boys make it to the attic, they look into a mirror and see a ghost floating behind them. They proceed to jump out of the building and run scared all the way home.When the boys get home, they tell Goofy, Pete, and Pistol about the ghost they saw at the mansion. Pete says that ghosts aren't real, but Goofy tells him he is mistaken. Goofy shows them a pocket watch he says was awarded to his great-great-grandfather Gooferamus T. Goofy for catching ghosts.Pete takes Goofy and the boys to the hotel to prove there aren't any ghosts there. Max and P.J. stay outside while the adults go into the mansion. They suddenly encounter three ghosts, who prank and torment them. The boys hear all the commotion from outside and run in to protect their fathers. When the boys run away to get help, it's shown that the three ghosts are physically unable to leave the mansion boundary.Max and P.J. accidentally summon the ghost of Gooferamus T. Goofy. Max tells him they need his help to catch the ghosts in the the mansion and save their fathers, but Gooferamus just says a few words and climbs back into the watch, to the boys confusion. They take his random advice and use it to try and catch the ghosts, first by soaking them in honey. Max manages to catch two on a wet mop and P.J. wrings them into separate jars.The two ghosts escape their jars and they all run from Max and P.J., who have a ghost vacuum. They trap the ghosts in bubbles and Pete tries to make them leave. The ghosts explain to them that they would love to leave, but have unfinished business and that's the reason they've been trapped in the mansion since 1929. They are musicians and never got to play their gig, due to a "load of Halloween corn fermenting and blowing up the place". They just need to be invited by Pete."Fingers McFee and his Ragtime Band" perform for the whole gang, including Peg and Pistol, while at the same time pranking Pete. After the show, a ghost bus lands in front of the mansion to pick up the trio. The ghosts thank the boys for helping them move on by giving them slide whistles to make them "honorary rascals".The next day the boys high-five about having the best Halloween ever. A car drives by, asking Pete if they are at the hotel with the ghosts. Pete yells at them, telling them there aren't any ghosts here. When they say they don't want to stay here and then drive away, Pete changes his mind and chases after them.”

5. The Boy Who Cried Ghost

The episode from the Quack Pack is also funny and interesting in my opinion. It's Dewey who likes to make jokes that scares his brothers and his uncle, but for one joke, they are stopped in a dark forest and then forced to go to a terrible castle. Dewey continues to tease his brothers Huey and Louie and his uncle Donald, which gives his brothers and his uncle nerves. Dewey however meets the ghost Sigismund and gets scared and goes outside. However, he is brought back to the castle, his conscience or his guardian angel, and Dewey decides to help his brothers as well as his uncle rescue them from the monster, namely the vampire, the ghost, the werewolf, and the Frankenstein Viking woman. They scare them, but the monsters themselves are scared of one thing, and they are cute animals and then Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck dress up as cute animals (costumes) and manage to scare the monsters out of the castle.

6.House of Villains I can also freely say the best episode of House of Mouse, I recommend that they definitely look at this episode, where the Disney villains abduct from Mickey Mouse, his House of Mouse. I think most know about this episode and I don't need to discuss it.

There's so much about my favorites (but they're not the only ones yet, but they're out of the classic Disney universe, but about it a second time) with Halloween specials. Which special do you particularly like and some comments about it.

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jennycalendar · 6 years

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buffy summers, muggle-born

read it on ao3!

read it on twisting the hellmouth!

SO I WROTE ALL OF THIS TODAY AFTER READING A BUNCH OF HARRY POTTER FIC AND GETTING NOSTALGIC. i’m feeling so self-satisfied right now. it’s unreal.

the premise: the scooby gang attends hogwarts with the golden trio! this is 100% the first in a long and ambitious and very adorable series; i have plans for a sequel involving tara that i will probably end up writing tomorrow. so i would definitely recommend reading this one.

Buffy heard the word Mudblood for the first time when she was trying on robes at Madam Malkin’s. Her mom had that continued look of vague confusion that she’d had ever since Buffy had gotten her Hogwarts letter, a look that seemed to be exacerbated by the droopy and not very stylish fit of Buffy’s robes. Buffy knew it would be pushing it to ask for some robes from Twilfit and Tatting’s, especially since she barely knew anything about this weird new world as it was, but some of the robes in there looked a little more comfortingly like dresses and skirts and things from Buffy’s reality—the one she knew much better.

So she was getting fitted, getting pricked a little by the pins, and this snooty-looking kid walked in, said very theatrically, “Good lord, they cater to Mudbloods here?” and ducked out to giggle with his friends, hurrying them along before Buffy could reply.

This was the very first time that Buffy considered—maybe not knowing a lot about this in her might be a disadvantage. New words to learn, new social niceties, new etiquette, new robes—she had planned to try out for her middle school cheerleading squad, this year. She had been so close to being in middle school, for crying out loud, something she’d been looking forward to since—kindergarten, probably, plus her mom had always said “bedtime is at nine-thirty until you’re at least in middle school, Buffy,” and how did that rule apply to weird magic boarding schools where they might call her a Mudblood and run away?

Before she even knew what the word meant, it had twisted itself into her being.

Xander had grown up hearing the word Mudblood. Sort of an “oh, at least we’re better than the Mudbloods” thing his lame-ass pureblood dad always said to his barely-listening pureblood mom, to make them both feel better about burning through their respective family fortunes before Xander was even born. They had never liked Willow, and she was a half-blood with a mom who was respected and active in the wizarding community—but all his parents cared about was Willow’s Muggle dad.

Personally, Xander liked Willow’s dad. Willow’s dad had been a college professor before meeting Willow’s mom, and now he was a spokesman for the Ministry and worked to better human-Muggle relations. He made nice cookies and he was gentle and kind with Willow, which was more than could be said for Xander’s dad. But that was something Xander didn’t like getting into.

Faith was an orphan. She didn’t like hearing everyone fussing over her in Diagon Alley like she was some charity case, and she definitely didn’t like the way people whisper about how “You-Know-Who was an orphan” because first of all, she didn’t know who, and second of all, so what if she wasn’t as friendly as all these weirdly dressed people expected her to be?

She figured she was a Mudblood, probably. She heard the word when she and the big groundskeeper guy were walking past Knockturn Alley, and she grabbed onto it and liked it. Faith had always had a habit for taking other people’s hatred and twisting it into something good—yeah, she was bad, but she was bad on her own terms.

She was eleven years old and this habit would stay with her for a very long time.

Professor Rupert Giles, History of Magic, was a pureblood of the old families with old money and an extensive knowledge of wizarding achievements throughout the ages. He, more than anyone, knew the value of Muggle-born contributions to wizarding society, and had forbidden the use of the word “Mudblood” in his classroom. He made it very clear that anyone who said it would be in detention for as long as Hogwarts policy would allow. It was a small gesture in the grand scheme of things, but it was still more than the other teachers did—they seemed to pretend the word itself didn’t exist. Professor Giles, more than anyone, knew that attempting to cover up the past would only end up hurting people in the long run.

History was about learning from one’s mistakes.

Platform Nine-And-Three-Quarters was busy and bustling on September the first, and there were whispers about a Boy Who Lived attending Hogwarts for his first year. Buffy, who didn’t have too much interest in boys at the moment (living or dead), was more invested in trying to find an empty compartment on the train, one where she could sit and enjoy the nervous excitement of going to a magic boarding school for a year. A free magic boarding school. Her mom had never wanted to pay for tuition for any boarding school, magic or not, but now Buffy got to have the full experience and it was—thrilling. She was thrilled.

Weaving through the train, she finally found a compartment that was relatively empty, at least in comparison to the rest of the packed train cars. The only occupant was a tiny redheaded girl, curled up with one of the Narnia books, and she looked up half-hopefully when Buffy came in.

“Is this—um, can I sit here?” Buffy asked a little awkwardly.

The girl blew out a breath and shut the book, looking somewhat sad. “Yeah,” she said.

“Are you okay?”

“My best friend isn’t here yet,” said the girl. “I think he’s sitting with a boy he met on the platform, and—and I’m his best friend.”

“If you’re his best friend,” Buffy pointed out (gently, because this girl seemed to need some delicate handling), “he’ll show.” The girl did look a little cheered by this, and Buffy took this opportunity to tug her trunk the rest of the way in and sit down. “You reading Narnia?”

The girl grinned a little. “You’re a—half-blood?” she asked, sounding hopeful.

“No, I have all my blood,” said Buffy earnestly.

The girl’s grin widened and she giggled. “No, I mean—is one of your parents magical, or are you the first in your family?” she asked.

“Oh!” Buffy giggled too. “I’m—the first,” she said, and almost mentioned the boy who called her a Mudblood, but it was beginning to sink in that the word meant something probably not very nice. “What would you call me, then, me being the first in my family to have magic?” she asked, a sort of litmus test.

“I don’t know,” said the girl. “I still don’t know your name.”

And that was how Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg became friends.

Xander showed up, out of breath and excitable, about ten minutes later, his new friend Jesse stumbling behind him. Jesse was a Muggle-born like Buffy, she found out, and something about that made her feel warm from head to toe; she didn’t feel quite as alone, quite as much of an oddity, when there was someone else just as confused as she was sitting right across from her.

Willow knew Muggle culture quite intimately, though—her parents wanted her to have the best of both worlds—and it was just as nice to be around her; she talked about books she had read that Buffy remembered seeing in her own elementary school library. Hogwarts isn’t that bad, Buffy found herself thinking, Hogwarts can’t possibly be that bad with people like this around me. She bought everyone snacks when the trolley cart came around, and the Chocolate Frog card she got—

“Oh!” Willow squeaked and made a dive for the card, scooping it up. “Ms. Calendar! She’s got a Chocolate Frog card?”

“Ms. who now?” said Buffy, mouth twitching. She’d gotten the mental image of a calendar with lipstick and legs.

Willow was blushing a little as she held the card close, all but cradling it. “I, I got a little excited,” she said, handing it back to Buffy. “Jenny Calendar works with my dad! She’s spent a bunch of time putting in the hard work to get Muggle technology recognized. She’s kinda radical—”

“Like a surfer?”

“Like a line of thinking,” said Willow. “She thinks the wizarding world shouldn’t be as much of a secret as it is, and that there’s a lot we can learn from Muggles.”

Buffy looked at Jenny Calendar’s face. She didn’t look like someone who would call Buffy a Mudblood, either—she had bright, lively eyes, and when Buffy made eye contact with her on the card, she grinned a little and winked. “They move?” Buffy said, awed. Now Jenny looked like she was giggling a little.

“Yeah!” Willow didn’t tease Buffy for not knowing—she just looked happy that Buffy’s learning. Buffy was liking Willow more and more, the more they talked. “Oh, wait ‘till you see the paintings at Hogwarts—my mom says the Gryffindor common room has a talking painting lady who you have to tell the password!”

“My dad says the Slytherin common room just has a wall,” said Xander, and smirks. “Sucks to be in Slytherin.”

“How come?” Buffy asked, curious.

Xander shrugged, scowling. All he said was, “My parents were both in Slytherin.”

Buffy got the sense that there was a little more to Xander than he was letting on, but let it lie. “I feel really behind the curve, here,” she said a little nervously. “Like there’s so much I need to learn.”

Willow’s smile softened into something both sympathetic and understanding. “It’s okay,” she said. “I can help! I’m good at helping—I help Xander with his math, and I know a bunch about the wizarding world. What do you want to know about?”

Buffy chewed on her lip, trying to keep the question down, but it bubbled up before she could stop herself. “What’s a Mudblood?”

Xander went still. Willow’s smile froze. Only Jesse looked unbothered by the word, focused instead on devouring his pumpkin pasty, but he stopped mid-bite upon noticing the way the mood in the car had shifted. “You okay?” he asked Xander, mouth full.

“Where did you hear that word?” Willow finally asked.

Buffy felt ashamed and afraid—like she’d lose her new friends—but she answered honestly. “Some boy said it while I was getting my robes fitted,” she said. “About me. What does it mean?”

Willow’s face relaxed a little, but she still looked upset. “It means—it’s a really, really mean way of saying you’re Muggle-born,” she said. “My mom always told me she’d wash my mouth out with soap if she ever heard me using that word.”

“My parents toss that word around a lot,” Xander mumbled, then added hastily, “but I never say it, obviously.”

“Do people not like Muggle-borns?” Buffy asked hesitantly.

It took Willow a moment to answer. Finally, she said, “My mom says only small-minded people with small ideas don’t like Muggle-borns.”

“Okay,” said Buffy. “And you guys aren’t those small-minded people, right?”

“Right,” said Xander fiercely, taking a chocolate frog and violently chomping off its head.

Buffy looked again at her Chocolate Frog card. Shyly, she asked Willow, “So—Jenny Calendar likes Muggle-borns?”

Willow seemed to get what Buffy was really asking. “Ms. Calendar thinks there’s no real difference between Muggles and wizards, at the core of it all,” she said, “and I think that too.”

The picture of Jenny Calendar nodded emphatically. Buffy tucked the card into her pocket, near her heart.

Hogwarts was big and bright, even from far away, and Buffy was too in awe to shiver as they were bundled into boats. Jesse was inadvertently separated from them, put in a different boat with two pretty girls who were fussing with each other’s hair, and Buffy, Willow, and Xander found themselves with a fourth boat buddy that none of them had met till then. Her brown hair was messy, and her mouth set in a firm line like she was trying to look as brave as she could, but her eyes were still lit with a wonder she couldn’t seem to hold back.

“Hi,” said Buffy, sitting down next to the girl. “I’m Buffy. I’m Muggle-born. What about you?”

“I’m Faith,” said the girl, chin jutting out, “and I’m a Mudblood.”

Willow drew in a shocked, reproving breath. “You shouldn’t say that word!” she said. “It’s a bad word!”

“I’m a bad kid,” said Faith, and directed her attention back towards the lit-up castle across the lake.

Buffy and Willow exchanged nervous looks before Buffy clambered awkwardly back to sit next to Willow again. She didn’t like the word Mudblood, even if Faith was okay with it—it made her feel too much like an outsider in this world she still felt like she didn’t belong in. Some part of her still thought there must have been a mistake—maybe it really was an accident that had made all her dresses that gorgeous shade of pink when she was seven, and maybe that slice of cake she’d wanted really had just fallen off the top of the fridge when she was nine, landing neatly on a plate—and she felt so, so worried that someone would catch her as she was entering the castle and go sorry, Buffy, this place isn’t for you.

They reached the castle, stars twinkling above them, and they were met at the door by a Professor McGonagall, taken through torch-lit hallways, and led into the Great Hall. Shivering, breathless, Buffy took in the floating candles and the golden plates, almost too awe-struck to speak, and her sense of awe only increased as the Sorting Hat began to sing, but—it was a long song, and she started getting bored, so her eyes began to wander.

Up at the front, at the staff table, she accidentally locked eyes with a bespectacled, austere-looking professor who was attempting to read under the table while the Sorting Hat sang. He looked a little flustered at being caught, but then he grinned a little, shut the book, and gave Buffy a tiny salute. She giggled.

“What?” Willow whispered.

Buffy tried to explain about the professor and his book, but Professor McGonagall cleared her throat and shot them both a look before she continued to read off names. Realizing that she really should be paying attention, Buffy shifted and watched, nervous and impatient to be Sorted.

One of the pretty girls who sat in the boat with Jesse was called up as “Chase, Cordelia!” Flouncing up to the stool, Cordelia sat down in her expensive-looking school robes (those were probably from Twilfit and Tatting’s, a slightly jealous Buffy thought) and waited for the hat to be dropped on her head.

“GRYFFINDOR!”

Next to Buffy, Xander choked. “Her?” he said, indignant. “She’s the most Slytherin girl I know!”

“You know her?” Buffy asked, curious.

“Her dad works at the Ministry,” Willow explained. “She’s always talking down to us ‘cause our dads don’t make as much money as her dad.”

Buffy made a face. Maybe Gryffindor wasn’t that great a house either if a girl like that went there.

Xander was the first of them to get Sorted, and when his name was called, Willow squeezed his shoulder and beamed, sunshine-bright, whispering, “You’ve got this, Xander!” Xander held onto her hand for a second, then took a few trembling steps towards the stool and sat down.

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

Willow didn’t look at all surprised as she started cheering. “What’s the Hufflepuff house do?” whispered Buffy, who was starting to really wish she’d been paying attention to the song while it was talking about the houses.

“Just and loyal!” Willow whispered back.

“Just loyal?”

“No, just and—” Upon receiving yet another terrifying look from Professor McGonagall, Willow made an “eep” noise and attempted to hide behind Buffy (who thought she saw McGonagall’s mouth twitch).

“Lehane, Faith!”

Faith Lehane from the boats all but swaggered up to the Sorting Hat, glaring furiously at the entire Great Hall as though she didn’t want to be at Hogwarts in the first place. Sitting down on the stool, she screwed up her face and waited.

It took the hat a good ten seconds to say anything at all. Buffy and Willow exchanged intrigued looks, watching, and waited with bated breath until the hat finally shouted out, “HUFFLEPUFF!”

Faith looked startled, and surprisingly vulnerable. Something in her face softened just a little as she headed to the loudly cheering black-and-yellow table.

“Well, at least Xander has someone he sorta knows there,” said Willow with rueful amusement. “I know I’m not gonna be in Hufflepuff.”

“You’re not? How come?”

“I just—know,” said Willow decisively. “I’m definitely loyal, but I’m not loyal like Xander. His family says heaps of mean stuff about me just ‘cause my dad’s a Muggle, and he’s stuck by me since we were babies.” She smiled, proud. “I don’t know if anyone’s loyal like Xander,” she said. “Hufflepuff lucked out.”

“Where do you think you’ll go?” Buffy asked, curious.

“Ravenclaw,” said Willow. “On account of me knowing a bunch, and—and Ravenclaw’s where you get to learn more, right? I want to—oh!” She managed a sheepish smile in the direction of Professor McGonagall, who at this point looked a mixture of amused and exhausted. “Sorry,” she whispered. Then, “Maybe I’m not quite smart enough for Ravenclaw,” which made her and Buffy do their best to stifle giggles before—

“Rosenberg, Willow!”

Willow threw a last smile over her shoulder at Buffy as she hurried up to sit on the stool.

The hat was dead silent for a scary long time. Buffy saw Willow’s hands trembling as they clenched around the edge of the stool, heard the soft, interested murmurs of the older students as they watched—she thought she caught the word hatstall, and worried that it might mean something bad for Willow—but finally, finally, the hat cried out, “SLYTHERIN!”

Willow’s eyes flew open; she looked like she’d been socked in the chest. Looking very small, she quietly removed the hat and hurried, forlorn, towards the Slytherin table. Buffy’s heart went out to her, and she made a mental note to check in on Willow as soon as she could—Buffy personally didn’t know which house she’d be in, but she did know she would have be very sad if she’d had her heart set on one and hadn’t made the cut.

“Summers, Buffy!”

Buffy felt her stomach jump as she stepped up to the stool, looking first at Willow (who beamed at her) and then, half-involuntarily, at the professor who had been trying to read. He gave her a soft, encouraging little grin, and—that settled her, a little, enough to listen to what the Hat had to say.

If all the children were as easy to Sort as you, I don’t think they’d need me anymore, it said, a laugh in its voice. Then, to the hall, it shouted, “GRYFFINDOR!”

The hat was taken off Buffy’s head, and she blinked at the cheering red-and-gold table. At the end of it, Cordelia Chase gave her a shy, pleased smile and cleared a seat right next to her on the bench. Buffy glanced at Willow, but—Willow just looked excited, and not too bothered by the fact that Buffy wasn’t in the same House as she was, so maybe this whole House business wouldn’t stop them from being friends.

She still didn’t feel like sitting next to someone who talked down to the only friends she’d made, so she squeezed in instead next to a boy with messy dark hair and glasses, trying to ignore Cordelia’s disappointed blush. “Hi,” she said to the boy. “I’m Buffy.”

The boy looked a little surprised. “I’m Harry,” he said.

“Do you know anything about Gryffindor?” Buffy asked, curious.

“Not really,” said Harry, smiling a little nervously. “I’m—um—”

“Oh,” said Buffy, relieved, “are you Muggle-born too?”

“Not really,” said Harry again.

“He’s Harry Potter,” said Cordelia Chase from the end of the table, sounding a mixture of skeptical and amused. “You’re telling me you don’t know who Harry Potter is?”

“I don’t,” said Buffy, feeling her face flush a dull red, and was frustrated to find that she wasn’t sure if it was from anger or humiliation.

To her surprise, Harry moved a bit closer to her on the bench. “It’s okay,” he said, grinning a little. “Up till a few months ago, I didn’t know who Harry Potter was either.”

Cordelia looked affronted. A few of the older students looked amused. Buffy, comforted, looked up to smile shyly at Harry. “Okay,” she said, “so who are you?”

“I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging,” said Harry. “Can I just say I’m Harry Potter and I’m sort of waiting to see if my friend gets into Gryffindor too?”

“Absolutely,” said Buffy, relieved. “Which one’s your friend?”

Harry pointed towards a red-headed boy at the end of the line who looked slightly green. “Him,” he said. “Ron Weasley. He was nice to me on the train.”

“He looks—” Buffy wracked her brains for an adjective that wasn’t nauseous, and settled on, “—pretty nervous. Is he okay?”

“Truthfully—”

“Weasley, Ronald!”

Buffy and Harry shared a last smile, then went back to watching the Sorting.

The Gryffindor common room did indeed have a painting that talked, along with comfortable armchairs and twisting staircases that led up to a comfortable-looking dormitory. Cordelia Chase set herself up in the four-poster bed nearest to the window, ignoring the indignant huffs from the other girls, and immediately started brushing out her hair with the dramatic flair of a girl who had been raised to believe she was a princess. Buffy, rolling her eyes, settled herself on the bed as far away from Cordelia as possible, which put her right next to the girl who had attempted to do the same thing.

“Hermione Granger,” said the girl without preamble, looking shyly excited, “and did I hear you say you were Muggle-born too?”

“Oh!” Buffy beamed, shifting all the way on her bed to face Hermione. “I did! I was talking to Harry about it a little at dinner. He says he’s not really Muggle-born but I don’t know what that means—”

“He’s Harry Potter,” said Hermione, again as if this was supposed to mean something to Buffy beyond the name. Off Buffy’s look, she elaborated, “He defeated the most powerful dark wizard in the world when he was only a baby.”

“Seriously?” said Buffy, amazed.

“Sort of,” said Hermione. “Probably. He doesn’t seem to remember all that much about it.”

Buffy thought about the skinny, shy kid who had dug into his food with gusto, and tried to imagine him taking down a dark wizard—as a baby, no less. “Huh,” she said. “This school is weird,” and began to get ready for bed.

She saw Xander and Willow again in the morning. Xander was happily dressed in bright Hufflepuff colors, but Willow looked a bit more somber in her green and silver. “All the dark wizards come out of Slytherin,” she was saying in a small voice to Xander; she’d snuck over to the Hufflepuff table for breakfast. “And I just know my mom’s gonna be mad I’m not in Ravenclaw.”

“But you’re not going to be a dark wizard, right, Will?” Buffy pointed out, tempted to squeeze into the Hufflepuff table herself. She was a (mostly) rule-abiding citizen, however, so she sat down at her own table instead, turning on the bench so she could face them both.

“All the Slytherins are—”

“Well, whatever you’re going to say, that’s probably not true,” came a voice, and Willow jumped; a pretty, blonde teacher had swept over to all of them, squinting down at them thoughtfully. “I was in Slytherin seven years, and I turned out all right, I think.” She stuck out her hand to Willow. “Professor Anya Jenkins,” she said. “I teach Ancient Runes. You’re a bit young for that, but maybe I’ll be seeing you third year—now, is this your table or should you be sitting somewhere else?”

Willow took her hand, peering nervously up at Professor Jenkins. “You’re a Slytherin?”

“I was,” said Professor Jenkins. “Look, it’s seven years of your life. It’s not like people are going to ask you at every formal occasion what Hogwarts house you were in—and yes, a lot of dark wizards ended up in Slytherin, but that’s mostly because dark magic is all about ambition and power. It’s like saying that a lot of stuffy academics came out of Ravenclaw—look at Professor Giles, for instance.” Professor Jenkins gestured up towards the staff table, and to Buffy’s surprise, she saw the same professor who had been reading under the table at the Sorting. Upon noticing that he was being watched, he smiled a little awkwardly and began to uncomfortably polish his glasses.

“He’s a total dork,” said Professor Jenkins fondly. “But my point is—wanting power and being ambitious isn’t always a bad thing. It’s what you do with it that counts.” She ruffled Willow’s hair, then said, “You want me to walk you back to your table, kiddo?”

Willow looked nervously at Xander and Buffy.

“You’ll have classes with both of them, don’t worry,” Professor Jenkins encouraged. “I know for a fact you’ll be taking Potions with the Gryffindors.”

Willow’s expression softened and she smiled a nervous goodbye to her friends, letting Professor Jenkins steer her back over to the Slytherin table.

Xander watched her go with a strange, sad look on his face. Finally, he said, “I kinda always thought my parents were bad people on account of them being Slytherins. I guess—maybe it wasn’t that.”

Buffy got the sense that he’d forgotten she was there. She turned back to her breakfast.

History of Magic was with the Hufflepuffs, and Buffy had had every intention of sitting next to Xander before Faith plopped herself into the empty seat Buffy had been saving and said brightly, “Hey, Blondie, what’s up?”

“It’s Buffy,” said Buffy. “Are you going to say that word again? ‘Cause if you are, I don’t want to sit next to you.”

“What, Mudblood?” said Faith, unashamed.

A horrified hush fell over the classroom, and it took Buffy a moment to realize why: Faith had said the word Mudblood right as Professor Giles had entered the room. Quietly, he said, “Class, if you would all hold your seats. You two—” and here he gestured to Buffy and Faith, “—kindly step out into the hall with me for a moment.”

Buffy, furious and mortified, got up immediately; she hadevery intention of explaining to Professor Giles that she hadn’t done a thing wrong. Faith followed her, that same determined jut to her chin, and as soon as the classroom door was swinging shut behind them, she said to Professor Giles, flat and firm, “I’m a Mudblood, Professor. I’m not calling anyone else a Mudblood, I’m saying that I’m one.”

Buffy stared at the floor and wished she was somewhere else.

“Miss Summers,” said Professor Giles, “is there anything you have to say about this?”

“No,” said Buffy in a small voice. “Can I go back inside? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m well aware of that,” said Professor Giles a bit more gently. “You’re not in any trouble, Miss Summers—I merely felt it my responsibility as an educator to talk to you both about that word. You’re both Muggle-born, yes?”

“Yeah,” said Faith, her voice sharp. Buffy felt a lump in her throat and she didn’t say anything.

“Miss Summers?”

“I want to go inside,” Buffy burst out, feeling all of five years old but being too miserable to care. “This school is too big and I still don’t know who Harry Potter is and everyone else knows more than me here, and I was going to try out for cheerleading at my middle school and I don’t ever want to hear that word Faith said again or even have to talk about it!”

“Your middle school does cheerleading?” Faith sounded slightly amused.

Something in Buffy finally snapped. Without hesitating, she shoved past Faith and ran down the hallway, not quite sure where she was going but very sure she didn’t want to go back. Going back would mean talking about what the word Mudblood meant and talking about how Buffy wasn’t smart enough for a place like this magical school (because Buffy knew who she was, and whatever she was, it wasn’t magical), and, and—

—and she had reached a dead end. Slumping to the floor of the corridor, Buffy buried her face in her hands, feeling hopelessly lost and hopelessly small.

It was about two minutes of her sitting like this before she felt someone sit down next to her. “I come from a very old, very antiquated family of purebloods,” said Professor Giles, and Buffy didn’t dare look up at him. “I grew up surrounded by crests and finery and long quizzes on family history. My family’s also linked to a council of Watchers, but that’s a whole other world and a bit too long of a story for us to talk about just now.”

“I don’t wanna talk about that word,” said Buffy, sniffling.

“I know,” said Professor Giles. “I can understand why. It is a horrible word with a history of prejudice and intolerance behind it, and you are a girl who has just now learned about this world and this word and still doesn’t quite know what to make of it. You’re not lesser, Buffy, if that’s what you’re worried about. You’re not lesser because you’re Muggle-born, and you certainly aren’t lesser because you don’t know anything about Hogwarts, or Galleons, or all the things you’ve got the rest of your life to learn about.”

Buffy raised her head from her hands. “Everyone I meet just seems to know things already,” she said. “And it sucks. And I miss my mom and my little sister.”

Professor Giles gave her a small, encouraging smile. “You have a little sister?” he prompted.

“Are you trying to distract me?”

“A bit,” said Professor Giles. “Thought it might cheer you up.”

Something occurred to Buffy, then. “You have class,” she said, horrified. “It’s the first day and you have class. Are you going to be in trouble?”

“I am a teacher first and foremost,” said Professor Giles, “and my job is to go where I am most needed. Is there anything at all that you want to know?”

Buffy sniffled again, feeling a soft, steady warmth in her chest that reminded her of being wrapped in a blanket on her mom’s cozy couch, holding hot chocolate and watching cartoons. “A lot of stuff,” she said. “Can I write up a list?”

A few of the students did whisper a bit when Buffy and Professor Giles returned to the classroom, but Professor Giles gave Buffy a lot of books to read at the end of class, and told her that her learning more about the wizarding world would count as a little bit of extra credit. So Buffy didn’t mind all that much about them casting aspersions.

Faith caught up to Buffy as she was struggling to pack the last three books into her bag. “Hey,” Faith said, her voice softer and a little more anxious. “Um, Buffy, right? Listen, I’m really sorry about that, I didn’t mean to—I didn’t realize it’d hurt your feelings so much to hear that word. I just thought it was a mean word.”

“It was,” said Buffy. “And it’s, it’s got a lot of history behind it, according to—” she hefted the large volume up and out of her back, but couldn’t quite make out the title, “—whatever this book is.”

“Yeah,” said Faith, shuffling her feet. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. You seem really nice and I don’t know anything either, so, um—” She handed Buffy a crumpled, messy piece of paper. “Can you give these questions about—uh—wizard stuff—can you give them to Professor Giles for me too?”

Buffy smiled slightly, then nodded. “Okay,” she said.

“Cool,” said Faith, and grinned at her, then threw her bag over her shoulder and sprinted to catch up with the rest of the Hufflepuffs.

Buffy watched her go, smiling a little, then fell into step with Hermione Granger. “That Faith is a bit—much, isn’t she?” said Hermione, not in a judging way, more in a half-awed, half-frightened sort of tone. As though she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be taken out into the hall for a talking-to—which, judging from what Buffy had seen of Hermione, she probably couldn’t.

“Yeah, she is,” said Buffy. “But she’s pretty cool.”

Buffy kept Jenny Calendar’s Chocolate Frog card close to her heart when she cast her first spell. Wingardium leviosa, and her feather sailed high up to the sky—and there were bunches of people who said she had a place here, like Jenny Calendar with the work she did, like Professor Giles with his kind eyes. She took tea with him every Wednesday, now, and they talked about the wizarding world, and sometimes Willow and Xander came along.

“Almost in Ravenclaw?” he said when Willow told him about her hatstall. “Well, you must be quite a special girl to confuse the Sorting Hat so thoroughly.” Which made Willow smile, bright and wide, for three days running, and she told anyone who would listen that Professor Giles thought she was special.

Things began to pick up, slow but steady, over that first month: most significantly, Buffy learned to fly, and that was something else. Their flying lesson was a bit disrupted when an idiot Slytherin got in a lot of trouble and Harry became the youngest Seeker in a century, but Buffy forgot about all that when she finally got to be up in the air. Willow had a fear of heights that kept her clutching the broom, and Xander flew just a little wobbly, but the moment Buffy took off, she just—knew. Maybe spells and potions weren’t her forte, but this—this she could do. This felt absolutely, exactly right.

Buffy, I’m sorry, but I can’t buy you a broomstick, her mom wrote her back the next day. First years aren’t allowed to have them, according to that letter you gave me, not to mention I’m not at all comfortable with the thought of you hundreds of feet in the air. We can talk about it when you’re a little older, and maybe I’ll have changed my mind a little.

Buffy huffed, slumping back into her seat, and nearly missed the copy of the Daily Prophet that landed next to her. Looking up, she saw an excited Willow standing there with her own copy. “I just—I remembered you kept that card of Ms. Calendar,” she said, “and—look! It’s not on the front page, but, but she wrote an article about how important the perspectives of Muggle-born children can be.”

“That Calendar lady sure talks a lot about Muggles,” scoffed Cordelia.

Willow’s smile didn’t falter. “She’s using her platform to elevate the voices of the under-represented,” she shot back, “which is more than I can say for you, Cordelia.”

“Whatever, Slytherin,” Cordelia retorted. “Don’t you have some kids to bully?”

Willow flushed an ashamed red and her smile quivered.

Buffy made a face at Cordelia and scooted down the bench until there was room for Willow. “Here,” she said. “We should read this one together.”

She tacked the article up above her four-poster bed, in between her beat-up poster of Dorothy Hamill and a picture of her with her mom and Dawn. One section was highlighted—

…children born and raised outside our magical world inhabit not just our world, but their own: they are able to look at our culture, history, and knowledge from an outsider’s perspective, and oftentimes they see solutions to problems we haven’t even considered yet. Take, for instance, our owl-only methods of communications: non-magical individuals have found a way to communicate within a manner of seconds, whether it be through telephones or, as of late, emails. These children, attending Hogwarts, have created spells that enable them to make cost-free long-distance calls to their non-magical parents—something that might never cross the mind of someone raised in the wizarding world from birth.

Magic isn’t nearly half as important as what one does with it. Insight is a thousand times more valuable.

#fic #buffy summers #buffy and giles #(that tag is relevant)#listen i had a crazy amount of fun with this fic and i am so so proud of it

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quinintheclouds · 6 years

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I found out im a ravenclaw! It doesn't feel like it fits me but hey, what are you gonna do about it. Can you tell me stuff about ravenclaws?

Yay, I’d love to! Quick aside though, what do you mean by “found out?” Your wording seems to indicate it was something shown/told to you rather than a conclusion on which you’d arrived yourself. If you took a quiz, those can be fun but aren’t reliable. I can take the pottermore test 3 times in a row answering with complete honesty and get sorted into 3 different Houses. The quizzes are all just someone else’s perceptions of what innocuous details might pertain to each House, and a few years ago I conducted an analysis of the different options/choices and the Houses to which they led, and… a lot of it’s kinda irrelevant and arbitrary.

If I’m misinterpreting and you DID come to this realization for yourself, I’m curious as to why you feel it doesn’t seem to fit you. but WELCOME to Ravenclaw! :D Keep in mind though that everyone has aspects of every House, and aspects of themselves that aren’t contained by Houses at all!

Okay, initial ramblings aside… sorry :P Ready to hear some bomb info about us Ravenclaws that often isn’t talked about? Let’s go! [Bear in mind that these aren’t exclusive to just Ravenclaws and also won’t apply to every Ravenclaw! Some of these are just my personal experience/thoughts]

So first, Ravenclaw’s canon defining characteristics: intelligence, creativity, wit, imagination, love of learning, uniqueness, originality, individuality, curiosity, open-mindedness, and acceptance.

We are largely a compassionate bunch that stands against ignorance of all kinds and will fight by informing others. Ravenclaws can often be found organizing protests and the like for important causes (akin to Hermione’s S.P.E.W.)

A lot of Ravenclaws have trouble settling on our House, because we can have the inclination to look at every angle of a scenario so that we can at least attempt to more objectively weigh the options. This is why I used to think I was a Gryffindor/Hufflepuff for long stretches of time.

Another reason some of us hesitate to sort ourselves as such is because of the misconception that Ravenclaws always make great grades or are dutiful with schoolwork. Not true. Intelligence comes in many forms!

On that note, neurodivergent Ravenclaws may struggle to feel we belong when we see so many our peers excel in school.

On the brighter side, Ravenclaws like these will somewhat unknowingly wind up banding together. We’re the ones who accidentally miss class because we’re so engrossed in researching some big new interest. The ones who annoy the others by testing out new spells/potions of our own creation and consequently making a mess and ruckus. We’re the ones who forgot to study because we got confused by one of the points in the book/lecture and wound up writing an essay trying to debunk the error instead of doing the actual assignment. Here’s to us lol

A bunch of us DEFINITELY waste time gathered outside the common room (or CAW-mmon room!) just solving the door’s riddles. (If you didn’t know, the door only opens after you answer a different riddle every time)

The vast majority of us LOVE puns. Ah, wordplay… the toy of language.

Starting a million projects and never finishing them whoops

Having a million journals you’ve written in so you have no clue which is which at this point

Buying way too many books but rarely finding time to actually read

OUR HOUSE COLORS ARE BLUE AND BRONZE, DAMMIT! THE MOVIES CHANGED THE BRONZE TO SILVER AND I’LL NEVER BE OVER IT (lol I’m totally chill about this, can you tell?)

We are HUGE daydreamers! We pride ourselves on imagination, and luckily for us, we’re in one of the tallest towers of Hogwarts (bc we represent the element of air) so we have beautiful windows out of which to gaze while letting our minds wander

Also the cawmmon room ceiling is magically designed to always look like the night sky, so we love to lie on the floor and watch the stars, moon, planets, etc.

WE FRICKIN’ LOVE SPACE, OKAY???

NEVER leave your stuff behind in the dorms! You’ll have to answer a riddle to get back in, and by that time you’ll be late to class (fellow ADHD Ravenclaws, we know this pain all too well)

We’re an adventurous bunch, contrary to some belief. But our adventures aren’t purely for external enjoyment — the excitement arises from the stimulation of our minds. Curiosity killed the cat, as it were, but feeds the eagle. We’ll sneak out of the dorms to go to the library or steal some ingredients from the Potions classroom for an experiment. The Restricted Section is our playground.

We’re artists, writers, poets, performers, musicians. People overlook this too often, but these are so important to so many of us. I create, therefore I am.

We’re pretty weird and eccentric a lot of the time, but embracing that helps us gain understanding about what makes us passionate, and we’ll work hard for things we care about.

Side Note: I’ll never not be bitter that Fred and George were in Gryffindor. They were such Ravenclaws. They were impish lil pranksters, and very clever about it, and only did so when there was something to be learned from it (i.e. testing their numerous inventions). I could even see Slytherin more than Gryffindor. *Sigh,* I digress… for now.

I’m one of the Ravenclaws who discusses philosophy and theoretics for hours on end, and the annoying one who asks random questions for the sake of asking questions, just as a game to test myself and see if I can come up with possible answers. (The embodiment of the “do you think pigeons have feelings?” meme).

We, uh. Have terrible sleeping habits. And eating. And showering. And we forget water exists sometimes. We kinda have problems remembering we have corporeal bodies with needs or whatever. Lame.

Some of the more rigid, stereotypical Ravenclaws can be defensively competitive for top of class, and that can turn a bit sour, but I like to avoid that drama altogether.

We notably broke into the Astronomy Tower to watch a meteor shower, and lost so many points we came dead last in the House Cup that year.

Many of us have ALSO snuck into the Forbidden Forest to study creatures and explore deeper.

Yeah we don’t win the Cup often.

Muggle-born Ravenclaws get together in secret to teach the others about math/science/literature/etc. because the purebloods BEGGED them to and they were happy to oblige.

Interviewing the paintings to learn magical history from a firsthand account bc Professor Binns is too detached and boring

According to the wiki, we’re the House most likely to dismiss social conventions and unspoken rules in the search for satiating our curiosity. We’re full of quirks and often won’t stand for playing by unnecessary or flawed rules of any nature.

As hyper and Extra™ as some of us can be, we also love to chill by the fire with a book, a blanket, some music, and maybe too much tea

In general, we’re “well-known for being welcoming and encouraging of creativity, eccentricity and individuality and being very accepting,” as stated by the wiki.

Okay, I am physically forcing myself to stop now. As you can see, we also tend to just dump information all over the place lmao XD Anyway this was fun to write and I might make a post about neurodivergent Ravenclaws in particular… Let me know if you have any updates on your House, and if you ARE a Ravenclaw, we’re happy to have you!!!

#sorry this is so long lol #Once I start writing it's hard to stop #ravenclaw #asks #my posts

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maybeamiles · 3 years

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WIP Fanfic Ch. 1 Pt. 2

The fanfic is back baby! I got a wave of inspiration and finished the second part to the first chapter. Here it is! Meet two new characters and get a nice short action sequence all in the same post.

Also Link has a bad anxiety attack in this one and there’s like, mild descriptions of injuries. IDK how to tag that stuff so be warned if your sensitive to that sort of thing. This story is going to have a lot of that but I promise it has a happy ending

Even on the main road, the Minish woods still held many dangers for an unprepared traveler. Monsters tended to ambush anyone that went through, and should you find yourself trapped in the forest after dark, monsters would be the least of your worries. Hyrule Town was flooded with superstitions and rumors about the forest, and children were absolutely forbidden from going within a hundred steps of its outskirts.

Link knew the stories well, but she also knew the real dangers of the woods. After years of making them her home, she knew where the monster camps lay, which plants would eat you alive, and the difference between a magical path to safety and an illusory path to destruction. She knew the patterns and habits of monsters even better than Ezle did, and she knew the best ways to destroy them.

The Hylians she was travelling with did not seem to know the dangers of the forest. While the young man was certainly unnerved by the shadows, he was not armed, nor did he appear to have a good sense of lookout. His sister, admittedly, had good intuition. She had, so far, stuck to the main road, and not been tricked by the deceitful illusions monsters would lay for unsuspecting travelers.

Link would never admit it to Ezle, but she found the young woman fascinating. Her long red hair was tied back in a loose, low ponytail, and her eyes were the same infinite blue as the night sky. Her face displayed a determination that her brother lacked, but she also guided her horse with soft words and a gentle hand, never displaying the aggression Link had seen so often in the way residents of Hyrule Town treated their beasts of burden.

Link found herself drawing closer to the woman, crawling over piles of furniture and equipment to sit by her side at the front of the carriage. Up close, she could see a smattering of freckles across her face and sunburn on her arms and neck. Some of it looked painful and Link wondered how long she had been travelling to get a burn like that.

She heard the rustling of paper behind them and turned to see the brother pulling out a map. He seemed to be tracing a route on it and doing some mental math. After a few moments, he folded the map and crawled up to talk to his sister.

“Hey,” he said, “do you think Epona could keep going through the night?”

His sister turned to him.

“It’s less of ‘can Epona keep going’ and more ‘can Bessie keep up?’” she answered, “Why do you ask?”

“It’s these woods,” he explained, “I can’t figure out how long it will take to get out of them. I can’t even see the sun, and I’m worried that it’s going to get dark before we can leave.”

Link looked at the sky. The shadows from the trees were falling nearly straight down, indicating to Link that it was around noon. She knew that it was about a day’s walk from one end of the forest to the other, if you took the short route. At the speed they were travelling at, Link estimated they would leave the forest a couple of hours after dark. A less than ideal scenario, for such a poorly-defended travelling group, but better than staying the night in the woods.

The young woman looked at the sky as well, then at her horse, then at her cow. The old beast caused her some concern, but she seemed to reach a decision in her mind.

“I think we’ll be alright,” she said, “If it gets too dark, and we don’t seem to be making it out, we can make camp for the night.”

You do not want to do that. Link thought, and turned her attention towards the rest of the woods, intent on keeping a better watch than the travellers.

For the most part, the woods seemed normal. But as the hour went on, a growing sense of unease began to prickle at the back of Link’s neck. The shadows were growing deeper, and she kept seeing hints of movement in her peripheral vision. It’s nothing, she thought, I’m imagining things.

Then, in the shadows of the trees, Link saw a flash of red, and her blood went cold. Eyes. Blood-red eyes. Eyes filled with malice and magic and evil.

Time slowed down. The eyes met Link’s stare. They did not blink. They did not waver. They did not move.

Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump tha-thump-

A hand rested itself on Link’s shoulder and she gasped, breaking the trance the eyes had held on her. She looked up to see Ezle, concern written all over their face.

“Are you alright?” Ezle asked. Link nodded, and glanced back at the woods.

The eyes blinked at her, then vanished.

“We’re in danger,” Link said, and she stood up, wishing her legs would stop shaking and her breathing would steady. “Be ready for an ambush. I’m going to check for monsters.”

She leapt off the side of the cart, ignoring Ezle’s protests, and began to search the woods for monsters. She spotted two moblin archers waiting in the bushes just a bit further down the road. An ambush. She slipped into the shadows behind them, hiding behind a fallen log before transforming into her full size. Then, she drew her bow.

The first shot cleanly pierced through a moblin’s head, sending it to the ground in a puff of smoke and alerting its companion. The surviving moblin turned around and drew its bow, scanning the woods for its attacker.

Link’s second arrow went straight through its eye, killing it instantly.

She smiled with satisfaction, but the shaking feeling in her legs hadn’t gone away. Her breathing was still heavy and she could feel fear clawing at every corner of her mind. The eyes flashed in front of her.

Not now, she thought, I need to-

A scream cut off her thoughts and she rushed back towards the cart. A third moblin had appeared from the other side of the road, carrying a great wooden club. The young man with the sword had been knocked to the ground (dead?) and his sister had leapt off the cart to defend him. Did she scream when he died? She was holding his sword, and it was too heavy for her. Her face was white with fear and her hands shook.

Link reached for her arrows, and her hand grasped thin air. The eyes flashed again. The other girl swung at the moblin, and her sword shattered on its thick hide. She backed away and tripped over her brother’s body. Link rushed forward. The monster raised its club. The girl was frozen, helpless-

CLANG! Wooden club met metal shield as Link intercepted the heavy blow. Something in Link’s shield arm snapped under the impact, but she successfully parried the attack and cut into the reeling moblin with her sword. With a few simple slashes, the beast disappeared into shadows and smoke.

Link sank to her knees and bent forward, pressing her forehead against the ground and clutching her injured arm. Her breathing came in heavy, panicked gasps, and while she could hear the other girl fretting over her brother, Link processed none of it. The world was physically normal, but her mind was blurry, processing everything through a filter of fears and worries that slipped by too quickly for her to put words to them. The eyes flickered in her vision. Everything was going wrong. She was in danger. Something bad was going to happen. She had to stop it. She had to stop it. She had to fix it. She had to do it right. She had to-

Link felt a tiny hand on her forehead, and the familiar, comforting warmth of Picori magic flooded through her body. She looked up to see Ezle, whose face was creased with worry.

“Are you okay now?” they asked, meeting Link’s gaze. Link nodded and began taking deep, long breaths, allowing the panic to drain from her body with Ezle’s magic. The pain in her arm subsided as her breathing steadied, and soon she allowed herself to look around and process the situation.

The Hylian woman was staring at Link from where she was seated on the ground, frozen with shock and awe. Link smiled at her and stood up, subsequently offering a hand to help the young woman up. The gesture seemed to bring the young woman back to her senses and she accepted Link’s offer.

“I don’t know how to thank you enough,” she said, dusting herself off with one hand, “I don’t have much money, but…” Her voice trailed off as Link’s mind wandered into far off places. She was talking about money, cows, and ranch stuff. Her voice sounded like birdsong after a long day. She said her name was Malon, and-

A groan broke Link from her thoughts, and with shock, she realized she was still holding Malon’s hand. Hastily Link dropped it as Malon turned to her brother, now half-conscious on the ground. So he wasn’t dead.

Malon dropped to her knees and began clumsily untying the knot of her scarf.

“Just hold still Talon,” she said, “You’re gonna be okay.”

The young man, Talon, flinched away as Malon attempted to apply pressure to his wound. He was losing a lot of blood, Link realized, and she pulled a red potion from her bag. She knelt down beside Talon and held the bottle out. Malon looked at it.

“Will that help him?” Malon asked. Link nodded. Malon turned to her brother.

“Drink this,” she ordered, and Link poured the potion down his throat.

As soon as he swallowed the potion, the wound closed, and he sat up, somewhat shaky from his ordeal. Link realized she had never looked at Talon properly before. He was dressed in a simple white tunic, brown pants and working boots, and he had a yellow scarf similar to Malon’s tied around his shoulders. His hair was red, but slightly more muted than his sister’s. His eyes, rather than being blue, were a plain brown color.

“I'm guessing you’re the one I have to thank for saving my life,” he said, meeting Link’s gaze. Startled by his sudden conversation, Link nodded. His voice was as plain as his appearance, and while he gave his thanks, Link was struck by the difference between the siblings. Malon was captivating. Every word she spoke conveyed life and passion. Her hair danced in the wind and her eyes seemed to be deep pools of knowledge. Her brother, by contrast, was grounded. He held everything in reserve and maintained a simple professionalism throughout his speech. How can two siblings be so different? Link wondered.

Link finished her musings as the siblings wrapped up their thanks. Talon reached towards a pouch on his belt and pulled out a small wallet.

“I understand this may seem presumptuous,” he said, “but would you escort us out of these woods, and to our destination? We don’t have much money, but we can set up an IOU or something and give you more later. Or-”

Link smiled and laughed a little. At least they’re both nice enough. She racked her brain for the right words to say. Words were always difficult with Hylians.

“You... don’t need to pay me,” she said at last, “Happy to help. I’m…” she trailed off as her mind faltered.

“Leaving the woods myself,” Ezle whispered in her ear, “I’d be happy to escort you.” Link smiled and repeated Ezle’s words. Talon smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank the Oracles,” he muttered, “Well then, me and Malon will go pack up, and we’ll be off in a few minutes tops.” He began picking up the remains of the battlefield while Malon tended to her horse. Link joined her, though she wasn’t able to offer much more than a smile.

“By the way,” Malon said as she petted Epona’s neck, “What’s your name?”

“Link,” Link responded, without any hesitation.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ta-daaaaa! Why are Malon and Talon siblings? Idk just felt like it. Why does Talon swear by the oracles? Backstory. What are those mysterious floating red eyes? Find out in a future installment of my fanfic-that-has-yet-to-be-named

#loz #loz au #legend of zelda #legend of zelda au #malon #fanfiction without a name #marin's writing

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fangirlmomentsandmytwocents · 7 years

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