Made For The Breaking [Magical Girl]

Affinity and You: Ch. 4, Modern Magical Culture

4.3 The Duty of the Veil
The Veil, constructed in the 1400s, is one of the greatest achievements of the Asterium, a grand enchantment that suppresses most magical phenomena outside tightly-controlled conditions. If you achieve the level of Licensed Practitioner, it will be your duty as well to maintain the Veil, avoiding the flagrant use of magic before mortals, as well as responding to magical accident or abuse if need be. You will also be expected to avoid uses of magic that could damage or disrupt the enchantment itself, though the scale of it is such that this is generally a purely theoretical exercise.

Your primary duty in this matter is not to be an idiot, and to aid Asterium police to contain those Licensees who do turn out to be idiots. All Licensed Practitioners may be deputized as-needed in order to secure the Veil, though this is rarely if ever necessary. Your Oath of Asteria will include a passage affirming this duty.

Okay, so there's a huge enchantment, and it keeps magic secret, but what does it do? - R.

Also, who are you calling Mortal? I resemble that remark! - ✧

The Veil does four major things:
1. It predicts most natural magical events before they happen.
2. It keeps anyone but Licensees from casting outside of Asterium facilities.
3. It records all magic cast by Liscensees, and reports questionable uses to the Asterium.
4. It acts to prevent Mortals, aka non-mages, from wondering where the indirect results of magic came from.
5. It convinces any Mortal who does see something they shouldn't have that they'll be treated as a laughingstock if they come forward.
- Val.

That's five things. - ✧

I remembered another thing while I was writing, so sue me. - V.

So it doesn't actually keep a Licensee from casting magic on live TV? - Dec.

There are automatic safeguards that keep magic from being done in front of Mortal crowds, even by Licensed Practitioners. Only Asterium officials can override them. - V.

But if you were to record yourself doing magic ahead of time...? - Dec.

Then the Veil would report you for breaking your Oath of Asteria, and a very annoyed police officer would appear in your living room posthaste. - V.

Why does it even exist, though? - Rill

There was a historical need for it due to... various factors... I don't remember, to be frank. But nowadays it's maintained because it gives the Asterium final control over who gets to cast where. - V.

Are there really enforcers? - ✧

Ask ❀ under a ward. - V.

Is that really the only reason? I - thought the magical world would be better than this. - R.

Mages are as immortal as their Archetypes, so a lot of very old prejudices are still alive and well. - V.

But really? Only women can be mages, so why was sexism ever a thing in the mundane world? Why wouldn't powerful mages come to the aid of their sisters? - R.

I suspect that the history courses AA offers are pretty poorly taught. Again, ask ❀. - Dec.

It's also worth noting that three out of five affinities - Love, Truth, and Duty - benefit massively from always having a handy Secret available. That's probably a large part of how the Veil's been maintained for six centuries: whenever a Secrets affinity needs a convenient target, the Veil's always there. - V.

It's aveilable! - ✧

Stars, Hexxy, why are you like this? - V.

Just lucky I guess. Also, it's Kira-Kira, not Stars. I get that too much from my fans already. - ✧

Don't scribble in the textbook just to make jokes. - Valerie

Lighten up a little, V: it's not like this thing's worth the paper it's printed on.

Hey, speaking of killjoys: What's the Affinity of the Asterium again?

Duty, right? - R.

That was a rhetorical question. - ✧

TOP SECRET: EYES ONLY
COMPARTMENT HOWLING DAWN
AUTHENTICATION OATH: ◈
RECITE COUNTERSIGN:
Asperium Adamantis. My word is diamond as my heart is diamond.
. . .

Countersign accepted. Accessing requested file...

BCA PERSONNEL RECORD: OCULUS
Civilian Name: Isolde █████
Internal Aliases: "Thousand Eye", "One"
Cover Identities: See compartment UPRIGHT GAIA.
Affinities: Spite, Duty
Archetype: Witch
Position: Task Force Lead.

Service History:
BROKEN OAK, EMBER HAMMER, GLEAMING SHARD: Lead.
ALCHEMIC RETORT, UNDONE HEART, RED OAK: Combatant.
AETHERIC DEVOID, BLACK SIGMA, RED GLEAM: Field agent.
UPRIGHT ODYSSEY, UNDONE STRING: Analyst.
GOLDEN LEAF: Forecaster.

Notes:
Amorphous body. Initially used in a combat role, but high intelligence and tactical acumen flagged for Analyst training. Unusually strong secondary affinity: capable of emulating Princess archetype. Analyst training uncovered talents for scrying, forecasting. See compartment SILVER STRING for further information.

Strong grasp of psychological warfare principles, necessity of good operational security. Capable leader, but damaging to subordinate morale. Best used on a rotating basis for high-priority tasks.

Currently on leave for a year to two years. Access compartment GLEAMING SHARD for further information.

Current Clearances:
HOWLING DAWN, UPRIGHT GAIA, EMPTY DREAMS.

Current Assignment:
EMPTY DREAMS.

Current Status:
On Leave.

Update Current Status: Active.

Are you certain you wish to cancel your remaining leave?

Y

Update request submitted.

End session.

BCA connection terminated.

Affinity and You: Ch. 6, Advanced Concepts
6.1: Lesser Archetypes

While the Prime Archetypes are well established for four of the five Affinities, there remains a myriad of Lesser Archetypes that can grant some slight benefit to those who possess insufficient Natural Affinity to effectively channel a Prime. The most well-known of these is the Maid, which bears a resonance factor three-quarters that of the Princess at half the mana cost.

This makes cultivating the Maid archetype a tempting shortcut for novice practitioners, granting them much more immediate results than attempting to cultivate Royalty. However, this damages such mages' long-term prospects significantly, as any attempt to increase resonance factor after having reached the Maid's shallower natural maximum will come at a steep price.

This is merely one example of how the deliberate cultivation of secondary archetypes is a foolish and damaging practice, to be avoided if at all possible.

[If your Affinity is Truth, see Ch. 12 for a detailed examination of how to find your connection to the Unknown Prime.]

... This book. - R.

It's almost aggressively unhelpful, isn't it? - ✧

They could at least bother to mention a few other Secondaries! - R.

Unfortunately, we don't know anything about non-Truth Secondaries. Fascinating topic of experimentation, though. - Dec.

I've been looking into taking up Maid, actually. I don't really want to be Royalty: our mutual friend's kind of turned me off the concept. - Val.

Yeah, when she talks about her tutors I just want to give her a hug. - R.

We're lucky to have her. - ✧

Yeah, we are. - R.

... can we chat more about this later, Val? - R.

Definitely. - V.

6.2: Advanced Collective Casting
As discussed in detail in previous chapters, magics based on different Affinities can interfere, either constructively or destructively. While traditional wisdom is that collaborative casting requires a full circle of five mages and a dedicated pentagram, recent experiments have shown that collective casting is possible between any three mages that share a Dominion. By pooling Investiture in a ritual object, the mage with Primary Dominion can mediate between the two with Secondary Dominion. This prevents the subordinate magics from interfering destructively, but still grants all the benefits of harmony between the primary Affinity and the secondary ones.

This casting construct is known as an Arc. Though their use is somewhat limited, they can still help you produce advanced effects if you are having difficulty finding a mage of a particular Affinity.

I don't really see the point. - ✧

This... doesn't let you do anything much more than you could just by working individually and staying out of each other's way. Another bit of useless trivia, I guess: god knows this book's got enough of them. - V.

Message from ❀ on this. "Experienced mages can synchronize their magic so that they can co-cast even if they're of opposing Affinities. The going theory is that there's a secondary set of shared virtues we haven't figured out yet.

Therefore, if the two mages of opposing Affinities are familiar enough with each other, you can get results comparable to a full Pentagram with two less casters." - Dec.

Awww, how cute! - Rill

Eh? - V

Once their magics get to know each other, they snuggle up and stop fighting! - R

... you're adorable. - ✧

Yep, guilty as charged.~ - R

I wonder if you could use that same principle to supercharge a pentagram. It'd require a lot of effort from everyone involved to get to know each other well enough, but... - Dec.

Maybe we'll find out, huh? What do you say, miss flower? - R

Sure, we can try it sometime when I'm not busy. - ❀

Cool! - ✧

I'll be there. - Dec.

Same. - V.

Don't forget to bring the books on maids and other secondaries! - R.

I won't. - Val.

Rill, here's that cheat sheet you asked for. Hope it helps. I think it goes without saying that if you actually cheat from it I'll be super disappointed. - V

Affinities:
Love -> Truth -> Duty -> Spite -> Art -> Love, etc.

Dominions:
Treasure
Familiar
Weapon
Computer
Secret

Archetypes:
Magical Girl
Idol
Witch
Princess
???

Investment = Power
(esp. for Passion Arc - Love, Art, Spite)
Affinity & Archetype influence form, esp. of Prime Dominion.
Spite Familiar: black cat, toad, crow, owl, bat, etc.
Love Familiar: flying stuffed animal, talking ball of light, etc.
Art Familiar: Muse

Channeling:
More archetypal = easier to channel
Stronger archetype = more power to grab
Dominions = Mana Batteries
Foci can help grab: Dance, diagrams, speech.
Seem to be personal? Try lots, find what works

Virtue Theory:
Adjacent affinity = harmonious, opposite = discordant
Spite & Love, Truth & Art, etc. attack each other
Pentagram needed to cast effects that use all 5, e.g. The Veil
Can also be balanced by a shared harmony (Arc of 3)
Arcs imply shared virtues even if discordant?

The Truth Question:
Cycle Formulation (Lynde, circa 1470)
Truth Attunement (Grey, 1712/13)
First Secondary (Sheraton, 1727)
Theory of Primes (1870s, Lynde & Strauss)
Discarded Primes through 20th century
(Secretary, Librarian, Teacher, Inventor)
Cultural Theory: "Buried Prime"? (e.g. Royalty post-1900s)

Intermediate Tips:
- Don't overact, Affinity is about character
- Avoid secondary Archetypes
- Learn to co-cast, you'll need it
- Learn to read Affinity by projected Archetype
- Small details matter if you don't want to exhaust yourself!

Other Open Questions:
- Secondary Virtues? Can Arc behavior tell us about them?
- Are Foci associated with affinity? Conflicting data.
(e. g. Speech associates with Love, but not Dance with Art??)
- If they are, what are the other two Foci?

December asked me to add these:
- Balances might theoretically exist? (Inverse Arcs: horribly unstable in practice.)
- What kind of construct is the Veil anyway?
- How do we know we've got the right Primes?
- Why are all the Primes highly feminine?
- What kept the magical world from stopping sexism?
- TWE are affinities nature vs. nurture?
- What About Trans People?
- Why does Virtue Theory matter? (Good prestudy for Harmonics)
- Assuming Secondary Virtues exist, what would they be?
- How does magical immortality actually work? Is it just agelessness, or...?
- Ask ❀ about historical Affinity-development practices. (warning, may cause nightmares)
- Don't forget to actually experiment with magic. We just got spiffy new test ranges: use 'em before they're all blown up.
- Don't worry about Mishaps, the safety wards are very good.
- Good skill! I'm sure you'll do fine.

Truth
- Why am I aligned with this? I expected Spite.
- What is truth? Let's maybe not start by trying to solve one of the oldest philosophical questions in the world.
- What about this missing Prime thing? Am I going to be stuck with crappy magic forever?
- Well, at least I did actually get an Affinity, so the experts are wrong on some things. Maybe there's something they overlooked. Does this place have a decent library?

What We Supposedly Know
- Only cis girls can practice magic.
- Truth magic has contradictory effects. It's inconsistent and twisty and actually bloody annoying. And nobody knows what the Prime is.
- There's still a continuing academic dogfight over what Truth-the-Affinity is, with two major camps. One says that Archetypal Truth is what matters - that the result of the magic feels real, even if it's propped up by bullshit. The other says that Physical Truth is what matters - that the magic doesn't do or produce anything that's actually physically impossible, even if the results seem extremely implausible. Both sides have got some decent arguments but both sides also have major holes. Need to come back to this.
- Truth doesn't make things truthful any more than Art makes things artistic or Duty makes things dutiful. The causation runs the other direction: Truths fuel truth magic.
- Secondary Archetypes like Librarian or Secretary are beneath notice and not worth investigating.
- The records on who has found some fragment of Truth Prime and what it was are practically nonexistent. I smell Asterium infighting.
- Only Licensed Mages can cast off-campus.

Conjectures:
- Only girls, full stop, can practice magic? If I knew more GQ people I'd do the obvious experiment, but oh well.
- The Veil might not actually suppress my magic, given my weird circumstances. It'd be a nice perk if this ended up being true, but frankly I doubt it.
- I probably hit some fragment of Truth Prime by accident if it managed to override my Spite affinity, which is probably my strongest natural affinity for obvious reasons. Trying to reconstruct Truth Prime seems like a fool's errand, though.
- Secondary Archetypes have probably not gotten anywhere near the study they really deserve, and I ought to look into adopting one to boost my strength a bit. Or maybe a few. Is there any reason not to adopt as many Archetypes as you can? (Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot problem?)

Re: THE NATURE OF TRUTH (dun dun dunnn)
Okay, so to summarize the arguments...
The academic catfight is over whether it's more important to be realistic or sincere. ... No, that's not right. It's more complex.

On one side you have the idea of truth as something straightforward and obvious and easy-to-understand. Truth isn't necessarily easy, but it's clear and emotionally resonant. This is the side of the debate that argues in favor of known-to-be-flawed models - the planetary model of the atom, for instance, or Newtonian gravity. "The only map that's perfectly accurate is the actual landscape, but that doesn't mean that all other maps are lies." They're willing to sacrifice precision to improve communicability.

On the other side, you have the idea of Truth as complexly entangled, non-intuitive, and rarely apparent to casual inspection. This is the side of the debate that points out that physical Laws are remarkable because they're rare, that the world is astonishingly complex, and that humans are both bad at statistics and extremely prone to bias. They tend to argue in favor of jargon and technical expertise, sacrificing communicability for precision.

I feel like both sides have good arguments, and I can't really refute either of them, so I've decided to store both of them in my brain and let them keep bouncing off each other. I've labelled the "truth-is-simple" position Amaranth and the "truth-is-complex" position Labyrinth, for... Reasons. I dunno, they just have pretty strong aesthetic associations for me?

- Let's break that down, since I've just accidentally given myself a great example to work with. Labyrinth says "The fact that something has a strong aesthetic association for you does not mean that you should name it according to that aesthetic association: that's imposing your own biases on the world." Amaranth says... "The fact that something has a strong aesthetic association for you provides a convenient label for you to use in order to hang that concept on, rather than risk distorting the idea in your head by using a word that implies something different to you. It also provides an avenue of exploration for you: why is this concept associated with those other ideas for you?"

... Well, that ended up being more interesting than I expected. Uh. - Amaranth argues for jargon, Labyrinth argues against it. That seems kind of backwards at first glance, but maybe it's that Amaranth values internal-beliefs more? Whatever's going on there is definitely worth investigating. Also, sorry Labyrinth, Amaranth has a point and you're stuck with the name now.

Anyway, I was going to write down some of these aesthetic associations before I lost them:

Amaranth: the color gold, flowers, brilliance, sunlight, simplicity, elegance, beauty, legends, myths, faerie tales, glory, honor, sincerity, immortality, fragility, purity, desire, simplicity, trust.

Labyrinth: the color purple, stone, mazes, shadows, complexity, intricacy, ugliness esp. in the sense of being overcomplex or entangled, surprise, dirt, getting lost, mysteries, forgotten things, eternity, vastness, outer space.

... It's interesting observing the ways these interlock. They... are both Truth, but in very different ways. I think Amaranth says that 'telling the truth' means being understood, and Labyrinth says that 'telling the truth' means reporting honestly?

... I kind of prefer Labyrinth, if only because it puts the burden of interpretation on the listener, not the speaker. If I say X, it's not my fault if you hear Y: it's your job to make sure that your conception of X is correct. That seems more optimistic about the general capabilities of humans to me.

Then again, maybe that's the best argument against it. <.<