#Magic Defined

[psychopomp-recital]

[gear-project]

I’ve been meaning to ask, but how does magic work in the Guilty Gear-verse?

I discussed this more specifically in the Magic+Defined tag and Magic tag, but it might still be hard to visualize and process if you can’t fully picture it.

In simple terms it’s like a code language with functions that “tell things” to happen. A lot of the middle-work needed for most common spells is pre-written on objects like Instroments, even Zeal is its own kind of key function command, though it appears as liquid fuel.

On an even more basic level, it’s energy itself. Fire, Lightning, Water, Wind, Ki (Qi or Life Energy), Kinetics, Physics, etc. Even Sound is a kind of mixture of elements.

Most fundamental of all is Ki energy, which is what sustains life in the world, though beings like Gears and Demihumans (and Valentines) have a much higher capacity for Magic than most untrained Humans do. But it can also be said that a trained Sorcerer (Magic Arts user) is superhuman in and of themselves.

The key difference is how individuals tap in to their own Magic, increase it, and manifest it. Just like how Meditation can calm the mind and spirit, Breathing techniques and internal energy control can bring out the true potential, even of Humans.

It may be hard to visualize, but most active Gears have a sustained connection with the Backyard as an energy source, through their core, almost like a living rechargeable battery cell.

While Humans don’t have that constant connection, we have the ability to tap in to and harmonize with surrounding energy, and sometimes make it our own on an elemental level.

But even that surrounding energy comes from the Backyard space, it’s all part of what defines this world AND us as living beings.

It does, however, require a great deal of concentration, focus, and the capacity to visualize it. Just like Demihumans are born from Human Folklore and Fictional Tales, our Imagination is vital to establishing that link.

And it’s not something you can absolutely physically visualize, either. Often it comes in the form of sensing a change in the flow of things like circulation, pulse, or even just a warm or cool pressure when in proximity to things around you.

It’s also easier to visualize an element you most commonly associate yourself with. Your natural predisposition, habits, and environment in other words.

Water, for example, is an everyday necessity for living, even if we don’t always think about it, it’s also partially in the air we breathe to an extent. If we are in regular contact with it, it becomes much easier to visualize.

Of course, more energy-intensive elements are harder to establish a link with, particularly Fire and Lightning. But, with some safe preparation and prevention, we can also experiment with those elements too. Often users of those elements use Instroments as a medium or trigger for their Magic. Just like a Zippo Lighter can produce a spark and small flame.

For users of the Ki element, it is quite literally a mastery of the body they have to focus on. Not just strength, but senses and awareness, reflexive speed, and familiarity with various techniques and stance forms to bring out and optimize that power. Often a sword or various other weapons and tools are needed to bring out that potential.

Even things like Dreams and Strong Emotions can influence our internal state. That may sound obvious, but it has a stronger effect on the Backyard than even we are often aware of. It even has the power to harmonize with people around us we come in contact with or show concern for!

Sympathy, Empathy, “Reading the Air in the Room”, Love, Piety, are all very much a part of that. It’s also part of our instincts and senses.

In conclusion, it is in your common everyday experiences, things you touch and that surround you, even if you’re not always aware of it all.

[otaku553]

I am going to be So Insufferable about this man in 2 days.

[sweetmapple]

Mostly Hiring manager, but HR manager and PR manager too

[bigfatbreak]

Question about your changling AU, where did you learn about the ins and outs of Fae and Changling myths? I'm interested in learning too but not sure where to start lol

some of the lore I have for the AU I crafted myself, otherwise I read a lot of old faerie tales growing up and my mom, for some reason, knows an awful lot about shit like that, so some of it is just innate from her. otherwise i just read a lotttttt of books around the concepts of these things when I was younger because I was fascinated with jim henson's worlds

[egophiliac]

I'm trying to avoid getting spoiled so I haven't looked up what's happening in the Jp server's main story, but for my own sanity I need to ask; is the story at a point where we know whether Lilia will get better/survive his almost-empty magic reserves..? Was it a true death flag from the start or only a plot device for malleus' overblot....?

not yet! I do think they're going to get back to it eventually, but -- keeping it as low spoilers as possible -- there's been...let's just say a LOT going on in the meantime.

enjoy 7-6!!! :)

[dykekarkat]

too much nathan as the extremely obvious serial killer wielding only violence not enough charismatic manipulative nathan who corners you with his words first. i need more.

[honey-beezer]

Rewatched Moist & Magical and thinking about the gender of it all.

"I wanted to be a witch" "You cannae be a witch" "Why cannae I be a witch" "Because you're a boy. You can be a warlock or a wizard" "I want to be a boy witch"

Like initially the premise gets played off as a smart gender joke within the meta of the storytelling and becomes a major plot point along the way, but I can't stop thinking about it.

I don't want to be a boy or a girl, but some shade between and yet outside it all. I want to be a woman with a beard and long hair and gravel in my voice. I want to be a man in eye liner and a skirt and work boots laced tight. I feel some of my most feminine when I am wearing baggy, heavy clothes or building sets for a show. I still refuse to wear glasses that aren't that hipster square shape and made of dark material because it makes my face look more masculine. I dressed up as a vampire for halloween this year and looking into a mirror and seeing my high hairline and stubble poking through and the corset hugging me and my hair long and fluffy and a dark red lip and an open view of my chest that I don't hide from anymore and I felt so at home in my body in a way that I haven't in years. My relationship to gender not easy to figure out, and, as someone living in it, digesting it is laborious. And I don't expect everyone to get it; that's not the point. That was never the point. The crux of it all: Boys, if magical, can be ONLY a warlock or a wizard.

But I want to be a boy witch.

[your-average-mess-on-all-fronts]

Okay so.

I feel like i have to say that.

If you're out here trying to shame people into boycotting works of fiction that have defined people's lives in an attempt to "hurt" awful authors who also happened to make more money every year than you will see in your lifetime, i don't want to interact with you.

You aren't hurting the authors. Their lives will go on exactly the same if you do or don't make your little internet post. But you know who's lives won't? The lives of dedicated fans who have put years of emotional investment into a fandom, only for their community to turn abusive overnight. All you are doing is making a statement to state your values, and if you think it's a good idea to express it, just to prove that you mean it, in a way so vitriolic it will hurt exclusively and brutally the people who are willing to put their hearts on the table for that work of fiction, stay the FUCK away from me. I hate you. And you are, and this is true, not the paragon of virtue that you think you are.

[serialsunset]

Let your hair down, put your hair up, whatever just change it up 👍

[aerialworms-art]

Happy(?) anniversaries to my blorbos <3 Can't believe so many anniversaries in one week!

I drew this last year and completely forgot to post it! That's why the numbers are wrong but shhh

S2E1 Amok Time: 15 Sept 1967 (birth of fuck-or-die, going into heat, slash fiction and modern fandom as we know it)

S4E1 Lazarus Rising: 18 Sept 2008 (Cas' first appearance, birth of Destiel)

S1E1 The Dragon's Call: 20 Sept 2008 (First ever episode of Merlin!)

Id under cut! Please click for quality!

[Image ID: A drawing of Spock from Star Trek, Castiel from Supernatural, and Merlin from BBC's Merlin. They are standing under a banner that reads "HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!" and all look miserable.

Spock is spattered with either Vulcan sand or human blood, Cas is bleeding from a stab wound above his heart, and Merlin is surrounded by sparkling golden magic, including the Pendragon crest. Spock's shirt, Cas' tie, and Merlin's shirt are all the same shade of blue, and the blood and Merlin's neckerchief are the same shade of red.

A stock photograph of colourful confetti has been placed behind them.

Text pointing at each of them reads:

[At Spock] "Gone into heat for the 9th time in 56 years"

[At Cas] "[REDACTED] for 15 years"

[At Merlin] "Doomed by the narrative for 15 (+ 1,500) years

Cas is also saying "This sucks."

The work is signed by @aerialworms. /End ID]

[i-love-to-draw1]

*Falls on my face [finished finals for the semester] crawls*

I did Chap 6-8

Computer is still in shop, hahaha *sobbing*

Anyways Pencil sketches of LP still *throws*

Chap 6 n 7

The fact Megatron didn't like get it made me cackle. Like xjdbdb [but mood I didn't know a friend was dating another friend of mine back in high-school n I was like HUH!? ok then *thumbs up in confusion*]

THEY ARE SO CUTE AAAA

I was trying out a style for shockwave but I didn't like it. So back to simple style again haha.

But shdh So long jshdb I was grinning so wide when I first read it back then rereading made smile in fondness

Jdbdbd THEY ARE ADORABLE UR HONOR

Part 2 bc I hit my limit sighs

[tumblingxelian]

What the Hell? A Collusion AU

Lila, bedecked in a cleaning lady disguise in her own apartment was caught somewhere between giddy satisfaction and paranoid dread as she skimmed the results of her latest play. 

Things had gone well, better than she thought possible really, when Ladybug & Chat Noir decided to help an Akuma toss the mayor out of office. Ordering Chloe to burst in with the press and make them look bad had been an inspired adaptation on her part. Really she'd never expected things to go that well. 

Then it went side-ways and Ladybug caved Chloe's head in with her yoyo, a simple "That's enough" and suddenly the blonde bimbos supposedly empty head was splattered across everyone's TV screen before those stupid Tsurugi robots could do anything. 

& yes, Tsurugi stocks were falling, but not as fast as Ladybug's reputation in the polls! 

Lila should be ecstatic, but the reality Ladybug might turn that same violence on her was now a real and genuine concern and for all that Chloe was an vacuous and obnoxious tool, Lila couldn't deny seeing her skull split open, her blood flow and her brain splatter across the floor hadn't horrified her. 

But Lila was a practical girl and once Chloe was revived she calmed right down and tried to regain control of the situation. Save that Chloe had evidently dropped the ear peace Lila provided her and instead did the following incomprehensible things. 

Said, "I just got my skull caved in by a super hero. How do you think I feel!?" 

Rattled off the passwords to her fathers computer. 

Then she ran away.

& evidently, for all Chloe lacked in swift mental faculties she evidently made up for it in running because the press lost her almost instantly. 

Still, Lila could work with this, she was adaptable after all and had decided to share that recording of Andre disowning Chloe for her half sister alongside a funding campaign.

Now if she could just find Chloe she'd have her little cash cow back in its barn and could move on to trying to figure out Gabriel and Ladybug's next move, if all went well she could swoop in and-

There was a thumping on her door, followed by a trill, "Let me in Lila, I have had a day." 

"Chloe!" Lila cheered, leaping from her seat and throwing open the door she began fussing, "Oh my dear, exceptional, wonderfully brave friend, I saw what that monster did to you! I've been trying to reach you and find you but I knew if you would go to anyone it would be your closest friend so I stayed here, waiting, hoping you'd come back!" 

She pulled Chloe into the apartment and her embrace which the blonde slowly returned without any of her usual energy or clumsy attempts at haughtiness. 

Burying her face into Lila's neck Chloe murmured, "It's nice that someone... Cares..."

"Of course I care, Chloe. Even if the world turns against you I'm here for you and I always will be." The fact Chloe's online following went from a respectable seventy two thousand to several million with donors to match certainly helped. 

"That campaign, that was you right? I don't recall us sharing bank details." 

Lila was used to having to swiftly reorient her deceptions but Chloe usually required so little effort to manage she took a moment and maybe said too much. 

"I did, after the horrible things your father said I thought you deserved some resources all your own. I know you have your mother-"

"No I don't, she won't remember my name by tomorrow," Chloe's hug grew firmer, tighter.

"I need that money Lila, transfer it to my account."

Squirming, she answered, "I thought I could manage it for you, it'd be so heavy for you- uh, Chloe, I know you had a hard- day, ah- tight!" 

Chloe's hug was like a viper constricting her upper arms to her chest and Lila could barely breath as the girl whispered.

"I need that money, you'll send it to my account. Won't you, friend?" 

Panicking and unable to get away Lila accented, "Of course, my dear friend!" A few haphazard presses on her Alliance ring and a projected image showing her changing the fundraiser details to Chloe's account filled the otherwise dark room. 

Chloe's hold slowly loosened and she pulled back enough to kiss Lila on the cheek, once, twice and then pulling away she looked her over with...

Lila couldn't quite describe it. She was used to Chloe having a sort of lazy, twitchiness about her, like one might expect of a drugged up horse.

But this new expression was somehow both strangely misty and yet all too focused for the Chloe she knew. 

Pulling away Chloe nodded to herself and said, "I need to make some calls and then I'm heading to bed, I will be staying here until I sort out a new living situation." With that declared like it was a fact and not utterly confusing the blonde made her way to Lila's bedroom. 

"I, of course you can stay over Chloe, but I only have one bed."

Chloe held the door and looked at her, "Haven't you ever read fanfiction?"

'Since when can you read?' A part of her wanted to ask, but out loud she answered honestly for once, "Not really?" 

The door slammed shut, Chloe's voice echoing, "That was the sound of you missing your shot!" 

Lila stood in dull confusion as she tried to parse what just happened and ultimately could say only one thing.

"What the hell?" 

[vaguely-concerned]

I don't know what I love more, the fact that as rook you can make a statement in NO uncertain terms that you are NOT responsible one way or the other for the theological implications of the shit you're discovering in the 'regrets of the dread wolf' memories. not my jurisdiction. quite simply none of my business. not my chantry circus not my chantry monkeys. irrelevant to the matter at hand here we'll kill that god if we get to him he can get in line. or if the best thing about it is seeing the lone little 'lucanis approves' that pops up right after choosing it. corvid with a knife about to commit deicide keeping it real and sensibly, pragmatically, wilfully agnostic with me here in this magical lighthouse today

[llutik]

i think it's not my place to speak but the way johnnys disability was treated at the end of steel ball run feels wrong

he can walk a bit... as a treat <3 (the entirety of steel ball run is his physiotherapy)

[thelonelyshore-if]

I hope you don't mind me asking this. And hopefully you haven't been asked this yet. What do the powers like exactly do?

Hey Nonnie!! Hope you're doing well c:

I don't mind you asking at all! The best breakdown I have rn without getting into spoiler territory can be found here. This is a fairly common question, though, so I'll give you a brief description of what each magic type is.

Monstrous- inhanced speed/strength/senses, physical transformation.

Fog-Touched- minor reality bending, communication with the Fog.

Necromancy- raising/controlling the dead, speaking to ghosts and other spirits

Clairvoyance- seeing the future, both short-term and long-term.

Resistant- hardest to define; it changes. Big bursts of power/energy are common.