concept: there are lots of different worlds and all of them have different levels of access to magic. Some are just all over the place and some have no magic at all.
You would think that we would be one of the strictly non-magical worlds, but actually, that’s not the case—we don’t have like, a huge excess of magic, but we have, like, dreams, and the placebo effect, which puts us pretty solidly in the “Numinous” world category.
This post brought to you by the placebo effect, which is completely insane if you think about it for more than like 3 seconds
but for some reason we insist on thinking of it like “so people’s symptoms improve, but like, it’s Fake” rather than “HOLY SHIT humans are so powerful, they can improve the symptoms of their illnesses just by believing they are being cared for.”
Anyway just imagine like
Human, suddenly sucked by portal into a Magical Land: damn I wish I came from a magical world lol
Elf wizard dude: hahaha bro what are you talking about
Human: well, my world is just—
Elf wizard dude: what about the magic rocks????
Human: What magic rocks?
Elf wizard dude: You know, the magic rocks. The ones that generate near infinite energy by tearing apart the fabric of their reality? You know, like, uranium? You haven’t found those yet?
Human: Wait wait wait. That’s not—
Elf wizard dude: And like, come on, you even have some low level necromantic spells over there, like—
Human: We do not have necromantic spells, what are you talking about
Elf wizard dude: didn’t you say your friend was an EMT though? they do that shit all the time. Hell, you don’t even have to be like a high level caster or some shit, it takes like a few weeks to learn CPR
Human: Wh—
Elf wizard dude: You guys do have CPR, right?
Human: I mean yes but—what the—CPR is not necromancy!! That’s not how it works, it doesn’t bring people back from the—well I guess technically it does but that doesn’t—
Elf wizard dude: Next you’re going to be telling me Mothman doesn’t “count” either.
Human:
Human: …
Human: …What.
Human: You don’t understand. I mean…Radioactivity kills people!
Elf wizard dude: Ohhh. You got just the cursed magic rocks.
Human: …
Elf wizard dude: Damn. That sucks man.
Elf wizard dude: So you have no talking animals? None?
Human: Well I mean—there is that one type of parrot but like that doesn’t—
Elf wizard dude: godDAMN it
It got better!
Human: Oh, right, and various of the corvids. Ravens and that. They talk too.
Elf wizard dude: And no sapient animals? At all?
Human: Well … I mean, depends what you call ‘sapient’. Crows remember who’s nice to them and bring them presents, and will get the whole flock to attack people who are mean to them, and cats basically conned us into lavishing them with food and attention–
Elf wizard dude: And that?
Human: Oh, that’s a pigeon. They’re really dumb, though.
Elf wizard dude: It’s getting on your public transport network!
Human: Yeah, it’ll get off at its stop– wait.
Elf wizard dude: CATCHING ON YET?!?
ok seriously tho like. The placebo effect can work EVEN IF YOU KNOW YOU’RE GETTING A PLACEBO as long as you believe in the placebo effect itself.
Like, there is nothing about sprite that should soothe my stomach when I’m nauseous, and I know this, but if I’m feeling nauseous sipping sprite is one of the fastest ways to settle my stomach, because when I was little my mom told me it would help.
If that’s not a kind of magic IDK what is.
Tags:
#that one post with the thing #(personally my favourite anti-nausea spell is the scent of peppermint) #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what
Brinens and Things 