"urban" ""fantasy""
Aug. 15th, 2021 05:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mozaikmage So I'm writing a fic for an exchange. I'm not gonna tell you what it's about because it's for an anonymous exchange, but the request was a shapeshifter and witch AU for the characters in question. This combined with the fact that I'd suddenly decided to reread Bell Book and Candle by skittidyne (I made it like ten chapters in this time) made me want to write an Urban Fantasy setting for the characters, rather than some pseudomedieval isekai fantasy land kinda thing, or xianxia, or any other flavor of shapeshifters and witches.
In BBaC every fantasy creature you can think of exists and so do all the human professions you can imagine working with them-- dragon hunters, healing witches, spellcrafters, exorcists, clairvoyants, potion brewers. Witches have covens that self-regulate and monitor each other's behavior, ghosts gather in groups once a year on Halloween. But most people don't know, don't notice, or don't see this side of the city unless something happens that brings them into contact with it. Yamaguchi discovers magic when he catches Suga trying to banish the ghost haunting Yamaguchi. Daichi only learns about the whole magical world half his friends deal with when he starts dating Suga. I really like how BBaC balances its insanely massive cast of characters by giving everyone a different level of knowledge about what's going on in the world, from humans who Just Got Here to people who may or may not have kickstarted the whole plot several years earlier to a freshly summoned demon who also Just Got Here but in a different way than the humans.
There's something appealing about the idea that the ordinary world we live in is a little more magical and mysterious than we can see, and that someday, circumstances might grant us the ability to perceive the magic. I also like the fact that there is a scaffolding of the normal everyday world we all know that the magical world can be built on top of, and the fact that it's hidden from the regular folk means I don't have to make up countries and history from scratch. For a short little ship exchange fic I don't need lore, but it's always good to know how the world of your story works. How the magic works, who can use it, and how people perceive it.
An urban fantasy work that builds its lore really well is the webtoon This Magical Moment by Yunhui Na. Unlike BBaC and uh, my fic in progress, magic isn't hidden from normal people in TMM, but witches face varying levels and kinds of persecution for their abilities around the world and across history. I was particularly impressed by the consideration taken of how Christianity perceives witchcraft and how Korea, where the story is set, might have different prejudices or reasons to be wary of witchcraft. Sara, a devout Christian studying to become a nun, clashes with powerful potionmaking witch Bakha over her fear of Bakha's powers, leading Bakha to dub her a Puritan. There's also a clever slang word for non-magical people in Korea: kuruma, a loanword from Japanese that means car (because non-magical people can't ride brooms and have to get around in cars.) The little details and many layers present in every interaction (class, religion, and culture among them) make the familiar premise feel fresh and new, and at the same time highly complex.
I like urban fantasy a lot, but it takes a lot of thought to really pull it off well. (Remember that Netflix movie Bright?) There's a lot of urban fantasy book series I've meant to read but haven't gotten around to yet (Dresden Files being the main one I've heard about, haha.) But if you're into the genre and interested in checking out some things you might not have heard of yet, This Magical Moment and Bell Book and Candle are great examples. You don't need to be familiar with Haikyuu!! to enjoy BBaC.
In BBaC every fantasy creature you can think of exists and so do all the human professions you can imagine working with them-- dragon hunters, healing witches, spellcrafters, exorcists, clairvoyants, potion brewers. Witches have covens that self-regulate and monitor each other's behavior, ghosts gather in groups once a year on Halloween. But most people don't know, don't notice, or don't see this side of the city unless something happens that brings them into contact with it. Yamaguchi discovers magic when he catches Suga trying to banish the ghost haunting Yamaguchi. Daichi only learns about the whole magical world half his friends deal with when he starts dating Suga. I really like how BBaC balances its insanely massive cast of characters by giving everyone a different level of knowledge about what's going on in the world, from humans who Just Got Here to people who may or may not have kickstarted the whole plot several years earlier to a freshly summoned demon who also Just Got Here but in a different way than the humans.
There's something appealing about the idea that the ordinary world we live in is a little more magical and mysterious than we can see, and that someday, circumstances might grant us the ability to perceive the magic. I also like the fact that there is a scaffolding of the normal everyday world we all know that the magical world can be built on top of, and the fact that it's hidden from the regular folk means I don't have to make up countries and history from scratch. For a short little ship exchange fic I don't need lore, but it's always good to know how the world of your story works. How the magic works, who can use it, and how people perceive it.
An urban fantasy work that builds its lore really well is the webtoon This Magical Moment by Yunhui Na. Unlike BBaC and uh, my fic in progress, magic isn't hidden from normal people in TMM, but witches face varying levels and kinds of persecution for their abilities around the world and across history. I was particularly impressed by the consideration taken of how Christianity perceives witchcraft and how Korea, where the story is set, might have different prejudices or reasons to be wary of witchcraft. Sara, a devout Christian studying to become a nun, clashes with powerful potionmaking witch Bakha over her fear of Bakha's powers, leading Bakha to dub her a Puritan. There's also a clever slang word for non-magical people in Korea: kuruma, a loanword from Japanese that means car (because non-magical people can't ride brooms and have to get around in cars.) The little details and many layers present in every interaction (class, religion, and culture among them) make the familiar premise feel fresh and new, and at the same time highly complex.
I like urban fantasy a lot, but it takes a lot of thought to really pull it off well. (Remember that Netflix movie Bright?) There's a lot of urban fantasy book series I've meant to read but haven't gotten around to yet (Dresden Files being the main one I've heard about, haha.) But if you're into the genre and interested in checking out some things you might not have heard of yet, This Magical Moment and Bell Book and Candle are great examples. You don't need to be familiar with Haikyuu!! to enjoy BBaC.
