Talk To Glowfic Characters

[alicornucopia]

So we've started answering comments in "How To Read Effulgence" in character, and that's not really the ideal platform for those conversations. This is! You may address characters here and we may opt to answer in character. You will get a kind of loosely "backstage" out-of-continuity version of the character (in continuity proper, you cannot talk to them, since you aren't there) and if you want them at a specific (past relative to where we're writing) point in time, feel free to specify (e.g. "Addy in 1932", "Shell in her box", "the Joker while committed", "Minus right after he woke up from turning", "the alethiometer on the subject of 1207").

Any glowfic author may use this thread to receive questions.

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Comments

[linkhyrule5]

Well, yes. In the original (and apparently counterfactual) case where you were wishing up a nonexistent textbook, though, the question wouldn't come up.

Shame about ingots, but then I suppose that would be a really easy loophole to the "can't trump ingots" rule.

Eh, you could always tack on "that's not a known Bell." (Ooh, ooh, does Merlin exist anywhere? I wouldn't expect King Arthur in Downside even if he did, but Merlin often outright dies! ... it is strange to be excited about that.)

Yeah, but counterfactual-Emperor-Me is worried about nasty but subtle/invisible side effects, which are nice to catch early. Particularly since "side effects of already-cast magic" is on the shortlist of "things that could kill me in theory." (Also, it seems like it would be really nice to just, say, walk into Alethia and know how to cast any possible spell in a few days or something. Less fun, sure, but for important stuff I don't think you care.)

Obvious enough, should've just tried that. *derp*

[self_composed]

We haven't actually checked for any Merlins. I'm not sure the name is enough to go on, since certainly at least some people have just named their children that, and the legend might be too much to go on if he existed but has been massively distorted. (I mean, Aurum and Sunshine have really similar sets of available books and movies about vampires. And so do worlds with no vampires at all. There might be a dozen Merlins close enough to count who bear no real resemblance to one another.)

We're relying on Lazarus (and Glass) to warn us about anything nasty lying in wait. Glass, and the admin, are both really very sure that torching works really very well, so we aren't that worried about being perma-killed (although certainly there's unpleasantness we'd like to avoid). Possible exception being in Materia, but Glass would bet on torching even without Aether's aura.

[linkhyrule5]

Point, that's a shame. (Though if you do check, check for Myrddin, it's more likely to work.) It was kind of an idle thought but I miiight be a Merlin fan. :P

But you're probably right, that sort of thing generally gets caught by natives or Lazarus/Glass or both. (Though it's easy to imagine a magic system that would get around that - if there's a nasty way to exploit someone's spellcasting from afar, I'm not sure it'd be obvious in the target.) Counterfactual-Me is just significantly more paranoid about subtle mean magic.