(no subject)

[bedlamsbard]

Huh. This is new. I think I figured out a way to turn the immortal!Susan story -- sans crack crossovers, obviously -- into an original, while still keeping the "they were kings and queens in a magical land during WWII" aspect of it. (It involves Faery, somehow. That part's still being worked on.) Also, because not everything I can write can have massive amounts of incest in it (ha! try telling this to the colonial fantasy story or the werewolf story), the Peter character and the Susan character are no longer siblings. The Peter character definitely has a younger sister and possibly a younger brother; the Susan character definitely has an older brother but I'm unsure whether or not she has younger sibs. All of them are dead by the time we get to 2009 and the FBI thing.

Also, Morgan le Fay may make an appearance. (In a generally beneficial sort of way. Not, like, evil, just immortal and cynical.)

In other news, remember when I said I'd like to see what the Revolutionary War would have been like with magic? Apparently it's already been done.

Okay, studying now.

Comments

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

And technology which may or may not include weapons developing earlier, which leads to a whole chain reaction of change. Because once scientists come up with theories, it's a lot easier to test and implement them with magic than with only technology. And if magic was combined with transportation early, it would change things a lot because travel time was such a significant factor in the past. I think the different magics thing would be lessened by public schooling, since they have fairly standardized curriculums. I can see native Americans either losing most of their magical traditions or never being so conquered since the technological advantage would be less significant. Hmm, movements to not teach offensive magic vs. the magical equivalent of the NRA?

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

And how does the second amendment apply, then? How does it change the Constitution and the Amendments and the Declaration?

And what about WWII? And Hitler? And the Civil War? Oooh. The Civil War.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

What kinds of additions would have to be made to forensics once it got invented? How would prisons- and possibly the sentences given to criminals- change, since it would be impossible to keep them prisoner in the prisons we have (unless it's prop-based magic)? How would language and literature change- I can't even imagine what those fairy tales would have to be like to keep the same tone as our fairy tales, and there would be whole chunks of language that would change (you can't say things are magic sarcastically in the same way we can, because magic isn't in the realm of fantasy, it's a very concrete thing). Things they classify as fantasy would be interesting to see.

The underground railroad, with tracking spells and counterspells and spells to mask counterspells. Depending on how the magic went, slavery might not have been as widespread, because it might be possible to work the fields easier with magic, and of course you wouldn't want your slaves using magic.

Battles once healing magic advances far enough- soldiers fall, they get healed, they rejoin the battle. Which would make the armies strange, and weird the tactics. How would that affect the Geneva Convention?

I could see treatment of magic being an issue while writing the constitution, possibly along the lines of religion. Ooh, prohibition of establishing a state school of magic, which would make things interesting. Or it might just be treated like another subject in school.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oooh, what about religion? How would that be affected? Magical priests, and then the Inquisition back in the day, and some of the sects that absolutely abhor magic clash with the ones that use a lot of it.

And I bet there's magic that's tied into blood, somehow -- certain bloodlines, which probably means certain DNA markers, and there's obviously going to be conflict about that, somehow. And then the magical purists that are against mingling magics or diluting the bloodlines or something.

What about government? Are politicans going to be allowed to use magic? Maybe it's not allowed within Congress, or something, or there's never been a president who's been able to do more than light a few candles.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't know how people can create a society where magic use is open and not consider these issues. Magic would change things so much that everything would be unrecognizable by us!

Regulation of magic. Safeguarding elections from being magically tampered with- maybe some different method of polling? The magical equivalent of the Amish.

If magic is really widespread and accepted, politicians would be allowed to use it, because it's just an everyday thing to them- though, of course, some of it might be a breach of etiquette while in Congress. If it's less accepted to start out with, and it's treated more like race, it starts slowly trickling into Congress until eventually we have a magical president.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Especially if one happens to be holding to the idea that history still happened exactly as it did, which occasionally requires some weird contortions, like how did the ragtag American colonial magicians defeat the orderly, well-trained British Army magicians? And the Blitz -- how did that go down?

Or varioius assassinations -- maybe that the assassins used nonmagical methods rather than magical ones, or some combination, leading to the Great JFK Question: was there a magician distracting the Secret Service, or did the shooter work alone?

...oh god, Mardi Gras with real magic.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

I can't see how it could stay the same- in response to magic, society would have to change so much. Just think about how much technology- even one KIND of technology, like cars- changed society. Cars led to highways and suburbs and a huge chunk of the oil industry, all of which changed society in massive ways. And the existence of magic is really more massive than that, like it's the industrial revolution (the magical revolution!), unless the magic's so limited that it might as well not exist, in which case it's not so interesting. You'd have to contort how societies work so much to keep events the same that it would completely ruin the whole exercise, unless magic was a *new* discovery...which would be fun, because it would be all about the changes that society undergoes because of it, but not really the same thing.

Elvis: is he still alive, due to the magical procedures of the aliens who abducted him?

Hm, I wonder what the magical equivalent of hackers would be, because they'd have to exist in some form.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I don't think you would, though -- I mean, if you say that magic is going to change a major historical event -- go with the American Revolution here, I suppose -- then that negates some of the interest. I mean, even without magic some things happened that are pretty unbelievable; it makes it more interesting is magic played a part, because it does raise questions. I just feel like a lot of the original interest is lost when you open a book and it's all, "Because the British had magic, there was no American Revolution!" (Which...I read a book like that, somewhere.)

Airport security has to be even more of a nightmare with magic. *grins*

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

Yeah, of course a lot of the interest is in seeing how the same events are changed by magic, while still having them happen. But if we're talking wide-scale magic usage, that's going to warp things until they're a lot different, which I guess is interesting more in a world-building way than plotwise (it's like those books that have the premise of "what would the world be like today if the roman empire never fell?"). And of course, when you're doing that it's always fun to toss in a bit of "this is how America got its independence, with magic in the mix, even though the issues were slightly different and the methods were a lot different".

What I've never seen, that would be interesting, would be to treat magic like math. Everybody has the ability to do it, but you have to learn how. For most of history, education isn't widespread so most people know a couple of cantrips and that's it, and then as education becomes more widespread so does magic, and people can go on to get doctorates in magic. So it wouldn't affect most of history because only the elite are educated- though it would probably affect the laws quite a bit because lawmakers traditionally are educated. And actually I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen that concept. I've seen schools solely for magic, but I haven't seen them in *this* world (Harry Potter doesn't count, since they're so isolationist), or as anything other than *solely* schools of magic, which isn't quite the same thing.

Illegal immigration when people can teleport. :D

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Or not so different, in some ways -- Boston Tea Party. Maybe that went down exactly the same way.

Or, you know, the War on Terror. Which would be interesting. Magical road bombs where, when they go off, nullify magic in the immediate radius for a short amount of time. Launching magical "nets" that tangle up helicopter blades. Calling up sandstorms. Suicide bombers that can hide themselves with illusion.

(Yes, I know, touchy subject, but still.)

Hmm...maybe Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci Chronicles come the closest to the concept? It's not quite the same, but it's fairly similar. (Great. Now I want to reread the books. *happy sigh*)

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

Oh, magical terrorism would be *fun*. Well, to read about. Not so much to live (that seems to be how it is with most interesting concepts). Especially since terrorists seem to improvise a lot. People getting creative with magic is scary, especially when they use it for those sorts of purposes.

England restricting magic use (just in the colonies? Everywhere?) before the American Revolution, so one of the issues is freedom of the use of magic, and obviously there are some dedicated magic-users in the colonies.

Man, it's been forever since I read the Chrestomanci Chronicles. And yeah, it does come close. Kind of weird that it isn't used more often, though.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

And when they're combining it with just plain technology, too. Like -- oh, god, I hate to use this example so much, but it's relevent -- before 9/11, maybe airport security had a really heavy concentration on anti-magic (obviously screwing around with magic is probably not something you want to do on a plane), so they were lax on just plain everything else. So some disasters are just plain ordinary -- no magic.

Heaven knows I have always wanted the Wild West with magic. *dreamy sigh* I don't know what it says about me that my first thought is, "Oh, of course, the prostitutes are going to be able to use illusion to seem like whoever you really want to fuck -- they can look like your wife, or your girlfriend, or your wive's brother."

It is, yeah. *thoughtful* I feel like there's one book -- well, a series -- where it is used (and this is the one where the Revolution didn't happen), but I can't remember the title. Oh, wait, there's another set like that by a different author, but again with the not remembering title -- um, Orson Scott Card, the Alvin Maker series, but I haven't actually read it, just one short story, so I don't remember how much of this actually came through.

If all this worldbuilding makes me want to write, I shall BLAME YOU.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, and they'd be concentrating on magic terrorism-prevention-wise because earlier terrorism was either mostly or entirely magical, and then bam! completely magicless terrorism.

The wild west with magic (no, fingers, don't type terrorism instead of magic) would be awesome. I can't even imagine it, and it's still awesome.

Alvin Maker was a nice example of actually making changes to history and society (less so society, but I find that a lot of people have difficulty writing actual changes to society) because of the addition of magic- from what I remember, the United States weren't really united, and there were other changes that I'm vague on because I'm not a huge American History buff.

I love getting blamed for making people want to write! It makes me happy that at least *someone's* writing, since I'm at the "poke the muse with a stick to see if she's dead" stage.

Standardized testing of magic, especially if it's the same multiple choice standardized testing we have for everything else. XD

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

And then airport security really sucks.

Or the Gold Rush! Dragging out diviners and seers and what not to try and find where the real strains of gold are.

Man, I wish I had time to write. (I should...be doing homework, but instead I'm watching Farscape. OH WELL.) All I got is this:

Sand was gathering outside the barely visible curtain of magic; more and more of it was starting to seep through, and chances were that they'd all have to roll themselves into their tents and beneath their trucks to keep from choking on the stuff before long. The sand storm meant that they couldn't see shit by scrying, which left Clay squinting at a computer screen and trying to figure out whether or not the heat signatures were Americans, Al-Qaeda, civilians, animals, or not even heat signatures at all.

"Captain," Velazquez announced from behind him, sounding tragic, and Clay looked up.

"What is it, Corporal?"

Velazquez held up the mouse squirming in his hands, and Clay stared at it, thought, oh, God, what is it this time?, and said again, "What is it, Corporal?"

"It's Holland, sir."

"Holland is conjuring animals again?" Clay said dubiously. He'd already had enough talks with the private about that; Holland had been a cornfed Kansas farmboy before he'd enlisted, and he had the bad habit of conjuring animals out of thin air, or possibly out of other people's homes. Clay had already had to take care of the damned emu. "Listen, Corporal, you go find me Holland and bring him here, because this is getting out of hand; we're trying to win a war here --"

Velazquez looked even more tragic. "This is Holland, sir," he said, and the mouse squeaked, nosed forward, and fell out of Velazquez's cupped hands.

Clay jerked forward and just barely caught it. He raised the mouse up to eye level, squinting at it, and tried to see Holland in it.

"Be careful!" Velazquez exclaimed. "He bit Chavez already!"

"Probably because Chavez keeps stealing his CDs and his webcam," Clay said, thinking, Jesus Christ, I bet Great-Granddaddy Johnston never had to deal with this when he was shivering his balls off in Valley Forge. He tried to hand Holland back to Velazquez -- tried, because Holland dug his claws into Clay's hands and hung on. Sighing, he stood up, kneed his laptop shut, and got one hand free of Holland so that he could stuff it back in its case and sling it over his shoulder, and told the mouse sternly, "There had better be a damn good explanation for this when you can talk again," before he went off to the infirmary tent to see about getting this reversed, because really now, why did this always happen to his company?

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

Farscape! \o/

I can really see the military having a love/hate relationship with magic-users, because they're *useful*, but no matter what kind of training they get, they never seem to be quite up to military standards. Even when technically they are. And of course they're all strange, like it's a requirement to use magic or something.

Valley Forge:
Major Johnston tried to hold his hands steady enough that he wouldn't lose the mouse which had been Private Smith, feeling his headache get worse. "Well, at least he eats less this way," he said philosophically. "Take him to the infirmary and make sure he doesn't get killed before we can figure out how to reverse this."

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

FARSCAPE. Crichton = love.

And there's always the regular amount of bitching, because normal soldiers can do basic stuff, but really, is the fancy stuff worth it? And when it is, then the government decides it's not cost-effective, which usually ends in the soldiers and the magicians bitching about the government.

I have the vague idea of, like, story covering several generations of American soldiers. Only. No plot. ALAS.

WWII:
Lieutenant Badon holds up Private Reletti by the tail. "You couldn't have done this while we were back in fucking America?" he demands, and Reletti squeaks and squirms until Sergeant Sidell comes to rescue him, glaring at Badon over his shoulder until he vanishes into the infirmary tent -- where, Badon is sure, they have much more important things to worry about than one dumb private who managed to turn himself into a rat. Mouse. Whatever.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

He is, lots of love. The last plotbunny I had for Farscape was that a post-Peacekeeper Wars Crichton ends up doing the kind of time travel where he ends up in his old body on a permanent basis (I don't think I've ever seen it outside of Harry Potter fanfiction), accidentally, and he goes back to the night before the Farscape is launched. So he can either stay on Earth, which isn't home to him any more, or he can go back to the Moya of season 1, where Aeryn hasn't even left the Peacekeepers.

Well, there is the Recurring Mouse, which is a minor plot, and other bizarre similarities, which are possibly the result of a curse so far back in time that it's been forgotten. You'd need multiple plots, though, one for each unless there are a *lot* of similarities. Fill in the parts you have to have: strong military tradition, survival for at least long enough to pass on the genes, increasing magic and tech with each generation but the privates make the same stupid error of turning into a mouse. Which isn't helpful, much. Plot gestation kills me, especially when I don't have a *plot*, I have a *setting*. It'd probably be best to start with a theme, since it's multiple plotlines. Unless, of course, it's a series of only-vaguely-related drabbles in the same verse which do not make up an actual storyline.

Ancient Rome:
Legionary Gracchus eyed the mouse with distaste. "Some people should have been exposed as infants. Take him to the infirmary tent."

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I have seen various parts of Farscape in not-quite order, but Crichton, Crichton. I like my main characters out of their element and crazy, thanks muchly.

The obvious plot, and it's so cliched that it's the sort of thing I'd probably put a book down for, would be that it suddenly seems like the world is losing its magic, and whatever can be wrong? (Global warming?) Or the lovely, "and then someone from our earth ended up in their world," which gives an outside view, but isn't particularly all that interesting. *considers* I have the vague idea that another subplot might be a congresswoman that has something to do with something.

The Caribbean:
Captain Laurence looked at the cat Seaman Adams was holding and the mouse that was perched shivering on top of a coil of thick rope. "Are you sure he's not one of the other ten thousand mice aboard my ship?" he asked.

"He was the only one that wasn't trying to get into the hardtack," Adams said.

Laurence resisted the urge to tear off his wig and stomp on it. "Take him to Williams and see if he can do anything about it," he said, and went to go see if there was any wine left in his cabin.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

Craziness is awesome. I'm not sure I like craziness or borderline craziness more, actually. I think all of the characters I like are either fucked up or would be if their writers didn't, like, just fall down and *die* on the job.

There's the reverse of that, the "character from their world comes to our world" plot, which is at least slightly more interesting, but it's less about *that* world. Heh, the family keeps falling through to our world and then going back to theirs, only they don't tell anybody about it because that's the kind of thing that gets published in Weekly World News. And of course, people from *their* world here stand out more than people from *our* world there, in various ways.

...My well of settings for the Recurring Mouse has run dry. :(

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I am actually shocked that they made Crichton crazy (or varying degrees thereof) and then stuck with it. Because he would be. Very much so.

I feel like for it to work as something other than just, "Oh, look, world with magic!" there has to be something that threatens the status quo -- easiest answer is passage through worlds, I suppose, but that's maybe too easy. And everyone does that, anyway. What makes this one character (and his family?) so important?

Oh, man, I could go on forever.

Thermopylae:
No Spartan warrior had ever looked so woebegone as Atherion when he approached, scarlet cloak rippling a little in the wind coming off the channel.

"What is it now?" King Leonidas asked.

Atherion held up his hands, where a little mouse squeaked frantically at Leonidas. "It's Simonides," he said.

Leonidas stared at the mouse that had been his youngest warrior. "Well, maybe he can bite the Persians' ankles," he said.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it seems that usually they either start out sane and if they go crazy it's not for long, or they start out crazy and never get sane. But Crichton started out sane and *went* crazy, which was awesome.

It does need more than world with magic, because that's just the setting. Doing it like it's mainstream fiction for that world? The main character has completely normal problems, nothing that's going to change the world or anything, just her going about her life, and the magic is mostly background and minor. There's nothing actually *important* about the family, they're just normal people doing normal stuff which is interesting enough to read about but not earth-shattering or anything. Unless, of course, she's a magic-user, in which case I imagine the magic plays a larger role in her life.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

And stayed crazier, varying shades thereof. ("Crackers Don't Matter" is one of my favorite eps ever, because even though he's crazier than usual it's -- not by all that much.)

My instinct would be to take the first character, the army captain, and use him as a main character, then set it against maybe a larger background? *thoughtful* My instinct always goes back to the military, though.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

He seemed saner than everybody else in Crackers Don't Matter, but I'm not sure if that's because the difference in him was less than the difference in everybody else, or if he actually was. Amusingly, I don't classify Harvey as craziness, because he's actually there. Why is it that all of the other TV shows that, by all rights, should have their characters go if not crazy then at least strange, just drop the ball and have them more or less normal despite all the weird stuff that happens to and around them? It's more interesting when they get strange.

That would be interesting. It would be today, only a step to the side, and since I'm willing to bet they see more magic in wars than in places of the world that are peaceful, it would make magic more prominent, and more important to the characters- if you're in New York and you see magic you're not going to find it very important, but in a place where it might be somebody trying to kill you it's going to be more interesting to you.

Gangs with magic. Which is a very contradictory image in my mind, because I tend to see magic more as something that you study for, and there's this image in my head of gang members facing off and some of them are using magic.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

My pet theory for "Crackers Don't Matter" is that the crazy-making stuff didn't have as much influence on him because he was already crazy. And then it just got chalked up to him being as crazy as everyone else on that particular occurrence, and also because his background is so alien to everyone that they're not even going to register crazy or sane when it comes to him.

It could be that...hmm, that this is the point when technology is finally starting to catch up to magic, so there's a lot of drama regarding that? Because technology is a lot more "fair" than magic. And maybe, I don't know, hunting down a certain terrorist (or something?) who has Plans regarding the two.

On the other hand, though, there must be some kind of folk magic, the kind of magic that's traditionally very much looked down upon. (Herbcraft, blood magic, that sort of thing -- "primitive" magic.) And if that's what the gangs are using.

Hmm, police and magic.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

Or rather, they're going to register crazy even when he's acting sane. Have you watched the entire series? I don't want to accidentally spoil you if you haven't and don't want to be spoiled.

Or not even a type of magic that's old; it could be a type of magic that's new, and it's looked down on as "that's not the *right* way to do magic because it's not the way we're used to", like people do with slang and old people do with new stuff- it's cobbled together from bits and pieces of magic that have managed to make their way down to the street, but they mix together in a way that isn't really the same at all.

Police would have to deal with magic all the time- they have to enforce whatever laws about magic use there are, and criminals would use it if they could, because it's useful. And handily enough, a lot of police are former military (I'm not entirely sure of this, but I read it somewhere and it makes sense), so they're more used to dealing with magic than other people are.