How To Fail At Magic — Dr Strange 2

So many great points in this video essay. It all boils down to this:

Don't pull new powers out of nowhere to do something cool that will never be seen or used again.

Go deep with your worldbuilding, at least for main characters and their primary abilities.

Put limitations and weaknesses on your characters and/or their abilities and use those limitations consistently.

Multiverse of Madness has Wanda casting spells with no physical indication that she is doing anything at all. Total stealth, no visible energy or hand movements despite that being an implied necessity in all other media she appears in (for the MCU.) In scene after scene she does things that are really awesome and cool, but none of it makes sense. If it doesn't make sense, then there can be no stakes for the audience. When every escalation of the danger is an illogical coincidence, a new ability that solves just this one problem perfectly and is never seen or thought of again, or a blatant deus ex machina, then the audience expects that there will be a similar nonsensical or convenient solution for the hero and there is no speculation about how the problem will be solved.

She glows, she moves fingers, her eyes flash... in every movie before this one we know when Wanda is using magic. The only time we don't see it in WandaVision is when the camera cut away from her to hide it!

Brain off, look at the pretty lights. This can make for an entertaining evening at the cinema, but will be forgettable and the complete lack of investment means the audience isn't that hungry for a sequel.

The first Doctor Strange movie had limitations: There is magical energy manipulation, the use of enchanted objects, and complicated rituals. This fit with the magic we'd seen before in the MCU, even for Pietro and Wanda's first appearances (if we consider their mutations due to exposure to the Mind Stone Scepter a kind of ritual.) We know all the abilities and they don't suddenly get added to when there is a challenge to solve, instead existing abilities are used to solve the problems and there is a big emotional payoff for that which we just don't get for deus ex machina problem solving!

So, obviously, that's exactly what we get when Strange saves the day. He dreamwalks into a dead body and gets crazy necromancer powers. The warning about this being a bad idea isn't given to the audience until he's halfway done doing it, and it ends up not as a handicap but as a huge boon before we've even assimilated that this is a risky move. To quote my non-fan family members: "When did [s]he learn to do that, was it in the TV show?"

Marvel does this "hero suddenly has a new power that perfectly solves their problem" a lot, but usually it is a progression or escalation of an existing ability. How did Wanda escape the Mirror dimension and then instantly heal herself from the wounds that caused, but then can't heal anything done to herself later on? Explanations and even the resolution of major plotlines [Looking at you, Sokovia Accords amendments] only ever showing up on the Wiki is just not acceptable for a project like the MCU. At least Thanos spoke to Loki as if he knew the guy in Endgame, so that plot point from Avengers 1, which was leaned on as part of the motivation for Tony Stark creating Ultron, technically made it to film before the both of the effected characters had a heroic sacrifice that vindicated their questionable actions.

It's only a major part of events in 4 films, it's fine if the Loki TV series retcons it away again instead of letting the title character ever explain his point of view or why he did the specific bad things we've seen him do.

So, this is a criticism that hits far more than just Multiverse of Madness, but DS: MoM is the worst offender by far. Not only is the hero doing random things, but so is the villain. Yes, yes it does look cool. It is so cool, but so are fireworks. Meaningless, narrative-free fireworks set off by some neighbor that build to a crescendo to celebrate some accomplishment their favorite person achieved. The details quickly forgotten and the enjoyment fleeting.

ok the last post was infodump friendly. this one is NOT.

i expect you to explain your/something about your magic system as badly as possible. i want to be confused. i want to lack context.

i'll start:

big wyrm gives off radiation that is also magic. ohhh no gas.

I understand why alchemists invented, and modern fiction writers use, systems with a few understandable Elements like Earth / Fire / Air / Water / Light / Dark.

I understand why even most nerds don't bother to study the Elements in real life. There's too many of them, and they don't neatly correspond to meaningful aspects of macro-level existence.

But just once I'd like to read a worked magical system where the author has looked up the properties of the real Elements, has put in all the work to build up a system of plausible-sounding correspondences, and the protagonist is a rare dual-element Tellurium-Iodine wizard.

Crafting Future From Ruins: A Writer's Guide to Designing Post-Apocalyptic Technology

Photo: Standard License- Adobe Stock

Crafting post-apocalyptic tech involves blending creativity and realism. This is a guide to help you invent tech for your post-apocalyptic world:

Tinker, Tailor, Writer, Spy: Start with modern tech. Take it apart (conceptually or literally if you're feeling adventurous). Using the basics, think of how your character might put it back together with limited tools and resources.

Master the Fundamentals: Understand the basic principles underlying the tech you're working with. Physics, chemistry, and biology can be your best friends. This understanding can guide your character's resourceful innovations.

Embrace the Scrapyard: The world around you has potential tech components. Appliances, vehicles, infrastructure - how could these be deconstructed and repurposed? Your characters will need to use what's at hand.

Cherishing Old Wisdom: Pre-apocalypse books and manuals are the new internet. A character with access to this knowledge could become a vital asset in tech-building.

Indigo Everly

In fantasy settings, they usually show that a character is super powerful or talented because they don't have to chant their spells out loud, and can just manifest them silently.

I want a fiction where the powerful / talented person realizes that spells are supposed to be sung. Chanting is close enough to be effective, but the true emotion and the mental focus to channel out spells the way they were supposed to be only comes out when the words are expressed as a song.

Bonus points if all the mystical hand signs and gestures work better as part of a dance.

My favorite magic system from a game I haven't actually played is from Mage: the Ascension. It kind of fits as both a hard magic system and a soft magic system at the same time because there are some hard rules, but its mostly very open. To become a mage you have to realize that reality is not what it seems. In MtA, reality is whatever the majority of people believe it is, known as the consensus. The consensus in modern days is pretty uniform everywhere, with small variations based on where you are, but it used to be wildly different based on the cultural beliefs of the local people. A mage is a person who realizes that the consensus isn't true reality and gains to power to act outside of its rules. Any given mage's abilities come from their own personal view of reality, known as their paradigm. A mage's magic can do basically anything, as long as it is accounted for in their paradigm. So a mage who's paradigm includes the classic Aristotelian elements can perform magic based on that, but if their paradigm doesn't include animistic spirits then they can't commune with those spirits even though other mages could based on their own paradigm. The problem with this is that the consensus doesn't like it when you go around breaking its rules and will punish mages by slapping them with an effect called paradox. Paradox can be anything from a spell failing to getting shunted into your own personal pocket universe. Nothing generates paradox like being seen doing magic by sleepers (people who are not mages and still live fully within the consensus). Most mages either only use magic around other mages or, if they need to cast around sleepers, will disguise their magic as a mundane effect. Someone throwing a fireball from their hands will generate major paradox because the consensus is that people can't do that. However if a mage holds a lighter up to a spraycan before casting their fireball, the sleepers can rationalize it as something that exists within the consensus and not as much paradox will be generated.

In the dark ages, magic was part of the consensus and mages could openly rule over the sleepers because everyone believed in magic and therefore magic was part of the consensus. In response to the tyranny of the mages, a group was formed called the League of Reason, who wanted to introduce a new form of magic to the consensus that everyone could use. This form of magic was based on logic and reason and was called science. This led to the ascension war, where the League of reason sought to remove magic and superstition from the consensus and a very loose coalition of mages called the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions want to keep magic in the consensus. And the League of Reason won. A mostly rationalistic, scientific worldview has become the consensus worldwide, forcing the Council into operating underground. The League of Reason has become the Technocracy, a worldwide secret organization ruling the world from the shadows and trying to stamp out magic and any other form of "reality deviants" to keep humanity safe, even if they have to suppress basic human imagination to do so. Notably, the earliest books for the game very much said "Traditions good, Technocracy bad", but later books went for a much more grey approach to the conflict between them, making it clear that both sides really are doing what they think is in humanity's best interest even if their ideas for how to do so are fundamentally incompatible.

What's really interesting is that science and technology really are a form of magic and technocrats are mages, even if the Technocracy would vehemently deny this. Technology is a form of magic that everyone can use because its part of the consensus and science doesn't discover new facts about the world, It creates those facts and applies them to the world. The Technocracy's super-advanced technology creates paradox just as much as magic does because personal anti-gravity suits and mass-produced clones violate the consensus just like throwing around fireballs and conjuring demons does.

Mage: the Ascension is a super fun setting because just about any fantasy or sci-fi trope can exist here. Classic pointy hat and wand wizards can battle cyborgs armed with self-replicating nanotechnology. Anti-authoritarian punks can hack your wallpaper to spy on you because they believe all reality is part of a unified mathematical whole that the internet gives us access to. A group of spacefarers can ride the luminiferous aether to mars only to encounter Aztec shamans who asked the spirits to carry them there thousands of years ago. A powerful mage can create a time loop by convincing their younger self to obtain enlightenment through the power of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Two people can have an argument over whether the guy they just met was an alien from Alpha Centauri or an elf from the Norse nine realms and both of them can be right. Animistic spirit-callers can upload themselves to the internet to combat spirits of malware. And an angry mage might just teleport you into the sun because they believe distance is just an illusion and therefore have the power to make anything go anywhere with a thought. It's a wild ride.

Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions (Magical Abilities)

Magical Abilities Worldbuilding Questions:

What magical or supernatural abilities exist in this world?

What does using magical or supernatural (or cyborg) abilities cost, and what are the risks and dangers involved?

Who has exceptional ability, and why?

Who understands individual and magical abilities? Does anyone hold mistaken beliefs about them?

Where did any paranormal or magical abilities in the world come from?

Where do people learn to use or work with their abilities?

When characters use their abilities, is this use governed by codes and rules? What are they?

When do abilities typically first manifest or awaken?

Why do this world’s inhabitants fear, revere or covet special abilities?

Why do people with abilities choose to use their abilities for benevolent or malevolent purposes?

❯ ❯ ❯ Read other writing masterposts in this series: Worldbuilding Questions for Deeper Settings

In the Wishverse, the Wishborn setting, wizard magic is categorized by function. There are eight major magical taxa represented by eight major Guilds:

Elementalism: the art of controlling nature itself - air, fire, water, wood, earth, and metal. The Association of Elementalists is really a dozen smaller Guilds in a united front.

Summoning: the art of beckoning spirits to your aid. The Coalition for the Summoning of Otherworldly Entities is similar several schools of magic working together.

Bardic casting: Expressive folk magic unified under the umbrella of Bardic working. The Society for Creative Spellcasting and Magical Self-Expression welcomes anyone whose magical expression is through a creative art.

Artificing: the art of physical spellcraft. The Guild of Artificers and Mystic Weavers makes magical items or embeds magic in physical things.

Necromancy: the art of speaking with the dead and mastery over memory. The Somber Order of Speakers with the Dead are all priests of Finality, the God of Death, and serve them personally.

Illusionism: crafters of beguilement and other spells that baffle the senses. One of the youngest major taxa, has a sudden swell of membership in The Sworn Kinship of the Beguiling Arts when there was a boom of children with an illusory affinity fifty years ago.

Potioning: the smallest of the major Guilds, but a major Guild no less. Potioning is a complex and difficult art, mastered only by the dedicated - but there are quite a few dedicated, as the membership of the Union of Arcane Chemists and Apothecaries attests.

Foresight: Future sight, clairvoyancy, prophesy and other oracular powers , the Seers membership only outranks the Potioners by the slimmest of margins. The Oracular Union of Foreseers and Clairvoyants supports anyone whose vision looks forward in time as well as ahead.

There are forty-eight recognized minor taxa, and countless others unrecognized by the Taxonomic Order. Wizards with uncategorized magic join the Freelancers Guild, if Guild life is for them, or must demonstrate a skill in one of the other taxa, so the wizard may serve them instead.

The Freelancers Guild has the membership to be counted as a major Guild, but has been barred from official entry on account of a philosophical disagreement among the highest wizard council: If the Taxonomic Order permits uncategorized magic, it would then no longer be taxonomic. But, is not the act of categorizing the uncategorized in and of itself taxonomic?

The subject is reopened for debate on the New Year and has since become a part of the festivities for the last fifteen years.

I'm currently trying to world build a magical school for my fantasy realm. I'm having a hard time finding sources online. Any general advice for fantasy schools?

For starters, you want to have your magic system fleshed out really thoroughly. What good is teaching a bunch of kids how to use a magic system that you, the author, don't really know how it works, right!? If you haven't done this, you might check out my Brainstorming posts Here (Part 1) and Here (Part 2) to get started.

Beyond that, you need to think about some school basics:

Are all children educated in magic? Or only the most talented, the richest, or the poorest?

How does society at large feel about magic education and how does that impact the freedom and funds of the school?

(Related:) What kind of teachers are employed at the school? The best and brightest or the shlufs who couldn't make it in a "real" school? How does that affect the education of the students?

How does general education play into the lives of the students? Do they go to primary school first where they learn to read and write etc. or is that part of the their magic school curriculum?

How much danger is there in the day-to-day of the school? Is the magic difficult to use and therefore generally not a risk? Is it ubiquitous and therefore maintains some inherent balance? Is it difficult to use and therefore volatile and unpredictable?

What is the purpose of receiving a magic education and what do its students aspire to do after completing school?

I hope these help you out little bit. :)

Happy building!

Being a system with a lot of fictives is having one little niche that you happen to have a lot from for now particular reason.

Ours is magical girls. We’ve had 4 different magical girl alters form.

I would explain why. I just have no idea why.

Hard Magic Systems - A Chaotic Understanding

(DISCLAIMER: I do not intend to come across like I know anything but there are some things I’ve learnt and tried to make sense of so here you go… Also, I have read books that helped this abstract understanding of this thing, not sure if I should write them here but if you’re interested feel free to message me, I should reply within 1-3 business days.)

A Hard magic system is a system that follows rules. It has clearer definitions of what is and isn’t allowed and what is or isn’t possible and the consequences when something goes wrong. 

An example I have come up with is from Leigh Bardugo’s ‘Shadow and Bone’ series. In her stories, Grisha are capable of ‘Small Science’ and fear the act of ‘Merzost’ which in Ravkan means magic. For her magic system, their abilities rely on drawing upon the components of an element in order to wield it, abiding by the laws of physics. Any that use Merzost are often villainised for it - it is very very bad and not allowed hence most villains use it. 

Having these rules in place can aid a reader in understanding how the system works, it adds stakes to characters and narratives and can be a creative tool in problem solving without audiences or readers feeling cheated by a cop out display of magic. For example if someone just wishes all their problems away and suddenly the world wasn’t ending - the only time this could be effective would be if the journey the characters went on was crucial enough to feel like it's an accomplishment to get that far. Like in Percy Jackson and The Sea of Monsters, we’re not miffed that Annabeth is rescued by the Golden Fleece because 1# We know her enough to love her and 2# They worked so hard to get to it in the first place. 

When something is resolved without any stakes, rules, limits, journey and growth it feels like a cop out, the way we watch when some writers accidentally put themselves in a corner they can’t get out of so they make the entire journey a dream by the end? Or hey, let’s just fix it with time travel! It feels kinda pointless because there are no stakes and even a soft magic system will have stakes but I’ll get to that in another post. 

When magic is used as a tool it becomes a part of the characters journey from Luffy and the GumGum Fruit to Harry Potter and being a Wizard. It becomes a part of and aids their problem solving like any other skill. 

If we look at Avatar: The Last Airbender, it takes place in a world where the audience understands people can manipulate the elements, it makes sense when Katara has her bloodbending experience because early on in the show it is established that waterbenders can draw from not just oceans and rivers but trees, plants and human sweat. Their abilities are practised, trained and developed on through the show, I mean, even Aang has to progress in order to become the Avatar and when we see him master the elements we feel kinda proud to see him kick ass and when Toph progresses to bending Metal or Zuko with his lightning- I mean excuse me?!! 

We love the magic because it's a part of their journey but it doesn’t just fix things or make them worse - it’s how they use it that matters. 

Predictability is an important part of a Magic System because if you want to keep things in order you’ll want to make sure that your Hard Magic always has a consistency to it that follows the world and story narrative. Like in My Hero Academia, the predictability would be that each character has a quirk that they are learning to control and train in order to become heroes, however they each have limitations from their personalities, physiques, mentalities, ages etc that hinder them along the way. 

‘Limitations are more important than powers’ Brandon Sanderson. 

Babe. This is for real though. I don’t care how powerful a character is, it’s not interesting if they don’t have a weakness, the more powerful they are? The more painful the weakness. You want them to lose that power or feel the consequences of their power, hurt their weakness. For fun. Anyway- 

-Once you’ve sorted the rules of your system you can look at the particular limitations, weaknesses and costs. Oftentimes I’d say strength is different from power cause someone's power could be fire but their strength could be their friends and as we know, their strength can also reflect their weakness. 

You could have a shape-shifting character but the longer they stay in their animal form the more animalistic they become creating disastrous long term effects on the group or like Nico from the Percy Jackson series, he uses shadows to travel so much that it quite literally becomes a danger to him, ‘as the more you do it, the more you lose contact with the physical world’.

Anywho, this is the end of my Hard Magic System rant - I don’t actually know if this is helpful but it helps me so maybe it will help some stranger on the internet idk. 

Don't blame me coffee made me crazy~

Next time I’ll post about the Soft Magic System and it will likely be as messy and chaotic as this one but hey-ho, 50% knowing what I’m talking about to 50% aimless passion seems acceptable.

Magical basics of the Phantasm:

Witches and wizards:

I’ll elaborate on this in further posts, but the main difference between witch magic and wizard magic is that witch magic comes from an internal source and wizard magic comes from an external source. Witches cast spells from their internal fire and magical wells while wizards use the magic of the land in their potions. Casting a spell with a musical instrument is a loose mix of both but I’ll get to that.

Humans and Phantasmers:

All Phantasmers (beings of the Phantasm) have the potential to do any kind of magic, both external and internal. However, humans can only easily access external magic. Humans have no innate magical abilities. All Phantasmers have a natural, inbuilt well of magic within them due to being magical creatures themselves, humans do not. However, a human can perform internal magic if they are given an artificial well. For example, a witch could enchant a pendant, creating a well of magic within it, allowing a human to use it to cast spells. There are other ways of getting an artificial well but that’s ✨spoiler content✨ and shall not be discussed yet.

Casting:

When multiple magic users use their magic in tandem, that magic becomes stronger. The more users working on a single spell, the more powerful it becomes or the more quickly it can be cast. Magic works by a transfer of energy. We’ll use mana as an example to explain what I mean.

So, imagine that a single user has 100 mana.

If a spell cost 2 mana to cast, it could basically be cast instantly and wouldn’t make a dent in the mana supply. If a spell cost 100 mana to cast, it would completely drain that user’s supply of mana and it would take a while for that user to transfer the mana energy into the spell.

Now say there were three users.

That’s three times the max amount of mana, three times the energy transference. The spell would be less daunting and could be cast quicker. Some spells even flat out require multiple witches, like a location spell for example.

Does that make sense?

What magic represents:

“Magic is a living thing! It's not a power for us to use, it's an actual living force that responds to us just as we respond to it!”

As the witch Cassidy says here, magic is actually a living, invisible force that surrounds every inch of a magical dimension. Witches and wizards alike put their passion into their spells.

Wizards care deeply for their research and how they apply it to their potions. They care deeply for each and every potion they make, which ingredients work best to please the magic they’re trying to get their potion to respond to.

Witches put their passion into creating brand new spells or trying out ones that already exist. Casting magic for them can mean so many things. A magic battle can be like an elegant dance, built by knowing what spells to use not only to preserve their limited supply of magic but to fight to the greatest effect.

Into the Phantasm, above all, is a story about ideas, creativity and what it means to people. The magic system is the biggest example of this throughout the series. Wizard magic is sort of like practical work and witch magic is sort of like creative work. There are people whose minds work best with knowledge, research and learning and so too are there people whose minds are vastly imaginative, with the strength to create amazing things, and of course, there’s people who can easily do both. Neither one is less important or valuable than the other. Each one can be just as powerful as the other, and THAT is what magic is really about.

@neko-podboom @aziz-reads @dyrewrites @kaylinalexanderbooks

Just woke up and my brain had a great idea for a fantasy setting and I need to tell it to people: Humans are the only sapient race, but magic is very common, and most societies invest in one type of magic to the point where it effects them on an irreversible level.

A city controlled by Necromancers where undead do most of the manual labor. Becoming undead is considered normal funeral practice, to the point where not being turned into a zombie is considered something tragic. The magic has seeped into the land so much that even some plants and animals still move around a bit after death due to the magical residue.

A city with a tradition of life magic where everything that isn't made out of metal is grown. Buildings are living trees, and people eat meat and plants that are directly grown without ever being part of an organism. People don't even reproduce normally anymore, it's safer to just grow new people magically, and eventually they stop growing people with the ability to reproduce naturally at all because most people don't want that. Chances are these people are either really sexually liberated, or sex is illegal under any circumstance.

A city filled with pyromamcers where the magic has effected people's anatomy. People who grow up there build a resistance to fire and heat to the point where nothing can burn them. Their eyes adjust to near constant light, and it becomes incredibly hard for them to be in any climate that isn't boiling hot. The people originally began practicing fire magic to help them with the cold, but they've migrated to the deserts long ago to deal with the side effects.

If you have any ideas for other wizard cities that could exist please reblog this post with them.

-Outdated words +designs-

I think this is something of a first part of the "magic system" series of guides.

I will be talking more about what it means to be "physically more aware" and manipulate physics and I might borrow Neal for it.

Now, imagine you are a device connected to a supercomputer that can alter reality. You need to be set up to receive its signal but when you are set, you can alter some of it too (while being under its control a little I guess but who cares). To be clear the 'computer' isn't sentient and just follows programming.

For the context of "gods" here's a link to another post

Also, I decided to name the designers with shapes because they are easily understood by any culture. Hope you like △, you will probably see it a bit.

Ignore bad English and skulls I drew for no reason with little thought in them. "Pigeons" are an invasive species of hexapods by the way.

would be very funny to me to introduce a bunch of americans who are used to the constitution being treated as a gift from god that's very hard to change and is holy Because it's almost never changed and has been in operation in nearly the same form since 1789 to the way the swiss constitution (last total revision in 1999, there have been several hundred direct democratic votes on possible changes to it since 1848, all you need to suggest a change is hundred thousand people with voting power who'll sign the suggestion) works

Thinking about the fact that I’m having to start an eighth round of revisions for my sci-fi-fantasy novel, Ink of Destruction has had me looking back at my old drafts over the last four years and it’s quite hilarious to consider that 15 year-old Grace who came up with both IOD and The American Icarus had so much ambition but no sense of scale.

You want to make a magical pen that can alter history itself right before your eyes with the writing of a sentence and thereby alter everyone’s memories? Great! Did you consider that this would create an alternate universe because time itself is having to course correct thanks to whatever you wrote down? No! Welcome to multidimensional theory, 15 year-old Me.

You want to frame your historical epic as having a historical figure sit down and write their voluminous memoirs 200 years after their death because they’re annoyed with how history has treated them and also with the events of your previous novel? Great! Did you consider for instance the fact that in their lifetime, after the death of their lover best friend they only wrote seven sentences about them because it probably hurt too much and/or due to the nature of 18th century society they wouldn’t be able to express their full feelings? And that by you forcing them to sit down and write pages and pages about their interactions with their lover best friend would be giving them a difficult task even after the lapse of two centuries because they couldn’t find the words in the first place? No! Welcome to the nuances of your story structure, 15 year-old Me!

Truly hilarious 😂😂😂