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shamelessly_mkp@likearumchocolatesouffle replied to your post:okay but autistic craft mages
What’s a craft mage? A mage whose skill is in creating physical objects?
okay so there’s this book series by Tamora Pierce called the Circle of Magic (with a secondary series and additional books in the same universe) which is amazing and one of my favorite childhood fantasy serieses to reread, and in it she distinguishes between the stereotypical “academic” kind of magic and mage and what she calls “ambient” (or often, in her afterword about how she got the idea, “craft”) magic. The Tamora Pierce wiki explains it better than I can:
Ambient Magic is a form of magic known only in the Emelan Universe. It is not as well known as the traditional Academic Magic, and in fact is only one fourth times as common as Academic magic. Ambient Magic takes different forms depending on the mage and the craft he or she performs––common ones include stone, carpentry, healing, cooking, thread and needlework, pottery, fire, and weather.[1] Ambient glass magic is described as “middling rare.” Ambient stone magic is common, as stones are said to make the containers for power. Ambient Magic doesn’t draw on the mage’s self-created power like Academic Magic, but from the surroundings and craft items of the mage (e.g. a thread mage will get power from clothing and other woven things).Because of this, Ambient mages have difficulty controlling a great deal of power constantly flowing into them, whereas Academic mages struggle with building up their power.
Because their power is naturally tied into a craft or aspect of nature, the physical aspects of their craft, such as thread, stones, or even lightning, feel as if they are “alive” to the Ambient mage. These physical components are attracted to the Ambient mage, and from the descriptions in the books, seem to “talk” to the mage.
Now the especially cool thing about four young ambient mages who are the protagonists of the Circle of Magic series is how weird they are in how they do magic, even in comparison to other ambient mages!
For example, Sandry is a ‘stitch witch’ - her magic is tied to thread and cloth and the acts of crafting them. Her mentor is also a stitch witch - but while Lark has to work her magic through a physical medium, Sandry can craft the actual magic itself.
All ambient mages are drawn toward the sources of their magic, whether they know they have magic or not - everything about the craft will fascinate them and draw them in - a sort of built in special interest, you might say. :)
And in addition to their tendency to absorb themselves almost completely in their affined craft, they also have very different and individual ways of interacting with the materials of their craft, which can lead to atypical sensory responses to things.
For example, different fibers feel different to Sandry - not just physically, but in their magic, even their ‘personality’, so to speak. Daja, one of the other young mages, one with an affinity for metal and smithwork, ‘hears’ different metals sing differently. A cloth that objectively speaking was soft and smooth could potentially feel harsh and rasping against Sandry’s skin, if it was an unfriendly sort of thread. A flawed metalworking might have painfully discordant notes. etc.
Socially, they’ll sometimes act strangely or against propriety because of what their magic demands - people tend to find it strange and disquieting when you treat ball lightening as a tame animal to be pet, for example.
I’m not saying that the protagonists in the Circle of Magic are autistic, but I do think it wouldn’t take much at all to write them that way.
via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/1loIosS
What’s a craft mage? A mage whose skill is in creating physical objects?
okay so there’s this book series by Tamora Pierce called the Circle of Magic (with a secondary series and additional books in the same universe) which is amazing and one of my favorite childhood fantasy serieses to reread, and in it she distinguishes between the stereotypical “academic” kind of magic and mage and what she calls “ambient” (or often, in her afterword about how she got the idea, “craft”) magic. The Tamora Pierce wiki explains it better than I can:
Ambient Magic is a form of magic known only in the Emelan Universe. It is not as well known as the traditional Academic Magic, and in fact is only one fourth times as common as Academic magic. Ambient Magic takes different forms depending on the mage and the craft he or she performs––common ones include stone, carpentry, healing, cooking, thread and needlework, pottery, fire, and weather.[1] Ambient glass magic is described as “middling rare.” Ambient stone magic is common, as stones are said to make the containers for power. Ambient Magic doesn’t draw on the mage’s self-created power like Academic Magic, but from the surroundings and craft items of the mage (e.g. a thread mage will get power from clothing and other woven things).Because of this, Ambient mages have difficulty controlling a great deal of power constantly flowing into them, whereas Academic mages struggle with building up their power.
Because their power is naturally tied into a craft or aspect of nature, the physical aspects of their craft, such as thread, stones, or even lightning, feel as if they are “alive” to the Ambient mage. These physical components are attracted to the Ambient mage, and from the descriptions in the books, seem to “talk” to the mage.
Now the especially cool thing about four young ambient mages who are the protagonists of the Circle of Magic series is how weird they are in how they do magic, even in comparison to other ambient mages!
For example, Sandry is a ‘stitch witch’ - her magic is tied to thread and cloth and the acts of crafting them. Her mentor is also a stitch witch - but while Lark has to work her magic through a physical medium, Sandry can craft the actual magic itself.
All ambient mages are drawn toward the sources of their magic, whether they know they have magic or not - everything about the craft will fascinate them and draw them in - a sort of built in special interest, you might say. :)
And in addition to their tendency to absorb themselves almost completely in their affined craft, they also have very different and individual ways of interacting with the materials of their craft, which can lead to atypical sensory responses to things.
For example, different fibers feel different to Sandry - not just physically, but in their magic, even their ‘personality’, so to speak. Daja, one of the other young mages, one with an affinity for metal and smithwork, ‘hears’ different metals sing differently. A cloth that objectively speaking was soft and smooth could potentially feel harsh and rasping against Sandry’s skin, if it was an unfriendly sort of thread. A flawed metalworking might have painfully discordant notes. etc.
Socially, they’ll sometimes act strangely or against propriety because of what their magic demands - people tend to find it strange and disquieting when you treat ball lightening as a tame animal to be pet, for example.
I’m not saying that the protagonists in the Circle of Magic are autistic, but I do think it wouldn’t take much at all to write them that way.
via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/1loIosS
