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#(hello i mentioned parasitic magic with edward so i needed to talk abt nathaniel’s magic as well agsgd)
theaterism · 2 years
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i mentioned parasitic magic about a week ago in relation to an architect. there are several reasons nathaniel’s magic eventually became parasitic and turned on him as well. these are the major ones.
1) like edward’s magic, nathaniel’s magic persisted when he put it into the world. it existed in jars and vials. it only faded when he dispelled it or when it was allowed to escape from its confinement. magic that persists is more likely to drain its user’s energy. it is also more likely to gain a will of its own (in a manner of speaking) under the right circumstances.
2) nathaniel spent his whole life mastering his magic. he sharpened it, twisted it, pushed it to its limits and well beyond. his ambitions and merciless curiosity drove him to improve his skill in sound manipulation and to seek more and more knowledge on what his magic could achieve. he wanted wealth and power. he also simply wanted to know what would happen if he contorted his magic in various ways, regardless of any discomfort he endured in the process.
(something else drove him as well, though he disliked admitting its presence and control over him.)
3) he began using his magic almost constantly to meet the demands of those he did business with (and to satisfy his own curiosity, to collect samples to experiment on). collecting voices became a habit, and he always carried vials to gather them. he could spend hours sorting sounds, splitting them, slicing them, and stitching them together. he suppressed inconvenient feelings on instinct, but it became rather difficult to ignore how the strain of overusing his magic weighed upon him. still, he didn’t stop.
(also, the more nathaniel overworked his magic and twisted it to satisfy his curiosity, the more distorted it naturally became. something about his magic felt wrong. something about it felt sharp and stretched much too thin, threads of it splintering beyond his control and fraying like electrical wires.)
4) he was restless, facing both debts and his own desire for more. he felt caught in an inescapable cycle. this was the game, and though it had lost its charm over time, he couldn’t stop playing. he grew bitter. he grew exhausted. he grew desperate. more and more desperate. eventually, he reached a breaking point. something in him snapped.
he made an internal deal. he told his magic, ‘take as much as you want from me, as long as you give me enough in return.’ and his magic — which he had mistreated for years and which was already warped from his experiments — was all too eager to oblige.
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