There is a forbidden type of magic out there. It isn’t forbidden because it’s inherently evil, or forces you to lose your humanity, or requires human sacrifices - it’s just forbidden because it’s annoying as heck to fight against.

“Ma’am, I really must insist that you pay for the room and board I’ve been giving you! It’s been a week!”

“Fine, fine,” I grumble. “I have a few options for payment: I could give you paper money, cheap gaudy jewelry, chocolate coins, spiders, some pretty seashells-”

“Spiders????” he repeats, baffled.

“Spiders it is, then,” I agree equitably, and with a wave of my hand the bed I’ve been sleeping in for the last week turns into a writhing mass of various spiders.

Worth it.

—

“Stop right there! You’re under arrest for fraud, destruction of property, and-!”

I yawn. “Didn’t ask, don’t care.” A few gestures, and the guards’ swords are all transmuted into spiders, and then they’re too busy to worry about little ol’ me.

—

“You have insulted my honor and humiliated me in front of my children! I demand satisfaction! I demand a wizard’s duel!”

Shrugging, I say, “Sure, okay, whatever. Right here and now okay?”

The pompous wizard-noble blinks. “I- you don’t want to prepare? Get your wizard’s staff or anything?”

“Nah, I’m pretty good with somatic gestures.”

“Well, if you’re sure… here and now then! Have at you!” He slams his staff down on the ground dramatically, a small shockwave of fire radiating out from the impact.

So of course, I turn his staff into spiders.

“AHHHH WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK”

“So if you’re too busy screaming to cast spells, does that mean I win?”

“AUGH ONE OF THEM BIT ME”

“I’m taking that as a yes.”

—

After that, they start coming at me in waves, with cheap wands and staves and swords and bows bought in bulk, hoping to exhaust my magical reserves so they can get close enough to put a magic inhibitor on me.

They did not expect my reserves to be as vast as they were, not did they expect me to be able to transmute the inhibitors themselves into spiders.

“Didn’t you take Magic Basics in wizard college?” I yell at the panicking mages. “Inhibitors aren’t immune to magic until the moment they activate! Serious weak point in the design, tell your magitechnicians to fix that!”

—

So of course they try assassins next.

Poison fails, because I transmute any food and drink I get into spiders and then transmute them back. Pretty easy way to get rid of poison.

So then they try knives in dark alleys. The knives bruise through my full-body spider-silk outfit, but do not penetrate, and they only get one shot before they have bigger problems.

Next is killing me in my sleep. None live to report back that the human-shaped lump under the blankets is actually a mass of highly venomous spiders.

The kingdom throws everything it has at me, and I continue to walk away, heralded by the chittering of spiders and the screams of everyone else.

—

Finally, I stand before the king himself in his overly opulent throne room, and by now he is a broken shell of a man in the face of my unorthodox tactics.

Good.

“What do you want?” he practically sobs. “You’ve singlehandedly redirected the entire crown’s budget for the next three years into replacing every weapon you’ve turned into spiders. Much more and we’ll be invaded by our neighbors! We wouldn’t be able to resist being annexed! So what can I give you to make you stop doing this?!”

I pause and pretend to consider, tapping a finger against my chin thoughtfully. “You know, you sent my brother off to war a few years back. That conflict with the Yughs up north, I believe. He didn’t want to go, so your guards forced him at spearpoint. I haven’t seen him since.”

He seizes on that, as I expected. “Yes, yes, I’ll have him returned right away! Tell me his name and I’ll honorably release him from duty and have him escorted safely home!”

“Oh?” I raise one sardonic eyebrow. “Are you able to bring back the dead now, oh wise and glorious king?”

He pales, and it’s the most satisfying thing I’ve seen in years.

“You have nothing I want,” I growl, letting the anger slip through for the first time in years. “You cannot bring him back, you cannot make up for my loss with all the riches in your kingdom. The only thing I want is to take everything from you, the way you did to me. Your kingdom will bleed out of resources, one of the neighboring countries you’ve been trying to conquer for decades now will take advantage and annex this place, and you will either be executed or forced to work for a living for the first time in your life.”

I glare at him, and he refuses to meet my eyes. “You will lose everything you ever cared about in your life. One spider at a time.”

I transmute his throne and crown into spiders (non-deadly; he doesn’t get to escape my wrath that easily), then turn and walk away, ignoring his screams and sobs.

—

And that’s why, when the Yughs finally annexed the kingdom I grew up in, they preemptively made Transarachnomancy a forbidden magical art. Not sure how they intend to enforce that, mind, but I’m not looking to challenge that. I’ve gotten what I wanted; if some other aspiring mage wants to try and follow in my footsteps, that’s not my problem.

Besides, in terms of magical skill, I’ve always been an outlier anyway. Most mages would be lucky to turn just one knife into a spider at a time; I can turn ten thousand with a few gestures. I doubt anyone will outdo my legacy.

But hey, if you want to try and surpass Georgia of the Spiders? Feel free. I’ll welcome the competition.

IM

Amazing A+ no notes

@nimcha3

One of the most fun character concepts that I've had that I've never been able to fit into anything is The Most Appropriate Socialite Lady. Nobody dislikes her, but she is, indeed, very Appropriate, always seeming to do everything precisely to social etiquette, even according to social rules that nobody else knew were a thing. If there is a protocol to how to behave or respond in any given situation, no matter how obscure or how long ago it was that this was written down in some Refined Society Etiquette Book, she'll know it. So she is a bit old-fashioned sometimes, but not in a regressive way.

Every time there's a situation where nobody actually knows what the right way to respond would be, they quietly glance at her, because either she knows exactly how to handle this, or if the situation truly is without precedent, her educated guess of what should be done must be the right one. Someone might even write it down for a future etiquette book, of how This Most Polite Well-Mannered Lady responded to this awkward situation.

She doesn't judge people, and is never rude about people breaking Good Manner Rules on purpose (as pointing out someone doing so would be impolite), but the way she seems genuinely surprised and confused whenever someone breaks the protocol that nobody else might even been aware of makes people feel self-conscious or awkward sometimes. And she politely pretends to not notice that. She is very kind, very sweet, but also extremely Appropriate.

So even if this isn't a Victorian style gentlemanly "fine ladies are fragile and must be sheltered from the world"-style society by default, people still feel the need to behave well and be on their best formal behaviour around her, not out of fear of judgement but because she genuinely is that way and nobody wants to upset her. And if someone who doesn't give a shit about protocols upsets her on purpose by deliberately doing something that's fucking rude, they'll be discreetly moved to a different location before getting the shit beat out of them because fuck you for upsetting her.

The thing is, she's actually just autistic as hell. She originally started reading up on social etiquette as a way of masking, but it became a special interest for her, and she isn't just thrilled to teach you how to properly fold a napkin to help you better fit in to the Refined Society, but because she fucking loves infodumping. She's not trying to set herself apart, gatekeep, judge others or show off how she's better than you (like many others of her background would), she just genuinely enjoys having explicitly and clearly written rules and instructions on how to behave in society.

Also the tactful and graceful way in which she doesn't pay notice to veiled insults, or people accidentally saying something insulting to her, isn't always an act. A lot of the time she genuinely just does not notice.

This is literally Steris from the Wax and Wayne/Mistborn trilogy!! Like every single point to a T!! If anyone wants to see this character please check Mistborn out!

(wax and Wayne is the sequel series to Mistborn: steris is a love interest/awesome side character in this)

Our faces were very close, mine lower, his higher, leaning together as we peered out from under the burning hood at the swirling greyness all around.

find me on instagram !

i will never stop thinking about how the difference between avatars and victims is the awe the almost love that the avatars have for their fear vs the victims just having pants shitting fear. like mike crew, yeah falling into an endless expanse is terrifying but to him there was freedom in the endless, there was joy and excitement in the fall there was the beauty in insignificance. there was love in an ever expanding universe DO YOU HEAR ME

(Prev tag) <-PLEASE GET STARTED ON JANE

It’s genuinely one of my favourite things about the whole series. Also, talking to people, you’ll find that almost everyone has a relationship like that with at least one of the 14 if they think about it. My mom has an affinity for The Web, for instance, while I want nothing to do with it. A dear friend of mine has an awe for The Vast that I understand (as someone studying space) but cannot empathise with because it scares the piss out of me.

I, throughout all my time listening to TMA, have been drawn to The Eye. On a personal-experience level, I don’t understand why people fear it. According to the wiki (which pulls from various canonical quotations), it is defined as “the fear of being watched, exposed, followed, of having secrets known.” From childhood, I’ve loved the idea of being watched. I was raised quasi-religious, and the only piece that ever stuck with me was the hope that there was some omniscient being watching us all as individuals. I felt for a long time that every moment of my life had meaning as long as there was something there to See it. I also cannot keep my own secrets. like what’s the point in having them if not to have them seen by others. my irls know i Cannot Shut My Fucking Mouth. The Eye is also defined as “the drive to know and understand, even if your discoveries might destroy you.” Literally holy shit this is my entire driving force.

What are y’all’s fears that you have a similar connection with? It’s so fascinating to observe how people form connections with some, and whether they’ve carried the love their entire lives.

personally? the flesh. i know that’s one of the less popular ones, but it appeals to me in a really weird and specific way.

due to a bunch of fun childhood shenanigans involving the internet, i’ve struggled with disordered eating and body dysmorphia for a long-ass time, because it never quite felt like my body was what it needed to be. the bodybuilder flesh episode nearly made me cry because of how hard it hit home and because the concept of being able to just twist yourself into something more efficient sounds wonderful to me, even if it was meant to be a bad thing in the context of the episode.

Additionally: i don’t mind gore in the slightest, i love the taste of meat and have no qualms about touching or eating it (i’m always the one who does dissections in bio), and organised religion, especially Christianity, has a very powerful pull on me. also flesh has the funniest ritual. chucking a shit ton of pork in a pit sounds great to me.

so yeah. flesh all the way baby

There's a "women want him fish fear him" joke to be made abiut Martin because "Fear want him" but I can't figure out the other part. Men fish him Fear want him. I don't know. I've been thinking about this for weeks

hold fast my friend. aid is coming.

AID HAS ARRIVED

The Need to Stay

(Thought I’d upload my recent comics to Tumblr! I totally forgot it only lets you upload 10 pics at a time, and this is 11, but fingers crossed it works!)

There's a "women want him fish fear him" joke to be made abiut Martin because "Fear want him" but I can't figure out the other part. Men fish him Fear want him. I don't know. I've been thinking about this for weeks

hold fast my friend. aid is coming.

cool drag transformation (im on episode 115 so please no spoilers)

poor, disposable Michael

first of all: OW

second of all: what a beautiful michael. 10/10 design, style and vibe. a perfect little guy in every way

ive always wanted to do one of these!

artists, introduce yourselves and share some of your work in the reblogs!! please keep it sfw 🙏 and have fun browsing the rbs and finding new artists to follow!!