#reversal magic

[grimoireofanovicewitch]

Book Review

For my next book review I will be covering "Protection & Reversal Magick: A Witch's Defense Manual" by Jason Miller. This book is another good beginner book specifically because most people get scared that something bad's going to happen to them when starting out any kind of magical practice.

The biggest selling point of the book is that it covers some of your more traditional folk practices two more ceremonial magic and everything in between. Jason Miller even mentions this by saying

"These different traditions of magick each emphasize different points, and what works as a defense against one may not work as a defense against another. Someone who relied solely on the Golden Dawn’s Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram or the OTO’s Star Ruby may find his defenses breached easily by someone laying Goofer Dust in his shoes. Similarly, someone who relies too heavily on Red Brick Dust and amulets may find himself vulnerable to the attacks of Goetic demons summoned by the ceremonialist."

And because of this, I would recommend this to anyone who kind of wants to get a feel of what both ceremonial and folk practices look like.

Now I'm going to move on to the only issues I had with the book. Just so people know what they're getting into before they spend money. A lot of the rituals are based on the goddess hecate. I don't work with her so I have had to alter them. That is something that can be easily done so it's not a major issue for me

Another thing is that it doesn't cover everything. For example I'm a fan of protective crystals on my window seals and door frames because those are super easy to conceal and explain away. Due to current living situation, I'm still very much in the broom closet. So I'm a big fan of anything that is inconspicuous and I can hide in plain sight. So even though I enjoyed this book, I don't use a lot of his techniques.

Even with those two issues aside, I would recommend this book. You're just not going to find another book that goes into such a wide variety of protection magic techniques. Because of that, anyone who reads this book should have a good foundation to start adding protection magic into their magical practice.

[astrolavas]

glyphs

[littlepinksapphire]

Many people see Gale’s relationship with Mystra as that of a man and a woman. Gale is a man trying to “cross the boundaries” of the woman he fancies. But that interpretation is misguided and ignores what the relationship truly is, that of a mortal and a god.

I don’t feel like you need to know about dnd lore or Mystra herself to recognize the insane power imbalance that creates. An eons old entity in charge of all magic and a young wizard man are not on equal footing. Gale himself is even kind of aware of this, as he wanted and tried desperately to be enough for Mystra so she might deign to make him an equal.

Criticize his hubris all you want. It’s his fatal flaw and huge part of his character arc. But, Shadowheart is right there being abused by her goddess and everyone can see that. I mean, fuck, all of the origins are being abused by powerful people, but Gale’s not?

It just baffles me that at a time when our culture is harshly examining age gaps and power imbalances in romantic relationships more people aren’t seeing Mystra for the walking red flag that she is.

[bird-inacage]

A Fortpeat Gifset | The Casting of Sky + Prapai (December 2021)

Fort: "I met him on casting day. I didn't know he received the role of Sky. I realised that he was my partner for the afternoon casting. He was cute.

Interviewer: When was the magic moment?

Fort: I guess it would be the moment I touched Peat's cheek.

And the rest was history.

[dbphantom]

gotta love that (de)transformation

[nmbrrr77]

Schneider my beloved… </3

[tofixtheshadows]

I see a lot of people headcanoning that Marcille and Kabru will become friends postcanon over a shared love of gossip, but to me the biggest thing they have in common is that they're both deeply concerned with the inequality between the races.

I think before anything else, as the two people closest to the throne, they'll probably end up banding together over their shared desire to fix the divide between the races. Marcille has to give up on her dream of magically changing humanity, but she can help Laios achieve it Kabru's way, through political and social change.

[ent-is-indecisive]

id : a digital painting in dark tones with a golden and purple decorated border. steve is kneeling, bare chested, with his back to the viewer. He is wearing pearl shoulder jewellry and a big circle sigil is shining on the middle of his back and connected to magical binds around his torso, neck and wrists. the end of these ties are wrapped in eddie's hand. Eddie is seated on a wooden vanity dressed in black dress pants and a sheer shiny shirt, open halfway. He is also wearing a ruby necklace shining the same colour as the magic and reflecting in his eyes. /end id

Here is the drawing i sent off for the reverse big bang and that @viviseawrites made so much better ! We've mostly worked separately so I am just as excited as you all to go read "they gave you life, and in return, you gave them hell"

[sofiaruelle]

Sooooo the last few days i’ve been seeing stars and suddenly i’m juggling 6 sorcerer boyfriends. Whats a polar bear to do?

Also this is my MC, 🍨✨ Sorbetes ✨🍨.

Context why my MC is a sentient polar bear.

The MC doesn't have a set appearance and then there was this dialogue. And the emotes are polar bear themed 😂😂😂 is also literally its own spoiler

[13thdoodle]

[ EctoberHaunt Day 12 : Repression ]

Technically can also work for dread/calm prompt but yee

RET AU Danny having a panic attack trying not to think about potential plant related power :33c

RET (Reverse Evil Trio) AU is basically reverse au but we only switch around the ghosts. Danny got Undergrowth, Sam got the egypt guy, Tucker got Nocturn. This is mostly plant Danny propaganda au :))

I don't know if it's visible but:

Danny got a little plant tattoo that's growing on his arm and he's trying so hard not to think about it :3

And also actively ignoring the plants that are trying to reach out to him

in the shape of a hand

[the--short--one]

Merlin Reverse Big Bang!

I had a lovely time working with remaymber, so check out their work on Ao3!! They wrote the accompanying fic Watching you like I’m in love, and it’s truly wonderful 🥰

Artist summary:

Arthur often found himself watching Merlin. In the beginning, he thought Merlin was your average (if insolent and slightly stupid) farm-boy graced with the great fortune of becoming Arthur’s manservant (much to both their ire). But the more he watched and the more Merlin began to intertwine with every aspect of his life, Arthur realised. . . Merlin was the greatest thing that ever happened to him.”

@bbcmerlin-reversebang

[tinybro]

jasico server was chatting about the cupid scene and jason getting nico's memories blasted straight into his brain and how jason being shot with one of cupid's arrows while with nico and this was just never brought up in canon again and now i'm thinking like...what if that's just how cupid's arrows work? not by magically manifesting love for someone out of nothing, but by giving someone the perspective that'd make them fall in love naturally? jason gets a front row seat to nico's memories and instantly understands him intimately and can trust him completely without any doubt or suspicion

so what if jason, after slowly realizing he's totally in love with nico, just thought back to the arrow incident and it made him second-guess everything? because maybe he's only feeling this way because cupid hit him with an arrow with only nico was around and it's no different than any other god messing with his love life

[whetstonefires]

Do you have any opinions on Scholomance?

I do! I like it a lot. I really enjoyed all three books, blitzed through them easily and was much more excited to see how the plots unfolded than I'm used to these days, as a jaded adult, and I also really appreciated them as works of craft.

Especially the first one, I spent the whole time being all 'wow!' at how simple it was. So easy to read, but no waste. You really need to know what you're doing, to get that kind of pared-down elegance of form to work and still fit so much content in.

Like these are dense, there's a fantastic stylistic minimalism that allows El's character all the space it needs to breathe by making absolutely every other thing and person in the whole novel also do character work for her, which is exactly where the first person voice shines.

Also great use of character perspective to make the pacing feel really natural, so the fact that the first book takes three weeks, the second book takes one year, and the third book is like. Five or so incredibly stressful days spread out over the course of a few weeks? Doesn't feel imbalanced.

I actually got distracted from the story a few times by noticing the strength of Novik's technique. 😂 This is a me problem, in itself it's the opposite of distracting. Very low-profile.

I think the Scholomance is a great example of how far you can go in specfic when you aren't cringing from the label 'derivative,' because the Scholomance books feel very fresh ad clean specifically because nothing in them is concerned with standing out as 'original,' whatever that's supposed to mean, only with being well-executed and suitable to its task.

Hm, maybe that's where Liesel was born, the intersection of the efficient narrative style and the vast proportion of the story that concerns the maximization of utility and the instrumentalization of persons by themselves and others, and the forces that incentivize these behaviors. Or maybe she's just the narrative counterweight to Orion 'Head Empty' Lake lmao. How's that for a principle of balance, Galadriel?

I really did enjoy how beautifully it was laid out, over and over, in dozens of shades of humanity, how no matter where you go in an exploitative system almost everyone is being driven by the same survival instincts.

Because I don't think I've ever seen made so cleanly clear why you just can't expect any person or small group of people, no matter their level of goodwill or status, to unmake one of these systems from the inside; how it's not a matter of people being bad but of every single person being very...small.

And then not retreating into the idea of a person who is Big coming and breaking the cruel system from the outside as some kind of panacea, because 1) that is terrible, even if it's necessary and done in the best way possible and 2) that's not a sustainable answer to anything. Getting a balance between the protagonist being able to effect change and not subscribing to the great man theory of history can be really tricky!

Also did I mention, I love El, and I love most of the cast, even the dreadful ones. How am I going around with this many feelings about Li Shanfeng who doesn't appear until the actual climax?

The romance murdered me a bit, but it took up no more space than it absolutely needed to do its job, and I respect that. Also I appreciated Orion as a love interest; Novik has a slight record at this point of a version of that style of male love interest who's like a caricature of Mr. Darcy but old, which was shaping up to be my least favorite thing about her body of work.

...Orion is kind of like if you took the human king from Spinning Silver and gave him an alignment flip come to think of it, so he's not coming out of nowhere. Lmao.

Which reminds me (re: romance character typing) I've heard Novik didn't want it to be known she was astolat, which this series has renewed my sympathies if so. Because if I were a published novelist I wouldn't want people going 'you know, that resolution was really emotionally satisfying! reminds me of that fic she wrote where optimus prime and megatron get stuck in a hole underground and hatefuck about it.'

I don't even like Transformers. That fic almost made me cry. Actually I suspect it reads better if you don't like Transformers because I'm sure it does not give a shit about canon.

Anyway, whoever pointed out that one of the things El has going on is she's Enoby (and we're going to sit down and explore what the true reason to put your middle finger up at preps is, and what are some constructive ways to channel that socioeconomic wrath, and what it means that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism) was right and I'm not entirely over that either.

Fucking love El's mom as a character. Spectacular level of parent relevance and usefulness. A+.

Aadhya and Liu are also characters who fucking delivered.

Re: minimalism though, I laughed at the start of The Golden Enclaves when I realized that none of the enclaver characters who'd gotten development in the the first two books were from London, the enclave El was theoretically shooting for when we met her.

[miniiieevee]

my designs for a reverse omens AU! + doodles

[tuna-moon-draws]

Cue epic theme song

[schro4444]

I want Sonoko to meet Kaito as Kaito and show him a magic trick let them be magic aficionado friends again. Please. It’s such a good dynamic. 🥺

YOURE SO REAL FOR THAT ANON!!! she has graduated to doves :D