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#calling something a MAGIC SYSTEM when talking about fiction
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A Workshop for Creating Magical/ Fictional Crystals: A Guide from a Geologist
Hi folks, its me, here to talk about fictional writing again! Today I'm just tackling the idea of magical stones/mana stones by looking at existing minerals today and some neat properties that they have, and how you can apply these things to a fictional world. The goal is mainly to help you if you are stuck trying to come up with a unique magic system, or a unique identification/characteristic of your mineral.
First Things First: Mineral Shapes
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I am exhausted, petered out, down-right fatigued by seeing every mineral depicted with having the crystal structure of calcite and quartz. There are soooooo many cooler, more interesting crystal structures, don't you think you would stop and take a look at a perfect cube in nature? It is completely unsettling.
Second: Color
Color within minerals can either be really important, or not important at all! It is your choice to decide if color is going to be something that means something to your mineral. But what are some times when the color is important? Well.... there are some elements that are called chromophores, this classification just indicates that these elements, when present, will determine the color of whatever they are in. So, if you wanted to treat mana like a chromophore, you could say, "Oh everything that contains mana turns green!" This could mean that regardless of the mineral, if that mineral is a specific color, it means it contains mana. This concept is exciting because you can just stop here and use minerals that already exist! You can also use it as an indicator for a magical ore! Chromophores are typically metals, so if you are making a new metal weapon, making the ore of that metal a unique color would make a lot of sense!
However, your mineral can also just be every color of the rainbow like quartz and perhaps that's what makes identifying your mana stones elusive and create an illusion of scarcity that your character can solve.
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There are other things that can change the colors of minerals, like radiation damage, and electron exchange, but I think that is beyond what would be helpful! So lets talk about some unique color properties that happen in nature that seem magical in the first place! Maybe you don't need to design a mana stone, but you want a unique gemstone that only the royal family passes down or something (IDK).
The first one is the alexandrite effect! This is where a mineral can change color in natural light vs. incandescent light. (the mineral itself is not changing, but the lights contain different amounts of different colors that then get absorbed by the stone). Even if you don't use electricity in your fictional world, you could have the colors change in the presence of light magic. This could create fun misunderstandings about what the mineral is reacting to!
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Pleochroism
Pleochroism is something that most minerals have, it is frequently used to help identify minerals in thin sections, however minerals are usually not pleochroic enough for it to be visible to the naked eye! Pleochroism is just a fancy name to describe the change in how light is absorbed based on the angle of the mineral! So if you scroll up to the first image where I showed a lot of crystal shapes, most of them have angles where they are longer and shorter! This will effect the way light travels in the crystal. Tanzanite is a popular mineral that does this.
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Photochromism
This is when a mineral will change color (in a reversible way) when exposed to UV light (or sunlight), I am not going to go too into the details of why this is happening because it would require me to read some research papers and I just don't feel like it. The mineral that is best known for this is Hackmanite!
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Alright! These are all the really cool color effects that might inspire you or maybe not, but now I am going to talk about how you might find your minerals within a rock!
When I see a lot of magical caves/mines, typically I see them with some variation of a geode honestly, but most minerals are not found like that! Now I am sure most of you guys have seen a geode, so I will not really talk about those, but I will talk briefly about porphyroblasts which is when the mineral grows larger than the minerals around it, this happens in metamorphic minerals!
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sorry random stranger, but this is an image of garnets inside a finer-grained rock at gore mountain in New York!
Another way you might find minerals is in a pegmatite! This is when all minerals are really large! This is a formed from really slow crystalizing magma!
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But something else to think about is that your mineral might just be massive, it doesn't have to have distinct crystals, it may be similar to jadeite where small grains grow together which leaves it looking smooth and seamless! A note about all of these is that you would have to mine into the rock to find these, there would not be any natural caves in these rocks! Caves are only ever really formed in limestones and maybe marbles (rocks that react with acid).
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How can your characters identify these minerals?
Typically when you are out in the field you will look to see what type of rocks the minerals are found in (The overall texture of the rock will tell you how it formed). If you know how the rock formed, it will narrow down the amount of minerals you need to think about by quite a bit! Next, you are going to look closely at it and observe its crystal structure, does it have an obvious crystal? if so what is the general shape? If it is broken, how did it break? Did it fracture like glass or did it break along uniform planes. Some minerals have a thing called cleavage (breaks along planes of weakness). If a mineral exhibits this habit, it will again help narrow this down. Next we can look at color. Color can be misleading, because minerals like quartz can be any color imaginable, but minerals like olivine will always be green! The next thing your character can do is test for hardness, minerals all have a specific hardness that can help identify it as well.
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After you go through all of this, your mineral might have some special property! This could be magnetism, fluorescence, reactions to acid, or any of the color changing effects I mentioned above! Other than that, your character can take it back to a lab and do a number of things to identify it, but the most typical thing would be for them to make a thin section (very thin piece of the rock) and observe it under a cross polarized microscope!
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On that note folks! I hope this helped in some way in thinking of new magic mineral properties! I have other guides that explore some different fictional worldbuilding issues you might run into, but if you have any topics you would like me to cover please that I haven't mentioned already, let me know!
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will-o-the-witch · 1 year
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Writing a Witch Character, Respectfully
This is by no means a complete list, but it'll hopefully lay a foundation of things to keep in mind so that you can write a good character while still being respectful to real people and traditions.
Look at actual magical traditions to compare your magic system to. Obviously it's your work of fiction and you can create your own rules, but it can help provide some frame of reference. It'll also help you avoid unintentionally coding a 1:1 stand-in for an existing tradition.
Harmful stereotypes about witches often have roots in racism, antisemitism, and the satanic panic. Avoid terms like "black magic" which are used to demonize afrodiasporic religions (especially Vodou) and Santería. Avoid having your witches kidnap people, especially children, in order to use/drink their blood (this is called blood libel.) Avoid cabals of evil witches secretly conspiring to control the world, or who already do. (Another antisemitic trope.) Make sure your super-earthy witch who can talk to animals isn't an anti-indigenous charicature.
Be mindful of Wiccan-based stereotypes. Wicca dominates a LOT of magical discussion, especially from an outside perspective, but is definitely not representative of all witches. Ideas such as the threefold law, the "burning times," a single important Goddess, or heavy emphasis on the moon and wombs/fertility is really stale to read about, especially if all witchcraft is portrayed as being like that. It's okay play with those themes, but make sure you're not stacking too many on top of each other or just writing about a Dianic Wiccan.
When writing about a real tradition you aren't a member of, study the hell out of it and talk to members of that tradition. They can help provide more specific details about what is/n't respectful and even give insight into the tradition that may help develop the character. Be sure to compensate people for their labor.
ALSO when writing about a real tradition you aren't a member of, (or a fictional tradition that's coded as a real one) make sure it's really your story to tell. It's great to write about characters who are different from you, but some stuff can only be written from lived experience. While not all magical practices are closed or marginalized, it's inappropriate to profit off someone else's oppression. If your story/character is all about what it means to be X in today's world, grappling with one's identity as X, or what it's like to experience bigotry against X, consider lifting up X writers telling their own stories instead.
People are still people. Just like other characters, people's lives don't usually revolve around only one thing. I'm a witch, but I also have a career, love life, hobbies, and interests completely outside of that. Let your witches be three-dimensional.
If critiquing the character's (fictional) magic beliefs/tradition, make sure you're still doing it from a place of respect for real people. It's really cool to see characters realize something they believed in isn't real, watching them grapple with this new information and the impact that has on their worldview. It's really annoying to see authors use that scene to say, "Haha, look how stupid they are for believing in things. What a hack." If it's a real tradition, just don't. You'll just come off as an asshole.
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solarisstyles · 5 months
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MS.HONEY: MS.HONEY'S BIRTHDAY
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Pairing: Harry Styles x F!Reader Word Count: 2.3k+ Warnings: tooth rotting fluff!, kissing, relationship developments Summary: It takes a village to raise a special needs child. Gemma's son is growing up and starting kindergarten in the fall. Uncle Harry is struggling with not being able to spend all day, everyday, with his nephew who he's grown quite attached to. When he accompanies Gemma and Arlo on his first day of school, he meets Ms.Honey. Harry decides Kindergarten might not be so bad after all. A/N: For the sake of the story, Gemma and Harry live in the states. I know more about the school system in America than the UK so it just made sense! This story is not meant to be a 100% depiction of what a family of this dynamic is like. Harry and Gemma Styles are very real people and are only being used for fictional purposes!
*please like and reblog to help your local fic writers*
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The weather was truly in your favor today. A soft breeze, bright blue sky, the birds were happily chirping and flying back and forth between the trees and your bird feeders. It was what you would describe as your idea of a perfect day. Laid out in your hammock, you had your eyes closed as you listened to the songs the birds would sing for you, and enjoyed the cool breeze against your face. The sun was starting to set and the air had that summer-like chill to it when you decided to head inside. 
Grabbing a microwavable dinner from your freezer, you popped it into the microwave to cook. While the microwave worked its magic, you grabbed your phone to see what calls or texts you’ve missed while outside today. You weren’t shocked to see a missed call from Harry along with several texts.
Harry: When were you going to tell me your birthday was next week?
Harry: If you think we aren’t doing anything to celebrate you’re crazy!
Harry: Woman, call me back so I can make birthday plans for you!!!!
You could imagine how flustered he must have been right now waiting for you to reply to him. The teasing part of you wanted to make him wait a little longer but the soft side of you that Harry occupied had you calling him back without a second thought. As if he was looking at his phone, just waiting for it to ring, he answered on the second ring.
“About damn time!” He greeted you.
It made you laugh, shaking your head fondly, “Sorry, I was laying in my hammock all afternoon and I didn’t have my phone with me.”
Harry took a moment to envision you laid out and enjoying the beautiful weather today. He wished more than anything he was there to enjoy it with you. “Fine, you’re forgiven. But next time I won’t be so nice!” he threatened.
You knew he wasn’t being serious though. You could tell by the goofy voice he put on when he said it. “So who snitched about my birthday?” you asked, curious.
“We, technically the school, but Gemma called me and told me. So let’s blame Gemma.”
“That darn Gemma.” you decided to play along.
“Right? An absolute menace to our society. She must be stopped!”
“Well you’re her brother…so wouldn't that make you just as much of a menace?”
“Do you think I’m a menace?”
“Yes.”
“WELL I NEVER.” He exclaimed, making you laugh once more. He always knew how to tickle your funny bone.
“I’m only half joking.” you promised, grabbing your food out of the microwave and stirring it up.
“Well Ms.Jokester, what do you want to do for your birthday?” He asked, making himself comfortable on his own couch while he talked to you.
“Well considering I’ll be working, nothing really.” sitting down at your dining room table, and putting him on speaker phone so she could sit comfortably and eat.
“You’re working on your birthday? That’s lame! What about next weekend then? We could do something.”
It was endearing how much he wanted to spend your birthday together, but you couldn’t ignore the knot of guilt in your stomach thinking about it. “Harry, I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.”
“I know you want to wait till after Arlo’s graduation to date and I respect that. We can hang out as friends though, right? Is that allowed?”
Thinking over his words, you felt the knot loosen in your stomach. “I guess you’re right.” you said, pushing your food around the plastic container. “I just don’t want either of us to get in trouble.”
“I know Honey. I’m sorry that it has to be like this right now. I still want to show you how special you are and celebrate your birthday. Even if that means we have to sit on opposite sides of the room to do it.”
Smiling at your food, you couldn’t help but blush, “well that’s really sweet of you.” taking a deep breath, you breathed out, “Fine, I’ll bite and let you celebrate my birthday with me.”
“A splendid choice!” Harry exclaimed. “What would the birthday girl like to do?”
You pondered the idea for a moment. What you really wanted to do might be too boring for his taste. You couldn’t think of anything else though. “Honestly, I want to stay in. How about we get sushi, stay at mine and spend the evening watching a movie?”
Harry hummed, “If that’s what the birthday girl wants, it’s what the birthday girl gets.”
“Really? You don’t think that’s too boring?” you asked, feeling uncertain.
“Honey…” Harry softly said, “Listen, if it’s with you then I’m going to have a great time. If that’s what you want to do then I’ll do it. And if you must know, that’s my ideal type of evening. So, I’d be more than thrilled to do it with you. I promise.”
You smiled at the phone, “Thanks Harryy. You’re the best.”
“You only deserve the best. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? Enjoy the rest of your relaxing evening.”
“You too.”
- - - - - - - - -
The day of your birthday was a total blurr. Even though you were working, the day flew by with flying colors. Your students brought in small hand made gifts for you that just melted your heart. You promised all of them that their work would be proudly displayed at your home to always remember them by. 
While the kids were at lunch, you had a special delivery again from Nancy. She came to your classroom with an arm full of flowers and a box of chocolate covered strawberries. “Mr.Honey has done it again.” Nancy said in a teasing tone. 
You giggled, taking the gifts from her, “He’s too good to me.” you told her.
“You’re dating right?” Nancy asked.
Setting the case down on your desk along with the box of strawberries, you sighed softly, admiring the flowers. “No, I told him we couldn’t date till Arlo graduated.”
“What?! Why?!” Nancy exclaimed, looking at you with a dumbfounded expression.
You returned the look with a confused one, “I’m not allowed to date the family of the students in my class.”
Nancy brought her palm to her face and shook her head, “Oh, Honey that’s only for parents. You won’t get in trouble if you date him.” laughing at the shocked look on your face.
“Well then, he’ll be very happy to know that.” you said, giving a shocked giggled back to her.
“Happy birthday to you.” she teasingly sang to you with a wink, walking out of the room.
You couldn’t wait to surprise Harry on Saturday with this new found information.
- - - - - - - - -
When Saturday arrived, you were up early and stress cleaning, even the parts of your home that you knew Harry wouldn’t see or care about. It had to be perfect. Nothing could go wrong. By the time midafternoon rolled around, you were collapsed on the couch, sweaty from all the cleaning you’d done. Your phone vibrated on the coffee table next to you, making you groan as you reached for it and swiped to answer the call. “Hello?” you breathed out.
Harry chuckled through the phone, “You sound like you ran a marathon.”
“I basically did. I’ve been cleaning all day.”
“Perfect, I’m gonna mess it all up now.” he teased.
“I’ll have to hurt you.” you laughed softly.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time babe.” making your heart skip a beat. “I’m getting the sushi now and going to grab a few more snacks from the store. I should be heading your way soon.”
“Good, I’m starving.” you groaned. “I’ll see you in a little bit. Drive safe.”
“Will do Honey.”
After you hung up, you had to force yourself to get off the couch and go shower. As much as you hated it at first, the hot water was welcoming to your aching back. You were super glad at this point that you decided to spend the night in. When you got out of the shower, the cool air made you feel more awake and refreshed. 
Picking out your cutest pair of pajamas, you figured you might as well stay comfy if you were gonna spend the evening watching movies. Throwing your hair into a messy bun, you gathered all the fluffy pillows off your bed and brought them to the living room.
You arranged them on the floor so the two of you could comfortably sit together. Moving the coffee table to the side, you even grabbed a few fluffy blankets to lay out and use if you wanted to.
“Ooo wine!” you hummed to yourself as the idea popped in your head. Going to the fridge to get the bottle out, you were interrupted by a knock on your door. Setting the bottle on the counter, you jogged over to the door and opened it to see Harry’s bright smile and sparkling eyes. “Happy birthday!” he cheered, walking in as you made room for him through the doorway.
A soft giggle could be heard from you as you watched him trapease his way to the living room, dumping the bags on the makeshift blanket pallet you made just moments ago. Turning to see you’d followed him, he wrapped you in a hug, picking you up and spinning you around. You couldn’t help but squeal with laughter, tucking your face into his neck as you held onto him tightly.
Gently setting you down, he leaned his forehead to your own, looking into your eyes. “I’ve missed you.” he whispered.
“I’ve missed you too.” you told him, playing with his curls gently at the nape of his neck, pressing a soft kiss to his lips, which he eagerly returned.
“How about we eat and start a movie? I’m starving.” rubbing his hands along your sides gently, rubbing just low enough to drive you crazy.
You nodded, “I like that idea.” you breathlessly said, “Let me go grab the wine from the kitchen.”
Letting you go reluctantly, you were quick to retrieve the bottle along with two wine glasses. “I hope you like red.”
“I love it.” he assured, setting out your sushi in front of you while you poured both of you a glass.
“What movie did you pick to watch first?” he asked, accepting the glass when you handed it to him. 
“Rose Red.” you proudly said, taking a sip of your wine.
Harry hummed in approval, “Stephen King. Excellent choice.”
It was indeed an excellent choice. By half way through the movie, Harry and you were cuddled together, bellies full of good food and beginning to feel a little tipsy from the wine. 
You quickly discovered with Harry that he loved to talk during films. Which was perfect since you enjoyed it as well. While he would critique the film’s small details, you would make off handed comments about the characters and how stupid some of them were. Harry was amused when you would go on a random tirade about a stupid decision one of the character’s made. “For somebody who likes this movie you sure are yelling at it a lot.” Harry noted, giggling.
“I do like it! It’s just fun to yell at it too.”
“It’s cute.” Harry mumbled, pulling you closer into him.
Looking up at him, and him looking down at you, made you not want to wait any longer. “Harry…I have something to tell you.”
“What is it?” he asked, feeling a little nervous.
“Nancy brought me the flowers and strawberries as you know. Well she asked if we were dating. I said no and she asked me why like I was crazy.” You giggled, thinking back to her facial expression. “I told her I wasn’t allowed to date my students' family and she told me that was only for parents. I wouldn’t get in trouble if I dated you.”
A giant smile creeped onto Harry’s face as he processed what you just told him. “Seriously?” he asked.
“Seriously.” you repeated, rubbing your nose against his own.
Pressing his lips against your own, the kiss quickly turned heated. He laid you back gently onto the pillows, positioning his body to hover above your own. This kiss showed you both the feelings you were holding back. Desperate to express through a simple gesture. “Be my girlfriend.” Harry mumbled against your lips.
“What?” you couldn’t help but giggle and smile, making him smile too.
“Be my girlfriend,” he repeated “Please.”
Looking up into his eyes, you could see the immense amount of adoration they held for you. “Yes.” you whispered. It felt right. It had to be right. They always say when you know, you know. And you were so sure in this moment that you knew. Harry couldn’t help but feel the same way.
With goofy smiles on your faces, the both of you started to giggle, feeling giddy and high from life and the happiness you brought each other. “This is the best birthday I’ve ever had.”
“And we haven’t even had dessert yet.” Harry said, suddenly sitting up and reaching for a bag.
Propping yourself up on your elbows, you watched as he pulled out a tray of cupcakes, holding one up and putting a candle in it, lighting it with his lighter. He turned to you and began to sing Happy Birthday. You watched with a smile on your face, sitting up fully to be closer to him. Once he finished, he held the cupcake closer to you.
Closing your eyes, you made a wish then blew out the candle. “Thank you Harry. For everything.” you said, taking the cupcake. Pulling the candle out and sucking the icing off of it, you hummed happily. 
He chuckled, grabbing his own cupcake to eat. “I’d do anything to see that sweet smile.”
If only he knew your wish was for him to make you smile for the rest of your life.
TAG LIST: @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @justlemmeadoreyou @squirreljoe @end-of-the-earth @behindmygreyeyes @buckybarnessimpp
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capacle · 9 months
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A true mechanical game master
One of the staples of solo play is the Yes/No Oracle.
A clever tool that answers closed questions that the GM usually would in guided games.
“Is it raining?” “Does she recognize me?”
Useful, but I think we can do more with it. Make it more of a GM.
You usually ask the Oracle for details of the scene you are in, the outcome of your actions, the traits and reactions of the people you are talking to, your assumptions about a fact, and so on.
All of those have something in common: they are in-fiction questions. I believe there’s great untapped potential for what this simple mechanic can achieve: rules adjudication.
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If you play solo, you've been there:
You want to perform a certain action and there is no clear rule indicating if you can do it, or how you would go about doing it. You want to use one of your abilities, but there’s nothing you can find clarifying if it is applicable to the situation at hand.
A minimalist game couldn’t possibly cover all imaginable scenarios, and a crunchier game might confuse you with the minutiae of a particular rule.
Solo players must rely on their own interpretation of the mechanics. But raise your hand if you ever felt overwhelmed by doing all that alone or, worse, felt like you're 'cheating' if your ruling significantly benefits your character.
This is normally part of a traditional Game Master's duties, filling in the gaps where concrete rules may leave room for ambiguity. Personally, this is specially true when I’m soloing games with ‘softer’ rules, like free-form magic systems.
Can I use ‘talk to animals’ with a giant spider? Can I cast lightning inside the dungeon?
Sure, I can make the most reasonable judgement call at the moment and move on, but… isn’t there another way?
(You know where this is going, right?)
I propose an expansion of the Oracle's role – using it as a dynamic house rule generator and rules adjudicator.
Yes, that’s right!
Think about it: a game master usually clarifies rules and make rulings. So why not extend the Oracle's domain to encompass this aspect? This is exactly what I am doing in Nexalis.
I'm encouraging players to use it to clarify rules, test the limits of their character's abilities, determine how these abilities apply in specific situations, and even establish their own house rules.
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And I’ve added a bucketload of examples, ranging from specific uses of abilities to general interpretations of rules:
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I, as the designer, don’t want to answer all of these questions (and the myriad of others I didn’t anticipate).
Moreover, I like when players come up with their own versions.
Why not use the Oracle to help you with that?
By shifting these questions to the Oracle, we bring in an impartial entity that makes these decisions, alleviating those concerns about fairness and exactness that get in the way of our solo fun.
This ‘Adjudicating Oracle’, in this sense, instills a sense of unpredictability and excitement to the rules as well, as it normally does to the narrative.
You know that awesome feeling of getting a ‘Yes’ when asking a very unlikely question to the oracle, with slim odds? Imagine getting that when asking if you can cast a reanimate spell on that bandit’s leather armor.
If you liked the idea and want to learn more, check out the campaign page below!
We're fully funded, and you have immediate access to the full game upon backing!
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Thoughts on gender locked magic. Specifically the concepts of Witches. Discussion of gender essentialism and transphobia.
Ok this is a pretty common thing to run into in fiction. The idea that “Only women can become witches.”
But I have always wondered, but Why though? What is the reason only women get access to magic? What about their soul makes that a thing and why is that gender locked to woman as a gender specifically?
These fictional worlds with such a magic system always come with gender essentialism to me. They were not structured to include trans people. More likely because we weren’t a thought to the author.
Would a trans girl suddenly be able to do magic when she realizes? Would she always have had magic? Likewise, would a trans boy suddenly lose the ability to do magic? Did he never have any? People’s individual transitions are so unique, how would that effect their access to magic and how would that not be exclusionary? What about nonbinary people? What are genderfluid people who are women sometimes going to do? It all gets very complicated the moment you consider trans people and anyone whose gender is not binary.
It just strikes me as gender essentialism to say that only one gender has access to magic. I can never understand what in particular makes a character “worthy” of magic because of their gender, If we are going to look at gender with less binary expectations, then gender locking magic kinda goes against that goal.
Why has this cosmic magic or being that gives magic chosen “being a woman” as their qualifications?
If it’s about the oppression of misogyny, there are trans men and nonbinary people who experience that as well with no choice in the matter of how other people misgender us.
If it’s about a specific kind of physical body or genital, then there is no way to make that not exclusionary. If it’s about the trauma that young girls go through (Example: Madoka magica’s answer to this, where that trauma creates Energy to stop the heat death of the universe.) then that *still* becomes trans exclusionary, because there are people whose childhoods may have looked like that of young girls to society but were not, and were still traumatic in extremely similar, or the same ways. (right now i’m talking specifically about trans men and women who came out after adulthood and didn’t 100% know they were trans as kids. Madoka’s system also has no room for nonbinary people. )
The gender essentialist concept of "women are Closer to Nature and More Primal and have Secret Knowledge" also plays into this, and on top of that being something I don’t believe. I don’t think it’s smart to treat any gender as somehow secretly better than another.
Talking a bit more personally here, I did struggle to come out, and one reason because of people, who called themselves progressive feminists(in actuality this was a mindset from radfems), who treated the possibility of me being a boy as some kind of threat or loss. I’m definitely feminist, I want to make that clear. But I don’t stand for any kind of system that treats one gender as better or treats you as some kind of traitor because you didn’t turn out to be a woman.
I think that is the heart of the issue of why gender locked magic hits a sore spot.
The frustration that the experiences I have had, being treated like facets of womanhood. I know I and people like me don’t fit in magic systems like these, that there just isn’t a place there. So that part is alienating all on it’s own. I don’t have fond feelings for this trope. On top of all this, Trans men just aren’t considered in most media. There’s a sense of invisibility to finding representation. That isn’t just what I’ve noticed. Glaad has some stats laid out.
I feel like i’d be more interested in a world with this kind of magic if the point was about breaking and challenging this exclusionary magic system. Or perhaps, centering a transmasc perspective about losing magic because the system is exclusionary and how truly fucked up of an experience that must be in a society that places your value in magic.
Even in the few cases where a magic system is trans affirming to trans woman, trans men don’t seem to exist in the creator’s eyes. I am not going to name where this came from, but it did frustrate me that in a specific world that called itself queer friendly, cis and trans women and nonbinary people could become witches, but trans men got basically nothing. Didn’t seem to exist. A huge flaw in a world I really wanted to like and now just can not engage in without being reminded that people like me don’t belong. I get enough of that in real life.
My personal feeling is “fuck exclusionary magic!” like anyone in these fictional worlds should have the ability to become a witch. It shouldn’t be locked to a nebulous gendered expectation. (It shouldn’t just extend to magic too. Gender locked hair styles and clothing and pitches of voices in games also fall into gender essentialism. “You can’t be X if you look like Y.” Is exclusionary and transphobic, just on it’s own.)
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samueldays · 8 months
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Ritual magic in fantasy: a small rant
It's fine when writers use the standard trappings of a genre without detailing the underpinnings of the worldbuilding - we can take it for granted, we don't need it explained again every time, not everything needs a new plot twist. Tropes are tools; wizards are part of the grammar of fantasy and don't need their definition explained at the start of every book.
It's fine when writers skip the underpinnings entirely, and treat the wizards as convenient plot devices for the hero to go do something or be somewhere. Some munchkins will say "but then why couldn't the wizard solve the entire plot?" and I say to them "if what you want to read is a list of wizardly constraints, put down the novel and go play D&D". ;^)
But it bugs me when writers seemingly forget that the underpinnings ever existed and act confused as to how the trappings work with no underpinnings. This strikes me as both lazy and ignorant. It's the mark of a writer who is cribbing standard fantasy tropes and hasn't taken the time or effort to understand why those tropes were like that in the first place, and also is poorly read, not having seen the original explanation (nor any of its variations), only the superficial tropes among other people cribbing those same tropes in a game of telephone and losing the underpinnings along the way.
Today I want to talk about ritual magic and the mages doing it. Rituals are for someone; freestanding rituals make no sense!
I've written before on how one of the features that helps fictional magic be "magical" as opposed to Spicy Engineering (e.g. Fireball is Spicy Grenade) is if it involves a thinking entity other than the mage: intercessory magic is less prone to being operationalized into just another craft. Sometimes this is a powerful patron, sometimes it's a specialized sidekick.
To use a less fancy word, magic is often social - it involves a deal, explicit or implicit, between the mage and some goblin, ghost, or other gribbly. (The faeries in Dresden Files take their payment in pizza.)
If you pick up some old medieval grimoire like the Key of Solomon, it is deeply social. Its ritual magic is in some ways like a court order: things have to be done properly, forms filled out, visit during the correct opening hours, appeal to the right judge (God) for a sign-off, then speak with the authority of the judge and the legal system backing you for some specific purpose. Rituals are powerful but inflexible, for comprehensible internal reasons.
Fast forward 500 years to Jack Vance's Dying Earth series (you probably know this as the origin of "Vancian" magic in D&D) and you see more social magic. In the distant future, wizards are living in the ruins of dozens of civilizations that rose and fell, leaving behind relics and creatures. One facet of their magic involves calling on "sandestins", powerful genie-like creatures hinted to have been bound or created by a previous civilization, and the sandestins have to be commanded and persuaded and contracted and threatened with the Great Name, in a word, they have to be wrangled. Libraries of Wizard Lore are not just lists of spells, they're also bestiaries of sandestins, advice on how to wrangle them, collections of rumors by travelers to find other sandestins, etc.
When Gandalf is at the Gates of Moria, pondering the riddle "Speak, friend, and enter", this is also a kind of social ritual. Password-access systems are not found spontaneously generated in nature. The gate itself is not intelligent, but it's the result of an intelligent mind engaged in deliberate design to control access. Gandalf has to jump through hoops to make the gate open, and figure out that the clue to the password is hiding in plain sight.
Social rituals make sense. Rituals for formal polite interaction with another creature (or its proxy) are one of the many reasons the classic fantasy genre looks the way it does.
But skip ahead a couple generation of writers cribbing, pastiching, and repeating tropes they don't understand...
These days I'm seeing an increasing number of works where rituals are treated as a sort of brute fact about the universe, with nobody on the other end. For example, there's a song that heals people when sung word-perfect. It does nothing until it's finished, it does nothing if you get a single word wrong. Why?
A social ritual of this form can be explained with "the genie is picky". There's a genie or some other intelligent creature, acting as a middleman to hear the magical song and cause healing. A brute-fact ritual has to treat the universe as having countless special cases and carve-outs in the laws of physics where certain actions cause unusual effects. Somewhere in the nature of reality is a reaction to a song - in a specific language, of a specific era - which results in "healing", a simple concept for an intelligent mind, but an otherwise complicated concept both fantastically specific and carefully customized to do the right thing for humans.
Brute-fact rituals make for a frankly nonsensical setting. Some writers notice the nonsensical setting, but since they're ignorant of the social origins of the ritual, they think this is a problem with rituals and complain that ritual magic makes no sense.
Worse, how are rituals discovered/created in the first place?
Social rituals: by talking to the genie or fairy or other critter that the ritual is to communicate with.
Brute fact rituals: well, uh,
Harry Potter and the Natural 20 plays with this trope in book 3 chapter 9, doing a little lampshade-hanging:
Chant a little Old Aramaic, burn a little sandalwood, sprinkle a powder made from the canine teeth of a child murdered by his brother over a bowl containing stone from a fallen star under the light of a crescent moon and, in three days, it will rain vinegar. And nobody knows why. That terrified Lucius. Who out there was watching, waiting, to see that someone performed the ritual and had the power to follow up with the effects? More troublingly, why would they do it? What possible gain could this shadowy entity get from powdered teeth and space rocks? Or maybe there was no entity, and it was a fundamental property of the universe that vinegar would rain in the middle of the lunar month because somebody said the right words in a dead language? Lucius wasn't sure which was worse. All of this brought up the uncomfortable question of who it was who first figured that out. It can't have been coincidence, or even experimentation. (...) Rituals, it appeared, wanted to be discovered—and, more troubling, wanted to be shared.
Lucius Malfoy is a bit preoccupied with Voldemort, so he's excused for not being sure which is worse. But from my OOC perspective, "fundamental property of the universe" would be worse writing. Shadowy entities with mysterious motives are a staple of fantasy fiction, and practically required in some sense to be the sharer-of-rituals making rituals be discovered by human wizards.
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hiii ummm as someone who hasn’t listened to any of vega’s stuff (and is a little scared to) i just wanted to ask what you like about him. ok thanks bye :3
Hi!!
ALSO OH MY GOD!!! I WILL GLADLY TELL YOU!
(also tagging @clover-46 so she can be like "oh yeah this all makes sense. im a vega simp now.)
Don't be scared to listen to his playlist if you don't mind the gaslighting and such. He's not mean to Warden, but is actually kind of sweet to them. But if you dont like second guessing if youre being manipulated or not, then yeah... don't listen to his playlist. He's very sneaky.
-- TO MY LIST NOW --
I typically just go for villain/anti-heroes. Red flags are, unfortunately, what I find attractive. (in fiction and reality :') ) NOT ALL THE TIME THOUGH I SWEAR I HAVE COMMON SENSE
His annunciation. The way he speaks just scratches a very nice part of my brain. And if someone has a nice voice, it tends to capture my heart. It's more than just vocal fry, deepness, ect. It's the way he speaks.
He's multifaceted. At first we think he's evil because we see him from Freelancer's perspective. But when Carpe Deus comes around, it shows him in a different reality. He didn't just do what he did to Ivan because he wanted some yummy snacks. There was a genuine reason behind it.
I love the way he interacts with people. It's kind of patronizing but so subtle that you notice it, but you dont notice the extent of it.
He's poetic. He has such an extensive vocabulary, and he doesn't swear often. There's something to say about someone who is able to absolutely verbally obliterate someone, all without really swearing.
He's a sadism demon. (iykyk)
Vega doesn't actually touch Warden all that much. (from my understanding he just touches them when they need help) And irl I literally hate it when people touch me. So having a character that canonically doesn't have a lot of clear show of touching the listener took me out of the way I simp over fictional character and made it more how I simp over irl people. There's two sides.
His pet name for Warden (besides warden). Being called "Darling" makes me all flustered. Sam's is a bit different because he leaves off the "g", which leads back to the annunciation. There are a few words that sound better when you leave off letters, but for me Darling isn't one of them. (That doesn't mean I don't enjoy Sam's "Darlin", but just not as much as I enjoy Vega's "Darling")
I mentioned this before in a separate post, but Imp!Vega is very soft with Pet (that pet name omg im melting). I'm of the opinion that every canon character has the same qualities as their Imp! counterparts, so Canon Vega has the same possibilities to be soft with Warden. Soft Vega hits different.
Vega has a demon listener. None of the other's have that, and Erik's Demons and Daemons system is so fascinating to me, that I jump on any chance to be a part of that. Also I love designing demons, so having a reason to make a demon OC that I can show off to people and they wont just be like "okay?" is very nice. It doesn't really have anything to do with Vega, but it's one of the reasons I like him.
His one liners. He thinks of them on the spot (yes ik its from a script, but from an immersion level) and that kind fo wit is hella attractive.
How sneaky he is. That takes a level of thought and intelligence to hide it. And I fall very easily if someone is smart. Especially if they don't say it outright, but these little things they do express it.
Going back to my attraction to red flags, the power imbalance between Warden and him. And I'm talking legitimately about magic power. He said he's much older than Warden and therefore is more powerful. Feeling small and insignificant in that kind of way lessens my anxiety so much.
He offers excuses. Not for his behavior (well he does that too, but that's not what I'm talking about.) but rather excuses to his love to safeguard them. He did that with Pet in case he lost against the imperium. He does it with Warden in case they get caught going with Vega. He doesn't want their lives to be messed up. it's a small way to show he cares, but grand displays overwhelm me.
He's very fun to write. I'll write for nearly every character if I love the world/fandom. But he's so complicated to write and fun. I get to put this psych degree I'm working towards (we'll see if I change my major this year or next year. Idek) into my writing and it's fun. It helps renew my passion for psychology since it's getting burned out for the past several months. (I've been into it since I was in middle school) I have so many pages in my docs and notebooks where it's just a full analysis on him. (Going back to he's an interesting character.
Also I'm just a total degenerate.
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ionlydrinkhotwater · 2 years
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Again I'm still working on my COBB COMIC called The Gift Box and it's taking ages to finish. It's taking even longer because I have the flu. So again I'm gonna talk about quotes from the series that have kept me up at night.
This quote from Baz in AWTWB
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You and me both pal. One of the things that Rowell strongly implied/kinda just spelled out in the WS Annotated Playlist is that Simon suffered from "trauma, abuse and neglect" but neither she nor Simon go into details. I've poured through the text to get small glimpses of Simon's past but they are few and far between. I hope Simon works through this stuff in therapy but knowing his luck he'll end up running into the WOM equivalent of a dementor and just be retraumatized:(
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There is so much to unpack with these lines from Simon when talking about Penny and her ex. Has Simon experienced this or witnessed it? It's dark either way. He even tells Baz later that he's scared that Baz will get tired of him. This whole description is way to specific.
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Simon going unresponsive is so dark to me. He gets overwhelmed to the point that he needs to mentally shut down is so messed up
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This is interesting cause Simon is basically saying he never really believed in Father Xmas cause believing in him involves a loving adult keeping up the fiction and clearly the homes did not do this and when they made an attempt Simon was already disillusioned. He couldn't believe. Sounds familiar huh?
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OK...what's with Simon's Basement thing? Where is this coming from? He brings it up twice in 2 different chapters. If this was any other character we'd get a whole explanation for this but since it's Simon he gives no context to this aversion, we just gotta take his word on this. He hates basements. I'm so curious as to whether this started with something that happened to him at Watford or before?
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Given how much innuendo is saturating this learning to drive scene, it precipitates the firm not gentle stance Simon will later take in regards to his physical relationship with Baz.
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The 'and more' part of that line is what's so interesting to me. First this whole thing gives me lady of the lake vibes from the Arthurian legends but also she is saying that Simon not only returned the magic he took but his own magic as well. In CO Baz and Penny talk theory about how Magic is based on a balance system. So Simon returning the magic to fill up the dead spots should eventually leave the magical atmosphere with a surplus this technically should be returned to Simon...so Smiths magic may not have affected Simon as it did others because magic itself is holding Simon's share in trust? Who knows but it's an interesting thought.
Thanks for the tags
@ivelovedhimthroughworse
@orange-peony @cutestkilla @messofthejess @martsonmars @facewithoutheart @ileadacharmedlife
@confused-bi-queer @palimpsessed @stillmadaboutpetra @bookish-bogwitch @tea-brigade @kohatenz @johnwgrey @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @artsyunderstudy @aristocratic-otter @captain-aralias @stardustasincocaine @fatalfangirl @angelsfalling16 @annabellelux @dragoneggo @frjsti @mrskrementz @krisrix @urban-sith @prettylightsbigcity @henreyettah @carryonsimoncarryonbaz
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azumasoroshi · 1 year
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shizuo is like the anti-isekai protagonist. gets hit by trucks but refuses to die from it. the trucks die actually. i'd believe that there's a whole slew of universes that were expecting a young japanese man to appear in their basic european lookin ass fantasy world where the only significant inhabitants are pretty women but instead of shizuo they get the truck as the protagonist and it actually sorta works out for the better somehow
there's at least one world where a train is the protagonist because shizuo somehow managed to live getting hit by one (i can recall at LEAST one fanfic where this happened, even if he did get amnesia)
anyway au where shizuo actually does die to getting hit by like. a plane or something and the inhabitants are like "oh thank god, our neighbor universes have been getting the weirdest protagonists of late but at least you look normal"
and then izaya falls from the sky a good mile away and the inhabitants are like. god. fuck. this is why we cant have nice things
the isekai world with a generic harem cast, generic villain, and generic magic system so boring that izaya takes it upon himself to become a better villain and uses the barebones magic system in creative and deadly ways no one else has ever heard of PURELY to fuck with shizuo (he doesn't consider these people "human" per say, because they have such limited emotional capacity, but he tries to prod at their limits anyway)
and shizuo making connections with all the people as he did in ikebukuro and acting like a normal protagonist for the most part because there's nothing to really trigger his rage, EXCEPT for when izaya comes around and shizuo immediately starts throwing hands, but people don't look at shizuo weirdly for it anymore because he's the chosen one and he's expected to be inhumanly strong
izaya calls shizuo a monster as per usual but the townspeople actually start defending shizuo and saying izaya's the real monster and with that izaya's basically lost all his power and it's driving him NUTS
shizuo slowly, grudgingly coming to terms with the fact that this really isnt so different from his ikebukuro life and that izaya is the spice to his life. he also gets weirdly defensive when people other than him start talking shit about izaya but that's neither here nor there
meanwhile izaya's been trying to figure out how to get back to the real world because he'll go insane if he has to talk to literal NPCs (who will do his bidding, but in the most boring way possible?? where's the fun in not having to watch his back) for more than five minutes
izaya figures out a way to go back but it involves something that he really doesn't want to do and also shizuo so he is having a very bad month
idk where to go from here but. maybe ill write a draft sometime or draw random scenes cuz this sounds fun i love writing satirically cliche fiction
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lycanlovingvampyre · 1 year
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MAG 145 Relisten
Activity on my first listen: taking a bubble bath again^^
ARTHUR: "Big talk. But Agnes is dead. And I don’t know if you heard, but your little woodland circle’s been broken. So, I don’t really see anything getting in my way, if I wanted to burn the flesh off your snarky bones." GERTRUDE: "Ah. (small laugh) I assume you haven’t checked on, uh, Eugene, then?" [PAUSE.] ARTHUR: "What?" Gertrude is such a badass. No wonder there are so many jokes about her being the 16th Fear.
ARTHUR: "How’d you do it?" [GERTRUDE LAUGHS.] GERTRUDE: "You don’t need to know that. What you do need to know is I can do it again, if I need to. To you, or any of your lackeys, if I need to." Soft magic system + the vagueness of comic horror is such a strong combination in fiction! We don't need to know how Gertrude did it. We just know, that another member of the Cult of the Lightless Flame is shocked that she was able to.
GERTRUDE: "You know, thinking about it, the amount of pain and loss and legitimate devastation I’ve caused among your little cult over the last, what, forty years? I think the Desolation is probably very fond of me." Gertrude really does seem to target the Lightless Flame a lot. So I guess it's very likely that her claim of the Desolation having killed her cat is true. Gertrude is just John Wick xD
ARTHUR: "Alright. Agnes. How’d you do it? Never did understand it, not really." Not really-counter of S4: 12! (Ohhh, this episode's gonna be gooood!^^)
GERTRUDE: "It was the Web. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, and I would call it an accident, but it never is, with them. It’s only after the fact that you can see all the subtle manipulations." Lol, cue for the audience to do at least one relisten xD
GERTRUDE: "It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at some… metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house." Is Elias’ little insurance about the lives of the institute staff being bound to him something like this? If it is true (Elias implies in MAG 158 that he doesn’t know if everyone’s ties to the institute are strong enough). Nevertheless, in both these instances, Agnes + Gertrude and Fielding + the house, the Web was involved and the Spider’s a bit more talented at making connections.
So was it Jason North, the statement giver of MAG 37, who broke the circle? He did drop one of the bottles. And the year, 2009, matches with this episode.
GERTRUDE: "Well, for all the Web bound us together, I never actually met her. What was she like?" Is Gertrude supposed to be lying there? Jon says in MAG 167 that Gertrude met Agnes once. Or was this idea added at a later point in the writing process? There is a bit of a discrepancy in Agnes’ timeline, in which year she actually died. So could be.
ARTHUR: "I… I don’t know. Not really." Not really-counter of S4: 13!
ARTHUR: "Never really knew what she felt ‘bout any of it, not really." Not really-counter of S4: 14!
ARTHUR: "The one thing it never does is just… tell us what to do. It seeds us with this… aching, impossible desire to change the world, to bring it to us." Hm, yeah, I always wondered how anyone got that idea of performing a ritual to bring their Fear god through. I doubt Jane Prentiss had any contact to other Avatars (except Oliver or Arthur, but they didn't say anything to her about rituals and such) and yet she also tried it. Or, her worms tried it. Like Gertrude said, they don't think at all, they just are and they just do.
ARTHUR: "They don’t give a toss about your rules, or systems. They only care about what feels right, what freezes your belly with terror." There it is again. There are no hard rules on the Dread Powers, only what feels right. Soft magic system! (Also, Arthur called the Fears them beyond. I really like that!)
ARTHUR: "But you don’t actually care about them, do you? Not really." Not really-counter of S4: 15!
ARTHUR: "You’d be surprised the misery and pain you can cause when you’ve control over someone’s home." I like the idea that landlords fall under the category of the Desolation! Same with the manager thing, what Eugene had told. I think HR is also right up that alley.
GERTRUDE: "But until then, get out of my Archives." I love that this line is in the podcast XD
JON: "Eugene is still alive, frozen in place by the razor-sharp particles that are mixed up into what he chose instead of flesh. I don’t know where Gertrude stored his head. But I do know it desperately wants to scream." Ah yes, a fate worse than death. I'd guess Gertrude used the concrete method again.
GEORGIE: "Oh! Uh, sorry; I thought, um – Is Melanie about?" So it sounds like Georgie was surprised to find Jon in this office and that she was rather looking for Melanie. Let's keep that in mind.
JON: "I’m… I’m alright. I’m trying to, uh, rest up a bit. Take it easy." Yeah, I totally get that he didn't tell Georgie anything here. It rarely lead to anything helpful, especially there at the end. And Georgie doesn’t want to be further involved. Why tell her then - why did she ask anyway... Yeah, asking "how are you doing" is often a courtesy to which people very rarely want an honest answer. Courtesy question, courtesy answer, simple as that.
GEORGIE: "Really? ‘Cause – I’m pretty sure I heard talking about a screaming headless corpse just now." JON: "Oh – Oh, were you… listening? –" GEORGIE: "Oh, um. Didn’t mean to, you know. These doors are not that thick." Seriously??... So Georgie knew exactly, that Jon was in there. She could have kept looking for Melanie. She could have left it at Jon's polite answer. But she purposefully walked in on him. She purposefully asked him, how it's going and purposefully called him out for not telling her. All this after she decided to remove herself from Jon's life. That is a really shitty thing to do.
GEORGIE: (fast) "I’m sorry to hear that. You should probably get some therapy too." Oh come on... Georgie still has no idea what is actually going on, she can't grasp the magnitude of all this. And that's fair, she didn't want to get involved any further, alright. But then coming in, poking around and giving unsolicited advice to a situation she has no idea about is just really, reaaally shitty. First time listening I way okay with her in S3, except with her being a bit too pushy. The hospital, fine, she's not involved like the others (bound to the institute), totally fair to cut ties. But this scene got me to really dislike her...
JON: "Would you go with me as well?" GEORGIE: "…No." JON: "Yeah. I thought as much." Well done here, Jon! That was a good question to find out if she really wants to help, or just wants to be smart. And that "no" actually sounded a bit unsure, almost like questioning what she just said. Like "Oh shit, I didn't think he would actually engage in that". Like her hypocrisy was caught. And that "thought as much" sounds like "Yeah right, I already knew that you didn't actually wanted to help". People seem to think that Jon’s question was just another wet paper bag example, like "I'm alone and a monster, pls help me". I think it's more of a "Ok, now I'm going to call you out". (After all, in the last few episodes Jon knew how to defend himself, like calling out Basira in the boat.) And Georgie got the message since after that she awkwardly asked again where Melanie is and leaves.
@a-mag-a-day
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fipindustries · 6 months
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words of magic
someone close to me has been talking to me about magic and trying to get me into that whole thing and because i love them and have a lot of respect for them i have kept an open mind and genuenly considered their arguments.
afterwards i had a discussion with another friend about the nature of magic and we realized we had to define what we even thought magic was and the deffinition they arrived at was essentially "magic is when something impossible happens or is done, something that cannot be explained by science"
and something bothered me about that deffinition because it feels a bit tautological, or circular, magic is what cannot exist. sure its convenient to make magic impossible by deffinition. it feels unsatisfying, philosophically speaking, to make "magic" and "impossible" mean the same thing.
my personal thoughts about magic lie on the sufficiently advanced science side of things, on those posts about how "welding rare metals into the shape of arcane runes can make rocks think" style of posts. in all of fiction magic is always shown as something that can be studied and manipulated and understood, even if at the core of it lie ineffable mysteries, well, so is the case with modern science.
any magic that were to exist irl would eventually be subsumed by the scientific method in turn. if we cant call the things we do in advanced physics, elctronics and engineering magic then we cant call most of the magic systems we thought of in fiction magic either, honestly.
am i saying that magic and science are the same? not really, im just charting how confused my thoughts are regarding the deffinition of magic and what does the word really means, what the concept is trying to encapsulate.
i know there are magic practitioners irl, people who claim to do rituals and spells and usually what happens is that when they try to explain what is it that they do (which tends to be a mix of psychology, hypnotism, emotional priming, narrative engineering, and projecting meaning over chance) and people who dont study magic find the answer dissapointing, dismissing it by saying that that "is not really magic, magic is when you throw fireballs out of your hands, etc". im not sure who gets to claim what the word means.
maybe what it really means is "the feeling of wonder over something that feels unexplainable by mundane causal means, when things seemingly happen by no clear underlying mechanism". perhaps that is the more honest deffinition but i also find it unsatisfying because it makes it subjective. it makes it tied to our own inner state of ignorance rather than to the nature of the world.
but then so is the word luck and the word probability. in the real world, outside of human perception and our limited understanding of what is to come, things happen deterministically as they were always going to happen. things that we percieve as "probable" dont exist in a fuzzy undertermined state until they coalesce into what is, when something happened a certain way that is the way it was always going to happen. luck and probablity are also fake things that "exist" only as a phenomena of our ignorance, and yet we are more than comfortable to use them all the time.
words are harlequins indeed
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katyspersonal · 1 year
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ALRIGHT LET’S TALK ABOUT BLUBBORNE!!
Here are a list of things to choose from <3
Chat about Logarius or Alfred!!
Ideas for Bloodborne 2 👀
What do you think about Hemwick being connected to Cainhurst?
Talk about Gilbert!! I never get to see you chat about him! Lil guy!
Ideas on Arianna’s backstory!
Ideas on Adella’s backstory!
What would a Discord with the original Byrgenwerth scholar gang look like?? xD
Choose one or all! It’s up to you!! <3
Oh my GOSH fjdhfds Good to know you all headed my warning to never give me a choice because I answer EVERYTHING, huh -_- xD But in all seriousness though, these topics just happen to be those I do not have 20 pages essay ready for, so my answers will be short(ish) and I think I can discuss all this stuff in compact manner!
Chat about Logarius or Alfred!!
Well, they're complicated characters for me. You know I am physically unable to 'hate' a fictional character because no matter what they did, they aren't real and can't hurt me and if all else fails they exist to make the story better. But because of some events and reflection on life and society, these two in particular put a pit in my stomach on the notion of being trademark catholic-coded purists. There are so many things that can be speculated about complexity of Laurence's or Adrich's situations, but these guys feel pretty plain for me? The black-white thinking bastards that got so tempted with the idea of abolishing all evil that it made them ruthless, blind to nuances and purist that can't see how they become the REAL evil in the end.
I think Logarius/Rogeriusz is fairly underrated though and it cannot be blamed on him being unlikeable from moral standpoint, because we've all seen how popular Alfred is despite graphically killing a defenceless woman! But Logarius has a lot to like as a villain - he is noticeably tall and menacing, he was a powerful leader figure in Healing Church like Ludwig, he has a lot of mystery to his character as to why he uses Pthumerian magic and shares theme with Queen Yharnam (and as follows, why would he turn against a kindred clan/bloodline?), and what he discovered that made him gatekeep it? Besides, there is a translation mistake calling an item 'Skull of a Saint' something else - 'Sage's Hair', and when I discovered the proper description ( x ), I realised there is a big implication that following Healing Church's saints were wearing crowns after his raid on Cainhurst - both to honor him and to boast about having thrown the local monarchy!
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This is just very odd that Logarius was a pioneer of the delusion about exterminating 'impurity', and managed to hit da briks before he became hated and showed true nature of his pursuit - unlike poor Ludwig that presumably had better intentions and less freedom to see through WHAT was guiding him, yet fought long enough to become accursed by everyone. It is UNFAIR. But Logarius is such an important element in the system, as a trend-setter rather than people brainwashed into following Church's agenda! Willem is never addressed for messing with unknown too, Logarius is never addressed for being ideal inspirer of hate and murder... Guess the REAL martyr here is Laurence every time! xD
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Alfred is also a hard one for me, as for someone from the country that actively fabricates history facts, encourages distrust to outer information and ignorance, and just straight up lies with agenda. Like, sure, I am familiar with how easy average person can fall for a narrative - and how easy it is to discourage any skepticism and critical thinking before it formed. If anything, I pity him.
But I've grown to feel even more tense about this character when I reflected on the fact that he is SO eager to exterminate the 'enemy' that he goes after ones who can't even CAUSE any harm (he wants to kill Annalise who is absolutely defeated and defenceless, and he is the only summon in Old Yharnam where beasts that won't go outside live). There is a difference between trying to protect people from the possible threats (since whether vilebloods DO have cursed magic effect is up to interpretation) and "cleansing" the world from anyone affiliated Just Because. I've been doing Adella dirty for a long time calling her 'female Alfred' and I had since took it back because she at least gives Arianna a 'chance' as long as she doesn't share her blood that Adella's religion forbids. Not even one - she did the "three strikes and you're out"! Alfred is ruthless tho, in a very uncomfortable way, but it took me some unpleasant experiences to SEE truth about him. I think that no matter how far up you are in a religion, but whether you have a braincell to extend minimal reasoning about WHY you are fighting the 'bad guys' is on the individual and not on the source of this brainwashing, and Alfred fails this test.
That being said, he is still an interesting character, and I really love his unique appearance! His nose is a whole BEAK xD /pos I also headcanon that Alfred never met Logarius in person and his bond with him is parasocial, based on admiring the great person of the past upon feeling like he 'knows' him! The same applies for my versions of Amelia/Emilia and Laurence!
The rest of the topics are going under cut!
Ideas for Bloodborne 2 👀
Honestly, I think the best one I've seen executing the concept was HollarityArt in their contribution for Vaati's Bloodborne 2 concepts contest! Here is the link on Twit with their concepts: ( x ).
I have very little ideas on this but I agree that part 2 would be the best placed in sea/ocean setting! But the MOST tricky thing about the sequel would be that one of the potential Bloodborne endings is our Hunter becoming the new Great One that governs the cycle, instead of Flora. And another one is them replacing Gehrman. So the sequel must deal with addressing how no matter WHICH ending player had in Bloodborne, it didn't matter! Basically, something should happen with Hunter's Dream or the current Moon Presence that would leave any ending still palatable. So, addressing the current 'queen' Great One would result in the cycle still ongoing (aka our Hunter as Great One inflicting the same cycle, so it is not possible to pin whether Flora is still active or Hunter is). And, sure, for some reason, the Hunter's Dream is broken, just so we could not see our Hunter from previous game. This is extremely depressing, but feels in the spirit of From's games.
What From would need to do with Bloodborne 2 is to add information that doesn't quite confirm or deny exist fan theories, but instead adds more to WORK with! And creates MORE questions. So, reveal extra details about what we see in Bloodborne, but in a way that didn't answer the question. As in 'yeah there was a Great One counterpart for Flora', 'yeah there was someone in Isz that did birth Ebrietas as little celestial larvae many centuries ago, here is her statue and nothing else', 'yeah look at the ruins of the waking world version of Fishing Hamlet' etc. Some characters I think should reappear but in a way that feels expected while also not REALLY telling us anything new. So, Queen Yharnam not in the wedding dress, Gehrman functioning like his hunter self (like I said, Hunter's Dream should get broken), Maria having her recollected memory from when she was a caretaker of Research Hall, Adeline in a Kin form somewhere in a secret nook of Sea location (presume she ascended with or without Paleblood Hunter).
I like the idea that Yharnam in the sequel is a ghost town that has no messenger lamps or huntsmen, only rare NPCs and enemies who are largely people and/or Kin of the type we haven't seen before. Yharnam would have a bigger layout that makes much more sense geographically, some buildings and areas would look notably different if not more civilised. So that'd return the question whether Yharnam we play in even WAS real or this sequel Yharnam simply the same but changed from the last time, so people can argue whether this Yharnam is "real" and not "dreamed" one or developers simply improved their mapping and designing skills xD Maria would be able to travel there with us by waking up in the body of the Doll that still stayed in Old Workshop, and many people in Yharnam would act hostile towards both her and the player; later in the plot turns out that Hunter's Dream breaking was the result of external powers, and roaming people and unfamiliar Kin work together and target to remove the traces of influence from Stars and Moon! They'd be more alien Kin that urged to help with grasp of Flora and Fauna had on the Earth and its mortals, but in reality more or less want to establish their order. But protesting them would restart the cycle of vices of humanity, so... yeah, again, the game would be depressing and point out how there is no choice, only diverse ways to suck.
I also think the next game should extend beyond Yharnam, and using a ship to travel between locations would be a cool idea! Maybe getting to visit Valtr's home, or whatever Loran is now. @val-of-the-north had an idea that there is a legit country known as New Loran, but it would reveal more about history and heritage than just a bunch of electric beasts and sand. If I try to describe more concepts I might get really sucked into this swamp, so I'll leave it be here, but meeting relatives of some characters we've known would be great too! I always have this image in my head about Valtr's niece that heard he chased some monster and never came back, so we meet her when she is an adult that wanted to investigate on the mystery of her uncle. Also learning more about the fuckery Micolash and Laurence did do in the past through item descriptions; again, in a way that actually doesn't disrupt anything, more like 'well we already knew they had to commit a lot of crimes, we just now know the details'. The war criminals are still here in spirit! xD
What do you think about Hemwick being connected to Cainhurst?
Well, I said that sometime before, but I do think that both Cainhurst nobles and Hemwick are mixed human+pthumerian (and sometimes just human) descendants that preserved a lot of practices from ancient Pthumerian civilisations... and matriarchal traditions, too. They have different practices, as Vilebloods use blood magic and consume blood for power, whereas Witches use magical binding rituals, necromancy and disturbing tools as well. Ironic that they had 'Blood vs Eyes' conflict of Blood vs Arcane Healing Church factions before it was cool, don't you think?
Yharnam used to be monarchy but so many foreigners and neighbouring cities rubbed in on the area, that they became practically equal with higher class Yharnam citizens, and had to count people like Willem as equal. Maybe if Healing Church didn't form so swiftly, Yharnam would never have a mayor. But yeah, basically, Witches were something of peasants in relation to Cainhurst nobles. But they cooperated enough, and Witches would often offer medical help to the nobles who entered trouble with the curse living within their blood, or struggled to control pyromancy upon first periods. Witches maybe lived in poverty and dirt without much convenience, down to having to pay taxes TO Cainhurst, but they have unspoken knowledge within themselves that they are, in fact, superior to the nobles, as they have better grasp on the arcane secrets and are waaaaay less helpless before supernatural. I believe Iosefka and Fauxsefka are from Cainhurst, and Witches were how Iosefka studied ways to purify the blood from Frenzy + Beasthood inducing effects. Why that practice never picked up? Because we live in a society, indeed.
Talk about Gilbert!! I never get to see you chat about him! Lil guy!
Ahhhh right! I just didn't have much reason I guess? I do have a face design for him, that features some facial skewing like many Yharnamites have!
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Like his beasthood form suggests, he was afflicted with Ashen Blood, which I believe was not a planned action but an honest mistake by using the blood of a poisoned beast (Blood-Starved Beast crucified in Old Yharnam). However, back in the day where Yharnam was not quarantined away from the rest of the world (to the point you are not supposed to SURVIVE being there if you never had holy blood transfusion), there were plenty of people picking stuff up and illegally selling it abroad. @val-of-the-north has an idea that Valtr and his friends caught one of such groups, just when one of them transformed into a beast upon getting too much of his own "medicine" and I stealeded it xD
But Gilbert I think was a victim of one of such things, contracting Ashen Blood by consuming a poisoned "medicine". He never was able to connect the dots between getting worse after it as someone who already had his own illnesses. The more I learn about Victorian era, the more I realise how shockingly ignorant they were about medicine. I mean, they were having mercury pills for god knows how long! So, yeah, he saught Yharnam, and naturally had his strange sympthomes sustained by consuming the blood as someone who got beasthood 'activated'.
I like to think that he used to be a hatter, and it WAS what made him sick initially; they were number 1 victims for mercury poisoning, because of the materials used in their craft. However, it were not just hats that he could do well, and after arriving in Yharnam, he gladly worked to produce more clothes, sewing mostly Yharnam Hunter garbs obsessively! And is one of the rarest people who met Ludwig in person and is still around AND sane! Hence how he had his Flamethrower - the Healing Church shared one with him to help him to self-defend. But, he was out of use and got too sick before he got to kill even one. Being bedridden, he used to read books a lot, until his eyesight got afflicted too (apparently beasthood attacks the eyes the most), so he mostly entertains himself with fantasies and reciting memories.
Ideas on Arianna’s backstory!
Heh, like I said already, I love the idea that her mother ran with her from Cainhurst when Arianna was still a baby, so she never GOT to know the noble life. But, she did inherit her mother's noble dress, and vague idea about their blood being special enough to offer to the hunters. I entertain the idea that Alfred was Arianna's brother but had to be abandoned since he was older and their mother could only care for one child in the hard situation, but it is up in the air.
In either case, Arianna's mother died soon(ish), most likely from violent death. But instead of some Church fanatic killing her in "righteous" wrath, it was that her mother went insane unable to consume queen's blood or find any management for it, so she, like... had Vileblood version of becoming blood-drunk and was shot before she transformed into a bloodlicker completely. When she was about to turn on her own daughter to drink her blood dry, no less! The hunter that saved Arianna was Henryk, who picked every other orphaned child under his protection because he was aware Choir takes orphans and they are never seen again. I swear, at least once Choir had to confront him about whether his children are all 'really' his, and Valtr had to wear a dress and pretend to be their biological bother dsjfhdsfdsh
But for the most part he was not able to properly care for his adopted babies; Viola was exceptional case that stayed close enough. Most of the orphans under his protection were wandering around looking for their purpose, and Arianna was like this. She clinged to Crow of Cainhurst, trusting him as the only remaining hook with her Cainhurst past, but he did not feel qualified or interested enough to play a dad for her - something he regretted upon meeting Arianna again years later and seeing WHAT she has to do to survive.
I also think that Arianna reacting on female Hunter differently is not a homophobia (?) internalised in Yharnam, but remains of her mom teaching her that women are "superior"; she speaks from the standpoint that she doesn't pity men all that much, but would dread to 'dirty' a woman with something as questionable as a loveless sex. It is not something beyond her that men will be like animals, but she feels inferior compared to other women, and it really gets to her.
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Ideas on Adella’s backstory!
Likewise an orphaned person. When she reached puberty, she was this 👌 close to attempting to sell her body, like Arianna, before she managed to get herself a place in the Healing Church. It happened on the rift when Choir fell from uhhh... "grace"?, as well as the daughter of the current Vicar, Norbert/Herbert, turned into a celestial kin together with the children she was overseeing there. As result, he was compensating by picking up every other child/teenager and raising them within the Healing Church's walls like an actually good dad figure. He saw how Adella was doing and basically dragged her in (punching the old bastard that did want to use her on the way).
The decision to become a Blood Saint and not just part of the staff was her own, though; she bought the narrative about hunters being brave and protecting people while it was choking out its dying breaths but still existing. So, she wanted to help people.
Localisation slightly messed this up, by making it sound as though Adella has severe insecurities regarding the quality of her blood, but that's not quite the case:
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Whereas the religious 'we all must admit we are sinful by nature and should bash ourselves all of our lives' vibe might apply, within the original context it seems to be that she is insecure about having to do it in 'battlefield' conditions rather than in the setting of great religious reverence it SHOULD be. Like, all she does is extracts her own blood in a vial. She only talks with us in Yahar'gul if we convince her we are Healing Church staff too; so, she still thinks we ARE one of their hunters. It seems like internal Healing Church rules about 'proper' blood sharing are what makes her feel "vulgar", not her blood overall.
Adella mentions a friend she could possibly turn to during the night of the hunt if we refuse to tell her of the safe place, and I made it be a person you pick black church garb from in the alley where Arianna is. It is a shrodinger character, of course, because it is a gendered set, but I default all sets to 'male' because default Paleblood Hunter is some guy with grey hair and I love using this as "official" option! The window NPCs in this area mention "thanking" the Church in a rather passive-aggressive and fake manner, that makes me feel like the guy was killed here out of spite. I think he is Adella's EX that she still keeps clinging to, and... well, he was in this area because he wanted to help Arianna by telling her of a safe place, as he had a bad feeling about this night. Again, irony.
What would a Discord with the original Byrgenwerth scholar gang look like?? xD
Pfffft you mean if they made a small group Discord server for familiar people only? Laurence would be a moderator, that nobody asked for, because it is a small (mostly) closed Discord group and not an official server... But he'd insist on bringing some discipline and civility anyway.
Server would have expected standard channels for drawings, research notes, general chat, jokes/memes, debates, Rom's (daily) pictures of the bugs and spiders, vent and announcements... Except, they would have to create more and more debate channels all the time, because every time it'd be either Caryll and Laurence, or Micolash and Julie cluttering the debate channel so much and refusing to stop. xD Like, they'd have to spawn new debate channels just so other people could have a talk too sdfhhdfds
Damian would share health / self-care advices regularly, like "don't forget to hydrate!" or "10 advices to avoid studying burn out!" and tell others to stay safe and not overwork. Unfortunately, nobody follows his advices. He also always answers everyone in vent channel.
Rom tends to overwhelm any channel when she is online by spamming whatever she is thinking about, but nobody tries to stop her because she tends to accidentally drop something useful, like a solution to the homework, or a significant breakthrough. They have a locked channel accessible for everyone except for Rom and Yurie/Julie, where they discuss Rom's ramblings as they happen and decide what to take from her without credit :(
Micolash sometimes has mad ramblings, similar to Rom but HIS are unhinged and genuinely creepy and disturbing. They have a locked channel accessible for everyone except for Micolash, Damian and Rom, where they laugh at his wording or mock how weird he is :(
Patches is only active in the server to promote the shit he's selling or questionable links, but if anyone gets scammed and calls him out on the server, he gaslights them that he did them all a favour and showed with a concrete example how important it is to know basics of the internet safety xD And might accept their apology for getting mad at him, if he's feeling nice fhshfdhsfds
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Thank you for asking! It was a trip dshfhds
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gardensandtaverns · 8 months
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Telling a Story Through Gaming: Making an Immersive Experience
I know it’s been a couple days since I updated on Bookwyrm’s Vault, and if I’m being entirely honest it’s because my other job wiped me out and then I spent all day today traveling, so there’s been no movement on that front over the last three days. However, I did say that I would hopefully be sharing some more general-use advice and other projects along the way, so for today I will be tapping into the reasons and people that drove my ambition to do this - hopefully to the benefit of others with similar interests.
I believe I’ve said before that I’ve spent the last 5 years of my life as a perma-DM - in fact it’s how I made friends in college and I was a board member of my college’s tabletop games club. With 5 years of running games, I tended to have no fewer than 2 games I was running at any given time, with each campaign being hosted weekly for anywhere between 4 months and 2 years. Some games went well, others fell apart, and some were just meant to be short, it was as much a creative outlet as it was a social event for me. I suppose that brings me to my first and largest piece of advice for anyone interested in making more than just a game, but an experience: Forget yourself.
Now this doesn’t mean disregard yourself, after all it is your creativity, passion, and drive that will ultimately make your game - it’s your product and you should be proud of it. But when you make a truly immersive experience, like a D&D campaign or a sandbox game, you need to realize that your players, who are given nearly unlimited ability to interact with your world, will inadvertently act in a way you don’t consider, intend, or sympathize with. Similarly, there may be things that they simply don’t care or think about as much as you do. To this second point, I encourage anyone who loves internet lore videos to interact with Polygon’s Skyrim Book Report (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVdTZhmsGsU) hosted by the marvelous Brian David Gilbert.
What I mean to say in this is that you are creating a product that you are passionate about. So many people will make their first game as something they would want to play. This is true of other creative fields as well: animation, music, fiction... and the truth that you will have to accept is that what you wish to experience may be too niche, or complex, or tailored to your personal experience to gain traction or interest. In the case of me drawing from experience as a Game Master, I will call this player buy-in.
Buy-in makes or breaks an experience for your consumer. If your magic system is endlessly complex, a player looking for a simple power fantasy to escape the stress of a desk job may quickly discard it to collect dust. If your zombie game turns out to be a settlement managing game with an external and seldom-addressed threat of zombies, you’ll likely lose the interest of the Walking Dead crowd who are interested in the nomadic wasteland survival aspect of the genre. What’s worse is falsely advertising, or poorly portraying, your product to people potentially interested can cause lasting harm in the trust they have in your later products.
Not only this, but buy-in will impact the feedback you get from your consumers. The makers of Until Dawn no doubt put a lot of effort and energy into the photorealistic environments and occult horror of their wendigo models, but a comment praising the “good graphics” will not mean nearly as much as the feedback from a player who plays horror games to be scared, who “spent the last four hours on the edge of my seat, looking over my shoulder in my dark game room”. It’s the feedback that appreciates the spirit of your product that not only tells you what you did right, instead of just well, but also gives you the energy, motivation, and validation to keep doing it.
Tomorrow I will talk about my favorite experiences from TTRPGs as an invested player versus as a Game Master with invested players, and the world of difference it makes. If people like these little advice posts, I’ll be happy to continue them. It makes for a good fallback when I hit roadblock or am taking breaks for work-heavy periods. Hopefully on Tuesday I will have some progress to report on the Bookwyrm’s Vault, one way or another.
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facelessxchurch · 10 months
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SP HeroForge: The Unnamed (1)
“The breakers of worlds reckon themselves mighty, but I mock them, for I am drinker of suns.”
“I am immortal. Your true death is when I forget.”
“All things that live are born already Named. I am Unnamed, yet I live. All the magic of sorcerers comes to them by their Name. I have no Name, and yet the doors of all magic are thrown open before me.”
I initially tried to stick to your ref sheet of the original Unnamed, but HeroForge’s options do not lend themselves well to that corporeal-Nazgul look. Not enough chains or billowing sleeves and the tattered robe options look bad to me. So I gave up on that and went off-script entirely with this immortal mummified pharaoh vibe, mostly of my own invention.
HeroForge doesn’t have an option for floating pieces around the head for that King of the Darklands crown, (these models have to be 3D-printable) but I got reasonably close with a ring of horns.
Guess what sword that is he’s holding?
So in the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, there are a few lines that have been stuck in my head ever since I learned them. Echoing around in my mind, like I was always meant to hear them, like they were written for me. Which I guess in a way, they were. The Book of the Dead, which is also called the Book of Going Forth By Day, is actually a religious text, not some kind of spellbook of Old Kingdom necromancy or whatever it is depicted as in historically illiterate fiction.
The Ancient Egyptian religion is actually the source of True Name lore. For example, Isis, daughter of Ra, learns Ra’s True Name. She does this by poisoning him with an enchanted serpent she conjures, then tricking him into revealing his secret name to her so she can heal him. When he does so, she gains his power. Does this event remind you of anything that happened in phase 2 of Skulduggery Pleasant? I can think of one in particular.
Anyway, the lines are thus:
“I am the Great One, son of the Great One”
“I am fire, son of fire, whose head was given to him after it was cut off.”
These refer to the god Osiris, torn apart and later retrieved, stitched back together, embalmed and resurrected by his wife, or more generally the souls of the dead on their journey through the underworld to new life, who Osiris serves as a kind of exemplar for. But I found myself thinking about them again while customizing the Unnamed in HeroForge, and thought, what about a special version just for him?
“I am the Nameless, child of the Faceless.”
“I am no one, son of no one, over whom death has neither call nor claim.”
Thank you for coming to my dark magic TED talk
SP HeroForge: The Unnamed (2)
“Sorcerers become great when they own their Names. I own the ink with which those Names were written.”
Here are close-ups of his face, including some editions with sigils blazing with power carved into his skin.
I remembered that sculpt you linked before and tried to make his eyes look as much like it as I could. I also gave him the nose ring from that sculpt. Hope you appreciate
Ya trying a bit to hard on the quotes ngl. The only quote I like is the one based on the Book of the Dead. Tho the Unnamed describing himself as Child of the Faceless feels ooc for him. He infantilizes others by calling them ‘boy’ but not himself. Him calling himself ‘heir’ to the Faceless would seem more fitting to me.
Is he holding the Godkiller Sword?
I love that you based him off Egyptian lore. I’m pretty sure that Landy actually admitted in one interview that he based the name system on the Egyptian three names lore, yet you’re the first I saw do something with that information. So big bonus points for including that lore  The only thing I don’t like is that the bandages don’t cover him completely.
(I’d imagine Mev and Nef hate it too lol no one wants to see that nasty old man skin. Imagine this scene but with the Unnamed and Mev/Nef .3.)
But HF’s limits options are to blame for that and not you. That’s why I hardly play around with HF tbh bc not being able to do what I want drives me nuts haha.
You did an absolutely fantastic job on the eyes too! 👀 They look properly otherworldly and dripping with power! I’m a bit torn on the nose ring, but it does low key remind me of the main baddie from 300 which I would say fits thematically.
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cruelsister-moved2 · 1 year
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Im the hater anon omg i didnt mean to lead u astray but i haven't finished it i'm just over half done. i probably will finish just so i can coherently say why i don't like it bc rn my thoughts are all over the place but  u hit all the major points im like nodding and taking notes rn.  Its very shallow lore wise like its all overly complex exposition that barely effects the plot. I could write about this for 100 years but basically it was boring and i just feel like it has nothing to say like theres no purpose or message and i think speculative stuff should have SOME weight behind it idk.  That paired w how the writing itself is like..not pretty or artful or anything………………….
And on top of that its not even actually funny. Instead of real jokes its just 100 million mcu quips awkwardly inserted so that no situation is ever treated genuinely or seriously or with depth. For example. My personal least favorite part beyond general quality so far is how often they bring up gideon being inappropriately horny… idk how else to word it.. Its one of her 3 personality traits. they mention her porn collection i swear every couple of pages. its played 4 jokes but like the rest of it its literally unfunny and feels so out of place. Like this is right when they just discovered an incinerated body → ”she looked troubled, which made Gideon sad, but she was also soaked right through to the skin, which made Gideon need a lie-down.” Its like if someone whose only point of reference was tiktok during that era where every vaguely masc woman got made fun of for being a quote hey mamas lesbian unquote tried to write a masc woman.  Reading it as a masc lesbian myself is just sort of embarrassing idk if other ppl feel differently but it just feels overplayed and goofy. 
Anyways… this is all very long and incoherent but thank u for complaining and vindicating me… i started reading it a couple days ago on a whim bc ive been seeing ppl talk abt it a lot lately and i was instantly SOOOOO disappointed. Part of it was definitely that i was expecting something very different because of how people talk about it but also its just like bad. Its insane. I also had no idea abt the roachpatrol thing so ummmmmm :(
hiiiiiiiiii omg so your suffering isn't even over yet my condolences.
the worldbuilding exposition industrial complex needs to end im so serious. I just had such a nice conversation with some writer friends about soft vs hard magic systems and world-building and how frustratingly common the assumption that more complex lore you dump the more sophisticated your story is at the moment. in reality many more sophisticated stories deliberately utilise abstraction and whimsy for thematic statements. v happy for brandon sanderson fans but again, a lot of those stories are basically like mystery novels except the magic is the mystery, whereas the speculative fiction authors who... actually speculate...are often using it as a tool to speculate about our own existence.
and the writing is so ugly like I've read a couple of chapters and I feel like i could get through a mid story if it's at least well written but it wasn't even inoffensive it was actively offputting like that prose was stinkyyyyyyyyy..... and the quips exactlyyy like who is laughing at none pizza with left beef anymore and the fact a lot of it isn't even the author being witty but just like. a reference to a meme? it's literally supposed to be like gritty but then everyone is memeing and quipping all the time how are you meant to take that seriously?
and okay the like sexualisation of Gideon had kind of been my suspicion but I hadn't read enough to make that claim for certain so. that's disappointing to have it confirmed. given that the author is a fem woman who calls herself a lesbian whilst being homestuck married to a guy, it really brings up some kind of discomfort in me to be using masc women that way and making a joke out of them and their sexuality and calling them himbos and shit like. it really doesn't seem like she actually knows any masc women??? and when that was a huge part of the marketing for the book it comes to feel exploitative.
one thing to be aware is that tor like. pushed it really hard marketing-wise for whatever reason. I guess they feel it symbolises a new era of sci-fi and like were using it as an outreach effort to engage the generation that mostly only reads fan fiction or whatever which I guess cheers if it achieves that. but the majority of negative reviews are specifically that it was nothing like what they expected it to be, because of the.... super gimmicky marketing.
the tagline being sword necromancer lesbians in space or something so lame 😭 and it really seems like the elements came first and the justification came second so it's never really explained why they use swords instead of more technologically advanced weapons (bc the answer is 'it sounds cool') or really why it needs to be in space at all (because the answer is 'it sounds cool'). even the necromancy is supposedly fairly tangential and ive seen people be underwhelmed how much actual lesbianism is involved too 💀
9mbut yeah the r0ach patr0l thing I wish people were more aware of because honestly above anything else, I've seen people who were fans and then found this out and felt super uncomfortable so I think people deserve to know what kind of background she has, and this is literally where she developed her writing and her name as a BNF so it's directly connected to her current career not just like a celebrity who tweeted something dumb when they were 14. like I think it's fair to take that into account + idk it's INTERESTING to me that she went from that to debuting with a masc lesbian whom she projects like comic hypersexuality onto it really is all much to think about truly
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ae-neon · 1 year
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What's your favorite book?
In the ACOTAR series? None. They're all mostly bad in their own way. But probably TAR?
the best romance
peak Feyre
Moment Nesta became the best character by having the only natural character reveal/plot twist
peak Lucien
Amarantha has a better villain motivation (Clythia n Jurian) than KoH
best Fae (Alis, the bogge, the Attor, the winged summer Fae, the puca, the naga etc)
Everyone was at max potential
the cast chemistry was good cause Alis and Lucien weren't up Feyre's ass the second they met her even tho they knew or hoped she would end up with Tam, it built up naturally and individually
Favourite books in general? Idk but books I look back and remember enjoying:
Honourable mention is The Story of Old by Chelsea Starling, which I recently read for review. You can find my review on Goodreads
Patrick Ness' The Knife of Never Letting Go (series)
I haven't reread it since I was a kid so I can't give a current, more updated review but it's about a rural planet colony where a virus killed all the women and made everyone's (including animals) thoughts audible and visible to one another, called Noise. The MC is Todd - the last boy born in the colony who's set to become a man around his 13th or 14th birthday when he discovers an impossible spot of silence: a girl.
(now being an adult, that sounds terrifying for that little girl but fortunately Patrick Ness doesn't take it down that route - the story is more of an action adventure)
It's written from the perspective of a child but it's not exactly a children's story, especially later books which tackle things like sexism and even genocide.
Ambrose Parry's The Way of All Flesh
I read about 2 years ago and really enjoyed.
It's historical fiction set in Edinburgh in 1847 at the dawn of modern medicine particularly around gynecology and anesthesia. With elements of a murder mystery as young women keep being found dead all around the city.
It follows Will, a poor young apprentice doctor to Dr Simpson, and Dr Simpson's housemaid, Sarah, whose gender limits her station despite how clever she is.
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
Unfortunately I'm not much of a fan of Sanderson after trying to read the Way of Kings but before that I read Warbreaker and I enjoyed it - though apparently most of his fans don't
The story follows two sisters, Vivenna - the oldest, set to inherit her kingdom - and Siri - sent to marry the terrifying God King of their enemy kingdom. Vivenna, usually so obidient, sets off to save her wild little sister.
The story also follows Lightsong, a reincarnated God bored with life and Vasher, a hobo Dilf wizard with a talking murderous sword.
The magic system is called Breath and is really interesting. Each human is born with one but you can give yours away or get more from others and the more you have the more you can do.
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (book 1)
I'm a little hesitant to put this because I never like recommending horror or generally disturbing content even if I love consuming it - plus I don't know if I really liked the book even though I have reread it. I like the concepts.
The book follows a girl named Alex Stern who is a high school drop out but gets accepted into Yale to be part of a secret society centred around magic.
Ghosts in this world are called Grays and are generally harmless and invisible to most people even those who practice magic but Alex can not only see them but touch them. Unfortunately that means they can touch her too - something that has made her life very difficult.
We follow her through her 1st and 2nd semester as individual timelines to figure out what happened between her coming to the school and her mentor going missing.
I will say the book has major flaws in character development and use outside of the main 1 or 2. The villain reveal at the end was absolute garbage that has maybe the worst monologuing since Alis in acotar.
Trigger Warnings for the book should include gore, racism, rape - including gang rape and child rape, drug use, murder and someone being forced to eat human feces
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