Since Dave's been publishing new stuff in this world, I figured I'd go back and,
you know, actually read this. X3;

On 6/20/20 7:03 PM, Dave Van Domelen wrote:

"Welcome To The School"
copyright 2020 by Dave Van Domelen
A Sources of Magic story

Ooooo, I wonder what that means.

[Now, at The School, and in trouble]

An excellent opening caption.

Not for the first or last time, I really regretted unlocking those equations....

ooooooooh.

Who knew that deeply contemplating 8-dimensional pure
mathematics would turn out to be the key to magic?

yessssss <3.<3 Love that kind of shit

No, this was very cool, and maybe someday I'd link enough stuff up to risk going public, but for now it made for one hell of a hobby. Might be worth sounding out a few of the people working in my field, though, see if any of them are secretly flying around too.

I love that idea. A hobbyist circle of flying mathematicians.

Landing, I ran through some of the permutations I'd devised in the lattice. The real reason for this trip wasn't just to practice flying, it was to see what some of these other "spells" did.
"A simple inversion should move everything except me...I hope."

Not what I would start with, but I admire the experimental spirit!

I tossed the rock up as straight as I could, then focused again.
It would have been nice if it had actually bounced, but the fact it veered sideways when it got close to me was still proof of concept. I had a defensive shield.

Niiiiiice.

"Relax, I'm not here to hurt you. But if you attempt any destructive magics, those who would come to hurt you will definitely pick up on your presence.

Gasp! Magic cops???

"More or less. I considered sending an owl, but that joke got old years
ago. And I'm told it's a bit problematic, too.

Sadly so. @.@

"Yes, my divinations...and googling...spoke true.

heeheehee

You are definitely
the model of an antisocial mathematician who uses sarcasm as a defense mechanism to keep from having to get too close to people. I'm afraid that you will need to unlearn some of your defense mechanisms if you're truly to master your new powers...it is in the nature of your magic to seek friendship and even love."

Ooooooh! Yesyesyes. :> Good stuff. <3 <3 <3

"I wish I could. Thousands of years ago, maybe longer, something happened that locked away most of the magic in the world. Our best guess is that this was the price of preventing some horrible fate or binding up a terrible demon.

You know, standard stuff.

"Of course. But it's like...do you know how to use a slide rule?"
"Um, no. I mean, I could figure it out if I wanted to, but why?"
"Once, in living memory, everyone in your field and related fields knew how to use them, and owned at least one. Now, nearly no one does. In another generation, there will be almost no one other than collectors who have them, and fewer who can use them. It didn't even require a memory- mangling calamity in that case. People who can use magic are far rarer than people who use slide rules, and many started off self-taught in both cases."

Very nice metaphor. <3

"Your source of power doesn't lend itself to hyperfocus, unfortunately.

Not like mine, then.

"Oh, your grandfather was certainly weird in a mundane way. No, until your breakthrough, as far as we knew there was one absolute fact about the expression of the inherited magical talent...."

* * * *

[Five days ago, at The School, location unknown to mundane ken]

"A school for Magical Girls," I said, disbelievingly, for what must've been the thousandth time since the encounter in the forest. Inherited magic was only expressed in women, and almost always very young women. Girls.

Heeheehee

No, I wasn't XXY or a transman or anything like that. Boring cismale with no uncommon genetic tricks aside from, apparently, magic. They had a genetic test for that now, too, and confirmation came in today.

Fascinating.

I'd be
talking to some Wizards later on, to see if there was anything at all about my hyperlattice that was magical, but the admissions people at The School suspected that it was less the details about my mathematics and more that I was in the correct state of mind at the time to unlock my...Magical Girl Powers.

Veeeeery interesting. <3

"But since you obviously don't need most of the non-magical courses... you might want to sit in on some of the Secret History classes...that leaves you at loose ends most of the day. And we may be magical, but we're not miraculous...there's still paperwork and regulations. It's WAY easier to 'hire' you as a math instructor and let you sit in on the magic classes than to try to change all the red tape that assumes all students enroll as preteen girls."

You know, makes sense. X3

Grant stopped as we got inside the foyer. "The magical life is always optional. Never forget that. We're not stealing children and turning them into an army, we're helping them learn to protect themselves.

Very good. <3

"Move...the school?" I blinked. I think I blinked audibly, like a cartoon character.

Heeheeheehee

To their credit, none of the girls asked anything adorably mortifying like, "How come he's a Magical Girl if he isn't a girl?"

Adortifying

Prima was all the first year students, regardless of age.
Sometimes there were teenagers in Prima, but this batch all looked to be elementary school kids.

Ohhhh, nice.

"If SecundaBlue doesn't get into Tertia this year, I might have to change my color," Karen frowned. "That's bad luck."

Heeheehee. X3

Miss Vermillion smiled and shook her head. "Yoriko is coming along nicely, I'm sure the SecundaBlue slot will be open when you're ready for it, Karen."
"But she's sooooo bad in the classes we're in together," Karen grumbled. I sympathized...being held back by classmates was an all too frequent part of my own gradeschool experience.

Awwwwwww. <3

"What's your color?" a girl with pink ribbons in her hair asked me.
"Gray, like my name."
Before the dubious expressions of the class could erupt into objections,
Miss Vermillion added, "Because his situation is quite unusual, we felt he might not resonate with any of the traditional Colors. But he does resonate with his own name, which is sort of a color, so the Sorting Committee decided he would be PrimaGray.

Nicenicenice! I love that. :>

I had strong suspicions that the art teacher on the committee had pushed
hard for my codename too, for the pun value. Primer Gray indeed.

Heeheehee

"Sometimes mocked with terms like 'Care Bear Stare,' you shouldn't put it down...what you're doing is lending your strength to a teammate so that their magic is stronger. You will all eventually choose one or more specialties, very few Magical Girls are good at everything, just like no one is good at all mundane skills. But you can still help out at any task by using Support Magic to help your teammate do what she...or he...does best."

YEAH!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

"Okay, make sure you're all spaced out enough," Miss Vermillion gestured
at spots marked on the field. I tried to ignore the ominous scorch marks here and there. Especially the ones I'd been responsible for.

heeheehee

Summoning our uniforms externalized our magical
power in a rather intense light show...but energy is energy, and it could get out of hand at times. They don't usually show Glitter Green detonating nearby cars when she transforms.

https://youtu.be/yVrTsryg_CM?t=39

At first you get tired quickly, but
with exercise comes endurance. You don't realize you can walk for hours until you do it," she gave me a little grin. Apparently everyone on staff knew I'd hiked out to the middle of nowhere the day I got recruited.

Awwwww. :>

Mutters of "pink pink pink pink" or "bluuuuueee..." filled the practice field.

Heeheeheehee X3 <3 Adorable!!! <3

"No!" Vermillion shouted, looking up. I followed her gaze, and saw several distant winged figures. "Everyone, this is what the drills are for. FORCE TRANSFORM!" she gestured with her sceptre and suddenly we were all in uniform.
"Ow," I winced. It felt like someone had forcibly shoved me into a tuxedo, and some of the girls actually cried out.

Ooooooh, neat. :o

"Almost never!" she replied frantically. "Either someone got lucky and found a flaw in the shields, or we have a...not your problem. SHIMMER VERMILLION!" she shouted, transforming into an absolutely no-nonsense combat rig that bore very little resemblance to the frilly outfits of my fellow Primas. It was more like something Tony Stark would invent, but without a full helmet. The little skull clip holding her hair back into a ponytail was a touch disturbing, though.

:3 Nice nice.

And that brings us back to the present, with what I can only assume is hellfire raining down at random, combined with rainbow colored friendly fire. They weren't kidding about not building a magical army here, there was no real unit discipline...just a lot of Magical "Girls" ranging from about my age to positively grandmotherly mixing it up in aerial combat with what I guess were demons. I'd read that they did monthly faculty combat training, but like any "weekend warriors" it only went so far.

I appreciate that!

"Oh, we were out in it, all right. But PrimaPink and PrimaGreen here are very good at Support Magic, and they let my sh...not very good shield spell stand up to a couple of stray shots, including some rather un-friendly friendly fire," I tried to smile reassuringly.

Awwwwwww. <3

"Oh, regular drills. Plus we tend to use them during promotion exams, just in case someone tries a spell too powerful to control. We lost part of the old gymnasium that way a year after I got here. But actual attacks? Never saw one myself. I looked it up, the last time anything hostile got inside was 1958, and that was a scrying spell that formed a pathway for the thing it was observing."

Fascinating.

"Well, can I hope that my second week will be boring by comparison?" I smiled wanly.
"DON'T JINX IT!" several Tertias and Primas shouted all at once.

X3 <3 <3 <3

Yes, "...Hope You Survive The Experience!" is the implied subtitle to this story.

:D

This started as a dream, in which I was the viewpoint character.

Oh, love it!

Also, I distinctly recall
saying to the elementary math teacher showing me the large lecture halls that while I didn't think much of their pedagogy, at least they tried to cover regular classes and it wasn't "some Harry Potter ****." Yes, in addition to all the other "JKR is problematic as hell" stuff going around lately, I also find her vision of Hogwarts to be deeply offensive on a PROFESSIONAL level.

Yeah, that sounds right. X3

Disclaimer, most of what I know about the Magical Girl genre is second and third hand, from social media posts (meme-heavy), some inspired-by stories (Princess Holy Aura by Ryk Spoor, Jade Street Protection Agency from Black Mask), skimming the Glitter Hearts TTRPG, and watching maybe eight episodes of the "Glitter Force" translation of one season of Precure (which I am informed is an injoke heavy partial deconstruction of Precure in a similar way to how Power Ranger RPM treated the super sentai genre).

Huh, interesting, I didn't know that. :o But, as someone with a lot of direct experience, this feels good. <3

Ms. Cerulean doesn't have any particular inspiration other than "the brainy one" (I think the blue magical girl tends to be the smart one, but I may be wrong)

Definitely a thing. <3

Miss Vermillion was definitely on one of the secret Sailor Scout or Pretty Cure teams after graduation. Her inspiration is "What of Yokho from Gurren Lagann was in a magical girl show instead of a super robot shot?"

Niiiiiiice. :D :D :D

I
resisted the temptation to have him know too many SF/comics references that I know, so passed up a few opportunities to do so in the story (such as Johnny Quick,

I was *absolutely* thinking of Johnny Quick.

I tried to avoid real math terminology, but I might have
accidentally jargoned together some actual things people in Pure Math work on, for which I apologize.

I didn't notice anything?

Anyway, getting this written got most of my thoughts on the topic out onto the screen. It had better have, given how much exposition there is!

Heeheehee :3

While no one
brought it up on screen, Wizards aren't exclusively male, but it's like STEM fields...traditionally male-dominated. A few generations ago, female Wizards were assumed to be weird Magical Girls, but they're gaining more respect and recognition now, especially since they test negative for the Magical Girl Gene. (Yes, this is still a sore point in the magical community. For the longest time it was assumed there was a hard gender divide, like in Molly Ostertag's Witch Boy series. Mark isn't the first to challenge that in general, but he is the first to do so from the Magical Girl side.)

Yessssss goodgoodgood. <3 <3 <3

Drew "catching up on the good shit" Nilium

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