Duality

Greetings and welcome, o acolyte of the equine! Surely with you among our ranks the world stands no chance against our grim march of iron and death and hugs. Not that it would've stood a chance even with you directly opposing us, but that's no ill reflection upon your strategic value; the Legion are relentless and the Legion are eternal. Key among your warfare-worthy traits are your citizenship in the glorious Canadian Empire (*salutes flag, brushing away manly tear*), purported skill in thinkering (around here we call subjectivists 'kindling'), awe-inspiring art powers (the closest any mortal can ever come to creating universes at will), ability to scream quasi-melodically (that will come in handy if you're a subjectivist and also if you're not), and allegiance to the one and only true Best Pony's sister. I am more than willing to assist in your training, if friendships alliances you indeed desire (failing to desire them is heresy; just saying). Enjoy your bleak future as we grind you into tear-streaked dust to further the cause of Harmony! Protip: One of the Seven Words of All-Consuming Might is 'floccinaucinihilipilification'. Its written form is common knowledge, and if you utter it as it is meant to be said you will gain immeasurable power, but if you pronounce so much as a single vowel wrong you'll implode into a pulp of innards. Not many people want to risk it when they first enlist, but it's your only ticket out of here either way.

True gentlemen don't ask such uncultured questions. *hairflip* Alas, I've given you all the tips I have already. Making a habit out of sleeping at a certain time, ditching electronics for a half hour or so before bed, trying herbal relaxants (like certain types of specialised Japanese tea, for example), that's basically all I do. I don't think they work for everyone, but I don't know anything more to do. I usually enjoy berry-flavoured things, and as for best food I've ever had, the only answer I can give you is the gourmet Angus beefburger with bleu cheese that I once ate with my family on a sunny afternoon when I was really hungry from an afternoon of travelling through the scenic countryside. Perhaps not objectively the best food I've ever eaten, but certainly the best food experience I can remember. There is no sound scientific data regarding this particular scenario for very obvious reasons (there's no way humanly possible to experimentally determine anything like that); anything anyone can say about this involves heavy speculation and very broad assumptions. The physiology of animals varies reasonably widely with how large they are, so anything significantly larger than the animals we know of already would be likely to have an exotic internal configuration of organs, bones, and tissue. The oxygen levels in our atmosphere (because every cell in their bodies needs to get oxygen somehow), regulation of body temperature (because all that heat needs to escape somehow), blood pressure (because either blood vessels pop in their feet or their head doesn't get enough blood if their circulatory system is ill-balanced) and the nutrition available to these hypothetical creatures are additional limiting factors to their size, but their inclusion is another layer of complexity on top of an already almost impossibly complicated problem. The largest mammalian animals known to have ever existed are blue whales. They can grow up to 112ft/34m in length and 190 metric tons in weight, far bigger than any dinosaur we know of. The largest archaeologically uncontroversial land mammal I could find were mammoths, which grew up to something like 6 metric tons and 15ft/4.5m. Semiaquatic animals still need to have little enough body mass to properly survive on land, though, so their half-and-half habitat wouldn't really lessen the roughly land-animal restrictions on their size. Other than those straight facts, I can't really tell you anything more; there's no educated theories on the subject.

That term, however, smacks of elitism bordering on racism (magism?), so make sure your characters keep their voice low when they use it if you don't want them to get in trouble.

Feel free to add your own character-specific terms for magic-users, my post is just there to serve as something of a general idea portfolio. 'Chanter' does have a firmly demeaning implication of dead-eyed, droning spellcasters, though; I like it.

The university isn't primarily a threat-countering task force, so standardised labels aren't really necessary for them to use. If precise classifications of mages were needed in a given situation, "GIANT PLANT MONSTER DESTROYING THE ENTIRE DUELLING HALL" would probably contain all practically necessary information, methinks. I could whip up a reasonable class system if you were planning on a source more militant than the university using it, though.

I mean, there's nothing stopping your character from giving himself a title dramatically describing his magic - it's pretty traditional, after all, and Ira's already got one -, but I advise not showing it off, since it would almost certainly come across as arrogant. The university makes a policy of refusing to give out official titles for people based on their magic for similar reasons (normal people would end up regarding all mages as prideful snobs if they all walked around flaunting their fancy official magic-titles), but they do give out special titles for those who have done exceptional good with their magic (in very rare cases, approximately analogous to knighthoods).

What sort of titles? Like a title that all magic users are granted regardless of power level or an accomplishment-based system?

That's a good question, actually. Duality's referred to magic users as mages a good few times, but that's mostly just due to ease of use on my part; I hadn't really thought it over until now. I think that words for 'magic user' would be distinctly region-variant, as with most slang, but for America (the university's general location) 'magus' shall be the conventional term, unless anyone would prefer it otherwise. 'Mage' shall henceforth be the British term for magic-users (since the America/Britain dialect divide is notorious and Duality uses quite a lot of exclusively British slang already), 'thaumaturgist' shall be the formal scientific term, 'magician' shall be derogatory (implying merely sleight-of-hand/smoke-and-mirror powers), 'warper' and similar variants shall be heavily derogatory (implying that magic-users are abominations), and 'gramaryian' - one who practices gramarye - shall be an archaic term that is only found in very old tomes (in case anyone wants to implement that). Are those sufficient names to meet your needs?

@Denim&Venom Update on post status?

But the choice whether one believes that they have free will or not - is that a free-will choice? That doesn't sound silly at all; I've struggled with that sort of anxiety myself. Good on you for setting things right. I'm of the opinion that every day it gets better. What is the most unsettling fact you have ever heard? What is the most interesting scientific theory you have ever heard? What is the most comforting reassurance you have ever heard? What is the most false piece of news you have ever heard?

Fair enough; it's hardly like an employee like you would ever be fired unless the entire company is going down. Repeat after me: 'I am still young...' How paranoid are you on a scale of one to flat-earther? What are you planning to do on your birthday? If you could have free fanart of one thing from any intellectual property, what would the one thing be? Which is your most-used response out of yes or no?

because you are pathetic vermin and must be exterminated *offers to return your grandmother safely to her knitting needles in exchange for all the treasure you have* Ah, so it's relatively long and fairly varied. Interesting. Or did you just forget to place a tray of warm muffins out this morning? She works like Santa, you know. Food for deliveries. And that brings up the interesting linguistical question of whether spaces are characters in their own right... do you also wear pocket protectors What do the eaves of your house/place of residence look like? How many windows does your house/place of residence have? How many chimneys can you see out of the closest window to you right now? How many chess games have you lost in your life?

All quite right. Good job. What's the best riddle you know? What's your I.Q.? How many dictionaries/thesauri/encyclopedias do you have? How have your plushies been faring since we last heard from them?

Hey hey hey, he's got his own thread! Moderately shady; I've only been mugged once. I do have a metal-tipped cane now for when I go for walks in the evening, though, and I haven't yet been accosted while carrying her. It's fairly soothing, but I come as close as reasonably possible to hermetically sealing my bedroom, so I don't think it makes much of a difference either way. Because, among other things, they're enchanted to help them to sleep soundly? I know if I was a ruler of such note I'd want a reliable spell to make sure the responsibility didn't keep me awake tossing and turning every night. VItamin D, a good tan, and cancer-inducing radiation damage. Can't think of any others off the top of my head.

Oh, I lead something of a secluded life. Nobody really knows about me either. Your fine selves included. Even organisms like that would be carbon-based, sad to say. Methane has the formula CH4, making it just as conventionally organic as DNA is. But I certainly agree regarding the aroma. Science doesn't even know enough about the brain to fail to completely agree as to how it works, actually - and same applies to sleep (a leading neuroscientist who spent 50 years studying sleep once said that the best reason he knows for why we do it is 'because we get sleepy'). Bikes on the other hand, stay upright because the angular momentum of their wheels requires force to change its net direction, hence why they only fall over when they're not moving. Science is fighting a winning battle with reality, in that our knowledge of how the universe works is constantly increasing, but to paraphrase Albert Einstein 'our knowledge is like a circle of firelight; the wider it reaches the greater the circumference of darkness is seen to surround it'. Reality is a lot bigger than science, and somehow I don't see that ever changing. Such a shame the physicists insist on applying all the pretty mathematics. Alas, no classes as of yet, but I've read enough about philosophy enough to know several key things about it: It incorporates the abstract component of effectively every field of study in existence, It is widely regarded as the purest of all intellectual pursuits by virtue of the fact that it's too useless to apply to anything, no offence intended, and One of its major unsolved problems is why it is having so little success trying to solve any of its major unsolved problems; take that as you will. I'm quite fond of philosophy, really I am, but it has a tendency to paralyse itself with its confusing clarity - much like your fine self, again no offence intended.

@Buck Testa @dragon4111 Actually, y'all's be waiting on Denim, as per my post and hence his post explaining his current unavailability. Timeskips shall be initiated in due course, but the hall I think should be locked down in IC time first, before the dinner bell goes and time be set free to skip like a carefree lamb frolicking the Scottish moors.

A chest-kerbstomp could actually quite easily break multiple ribs, but a bookcase falling on you would probably only break one or two at worst (assuming a normal-sized bookcase filled with books). The more distributed the force, the less likely ribs are to be broken. Standard sniper rifles can literally reduce heads to red mist, so the movies aren't all wrong. Your chest isn't flimsy and it can take a lot more force than your skull can; ribcages just work together with the muscle and flesh around them in a way that skulls don't. Well, we don't know of any non-carbon-based life-forms yet, so there's nothing to choose from outside there. I think it would be the human brain, easily. It is the biological seat of full awareness and, in the words of many modern scientists, the 'most complex structure in the universe'. Of exceeding interest in effectively every major field of scientific study.

A formal title specifying collectively that I am a school graduate, qualified to use Molotov cocktails, and a dastardly snvggl3r. Because humans best when humans together. It's very dependent on how much muscle you have packed on over your ribs and how flexed that muscle is. Strength contestants have dragged multiple trucks tied to a plank resting on their chest, but they have a lot of muscle in their chest and they keep it all constantly tensed while they try things like that. Normal people actually can (and often do) crack normal human ribcages by applying CPR chest pressure, so without much muscle and without that muscle being tensed ribcages aren't strong enough to resist the force of a normal human's locked wrist pressing down on them. That being said, diving incidents have shown that human chests implode when more than about 180 meters underwater, from what I've read, so that means about 1,800,000 Pa of pressure above standard atmospheric pressure crushes one's ribs when evenly distributed. Standard atmospheric pressure is 100,000-ish Pa, for comparison. Perhaps it does have a spiritual dimension, but it's worth keeping in mind that your brain is exceptionally good at hallucinating realistic experiences, especially when sleep-dreaming or during a medical occurrence (both of which are effectively components of sleep paralysis). That is not to say that it never has a spiritual dimension - there are many Biblical cases when certain cases of both sleep-dreaming and medical occurrences were shown to have spiritual dimensions -, but it's probable that, in a lot of cases, as with sleep-dreaming and medical occurrences, it isn't necessarily to be taken as a 'sign' or similar. Personally I'm of the opinion that demons have better things to do than hold people down and freak them out for a few seconds every now and then. The extreme cases seem more likely to be their fault (nightly and/or exceptionally harrowing episodes). I don't recall ever doing so, but why the 'please say no'? I haven't watched any (that I can remember), but alas, I find horror in general not that horrific. If it can't scare me in written format it's not true horror, in my niche and unrefined opinion, and I haven't yet found any story conceptually chilling enough to keep me up at night.

@Denim&Venom & @reader8363: Passion's character has just showed up demanding explanations, so if Miko, Mindy, and Shadow want her help to lock down the remains of the duelling hall, it's now or never. Denim especially, you haven't posted for ten posts, give or take; it's your turn to post if anyone's. Duality only went down four posts ago, so she's definitely not out of the infirmary and ready for interaction yet. As soon as the duelling hall gets sealed off (or possibly before then if it doesn't get done in good time), the dinner bell is prepped to ring for everyone to make their way to some well-needed nourishment. I'm planning for Duality to make her way out of the infirmary to the dining hall only after that bell rings, because a big part of the reason she fainted was because she was dehydrated and she hadn't had any food since a smallish breakfast in the early morning. He's somewhat active on Discord, but I think work is really taking a toll on his spare time.

@dragon4111 @Buck Testa @Denim&Venom @Passion First things first, yay I'm back! Immediately following from the above, my semester schedule strongly indicates I will have at least two assessments due per week for every single one of the twenty-odd weeks before I finally finish this qualification, and so if I seem distant or otherwise failing to post, it's because my soul is being ripped out through my eyeballs or something. Subsequently, as for this magic-crime punishment agency idea: I have described a pretty similar governmental agency in that one collab post Passion and I wrote up (do read it if that particular piece of lore is relevant to your character, it's talked about in the fourth paragraph onwards), but regarding the concept of permanent power-stripping or similarly harsh punishment for mages who pose major risk to everyone and sundry, the government definitely wouldn't be administering anything like that - it'd violate so many ethics laws etc., that even with all the decades magic has been known to exist there probably still wouldn't be any legalisation bills that had made it through the courts yet. Magic mostly came out during the stage when daemons were a threat, and magic helped to defeat the daemons, so it's not like mages have ever had enough bad reputation that lawmaking politicians harboured levels of hostility towards them sufficient to try and legalise suppressive surgeries that invasive or suppressive facilities that bleak. I'd put it like this: if there was an insane or criminal mage who was wantonly breaking the law outside Salem grounds, government officials and university mages would collaborate to catch them legally and use enchanted standard-issue restraints to humanely confine them in the same way as one would detain a regular prisoner or mental patient, and for proportionate durations as specified by proper court decisions. In cases such as if someone as powerful as Druantia went rogue and started murdering people or whatever, the university would just have to use more manpower to take her down and the courts would sentence her as per normal for a mass murderer. In general, the same laws apply to mages as to mundanes, just with some logistical adjustment for mages' additional abilities to commit crime. One does not slice off the fingers of a mass shooter to remove their ability to use guns. If you're talking runes that can be easily removed, that literally wouldn't stop anyone who really wanted to use their powers for mischief. In the alternate case - if everyone in the school had their powers relatively securely dampened -, a surprise hostile attack or a natural disaster at the school could take out far more people in the first few minutes than it would otherwise be able to, and everyone would still be able to kill each other with their magic in about equal proportion to how they can now, even with specific quantitative restrictions (which would themselves be almost impossibly hard to properly balance for everyone). Only having suppression/limitation runes for those who have proven they need them and those who have explicitly requested them is less of a waste of resources and (ironically) somewhat safer, especially with how things are currently - where, overall, responsible teachers/students have significantly more power than irresponsible teachers/students. And, of course, 'everyone has limitation runes' hasn't been mentioned yet and is really the sort of thing that would be mentioned pretty quickly upon the start of the school year, so the most general case is automatically jossed. Although Miko having something to stop her from popping people's eardrums with literally deafening music does sound like the sort of thing that the events of her freshman year would necessitate.

Ah, good, so the requirement for locking the area down due to banes has a similar time factor to the requirement for locking the area down due to ash. Shouldn't affect much besides the full cleanup later.