Webcomic / Angela's Magic Lesson

"Hey, it's doing something! It feels like..."

Angela's Magic Lesson is a "Chain Story" spin-off of The Underburbs, managed by one of the original comic's creators, Joe Haley (also known as "Mr-DNA"). It is hosted on his DeviantArt account, and readers can commission new branching paths and epilogues that result from Angela casting magic on herself.

Young witch Angela Morgan is frustrated that, despite her hometown being transformed into a dimension filled with monsters, her teachers refuse to teach her any magic. Luckily, Underborough High School keeps plenty of magical tomes in its archives, and Angela decides to "wing it" and cast a spell upon herself. Angela starts transforming...but how, and what her ultimate fate will be, is up to you!

---

Tropes for Angela's Magic Lesson:

• Almighty Mom: Epilogue 4, "A Power Above All", has Angela turn herself into a sorceress with ages of dark spells added to her mind, ready to take over the world...but she's instantly stopped by her mother and scolded into turning back to normal.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: In Epilogue 108, "Magicae ad Infinitum", Angela becomes an embodiment of magic itself.
• Asian Fox Spirit: The form Angela ends up with in Epilogue 116, "Foxed Out", which includes a desire to act as a trickster.
• Barbarian Hero: The result of Epilogue 54, "Queen by Her Own Hand".
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The story starts with Angela deciding to teach herself magic by pulling out a random tome and "winging it". In most of the endings where she still remembers who she is, the consequences are completely undesirable, such as in Epilogue 131 ("Infinituplets") or 150 ("Vision Dressed").
• Big Beautiful Woman: Epilogue 35, "The Problems of Being Plus", has Angela take on a more Rubenesque body shape and become a successful model, though she feels ashamed that she's spreading a message about body positivity when it's not her original body.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Epilogue 105, "Underborough Comic Con", has Angela become a shy nerd and attend a comic convention, only to run into a pair of Author Avatars that turn to a non-existent camera and unsubtly take a moment to state that "The Belowborhood" is a labor of love that everybody should buy.
• Bridezilla: Epilogue 93, "Run-Amok Bride", has Angela possessed by the wraith of a jilted bride, who tries to forcibly transform others into a groom that she can punish for the betrayal.
• Brown Note Being: Epilogue 174, "OrDiNaRy WaLk HoMe", turns Angela into one of these, with everyone in town going insane in her presence despite the spell seemingly doing nothing. Angela is blissfully unaware of this, as she's thinking this is a perfectly normal day.
• Cat Girl: One chain of options can lead Angela to becoming various versions of one, as seen in Epilogue 9 ("Ruling the Night") and the pages beforehand.
• Chess with Death: Epilogue 94, "Deathmate", has Winnifred decide to do this with The Grim Reaper Angela. Unfortunately, Angela's never played chess before, and turns out to be a very poor student when Winnifred decides to teach her.
• Crossover: Epilogue 151, "The Fashion Mines", features Eliza Serdste and Beth Taberna from a different Gamebooks work, The Book of Lore.
• Cthulhumanoid: Epilogue 145, "Tentacleburbs", has Angela turn everyone into these, with Cthulhu itself mentioned as their eternal king.
• Damsel in Distress: Epilogue 61, "Damsel's Diary", has Angela turn herself into a princess and willingly put herself in distress in order to court a knight (George).
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Epilogue 3, "Lolitea Party", has Angela transform into one, and start to transform Winnifred into one as well.
• Failed a Spot Check: Epilogue 114, "Scales in Comparison", changes Angela into a Naga without altering the memories of herself or anyone else in the setting...but Winnifred still fails to identify what's "off" about her friend, even after multiple days.
• Forced Transformation: A frequent outcome is Angela accidentally inflicting this on herself, but some of her potential forms lead to this happening to others, such as her becoming a tyrant that turns students into snakes in Epilogue 42, "Pyramid Scheme".
• Fountain of Youth: Some Epilogues, such as 70 ("Fresh Cookies") and 114 ("Halloween Do-Over"), have Angela turning herself younger, and/or turning other people younger so that her new role isn't out-of-place.
• Gender Bender: Epilogue 6, "The Genderburbs", has Angela/Andrew accidentally do this to the entire setting. However, nobody (including himself) is aware of the change. Other epilogues have less far-reaching examples, such as 97 ("Bridal Search Party") and 116 ("Foxed Out"), in which only George is a victim of this.
• Girls with Moustaches: Multiple epilogues result in Angela growing facial hair.
  • Epilogue 132, "Beyond Shaving" has Angela's facial, body and scalp hair growing at an out of control rate.
  • Epilogue 133, "Madame Morgan's Facial Tonic" has her become a proper bearded lady. Together with her now-bearded mother, they produce a hair tonic that results in feminine facial hair becoming the newest fashion trend.
  • Epilogue 170, "Witchard Academy", results in Angela and her friends becoming traditional wizards, Wizard Beard included.
  • Epilogue 179, "Lumberjxs", results in Angela becoming a Mighty Lumberjack.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: In Epilogue 150, "Vision Dressed", after the spell did a relatively ordinary height increase and wardrobe change that gave Angela a Navajo rug dress, Angela gets a vision of all of her alternate selves. She shrieks from this vision and repeats over and over again afterwards "I didn't just get a dress."
• The Grim Reaper: Angela becomes one in Epilogue 94, "Deathmate". However, when she tries to claim Winnifred's soul, it turns out there's an entire bureaucracy of reapers and she can't legally reap without a license.
• Happiness in Slavery: The Winnifred from "Queen by Her Own Hand" is perfectly happy serving as a mere handmaiden to "Morgan the Conqueror" because she's, quote, "just grateful to be a part of any successful world conquest!"
• Horror Hunger: In Epilogue 90, "TrueForm", Angela's newfound vampirism causes her blood-starvation and drives her insane, causing her to attack people at random and drain them.
• Humanity Ensues: An occurrence in multiple routes. For example, Epilogue 78, "Case Clothed", has a peppy Angela give Winifred and Shelly makeovers that, due to residual magic from her own transformation, turn them into regular humans. And Epilogue 97, "Bridal Search Party", has Angela and a gaggle of other monster girls (and one monster boy) turn into human bridesmaids in search of a bride.
• I Ate WHAT?!: Epilogue 7, "Rise of the Ultimoms", has this be Winnifred, Shelly, and Bel's reaction to learning they just ate cursed cookies; to quote the text directly, Shelly's voice "wavered" when asking for clarification, and then "The girls immediately stood up, eyes wide, mouths agape, crumbs falling from their laps" upon receiving it. However, they don't have time to spit them out before the curse takes effect and rewrites their personalities into accepting the change wholeheartedly.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Epilogue 65, "Eye Contact", has Angela turn herself into a buff, older-looking cyclops, and ends up befriending Otis Tumbleweed (George's Dad). It almost goes beyond just friendship, but Angela decides she's already been too impulsive for one day.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: This is Angela's reaction in Epilogue 16, "What the Cluck", when she wakes up without any clothes in a chicken coop after her transformation into a chicken wears off.
• Love Freak: Epilogue 75, "Love in Itself", transforms Angela into a cherub that's determined to make Winnifred feel love in her heart, even if it means transforming her into a cherub as well.
• Me's a Crowd: This goes disastrously in Epilogue 131, "Infinituplets", due to residual magic accidentally turning the entire town into copies of Angela, with none of them having any clue how to reverse it. However, it's quite successful in Epilogue 147, "Triangulated", in which Angela creates two duplicates and they decide to cooperate on managing schoolwork, Winnifred, and their own well-beings.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: The majority of Epilogues alter Angela's memories and personality to match her new form, and sometimes extends this to when she changes an entire setting, such as in 70 ("Fresh Cookies") or 97 ("Bridal Search Party").
• Multiple Head Case: The result of Epilogue 121, "Headed for Trouble".
• Mugging the Monster: Epilogue 11, "Watch Where You're Lurking", has Angela transform into a bloodthirsty monster eager to victimize the next person that comes by. Unfortunately for her, the next person is Winnifred, who quickly bops her in the face with a newspaper and sets about reversing the transformation, dragging Angela by her ear along the way.
• Mundane Utility: Some Epilogues have Angela transformed into an incredibly powerful form, but she chooses to use said powers in a mundane way. For example, the Angela of Epilogue 117, "Diamondback in the Saddle", becomes the fastest gunslinger in Underborough and gains a photographic memory...and she decides to just become a Western movie star with Winnifred as her director.
• The Multiverse: One is shown to be taking place in Epilogue 108, "Magicae ad Infinitum", when Angela becomes an embodiment of magic itself and can witness all of the spell's potential outcomes at once. It's brought up again in Epilogue 150, "Vision Dressed", in which an Angela that thought she had simply changed her outfit turns out to have also gained the ability to see visions of other realities, which traumatizes her. And again in Epilogue 169, "The Multiversal Dohyo", in which a multiversal fighting tournament is set up by the version of Angela that became "Morgan the Conqueror".
• Now What?: Epilogue 74, "A Conqueror without a Country", shows what happens to Angela after she transforms herself into a powerful queen with the desire for conquest. It turns out that, without a pre-established kingdom and with nobody wanting to fight her, she can't actually conquer anything and is stuck trying to figure out what to do next.
• Objectshifting: Yet another common occurrence, such as in Epilogue 95, "Swimming Fool", in which Angela accidentally turns herself and Winnifred into pool toys.
• Prehensile Hair:
  • Epilogue 27 "The FALL-icle of Underborough" and Epilogue 71, "Updo Evolution" takes this trope to it's natural conclusion and gives Angela's hair a mind of it's own, and ambulatory enough that in the former it can bind Angela completely in her own hair, and in the latter, she shapes herself into a twin of Angela named "Kerry".
  • Epilogue 173 "Hair Training", is a more straightforward version of this, with Angela gaining such precise control over her hair that she can use it like strong arms, long legs, or a thick coat.
• The Shadow Knows: While the spell doesn't appear to physically change Angela at all in Epilogue 174, "OrDiNaRy WaLk HoMe", her shadow has become that of an Eldritch Abomination.
• Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: Although most of Angela's transformations include her outfit, Epilogue 16, "What the Cluck", has her completely bare-skinned (but censored by her pose) when she reverts back to normal.
• Shout-Out:
  • Epilogue 44, "Angelyne's Midnite Movie Mausoleum", has Angela's transformation clearly inspired by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
  • Epilogue 55, "What a Horrible Night", recreates the cover of Castlevania to depict Angela the Vampire Slayer.
  • Epilogue 99, "Life with Angie", has the setting turn into one blatantly reminiscent of Archie Comics, complete with George as its own Jughead.
• Slime Girl: One chain of options can lead Angela to becoming various versions of one, as seen in Epilogues 50 ("Goop Hug") and 172 ("Taste for Fashion").
• Swapped Roles: Epilogue 100, "Attitude Exchange", has Angela turn herself into a mall brat with the accidental side-effect of making Winnifred more kindhearted.
• These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Epilogue 150, "Vision Dressed", has Angela see visions of The Multiverse and become traumatized from it.
• Trans Flormation: This subpath involves Angela turning herself into either a nature sprit, a Treant, or just a normal tree.
• Treacherous Advisor: Epilogue 2, "Extended Family Portrait", describes how Angela became a somewhat aged-up vampire that has worked hard to make herself invaluable to Winnifred's family...but it also indicates that this won't last for long, and she's holding a wooden stake in the portrait.
• Witch Classic: Epilogue 62, "Toil and Trouble", has Angela transform herself into an old crone with her own cauldron, and Winnifred and Shelly into members of her coven.

---