Timelines of Magina, an Overview

It has occurred to me, nearly a year after coming up with it, that I have not yet taken the time to discuss the Timelines of Magina concept on this blog, though I've brought it up elsewhere, mostly on Discord. It sprouted from the main fic due to my influences being so many and varied that I felt bad leaving them unacknowledged.

As of now, there are seven total timelines in the greater Maginaverse:

The Main Timeline: The one I'm most likely to write up in full, the one I started posting last December, the one I have, thus far, put the most thought into. Featuring the cast of Dragon Ball, Yu-Gi-Oh DM/GX/5D's, TMNT 2003, Winx Club and a healthy side of Pokémon, as well as a number of OCs and original concepts from my Sisterlands series (this is also true for most of the other timelines, with the exception of one I will point out when we get to it).

The Alternate Anime Timeline: Featuring some of the anime I cut from the original Magina lineup, plus a few cartoons to round out the numbers. Featuring the casts of Sailor Moon, Digimon Adventure/Tamers/Frontier, Card Captor Sakura, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, and He-Man/She-Ra (Filmation flavours).

Neo Anime Timeline: Featuring anime/cartoons I only got into after leaving High School (The OG Magina concept was created at the end of Year 10 for me, so when I was sixteen). One Piece is here because it has grown so much since I first saw the 4Kids dub, and that dub did it so dirty, that it's a whole different beast from the one I had initially considered adding to the OG Magina lineup. Featuring the casts of One Piece, Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, A:TLA/LoK, and Steven Universe.

The Witches Timeline: It could technically be called the Mages timeline, but there are far more witches here. Featuring the delightful and badass witches of my growing years, and wizards too. Yes, Harry Potter is in here, but I assure you the characters have opinions about how Joann chose to record their world! And they're not flattering! Featuring the casts of Harry Potter, Bewitched, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (original sitcom), Charmed, the Worst Witch 2000s series, and Discworld, because Granny Weatherwax was not having with being left out of this! ("But she's dead!" you exclaim. Oh, didn't I tell you every timeline has dragon balls? Because every timeline has dragon balls.)

The Australian Fantasy Timeline: Featuring the characters from a bunch of Australian fantasy series I love! And yes, this includes Sevenwaters! It's actually an older concept I shelved when I thought I wouldn't be able to fit it anywhere, but now I can and I'm very happy! This timeline features the characters of Sevenwaters/Blackthorn and Grim/Warrior Bards, the Bitterbynde trilogy/Crowthistle Chronicles by Cecilia Dart-Thornton, the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix, Deltora Quest/Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda (if I am able to read Three Doors and Star of Deltora, I'll put them here too), and a number of original characters/concepts from my fairy tale retelling series, as well as some from the Sisterlands/Ylona! (There, that's the difference. :D)

The ASOIAF Timeline: There are so many characters in ASOIAF that they needed a world to themselves. In this timeline, I just snag them from either where the series ended or the point of their first deaths, and give them therapy and Sisterlandic magic, and I may even keep the Empress away from them for a time. We'll see. :D :D :D

The Sci-fi Timeline: I saved this for last because this is actually the reason I'm making the post, but I'm going to save the details for its own post later. This version of Magina brings together several favourite Sci-fi franchises I love, and then throws the Empress at them, too. Featuring the casts of Star Treks TNG/Voyager/DS9/possibly Lower Decks, Stargate SG-1/Atlantis (Universe is being ignored), and Farscape.

I may have to make an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of some of this stuff because the timelines are all going to blur together in a mid-series thing we won't get to for quite a while.

I plan on writing oneshots/arcs set in these timelines, partly to explore them, partly to establish where the characters are/will be at the time of the blurring of the lines.

I'm particularly playing with the Sci-fi timeline right now, as I've been swept up by Star Trek fandom, particularly Deep Space 9, and have had some fun ideas for the Maginaverse regarding those characters. To post any of it now would mean some spoilers for the main timeline, but if others can talk me into doing it, I will. It's fun to write for them, anyways. :D

I'll make separate posts for each timeline at some point, and link them in the above list items, at which point I'll remove this paragraph, as it will no longer be necessary.

[ paul wesley ] just checked back into central city. oh wait, that’s actually [ elijah wolfe ]. the database tells me that they are [ 28 ] and that they spend their time working as an [ assassin ]. however, under the mask of darkness they are also known as [ blackbird ] with the power(s) of [ electrokinesis, loa training, military background. ]. word on the street is that they are [ cunning ] and [ arrogant ], hopefully that will come in handy.

he’s originally from central city, born and raised.

when the particle accelerator exploded he’d been on his way home from work. the blast surprised him, causing him to swerve and hit a telephone pole. it fell onto his car, electrocuting him and stopping his heart at the exact moment he was hit with a blast of dark matter. when he woke up he discovered he had the power of electrokinesis.

it wasn’t easy learning to get his newfound abilities under control. any time he had any kind of strong emotion he’d start sparking up like a bolt of lightning. the worst of it came when he got into a bar fight. it was stupid and meaningless, he flirted with a girl who unknowingly to him had a boyfriend who happened to be standing behind him. it wasn’t the first time he’d gotten himself into a situation like this, but it was the first with his powers. one simple push after his adrenaline start flowing and the other guy was dead.

the police were called and he was led off in handcuffs, but instead of serving jail time he was approached by a covert government organization that recruited him into the military. they were creating a black ops unit of super soldiers that already had powers. in exchange for working with them they offered him his freedom, a clean slate. (a promise he later found out they never intended to keep). during one of their more, ahem, unsanctioned missions they came under enemy fire and the plane crashed into a tibetan mountain range. he was the sole survivor.

he was recruited into the league of assassins after they discovered him laying in a pile of rubble near nanda parbat, broken and bleeding. his powers and military experience helped him secure a place in their ranks and he has been with them ever since.

they also helped him learn to have a better grasp over his abilities, mostly through controlling his emotions.

he’s not a hero but he’s not really a villain?? at least not in the sense that he goes around wreaking havoc. also he’s bound by the rules of the loa, so he doesn’t kill innocents. but if you classify a self serving assassin as a villain… then yep 

he goes by blackbird in the league bc it was his codename in the military and it sorta stuck.

he’s 100% loyal to the league. they saved his life and gave him a fresh start when he had nothing left. without hesitation, he would die for ra’s al ghul (nyssa currently, i think?)

sorry if this was all over the place, it was just a rough rundown to catch you up to speed a bit. a full biography including his life before his powers is currently being written so if you’re interested check the links on my page a bit later. i just didn’t want this to get too long with a bunch of unnecessary/irrelevant info. 

and as always, i’d love plots for him! especially considering he’s my first oc in this rp. i just already had three canons and wanted to switch things up a bit so i hope you love him as much as i do!

How Cairo came to be

I have a lot of thoughts on my daemon, Cairo, and his origins. Figured I’d share them here. there’s a really long explanation under the read-more

I call Cairo my “daemon” for the sake of simplicity, but I use that term a bit loosely as he doesn’t seem to fit the usual description of daemons that I have seen. For one, his form has been mostly settled for as long as I remember, and I first met(?) him when I was very young. Another thing is that he doesn’t take the form of a real animal. I’ve seen some debate as to the legitimacy of “daemons” that aren’t real animals, but I have my own thoughts on how this applies to Cairo.

For one, Cairo originated as my version of the character Guilmon from the digimon tamers series. This was back when I was still in elementary school. Aside from the name, voice, and being vaguely dinosaur-like in shape (and waving psuedo wings for ears), my Guilmon’s character didn’t resemble the cartoon character at all. I used a t-rex beanie-baby to represent him physically (I still have him) He was intelligent (though we played that down when playing pretend with others), thoughtful, and more “real” than any other stuffed animal or character I’d developed thus far. He was my confidante and friend when I felt alone, and I think he was the only one of my stuffed animals/characters (they were the same thing back then) that I actually talked to with half an expectation of receiving an answer.

Fast-forward a few years (middle school/high school). For the most part, I no longer played with stuffed animals (with a few exceptions), but Guilmon still hung around. I didn’t talk to him as much, but he was still my partner, guardian, and companion. As I started writing stories that I actually want to publish one day, I changed Guilmon’s name to Blaze, seeing as I didn’t want to get hit with a copyright infringement. From there, Blaze followed my personas and other characters into their worlds. Here, he took on a lot of roles, though they all came back around to protector, companion, guardian, confidante. He’s only really interacted with characters that were my actual self-inserts or personas, and he was always more than a character. I could never write him as just another oc; he knows too much about me, the writer, and he’s been around for longer than any of my stories.

Fast-forward again to the summer of 2018. This was the first summer I spent on my own, living away from my family situation (which is an entire other conversation). This is also about the time I realized I was having a lot of issues with depression and anxiety. As a college student, I know I wasn’t alone in these issues, and yet, I was so alone. I only had one friend and she was busy all the time (not her fault, I don’t resent her for it). I wasn’t close to most of my family and was actively avoiding the handful of family members that I was close to. During this time, Blaze came back to me. My friend, my confidante, my shelter from the biting loneliness. We only interacted within the context of “stories” (not actively talking to each other) but these stories were ones that were never written and only played out in my head. Just small scenes where he told me that I wasn’t alone, that I still had him no matter how much I or my circumstances changed.

We’ve maintained that sort of relationship up to this point. I’m not physically alone anymore (I have a lot of people I can talk to or hang out with if I want, and I have a better relationship with my family) but I still feel like everything is slipping out of my hands and I don’t know why. I finally got into my major (I’m a junior now), I have a good relationship with my family, I’m taking classes that are on subjects that I actually enjoy, I’m finally on an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication. And yet, a combination of poor time-management, and persistent apathy toward my existence as a whole has brought me to another low point. 

At first, I wanted to create a tulpa, a concept that I’d been interested in before but then forgot about. I wanted someone that would be with me all the time and would (hopefully) help me get my life in order. However, that didn’t seem fair since I tulpa is a being with its own separate existence. I didn’t want to force an ideal onto another being and then be resented for it. It’s also not fair to the being I intended to create. And there was the fact that I already had Blaze, and creating another being with the intent to act as my guardian and companion felt incredibly wrong. However, I couldn’t turn Blaze into a tulpa. He was already too real, and I was afraid the tulpa would resent me for forcing this persona onto it. I also didn’t think I could mentally withstand the idea of Blaze becoming anything other than the friend I’d had since childhood.

Then I learned about daemons. As someone with a “Christian” upbringing (another very long story) I was hesitant to look into anything like that. However, as I understand it, daemons (not demons) are your soul personified. That “voice” in the back of your mind that tells you to sleep before 3 am, or to eat when you haven’t for an entire day, that reminder that a failed test isn’t the end of the world, that conversation you have with yourself, debating the pros and cons of staying up late to study or going to bed early right before a test. For me, I think Blaze has always been that voice.

Which brings me to his current state. I started talking to Blaze again, just like I used to when I was a child. It felt strange at first since I’m now an adult that’s essentially talking to myself. And yet, it felt like I was calling up an old friend that I’d followed online but hadn’t actually spoken to in years. We talked about the idea of him being my daemon and returning to a more prominent role in my life. It’s hard to explain his feelings on the subject, but more or less, he’s happy about the decision. (more like... happy that I’m asking for help? Even if it’s just from my own soul?) 

Yesterday, we decided on another name change. “Blaze” was never meant to be anything other than an alias for him to use when I wrote about him. His name had still been Guilmon, though as I wrote more about Blaze and spoke less to Guilmon, “Blaze” became the more common way for me to think of him. We played around with some sounds and spellings (he really didn’t want a name that started with “A”) we came up with Cairo (rhymes with “arrow”. Also, I only just now realized it’s also a place in Egypt and not just a word I made up...). This is partially from my synesthesia: “A’s” are bright red, “i’s” are yellow, and “o’s” are white. This combo is bright and warm, and the word itself is short, reminding me of a candle. I’ve always associated him with fire. “Cairo” also (vaguely) resembles “Hrairoo”, which is what Hazel occasionally calls his brother, Fiver, in the netflix adaptation of Watership Down (which, if I’m right about being ADD, is my current hyperfixation) Due to this, I occasionally call Cairo “Cairoo” because I think it sounds cute.

Cairo’s form is... difficult to explain. While he has changed from what I originally envisioned him as, his form hasn’t really changed from when we were kids. He is still vaguely dinosaur shaped, still brown with rust colored markings across his nose, a pale belly, and a sort of mane that runs from his head to his tail. The only big difference now is that his wing-like ears are shaped a bit more like rabbit ears and he can run on four legs as well as two. The closest real animal I can compare him to is a hare with a square snout and dinosaur tail. We tried to get him to shift into an actual hare, but that felt very... wrong and unnatural. 

I’ve heard that daemons with fantasy forms aren’t daemons because they don’t mean anything, they don’t tell you anything about yourself. I’m not sure how to feel about that, but my opinions on daemons and their forms would be another conversation entirely. If the definition of a “daemon” truly excludes those with unnatural forms, then I am fine to say that Cairo is not a true daemon. Either way, those are just words to us. He is my friend, my companion, and my guardian. That has been true from the beginning, and I am beginning to believe it will be true to the end.