Hello, Wonderful Souls! 🤍🌍

made this in response to not having anything for small joys saturdays

Singing a gufeng song in hanfu

song: 探窗 - 风新语、浮生梦、汐音社

English added by me :)

HAVING FUN and ENJOYING the process of writing is so important. Whether you strive to work professionally or write just for the hell of it, remember why you started in the first place. It all comes down to love honestly

Here's some beautiful covers of upcoming books! 📚

found out that there’s a book centered around a daughter of Chang’e, and i wanted to play around with designs a bit

Hello! I hope this is alright to ask but I remember one post saying Harley has body dysmorphia, I was wondering if it was any particular part of her body she felt uncomfortable with and, this is somewhat of a lore question, can magic be used to subtly alter a persons body, like shapeshifting magic and what not, either casted by the individual or a trained professional mage?

Very excited for this If and hope your day has been going well!

first of all hii & that's totally fine to ask :) and i've been doing great + hope you are too <3

Here's the short answers and under them a longer, lore-ish answer that's about things that will probably never be brought up in this interactive fiction but that are relevant in the broader 'Magici Universe'.

Harley usually just feels insecure about her body in general, some days it's more intense, some days it's barely there; but the parts of her body she continuously feels the worst about are her shoulders and traps.

Harley used to be diagnosed with body dysmorphia (BDD) but she's at a point now where she doesn't meet the criteria anymore; she still experiences insecurity and body image issues, though not at a 'clinically concerning' level, according to her psychiatrist.

You could alter your physical appearance with illusionary (Dark) magic, however it's only that: an illusion, and not actual shapeshifting. Say you have short hair and cast an illusion spell for your hair to be longer; if someone touched your hair they'd realise it's only an illusion and that your hair is short. Other mages with a strong Dark affinity wouldn't even need to touch your hair to know it's an illusion. That's the furthest a human on Earth can go, shapeshifting wise.

Harley has her best friend cast an illusion on her on especially bad days, which helps a lot but isn't a long-term solution. :(

People that can't cast illusions or can't have a mage cast one on them could buy an illusionary tincture brewed by a proper mage. They'd need to take it every week or even every morning, depending on how potent it is.

However illusionary potions are expensive and heavily regulated by specialised organisations because of how dangerous they can be (think wanted criminals changing their appearance, organisations spreading terror via large scale illusions, etc). They could be prescribed though, but it's very rare unfortunately.

(longer answer here)

So it's not possible for humans on Earth to literally shapeshift. However, there are several realms, and Earth is the weakest out of the known ones, magic-wise. That means that if magical creatures that don't belong to Earth tried to get here, their magic would be nerfed by a lot.

On other realms with higher magic 'density' there live creatures with three, four, and more affinities. So take Air, Dark, and Void and you got yourself a shapeshifter. Humans are much more flexible in that way 'cause they're not restricted to specific affinity combos, while for example shapeshifters or phoenixes are. So humans native to these other realms are by default much stronger than the ones on Earth.

There's ways to reach these realms and people from Earth have done it before; but only those with specific affinity combinations can even attempt to. A mage that reaches a realm with higher magic density can have another Awakening where they unlock one or two more affinities, though they're limited to that realm. So humans native to these other realms are by default much stronger than the ones on Earth.

It's said that some people have been able to capture shapeshifters and make shapeshifting mixtures out of them, and believe me when I say that governments have been going crazy trying to stop the elite from acquiring them (and to steal them for themselves) if it's true.

tysm for giving me the opportunity to talk abt this lmao

If the call to read diverse books gets you hot under the collar, I need you to lean into that discomfort a little and ask yourself the question: What would happen if I did?

First and foremost, let’s make sure we are on the same page about the diverse books effort. When someone says “Read more diversely,” what they are asking is for you to take the author into consideration when you are choosing your next read. It’s unfortunate that we live in a world where current prejudice and a long history of prejudice impact the day to day lives of minority groups, but the publishing industry is largely white, heteronormative, able bodied, and cis. We can uplift authors of color, disabled authors, and queer authors by purposefully looking for their books, especially when the publishing industry fails them time and time again.

This does not mean that you can’t read books by white, cis, straight authors. A focus is not an exclusion. All that is being asked is that alongside your normal reads, you intentionally branch out into more diverse writers.

Creating space for more diverse authors is important because people deserve to tell their own stories. Have you ever read something in your area of expertise and the author just got it so incredibly wrong? This happens with identity, too. Not only is it cringe worthy when someone outside the community gets the essence wrong, it can also be incredibly harmful by spreading destructive stereotypes. Allowing community members to tell stories about their community empowers them and helps to establish good representation in mainstream media.

Representation matters because every person deserves to see themselves well represented in a book they love. It’s so easy to feel alone, especially if you are part of a minority community. Books open up a window for us to feel more connected and to understand our identities. It’s no wonder that having positive representation has been shown to increase self-esteem.

Even if the representation isn’t your identity, it’s still incredibly important. Diversity is a teacher. We live in an age of echo chambers. It’s so easy to get sequestered into our own personalized bubble on the internet. Putting yourself in a place to listen to the stories of people different from yourself is vital for connecting with others, for understanding their struggles, and for building solidarity in our communities. It will stretch you in the best of ways.

And finally, if that wasn’t enough, we should read diverse because we deserve to read excellent stories. Diverse books are brilliant. They challenge the industry, inject new life blood into publishing, keep thing fresh and exciting. Diverse books are stunning. They are well written, and fun, and capture the imagination. Diverse books keep the humanity in publishing, because humanity is millions of unique facets joined together into a whole. Why would you limit yourself to just one?

Tag game *:･ﾟ☆

tysm to @thedeal-if and @spikingtheodds-if for thinking of me & tagging me !!

I'll tag @loveyoudespiteitall-if, @poll-ventures(@eggtwerp), @unshackled-if @unwilling-souls-if and @greatprotector-if 💗

here's some no context pics that explain the vibe of this IF/WIP:

Don't you sometimes get an absolutely extrodinary, mind blowing, such an awesome idea for a story, but you just don't have enough skill level to pull it off?

this is so cute waaa qwq

I'm so sorry if i've asked this already (I genuinely can't remember)

But could we get some Mystic Flour and Hollyberry bonding? Since MF hung around Holly's gardens more often

Here’s your break from the angst ;)