Why don't you brainstorm a lot of possible spell ideas and then we see which ones answer the most interesting questions? I'm looking for something african now.

Will do.

- Charsheet manifestation

- ...Do those like-to-charge-reblog-to-cast posts...actually do anything?

- His Great Noodly Appendage, &c., &c..

- What about canon characters?

- ...Hey wait a minute why aren't there more furries, or am I just blind?  Is it some sort of medical license thing?

- If you make a replica of a legendary object, will it reify?  Do you need to make it if you're the wizard who wants one?

- Did anyone say The Gamer.  I'm saying The Gamer.  I want me some inventory hax.  And leveling up.  And quest tracking!  Like.  Yes please.

- Would that one technique where you fuel your Force use off of a big explosion or whatever fast-moving objects you've got, work as far as magic is concerned.

- Did Rumpelstiltskin actually happen, and what would the economic implications of spinning straw into gold even be.

- If there are multiple claimant personae to a name, e.g. Mab, Titania, and you invoke the generic... who wins?  Is it dealer's choice?

- Oh dear I hope I can't cast that one on accident.  Possing off the fae is bad.

- ...Is the multiverse real.  I mean we've got any evidence in favor from the physics being nominally indeterminate at the "where are all those rolled-up dimensions going" level...

- ...How many ways to casually tell physics to take a hike are just lying around somewhere, anyway?  What's the equivalence of hypothetical thaums to joules?  Is the second law of thermodynamics actually valid?

- These aren't spell ideas, are they.  Uh.

- I wonder if you could actually manifest 'rupees' by breaking enough pots with the right sword.

- Narrativium manipulation: It's a million-to-one chance.  Million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten. (GNU Pterry.)

- ...What's even up with the transmissible sorts of supernatural creature, anyway?  Like, vampires didn't come from nowhere...

- I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.

- Summon Bigger Fish?

- I'm horrible at having ideas.

- Light spell plus prism = more directed light spell?

- Really need to get Eschew Materials...

- ...Actually, what if I did go LARPing...

- Okay that's a horrible idea because it just might work and then where would we be.  (Having liability issues because spells aren't supposed to actually get cast at a LARP, that's where.)

- But I do want to see if I can make a lightsaber.  Lightsabers are cool.

- ...I mean there is the company that makes actual lightsabers/handheld cordless plasma cutters...

- But I dunno, it wouldn't feel quite the same without the shiny rock.

- Speaking of: Structural Grasping.  And other Shirou Emiya bullshit.

- Mythological matsci?  Orichalcum?  Beskar?

I'll organize it

So I notice

You're going down the witch path pretty hard by doing rituals for everything

We might want to try some druid magic or wizard magic instead

To start you on the path of the Fake Jedi

Eh?  Nah I did a ritual for this on account of it being the sort of thing that rituals are good for.  I expect combat evocation et al. to turn out a lot more 'wiz'/dru.  Telekinesis is no good if you have to take a bunch of effort to do it.

Combat evocation seems to be an MG thing

There's this blig [link]

Blog*

Where a retired MG called Majestic Millinier Millie (lol?) talks about how combat magic feels similar to playing soccer

Training into muscle memory, with a dash of strategy on top

Rituals are - for building power to a point, or for careful construction of something specific.  ...Which suggests that I'm gonna want to get hands-on if I want to make magic items at any point.  But that doesn't mean that...

Hmm.  How to explain my intuition here...

Wizard spells are suited for the sort of thing you want to call kinesis.  And if any methodology is going to be suited for divination - and familiars, and suchlike - I'd say that's druid flavor.  Though, funnily enough, I bet there's also druid rituals...

...Right, this seems like it might get complicated.

One moment, please.  Thinking.  Need better buckets, or sth..  MG data is very...specialized.  But she's not wrong about how I expect it to feel, sort of.

Ooh, a blog.  She can't get too distracted reading it but she'll grab a couple interesting-looking posts while she's thinking about how spells should or could be assorted.

It's inactive since four years ago, and pretty sparse before that. Maybe once every couple of months. Final post is a long rant against people calling her a faker. Interesting standout articles:

That Time I Went to Outer Space

Why the Army can't fight monsters

So what does magic ACTUALLY feel like?

No, Puchuus aren't evil, and here's why

Yeah, I power up from sex, so what?

Right.  So.

Hmm.  Internal/External, Physical/Mental, and Personal/Cultural?

Creating this octet of...

...Yeah, this is starting to make sense as a potential casting classification scheme.  Or is this more about casters again...

Internal Physical Personal: Cultivators.

Internal Physical Cultural: Culture Heroes?  MGs?  ...Not sure this is the right bucket.  Bards?

Internal Mental Personal: 'Wizards', meditative casting

Internal Mental Cultural: Priests, invokers???

External Physical Personal: Tinkers.

External Physical Cultural: Ritual casting.

External Mental Personal: Tricksters?  Power from the perception of others?  Not sure.

External Mental Cultural: Psychic team bonds and whatnot.

...Yeah this turned out to be about casters again.  Dammit.  That's not what I wanted, brain!

She'll take the last two articles, and 'rant about people calling her a faker', please.  For now.  The adventures in space do sound interesting.

She does, however, still have spell-typing to figure out.

Spell classification...

I feel like there is a pretty direct analogy from what I just brained up to cover spell casters, but hmm.

Three elements of a spell, maybe.

Symbology, Control Structure?

Hmm.  Passive/Active is right out.  Conscious/Subconscious?  Or something about agency...  Rassafrassing.  This should work but it doesn't.  So what am I missing?  What makes spells distinct?

Great fucking question, past me, that's what I've been trying to figure out for the past umpty!

I feel like it's gotta be something about...

Where you put some thing in the spell.  How the spell itself is -- scaffolded!  Aha!  Yeah.  That seems like it might work.

...But then what makes the scaffolds distinct?  We've come back around to where we started!  Augh!

Hm.

I think maybe you can classify spells by whether their symbols are personal or cultural, whether those symbols are invoked by physical or mental means, and whether it is held onto or released?

Ugh, it's still not quite hanging together...

It does seem like I could be getting closer, though.  But I wouldn't bet on it.

This is...  Awfully annoying.  I want there to be a model!

...Oh hmm.

For various reasons the word psychosomatic came through my head, and now that I think about it, psychic/somatic feels better.

Thinking or doing, I guess.  ...But that's physical and mental dressed up in slightly fancier words!

Phfff...  Maybe I should just steal the idea of spell components.

...Oh.  I know what it is.  It's preparation requirements.  And whether the agency of an active effect is your own, I guess?  Definitely sold on preparation requirements being a notable distinction.

...Prep: Psychic, Somatic, Material, Focal?  ...Not quite, let's try that again...

Preparation: Mental or Material?

Symbols: Personal or Cultural...?

Casting: Psychic or Somatic.  ...Okay, actually, I think it's likely that you really want both of those in a good spell, that Light cantrip was a real pain - but what predominates, I guess.

...Yeah.  This feels like it might actually make sense to sort by.

The rant seems fairly typical for a content creator who has gotten the wrong end of an internet bandwagon, basically declaring that she doesn't want to deal with death threats and doxxing attempts and it's better to just vanish, fuck you haters. And no, she still won't reveal EXACTLY which former-MG she is, stop trying to guess. The comments are. Interesting.

'Puchuus aren't evil': According to this blogger, they discuss philosophy and the ramifications of their actions all the time? And will accept well-reasoned debates, sometimes even changing their policies. Yes, they don't listen to cops, because ACAB. No, they don't count as cops themselves, they're not enforcing laws and imprisoning people. Yes, they sometimes erase memories, but that's because of trauma. No, they don't steal little girls' souls. She wasn't forced into it and she was actually advised to quit twice during her career, and she eventually retired from active Magical Girling, like most do. Yes, sometimes MGs die, but sometimes ordinary little girls die, too, so.

'Power up through sex': Apparently Magical Girl style casting finds itself massively boosted in flexibility and power by strong emotions. Hopes and dreams. Leaning into them and reveling, living your best life. And guess what one of the strongest, most persistent human emotions is? HORNY. When she downranked from S tier to A tier at around 19-20, her Puchuu coach advised her on sexual meditation techniques, which let her keep hitting S consistently for years more. She argues that being fucked thoroughly has saved lives by keeping her at top form, and if you hate it because a prude, lol u mad.

I want to remember that we have little idea what the heck we are looking at, magic wise

Classification systems are only useful when the classifications are relevant

And models should be considered hypotheses to be torched until further notice

I could sort all the shit I'm finding according to these classes

Or according to SCP ratings

But I'm not sure that's USEFUL? For anything but satisfying the 'put thing in box' part of brain?

Very true.  I just...Find a world-model with even bad boxes, a lot easier to work with.  Especially when I'm being asked to make things.  Because even if the boxes are bad I can see how they might be bad a lot easier.  Or something.

But what got us onto this tangent was originally your concern that I'm approaching my spells too witchy?

So like, there's already classification systems in play.

...Not that it matters too much.

I think I've got this under control, though?  Like.  I can use the Force.  Even if I haven't actively tapped it yet, I know for a certainty that this will work.  And the amount of telekinesis to carefully stop bloodflow and KO any human opponent, is minimal.  And replicable by human hands.  's how sleeper holds work.  I think that's the name, at least.

So it's not like I'm gonna be out of shit to do if something comes down to fighting.  ...Even if I vaguely worry that I would end up Sith-ing instead of Jedi-ing, that way.  ...Then again, it's not like the Sith Code is some horrendous abomination, it's just that the Sith practitioners are kriffing idiots.  Have I gone on this rant at you yet?  About how the Sith stupidly enslaved themselves to their fears by stoking fear in the hopes that it would give them power they had no real need of with their chains broken, and created this awful defect-defect equilibrium of horrible?

Because that is absolutely my headcanon here, Rakata or no Rakata.

...Or, in other words, the Sith Code ought to produce the tantric practitioners (and the ADHD/autism hyperfocus junkies) to the Jedi's ascetic Zen Buddhism.  Hell, with a little nudge, you could really make a Sithy order of warrior-monks.

Hmm.  There's a thought, I guess.  Use a different Code to try and interact with The Force, see what happens...

I almost think your mental ward thing is more Cultivatory than Witchy

Especially if it ... gave you an SCP report, something you didn't specifically try to design in

It's making me nervous on your behalf

Cultivator stories are full of shit like 'failed breakthrough fucked up my meridians and crippled me'

So are you going with sorting things like this for now? Preparation: Mental or Material? Symbols: Personal or Cultural...? Casting: Psychic or Somatic

I'm not certain I'm going with anything in particular, yet.  Just that it feels like there's a way things are shaped that my brain is picking up on, and I'm still trying to put into words.  This happens sometimes.

And yeah, that does...Mmm.  It makes sense?  But I don't want to think into reality something that needn't be true, as far as assuming dangers.  Because we don't actually want Chaos to exist, and all.

It does feel like it's more of a...

Cornerstone technique?  I'm not sure how to describe my intuition here.  But it was meant to be a grand thing, a solid, enduring, ha, foundation, that I could build upon - and a grand thing was what I got.

Something that felt bigger than myself even though it was my hands and my words and my choices.

It's so hard to explain the...

It's...

This is like one of those times when, despite all reasons to feel and believe to the contrary, I Know that it'll be alright - and I've never been proven false by those.  It's like one of those.  ...It is one of those.  Holy shit.  ...Yeah.  I get why you'd be worried.  You're not in my head.  But I promise you.  I've never had feeling like this explode on me, and it's not going to start now.

OcularStone is typing...

OcularStone is typing...

Yah sry, you're the one with magic here in the end

Google says the 'just knowing' thing happens w magic sometimes so

(Around this time, someone pushes an envelope under her apartment door sill and/or mail slot)

Huh.  Wish I'd known that, I could've gotten started sooner.

...Did she just see someone walk up to the front of her house (well, 'her' house, that is technically shared, and, y'know, a rental,) through the blinds?  They didn't knock or anything...  Huh, what's that there?

...I've got surprise under-the-door mail, it seems.  Hm.  You got anything for screening mail in your spell compilation?

Hold on

(pause)

I have a 'detect poison' and a 'detect trap'?

Gimme plskthx

Kinda tempted to roll my own detect spell, ngl, but better tried and true.  Do you have any 'detect disease'?  Not sure if that'd scan like a poison.

Uh

How about 'disinfect'?

He sends them; Detect Poison is a witchy spell, detect trap seems Wizardy (it describes a state of hypervigilance and focusing on sending out a gentle pulse).

Disinfect seems useful to have on hand in general.

Hypervigilance, you say.  Did you mean, "weaponize what's probably a trauma response?"

She hopes she has what she needs for the witchy spell, just in case, but she does think that the wizard spell will likely give her enough data.

The wizard spell actually means something very particular, and uses a whole paragraph to describe it!

('Not in the sense of paranoia or fear, but of vigilance and caution. That of a bureaucrat checking every line of a contract; That of a soldier knowing that danger lurks around the corner. You must also focus on the principle of illusion; (That is, be aware of your own perceptions and how they can lie to you; Your mind is a fallible machine- Exercises on this can be found in ch. 1)- By focusing on the principle of illusion and on personal danger resulting from it, and on overcoming it, your magic will be primed to highlight differences in what your mind sees and the truth of the world.') 

And a whole page of advice on how to tell if you're getting close or not! And mentions that this is the very most basic version.

Mmhmm.  She knows.  She can be incredibly poetic about emotional states too, when she tries.  Doesn't really change the key things she's tapping into to get there, though!

...Dear gods, this spell is incredibly florid considering how much of it is very thinly veiled CBT/DBT exercises.  I'm half expecting to read something about 'wise mind' and lose all suspension of disbelief.

...In the "I'll burst out laughcrying because good gods why is everything like this" sense, not, like, a breaking the spell, sense.

Can probably get it to work, though.  Especially w/ the right music on hand...Hmm.  Which music do I want, actually...

...Ah, yes.  This will do.

Opus Magnum Solving 6, don't fail her now.

The envelope sits there. Menacingly.

...Is it a trap, though?