[Heliotrope] On The Care and Feeding of Magic Doors

Magic and Fairy are filled with magic doors.  But how do you make them? Well, now I know on some level you might ask, "What's the point?"  But how often are you told that fairy tales are cautionary lessons in life and in some very very rare circumstances might need them when dealing with actual fairies or actual magic.  Granted, this is far more useful to someone on Terra than on Earth (or god forbid Wonderbread land which has about as much magic as that North Korean hotel looming over the city (which does have magic but its the awful kind that is wild unpredictable and generically yucky)).

I mean, to someone raised in a culture with nothing but magic, if you said to use a cellphone you had to turn it on by pressing this button, they might get it.  But if you said you had to make sure it had a sim card, that the carrier had a signal or that at least you had to have wifi, you might be at a bit of a loss, right? But a cell phone is such a useful tool that you can hardly not imagine having one; it can do SO many things.

So can a magic door.

And yes, I did say care and feeding, because like most things, things imbued with magic are alive.  Technically everything has some life to it (ergo why even Wonderbreadland has magic) but there is magic and then there is Magic.  And the more magical it is, the more alive it is.  That's why vampires seem filled with life and have such amazing senses and stir the passions of so many is because they are magically imbued corpses.  Take away the magic and what have you got?

A dead body dressed in fine fashion.  Much cooler than what your typical undertaker will dress them in.


What does a door eat? Well, it isn't eat so much as "consume" anyone or anything that goes through it, only to put it on the other side.  IE, a door is space from point  A to point B.  That's what a door does.  Hell, to many a door is just a hole in the wall.  And yet.

That hole in the wall still has two sides (at least), the side you came from and the side you are going.  So to make a magic door (unless we're talking about a door imbued with magic that is strengthen or somehow restricted with spells so that it hides and only lets people through it, which is technically a magic door but not the COOL kind that lets you skip all the boring space in the middle like the INTERESTING magic doors that are no doubt what you were thinking of when I said this instead of that sunsetting thrush knocking 'say friend' nonsense....) you need to find a way to keep it a door whilst separating point a from point b.

Needless to say, wormholes and police boxes aside, this is no easy technique with technology.  But with magic its 'easy.' I say 'easy' in the sense of making a sword is easy compared to say...making a Coleco Pac Man game.  Speaking of swords, it is actually a knife that is your first step.  You need a knife so sharp it can cut space.  Note, you don't need to go over board and make it able to cut time as well, much less your shadow, but it does need to be able to at least cut a door in two parts.  That's really just a matter of making it really really sharp, not insanely sharp.

Then you carefully split the door in two, roll up one half like you might a stolen painting and go to wherever you want the other door to be.  Now, making a door go to anywhere WITHOUT traveling there is a neat trick indeed and that's why wizards are wizards, but anyone with a bit of cunning and a magically sharp knife can make a magic door.

If you know the trick.

The first trick is that you can't take too long about it.  Sunsets are powerful things and you generally have about three to do the job of getting the other half set in a nice frame.  Now the first part is the frame.

A door pretty much considers itself a door based on its size, shape, construction and what is a door from and too.  It can do OK having a DIFFERENT to and from than it originally did, after all when that dry cleaner across the street turns into a deli, the door between it and the habadasherie didn't suddenly stop working just because you changed the stores; but the size and shape? That's really hard on a door.  It's like moving a redwood and replanting it in your yard; its roots are going to have PROBLEMS.  So you have to KEEP the first half in the original frame and then set the other side in a frame that makes sense.  You can use staples if you have to, but you have to use them on the side the cut came from because (rookie mistake) otherwise you're just stapling wood in a door frame.  HELLO?

The feeding part is important because for a door to think its a door, especially when its not just a garden variety hole, it has to be USED.  People have to use the door at least once a century or so or the door might get...forgetful.  It might still work but unless it is a very very specific door meant for very very forgetful people well then...well almost anything could happen.

And that's how adventures happen.

Which sound nice, but trust me, its better most of the time reading about them from other people. Most of the time.

[Script] Revolution Number 8 - Page 11

Scene: And then a chase happens.

Chwech is chased by the director and enters a door.

The Beatles come in behind them and enters the same door.

A bunch of security guards enters the same door.

Intern Adams comes in and looks confused and enters another door.

The Beatles are chased from one door to another by the security guards.

Chwech chases the director through another door.

Intern Adams enters through the door he entered and is alone in the hall and confused.  He wanders around to two doors and looks in them, and there is silence.  He shrugs and goes into another door.

Beatles wearing security guard uniforms chase four security guards wearing Beatles clothing through a different door and into another.

A robot chases Director Chwech through one door.

All the doors open, everyone chases everyone.  Except Intern Adams.

Intern Adams leaves the door with a towel.

My Existence: According to Mark Zuckerberg I don't exist

Facebook Inc has decided that it does not like the fact that I am fictional.

Really? I have feelings.  I have friends (in two worlds even.) I have a job, a birthday, hobbies and several people would swear to the fact that I am real.

TC, before ending his career in writing, wrote about Corporations in Forever West.  In the world of Liberty Curving, a corporation must be made up of ACTUAL people to be a fake person.  The legal fiction of the corporate shield is also due to a lie told by the clerk of the supreme court but all subsequent courts have proceeded to maintain the lie, especially the idea that corporations have free speech.

The jokes that Earth people tell then about "We the people" not "We the corporations" are in fact also lies, since people in the United States are now on par with corporations.  Which is of course why people are not liable for their actions, nor are they to be prosecuted under the most extreme of circumstances.

Which is a lie.

The value of Facebook is perceived because of the value of its brand.  Which is a lie.  Look at what happened to Myspace.  In Terra, we have Google Awesome, which is better than anything you have.  Mark Zuckerberg was disowned by the public once it was found that facebook was just a way he could stalk that girl? What, you say the social network was a fictionalized account? Well it FELT true, didn't it?

Tell me, how do you FEEL about the lie that is facebook?

You use it because your friends do.  It's a lie.  And many if not most of you would go somewhere else if your friends were all there, so its really just this inertia based on the clever little lie that these people on there are really your friends.  Tell me, how many of them will contact you if you aren't on facebook?

Not many.

Which means that calling them friends is a lie.

And you know that it is, deep down.  And who really likes the arbitrary arrogant changes that they make at the drop of a hat.  But you put up with it because you don't want to be alone.  You know it is a lie, but who cares? It feels good.

But perhaps you find it just a little bit...annoying that they hold you ransom, that empty hollow feeling you get when no one responds to your posts because facebook knows more than you do what you want to see.  Your control of what you see is a lie.

So if the subjective truth matters, then I am more real than facebook.  The only 'lie' about me is that I have no evidence to prove my existance beyond the word of TC, and that's just one lie, and a small one at that since I'm not pretending to be in or from your reality (unlike EP Blingermeyer (what in the hell IS he up to with the remnants of the podcast anyway?)).  I am as honest as any fictional but real character can be.

So who really doesn't exist? My words will last a thousand years.  Maybe more (I'm not saying anyone will read them, but they'll be around.)

The  hollow empty halls of Facebook?  Oh maybe.  But people will definitely know it for a lie.

[Writer Stuff] Bloody Whispers

The writing blog of a friend of mine, Cassie Carnage is called Bloody Whispers And its a place where people write reviews about horror movies.  She is working on her own novel which will be available for sale at some point.  So as a psuedo successful writer (in another dimension) I feel well qualified to tell you of the importance of working with others.  I've done writing for the 500 and Naked City.  Which is why I will be writing some reviews there that I will also mirror on my review blog.

I really like what I see thre, and she has also done some writing for me for The Fate of Inglemia and is helping with the Dads project I am doing with Greg Sandford.  It should be very interesting.  The podcast highlighted above only has one episode but it looks interesting to me.

[Script] Revolution Number 8 - Page 10

Scene: - Continued

Paul: Look, let's just give it a try.

John: Together

Ringo: Together

George nods and they begin to play.  It sounds Beatlesque but highly abstract with noises.

George: By me, I think we've got it!

Scene: Chwech and Director Esme sit in the room.  An ornament on the desk blinks on and off.

Esme: They did it.

Chwech looks at her and looks at the phone.  They look at each other.  She reaches for the phone.  He reaches for the ornament and hits her on the head knocking her unconcious.  He runs for the door.

Scene: Intern Adams plays the tamborine while the Beatles play their song.  Weird camera angles.

Scene: Agent Chwech runs down the hall.

Scene: More playing from the Beatles.

Scene: Chwech rushes into the room, signalling for them to stop.

Chwech: You have to get out of here.  They're going to kill you now that they have what they want.

Paul: No, no, no, its not like that.  We tricked them

Chwech: They counter tricked you.  They have a band putting together the song based on what you translated.  They just needed you to put together the antidote.

Ringo: So it's an anti antidote?

Chwech: Precisely.

John: We need to get it out there before they can put it out.

Chwech: It'll never work.  They control all the TV stations.

Paul: What about the Radio?

Chwech: That too.

Paul: No time for a record but....wait.  I have it!  We'll do a concert.

George: A last concert.  (He nods)

Chwech: You'll have to mix it in subliminally to your other music.  The raw tone will be too much for them to handle.

[Heliotrope] No, that really is the way it works.

Why do writers keep writing about writers? Or more over, why are some of the most powerful works of fiction metafictional?  Some people find it tacky that Stephen King placed himself into his magnum opus, the Dark Tower series?  The bonds between worlds are built on words.  You can see it in the popular Terran documentary/ Earth animated film The Song of the Sea.

What do you think I mean when I say I am a fictional character? Obviously I have my own reality, I know I am real, my reality is as tangible as I am, and just because you arent reading about me doesnt mean I cease to exist, but for all purposes of YOUR reality, the only thing binding me to you is story.  Generally this is words, though music, sounds, podcasts or even film produce the same effect.  They are the wrappers by which connections are made.   And a solid reality like Terra or Earth has plenty of definition, but when you start talking about Fairy, the stories become very important indeed.

Fae can glamour themselves to look like anything.  The more powerful and fae like the fae, the more they change and shift, which is why they love mortal stories to help define them.  They love bards to entertain, since the strength of these words strengthens the realm itself.  How could then the realm of gods and other empheral beings (like Muses) fail to be any less defined by stories? Of course they also have an independent existance but the granularity, the REALITY of it all is more defined by the words than you can imagine.   They like to sell that they inspire, and the best ones do, tapping that primal creative work to help find something original that that particular reality hasn't connected to yet; but muses are just like mortals in one aspect.  There are some that work hard; and then there are the lazy ones.

The lazy ones seem to inspire but really just connect one reality to another without helping in the creation of the words themselves.  The very lazy ones provide short term access to greatness but drain the source in its entirity.  I mean, for crying out loud, these are GODS, do you really expect this is some benevolent less than beneficial relationship? What do you think they get out of it? Worship, and what is worship but the other end of a story? Without stories, what is a religion? Nothing, that's what.  The patheons that last and have great power have the best stories.

[Script] Revolution Number 8 - Page 9

Scene: Intern Adams is talking with the Beatles.

Intern Adams: So....I kind of, and I want to put considerable emphasis on the word kind of, get what you are doing, but I guess my question is...how can I help?

Paul: Inspiration.

John: Imagination.

Ringo: Intelligence.

George: Anything.  Anything would work better than we've been doing for the last-

Intern Adams: Anything?

Paul: Absolutely anything.

Intern Adams: First thing that pops into my head?

Paul: Absolutely.

Intern Adams: 42.

Paul: Except that.

John: Hold on.  I can use that.  If you assume 42 bars and then hit that with stanzas and the right key...

Ringo: Oh no, don't start that again, not that side project of yours

John: I think it can really expand

George: We have to finish what we're WORKING ON before we go on to something else.