Some spoilers if you haven’t read through all the currently out books at the time of this post. (1-5) I won’t be covering the web novel ones just in case Rhaegar changes anything.

On the one had you have Life based healing and Blood based healing neither of which seem to soothe trauma of the mind, they are almost wholly ‘physical’ healing through the healer to the subject. We still don’t know what Ash Healing can do, as of yet, nor can I remember what the web novel says about it.

Ash is linked to death though, which means it should work on death spirits and undead beings. (Another benefit arcane has over life and blood)

Ilea’s arcane based healing is different, while it doesn’t out right heal mental trauma it seems to make it easier for the recipient to move past, to accept it. Meditation apparently also helps too.

Along with the frankly massive 50% reduction in pain she gets from her initial class / the blue moon grass (I can’t remember which one pretty sure it’s the moon grass) it essentially perfectly sets Ilea up for her journey. Especially given how important resistances are.

All pain is lessened AND she can recover from the trauma quicker via her healing and meditation. It’s a neat very core mechanic to her being. Something that doesn’t happen with the Medic Sentinels. Without her initial pain tolerance training, I highly doubt the initial group would have made it. But once they reach the second tier, and especially after they receive their healer classes, they start to build their resistances on their own. It’s neat.

But personally I think if push came to shove I’d still try that 50/50 of the blue moon grass. (Luckily they now have an alchemist, two enchanters and an ancient tree with a healing class to look into the blue moon grass at some point) but then go through all the training that the Sentinels go through.

Soul magic also sounds interesting and I wonder what Soul magic healing would be. (I can’t remember if it ever comes up. I know astral does.)

Anyways: all of that was a ramble to get to the point of Healing and the Trans/queer/enby/g-f/etc community. (I should do a web novel reread)

Of which I have a bunch of thoughts:

There’s Flesh and Bone magic: which I imagine would be a very easy become a shapeshifter but I don’t want to -have- to pigeon hole myself just to get my body right. As an aside: This is the problem with the superpowers question as well. Obviously I’d pick Shapeshifting as it fixes my most major issue with how I identify but there are so many other powers I would rather have, if only superpowers came with a free ‘ideal self’ makeover too. (Though a flesh bone mage who worked as a gender affirming provider would be lit as fuck.) (also also there’s a crazy badass fight between ilea and a flesh mage coming up in the books, I hope it doesn’t get cut)

Blood magic- seems like the easiest way to get hrt - there are also a LOT of runes and rituals that could probably be used with this one.

Then there’s Life magic - I’d imagine this wouldn’t do anything. Maybe it would provide you free hormone therapy. Maybe it’d be cool enough to just slowly change your biological sex or just remove/add secondary features associated with masculine or feminine. I don’t know. Life is weird and it hasn’t officially shown up yet. It’s only been mentioned.

Arcane healing: worries me based on what the magic perceives as the ‘problem’ I feel like there’s a slight chance that it could have an outcome I find horrifying. The horror version of it would be if it just ‘healed’ your mind. Essentially slowly making you ‘accept’ your agab. I’d like to think it would just do what life does, although maybe you’d have to chop of parts of you before the more ‘you’ version appears with use of the magic. Luckily, I don’t think it would do that!

And that’s because of our good newish friend the General Skill: Soul Perception and Soul Magic Resistance

Which read:

‘ding’ You have learned the General Skill: Soul Perception – lvl 1 Soul Perception – lvl 1 You have learned to perceive your soul. Congratulations. A skill that didn’t require killing and blood to unlock. Marvelous.

‘ding’ Soul Magic Resistance reaches 2nd lvl 1 Soul Magic Resistance – 2nd lvl 1

The fleeting conscience of man and beast. Flesh, energy, motion, and thought. The soul stands separate entirely, yet intertwined all the same. Through hardship you have learned understanding, not through meditation and study. A brutal yet comforting truth, strengthening that which cannot be grasped.

2nd stage: Battered and cracked. Challenged and near broken. Your soul has endured through sheer tenacity against that which sought to bring about its end. A serene calm now permeates your very essence, changed and evolved, grounded and calm.

I take these skills as implying that the soul is your fundamental self, from which your arcane and flesh flow.

With this in mind, I believe your soul would impress its will upon any of the healing options, at least to an extent. I think actively having soul perception and maybe soul magic resistance would increase the amount your will and the ‘ideal form of yourself that exists in your soul influences any healing. I also imagine if you suddenly found yourself on Elos or if you were a native trans person or gender-fluid or any of the others would have a step up in getting soul perception due to the amount of introspection on yourself you’ve already done.

There’s also the fact that Ilea is pan (I’m still irked he cut out the her sleeping with heranuur and the other little moments with the elves in book 3 but I get it for reasons) so I don’t think the horror option is a real possibility.

Given all that I think I’d still want Arcane Healing, Space magic is also cool as fuck. Those too are my definite’s. Or Astral and Space as Astral is just Space+Arcane.

To be real I’d have Ilea’s classes in a heart beat I love all of them. If I had to choose my own I’d still be a front line teleporting battle healer. I resonate so much with Ilea.Maybe I’d pick barriers or and astral/barrier class or being a sand/glass creator over ash. Creator classes are so cool too being a sand creator that can turn their sand molten then cool it into obsidian sharp bits of glass. Idk I have this thought once a week or so and my answer is almost always different. Maybe a silver creator? I wouldn’t pick gold personally, not my color. I’d definitely want to learn runes, but more as a side gig, like a general skill.

is it just me or does anyone else really hate ilea

Metro youth club Tavistock Crescent

Long gone

I just meet this girl but I already love her. Tell him off!

“Okay!” Zip shouts excitedly as the rest of the party gathers. “Plan.”

And then he starts enumerating his ideas with a flurry of gestures and noises, interspersed with the occasional word in Common Bug. 

As cute and enthusiastic as this odd boofly is, he’s a challenge to understand. You gather that this adventure will be about finding something or someone, but either Zip doesn’t know the target or you’re not interpreting his charades as well as you had hoped. 

If nothing else, this adventure will be an entertaining experience.