Catching up...
Molly did not bring up the matter IC, you guys would have to vote for it because it is quite fraught
Yeah. Probably something to address.
Magical heredity, and matters of inheritance can have important implications in the Dresdenverse.
And that doesnt include the potential for mundane inherited medical issues.
It is worth remembering that while magic corruption making it easier and easier to do things with magic once you start doing them with magic is a thing, the laws themselves are set by and enforced by men. The lines ARE arbitrary, and it's not that doing stuff with magic doesn't make it easier to do that stuff with magic in the future, but rather than the White Council only chooses to make specific acts illegal.
All magic changes the person who does it. It's just that in the opinion of the White Council, who are wizards, changing to be more willing to kill fae and vampires with magic isn't a bad thing so long as there is a hard line preventing it from spilling over to killing humans.
^^^^
Fair point about the examinations, there is some context here that makes it a less than perfect mapping. That said, the white council not caring about what you do to nonhumans as long as it isn't a threat to the world, and humans dehumanizing the literally inhuman shouldn't be a surprise.
White vampires are frightfully human for all their power, and strictly by the book as the white council writes it you can do whatever you want to them as long as it doesn't cause them issues. Same with ghouls. Harry start torturing one to death in front of a number of wardens, and does execute it with fire, and didn't even get a reprimand.
I'd also like to point out that Dresden seemed to feel pretty violated in that scene where he found out about the mind magic, he just had to bull through it because of the case then carefully avoided the topic later. You could treat that as shrugging it off, but it always read to me like shying away from touching a hot stove. It was just another element of his backlog of trauma.
Bob is a bad example for your argument here, because that was the most explicit case mental manipulation directly messing with personhood in the series. Bob directly explains that his knowledge isn't just his power, it's part of his way of being and that forgetting changes who he is.
Harry just didn't care about that, though in fairness to him he heard in that same scene that Bob wanted the changes he was imposing. The consent and active desire for the process does matter here. I was being imprecise with my initial comment, I should have said forced mind magic or something instead of mind magic as a whole.
That also hits stuff like Harry erasing trauma. Technically it's the same category, but the metaphor isn't perfect. He was essentially proving necessary medical care to people to incapacitated to consent. Medical experts are allowed to act without explicit consent in cases like that, as long as what they're doing is necessary to get you to the point where you can make decisions again.
Molly's case wasn't like that at all. You can clam her motives altruistic, but I don't think they were quite as pure as that and the effect of what she did wasn't the same. She wasn't soothing anything and she didn't have consent for the changes.
She didn't get anything material out of it, but she did (or least she was trying to) get them to resolve the clusterfuck they were in the way she wanted them to.
I don't expect Rosie to tell Molly to take a hike, but I think that's more about dependency than because she'd appreciate what was done to her.
1) Agreed.
The White Council Doesnt Care About Nonhuman People. Except when its expedient.
Even though the RPG makes it abundantly clear that the principles are both less cut and dried, and do extend to sapients in general.
The thing worth remembering about the Laws is that while they are built around observed principles, they are of themselves human legal instruments made by and enforced by humans with human understanding, not magical constants.
As such expediency is very much a factor.
Im not ragging on the Council, mind.
Just pointing out that its, for example, a lot easier to decide to hew to the letter of the law when the accused perp is an arcane nobody, than when their parent is a Knight of the Cross that just saved three Senior Council members.
Or, say, how Dresden's compunctions about killing mortals with magic dont extend to human Fomori servitors.
2) I dont agree.
It was pretty clearly terror at his vulnerability out of the blue, which stops when he realizes it was Mab blocking off memories.
And he already knew he was vulnerable to Mab ever since she made him stab his hand to make the point.
We actually see what its like when Dresden was violated, back in Book 3 Grave Peril.
When Bianca's Red Court seethe capture him trying to sneak back into their compound at the end of Chapter 33 and proceed to violate him repeatedly over the course of hours and he wakes up naked in a basement.
Butcher drew a curtain over the specifics(massmarket paperback in the 1990s), but its not especially difficult to fill in the details, from his refusal to talk about it, his repeated nightmares and some comments by known betas for Butcher.
3) Mollys case was very much like that. Besides Molly being absolutely unqualified to do this of course.
Addicts often arent especially capable of making informed decisions with regards to their addiction, and with Rosie a minor at the time of most of her drug use...
Furthermore, established legal precedent with regards to drug addiction exist; judges will often mandate drug treatment programs as a sentence, and no legal system has any compunctions about denying an addict their drug of choice while in incarceration, as long as withdrawal is not lifethreatening.
Any more than the White Council would care about the opinions of a rescued POW who is addicted to Red Court venom.
Like I said, the road to hell and good intentions.
COMMENTARY
Lydia's a comic fan. So Marvel and DC, at a minimum.
Maybe Image and Dark Horse and Top Cow, as well as the European classics like Tintin, and Asterix and Obelisk.
She's a little less sheltered than I assumed.
Makes finding her a birthday present next month much easier; just buy a set of Calvin and Hobbes.
===
The ankh is a symbol used to represent life in ancient Egypt. In Egyptian mythology, the lotus is a symbol of the sun, of creation and rebirth. The lotus flower was the very first thing born of Chaos, and gave birth to the sun-god Atum-Ra/Amun-Ra
Amazing Flower Myths: The Lotus in Egyptian Myth - Blog : Free Next Day Flower Delivery, UK Wide! Send a smile with our beautiful flower bouquets. Same Day and Weekend delivery available. Fresh flowers delivered by Clare Florist.
www.clareflorist.co.uk
In Exalted, the lotus is associated with enlightenment, and specifically, the levels of martial arts.
There's even an Alchemical Exalt named Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo, where Nelumbo is the scientific name for one of the two flower genuses commonly called lotuses in real life.
Also, modern goths have associated the ankh with vampires since the 1980s
The mystery of Lydia's ancestry continues dropping tantalizing hints. If those old Egypt hints hold true, she's going to have to adopt a cat familiar to balance the dog from her father's side. Because cats are big in Egyptian mythology.
===
Looks like Olivia isnt making it.
Ive been having trouble visualizing what Demon Weapon Usum's blade looked like before now,
But I think I have it now: Fate!Excalibur, with the blade of polished brass/bronze looking like some of the depictions of the sword with a golden blade
===
Stallings is here?
Dude is Murphy's second partner, and was next in line to run SI when Murphy got demoted in canon. SI is either putting its best foot forward here, or a buncha people see an opportunity for lowrisk money.
Getting an eyeful of Molly and Lydia in full dressed to impress mode with a court full of ghosts is probably gonna leave quite an impression.
Huh. Both dresses are 10 sux plus, but not quite up to 15.
I wonder what would have happened if we'd worked actual magic into the dresses.
Keeping that in mind for Molly's Prom Night next year.
COMMENTARY
Midnight. What a chuuni name for a raven familiar
Doesnt even abbreviate into a proper nickname. Unless Midnight is a usename, and the fullname is something even more ridiculously chuuni like Midnight Wings Ascendant.
Wanna bet the raven named itself?
===
Wonder who the Hookman is supposed to be. Noone springs to mind.
Interesting that Madeline can sense Clippy even without line of sight, and a warning about what other supernaturals might be capable of pulling off.
===
Nice callback here.
Rosie was a user of IV heroin before Splattercon, and before she Awakened. And now we find that people who used the poppy a hundred years ago, which is a precursor for opium and heroin, are also a lot more sensitive to ghosts.
Neat bit of worldbuilding.
===
Looks like I was right about Jade Court vampires being active in the city.
Yet if its as young as Lydia appears to believe, then it probably isnt this one thats doing the killings. Especially as its a messenger for someone else.
Interesting that Arawn recognizes them.
The point worth noting?
Is that the Jades here have disturbingly good intel to both be able to figure out Lydia was holding a reception for ghosts, and to figure out that Molly would be there as well. And to do so in this city.
The lesson is that we need better intel.
Maybe Lydia needs to put points into Spies(Ghosts) or Molly into Spies(Wyldfae)
===
As has been demonstrated, Occult is Important in this universe.
Doesnt really matter your primary focus.
To do what Charity did to someone else against their will you would need the kind of necromatic lore the council burns on the spot for being way too easy to abuse
Rolls
Making Friends with Midnight
Cops and ghosts
Lydia identifies the vampire (She's lucky it's a favpred Ability)
Midnight was a familiar, so Molly should have been able to roll Empathy there.
That said, rolling 3 sux on Charisma alone is baller.
the future in now and it's high as fuck.
