a few words on magic
Nov. 27th, 2009 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
egypturnashLazy roleplaying: Kalinda, my serpent character, delivers a lecture on How Magic Works.
Kalinda exhales slowly, smoke swirling out in strange sigils, and smiles. "Half of it is simply gaining and keeping that narrative trust. I sit around pulling things out of the air - and that establishes me as a sorceress, without me ever stating, baldfacedly, 'Kalinda is a powerful sorceress'." She licks her lips with a pointed tongue. "So disbelief loosens around me, and I can... get things done."
Kalinda waves a hand carelessly, and your chair rises into the air. "Edit too much, take too many liberties, and it all comes crashing down." The walls fall away, like stage flats losing their props, revealing a black, empty space behind; off in the distance, things flicker fugitively. "When do you stop believing my story?" And quicksilver rains down from the midnight sky. "How far can I go? How far can I weave my words?" Columns of light burst all around, coalescing into strange angelic beings, their countless arms swirling and drifting; they precess clockwise, singing. "And can I break my own spell?" Pickles fall out of the angel's mouths, shimmering with notes.
How much this applies to reality, in less ostentatious ways, is left as an exercise for the reader. Experiment!
Kalinda exhales slowly, smoke swirling out in strange sigils, and smiles. "Half of it is simply gaining and keeping that narrative trust. I sit around pulling things out of the air - and that establishes me as a sorceress, without me ever stating, baldfacedly, 'Kalinda is a powerful sorceress'." She licks her lips with a pointed tongue. "So disbelief loosens around me, and I can... get things done."
Kalinda waves a hand carelessly, and your chair rises into the air. "Edit too much, take too many liberties, and it all comes crashing down." The walls fall away, like stage flats losing their props, revealing a black, empty space behind; off in the distance, things flicker fugitively. "When do you stop believing my story?" And quicksilver rains down from the midnight sky. "How far can I go? How far can I weave my words?" Columns of light burst all around, coalescing into strange angelic beings, their countless arms swirling and drifting; they precess clockwise, singing. "And can I break my own spell?" Pickles fall out of the angel's mouths, shimmering with notes.
How much this applies to reality, in less ostentatious ways, is left as an exercise for the reader. Experiment!
no subject
Date: 2009-11-28 12:14 am (UTC)reminded
Date: 2009-11-28 12:40 am (UTC)You tell me, Charlie. Did we burn a flag, or did we just vanish a flag in a patriotic flash?
I don't know.
What's the difference?
no subject
Date: 2009-11-28 01:29 am (UTC)Or maybe TV Tropes.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-28 05:36 am (UTC)My own sort of magic is in leading people to themselves. Or in building a scene in words which enraptures the mind, envelopes what senses are available, and quiets the struggle to escape a scene that you know cannot happen in the living world around you... but only in the living world before your eyes, the one whose moments, captured play out through your inner voice -- sometimes with their own voices, too.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-28 05:46 am (UTC)When I lift my hand, there is only a soft, flickering light upon it, like a low, round, golden candle flame. But looking deeper within, there are spirits: orbs and faeries drifting or darting about... and as the walls of the light fall away, the whole world is enveloped in soft golden glow. Orbs wander close, kissing your flesh for a moment and then fading out of sight. Small humanoid figures, sharp in outline, zap right in at your nose, touch it, then flutter around your head and back to their own dance.
The walls open, and this golden dance is laid out like a fallen box, four sides and a floor wide upon a dark, empty plain. In the distance, uncertain figures flicker, their own living light trickling a hint of hope out into the darkness.
And then I close my hand, and you stand beside me, your world no larger nor smaller than before.
I could lift your chair, fling objects about with a slight gesture, but there is no greater power than to know Creation as it knows itself; and perhaps no better gift than to pass this on to others.
Smile, for I smile upon you, O Mighty One.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-28 07:36 am (UTC)Did I ever tell you about Jeff "Magnus" McBride's lecture on avant-garde stage magic?
no subject
Date: 2009-11-28 07:37 am (UTC)"Sufficiently advanced."
no subject
Date: 2009-11-28 08:59 am (UTC)Too big! Too blue!
*pokes em'*