(VT) Talking Shop

[Avis]

It was midnight, on a Saturday, and the full moon was in the sky. Maybe that was why Avis was in such rare form. Her bare feet were being tickled by the thin carpet as she pelted down the center hallway of the Fourth Wall, skidding to several stops only to pound on the double doors of her cabal mates' rooms before dashing towards the dining room.

She was excited. Very excited, but her haste was actually due to the tea pot shrieking like a tortured opera singer that she'd forgotten on the stove. She didn't even know how long it had been. Hopefully it wouldn't be ruined.

But oh well, if it wasn't that important. There were far more important things to be discussed than who broke the teapot.

"HEY Y'ALL! C'MON! I FIGURED IT OUT!" she yelled, trying to spur her cabal-mates out of their dens. "DON'T MAKE ME THROW BOILING WATER AT YOU!"

Seriously, she wouldn't. But it was important they got out here while the ideas were still fresh in her head. Well, ok, she could technically burn the ideas into her brain, but there was a certain sterility to that, a certain lack of animation that was so vital to what she had to say.

[Avis]

"What were you doing in bed? There's still plenty of moonlight left," Avis shouted back, hastily moving the tea pot to an open burner. A tendril of steam whisping out of the pot caught the edge of her hand and she flinched back with a cruse. Yep, definitely was glad she hadn't burned the ideas into her brain, now.

"Just get out here," she called again, rushing her hand over to the sink so she could run water over it.

[Zodiac]

Frazzled was one word to describe the brunette who made her way sleepily out of her room, not exactly 'dressed' in little more than a loose t-shirt and underwear, though her gun was prepared as well as she managed to scoop Felix up with her free hand. "Cahfu' lil' budday," she murmured quietly to the kitten, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

As she spotted Asp, she gave the other a questioning look, before looking down the hall in the direction of Avis' voice. What on earth was going on? What was Avis doing? She wasn't on the same level of high-alert as the Arrow, but she took solace from the presence of both her gun and her ever-present choker as she made her way towards the kitchen. "... 'Vee... 's goin' on...?"

[Star]

Bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Or at least, fully awake and dressed. Seriously, fully dressed. He still even had on his jacket and a bow tie, since he'd just gotten back. Magicians wear bow ties. Totally. A single card lay flat and spun lazily on the tip of a finger, much like a sports figure might spin a ball. Tools of the trade, yo. There was also the slightly pungent reek of old cigarette smoke and alcohol stuck to his clothes. The late show isn't a pretty place to be. Because dreams die hard.

"What'd you figure out? Holy, cow. Whoah. Don't, uh, shoot. Yikes. Is that, ummmm. Is that a bulletproof vest? Do I need one? Where do we get those?"

Awwww, man. Put some pants on, Zoey. Seriously. That's not right.

"Oh. And, before I forget? Don't order the Long Island Iced Tea at Raven. I totally caught the bartender slopping off the spill rail. That's so gross. Who does that?"

Luckily, he caught himself before he flicked the card and bounced it off of the rodent's head.

[Avis]

"How were you asleep?" Avis asked incredulously from the sink, craning her head around to see Zoey walking into the kitchen. "It's the fucking witching hour. On a Saturday. Seriously, I like literally can not sleep when it's like this. That's how I figured it out. I've been thinking about it like all day! Well, all week, but it's been on my mind like literally all day and I finally figured it out!" Her voice had an odd ring to it as it bounced off of the metal sink.

She stopped talking long enough to grab a dish towel, get it wet, and then wrap around her burnt hand before turning the water off and turning to face her Cabalmates. "I've figure out how film reflects the Arcana. Like, I still don't quite know how we can use it in a ritual, but I've figure out how it's a symbol, and it's like perfect! I mean, there's a few Arcana that I don't have down as solidly, but I'm sure we can flesh them all out. Like, seriously, it's way more appropriate then you'd think! Finding this theater was like, fate, or something! I swear. We should ask an acanthus some time."

[Zodiac]

The brunette gave a groan at Avis' words, hugging Felix a little tighter to her chest. "... gimme like... five minni's," Zoey grumbled a little to herself before setting Felix on the floor and moving back into her room. Really. Really? Who was so freaking peppy at this hour?

Before she'd fully closed her door, a response slipped out of the room to answer Avis regarding why she was so tired: "One day you'll be my age, Vee, then you'll count your blessings on getting sleep at normal hours!"

And the door clicked shut as the brunette went about making herself presentable. No emergency.

[Star]

His eyes flickered to The Cat. Seriously? Zoey had it In Her Hands, and left it? She couldn't take it with her?

"Do I? My bad?"

His head dipped, and he smelled at at jacketed arm. Then again, his sense of smell had been dulled by hours in the place. Speaking of? Ow. His back. He slid into a booth, going limp against the overstuffed back. The rest of his deck appeared, and he slowly began assembling a card house.

"I might. Get one. I mean, seriously, if Zoey's gonna wave that thing around every time someone, you know, yells. Or at least when Avis yells. I totally dropped a chair on my foot the other day and yelled and no one cared."

Seriously. Ow. At least his theater was shaping up into Totally Awesome.

"So, uh, rituals? Arcana?"

He looked up from his cards and gave Avis a curious look. Rituals, man. So... personal. Were they like that, now?

[Avis]

"Fuck yes, rituals," Avis replied, eying star with an expression that dared him to keep up. Then she spun away to grab a mug so she could apply a stream of boiling water to a teabag. Warm beverage now in hand, she walked over to join her cabal-mates at the table.

"Like, remember after our duel for the Banner Warden position, we mentioned symbolism for the cabal, and someone brought up movies? Well, even if you don't remember, that's still A Thing." Apparently Star was rubbing off on her.

"Cabals choose symbols to use together, right? To make their bond and their magic stronger and stuff. And we totally could make our theme movies. Well, not movies, but film. Like, the discipline of film. Big F, Film. Cause it's totally willworking. It's, ya know," Avis continued, fumbling for words in her exuberance, "creating a reality that's different from reality. It's making truths from what is only imagined, and it lines up with all the Arcana! Like, almost perfectly. I'll need some help filling in the gaps, cause I'm not that familiar with all the Arcana, but that's what you're all for. Like, for instance, I have a hard time with understanding Spirit, but you probably know a bit about that, right Asp? I mean, you're like half a Thrysus already." A crooked grin appeared above her mug and then disappeared into a moue as she blew on her tea.

"Ok, but seriously," she continued, voice becoming more level. "I need help figuring out Spirit, Death, and Prime. Which is embarrassing, cause I'm actually an initiate of Prime, but whatever. VT has two Obrimos, and that's what Obrimos are for, right? Handling Prime stuff? And then there's Zoey, and being all knowledgeable is like, what Zoey does. I'm like 100% confident we can figure them all out together. Once we're all together. Fuck. Now I'm going to have to explain everything all over again."

Avis waited, alternating between grimacing and blowing on her tea until Zoey finally reappeared again. "Ok. Finally we're all here. I'll give you the short version of what I already said to them. Cabal theme, or shared symbolism, or whatever. Somebody mentioned film, and it totally could be film. All the Arcana are represented symbolically. I've figured out, like, seven of them for sure, and I know the other three are there but we'll have to brainstorm it, ok? Great, I'm gonna get started."

She took a slow, careful sip of tea, now that she'd had time to blow on it, and then cleared her throat. "Space is the most obvious one. Like, the camera isn't just an eye, it's a frame. It confines objects and makes it so that when we look at the video, at the film I mean, we're seeing a spacial composition. Like, it allows us to manipulate our perception of space. The camera focus, the distance of the shot, the ability of the camera to zoom, or pan, or track, it's all spatial manipulation. Oh! And then there's editing. The type of cut can skew our perceptions of space. Like, going from a long shot to a close-up, or even having a parallel cut, which is cutting between a scene at a location to a scene in a totally different location, mimics the form of scrying or teleportation. Even the lighting in a scene can create different senses of space and scale."

"Um, so yeah. Space is obvious. The next most obvious one is Forces," she continued, nodding towards Starcut. "Like, the reason why we have films is because of light, and then there's the sound in films, and there's also all the ways in which gravity can appear to be manipulated. The light and the sound are more inherent, but I think wirework and stuff would count to. Even if it doesn't, the way light is handled in film, the way it's purposefully manipulated, with bounces and position of light sources and styles of lighting? Or the way sound is manipulated, with sountracking, diegetic sound, the literal distortion and manipulation of those sounds, I don't know, it just seems so obvious."

"Less obvious, is Mind, but I think that fits next because it exists mainly because of the use of Space and Forces in film. Like, let's just take Space. You get a close-up of a person, so we can read their emotions, and you get the start of a connection with the person. Which is totally Space, but there's also an emotional aspect, too. It builds a rapport between the audience and the person and that allows the person to manipulate the audiences emotions. Even if the camera is just tracking someone, the fact that it looks like the audience is moving along with the person creates that rapport. Then, add in the sound and the lighting and it ramps up even more. Soundtracking is so fucking powerful for influencing emotion you can't deny it. Like, violins in a horror movie, piano in contemplative scenes, horn lines for heroic or glorious scenes, or drums or percussion with action sequences, it all effects what we're feeling as we watch the film. Add in dramatic lighting, like shadows and darkness for horror or noir, or bright, golden light for comforting or happy scenes. It all does the job. Oh, and that's not even talking about like, mind control stuff. The Nazi's fucking loved film for propaganda, and there's also subliminal messaging, or just continuity editing.

"Now, the acting also provides a big part of this. The emotions that are conveyed by the actual people in the film is huge, but when combined with the lighting, spacial organization, and sound you get a look into the mind. You can have the sound of dialogue to represent what people are thinking, lighting to represent their mood, you can edit so one shot shows a nightmare and the next shows the reality and reveals that the character is hallucinating. Film is really about taking something that's imagined and then showing it," she continued, pausing long enough to take another sip.

"So, um, yeah, that's Mind. Not all of Mind, but enough to give the basic idea. Um, and since I mentioned acting, let's do life next. Film is all about people, or animals, and what they're seeing or experiencing. There's tons of plants and animals in movies, and the movies manipulate them all the time. There's even tons of animals that are created for films, and that creation, or manipulation of natural form is totally Life-y. Also, animals are coerced into acting in certain ways in films, and that type of control is totally life. Also, Mind, but mainly life."

"Uh, Matter is kind of the same as Life. It's mainly present in the fact that matter is what film shows, but there's also the creation of props and sets for films. Whole environments are made for films, and matter of one kind is disguised to look like matter of another kind. Like sugar glass, or the foam and fabric that's meant to look like rocks. Also, things are made to look weaker or tougher than they really are. Film manipulate matter into appearing in the form that they need, and that totally seems consistent with what we can do with the Matter Arcana."

Uh, ok, now let's see," Avis said, gazing off towards the wall while she thought about everything else that she had yet to mention. "Ok, let's do Fate and Time next. Fate is pretty easy, too. Films usually all have narratives, and the characters and what happens to them is bound into the narratives. Even what the people are and how they act is bound into the narratives. The good guys have plot armor, or are drawn into coincidence, or happen to duck just at the right time. Like, reality is subjected to the needs of the plot, to the needs of the fated story. Especially in movies with narrators, but any fictitious movie is bound to fate. The plot of films is all about Fate. As for Time, that brings us back to editing. The speed of shots and the frame rate of the camera, it can all effect our perception of time. It can speed it up, slow it down, or even skew it. Things can be told out of order and radically different times can be depicted or juxtaposed against each other. Film can give us a look back in time or even project the future, and not just because of their setting. As I said, things can be told out of order, like Memento, so the plot might be moving backwards and forwards alternatively. It's all temporal manipulation."

"Speaking of time, I'm almost done. I'll talk about Prime and Death, and I'm gonna just skip Spirit, cause I really don't know for that one. But, uh, for Prime, the film is all about manipulating things to perform a function, to tell a story. The director and the camera are what drive everything else, and the director is what fits all of the other pieces together. The director makes it happen and the director is what shapes it. Really, the director is like the Willworker, and just as we use mana and imagos to shape reality, they use the camera and their vision to shape the film. So, uh, I know that's not really that solid of a Symbol, but a director is too much like an Awakened for Prime not to be present. Also, I guess you could say a producer and the budget of a film is more like mana, since it makes everything happen," she added pensively.

"Death is also tough, but what I've got is that shadows, the contrast to the physical light, is always present and the manipulation of those shadows is super prevalent in film. Also, films are finite. The end. They die, in a sense, but that doesn't mean they can't be brought back and watched again. Aaaaannnd that's really it."

She looked her cabal-mates in the eyes and then shrugged. "That's all I have. It makes total sense to me, but I don't know if I explained it well. Do I sounds like a dumbass or does it make some sense. And please, if you've got other insight, share it. I'm sure there's lots of stuff I missed."