#temptation of magic

[elliepassmore]

Temptation of Magic review

5/5 stars Recommended if you like: art and art history, secret societies, paranormal creatures, dark academia

I enjoyed learning about the magic and myths of this world. There are paranormal creatures familiar to us, such as sirens and vampires, but there are also ones that are more unusual and unique to this world, such as the Spectre and Empyreals, of which the main character is the latter. There's a lot of lore and tradition behind the creatures that I found interesting, and I liked that we got to see a number of different types in the flesh, as well as theoretically through Nicole's mother's journal.

I also liked the inclusion of art in the plot. There's so much real art that features mythological creatures and events, it's a pretty natural way to suggest an underlying magical influence in our world. Scott goes a step further and also says that some of the art is varnished so humans see one thing and those in the magical community can see another, such as Dante and Virgil in Hell by Bouguereau, which features heavily in the novel. I definitely think that art is an area underutilized in fantasy so I really liked seeing it here, particularly in a dark academia-type book where we get to know more about the artist, the painting, the history, etc.

One thing that confused me though was that I never really got a good grasp on why the art was the center of it all. At first it's a thing with Nicole's family and the clues her mother left, but the society they're running from is interested in the paintings as well. Art is propaganda, but I'm definitely going to need a more solid reason for why art seems to be the only way people in this world encode messages and greater truths. There are no great literature pieces pointing to the truth? There's no buried capsule or treasure hoard or something that does it? I love art, and I like it's inclusion of the book, but it does feel like somewhat of a roundabout way to tell people things if you want to tell people while also keeping the meaning encoded.

Also, I know this is dark academia, but beyond the first instance, the quoting of Frankenstein is just weird. It kind of comes in halfway through the story and the first time it happens it makes sense, one of the characters is literally holding a copy of the book, but then after that I'm not sure why it keeps coming up. This isn't a book that contains a lot of book quoting like some other dark academia titles, so it felt a little out of place.

Nicole is an Empyreal in hiding, hoping to avoid both the Wake and the transformation that will make her an even bigger target than she is now. She's determined to figure out her mother's last clue and both keep her family safe and ensure they can remain in the town she calls home. In order to do so, Nicole has spent a lot of time studying art and art history, both in the human and magical sense. She's knowledgeable about her field and her mother's previous clues mean she's got an analytical mind for things like codes as well. I liked seeing Nicole's passion and love for art, as well as for her family. She's strong-willed and determined to figure out this final clue, no matter what stands in her way. Other than the instalove, I think she's pretty well-rounded as a character, and while she may act recklessly at times, it's in character for her desire to protect her family.

The Palmer family functions well as a unit. Her older brother, Dylan, is also an Empyreal and he and Nicole train together to keep their skills sharp and ensure if it ever comes down to it they'll know how to fight. Their younger sister, Bells, is a Seer and is desperate to help her family beyond just maybe glimpsing how something will go later on. Their father is also a Seer, but he also is something of a chemist/apothecary and brews potions and other things to help suppress Dylan and Nicole's transformation and scent to ensure they stay even more under of the radar than what might naturally be possible. Unlike in some other stories, the family by and large talks out situations and plans on how to overcome them together. I liked seeing the cohesion in their family unit and how it wasn't just Nicole on her own, though sometimes she does sneak around and do stuff by herself, though there are words about that afterward.

Remi is a siren who lives in town with her siren parents, the three of whom fled and are also in hiding. The two families get along well and are aware of each other's status as 'on the run' and so work together to ensure the town is safe and kept free of anyone who could threaten them. As things ramp up in the story, Remi lends a helping hand to the Palmers and when her parents come back into town, they're also more than willing to help out. I really enjoyed seeing how the two families got along and formed their own larger family together, determined to protect one another and everyone's secrets.

I really loved the Palmer house. On the outside it's like every other house in their coastal town, but on the inside it has a well-equipped training gym and a secret library where their magical book collection, their mother's journals, and any magical art pieces are stored. I really loved the library in particular and thought it was a great addition.

Kyan comes into the picture pretty early on, he gets his own POV, and it's interesting to watch him grow and change over the course of the novel. In the beginning, he's a soldier for the Wake, determined to do his job...but for him that job really is protecting other supernatural creatures. He doesn't understand why some creatures are afraid of Empyreals when they're 'there to help,' but once Nicole is in the picture and more secrets start coming to light, he begins to understand more. I did appreciate that his protective and noble streaks meant that he isn't bullheaded when learning the truth. Kyan really does want to help people, and when he discovers hints the Wake might not actually be doing that, he listens.

There is instalove in the story but I don't think it's too bad. It's hard to determine over what period of time the book takes place, but I'd say a week or two. That being said, I do feel like the buildup to the instalove is done so that the 'lusting' and 'liking' come first and then the 'love' comes last, so it at least feels like more of a natural progression than at other times. There are sex scenes toward the end of the book, and they are somewhat detailed.

My one real complaint about the book is that I feel the last 70-100 pages were extraneous. There's not a lot going on and it kind of just focuses on the winddown after the climax of the story. If it needed to be there, I feel like it could've been summed up in maybe 20 pages. I did think one thing that happened at the end was super weird and I get why they did it....but I'm just not necessarily vibing with that decision.

Overall I enjoyed this story and it's a good dark academia read with art and paranormal creatures. There's a lot of trying to figure out the clue and scheming on how to outwit the Wake, but there are also moments of action as well.

[micarosya]

thinking of how arthur's "i thought i knew you. i trusted you." "why didn't you tell me?" "merlin, you're not a sorcerer I would know." were less "i trusted you and you lied to me?" and more "i trusted you, i thought you trusted me too?"

[psalms-and-spells]

You ever follow cool Christian’s and then they post something and your like “Oh…. You genuinely believe in thought crimes… okay.”

[shipperwolf1]

It's definitely about the dagger

[david-tennant-in-chairs]

I mean honestly

[downfalldestiny]

My desire for you has no limits ❤️🤗😘 !.

[v1x-holo]

Hooman Spatulady teehee

[sysig]

Webkinz collecting fever (Patreon)

[laurastatice]

the show is over

[dollywons]

[tumblweeds-omegaverse]

worldbuilding thing I've been wondering about:

how do you handle gender identity, gender expression, and/or gender stereotypes, within your omegaverse writings?

this goes for ocs and for fanfics!

if alphas are physically male in the way we'd consider a human to be physically male, that's a statement on their sex, yeah? not their gender.

you can have the body parts implied there and still be a gender that is not "man". so how's that work for omegaverse? especially if alphas can be male or female.

how do you describe gender within your omegaverse? is it based more around dynamic / secondary? (alpha/beta/omega) or around sex? (male/female/others if they apply)

do people get gendered expectations assigned to them based on their sex, on their dynamic, on the combination of both?

(ex: is there a difference between the gender roles given to a female omega versus a male omega? are the stereotypes for a male beta like or unlike those of a male omega?)

could there be such a difference between female alphas, female betas, and female omegas, that only some female people are considered women, while others are labeled with some other term due to their dynamic? or are all female people considered to be women? (assuming they're all cisgender...but if you've got trans headcanons I wanna hear those too!)

I'm curious about this because it's reasonable to say something like "our image of what is masculine appearance / behavior is shaped by our society and time period," right? (since male doesn't have to equal man or masculine, but there's often some connection)

but that structure wouldn't be built from the same stuff in omegaverse. since behaviors and such could be associated with different groups.

so...if a male alpha is seen as a feminine presenting person, what does that mean in your verse?

are masculine and feminine less about what exists in your verse and more about the limitations of our own language?

is it something else altogether?

[fisheito]

Hi Fiiish

I am so excited for the magic girl banner! I can't wait! I hope I can amass 200 pulls for Eiden's outfit this time (I could have not pulled on the step banner, y'know, but I got my BIG ASTER at last, I thought I'd never get him!!)

Anyways. Magical girl Eiden when

congorts on ur biG aster i hope he gives u everthting you ever drreamt of.... [blood ,everywhere , is my assumption]

i did NOT EVEN THINK OF--- right, if i want eiden's outfit i need to pull 200 times----- AHGFK

[bestfurrywife]

(Arlinn Kord alternate forms under cut)

Propaganda:

Ilia Shrikewood:

"She will kill someone if needed."

Arlinn Kord:

"Arlinn is an older werewolf woman who has worked to help fight to protect werewolves from being needlessly hunted, attacked, or forcibly "cured" of their lycanthropy"

[downfalldestiny]

I Desire You ❤️🤗😘 !.

[greenerteacups]

What do you think as Hermione's career would be post battle of Hogwarts? To me her being minister for magic really doesn't make sense. She does not have patience or tact to wade through murky waters of politics 😭😭

So hard to say! The Trio are so, so young when we leave them, I find it almost impossible to project their futures farther than a few years out. The job that suited me at 17 would be radically unsuited to me now. That's why of all the Trio, Ron's ending strikes me as the most realistic — he jumps straight into the save-the-world business again, burns out, realizes he's actually Done The Fuck Enough, Thanks, and pivots into a low-stress career where he gets to see his family a lot. Feels accurate! The others are weirder to me because they do seem to just... pick a lane and stay there.

With Hermione, you could spin her a couple ways. You could say that she leans into her bookish side and does research or teaching, which is not my preference for a couple reasons (namely, I don't think Hermione would like academia as a profession; she finds her classwork interesting and enjoys intellectual validation, but she'd be stifled and wasted in a DPhil program, and she'd be infuriated by the administrative politicking of your average higher-ed faculty). You could say that she gets disaffected with politics and ends up as a barrister or a lobbyist of some kind, but if anything that requires more political finesse, because you don't actually have institutional power, you're just handling the people who make decisions and trying to persuade them of your goals. This is not Hermione's preferred method of influence. She's not even particularly good at persuasion, she just happens to be smart enough (and right often enough) that people take her ideas seriously.

Or you could say her brashness fades with the years into a softened flavor of tell-you-like-it-is honesty, which some politicians actually do successfully trade on; as we see in British politics today, you don't have to be all that charming or clever to get ahead, you just need to be really driven and well-connected (which Hermione completely is; she fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the first postwar Minister and her bestie, the Literal Messiah, runs the Auror Office.) But I don't know if Hermione especially wants to be Minister, after the war. She's just watched years of horrendous bureaucratic incompetence plunge the country into a violent civil conflict. She's had not one, but two Ministers of Magic try to bully or shame her friends into complicity with fascism. Her view of government is... likely extremely dark.

But Hermione also isn't the kind of person who sees her life as a quest for happiness. Babygirl has a savior complex that makes Harry look selfish. (She basically kills her parents — yeah, obliviating is a form of murder, #changemymind — "for their own good," and justifies every batshit, vindictive, mean-spirited move she ever pulls on the grounds that it "helps" one of her friends.) She is a mean, lean, dragon-slaying machine, and she needs a dragon. After Voldemort, the Ministry is the no. 1 threat to muggle-borns and non-wizarding Beings. As a war heroine with basically infinite political capital, I'd be surprised if she didn't try to do something there. That said, Hermione is so vivacious and dynamic that she could potentially grow in a hundred different directions; it's possible that all of this, while true of her at 18, becomes completely inaccurate by 22. That's why I'm not too fussed about any particular fanon interpretation.

[salty-an-disco]

magical girl AU civ designs and two concepts for Cold’s transformed form (the final design will prolly be more similar to the second one)

thinkin’ of just calling his magical girl form Grimm (feels like smth Cold would settle on), and I’ll keep Cole as their civ name (no one, not even Echo, knows if they have a last name). Has been a magical girl the longest alongside Smitten and Hunted, and no one really knows much about her. The Mysterious One, as to say