Cult of Ecstasy mage, the most mage, as we go into the underground which has no lights: “Okay I could use Correspondence to make ghost lights maybe? Or Prime to-”
Verbena with Survival 3, who just came out of the woods: (clicks on a flashlight)
“Blood Magick” by me. Just a little something I knocked together. Inspired by a lot of the settings of the table top role-playing games I play, like Shadowrun, Liminal, Changeling: the Lost, Mage: the Awakening, and a few others.
SinceMage: the Awakening 2nd Edition is out now, I can finally share these! <3 I got to do the iconic characters for the Paths, which was pretty freaking awesome. Mage has always been conceptually my favorite of the WoD lines, old or new or Chronicles, though I only ever got to play one brief, glorious session of M:tAw 1st.
the ‘will people feed you’ discourse rn is very funny and hopefully a wake up call to some of the rude freaks scattered out there across europe, but I do want to note that the cultures we’re talking about are cultures of the affluent. literally everywhere I have visited, working class people share food as a matter of course. everywhere I have visited, working class people push drinks and snacks on you the moment you walk in the door. there’s a layer to this conversation that only exists among people who have the choice to be miserly and unaffected by their neighbours behaving the same way.
the first time I experienced being completely shut out of another family’s mealtime, it was when I was a teenager on an exchange trip to the netherlands. I was staying with this family, and literally reliant on them for food and housing. The day I arrived they explained to me what time mealtimes were, and that I would not be fed unless I arrived at the table on time. One morning I was running a little behind because I had trouble figuring out how the shower worked, and when I came downstairs my hosts were already eating. They hadn’t set a place for me, and they all ignored me and continued conversing in dutch. When I timidly tried to serve myself, they gave me look as if I had just walked in off the street and started raiding the refrigerator. They were an intimidatingly affluent family.
one morning the mother had to drop me off early at my work placement, before the building opened. I was sitting outside on a wall for like 50 minutes by myself with nothing to do, and an older lady running a food cart nearby started chatting to me (she wanted to know I was okay, because I was like 15 and not in school, and was very interested to hear that I was on exchange from scotland). she offered me a free breakfast, and when I said I’d already eaten she gave me a drink and a packet of crisps to keep for lunch, and kept trying to make me try fried things that were apparently dutch specialities but were way too much for me at 8am. she was very sweet and funny, and had infinitely more in common with the poorer dutch students who I would meet at a separate pan-european thing later than with any of the kids or parents around the upper middle class academy we were paired with that year. people are people everywhere, some are just more inclined to worry about appearances than others.
There’s a sort of, “do for yourself and I’ll do for myself” that unnerved me about learning to navigate upper-class friendships and homes. After thinking about it for years, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s ultimately about maintaining independence and avoiding the class shame of appearing to need others — but the effects manifest as a bizarre standoffishness, an artificial separation of “yours” and “mine”. The class standards they impose on themselves, are imposed on guests.
I was initially baffled that, for instance, family members or friends who come to visit you are often expected to stay in a hotel or at an AirBNB, not at your house. “But you have a whole-ass house”, I would think. “Or floors. And blankets. Lots of things. You can put them in your beds and sleep on the floor, if they don’t want the couch.” Often, they would have guest bedrooms, but these bedrooms were not offered to most visitors. So, you’ve literally got an EMPTY BEDROOM FOR GUESTS, but no?? You expect them to house themSELVES? Elsewhere?? On THEIR dollar? That’s so expensive! Also, to my mind, frankly rude!
I also noticed that my wealthier friends never pick up groceries for each other. They never call or text each other like, “yo, I’m at X, do you need anything”. I think they would risk confusion at best and deep offense at worst, if one of them got a wild hair up their ass and tried it. It’s too personal, implies some degree of inter-reliance.
It makes relationships look and feel artificially constrained.
This is all completely accurate to my experience too. I think a major cultural absence in wealthier social circles is the concept of ongoing reciprocity / gifting relationships. For me, and for more or less everyone I’ve ever met who grew up poor, it is a normal and natural gesture of closeness to offer resources when you have them and to accept resources when you need them. It’s a way of saying that you trust somebody - either you trust them to have your back when you need it, or you trust them to care for you without ulterior motives. I’m talking about small costs, grocery money, meals here and there, maybe a movie ticket if everyone is going and one person can’t stretch to afford it this month. Nobody keeps track of the expenses, you just remember who you have built those relationships with, and you share in return when you get the opportunity.
Larger costs tend to be more difficult, and that’s because often it’s impossible to be sure that you will ever be able to adequately reciprocate. As a teenager I had one friend in particular who was much more wealthy than the rest of us, and he was a wonderfully kind, warm hearted, generous person who would often offer to pay for entire outings or trips on his own so that the rest of us could participate. And it was really, really awkward, because what was a small gesture in his eyes was something that the poorest of us knew we could never pay back. He might not have cared about keeping track of the cost, but we would never be able to forget it, and that would upset the balance of the reciprocal relationship. I don’t think he ever really understood why we would turn him down, it’s nearly impossible to explain what a strong instinct it is when you have grown up with that dance culturally ingrained in you.
All of that is to say that I think my friend’s behaviour ultimately comes from the same background as the people who go through the world hoarding their resources. When you have never been in a position to need a strong relationship that afforded you emergency childcare or a meal of pizza and beans once in a while over, idk, a ski trip once a year, you can’t understand why big sporadic gifts are turned down. You can’t understand why your poor friends keep insisting on paying for their own gas or trying to do you favours you can easily afford yourself. You can’t understand why kids expect to eat dinner with you (because their families would feed your kids, if they ever needed it, and your kids will never need it).
If anyone’s interested in looking into this more from an slightly academic standpoint, there’s an economic term for a similar concept: the gift economy. “Gifts” aren’t just signals of goodwill, but an invitation or a due for an ongoing social contract. Each gift is expected to be replayed, in some form, in the future.
For example, I offer you a bowl of chips when you come into my house. I do not expect you to give me money or a pack of berries, nor do I verbally request any repayment.
However, I do expect that if I ever enter YOUR house, you offer me some kind of snack or drink. When you follow through, I offer more appetizers at my house. Or maybe you haven’t any snacks at home, but you do offer a charger when my phone is dead. It’s not about a specific trade! A contract is established without any formal, or even conscious, agreement.
Contrast this to a market or barter economies, where any items are usually payed for in money or goods/services, respectively. In these situations, a “gift” is something that isn’t repayed. Gifts are given on Birthdays or Christmas, not for gas.
And so we get back to my high school classmates asking for three dollars back, or customers at my bougie grocery store not wanting to round up 23 cents on a $300 order.
They view helping others, even in small ways, as a voluntary action to show they are a Nice Person. The payment is people viewing them very positively. To the rest of us, it’s just What You Do as a member of society. The payment is is being a member of society.
(Of course, economic terms don’t apply 1:1 to every portion of culture, but gift economies are a fine jumping-off point)
does it not??? i SWEAR i’ve seen scale somewhere before scion. where the hell was it if not exalted 3e?
apologies. as was mentioned i very barely remember ex3 aside from my general impressions.
am i thinking of trinity. i’ve never actually read trinity.
It’s actually in, of all places, the Mage[: The Awakening] Chronicler’s Guide, specifically the “White Wolf Comics Presents: The Cabal” setting hack. In fact, I’m pretty sure that was its first appearance; I remember teaser material for the Storypath System, back when it was still publicly known by the “Sardonyx” codename, specifically citing that as the source.
