xp_logs | Amanda, Charlie - Saturday lunchtime

Another Strange class, another meeting with Charlie - Amanda has lunch with him, and they debate the validity of the oral tradition in magic, disassociation when it comes to online communication and being a jerk, and the attraction of nebbish guys.

"I dunno, it's like he's tryin' t' hold me back or somethin'," Amanda complained, but half-heartedly, gesturing with the fork she was using to shovel pasta into herself. It was turning out to be a nice day after all. Meeting up with Charlie after her class and having lunch was a definite perk, Remy giving her a few extra hours before coming to get her. Especially given the mansion's current atmosphere. "Sometimes it feels like I'm on the brink of a breakthrough, the magic really workin' proper, without the headaches an' the rest of it, an' then he sets me t' studyin' history or another dead language or somethin'."

"Well," Charlie fiddled with his own meal, toying a tomato back and forth. "Based on the readings, the fundamental power aspect can be easily lost from the matrix without the ritualized background. It's like... hm, like a nuclear reaction. The power of the reaction can be generated, but also get totally out of hand if the proper containment isn't there. Maybe the background is a magic version of a lead shield and some heavy water." He finished, actually quite pleased with the analogy.

She wrinkled her nose at him. "'S not fair - here I am, gettin' me bitch on, an' you're bein' all reasonable at me." The cafe was one she'd discovered during her afternoons spent roaming New York after class last year, before her life got too complicated for such simple pleasures. "I s'pose that's it, he doesn't want me bein' the magical equivalent of Chernobyl, but still, 's frustratin'. 'Specially when there's somethin' in me that doesn't feel right with some of the stuff we're doin'. Like it's not suited. Tho' that could be the control issues again." The amulet was hanging outside the t-shirt she was wearing, glowing softly as she recharged.

"Stephen Strange is on the cutting edge of thaumaturgic study. He's part of what we call the Historical school." Charlie grinned, referring to one of the on-line communities that he was active in, and that Amanda hadn't even heard of before him. "Basing innovations on prior research and studies. I guess it carries a certain mindset to it. Maybe, considering your innate power, the traditional approach isn't the best. I mean, hell, half of your stuff is based in witchcraft, which is like hooking a jet engine on the back of a pair of roller blades."

"'S what Forge an' I were workin' on, 'least before his accident," Amanda said, finishing her pasta while Charlie was still playing with his food. Class always made her hungry - no surprise there. "Streamlinin' some of the spells so as t' make 'em more efficient. Forge ain't a magic user, but his power lets him invent things, make 'em work better. Of course, we tend t' muck things up sometimes, take away too much of that lead shieldin'. Only it's my brain that cops the explosion." Her grin was wry.

"Yeah. Call me crazy, but I know I prefer it if you weren't using your brain matter as the brake." Charlie gave her a crooked grin. "Magic is far less interesting when your forebrain is leaking out your nose."

"Hell on the image, too. How's a girl s'posed t' be all tough an' the like when she's keelin' over every five minutes?" she replied, chuckling. She reached for her glass of water, taking a couple of sips. "'S one of the reasons they put me on the healin' ban - was wearin' meself out over small shite. Apparently I'm not too good at sayin' no."

"Really? Hope springs eternal then." Charlie picked up his coffee and took a sip. He was greatly enjoying the afternoon, too often locked into his own head for hours on end over the magic theory, it was nice to talk about it.

"Well, the boyfriend doesn't complain 'bout it, either," Amanda said with a snicker. "Well, 'cept when he does. He's not exactly the most stable people sometimes." At least Remy wasn't around to add his opinion of that understatement.

"The most stable? You're not dating one of those manic depressive goth types, are you?" Charlie said, mentally underlining the word boyfriend and flipping a couple of mental gears from 'full throttle' to 'neutral'. He wasn't good with girls, but he knew enough to step carefully.

Okay, the idea of Manuel as a Goth was a funny one. Once she'd stop giggling, Amanda shook her head. "He's an empath - he can see an' change people's emotions. It's hard for him t' separate his feelin's from others sometimes, an' he's one of the few people whose backgrounds make mine look sort of normal." A thoughtful look crossed her face. "Things're up an' down, but... we're good for each other, mostly. Been a year now."

"I hear the up and down thing is normal in relationships. Or, at least, I've seen that on television." Charlie shrugged. "A year is a pretty long time. Sounds serious, I guess."

"Wouldn't know - I've never had a 'normal' relationship in me life, at least before I came here." Amanda's tone held little of the bitterness it might have had a year ago. "When we're up, 's really good. When we're down, 's bloody horrific. We muddle through, tho'." She tilted her head, looking at him. "You tellin' me you've never had a girl interested? Good-lookin' chap like you?"

"This might come as a shock," Good looking? "but I'm really not very good with girls. Or people in general. Or pets. But fish? Fish and I are like this." Charlie brought his fingers together. "Seriously, no. My mother is fairly strict with school and everything, and the fact that sports and I often are not in the same book together, much less sentence, and the hobbies... let's say you're the first girl I've met in a while that doesn't have enough mascara and facial piercings to qualify as an art installation."

Amanda snorted water. "Good thing you never met me last year," she said, once she'd stopped coughing and spluttering. "Bad black dye job, enough metal in me face t' give the security blokes at the airport a headache, full makeup... the lot. An' a chip on me shoulder the size of the Empire State." She shook her head, amused. "Talk about yer try-hards." Returning to the topic of him, she gave him another of those penetrating looks she'd learned from Romany, blue eyes keen. "See, you just need t' meet the right people. Get you in with the right bunch, an' you'd pull easy as anythin'."

"Tell you what. You find a group of people, preferably female people, with a thing for the slightly nebbish, and I'll even buy the drinks." Charlie said mock seriously. "And yes, the entire point of that sentence was to use 'nebbish'."

She giggled at him. Amanda never giggled, except when she was with Meggan. "'Nebbish'? Is that even a word?" she asked, meanwhile plotting to have him come to the school at some point. The girls there had a taste for 'nebbish'.

"Nebbish is a great word. Ask Strange. I bet he was nebbish too. It's a fantastic way to say geeky without sounding self-pitying." Charlie shook his head and laughed. I took a guess that I wouldn't get much mileage out of self pity."

"Strange is still nebbish. Even if he's gettin' some from Wanda." That was still a source of great amusement to Amanda. Yep, she'd definitely see about bringing Charlie to the mansion. They'd benefit as much as he would, actually. "The thing 'bout self pity? There's always some bastard willin' t' point out exactly how lucky you actually are. So it's better t' save 'em the trouble." She shrugged. "Had me own run-ins with it, an' finally worked out it don't really get you anywhere."

"So I hear. Alors, mes amis, nous sommes un couchen." Charlie rolled his eyes and said in a terrible accent. "Or something like that, I guess. My French is up there with my Russian; functionally non-existent."

"An' yet it's still better 'n Remy's," she snickered.

"The guy from the shop? He's, what, Cajun right?" Charlie said, remembering the lanky man. "So it should be creole, or gumbo, or something like that. Where did you two meet, anyhow? I can't see it as a accidental thing."

"Yeah, that's him. We met at the school," Amanda replied, trying to figure out how to edit this to actually make sense. "Got there within about a month of each other. We'd both done some time on the streets, so we got t' be friends. Common background, that sort of thing."

"Makes sense. I'm afraid I can't claim any street cred." Charlie shrugged. "Just got the magic obsession and my winning way with people. It's good that you've got people who understand you and him." He edged away from the street issue. He assumed that it might be a touchy area.

She wrinkled her nose at him. "'S not so much cred as smellin' bad an' bein' out in all weathers," she said frankly. The days of her being more streetsmart than thou were over, given the trouble it had given her with Jubilee. "An' hey, magic obsessed an' a winnin' way with people over here, so now you've got the same." It was meant to be a teasing sort of thing, a small joke, but it held a note of sincerity too. Amanda had been on the outer often enough, she knew what it was like to be the freak amongst the normals. Even amongst other mutants.

"Now I can die happy. Actually, it is nice to talk to someone about this stuff who's not calling themselves 'CyberGandalf357' and adding those smiley faces to the end of every conversation." Charlie laughed. "The dangers of the internet and all."

"Plonkers," Amanda said, joining in the laugh. "Sounds like the journal system at the school. Smiley's an' all." She paused, giving him another of those considering looks. He had a neat way of focussing the conversation on her, she realised. But if he didn't want to talk about himself yet, she wouldn't push. Much. "You wouldn't believe some of the fights that go on sometimes. Somethin' 'bout talkin' to a computer screen makes people lose their marbles or somethin'."

"Disassociation. It's an actual term where you are able to act in a manner unlike yourself because there is a barrier there. Which is why people scream and rant like freaks but in public, they wouldn't say a word." Charlie nodded, neatly slipping into another area he enjoyed. "Same thing with war games and things. People stop being people, and it makes it easier to vilify them. However, on the plus side, creepy girls, or at least girls in theory, are more likely to talk dirty to you." He finished the last with a grin and a thumbs up, obviously loosening up a little.

"Knew you had it in you," Amanda said approvingly, grinning. "Of course, the problem is yer hot blonde Swedish supermodel could be some fat bastard from Slough who likes t' dress up like a school girl." She considered the first part of what he'd said. "So, you're sayin' people act different 'cause it's not like screamin' at a real person? Just words on a screen? Makes a lot of sense, that does." Especially given her distrust of the written word.

"Words aren't people. There are no feelings to get in the way. So, calling someone a dirty faggot or a Nazi is easy because it's the words. You don't have to watch them hurt." Charlie finished off his coffee. "Similar to a pack mentality, where you sublimate your own views to that of the pack. On the internet, you ignore the conditions of society in your own point."

"Words lie," Amanda murmured, mostly to herself. At Charlie's curious look, she elaborated. "I wasn't very literate when I came here, an' part of that was I didn't trust words written down. You can make 'em say whatever you want. In person, you have t' make the effort t' lie, an' I'm good at tellin' when someone is. So the computers, the online journal system... it took me a while t' warm to it. Even now, if I've got somethin' important, I try an' do it in person. Least that way I can tell what they're thinkin' when I'm tellin' 'em whatever." There were exceptions, of course - the goodbye letters, for one.

"Letters have a lot of power too. As a magister yourself, you're going to need to deal with that." Charlie leaned forward, himself a massive fan of the idea of language. "Remember that written material is like the operating system of civilization. Without it, and discounting the viral nature of oral history, the entire structure of higher culture crashes. There's so much power in that, from the top down. I think that's why the bannings and the burnings never really went away, because people instinctively understand the power and the difficulty in controlling it. There's a lecture on the MIT website about it you should look at."

""I know life'd be a lot easier without all the readin'," Amanda said with a teasing grin. "You can't discount oral history altogether, tho'," she pointed out, now being serious. "Magic's history goes right back before there was writin' stuff down - harder t' identify someone as a witch that way, which meant that it continued on underground durin' the burnin' times."

"Of course, but it's hedge majicks. Higher magic is based on writing as is higher culture. Sure, the caveman might beat the astronaut in a straight fight, but only in the rarest of circumstances." Charlie grinned. "Like comparing the light of an oil lamp to napalm so to speak. Or, in more magic parlance, it can all be boiled down to 'fuck the druids'. Thus ends the lesson." Charlie sat back with a look of deep satisfaction. This is what he'd been looking for on-line; a real argument for once.

"Bollocks it ends the lesson," Amanda replied, enjoying this as much as he was. "Without that caveman, you wouldn't have yer astronaut, an' without that oral tradition, magic would've been lost. Hedge magic, old wives' tales, all the rest of it... it's what kept things goin' until we got to a point where magic didn't make you the Guest of Honour at yer own barbecue." Romany's insistence on her learning the history of magic was paying off.

"And without basic algebra, you have no calculus and modern physics. But you can't use algebra to get to the moon." Charlie shook his head. "There something that I've noticed is that the idea of tradition implies greater worth, which isn't so. You yourself, use a number of Wiccan traditions, which are vastly unable to channel the amount of power you harness. Wiccan is, despite a metric ton of intensely badly written words on the subject, an almost entirely oral tradition. The grimoires came out of the first attempts to translate their works into Latin structural hierarchies. Written language was the next step in power. I'm not slighting the importance of the oral tradition in it's role in developing magical structures, but its place in the modern magic paradigm is increasingly minor."

"Minor, but not non-existent," Amanda pointed out. "An' while the Wiccan stuff can't channel me power, neither can the modern stuff Strange is teachin' me. Not completely." She shrugged. "Apparently the world of magic ain't ready for somethin' like me." With a sudden grin, she added. "Maybe we could come up with our own me-friendly version?"

"It's possible. Considering the power you have natural, you can strip out a lot of the existent building process on the normal spell..." Charlie rubbed the tip of his nose, a habit that Amanda was starting to realise meant he was thinking hard. "What we need is a linear matrix that can handle the sheer flow, almost like a logirhythm. I wonder if there are any other examples of mutants like you in the magic spheres."

Amanda shook her head. "Not that I've met, but Tante - she's this houdon down in New Orleans I was introduced to - she said I'm not the first. Dunno what she meant exactly - she tended t' talk like Yoda a bit." After a moment's thought, she said. "Y'know, you ought t' meet Forge - he says similar stuff 'bout the magic, only he's not got the groundin' in it you have. T' him it's just another science problem. I'll see if he's up for it... he hurt himself a few weeks ago, an' is goin' through a rough patch. Might be a good way t' distract him."

"Sounds like a plan. The operating system thing actually got me thinking along a mathamagical line." Charlie mused, toying with his cup. "If you've got a science wiz who's willing to actually listen, we might be able to come up with something. As for this Tante? She's likely right. Maybe not someone exactly like you in terms of the mutant ability, but the sheer range of power and how they coped."

"Remind me t' bring me PDA next time - I can show you some of the stuff we've already done." Amanda finished off her water and leaned back in her chair, enjoying the sun coming through the cafe window. Spring meant warmth, and a shedding of her usual multiple layers. And colours other than black, although she still tended to strong primaries. "There's a quote I read somewhere, off a social worker's desk calender... "We all like t' think we're unique an' then we find out we're merely different". As much as I like t' think I'm a one-off, I'm gettin' the impression I'm not as special as I thought."

"I don't know if I'd say that." Amanda arched an eyebrow at him and he flushed. "What I mean is that your background, mutation, training; the fusion means that even if their are others who had the same initial elements, you're going to end up entirely different from pretty much anyone out there because of all of that."

"I like you," she pronounced, and the flush deepened a little. Grinning at that, she went on. "I've spent so much time havin' people tell me how dangerous magic is, how I don't respect it enough, an' that I'm too full of meself 'bout it... 's good t' have someone who appreciates it, y'know?" And her skill with it, but she wasn't going to say that.

"Frankly, its amazing to have anyone who thinks it's more than a special effect in the first place." Charlie dropped his napkin on the table. "And now that you have successfully and fully embarrassed me, I suggest we move our conversation on to the street, where I have the option of staring at my shoes instead of blushing."

"But the blushin's so cute!" she teased him, digging in her pocket for her wallet and laying enough to cover the meal and tip on the table. She'd gotten used to paying when out with Manuel, since his disinheritance, and she did it without another thought. "Remy's pickin' me up in another hour," she continued, grabbing her bookbag from where it was slung over the back of her chair. "Strange told me 'bout this place he found, one of those hole in the wall second hand book shops. Apparently the owner talks the talk an' has a nice stash. Wanna go raid it?"

"Just as soon as I stop looking like a bruised tomato here, sounds like a plan." Charlie tossed his jacket over his shoulder and pulled open the door. "What's a day without a little ancient Sumarian in it?"