IC INBOX for The Last Voyages

[magician_king]

You know what to do.

Comments

[magician_king]

Yeah, I can see that. We wondered a lot whether we'd find a fountain through to Flatland.

That's how it is. You get to the Neitherlands first, and then pick your door.

[tetractys]

I SENSE YOU'RE AVOIDING MY QUESTION!

[magician_king]

What question? 'Wouldn't it be cool if lies came true?'

[tetractys]

I MEANT TO ASK IF IT WAS POSSIBLE TO CREATE THAT SPELL!

[magician_king]

You don't need to. It happens naturally, if you're a good enough magician and you believe your own bullshit.

So the way magical training is set up, you memorize and memorize and rote learn and practice, and then when you're in fourth year, out of five, you go for a special semester in Antartica. They take your voice. You wear white, you live in a cell, you fucking cast until your mind breaks. At the end of it, they strip you naked and you go out onto the ice and walk to the pole, where a gate brings you back to New York.

It's a kind of- [struggling for words, he picks Mayakovsky's] -Rubicon you either cross or don't. Your mind intuits the shape of magic, you begin to be able to feel your way through spells instead of memorizing circumstances and formulas.

It's also incredibly fucking dangerous, because doing magic isn't always conscious. When you feel something, thereafter, that same intuition about the shape of magic can mean you pull the thing you're wanting towards reality. This is especially true of frantic self-delusion.

[tetractys]

WHAT IF YOU WANTED TO GIVE IT TO SOMEONE ELSE?

[magician_king]

I'm so unwilling to do that that it extends to discussing the hypothetical.

[tetractys]

HOW COME?

BECAUSE IT'D DESTROY THE FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE REALLY EASILY?

[magician_king]

Because it's a dick move.

[tetractys]

WHAT IF WE PRETENDED I WAS NEVER REALLY GOING TO USE IT?

[magician_king]

Cool.

You also had that bridge you wanted to sell me, right?

[tetractys]

NO, ME ACTUALLY TRYING TO CON YOU WOULD LOOK WAY DIFFERENT THAN THIS!

[magician_king]

Yeah, I have seen you try to con me, remember?

Either way, no dice.

[tetractys]

I LIED ABOUT SOME STUFF, NOT THE SAME THING!

LISTEN, YOU'RE GOING SOON, I DON'T WANT TO FIGHT! LET'S JUST FORGET ABOUT IT. I'LL WORK ON IT SOME OTHER WAY.

[magician_king]

We're not fighting, I'm just laughing at you and hard passing. And remember the time you tried to get me to say that I owed you an unspecified favour with no limitations as to scale?

The first time I killed you.

[tetractys]

OH YEAH! THAT WAS GREAT.

[good and hilarious times]

[magician_king]

That is when I decided to make friends with you.

[tetractys]

YEAH, YOU SAID AS MUCH!

I DIDN'T CARE THAT MUCH THAT I DIED BEYOND BEING FRUSTRATED BY THE INCONVENIENCE, BUT YOU PROBABLY FIGURED THAT OUT.

[magician_king]

You've always been really chill about the learning curve I've been on.

[Which he appreciates.]

[tetractys]

OH, NO PROBLEM! I'VE TAKEN MUCH MORE DISRUPTIVE STUFF IN STRIDE. IT'S A TALENT!

["Talent," "personalty disorder," same thing]

[magician_king]

So what was the thinking behind the midas touch plan?

The full thinking.

[tetractys]

I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH I CAN EXPLAIN!

IF SOMEONE'S DREAMING ABOUT YOU, WHERE'S THE VERSION OF YOU FROM THE DREAM GO WHEN THEY WAKE UP?

[magician_king]

That's like asking if stopping making a shadow puppet of a dog with your fingers and a flashlight is cruelty to animals.

[tetractys]

IF IT THINKS IT'S A REAL DOG FOR THE MOMENT IT EXISTS.

LISTEN, CAN YOU TRUST THAT I'M NOT A MORON FOR A SECOND? THERE'S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THINKING WHAT YOU'RE EXPERIENCING IS REAL AND THAT ACTUALLY BEING THE CASE.

SO UNLESS YOU CAN GET AT THE GUY MAKING THE SHADOW PUPPETS, ANY AGENCY YOU REALLY HAVE DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING.

[magician_king]

Bill, I love you, I honest to God do. I definitely asked, which is my bad. And if I'm being dismissive, it's because every bone in my body, every one of my considerable instincts, and all my years of shitty and fucked up experiences- all of it is screaming at me that you are going to get hurt and you are going to hurt other people.

I get that this doesn't mean you can stop. But I am not here for you in this. I will, however, be here to help pick you up if [when] it fucks up. But this is my formal abstention from operation 'turtles all the way down.'