@ian.fowler | morningstar network

[wittingly]

Hey
Stop me if this is a stupid offer, I'm still trying to figure out how this whole thing works, but
I heard about the whole gate problem, and the whole simulation thing, there's probably more going on too that I don't know about yet
I'm an engineer
You guys might already have a few, but just in case you're shorthanded
If there's anything I can do to help, I want to

I can also apparently do a weird tools thing now so that's
something

edit: if anyone's in the market for crazy experiments in there
you guys glitch the sim when you do your chest thing, right?
anyone tried organizing a group glow-off? overwhelm the system with too much at once, DDOS it into crashing?

Comments

[wittingly]

deal
and hey listen when you do get out and they try and tell you somebody way more competent and experienced and powerful than me did it, they're joshing you
it's definitely gonna be me

I'm just too humble to accept the credit

[evocation]

got it
i'll get a tattoo of your face and everything
tell me the other story

[Is she transparently using this as a distraction? Yes.]

[wittingly]

[ yeah it's okay, he figured that's the case. always happy to be an entertainer. ]

so I teach undergraduates mostly, sophmores, juniors, around that age

and Berkeley is considered the ivy league of public schools, which is the stupidest combination of words, but

it means it's full of rich kids who bought their way in and didn't really have to work for it at all, no real prestige, just dad cash

it means sometimes you get these kids who don't take it seriously

I got this one a couple of years back who put in exactly 0 effort. Pulled him into a meeting to talk about his grades and he told me he didn't have to study because he was gonna hit it big selling his idea to that one reality TV show where you pitch your invention or whatever and they invest in you right?

[evocation]

tell me it was like a dick holster or something

[wittingly]

nope

it was oranges with built in wet wipes

so he misses class for a week to do the show
he shows back up a week later looking crushed
I asked him how it went and he said

"they wouldn't take me because i couldn't figure out how to get the wipe in there"

[evocation]

no way
you are totally lying to me
how did you not laugh in his face?

[wittingly]

because I'm a professional

my TA laughed in his face, though, and then I lost my shit right after

[evocation]

how do you survive teaching? i'd lose my mind

[wittingly]

you get a few stories like that where people obviously don't care about being there, or their future but

most of them do, and I really fucking love that
you get these young kids with really bright minds and really high ambitions thinking they're gonna change the world

you get to help them do that, or try to at least

every once and a while it works, and you get to feel that forever pretty much
that's something you get to keep with you long after they're gone

[evocation]

that's like ten times sappier than i expected
pretty cute though
do the rich kids drive you nuts?

[Because they drive her nuts.]

[wittingly]

mostly it's the rich parents who drove me nuts
and the rich faculty members
you get these elitist assholes that are all defensive about it being a "public" ivy league so it technically doesn't count, and then they overcompensate and they peacock and they talk down about trash
and then I get to tell them all about how I'm from a fucking mining town called Weaverville and my first car was a ten year old pontiac grand am

it was like something out of a tv show sometimes

don't think I'm missing that you got me on the back foot spilling all this shit about myself
I feel like we gotta switch off
let me hear about this magic thing a little more

[evocation]

god
fucking assholes
i bet berkley is as bad as new york

[And whoops, she totally walked right into this, didn't she?]

what do you want to know?

[wittingly]

um
it's fucking magic
I want to know everything

is this a wand situation, is it like more Harry Potter or more Charmed or how does it even work?

[evocation]

no wands or nose wiggling
some people can use magic and some can't
you can't learn it
but it's like channeling energy, you know? you're reliant on whatever's around you
and usually humans are only good at channeling magic into one form
my thing's electricity, my best friend back home's a healer
you get it
there are other things that use magic too
you know, monsters, spirits, things that go bump in the night

[wittingly]

i dream of jeannie is one hell of a throwback, New York

so it's sort of like an elemental specialty type thing? you get your niche, you get good at that, not much branching out?

is it public knowledge or is it under the radar?

what can you do with electricity?

[evocation]

it was under the radar, but magic kind of
ebbs and surges, i guess is the best way to describe it
now it's in a surge and there's no great way to hide it
the beauty of the internet and smartphones and all
and right now i can't do shit
back home i could do a lot, but it takes a lot of practice and study
i've fried like six phones learning how to charge them
my friend wouldn't be able to do half the shit he can if he hadn't trained to be a medic
the only way we can branch out is by hooking up with something more powerful than us
spirits or whatever usually

[wittingly]

sort of like a baby boom/bust situation?
what's your power now if they took the electricity thing from you?
you don't think society's capable of handling the truth getting out?

[evocation]

no, it's totally out
and it's kind of a shitshow but it would be more of a shitshow if it was still hidden
here i can like
phase through things

[wittingly]

like kitty pryde xman style?

[evocation]

yeah, basically
except i'm still not great at it
ask me how many times i've accidentally phased through a chair and landed on my ass

[wittingly]

I have so, so many things that I don't know you well enough to say so I'm gonna redirect here
how old were you when it started happening?
you ever try to couple your gift with engineering?

is there some kind of applied science theory behind magic that anyone's ever dug into, like physics, something that quantifies it and makes it more of a tangible thing, like how we go about defining and explaining gravity in some sort of mathematical way even though it's just

gravity

[evocation]

god, you're going to have to start numbering these

1. i was like four when the first hints popped up, but my dad was from this obsessive old school magical family so he was watching me like a hawk. some people realize later.

2. kind of. it's easier for me to control electricity if i know how it works, you know? but school drove me nuts and i never would have lasted in college, so there goes my engineering career.

3. yeah, people are studying it, but i'm not up to date on the latest theorems or whatever.

also you can't just redirect and leave me hanging
spill

[wittingly]

sorry, it's
kind of a life-long habit

[ and part of what helped a low-income poverty line kid make it all the way through high school, then into college, then clear through grad school despite all odds.

since you asked: ]

you ever fall through the toilet

[evocation]

nope
do you think i'd tell the truth if i had?

[wittingly]

I feel like we're developing a bond here, NYC
relationships are built on a foundation of trust and honesty

about whether or not you ever fell through a toilet