Coyote is on the edges of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. The residents of those places...their eyes aren't entirely human. Their nails are really sharp. Like mine.
Run to Staten Island, if you must. He can't reach you there. he remembers the ash heaps, and he stays away.
—New York City: What My Sister Told Me
The city lives and breathes.
Literally.
The city is a living thing. Each city has its own life, its own way of living, the way you live differently from your neighbor. Perhaps with as much rancor and resentment as that implies. A girl from Brooklyn will learn this, as she lives, as her fantastic adventures in New York City and beyond bring her to face peril from within and without the world.
This is the story of Patricia King, who must travel far beyond her home to unite the great cities against the coming threat. Assuming there even is one. Not everything Coyote says is to be trusted.
As it exists currently, the series is best described as a mixture of Matthew Swift and Fantasy Americana. Currently the style has veered towards Harry Potter as the setting has moved to Chicago.
The series can be found here
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This series contains examples of:
- Allohistorical Allusion: Coyote knew Robert Moses, and hated him. Closer to our own time period, mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to clean up the air of the city by having everyone grow long vines from their windows. This did not end well.
- For some reason, the maps in New York City do not show Connecticut. Where it would be is just a large area that is considered part of New York State.
- Kool Moe Dee, In this universe, discovered that you could use Rap battles to summon demons.
- Anthropomorphic Personification / Animism: Pat's chosen magical profession is Shamanism, but her actual power seems to be based on interacting with the souls of various objects and structures around the city. Although she does do some actual speaking to gods, such as Coyote and Chicago, and the Machine Heart of New York.
- Anti-Hero: Pat is...not exactly responsible with her growing power. To the extent that she goes on a destructive rampage through the Harlem Police Department.
- Anti-Magic: If you go to Right New York and try to cast a spell, it just slides off everything.
- The Apprentice: Wizards start out as apprentices before going off to the academy.
- Arranged Marriage: Chief's Daughter Lily Two-Rivers, of the Manhattan People, to Princess Analosa of Grenovia. A way of uniting the two communities, though with the full consent of Lily and Analosa.
- Battle Rapping: Demons summoned in this manner are more likely to respect the summoner. After all, if you have the skill to defeat a demon in a rap battle, you deserve their assistance. No circles necessary! Just, uh, don't lose.
- Badass Cape: One of the sources of a Wizard's power. Each Wizard Cloak gives its wearer a unique ability shaped by their own identity.
- Beggar with a Signboard: The best way to get people to avert their eyes is to sit on the street holding a cardboard sign.
- Bigger on the Inside: Wizard Cloaks, at least Jo's. Apparently, when she wraps it around the posts of her bed, it has enough interior space to contain an exercise room, a rec room, a wet bar, a golf course, and a blacksmith. It's not clear if she's joking. In any case, while she wears it, she can use it to store many items.
- Blood Magic: Implied in Grandma King's backstory, before being explored later in the series.
- Body of Bodies: The Mother of Rats is a being composed of an uncountable number of rats.
- Broken Pedestal: Master Grosvenor, who raised Aurore in the midst of the Maine wilderness. Aurore did not take it well when she learned that she'd been effectively stolen from her own people. Nor did Jo take it well when she learned what Master Mazigh was doing with that apartment block in Down New York.
- Changeling Tale: Pat's sister, Marina, is half-fairy. The fully-human girl was stolen by Muckamuck, and turned into the Machine Heart of New York.
- Child of Two Worlds: Pat's father, a Black man, is Christian. Her mother, and her Nonna, are Italian Jewish. As a result, Pat isn't really sure which groups she belongs to, Italian or Black, and for many years of her life she can't prevent Grandma King from dragging her to church every Sunday.
- Aurore would have grown up with the Passamoquody Indians of Maine, but a misunderstanding led her to be raised by a White man far from the coast. Having escaped that house, she wonders where she belongs.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Aurore and Sean. Possibly Pat and Jo, depending on how platonic or romantic their relationship is.
- Cape Wings: Jo's cloak can turn into a big pair of wings to let her fly high in the sky. After a power boost from the Ailanthus tree, Jo's cape can turn into a set of jet wings, complete with turbine engine.
- Cast Full of Gay: Downplayed — while the three students Pat befriends in Chicago seem to be sharing a dorm room, and Pat and Jo's are in a relationship of some kind, the series doesn't show any romances outside these five characters.
- Cool Old Lady: Both grandmothers. Nonna Adriano knows a lot about New York City, and it's implied that she's had adventures. Grandma King is known and respected, perhaps feared, throughout the city, and whatever's in those bottles she drinks from, it's not exactly...wine.
- The City: The series starts in New York and moves to Chicago.
- The City Narrows: Down New York is dense, on the level of the Walled City of Kowloon, and yet covering an area roughly the size of modern New York City, which means it's a City Narrows of about 990 million people. The place is impossible to govern centrally, and the city is divided into many, many nations that have two or three apartment blocks to their name.
- City of Adventure
- Don'tTouchItYouIdiot: The Ailanthus trees, when they're glowing blue.
- Eternal Engine: The Heart of New York is a vast machine of some sort, whose full functions are never revealed.
- The Fair Folk: Implied as existing in this universe, though all we see of them so far is Marina [[spoiler: and the Heart of new York
- Fictional Currency: Grenovian Dollars, issued by Grenovia.
- Free-Range Children: Pat's parents let her run all over the city without getting involved very much.
-
Fridge Horror: The New York Portal Authority can open any door in the city for you, for the right coin. You can pay them to avoid having your doors opened, but if you can't afford the price... - Gay Bar: The two bars seen in the series so far — Motehr Carey's bar in Manhattan and Myer's in Chicago — seem to have a similar function as a gay bar in Real Life. They serve as a protective gathering place for people who are beset and ostracized. In their case, the ostracism is to do with magic, not homosexuality.
- Gender-Blender Name: Pat, and Jo.
- Goggles Do Something Unusual: Wizard Glasses (called Ontoscopes by the more learned) allow one to view magical effects and successive layers of reality.
- Henotheism: Pat invokes this idea to explain how it's possible to be a Shaman and Jewish at the same time.
- Hidden Elf Village: Most of the various pocket dimensions of New York City do not interact with the main one, and would prefer that you stay out.
- Informed Judaism: Pat's Jewish, but she isn't shown practicing all that much at first.
- Jail Break: Part of Marina's background — apparently she keep getting jailed and Pat keeps bailing her out. It's not clear how badly the police hate either of the girls for this — you'd think they'd have tried to put a stop to it by now.
- Magical Library: The stacks of the New York City Public Library contain rather dangerous creatures in their shadows. After the people invading from another universe are convinced to enter the U.S. legally, the library becomes their port of entry.
- The Library of the Chicago Wizard Academy is said to be endless, and is populated by ambulatory books that will attempt to eat the unwary.
- Magic A Is Magic A: Wizardry seems to be a matter of studying the magical fundamentals of the universe and applying them. While there are spellbooks available, spells are to Wizardry what recipes are to cooking: a mere set of instructions that don't explain any of the principles of the craft.
- Micro Monarchy: Grenovia, a principality that is a restaurant and its apartments above. It was granted as territory by the US during World War II, so that the prince of Grenovia could be born on his own soil, since the original Grenovia had been overrun by the Germans. The US has forgotten that Grenovia exists, and so has not asked for the territory back.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Pat almost loses herself when she turns into a rat. She loses herself completely when she becomes a Giant Rat, and suffers mightily for it. As does an entire police station.
- Mugging the Monster: A man almost accosts Grandma King in the night before he realizes who she is.
- The Multiverse: New York City is apparently the hub of 6 different pocket dimensions.
- Mundane Solution: How do you stop an invasion of extra-dimensional horrors? Turn into a legal, controlled immigration.
- My Greatest Failure: Pat will never truly forgive herself for what she did to the police of Harlem.
- Our Banshees Are Louder: These ones aren't very loud, and they're very easy to mistake for ambulance sirens.
- Our Giants Are Bigger: The Rat Mother is very large indeed, and the amount of rats that compose her body probably numbers in the millions. On an even greater scale, the Machine Heart of New York is so large that when she opens her eye, it fills the horizon.
- Only Friend: Pat doesn't seem to have any friends her own age besides Jo.
- Paper People: Bert's Clam Juice is only available from a vending machine standing outside on Amber Street. Drink it and see what happens.
- Pocket Dimension: There are six that can be reached from areas in New York City: Left, Right, Up, Down, Backward, and Forward. They take some effort to find and enter, and not all of them are exactly safe or friendly...
- Chicago has these as well, based on colors. So far Pat has visited Gold/Silver Chicago and has seen Blue and Green Chicago in dreams.
- Police Are Useless: The police could probably stop Pat if they actually tried, especially before the girl learns all of what she can do, and they don't seem to care that a certain girl keeps getting broken out of jail.
- Police Brutality: Not seen in the series so far, but Nonna fears that this will happen to her granddaughter. She advises Pat to stay out of Harlem for this reason. The Chicago Wizard Police are implied to come down pretty hard on errant users of magic, though this also has yet to be seen.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Pat and Jo are either this or a Childhood Friend Romance — while there seems to be little that is sexual about their relationship, Jo asks Pat if they can get married. Whether platonic or romantic, they are life partners.
- Practical Currency: Grenovian Dollars, in a sense. Among the people of New York City, they can be used to purchase favors, and to open certain magical doorways such as the path to Left New York.
- Protection Racket: Big Jake gets paid in eels, not money. He keeps the Mafia away from the neighborhood. They don't want to tangle with a being that can ooze out of any tap in the city.
- Pun: Whack is a town upstate. Therefore, things that are Out of Whack are from the town. They are also strange — something about them is "out of whack." Har har har.
- Taken For Granite: The people living in the southern part of Back New York are made of stone.
- Seers: One of the Walking Water Towers are able to give Pat a warning that something bad is approaching New York City.
- Shapeshifter: Pat learns how to turn into a rat, and into a giant rat.
- Shout-Out:
- Apparently the [[Film/C.H.U.D]] exist in this universe.
- Jo actually DID become a wizard by collecting bottle caps.
- Pat offers to teach Aurore to [[Film/Pocahontas sing with all the voices of the mountain]]. Aurore is not amused.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Pat has poor control over her Giant Rat form. Pat's Giant rat form is capable of breaking down interior walls.
- Those Wily Coyotes: Coyote prowls the edges of Pat's narrative. He nudges Pat into doing some things that she regrets, but also warns her of coming dangers.
- Tipis and Totem Poles: For some reason, the chief of the Manhattan People calls himself the Muckamuck, even though that's a Chinook word. The Chinook are on the other side of the continent.
- Teleport Cloak: Aurore can use her cloak to teleport more easily than any other wizard in the series.
- Twofer Token Minority: Downplayed. While Pat is Black and Italian Jewish, her friend Jo is also Jewish, and there are a number of Black characters and Jewish characters in the story. Justified in the case of Aurore, who comes from an Indian nation that is quite familiar with Catholicism. Downplayed by Sean, who was born into an Irish catholic family, but converted out of love for Sameer. Also spite for his parents.
- Urban Legends: The series begins in this style, with Pat's family members relaying to her the things they know of New York City.
- Unstoppable Mailman: Unstoppable bike messenger, actually. Nobody has ever caught him, and nobody knows what would happen if he did get caught. Nonna says that time itself would stop. Nonna is correct.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Jo and Pat journey to Up New York, which, judging by the way its defenses malfunction, was never meant to be visited by outsiders. This causes the complete destruction of the city, and sets in motion the events that will lead Pat to leave New York and come to Chicago.
- What Happened to the Mouse??: A number of plot elements exist in the beginning of the story that could be developed much further. These are largely forgotten as Pat's narrative takes over.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Pat asks this of herself after she kills a number of the Harlem police.
- She doesn't ask it of Jo when Jo deliberately signs her up for the Wizard Academy, but she does avoid speaking to her for a week.
- Wizarding School: The Chicago Wizard Academy, which forms much of the setting of the second part of the series.
