#?posting

I didn’t see this and then I was thinking for a long time and forgot but just. I have so many thoughts always that also tie into how I see Wizzy’s magic working? Also ask me ANY question about him always. I always have thoughts.

The big thing is just. The Old One is made of different magic than everyone else, in the most fundamental sense? Most everyone else, even Bartleby, is essentially a piece of one of the many melodies of the Song of Creation (or a remix of pieces, etc. basically, everyone’s their own special song) - that’s basically Canon isn’t it. Except the Old One - he came from before that right? So he’s made of totally different stuff. You can’t sing him into or out of existence or anything, his magic is different than the musimagical nature of. Well. Every being and world (outside of The Nothing - that’s why it could absorb him at all).

I think that’s really, truly, maddeningly isolating. Being the only speaker of a dead language, so to speak, while you have to learn the new language everyone else is speaking in and no one knows yours, would be really isolating, and it’s like that but for the laws of magic and reality. I think it’s traumatizing, and the way he deals with this fundamental difference in his reality vs everyone else’s is that huge huge enormous superiority complex. Everything was fine, until it was erased and replaced with worse versions. I’m not a freak or an isolated hold over from worlds past, I’m the last relic of something greater, etc etc, all that canon shit.

To me he’s sort of tragic though because he was, very genuinely, incredibly mechanically AND magically intelligent (he adapted to whole different style of magic after all) and was probably an incredibly powerful caster. I mean. To ME. He very well could’ve made a world and had it be something beautiful, with more time and practice. I think he could’ve been the man- err, octopus-made god he was trying to be (and kinda was, let’s be real he was like almost there like sooooooo close). But he actively refused to work with others, consider anyone else, and also he did wellllll maybe a liiiiittle experimentation on sentient beings. Because of the trauma and hubris combination. Hes a very Greek tragedy hero, but hey. Someone needs to squeeze him like a wet sponge.

I think the way an octopus has intelligence in different arms manifests with different, overlapping, occasionally contradictory stories and narratives of himself and the world that combine to shape the overall arc of his goals - more than the average person.The Old One is at least eight different Old Ones in a trench coat (not in a system way, it’s all the same person, all have that streak of self-centeredness and deep chasm of isolation), and sometimes the Horrific Monster from the Deep Old One scraps with the Benevolent King of All Worlds, He Who Heals with His Song, The Golden Old One - and so there’s a man who expects the loyalty of subjects like a king while reveling in their terror like a monster, etc. Also, when you’re in a story, everyone else becomes a tool in the narrative. He’s almost genre aware, but he’s mistaken in the thinking he’s the main character (he is to ME….) Maybe this is a common way of thinking, maybe it’s not, but it’s sort of how I picture him.

Also he’s a huge perfectionist, not because he believes his work won’t be good enough, but because he really does just have a deep, genuine appreciation for efficiency. There’s a reason he aligns with Markeybonian culture the way he does. His minimalism in the labs is genuine, and sky city is actually closest to the sort of place he’d prefer to live (but not that close, just…. Closest…)

He’s not only proficient in mapping and altering genomes, but also their counterpart, the component notes of the Song of Creation. To make the World Synthesizer, he was able to successfully document and translate the whole Song of Creation, then get the harmonic registers and melodies key for making a new world, not the whole spiral - but he could’ve made another duplicate Spiral if he wanted.

He only uses he/him because in most cultures that use he/him, that gender is the easiest and most efficient to navigate. In matriarchal societies and languages, The Old One uses she/her. It’s a utility thing. And a power thing.

He wants abs. And hair. He also things that the musimagically-generated physical humanoid form is a stupid artifact of the new world, and doesn’t want hair or abs. It depends on the narrative <3 there’s lots of genuine inner conflict there. He is not immune to being influenced by the stories and cultures of others.

Katydid Mannswer, aka Candymancer!

She’s a fairy from Karamelle - she was being raised by a prominent family in the corporation to be a corporate bigwig like them, but couldn’t bear to do it and ran away to Ravenwood, laying low and wearing a hood and calling herself “the Candymancer”, training to use her sweet sweet storm-school battle magic.

She was probably about 16 running away, and arrived about 6 months before the story’s start, shortly before everything with Malistaire happened, making her 17 at story’s start. Despite being an older student, she isn’t the oldest there and is still newer. Still she did well helping Wizard City and even better in regards to the incident’s publicity, and becomes Merle Ambrose’s golden girl in regards to that.