#its black magic

[demonicvulcan]

shortvictory replied to your post: i’m not sure people know how easy it is to...

I like to hold them up and move their body around while their head stays in the same place

the universe revolves around chicken heads i swear

[mintmacaroonn]

I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO START CONVERSATIONS ONLINE‼️‼️

(Literally one of the ways I've talked with another person on Tiktok was purely cat stickers and videos)

[itsgoldenlikedayllight]

It's really amazing sometimes I see an old gifset/ photoshoot of taylor and I honestly couldn't tell if it's a photo from 2012 or 2018

[itsblackmagic-blog1]

I’m dating a wizard.

I met him a few years ago, his name is Jordan Cassau. He’s Scottish, and he’s a magic man. He showed it to me one day, making fireflies appear in his hand by cracking his knuckles. They were purple fireflies, and he didn’t call them fireflies. Something in a dead language that he knows. I know a few words, but I can’t say it the same way that Jordan says it. He says it’s because he has magic. I think it’s because he won’t teach me the accent.

I’ve lived with him for a few years, now. He says he came from a magic college somewhere in Ireland called Wellshire. I asked him once why he didn’t go to one in Scotland, he said it’s because it was raided and burned down during a hidden war in the times of King Arthur. I thought that was a joke.

He told me more, about magic proficiencies and elves and orcs and pixies and dragons. His proficiency is in sorcery and conjuration, but really it’s just conjuration since people can’t be proficient in sorcery. I asked him why, he explained that it’s basically being proficient in magic itself, and that doesn’t make sense in the wizarding world. He doesn’t have any friends from the magic world, just human friends, and his human me. He said that he doesn’t like other magic users. They give him weird looks. I’ve never met any, so I’ve never seen people give him weird looks. Well, people still do, but because I’m five foot nothing and he’s six foot eleven, and covered in tattoos.

He doesn’t like talking about why he left Scotland. Or Ireland. Or Europe. I get a little out of him, maybe once a year, only ever on my birthdays. All I know is that there was a lot of fighting, and that he just needed to get away from some jerks. Sometimes he has nightmares. He doesn’t call them nightmares, but he does have them. He mumbles about red skies whenever I ask him what he dreams about.

I love him. I hope he asks me to marry him.

[itsblackmagic-blog1]

I wave my hand over a wilting tulip to keep the bundle fresh and healthy, even though no one ever buys the tulips. People come in for the bundles of roses, or the orchids, never the tulips. I used to have to use my wand to do this, but Witt taught me subtlety through sorcery. People used to think that it was weird for me to carry a stick in my apron, and I was running out of excuses for why I carried it around. But sorcery doesn’t need a stick, sorcery is using everything as a director, including yourself. I’m nowhere near as good as Witt is at sorcery, I can only channel magic through my hands, he can channel magic through anything. But I never lose things. People sometimes make fun of pathfinder proficiencies, but I’ve never lost my mobile. Both Mac and Witt seem to lose their mobiles, practically constantly.

I work at a flower shop. It’s not exciting, but none of our jobs are exciting. Well, maybe Debbie’s job is. I’m a flower shop attendant, Mac’s a truck loader, Witt’s an online journalist, Grace works as a bartender. At least I’m doing something that I’m somewhat passionate about. Out of all of us, Witt has the most free time. We all have different work schedules, but Witt only has deadlines. We would have our schedules lined up, but it’s better if there’s always one or two of us free. That way things that operate under the dark arts can’t plan their schedule around when we’re all busy. Debbie’s usually free, but I haven’t seen her in a month. I’m still not entirely sure what her job is.

Today’s a relatively slow day, (as if it’s ever active at a flower shop) and I pack things up. I head out, lock up, and start unlocking my bike. The only ones of us that own cars are Grace and Debbie. The shop’s never open late. At least, not on months outside of February. Nothing much has been happening lately, in the realm of black magic, but Mac’s been looking like he’s been on edge. Witt’s been fine, so has Grace, but Mac’s giving me different vibes lately. I start to bike back to our flat. Mac and I have been roommates since Harverbrook, since we were kids. And he’s always been a bit of a jackass. Hasn’t always been a smoker, that started when he was sixteen.

It takes me about ten minutes to bike home. I know the path perfectly, and every alternate route. I could be on the opposite side of Clamacre, sedated, and still find the way to my flat. Pathfinder works great. I carry my bike up the stairs, and get into our flat. Mac’s already there, and he’s already smoking. “Outside.” I grumble, taking my bike into my room.

Mac waves his hand, and snuffs the flame on his cigarette. “Pathfinder. Phone.”

I walk back out of my room, and head to the kitchen. I’m sure we have leftovers. “You left it at work.” I don’t even have to cast a spell to pathfind anymore. But that only works for things that I’ve searched for before. I’ve searched for Mac’s phone plenty of times. I’ve searched for everyone’s phones before.

“Shit.” Mac gets off of the couch, and dusts himself off. “Get a muzzle for Venus.” He says.

“Why?” I ask, taking out a leftover egg salad sandwich. Mac hates egg salad, so I know he won’t mind.

“A pigeon got in through the window, and Venus ate it.”

“How do you know she ate a bird?” I ask.

“Because there’s feathers all over the fucking floor.” He walks over to the fridge, probably also looking for leftovers. “I’m not cleaning it up.”

At least now I don’t have to feed Venus for another week. “Do I ever ask you to?” I take a bite of the sandwich.

Mac gets a bottle of water out of the fridge. “No, and I’m not starting now.” He smells like nicotine and Pixie dust. He uncaps the water, and starts to drink.

I get my wand from my room, and come back out. I wave it to open a window, and send the smell of smoke from the couch to the outside. “Stop smoking inside.”

“Stop leaving the windows open.” Mac waves his wand, and the window slams shut.

This is what I mean by on edge. Usually he just doesn’t care, now he’s back to acting like an ass. I keep eating my sandwich, and Mac continues to drink his water. Things have been quiet lately, which might be why Mac’s on edge. But I’m guessing it’s not quiet wherever Debbie is. It has to be active, wherever she is.

Mac puts his bottle into the recycling bin once he’s done, and stretches. “I’ll be back.” He says, before walking to the door.

I swallow the egg salad in my mouth, and watch him. “Where are you going?” I ask.

“Out.” Before I have a chance to say anything else, Mac’s out the door.

[itsblackmagic-blog1]

I should have grabbed Grace for this. Or Mac, despite smelling like he just bathed in an ashtray. Perhaps even Jack, despite not being proficient in dueling. But a goblin (or, rather, goblins) kidnapped a small girl, and I was in the neighborhood. She’s ten or twelve, goblins don’t have the nerve to kidnap anyone younger. They’re decent like that. Decent being relative, as they still kidnapped a little girl.

It doesn’t take me long to find them, but that’s only because I watched as a goblin walked across the street with a bowl of sugar frosted pastries. It wore a charm to keep itself hidden, but charms stop working on wizards, or anyone who has enough magic in them. They’re stupid like that, forgetting about magicians like myself. The pastries are also what they think human children eat. They’re not wrong, but it’s still not very healthy. I followed the goblin for about ten minutes before the goblin wandered into an alley with two other goblins, and a girl of about twelve years who was tied to a pipe by a piece of string. (Goblins are profoundly stupid.)

It takes all but five seconds before one of the other goblins notices me, and starts screaming in that deep, confused voice that they’re famous for. Well, the one that American goblins are known for, European goblins are high pitched. It takes all of my willpower to not start laughing. It’s not anything that’s racist towards goblins, I just find comical screaming hilarious.

“You stole-en a biggun?” Asked the screaming goblin, who was, as it so happened, still screaming.

The goblin who was carrying the pastries turns around, looks up at me, drops the pastries, and starts screaming as well. “I didn’t steal-ed a biggun! Didn’t, I didn’t!”

The third goblin starts screaming as well. There must be charms among the rubbish, because no one is wondering what’s going on. Or maybe that’s some American hospitality in play. “You stole-en a biggun!” Screams the third.

“I didn't!” Screams the second. Can goblins speak without being in some form of screaming? I should ask Jack. “Must have stole-en him by accidents!”

Apparently I’ve been accidentally stolen by goblins. Or at least, they seem to think so.

“We can’t take cares of many peoples! Not bigguns!” Shouted the first. Or perhaps the third, they’re scrambling right now and I can only identify the second by the sugar across his tunic. At least the girl seems to be entertained.

“If it helps to know, I wasn’t stolen, I followed him back here.” I clarify. This seems to make them stop scrambling.

“You follow? Lady Reh-present send bounty hunter already?” Asks either the first or third goblin. I can’t tell these tiny green people apart. I’m not racist.

“No, I’m not a bounty hunter. But the girl doesn’t belong here.” The one good thing about goblins is that they never try to convince you that you’re mistaken, that you’re some racist magician that treats all creatures falling under the dark arts category as culprits. For one, they’re usually too confused to try anything.

“Then send messages!” I know he means one message, but the implication of being a back-and-forth letter boy already reminds me of extra credit at Harverbrook: sending letters between teachers so the mailman can have a day off from sending letters through spells.

“Yes!” Continues a different goblin. “We wants equals rights!”

“Equal rights?” I ask. “For what?”

“For everything!” The sugar frosted goblin claims.

“What’s everything?”

“Life, liberty! Land!” Shouts a different goblin.

“And your offer is, what, a kidnapped child.” I look over at her. “Are you okay?” She nods. “Did they hurt you?” She shakes her head. I look back at the goblins.

“We would nevers hurt her! Lady Reh-present would kills all of us-es for that!”

“Grand. I’ll send a message if I can take the girl back to her parents.” Speaking of her, she’s calm about this. She might be the child of a magic family, perhaps even a student at Harverford, the goblins don’t scare her at all.

“Nevers! Equals rights!” They shout. “Ee-quill rights! Ee-quill rights!! Ee-quill rights!!!” They all shout. I hate goblins.

“There won’t be any equal rights if the girl stays here.” I explain. “Can you slip your hand out of that?” I ask the girl. The string is loose, so she wouldn’t even be harmed by a string based rope burn. She tugs a bit, and her hand comes loose, and she skips on past the goblins, and to my side. “Great. Now, the girl and I will be returning to her parents, and I’ll consider saying that you deserve due consideration according to your rights.”

“No!” Shouts a goblin. “Ee-quill rights!” They start chanting again. Kill me.

“Best I can offer is due consideration.” I say. “Take it or leave it.”

“Leavings it!” Shouts a goblin. God damn it.

“You’re taking it.” I say.

“Leavings it!” They shout in unison.

“Taking it.”

“Leavings it!”

“Taking it.”

“Leavings it!”

“Taking it!” I shout.

“Leavings it!!” They shout, louder.

“Leaving it!” I shout.

“Takings it!” They shout, agreeing with me.

“Taking it! Oh, damn, I guess I gave in, I suppose we’re in agreement, then?”

“Yes!” The goblins cackle. “Go, leavings! Take girl to Lady Reh-present!”

“Been a pleasure working with you.”

I leave with the girl. She’s skipping, and she eventually tells me that her name is Gwen, but her mummy calls her Gwenny, but her real name is Gwendolyn. I tell her that my name is Witt, and that it’s short for Whitney. I treat my last name more like my first name, maybe I’ll have it changed. Maybe I’ll have my new last name changed to Mumchance, but I’ll have to marry Grace, first. Gwen’s smart, she knows the way back to her home, which makes this much easier. Don’t need Jack here to do any pathfinding. I need to start carrying my mobile around.

Gwen walks back to her home with me as her escort. She knocks, her mother answers, who smiles to Gwen as the girl walks on in. Definitely a magic child, her mother’s the Lady Representative of the city of Clamacre, (lady Reh-present, maybe I should give the goblins more credit). Lady Lashowe, I think her name is. Part of the coven that guides everyone in the magic world. They guide loosely, but they guide. I think I graduated with her daughter. That’d mean that Gwen really does go to Harverbrook.

“So, where did my daughter wander off to, this time?” She asks.

“Into an alley of goblins, they didn’t touch a hair on her. Stole some pastries to feed her, actually.” I wear a flannel shirt that makes me look less skinny than I actually am, and a pair of jeans that make me look even more scrawny. Jack says the flannel brings out the color in my eyes (they’re green), Grace says that the jeans compliment my figure, Mac says that both of those with my loafers make me look like an asshole. Point is, Grace has a leather jacket, Mac has a jacket, and Jack has easy to access jeans. They all have a way to occupy their hands. Mine just hover at my hips, I try not to get twitchy fingers because that’s usually when I accidentally start enchanting things.

“Ah, I think I know which ones those were. It’s refreshing that Gwenny was helped by another magic user, but I do have to keep notes on those that know the truth that are inside of Clamacre. Would you like to come in, so we can talk?”

“That would be fine.” I walk in. I keep my shoes on (they’re loafers, and they’re clean.) (I’m not a slob, Mac is.) and follow her to a sitting room. Mac doesn’t like these types of rooms, neither does Grace. Maybe it’s a duelist thing. Maybe it’s a sarcastic jackass thing. Wait, no, it can’t be, then I’d be in on the disdain. “What would you like to know?” I ask her.

She sits, so I sit. “Oh, the usual. What you go by, where you learned magic, if you have any outstanding alignments to magical factions or magical sub-groups.”

I nod. “I go by Witt, but Whitney works.” Walter never even comes up in my mind when giving my name. “I graduated from Harverbrook, never took another school, had a proficiency in sorcery and enchanting, and I’m a general neutralist, but I belong to a dark arts defense group.”

She nods, not seeming too interested by my name or the defense group. “I didn’t know that sorcery could be a proficiency?”

“Yeah, most don’t.” I say, trying to sound like I don’t get asked this question every time I meet a new person.

She nods again, and starts to smile. She seems like a nice old woman, she must have been younger when she had Gwen. Wait, what am I saying? Obviously she must have been younger when she had a twelve year old child. “I had a proficiency in alchemical science and botany.” Oh, Jack would love her. He can’t shut up about his carnivorous chicken-killing plant, or anything above a bacteria. “Did you know my daughter? You look around her age, and she graduated from Harverbrook, too.”

I think of my graduating class, and anyone named Lashowe. Women named Lashowe. Girls named Lashowe. Both Gwen and Lady Lashowe are blonde, so I filter the list down that way. Doesn’t ring any bells. “What was her name?” I ask.

“Her name is Audrey.” She answers.

Ah, there she is. She liked Mac, Lady Lashowe hated Mac, Audrey liked Mac even more, because of that. Audrey got along with Jack and Grace and I, though. “Yeah, I remember her. Really… uppity.”

“Ah, uppity explains her great. She’s in an anti dark arts group, too. She’s still in the city, actually, she just never stops by.” We continue to have a conversation, one that I forget most of the details about. Grace would have excused herself by now, at the concept of thinking about Harverbrook. Jack might’ve been enthusiastic about it. Mac would have probably walked off when Gwen was on the doorstep. Mac would have probably been busy trying spells on goblin blood stains on his jacket.

[blockmind]

fy0ra replied to your post:i finished dual destinies yesterday and im upset bc i predicted him to be the phantom but i though "theres no way im right" but then i was right

im so. then how did he have psyche locks if he doesnt have emotions that part still gets to me. im also upset bc i thought bobby/simon was kind of cute weh

well a psyche lock is really just a mental barrier protecting secrets, you can have those and not be properly emotional. But the thing is, Phantom acting out Bobby could probably set up believable pscyhe locks the same way he can express emotions to trip out athena's widget. (its still cute)

[cherribaum-blog]

MY DAD LOST OUR DOG IN THE BACKYARD