#magical quartet

[gabbyp09]

[sailorsenshigifs]

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 81

Danny blinked at the small children Ellie was holding the hand of, looking quite proud of herself. The small children- between ten and twelve so somewhere similar to Ellie’s age- who both practically stank of magic and Gods. 

He took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose even as Dan cackled while opening the door more to let them inside. “Alright, what’s your name, kids?”

“B-billy…um, Billy Batson...” “‘m Percy! Percy Jackson.” 

“Nice to meet you two- any idea where in your family you have a god or two, because one of you definitely smells like Zeus and I’m pretty sure Poseidon and I am not dealing with either of my half-brothers.” 

[queenofhearts7378]

Tucker and Spud Appreciation: An essay by me apparently.

Tucker leaned back in his chair, “-and that's why we're no longer welcome at that gas station.”

Spud had a wide eyed look of wonder, “Woah man…….That takes some skill.”

“Thank you!” Tucker gestured wildly on his side of the screen. “Sam called me and Danny menaces but she's the one who brought the mace!”

Spud nodded. “It really was a team effort.” He flipped through his notebook, “Anyways how’s the progress on your side? I managed to crack into some uh, supplies and shipment invoices?”

Spud wrote down some notes, before clicking through a couple of the unlocked files on his computer, squinting at the screen.

Tucker groaned as his chair hit the ground, “Man I keep telling the guys hacking isn't like the movies make it out to be. Like yeah, if I got a back door planted I can get in and out no problem. But straight up hacking a new system?”

“The problems with being the smart ones on the team,” Spud said.

“I managed to get some payroll documents, and some employee work times I think?” Tucker blew a raspberry as he typed a few more lines of code, “All fake names. I doubt a place employs 23 different J. Doe's.”

“John, Jane, Janet, Jake, Joseph, Josie,” Spud recited.

Tucker snorted, “Yeah pretty much.”

Spud hummed before something dinged on his side, “Huh. That might be something.”

Tucker cracked his knuckles, “Share with me?”

Spud copied a few of the files before sending them over. “Hang on, I gotta check something.”

Tucker saw Spud disappear off the side of the screen, but could hear him rooting through some papers.

He looked over the information, scrolling through the various invoices. “Dude what are you seeing that I'm not? It's just the shipping invoices for a bunch of different places.”

Spud came back carrying five different notebooks, of varying sizes. “You may be better at hacking, but I'm better with the information man.”

He waved one of the notebooks, “I started helping Jake keep track of the various magic communities around, you know, to help with his duties when they kicked up.”

“Dude, that is so baller of you.”

“Heh, thanks.” He cracked open the notebook and pulled a highlighter out of a cup. He started marking the notebook as he scrolled through the files. “Anyways, I thought I recognized a couple of the areas some of the buildings were placed in annnnnnnd…..”

Spud furrowed his brow and grabbed another notebook, flipping it through it real quick. “What are some of those shipments carrying?”

Tucker started scrolling through his own files, “Uhhhh looks like…..lots of metal and rubber. Toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, and a frankly concerning amount of coffee. Office supplies, like so much office supplies and-”

Tucker winced. “Oh man, and a lot of chemicals I recognize from the Fenton's lab.”

“Yeah but see this?” Spud frowned as he tapped the screen, “These shipments are labeled as various different glass equipment shipments. And it's doubled every other month or so.”

“Could be they're using a lot of the equipment.” Tucker said, “We know they're testing facilities. But you wouldn't be singling those out if that were the case.”

“It's the fact it's double shipments of glass, so the handling of them would be different from most supplies to handle the fragile equipment. And the extra shipments have different weights to them as opposed to the originals they're copying.”

“That sounds super sus.”

“Yeah. What makes it more sus is the fact that the sketchy glass shipments originate from B.U.G.S facilities, rather than outside suppliers like the office supplies and the original glass shipments. Now it could be explained as them having the shipments sent to a warehouse, before dishing it out to other nearby facilities, but there's no record or paper trail that shows that. From what I can tell, the sketchy shipments just appear in the records, before being sent out to a different facility, where it immediately disappears.”

Tucker leaned back, suddenly aware that they were stumbling over something bad. “And considering what we know about them, after the guys stumbled across that one……”

Spud stared at the files on screen, “It could just be magical artifacts. But the more likely explanation is they're catching magical creatures.”

The two of them sat in a heavy silence for a moment.

“How sure of this are you?” Tucker asked. “I mean, the magical world would notice the disappearances right? They would have got a hold of Jake or Lao Shi or someone.”

Spud shook his head and held up his notebook. “All the facilities manage to fall near a cluster of magical communities, that's what I was checking. And like I said, the shipments originate in one facility and then get shipped to a completely different one. Never the same one consecutively, and it's spaced out over years. If a bunch of creatures goes missing, yeah someone's going to notice.”

“But if just one goes missing,” Tucker continued, “It's just an unrelated tragedy.”

Spud set down his highlighter and rubbed his eyes, “And it's not impossible. The Huntsclan has managed to kidnap several magical creatures at once for years for their hunting games.”

“Ugh!” Tucker shuddered. “I do not like the implications of that.”

“Yeah, Jake got caught once. There were about four or five others with him, and they were all misfits to their species, and not well liked so most of their neighbors and families just assumed they ran off or had unfortunate accidents.”

“That's……”

“Yeah.”

Tucker stared at his computer, something twisting in his stomach as he stared at all the locked files he still hadn't managed to get into.

“We can't tell them.”

Spud snapped his head up to look at Tucker incredulously, “What?!?! We have to!”

Tucker shook his head frantically, “We can't. You know the guys as well as I do, we tell them what we found and they're going to go tackle the places right away. This is so much bigger than we thought and in so many places. They barely got out last time and that was with the element of surprise and them not knowing about what they can do.”

“It's basically the same as the GIW! You guys deal with them all the time!”

“It's not the same! The GIW have a single base, with maybe 20 guys working there! I've been tracking them and their branch since they first showed up in Amity and they don't go anywhere else. This is the only branch of the GIW. They barely manage to capture the little blobs or ectopusses, and even then those ghosts escape on their own before I even get the alert about them!”

Tucker pushed away from the desk to start pacing across his floor. “These guys have buildings across the country! That one building had about 50 people working for it and that's not even going into all their bosses. They've been operating for years without anybody catching on! And we don't know what they're capable of! They had something that blocked Danny’s powers, and we still don't know what did it. This is so much bigger than what we usually deal with. We have to wait, get some more information, get some more help-”

“Yeah, like telling everybody!” Spud yelled, “This shouldn't even be an argument, Tucker!”

Tucker stared at the floor, pulling his hat down to where Spud couldn't see his eyes. He was silent for a moment.

“......If we tell them right now, they'll get in over their heads and they'll get hurt and I can't-” Tucker's voice broke.

He took a breath, rubbing his face before looking back at Spud. “I am not sending Danny into a place where they'd turn him into a lab rat.”

“Tucker-”

“All I'm saying is we have to wait.” Tucker interrupted. “We wait, we get more info, we try and get the magical communities more wary around those areas.”

“I don't want to lie to them.”

“I know. Ancients, I know.” Tucker crossed his arms, “But we gotta be smart about this. Are you with me Spud?”

Spud let out a sigh as he slumped in his chair. “... Yeah. Yeah I'm with ya. Let the record show I hate this though.”

“You and me both.” Tucker muttered, “Anyways, plans?”

“You keep hacking into the information.” Spud said. “Send me everything you get and I'll start cross-referencing with the known magical communities when I get them. In the meantime I'll talk to Fu Dawg. He's got a ton of connections and can start spreading the word.”

“What about Lao Shi?”

“I'll talk to him, but I want some more information first.”

“You don't think he'll believe you?”

“No he will. But he'll want to take it straight to the Dragon Council.” Spud scoffed, “It's them I'm worried about.”

The two of them sat there for a moment before Spud said, “This sucks.”

Tucker started giggling, “Understatement man. But we got this. Someone has to protect those losers.”

“Heck yeah man!” Spud held up a fist to the camera, and Tucker did the same as the two of them did their virtual secret handshake.

Someone had to have the heroes’ backs after all.

[morphmaker]

The Immortals No. 1: You've got something alright

[books-coffee-and-the-woods]

FINISHED WILD MAGIC!!

Man I love this book, and this series holds up way better on a reread than Song of the Lioness (no shade, though). Alanna might be my original blorbo, my homegirl, my idol, but Daine is a close second. Actually, considering the order I acquired the Tortall books it's possible I've read the first two Immortals books more than any others (they were 10th birthday presents from my aunt, and I acquired Emperor Mage shortly after, the rest I mostly got from the library and slowly bought as a teen, so how often they got read depended on their availability lol).

Anyway, I still love this book. Daine is a complex character and very believably 13--she's smart and kind but also occasionally silly and insecure, and has moments of anger when pushed to do something she doesn't want to. Her relationships with animals are so interesting and I love how Pierce manages to give all of them unique personalities. And seeing all the older characters like Alanna, Jon, and Thayet from Daine's perspective is fun. In SoTL we meet them as young adults who are just establishing their place in the world and sometimes immature, but by the time Daine comes along a decade or so later they've matured and she views them all as kind-of parental figures. Onua is a wonderful addition--as a kid I didn't appreciate her as much, but as an adult I love her as a kind of older sister for Daine and an addition to the Tortall Family. Numair used to be one of my favourites, and now he's....okay. Like, I love a classic wizard-ass wizard but. You know. He is still a bit younger than the rest of the "adults" but at least twice Daine's age, so. I am trying to not let it spoil all of the story, since he's not nearly as creepy as George was in SoTL and I know Pierce has acknowledged it wasn't a great choice.

Also--love the introduction of the immortals. This series isn't quite as swords-n-sorcery as SoTL (more sorcery, less swords), but it does introduce some classic magical creatures, and a few new ones like Stormwings, which are exceptionally cool even if they are evil and gross.

Anyway, 10/10 still holds up on a reread. Love the ensemble cast/found family situation. Pierce is really good at writing those. Very excited to continue the series, but first I'm going to take a break and read one of my new books!

[revolutionary-thoy]

The future senshi team! SPEEDPAINT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB-q1LLu6Fc

[ancientscrollsofjuicyfruit]

Rereading some of my favorite young adult series, and reminded of some of the best things to quote in daily life.

[callixton]

sam and evan :(((( and jammer and k :((((( the d20 cast of all timeee

[itsjustelian]

Chapters: 2/? Fandom: 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jin Ling | Jin Rulan & Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui, Jin Ling | Jin Rulan & Lan Jingyi, Lan Jingyi & Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi & Ouyang Zizhen, Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui & Ouyang Zizhen, Jiang Cheng | Jiang Wanyin & Jin Ling | Jin Rulan, Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui & Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji, Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui & Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian & Wen Ning | Wen Qionglin, A-Qing & Jin Ling | Jin Rulan & Lan Jingyi & Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui & Ouyang Zizhen, A-Qing & Ouyang Zizhen, Jin Ling | Jin Rulan & Ouyang Zizhen, Jin Ling | Jin Rulan & Lan Jingyi & Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui & Ouyang Zizhen Characters: Jin Ling | Jin Rulan, Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, Ouyang Zizhen, Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji, A-Qing (Modao Zushi), Jiang Cheng | Jiang Wanyin, Lan Huan | Lan Xichen, Meng Yao | Jin Guangyao, Nie Huaisang, Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing (Modao Zushi), Xue Yang | Xue Chengmei, Junior Quartet (Modao Zushi) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Fluff and Angst, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji and Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian Are Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui's Parents, The juniors being dumb teenagers, because i love them, Other Additional Tags to Be Added Summary:

Jin Ling has JiuJiu and Fairy, which is all he’ll ever need. He’s not lonely, shut up. His life is perfect. That is until he discovers he one: has magic powers and two: other people have magic powers. When he meets Ouyang Zizhen, who also has these strange powers, the two (alongside a yet-to-awaken Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui) decide to create a magical girl group that is off to fight evil and save the world! From… something. They’ll figure it out.

Unaware that these powers haunted their parent's generation, the four set off on their first mission: find out who killed A-Qing.

It goes so badly that a dead man has to save them.

“Hey, that’s nice and all, but why am I in a skirt!?” “We’re all in skirts, Jin Ling. It’s one of the perks of being a magical girl.” — Or: the MDZS Junior Magical Girl AU where Wangxian get to be dads and everyone is in a skirt at some point.

[gabbyp09]

[sailorsenshigifs]

[whoopseydaisy]

The Overflowing Heart

I will tell you how I made this witch’s token, but you will have to find a way of your own. It is as Grandmother Wren told us,

“Remember always that some portion of magic is yours to wield, and that the world contains many, many truths.”

the recipe:

3/4 oz Kazuki gin

1 1/2 oz. Sake + tea mixture

1 oz. fresh squeezed grapefruit

3/4 oz. Strega

shake over ice, and serve in your finest or favourite tea cup

garnish with dried rose petals

notes:

Sherringham Kazuki gin— a collaboration of one of my favourite distilleries and my favourite local tea shop, Westholme Tea Farm. Made from Japanese cherry blossoms, and locally grown tea leaves with notes of yuzu, grapefruit, and juniper. I first visited Sherringham in a trio of my own, on a day long adventure, visiting a beach someway up the island. Westholme is run by an old coworker of my Aunt’s, and his partner who makes gorgeous pottery. I could not put words to my excitement when I first heard whispers of their collaboration.

Sake + Tea Mixture— I can never fully recreate this just the same. There is magic in that, I think. I have little left. I made it by taking a sprinkling of the following teas from Westholme, and cold steeping them in a mason jar with a large ice cube, topped with sake and a splash of moon bathed witch water.

featuring:

Blossom: (jasmine green, floral), for the cottage’s calendar

Bi Luo Chun: (green, delicate and earthy), for i thought it was grown here, over seven long years (I rolled a nat 1 on my perception check)

Pur-eh: (fermented, earthy), for its mushroominess and it’s connection therin

Dog: (black assam, vanilla and cardamon, from the Chinese Zodic series), the cardamom pod and a few leaves, for our beloved Fox

Witch Water: the witch water used in this potion was bathed in the Friday, October 13th New Moon (a day so witchy I thought for sure the class would be released that day!) in an empty kazuki gin vessel

~

Grapefruit— because it was pink and in season and a citrus I love dearly

Strega— the witch liqueur! According to legend, Giuseppe Alberti was given the recipe for this elixir after saving a witch falling out of the sacred walnut tree, under which witches would convene to dance and perform their rituals.

for the cocktail chapter of the @worldsbeyondpod unofficial cookbook

[morphmaker]

The Immortals No. 4: Daine's bedroll

[books-coffee-and-the-woods]

Currently Reading: Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce!

This book (and the sequel Wolf Speaker) were 10th birthday presents from my aunt. I remember thinking the cover looked sooooo cool and "adult" and being really excited and intimidated by them. I think at the time they were also some of the longest books I'd read yet 😅 They've been dropped in the tub, dragged around in every backpack and purse and suitcase, battered, thrown, squished, ripped, and survived several moves and questionable bookshelf situations. Twenty years with a less-than-reverent human. Still one of my favourite series 🐎

[revolutionary-thoy]

Sailor Ceres!