#writing a world with magic

[mamaangiwine]

I don't think many people realize how much they've been turned into a bunch of casually cynical jerks.

Someone may come to their parents and say "I want to write a book" and their parents will say "it's really hard to get published".

Someone might confide in their sibling and say "I want to sell my art on "x" platform" and that sibling will say "do you know how many people you'd be competing with? Do you know how many shops are even on that platform?"

I know a kid who once told his best friend "I think I wanna start a dnd podcast" and the friend was like "do you know what the word "oversaturation" means?"

Personally, I don't know why any of that matters? And even if it did, perhaps your response should be "Do it! Do it and see where it goes!"

[beetlbi]

Gravity falls httyd au, is that anything? Transcript under the cut, more thoughts in the tags

Texts says “red” “very protective of Stan, messes with him a lot” “doing much better than in canon bc he isn’t alone + has someone to take care of”

[tsuchinokoroyale]

The reviews are in!!!

“Hedonistic beefcake. Fattest ass with the most eager tight hole. Will make you cum 10/10” - a white guy

[whereserpentswalk]

There's an orc attending your college. Your city is pretty diverse, there's a lot of human cultures represented there, and even harpies and dwarves are common. But an orc is still a really rare sight. And she's not assimilated at all, she wears the symbol of the dark lord around her neak, and the strange black cloths from the wastelands she came from, and she always seems to have a gun somewhere on her. It's strange just to see an orc in person, she's not like the green skinned monsters you see in movies, her eyes are pitch black, and her skin is so pale you can see veins, she's muscular and tell but also strangely skinny, and her teeth are sharp and spiked like a sharks, this one doesn't have tusks, just these rows of serrated teeth.

Everyone avoids her at first. There's something creepy about her. She doesn't move like a human. She emotes weirdly, being stoic during conversations, but sometimes smiling or laughing at odd times. In class it becomes clear that she lacks knowledge anyone growing up in your society has, but has extensive knowledge on things most humans will never know. She also very clearly supports the dark lord and the demons who serve him, and gets mad when his narrative of conquest and strict genetic hierarchy is challenged in class.

You end up paired with her for a class project. It's weirdly awkward. But you end up spending more time with her then most. It still takes awhile to get used to her mannerisms, and you have to convince her of evolution in a long debate (but eventually you do convince her). She seems strangely naive to a lot of things. Every time she does something that she considers a failure she goes into self loathing, and she gets really afraid she's going to be punished. You have to explain to her things are going to be ok sometimes.

You try to spend time with her. She supports the dark lord but out of a strange sense of fear more than the type of ideological support humans in nations not under his control have. When she does something that she thinks is heresy agaisnt him she becomes afraid. And while she's angry at people who follow gods other than him (which is basically everyone here) she's more afraid of them than everything. When a holy symbol you own touches her she's surprised it doesn't burn her, you have to tell her it's ok.

She has a lot more freedom here than she did back in the wastelands. You slowly help her realize she doesn't have to worry about being punished for sinning agasint the dark lord. She's able to go on the internet for the first time, you help her get everything set up. You also introduce her to your freinds, only some of whom feel safe around her, but those who do seem to like her.

It's weird just hanging out in her dorm. She can be weirdly laid back and introspective at times, at least when she's not nervous or paranoid. But when she's just relaxing she'll tell you about things, about the beauty of the desert sands, about what it was like to observe the rattlesnakes and condors and wyverns of her homeland. How she likes to observe the city, the way the diffrent people flow through it, she was scared of it at first but now she likes to explore it, and the way it lacks stars at night but the lights from the buildings replace it. She says she wishes she could stay here forever, that she wishes she could be an artist but that she was sent here to learn skills useful to the dark lord's empire.

There's something nice about showing her new things. You get to take her to a musical for the first time. Get to show her neighborhoods you like. Get to explain to her what public transport is (though she got scared feeling trapped in a subway car). You get to show her stuff she never got to experience because orcs are never really children, she loves getting to hold a plush for the first time, or watching cartoons for the first time, it's like she's finally getting to live an experience she never had. Even though she's a well armed adult she really likes plushies once she finds out about them, they weren't something she was allowed to have back home.

Over time she starts meeting people and learning things that go against her worldview. As she makes more friends, understands new things, slowly learns that she shouldn't be punished for mistakes, she slowly comes around to seeing how fucked up the world the was raised in is. She tells you she doesn't want to worship the dark lord anymore, she cries just from saying it. You hug her, and realize she's never been hugged before, she seems to really like that feeling. She bathes in the waters of a healing goddess, and she worships something out of love instead of fear for the first time.

Eventually the spawning warlock who spawned her and her siblings comes to visit her. You told her to be careful but she ended up spilling that she doesn't worship the dark lord, she ends up spilling all the things a warlock like that considers a sin. When he leaves she tells you she can't go home. Not ever. Never again will she see the shifting sands, or flying condor, or flowing serpents of her homelands. She's trapped where she is now.

You know it hurts her a lot. She says she feels like she's in a small pocket of safety. Back home she'd be hurt for being an apostate. In human lands outside of the city she'd be hurt for being an orc. But she's safe here. She stays in her apartment for awhile, while you try to make things work. She's finally changing her major to art, and despite everything she's finally free, free to watch the starless sky, free to not be punished when she makes a mistake...

[bluerosefox]

Daughter of Phantom, Lady Gotham.

I love Lady Gotham stuff in the DCxDP stories, like a lot, so what if, hear me out (Long post is long, I rambled again)

Lady Gotham is Danny's daughter.

How? How about Danny is hurt (his parents? GIW? Vlad?), like badly, to the point even his core is damaged and the time needed to heal would take years, like a lot of years. Like it was bad that even his Rogues were shocked and shaken. They eventually get him to the Realms but are unsure what to do next. So they're scrambling trying to figure out how to save him.

So when CW appeared he asked to handed the Core because he knows what to do, where to hide him so he can heal they don't question it, everyone in the Realms know CW, the Ancient of Time itself, has a soft spot for Phantom. He opens a portal to a different world, not Danny's he can't run the risk of GIW finding him, to a just beginning world, the new world will help speed up his healing, and with Frostbite's help they set up a healing chamber deep, deep in the ground. Once they made sure everything is set up and safe, they place his core inside the healing pod and return every so often to check on him.

Over time though, above on the surface of that world it's timeline starts. Animals, creatures, humans, aliens, magic users, etc etc begin and with it, because even as a half healing core, Danny's power and ectoplasm starts effecting the area he's resting in (Ghost King Danny? Young/New Ancient/Eldritch Being? Or just an OP Danny?) (Clockwork and even Frostbite showing up every so often doesn't help either, it explains why Gotham is so cold sometimes or why time seems... off)

Anyways due to Danny's power (along with bits of Clockwork and Frostbite), magic of this world, and people beginning to build a small town on top of the land it gives birth to the namesake of the town.

GOTHAM.

CW foresaw her 'birth' and finds her sitting in front of Danny's healing pod. He always knew Gotham would eventually form, the belief/love her people have in her would had given her a form eventually he just wasn't expecting her to form so soon (this is why Danny remains his favorite person, he always did something CW never really see's to often) nor was he expecting her to become Danny's daughter. Gotham looks a bit like Danny, dark hair, blue eyes, pointed ears, sharp teeth, glowing star like freckles, but she also reflects her people, the ones that call Gotham home so her image shifts sometimes. But he can see small hints of maybe himself and Frostbite in the shifts.

She is 100% Danny's daughter via spirit/ectoplasm. If anything CW and Frostbite are like many times removed family members when it comes down to ectoplasm.

She's silent for a moment before she asks if "You and the other come here often to see him... The one sleeping is he my father?" Which CW does confirm, he explains why Danny is healing and who he and Frostbite are and why they show up to make sure he is doing better. How his healing will take many, many years. She goes silent again before saying "Teach me how to protect him. I am new and young compared to others... and yet I already know if anyone desires him for the power he gives, they will stop at nothing. He is my father and I am his daughter, I need to keep him safe just how I know he would keep me safe. This much I know."

CW agrees.

She learns, from her father's allies (CW, Frostbite, Pandora, etc etc) how to defend and fight. How to protect what she loves. She watches over her father and fights off demon's, monsters, sometimes an alien that senses the slumbering power, evil magic users. Etc. She watches over the town and people who named her as well, falls in love with the humans who call her home as well and defends them as well.

She even gets the blunt force of a curse a powerful old entity that tired to place it on her father after she had just banished it from her lands. It's an old powerful curse that CW or Frostbite can't rid of because it would weaken her far to much that they run the risk of her fading, the only way to get rid of it is if she had a family member feeding her ectoplasim to help sustain her. (Her aunts can't because Jazz isn't ghostly enough and Danielle can't because hers is limited due to being a clone (like she has enough for herself but does need to visit the Infinite Realms during her travels to get more ectoplasim to filter in and out). Danny is their only chance because he's constantly filtering ectoplasim in and out and even creating it because of how he died with a portal opening up at the same time)

The curse slowly starts eating away at Gotham, makes it hard for her to have a solid corporeal form because pain (when she has to use this form to fight off others she has to bare through the pain), her appearance starts changing (eyes turn from sharp ice blue to glowing yellow, skin turns deathly sickly pale, her star freckles slowly blinking in and out, hands become inked claws, her dark hair is unkempt and spills like an oil sludge down her body and face) and because Danny is still healing himself he can't help her and she can't see him all too often anymore because she doesn't want to run the risk of the curse effecting his healing core, she does get updates from the other ghosts that visit him and then her. She still defends him though, outside of his healing chambers should on the rare chance something finds it way down to him.

Eventually due to Danny's and Gotham's natural ectoplasim filtering on the lands, visiting and powerful ghosts, Gotham fighting off powerful beings trying to use her father for power, and the curse on Gotham herself, the town that had been built on the ground above by humans becomes the very city we all know.

Its a whole mixed bag do to so many factors, that's why Gotham is the way it is.

Gotham does her best to keep her people safe from well... everything but due to the curse and the fighting off another person/entity/demon/magic user/etc coming for her father's power, she can't always do much by the time one crisis is over and a new one pops up, she's slowly breaking down the longer it takes.

That's why she has a soft spot for her Dark Knight and his family and allies, they help her from the pain from the curse by trying as both the Wayne's and as the Batclan to fix up her city self, its not enough to really fix her fully but it helps with the pain that eats at her.

She does her best to give them tiny blessings though, but due to her duty of protecting her father she can't always do much (she wept when news of Jason, her second Robin, her rough around the edges bookworm, had died came to her. She couldn't protect him because he was out of her reach. Its why when Joker returned she made it very hard for him to really gain his foothold in her again but had to stop because CW told her if she kept making it too hard for the clown he'd go running off to 'play' with a different hero and that... that timeline would lead the world to ruin. She begrudgingly stopped but when Joker had taken her third Robin, her tiny Tim the one she loved watching shadow her knights, she did everything she could to keep him sane from the pain he had been put in, and lead Batman to the warehouse to save him. Also it turns out her heartbreak over Jason's death, her curse acting up, and her ectoplasim sparking off at the same time it helped bring him back from his grave not fully but somewhat, she was so shocked that she didn't have time to send hints to Bruce to get him when he was taken by Talia and once again out of her reach. She tried hinting it to Bruce that Talia had taken him but by the time he would check on the League, Talia would had moved him)

Gotham, depsite being young in the eyes of many other powerful beings and entities has held her own and kept those that wanted to use her father for power packing. Despite being cursed that is slowly eating her alive she still holds onto the hope her father will awaken and she will finally get to meet him. (She hopes she made him proud, he is a protector spirit core after all and she had been steadfast with keeping him safe all these years).

Things however take a turn for the worse when Gotham awakens from some sort of powerful slumber (she doesn't know what happened?! Did something knock her out?! When did she fall asleep?! Was it magic? Did the curse do it? Did someone or something-) And discovers someone or something had managed to steal her father slumbering core. (So close to healing, so close to awakening according to Frostbite, just a few more days he says. Just. A. Few. More. Days)

She tries to go find him but is suddenly hurting more, her curse has progressed even worse, she can barely stand, let alone fight whoever had her father. And she knows her father's friends won't be back to see her until far later.

And then all of Gotham shakes and shudders when her rage, panic, and terror are felt that early morning.

-×-×-

Deep in the Batcave, Batman and the others are searching for whatever caused that strange almost magical but not (ectoplasm) shudder that morning.

They were expecting a full scale attack. Magical, alien, maybe even all the Rogues in Gotham working together. An all scaled war. They were looking for any signs of it, maybe to by some miracle stop it before it becomes to late.

They however weren't expecting a strange sick looking woman with yellow glowing eyes, oil ink like hair covering her face and body, clawed hands like they had dipped in ink as well, star like freckles blinking in and out on her body and face, sharp ears, breathing heavily and coughing every so often to appear in the cave. Like she had sunk out from the shadows in pure silence. (Even Cass did not hear her)

Nor were they expecting her not to even flinch when they trained their weapons onto her. Instead all she did was laugh, a raspy low laugh, but it held warmth and mirth.

"Now, now my knights... No need for that. I come needing help and you are the only ones I will ever trust with this mission..." her voice was soft but harsh, talking seemed to hurt her though for she had to take deep breaths and suppress a cough. Her eyes trailed across them all, despite her sickly look her eyes gleamed with a motherly warmth in a strange sense, something all of them could feel "I can not hold this corporal form for long. Long story short I am cursed, have been for a very long time and whatever happened to me earlier this morning has aggravated it even more and thus I can not stay in the world of the 'living' to do much. My father, the one I have been protecting since my creation from all sorts of terrible and dangerous things, for should they get a hold of him it could spell the end of life itself for he is that powerful, has been taken from his healing chamber. I do not know who or where but I know he still remains in the city, that much I can sense."

She coughed and took a shuddering breath "But alas I can not go to his aid as I once has been able to, this is where you all come in. I need you to find my father, find his core. Bring him to safety. I had fought so many to keep him safe, to make sure he heals in peace for so long, and he... So close. Just a few more days he needed... then I could had finally had met him."

She lightly muttered those last few words, eyes looking lost for a moment before coughing hard.

"Who are you." Batman, Bruce Wayne, stonely demanded but for some reason he couldn't help but feel like he knows her, like from a foggy memory, and by the looks of his family they all could sense the same thing.

The woman, or whatever she was, merely smiled, sharp teeth bared in it as she looked him right in the eyes and said.

"Gotham, my dear Dark Knight. I am Lady Gotham herself. Its wonderful to finally meet you despite the circumstances."

[maddieandangel]

Consider: character-exclusive trinkets.

[dapper-lil-arts]

Made a new fic cover for The Princess and the Peasant! heheh my favorite. A fun retelling of the shrek story but with rarijack instead.

[whitefox1992]

*Angry wizard surrounded by approximately 1,000 lemon sented ducks because he doesn't know how to turn off spell check.*

[coeluvr]

Hello! If we pick the wolf as a pet, will it suffer from Rosea's warm weather?

Thank you!

Yes, probably. It's okay though I'll just be like "wow magic is so cool here's a cooling blanket" 🙂‍↕️🙏

[amaltheas-garden]

people still shocked that in the year of our lord 2024 some of us don't want to see Dany get her 'happy ending' by becoming the white savior who was promised

[lupine-trees]

everywhere, everything.

[ boys having tea & fixing broken house magic, etc. for the @drarrymicrofic march prompt: ubiquitous. ]

drarry | word count: ~880 | rating: g | warnings: n/a

_ _ _

The Floo line had been tetchy, dropping calls and, occasionally, sending visitors to the jeweler’s down the street. Harry’d let it be, unbothered, or not bothered enough, until Hermione was deposited into a neighbor’s spare bedroom— at which point, it was no longer really his choice.

She’d asked a colleague who’d asked a friend who’d asked a cousin who’d made the recommendation.

That was how Draco Malfoy came to be standing in Harry’s foyer.

“It’s nice,” he said, doing a cursory spin, glance skipping over Harry’s home, briefcase in hand, cloak still on.

“Can I take that?” Harry offered, gesturing to the coat rack, the thing moody from disuse.

“No need,” Draco answered. “The Floo?”

Harry showed him to the living room, the main fireplace.

“Do you know the year the house was built?”

“I— no. It’s 18th-century, but—”

Draco cut him off, a smile that betrayed an amused impatience curling small over his lips.

“Yes, I was rather hoping for specifics. I know it’s 18th-century, given the—” and he gestured then, vaguely, to the house, to nothing in particular, “but the Floo coding legislation underwent several revisions, new statutes and such, in the latter decades. Depending on the build date, it could help identify the particulars of the problem.”

“Ah,” Harry answered eloquently. “I could send a note to Ms. Aldrich? I’m a tenant, technically, so I’m not really up to date on the history, but I think she’d know. I think it was a family home for a good while, something like three generations, maybe. I mean, I don’t know that they owned it all the way back, but—”

Harry paused, feeling the babble spilling out of him. “Anyway, it— I could send an owl. If you like.”

Draco shook his head, deftly folding his cloak over the nearby sofa and placing his briefcase on the coffee table, unlatching it, rolling up his sleeves.

“Diagnostic spells and magitachometer will do us nearly as well. Just might require a bit more patience.” He withdrew the device, began adjusting a series of dials and switches along the side.

He glanced up. “You’re welcome to observe, of course, but it isn’t strictly necessary. If you have other things to do…”

He let the implication linger, and Harry could take a hint.

“Yeah, sure. Few letters to respond to, if you don’t mind.”

Draco hummed, and Harry departed for the stairs, ascending to his bedroom, his desk, the quiet awareness of Draco’s presence following and lingering like a fog.

_ _ _

“Tea?” Harry offered a bit past an hour later, cup already in hand.

Draco pushed his hair from his forehead, rose from his kneel in front of the hearth. “Alright,” he said, accepting the saucer, sitting on the chaise, summoning Harry’s sugar from the kitchen without waiting for invitation.

Harry, sat in his favorite chair, jacquard and overstuffed, nodded at the shaker. “How did you know I’d have sugar?”

“Because, in spite of your many faults, Potter, you’re not a monster.” He took a magnanimous sip, eyes alight.

Harry scoffed a sound like a laugh.

“And,” Draco offered eventually, “Weasley takes sugar in his tea, too. An ungodly amount, I might mention. So.”

“You notice things like that,” Harry said, eyes trailing from the shaker to Draco’s hands, fiddling with his teaspoon.

“A lot worth noticing,” Draco responded, deferring. “It’s served me well, anyway. Helps with the job, to be sure.”

“Yeah?” Harry answered, not reading too far in.

Draco placed his cup with a clink on the low oak table. “Here,” he said, a quick flourish and careful twist of his wand.

Suddenly threads of gold and green and blue shot across Harry’s living room, woven together, looping, delicately intertwined, then veering off along the walls into various corners and crannies.

Harry reached out for a string, and his fingers passed through it, thrumming, the feeling of it racing up his arm and pinging tenderly at the base of his skull, in his teeth.

“Oh,” he said, fingers drawing to the nape of his neck, chasing the odd sensation, but it was there and gone like that. “How did you do that?”

“Just an illumination charm,” Draco replied, a funny, fond look in his eyes.

“This is the web of house magic. Mostly. A bit of it’s yours. But you’ve got your wards, climate charms, Floo network, of course, some summoning enhancements, expansion work. Some personality, too,” he said, tracing a tangled line of gold.

Harry’s eyes followed it up, outwards, where it curled across the ceilings, reaching up into the second story. “And it’s just here?” he asked, quiet. “Always?”

Draco hummed, his own eyes falling on Harry’s face, following his gaze. “It’s sort of omnipresent like that.”

“Everywhere,” Harry said. Then, a bit breathless as he plucked at a braided strand: “Everything.”

Draco fell silent, a beat of it passing between them, before he shook his head, as if to clear it, and rose from the chaise. “Let me finish with your Floo, Potter. Shouldn’t be long now.”

“Would you show me?” Harry asked abruptly, not wanting to retreat again into his room. Not wanting to go.

Draco eyed him, his thumb tracing thoughtful, thoughtless circles over the hilt of his wand.

“Alright,” he said, at last. “I’ll show you.”

[hunnyy-bunnyyy]

The dissonance between era inspiration in ACoTaR is one of the more brushed over flaws in the book series. Looking at the Inner Circle's fashion alone, we jump between "literal scraps of fabric" (Under the Mountain, Court of Nightmares) to "orientalist painter's imaginings of the Ottoman Harem" (clothing described during Feyre's first few visits to the Night Court) to "modern 'corset' dress" (Feyre's Starfall dress, majority of Mor's clothing, most of the clothes drawn in fan art) to "modern -- almost sci-fi style -- skin-tight leather armor" to "sweater and leggings combo".

Then, between courts, we have Helion wearing Spirit Halloween's take on the ancient Grecian tunic; Feyre's Spring Court wedding dress looking like an 1830s fashion plate; and Dawn heavily implied to have traditional East Asain clothing (e.g. kimono, hanfu, hanbok).

On top of all of that, some of the Dawn Court's small cities ". . . specialized in tinkering and clockwork and clever things. . ." which -- combined with Lucien's metal eye and Nuan's mechanical hand -- implies a sort of post-industrial revolution time period. However, a decent chunk of the fandom says that ACoTaR is medieval; which, yeah, it's medieval themed in the first book -- sans the "dress" Rhysand forces Feyre to wear UTM.

The wild inconsistencies in ACoTaR's inspiration leads, not to a rich and diverse world, but a world that seems ramshackle and haphazard -- like it's creator simply threw together a board on Pinterest and called it a day. This is a major part of why the world building is so abysmal, it relies on convenience to the plot and whatever pleases the aesthetic whims of the author. Cultures deemed "pretty" or "badass" are thrown together, irregardless of how far apart they actually are. This is not only disrespectful to the narrative, but to the readers and the cultures used as inspiration.

All of this to say: Sarah J Maas is a bad author, not just because of the way she handles serious topics like power dynamics and abuse, but also because she cannot put together a world that is even the slightest bit cohesive.

[sanddollarpoems]

You are extraordinary

One of a kind and yet

Millions of ones

Ever changing

You are the heartbreak

And the heartbeat

You are the master

And the student

You are evolution

And stability

You are the life

And the spark

And the answer

And the question

And in the times that you feel lost

Please remember all of these things

That make you

Extraordinary

[separatist-apologist]

Not to be a hater but there are very few books that justify being 600-1000+ pages long.

[whereserpentswalk]

You saw an angel shopping at a convenience store. They were just sort of hanging out. It's actually a myth that all angels are less powerful than all gods, or all serve them. Angels exist to uphold cosmic law, while gods are powerful entities but are free to do what they will with that power.

Anyway, you end up going up to the angel and talking to them. It's slightly awkward at first. You expected them to be both more humanoid and more divine. They have a doll like body, made out of white hard plastic with obvious joints, their wings are made out of pure light, and they have black hair and glowing yellow eyes. They're only wearing a t shirt and baseball hat, nothing else. They seem incredibly uncomfortable being here.

You end up saying hi though, and asking them how they're doing. You realize it's not normal to talk to strangers like that but you're doing it. They seem a bit afraid to talk, but eventually you ask them if they're ok talking, and they say yes, and become ok with it. You offer them an apple, they say it's pretty but they can't eat, and they'll watch over it until it dies.

After talking for a bit they start talking with their boss, whose a very powerful angelic knight. They're negotiating with the fae again, and they need to buy some things that fae like, and they were sent to earth for the first time because thats where things are cheapest. They take this task very seriously, in angel culture one is only valued by their ability to serve their angelic duties, no other entitiy of the cosmos has a culture of such strictness. You show them some things you think might work. The apple was one of them apparently.

You end up complaining about your boss a bit. The angel asks you where you work and you point to the office building across the street from you. The angel said that they found the massive glass towers on earth pretty, that only human cities have them, and they didn't know what they were for. You've never thought of the place you worked as pretty.

The angel asks if you're a boy or a girl in a slightly awkward way eventually, and you explain that you're neither, just like them. They're a bit confused, because they thought humans had two sexes, but you explain that you chose the form you now inhabit. They tell you they would choose to be female if angels were allowed to. They tell you some demons who used to be angels chose genders, but that they'd rather die then fall so it'll never happen to them.

Eventually you have to say goodbye to them. They give you their number, it's an irrational number but your phone will call it all the same. You ask to take a photo of them, and they let you, they ask why and you tell them they're pretty. They became weirdly happy about that. You don't think angels call eachother things like pretty, especially not for just existing, for just being there. When you hug them their body is strangley cold, you remember they're closer to a machine than a human in how their body works, it's strangely calming and refreshing just to touch them. Mabye soon you can touch them again.

[antaripirate]

maxim maresh, red london father of all time