#curse words spellcasting for fun and prophet

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Preliminary Round

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Beautiful Something Else by Ash Van Otterloo

Endorsement from submitter: "Life-changing."

It’s exhausting trying to be the perfect daughter. Still, getting good grades without making any waves may be the only way to distract from the fact that Sparrow Malone’s mother is on the verge of falling apart. Which means no getting upset. No being weird. No standing out for the wrong reasons.

But when Mom’s attempts to cope spiral out of control, Sparrow is sent to live with Aunt Mags on a sprawling estate full of interesting, colorful new neighbors. And for the first time, trying to fit in doesn’t feel right anymore. Even Sparrow’s shadow has stopped following the rules.

As Shadow nudges Sparrow to try all the scary, exciting things Mom has always forbidden, Sparrow begins to realize something life-changing: They don’t feel like a girl. Or a boy. And while this discovery is exciting, now Sparrow must decide whether to tell everyone—their new family and friends, not-so-secret crush, and, most importantly, their mom—the truth, especially if it means things change forever.

Contemporary, coming of age, magical realism, middle grade

Curse Words: Spellcasting for Fun and Prophet series (The Cursed Heart, The Labyrinth of Dreams, The Heiress of Duniyasar, From the Top of the World, and other stories) by Derin Edala

Kayden was six months old when the doctor found the curse in his heart. From then on, his life was a struggle to manage it, to keep it locked away and dormant and above all secret, dreading the day that it would finally break free and wreak havoc. Now he's fourteen, and that day has come.

Things look bad, but there's hope — the world's most prestigious magical school is willing to take him in, keep him safe, and pay his legal fees to avoid bankrupting his family. Most importantly, they can teach him to control his curse, to avoid ever hurting anyone else. It sounds far too good to be true, but what other option does he have?

Kayden quickly finds himself embroiled in a large political game he doesn't understand. But he'd better learn fast. Because the secrets of his new school run deeper than he ever expected, and his actions have far more dangerous consequences than he could ever have known.

Fantasy, series, young adult

[krakenartificer]

This short story will, for me, forever be tied to @derinthescarletpescatarian’s The Cursed Heart, and the main character’s assessment of the ones who walk away:

“ – Some of them walk away. Just leave Omelas, leave paradise behind, and never return. And they are fucking cowards.” Kylie peeked around her curtain. “You’re saying that the people who don’t profit off child torture are the cowards?” “Admittedly when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound like the strongest position, but… yeah, I guess that is what I’m saying.” “You’re a lunatic.” “No, think about it! The people who stay are trying to do the right thing. I mean, their right thing is pretty awful because it involves torturing a child for personal gain, but they’re running the numbers and owning their own complicity. The people who leave, what are they doing?” “Um, not being complicit?” “But they are! They are complicit! Because the child is still suffering! If they really cared, they’d show the child kindness, break the system, rescue them if they could! Walking away doesn’t help; it’s not some good, charitable act; it’s not them choosing between the welfare of the kid and the welfare of the town. At least everyone else made that choice, but those who walk away from Omelas are choosing between paradise and their own guilt. They’re deciding that their guilt is more damaging to their personal happiness than losing paradise is, and bowing out – and the child still suffers. The kid suffers in the dark and they abandon it, and they’re the heroes of the story?”

And, like, I'm not saying Kayden's interpretation is the One True Interpretation or anything, but I'll never be able to think about Omelas without thinking about how fragile the system is, how all it would take is one single compassionate decision, one person who looks at suffering and decides to do something about it, to bring the whole thing down.

And yes, Crowley looked at that system and said "fuck that" and walked away.

But I'm now obsessed with the idea that Aziraphale has chosen/will choose to show kindness to the child, and thus bring down the whole system from the inside. Not because he's a rebel or an anarchist or anything -- he's shown himself to be distressingly loyal to heaven. But because for all his Lawfulness, he still can't leave someone suffering when they're right in front of him and he has the means to prevent it.

I’ve seen the Omelas theory relating to the Metatron’s beverage, implying connections to Leguin’s Those Who Walk Away From Omelas and given how much Gneil likes Ursula Leguin’s writing, it wouldn’t surprise me to know that it’s right.

Oat Milk Latte Almond Syrup

The premise of the short piece of writing is a utopian place called Omelas where everything is pristine and perfect and people are content with the way things are. Only there is a condition to live in this society and that condition is that a single child must be kept in misery and squalor in the darkness, alone, unloved and abused. Children are shown this child and told that this is the condition of their place.

If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were  cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.

Doesn’t this sound very much like the Good Omens version of Heaven? Where there are conditions for how you can treat humanity? Where you have to let them suffer and die for this undefined Good that you claim to be doing?

But for some people, this is too much to bear and those people choose to leave. “Sometimes also a man or woman much older falls silent for a day or two, and then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates.”

One day, an angel saw it all and that day, he walked away. “They walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back.”

“We’re better than that. You’re better than that, angel. We don’t need them.”

[pinknerdybeing]

Snafu has started feeling a bit alterhuman about something other than glitchself, and obviously it's a being from a random webfic XD /lh /aff (curse words: spellcasting for fun and prophet)

SNAFU: There's just this really cool "spellthing"- a being made out of a bunch of spells that acts similarily to a person, but internally... who the fuck knows how it works :3

and like, i really like the way it talks about its own consciousness, and the idea of just thinking and being differently from how humans work but acting similar enough is just dshfsdlhdfsdflshl literally so me [insert sparkles emoji here]. And idk, i just want to embrace that more! Because like, I ain't human!!!!1 XP

WE NEED TO FIND QUOTES FROM IT AND POST THEM TO EXPLAIN THIS FEELING OF NON/ALTERHUMAN CONNECTION/SOLIDARITY/UNDERSTANDING

the one we remember is this:

main character: you're just a bunch of spells pretending to be a person spellthing: you're just a bunch of cells pretending to be a person

[PT: main character: you're just a bunch of spells pretending to be a person

spellthing: you're just a bunch of cells pretending to be a person]

like THAT is the vibe we want to bring to social interactions

[krakenartificer]

Behold! The most uselessly complicated piece of fanart (I have) ever made!

(Minor spoilers for @derinthescarletpescatarian's web serial Curse Words)

Medium: macrame and embroidery Fiber: acrylic

What is it, you ask? Why, it's a picture of the lake monster's tentacle, magnified 80,000x!

The what? you ask. Well let me just let Max explain it:

The four materials detected by the enchanted microscope showed up in the photos as four distinct colours. Mostly blue and red, with a generous dash of green throughout and rare fine threads of yellow. With the four materials easily distinguished, the structure of the tentacles was obvious. A whole lot of long strands, twisted together. “It’s rope,” Kylie gasped. “Or thread or cotton, I guess, given how small it is.” “It’s much finer than thread or cotton,” Max said. “These filaments are subcellular in diameter.

But that's not all! The description goes on!

These parts are just twisted like rope,

but here.” He flicked to a new photo. “Look at how complicated the weaving is in this part.

And Max is thorough, so we're obviously not gonna leave it at that

Here, I made a kind of 3D model of a little section of the rope. It was a pain in the arse....But look. Here’s a 3D model of half a millimeter of the yellow and green, with the rest of the rope missing. Notice anything familiar?” “They’re the runes at Duniyasar,” Kylie said. “And on that skeleton.” They were. A complicated web of runes joined by lines, like a really elegant version of what Max had been modelling with wood.

According to the timestamps, this chapter was posted on 7/30, so I have spent the last 12 weeks with some part of my brain trying to figure out how to make a rope that was twisted like rope but also woven complexly, with the right mix of colors, as well as what the runes should look like and how to apply them. Actual construction time was, happily, much smaller. It did make me grateful that I don't have to operate at the .25 micrometer scale.

[ruinconstellation]

Sound is not a physical thing. Sound is a condition of other things, a description of the way they move. A movement used to transport information, a movement that can be transferred between objects. Tuned properly, sound can move through barriers, or break them. It can take information within itself and carry it from one location to another, unwalled and unchained, because it is not a matter, it does not compete with objects for existence. It works with them, through them.

Derin Edala, Curse Words (4.113)

[krakenartificer]

my favorite part of this is that it’s accurate af, and there is an entire scene dedicated to Kayden’s random number generator being superior to Max’s perfect calculation

Max: The risk I took was calculated.

Kylie: The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math.

Kayden: I thought I calculated this risk but it turns out my calculator is just a random number generator and it’s too late to back out now.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fantasy Books Bracket: Preliminary Round

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Elemental Logic series (Fire Logic, Earth Logic, Water Logic, Air Logic) by Laurie J. Marks

Submitted endorsement: A 4-book series about transforming war and prejudice into peace and fellowship. Unique, subtle magic system. Lesbian knife-wielder survives the unspeakable to save and be saved by a giant blacksmith who is hiding the fact that she is the most powerful mage in the world! Bisexual paladin gets a new lease on life when he meets a much younger seer boyfriend! Realistic found family!

Earth * Air * Water * Fire These elements have sustained the peaceful people of Shaftal for generations, with their subtle powers of healing, truth, joy, and intuition. But now, Shaftal is dying. The earth witch who ruled Shaftal is dead, leaving no heir. Shaftal's ruling house has been scattered by the invading Sainnites. The Shaftali have mobilized a guerrilla army against these marauders, but every year the cost of resistance grows, leaving Shaftal's fate in the hands of three people: Emil, scholar and reluctant warrior; Zanja, the sole survivor of a slaughtered tribe; and Karis the metalsmith, a half-blood giant whose earth powers can heal, but only when she can muster the strength to hold off her addiction to a deadly drug. Separately, all they can do is watch as Shaftal falls from prosperity into lawlessness and famine. But if they can find a way to work together, they just may change the course of history. Fantasy, adult, politics, secondary world, series

The Cursed Heart by Derin Edala (Curse Words: Spellcasting for Fun and Prophet Series)

Kayden was six months old when the doctor found the curse in his heart. From then on, his life was a struggle to manage it, to keep it locked away and dormant and above all secret, dreading the day that it would finally break free and wreak havoc. Now he's fourteen, and that day has come. Things look bad, but there's hope — the world's most prestigious magical school is willing to take him in, keep him safe, and pay his legal fees to avoid bankrupting his family. Most importantly, they can teach him to control his curse, to avoid ever hurting anyone else. It sounds far too good to be true, but what other option does he have? Kayden quickly finds himself embroiled in a large political game he doesn't understand. But he'd better learn fast. Because the secrets of his new school run deeper than he ever expected, and his actions have far more dangerous consequences than he could ever have known.

[gpedia]

Never mind, with this chapter, between the Dragonriders of Pern, the bush shirt buttoned to the collar, and the nokia buttonbois Max actually is just my favorite character of all time right now. @derinthescarletpescatarian congratulations on this, which is no-doubt the greatest honour you have ever received: the knowledge that one lf your characters is the favorite character of all time to a random stranger on the same blue hellsite as you.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

How would you order your stories in terms of fantasy? From most fantasy elements to least.

Oh Jesus okay

The Princess in the Tower -- A straightup dragon-guarding-princess story. Hard to get more fantasy than that.

Gentle Nerandi -- Name magic and selkies. Again, pretty self-explanatory.

A Cinderella Premise/ A Cinderella Sequel -- It's. Cinderella.

Curse Words: Spellcasting for Fun and Prophet -- It's a magic school series.

Original Sin -- The inciting incident in this one is the protagonist killing a god.

Angel -- This is probably the last indisputably fantasy story on the list, but I'd argue that many more of my stories have Fantasy Vibes.

Breakfast Time -- We're getting into superhero territory here. From here on out, we start to move more into scifi.

World Builder -- It's hard to classify this one. I guess you'd put it in whatever genre you'd put the Library of Babel in.

How to Escape the Well -- not even gonna try to classify this.

Drops of Blood like Neon Stars -- It's vampires. They have a bullshit "scientific" explanation, but it's vampires.

The Void Princess -- This one has future people living in space stations, but they do also "psychically" connect (connect wirelessly via brain implant) to each other and fly robot dragons through space, so.

Child of a Wandering Star -- To the human in this story, this is a standard scifi adventure. To the alien protagonist, this is an epic fantasy quest and she is the Chosen One.

Charlie MacNamara -- Scifi, but with an old-fashioned Plucky Human Hero Saves the Day kind of vibe.

Rebirth/ New Rules and Guidelines From HR For Working With Humans/ Isolation Hysteria/ Unknown Complications/Love at First Sip -- all short stories exploring simple scifi concepts

The Back End of Time -- A time travel scifi story, but I did get to build a fun world for it

Copy <|> Paste -- This is just a thesis about Star Trek teleporters

Time to Orbit: Unknown -- This is about as hard as my scifi gets. There's still a few 'magic' handwavey tech bits in there, but nothing I'd call fantasy.

Wasting Time -- The social implications of time dilation due to near-lightspeed starship travel are not generally considered fantasy. (Now, if the time dilation was from going through a magic portal, on the other hand...)

[nameless370]

Great news! Someone already has! Check out Curse Words - Spellcasting for fun and prophet by @/derinthescarletpescatarian.

I haven't purchased a HP item in close to a decade - I use the books I already had as doorstops or to prop a laptop up for meetings nowadays.

There is NO "death of the author" with JK Rowling - she controls and continues to profit from her IP, and uses that money to fund hate groups.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 1B

Book summaries below:

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Life wasn't easy for Celie. But she knew how to survive, needing little to get by.

Then her husband's lover, a flamboyant blues singer, barreled into her world and gave Celie the courage to ask for more - to laugh, to play, and finally - to love.

Classics, literary fiction, historical fiction, epistolary, adult

Curse Words: Spellcasting for Fun and Prophet series (The Cursed Heart, The Labyrinth of Dreams, The Heiress of Duniyasar, From the Top of the World, and other stories) by Derin Edala

Kayden was six months old when the doctor found the curse in his heart. From then on, his life was a struggle to manage it, to keep it locked away and dormant and above all secret, dreading the day that it would finally break free and wreak havoc. Now he's fourteen, and that day has come.

Things look bad, but there's hope — the world's most prestigious magical school is willing to take him in, keep him safe, and pay his legal fees to avoid bankrupting his family. Most importantly, they can teach him to control his curse, to avoid ever hurting anyone else. It sounds far too good to be true, but what other option does he have?

Kayden quickly finds himself embroiled in a large political game he doesn't understand. But he'd better learn fast. Because the secrets of his new school run deeper than he ever expected, and his actions have far more dangerous consequences than he could ever have known.

Fantasy, series, young adult

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Ebooks? Yay! Which books are you making into e-books? I’ve always wanted to read your stories, but after Worm literally caused noticeable eye strain, I pretty much gave up on reading long cereals directly on the web, waiting for ebooks so I can read them on my Kindle instead.

Huzzah, yippee!

🎉🥳🎊

Tine to Orbit: Unknown is available as a duology of ebooks here.

Curse Words: Spellcasting for Fun and Prophet is available as a 5 part series here.

Both series will be eventually released in print, probably within the next year or so.

[gpedia]

Yea and if y'all read that you'll get what Messers Ravencharm and Duane mean about "make it your own and it might turn out better than anything that came previous".

Now I'm not unequivocally stating that Curse Words: Spellcasting for Fun and Prophet is the peak of the magic school genre — but it's certainly up there in the cream layer — but man is it a brilliant and unique read.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Hey quick question (a bit stupid too), for your work Curse Words: spellcasting for fun and prophet, is there a blind character named talbot? I’m running a disabled characters showdown, and he was submitted, but I can’t really find anything about him easily.

Yes, there is! Talbot Ericson is a sarcastic teenager who has a magic spell that lets him purify air and water (including 'purifying' air into something with more oxygen or more CO2, which he likes to use to mess about with fires). He's also a natural revolutionary, in a "The Man is always out to screw you over for a quick buck" kind of way. He has zero vision, as neither of his optic nerves work.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

“Ha. Hopefully, we can change that. Prophets attempting to cast effectively must keep in mind the layered nature of reality as humans experience it, and that they do not experience the same reality as their spells. Tools that help one get in this frame of mind – reflective surfaces, smoke and flames, psychoactive drugs – can help a lot in casting, and because spells adapt to how they’re used, they frequently become triggers for prophecies.”

“So that’s why I’m sitting here with this water and candles and mirrors?” Kylie asked.

“Yes.”

“And the psychoactive drugs?” I asked.

Miratova shook her head. “I’ve been specifically banned from giving students any more psychoactive drugs. There was an incident involving some very overprotective and very vocal parents. Some people just have no investigative spirit. Kylie, I’d like you to try casting, please.”

------

God forbid women do anything.

[fantasybooktournament]

Swift moves on! Character reveal beneath the cut!

Cursed Trans Guy is Kayden from Curse Words: Spellcasting for Fun and Prophet by Derin Edala

Mystery Fantasy Book Character Tournament

Round 1: Poll 26

Please do not tag or comment with character name, book title, or authors.

Cursed Trans Guy

A trans guy with a curse in his heart, who is sent to a magical school so they can pay his legal fees when his curse almost accidentally kills a guy. He is incredibly stubborn, and keeps on thinking people are involved in conspiracies against him (to be fair, they are often enough). He also has a propensity for getting into trouble, almost drowning in a magical lake, that should've been impossible for him to access, on his first day.

Swift

He lived on the streets as a pickpocket in order to escape an abusive relative. After years, he met a wizard who he convinced to (reluctantly) take him on as an apprentice. He was set back by his lack of education, as he had never been taught to read, but he picks things up quickly. He doesn't speak much, but loves to learn and is good at thinking on his feet. He's an abuse survivor who got a found family and I think he deserves points for that