#math-is-magic

[shanastoryteller]

Happy Holidays Shana! Fem!MXY!WWX has infected my brain! More of that, please?

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Wei Wuxian has the deafening talisman on his chest and a blindfold wrapped tightly around his face and held together with a different talisman so he doesn’t have to worry about it slipping. He leaves his sword sheathed for now – it wouldn’t do well to start out too strong.

He stands, loose and easy, but nothing happens. He huffs. “I really will punish you if you refuse to help me. I am your superior. Don’t overthink it, just do as you’re told.”

Rich advice, coming from him, but they don’t know that.

He feels the air move to his left and he lifts his hand, grabbing a slim wrist and twisting it so she has to let go of her sword. He yanks her forward, thinking of the moves he used to drill Shijie in, and pulls her over his shoulder and slams her to the ground.

He pops upright, bracing himself for the next attacks, but none come.

This is getting annoying.

“I’ll tell you when to stop,” he says. “Until I say otherwise, keep coming up at me. I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough.”

This time he feels their footsteps through the ground. Lazy. What, are they stomping? That has to be a funny image at least. He raises his sheathed sword to stop one attack, while kicking out his leg towards his other attacker. He aims too high, hitting meaty thigh instead of fragile knees, and has to throw himself on the ground to avoid the next attack. That does mean he’s low enough to yank their feet out from under them and then he rolls around just in time to avoid the attack that he’s pretty sure was coming from behind, which means his two opponents should have just taken themselves out.

“Someone remind me to assign footwork lessons after this,” he says. He’s just going to assume someone answers in the affirmative. They are Lans.

More come, two more sets of two before they figure out that’s not going to work, and then they’re attacking in groups of three and four. That’s when he stops being able to dodge every hit, but it’s also when his mind quiets. Everything slows down and he feels his lung expand, the sweaty grip he has on his sword sheath, and the growing collection of throbbing wounds across his body. He almost unsheathes his sword a dozen times, but this is good, he can almost feel his core straining and fighting against the confines of his body.

Finally. This is what he wanted. It’s not about thinking, fighting like this, just reacting, just trusting his borrowed body to notice things in time to react to them. It’s been close to an hour, his breaths are coming out more as wheezes, he’s at least twisted an ankle and possibly broken a rib, and he has some sort of head wound that’s causing blood to soak into his blindfold. It’s miserable and painful and not something this body is trained to handle, but he’s endured worse for longer. At last none of the Lans are trying to eat him.

Suddenly it all stops. He widens his stance, holding up his sword sheathe defensively, but nothing happens. “I didn’t stay stop,” he croaks. “Do as you’re told. Attack.”

The moment stretches on long enough that he’s getting genuinely annoyed about it when he’s throwing himself to the side, only realizing why when he feels the reverberation of a powerful cultivation blade hitting the ground next to him.

They’ve called in reinforcements, it seems. Maybe one of the elders? Fair enough, honestly.

Wei Wuxian unsheathes his sword, meeting the next blow more on a guess than anything else. The strength behind it is enough to send him skittering back several feet, but he doesn’t let his grip slip an inch. Then they’re pushing away from each other and he’s meeting the next blow based on what he would do, which probably isn’t fair to this random Lan elder, but oddly enough it works.

Every blow is powerful enough to make his bones shake and his opponent is skilled enough that Wei Wuxian can barely sense the air moving until it’s almost too late. His few minutes fighting this person are harder than the past hour of standing against disciples, but Wei Wuxian learned a long time ago how to compartmentalize his pain to keep fighting.

Doing this is making him stronger. He needs to be stronger to figure out what Mo Xuanyu wanted him to do. Mo Xuanyu killed herself to get his help. He can’t disappoint her.

He can’t give in.

New energy surges through him, bright and searing, painful even in its usefulness. He doesn’t let himself think about it, instead he pushes through, uses it to put his opponent on the defensive for once. Their fight is flowing faster, almost as if it’s a pattern, like they’re dancing instead of fighting.

Wei Wuxian feels a cool blade against his throat right as rests the edge of his sword on his opponent’s shoulder, flush against their neck.

A draw. Better than he’d expected, given his current physical condition.

His opponent doesn’t lower their sword, so he doesn’t either, but he does release the talismans with a burst of cultivation energy. At first he thinks it doesn’t work because everything is still so silent, but then he can hear the harshness of his own breathing and his blindfold slips off his face.

Lan Zhan is standing there, his sword at his throat, and his face pale and eyes wide. He’s hit with a dizzying sense of déjà vu. It’s like they’re fifteen again, on that rooftop with two bottles of Emperor’s smile dangling between them and the bright, fat moon hanging above.

“Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan asks, his voice coming out too high and strangled.

This can’t be happening. He can’t know. He’ll hate him and throw him out if he doesn’t kill him outright and then Mo Xuanyu will have died for nothing and Sizhui will be so said and he won’t understand – and what if his siblings find out, that’s the last thing he wants –

He keeps his voice steady and face even as he asks, “Who is Wei Ying?”

Lan Zhan’s face shuts down. “I – please excuse me, Xuanyu.” He lowers his sword, turning and doing the closest thing to running away that Wei Wuxian has seen him do since they were teenagers.

All the Lans are staring at him and gaping. The adrenaline leaves him all at once and he collapses to the ground, his legs refusing to support him.

He groans and then several dozen Lans converge on him, multiple concerned shouts of, “Madame Lan!” nearly deafening him all over again.

It’s kind of nice, actually.

[doodlemcjazzhands]

Meanwhile Lily and Remus did not have nearly as much fun...

{Divination Class (pt. 2/3)}

[cthulhum]

merlin was just a boy by the way. he was just a boy and all of that happened to him. just so u know.

[standingappa]

headcannon that albus is a math genius he just never knew because they don’t teach fucking math at hogwarts

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 107

“Hey uh pal, what you got there…?”

Grundy hummed a rumble, blinking slowly as he turned slightly towards his… what were they… Not an enemy, not a threat… they were… friend! Yes, they were the friend that didn’t mind that whenever he came back he came back different. 

He uncurled his arms slightly, proudly showing his friend what he’d found splashing in the water growling angrily. His friend blinked, mouth opening and closing for a few moments as he waited patiently, careful not to drop the squirming duo. 

“Babies,” he proudly declared as they let out squeaky roars. 

[bixels]

I've gotten a ton of asks about this, so I'll answer all of them here (can only tag @imamwolf, sorry anons).

I will be making more worldbuilding comics, especially on the topic of magic and Canterlot. Here's the short of it, though.

Anyone could become a witch or magician (not just unicorn characters), but it takes intense studying, as it's a practice not natural or innate to humans. Some humans are more naturally attuned and gifted to using magic while others find it next to impossible. For example, Trixie desperately wants to be a real magician but for whatever reason can't.

However, there are two types of magic: the studied "standard magic" (spells and hexes and whatnot) and the unorthodox "chaos magic," which are random, uncontrollable outbursts of magic only a few are capable of emitting. Most people with chaos magic don't even realize when they're "using" it. Pinkie and Trixie are unwitting users of chaos magic, which operates on the "only when it's funny" rule. It explains Pinkie Sense and their slapstick moments of surviving falling pianos. Discord is the only one who can control chaos magic.

Anyone can become a witch in practice, but recognition by Canterlot's court must be earned by incredible, selfless feats of magic. Canterlot as a whole is a complete mystery, having been debated on by scholars, scientists, monks, writers, and psychologists throughout human history. From what we know, it's a parallel world that exists on same same planet as Earth. That's why both are affected by the same sun and moon. To cross into Canterlot, one must not only be invited but know the location of specific gateways strung out across Earth. The closest gate to Ponyville is in a wheat field in Kansas.

[uncanny-tranny]

I think people are too normal about just how much goes into making things.

I've gone through nearly sixty-six yards of yarn on my project so far. If I stacked myself up, it would take thirty-five mes just to equal that. And that's only after ribbing and two and a half rows of normal single crochet on a project that will be done in five pieces.

There is so much that goes into art. There are so many hours, material, blood, sweat, and tears that go into even the most simple of projects. Once you start realizing this, you start to truly appreciate everything about art.

[princyvish]

literally got the idea for this au randomly during math class

[rayjayoo]

i had a vision and i rolled with it >B)

[useless-catalanfacts]

If you visit the Sagrada Família basilica in Barcelona (Catalonia), you might be intrigued by these squares with numbers. Like every detail in the building, it has a symbolic meaning.

These are a very particular kind of magic squares. A "magic square" is a series of numbers on a square grid, placed so that any row, column, or diagonal line always adds up to the same number. Well, to be fair, there is one more rule for the normal magic squares which this one doesn't follow: the squares cannot repeat numbers and must use all numbers from 1 to the number of squares possible (for example, a square of 3x3 would have numbers from 1 to 9, a square of 4x4 would have them from 1 to 16, etc). When this rule is followed, the number that results from the addition will always be the same (in a square of 3x3, the sum of 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9 = 45, and each row, column and diagonal line sums 45/3 = 15; in a 4 x 4 magic square, where the sum of all the numbers from 1 to 16 is 136, the magic constant is 136/4 = 34). For mathematical reasons, the resulting number cannot be chosen, it will always be the same one if we follow those rules.

And here is why this one doesn't follow that rule, and it's on purpose. It doesn’t have all the numbers from 1 to 16 (it is missing the 12 and 16) and some numbers are repeated. And why did they do that? Here's the important bit: the result of the sum isn’t 34 (as would always be in a 4x4 magic square), but 33.

The sculptor who created the Sagrada Família's Passion façade (the artist Josep Maria Subirachs, following architect Antoni Gaudí's vision) took a different spin for these squares. Magic squares have been used as talismans in many cultures for millennia, since ancient cultures including 3rd millennium BC China, Ancient India, Ancient Egypt, Arab, and Greek cultures, among others. For the Sagrada Família (a Christian temple), Subirachs used to hide a number of great significance in Christian symbolism.

Painting Melencolia I by Albrecht Dürer (1514) and a detail from it.

Subirachs adapted a magic square from this engraving by Dürer and changed it so that it would add up to 33: the age that Jesus Christ is traditionally believed to have been when he was executed. A number based on the repetition of another of the most important numbers in Christianity: 3, symbolizing the holy trinity.

The square in the Sagrada Família manages to add 33 by repeating some numbers and skipping others. But it also goes further than adding up 33 in every row, column, and diagonal line. The same number can also be obtained with many other combinations. Here are some of them:

Plus, in the magic square at the Sagrada Família, there is also a sort of hidden subliminal signature: adding up the numbers that repeat and looking at their correspondence in the Roman alphabet, we get the initials INRI (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum = "Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews" in Latin), which was written on the sign at the top of the cross where Jesus was crucified.

This way, mathematics, art history and religious symbolism all come together in this little symbol.

Photos from Alamy, Martin Leicht, Sagrada Família blog. Text adapted from Sagrada Família blog. All the graphs with the numbers are from that same article.

[plutosheaven]

i wonder if Charles ever chanced upon a book at boarding school with initials scribbled in the corner of a page and wondered, just for a moment, about the story behind them.

[mishy-mashy]

Got my hands on a Ultra Analysis BNHA book from a library

Some points I liked (I focused more on 1B since they don't get a lot of attention)

1B once had a Tetsutetsu BBQ. They heated him up and cooked food on him. He proceeds to ruin it when he declares his sweat is the salt to their food

Yui is canonically the prettiest first-year

Mineta has no sex appeal at all, but he thinks being a hero will make him lucky

Class B does respect Monoma. He's sharp-minded, witty, and has a way with words

Monoma sometimes wanders into 1A's dorm just to throw down a mean speech, and heads back to 1B

Juzo probably isn't helping Monoma's confrontations with 1A, since he just always asks him why he can't say it to their faces whenever Monoma complains about them

Shiozaki tries to be polite even in a fight

Pony hosts anime parties, so 1B knows a lot about anime. Vice-versa, they teach her Japanese, and everything nasty is Monoma's fault

Tokage was a gyaru

Tsuburuaba, Kaibara, and Kuroiro get worked up whenever they talk about girls

Manga likes Kenranzaki

Awase's family runs a small factory. He also restrains Monoma whenever Kendo isn't available

1B likes hearing Rin say "Aiyah", so he does it for them

Kamakiri is obsessed with cutting into things

Class B's play was really successful

Tamaki is scared of Kirishima's energy

1C was planning a send-off party for Shinsou for his upcoming hero transfer. They didn't doubt he would make it, ever since the Sports Festival

Shishikura (meatball Shiketsu boy) might've chosen Shiketsu because he likes the uniform's hat

Nakagame and Yo are dating

Tsuyu's family gets to spend a lot of time together now, since their parents' busy jobs have calmed down

Tsubasa (devil wing kid in Midoriya's memories) suspiciously lost touch with Midoriya and Bakugo in middle school (his Wiki page confirms Garaki - his grandfather - turned him into a Nomu)

Torino likes goofy gags. This rubs off on All Might (ex. when Midoriya thought he died when Torino fell with ketchup. People don't know whether to laugh or be concerned)

Nighteye has yellow streaks in his hair as a homage to All Might

Nezu likes worming into tight, dark places, so he likes Aizawa's scarf. They went into detail, describing why Nezu likes it, such as material to crawling in, etc.

Recovery Girl has to travel around Japan regularly to help people with her Quirk (as in, she uses her Quirk to help them. Healing Quirks are SO rare)

Hojo, Tabe, and Sestuno are kept in the same jail, so at least they're not separated

[art-from-within]

Radagon probably had the biggest “I could never be better than first elden lord” thoughts everyday marika let him swap bodies. Like think abt it. He becomes elden lord, but every one is still. BITCHINg about motherfucking GODFREY. The FIRST ELDEN CHAD. GET IT RADAGON. FIRST ELDEN C H A D. Even Miriel is confused as to how he came abt right? Like yea he was a champion…but the successor to the legend GODFREY? GOD in his name Godfrey? Ehhhhhhhhh you know the ER denizens was shitting tears everytime he walked anywhere. Betting u 100 mil runes ppl were crying abt Godfrey’s exile during his own crowning ceremony

Godfrey is so seductively astonishing in his bearing that he gets passes Radagon can only dream of. Godfrey is tarnished? Dgaf he is top tier. Godfrey grafts? (Serosh) what a madlad. Godfrey wants to genocide so bad he needs a beast to hold him back? That’s what makes him soooo cool. Then comes unkown radagon and all the colosseum fun leaves with Godfrey. And what does Radagon do? What is he cool with? “Magic maths (golden order fudamentalism)” oh. A fucking nerd.

Man becomes concious, right infront of him is a big Godfrey portrait that some dumbass stuck up. Marika probably has wet dreams about Godfrey still. Loud omens (ahem morgott ahem) singing abt Godfrey from the shunning grounds. Serosh symbol everywhere. People don’t remember seconds…they remember firsts. And its quite obvious the lands between still remembers. You have got godrick and his bannermen, well yea makes sense he is his descendant right? Then explain starscourge Radahn having more lions covering his body than red hair cells. Ranni probably hates his guts. Rykard resorts to blasphemy (also probably hates his guts.) Atleast he had malenia and miquella…for a while atleast until Miquella said “your maths aren’t mathing enough” and left him….

sucks to be radagon. But hey, he gets to selfcest atleast. Except Marika fucking hates his guts too because they are polar opposites.

“Hey babe-“

“LEAL hound of the GoLdEn OrDeR”

“Yea….(turns off)”

[souldagger]

ninefox gambit by yoon ha lee... INCREDIBLE BOOK but everyone who told me this was hard scifi was lying thru their teeth

[animatejournal]

Schoolhouse Rock: Three Is a Magic Number Music: Bob Dorough | USA, 1971

[bixels]

so how exactly does magic work in your au?

There are four main methods of magic:

Tonics – your basic potion-making/alchemy. The brewer must be able to disassemble and weave ingredients together into a greater sum of its parts. This type of magic must be ingested to affect a person's physical properties and traits. They're temporary.

Formulas – physical pieces of art with magic encoded in itself. These can take the form of woven charms, embroidered fabrics, or drawn artwork (often in art-nouveau, secessionist, or modern styles). A witch fluent in formulaic magic can read and translate these pieces into hexes. These are considered high forms of delicate art. Spellbooks will often contain pages of these instead of instructions or notes. Formulas affect an area indefinitely. Collectors will often frame or display them, especially if they offer good luck or protection.

3. Hexes – incantations, blessings, and curses. They must be spoken, usually in rhyming form. While blessings are temporary, curses must be broken or dispelled.

4. Spells – the softest and least complicated magic. Wave your hands and an object will float towards you. Spells come naturally to most witches and do not need to be uttered, as it only requires the will of the mind and heart to produce. Before long, casting spells becomes second nature and an extension of ones motor functions.