Untitle Xander fic
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Here is a torrent of Season 1 Lionheart: http://isohunt.com/download/11953482/buffy
You should be able to find the others here: http://isohunt.com/torrents/Buffy
You should be able to find the others here: http://isohunt.com/torrents/Buffy
If Giacomo Casanova wrote a book on Sex Magic, what would the title be? (Yes, this is relevant - and very plausible, if you look at the article.)
Yes. You have a knack for finding excellent and intriging articles.
Anyway, I would suggest that Casanova wrote not one, but two books on sex magic.
He wrote the first when he was young and flush with success. It was called, ôThe Magic of Life, the Magic of Loveö and detailed all of the then-common rituals young lovers could use to gain powers, bond to each other, etc, a near encyclopedia from the æhere is the art, have fun with itÆ perspective.
The other, much darker work, entitled ôTo My Younger Selfö written in his early seventies (and the last years of his life, when he is alone and disliked), containing warnings of all of the darker apsects of sex magic, perfected by a thrill-seeking, power-corrupt, occult-practicing aristocracy in control all over Europe. In it he warns of hidden sides of sex magic, developed to control and dominate your lovers, and to which he, in his youth, had fallen victim. After having his fortunes ruined many times by these predators, he had sought for counters and defenses to their techniques, even developing some of his own. But, by the time the book was ready, those same predatory sex-mages that he sought to teach the young to defend against had begun being toppled all over Europe by the revolutions and wars being fought, destroying the ancient aristocracies that had turned sex magic into a tool of control and domination in the first place. Thus, copies of the book would be rare and hard to find, as those very classes of people it was designed to defend against ceased to exist, on the whole.
The originals of both would naturally be in French, and that might prove a difficulty.
Anyway, I would suggest that Casanova wrote not one, but two books on sex magic.
He wrote the first when he was young and flush with success. It was called, ôThe Magic of Life, the Magic of Loveö and detailed all of the then-common rituals young lovers could use to gain powers, bond to each other, etc, a near encyclopedia from the æhere is the art, have fun with itÆ perspective.
The other, much darker work, entitled ôTo My Younger Selfö written in his early seventies (and the last years of his life, when he is alone and disliked), containing warnings of all of the darker apsects of sex magic, perfected by a thrill-seeking, power-corrupt, occult-practicing aristocracy in control all over Europe. In it he warns of hidden sides of sex magic, developed to control and dominate your lovers, and to which he, in his youth, had fallen victim. After having his fortunes ruined many times by these predators, he had sought for counters and defenses to their techniques, even developing some of his own. But, by the time the book was ready, those same predatory sex-mages that he sought to teach the young to defend against had begun being toppled all over Europe by the revolutions and wars being fought, destroying the ancient aristocracies that had turned sex magic into a tool of control and domination in the first place. Thus, copies of the book would be rare and hard to find, as those very classes of people it was designed to defend against ceased to exist, on the whole.
The originals of both would naturally be in French, and that might prove a difficulty.
Thank you, Lionheart.
I'm thinking that Mr. Mage Dude and his wife may have translated one or both by hand, and annotated the copies they made in embarrassing (to Xander) detail. :snigger: Either that, or Xander has to learn French to get any use out of them. (I wouldn't be surprised if he knew a little Latin by this point, in order to help more with research, and he's probably taken French or Spanish in school, but not enough for the untranslated book to be immediately useful.)
I'm thinking that Mr. Mage Dude and his wife may have translated one or both by hand, and annotated the copies they made in embarrassing (to Xander) detail. :snigger: Either that, or Xander has to learn French to get any use out of them. (I wouldn't be surprised if he knew a little Latin by this point, in order to help more with research, and he's probably taken French or Spanish in school, but not enough for the untranslated book to be immediately useful.)
Another, much darker, treatise on sex magic should be æThe Intimate Diary of VersaillesÆ, containing a great selection of what the nobles liked sex magic for. Yes, there are some rituals using sex as a source of power, even some abilities that CasanovaÆs first handbook skipped over or he didnÆt know about to record. However, the majority of the content is about all those things he warned about in his second book - how to take advantage of lovers, use peopleÆs affections, warp and take control of them through the very sex rituals they had performed, and all of the dark and nasty stuff that turns a person into a possession of the sexual predator using the dark side of the sex arts, compiled by the practitioners of this seedy side, in the court that was the very capital for sex magic among the aristocracy that perfected it.
Between them, these three volumes contain all but a very small fraction of the sex magics ever created, say 94%, as they were all compiled and recorded during the peak of the æGolden Age of Sex MagicÆ, where research ran high, new parts were created and old parts of the ancient art restored from obscurity by an interested elite that had nothing better to do.
Edited it say: You wouldn't give anyone you liked a copy of the Diary of Versailles, as it is a book on how to be a very nasty person. But if it should appear in the hands of some bad guy later on, or just the hands of a lonely nerd... it creates the possibility for a conflict that didn't occur in the series.
"Say, uhm, Random Nerd #1 over there has just gotten Cordy wrapped around his finger in, like, the space of a day and a half. Do you think magic is involved?"
"Of course. Here, let me look up the counter... Oh my!"
"What?! Do you mean that we can't save her, or anything? She's doomed to be the pimple-faced geeks love slave for all time?"
"No, that's not it at all. There is a counter, even a very simple one, but..." (polishes glasses)
"What? What's going on? You're wigging me out Giles!"
"Well, you see..." stutters uncomfortably "this is one of the darker rituals of sex magic she has fallen under and I'm afraid the, well, counter is also in the school of sex magic, and..." resumes polishing glasses. "Well, to put it bluntly, the counter cannot be performed without having boy+girl sex with the victim you are to save."
flatly. "That's sick, Giles."
flustered. "No! For heaven's sake, I wasn't recommending myself! The consequences alone... not to mention professional behavior, and the Watcher's Counsil regulations... No, that's simply impossible. In fact, I am shocked you would even suggest it."
"Yah! But, like, where are we going to get a guy to..." affronted look on face.
"No. That's quite impossible. Sex magic is all centered around the energy of life, and Angel is, in spite of having a soul, still quite dead, or undead rather. The rituals of this art are utterly and completely useless to him. You might as easily ask one of those posters of a rock star you young girls collect to perform the magic. The essential energies for the act are just not present."
"So, where are we going to get a guy..."
Between them, these three volumes contain all but a very small fraction of the sex magics ever created, say 94%, as they were all compiled and recorded during the peak of the æGolden Age of Sex MagicÆ, where research ran high, new parts were created and old parts of the ancient art restored from obscurity by an interested elite that had nothing better to do.
Edited it say: You wouldn't give anyone you liked a copy of the Diary of Versailles, as it is a book on how to be a very nasty person. But if it should appear in the hands of some bad guy later on, or just the hands of a lonely nerd... it creates the possibility for a conflict that didn't occur in the series.
"Say, uhm, Random Nerd #1 over there has just gotten Cordy wrapped around his finger in, like, the space of a day and a half. Do you think magic is involved?"
"Of course. Here, let me look up the counter... Oh my!"
"What?! Do you mean that we can't save her, or anything? She's doomed to be the pimple-faced geeks love slave for all time?"
"No, that's not it at all. There is a counter, even a very simple one, but..." (polishes glasses)
"What? What's going on? You're wigging me out Giles!"
"Well, you see..." stutters uncomfortably "this is one of the darker rituals of sex magic she has fallen under and I'm afraid the, well, counter is also in the school of sex magic, and..." resumes polishing glasses. "Well, to put it bluntly, the counter cannot be performed without having boy+girl sex with the victim you are to save."
flatly. "That's sick, Giles."
flustered. "No! For heaven's sake, I wasn't recommending myself! The consequences alone... not to mention professional behavior, and the Watcher's Counsil regulations... No, that's simply impossible. In fact, I am shocked you would even suggest it."
"Yah! But, like, where are we going to get a guy to..." affronted look on face.
"No. That's quite impossible. Sex magic is all centered around the energy of life, and Angel is, in spite of having a soul, still quite dead, or undead rather. The rituals of this art are utterly and completely useless to him. You might as easily ask one of those posters of a rock star you young girls collect to perform the magic. The essential energies for the act are just not present."
"So, where are we going to get a guy..."
Oh, I am very much in favor of having Xander learn a language or few. It would be very helpful to be able to read Latin, Classical Greek, Herbew and Babylonian just to start, as those would make the standard research and hitting the books so much easier. Egyptian is also a near-must to have. But a few modern languages would also be in order.
Which is a good part of why I intend to have him memorizing school books, so he could start to have a high school (by which I mean to say pitiful) level of comprehension and use of French, German and Spanish (the language courses available in my High School).
Anyway, the way I see it, The Diary of Versailles was actually a compilation of hundreds of spell books, grimories, and private journals left over by the noble elite, compiled for Napoleon and presented to him on his coronation as emperor by a courtesan who had been a part of the noble court scene and wanted him to start the sex-capades all over again by saying, ælook at how much fun we had taking advantage of those ignorant young folks!Æ
Ironically, the existence of a catalog of spells intended for taking advantage of the users of the innocent side of sex magic, taking control over bonds formed between them (or breaking them) and otherwise toying with people who were in it for the fun, has in large part prevented any sort of wide scale resurgence of the use of sex magic. Any time any group tries, sooner rather than later somebody with a copy of the Diary of Versailles shows up and ruins it for everyone.
The scarcity of CasanovaÆs second book means most such groups are vulnerable.
Which is a good part of why I intend to have him memorizing school books, so he could start to have a high school (by which I mean to say pitiful) level of comprehension and use of French, German and Spanish (the language courses available in my High School).
Anyway, the way I see it, The Diary of Versailles was actually a compilation of hundreds of spell books, grimories, and private journals left over by the noble elite, compiled for Napoleon and presented to him on his coronation as emperor by a courtesan who had been a part of the noble court scene and wanted him to start the sex-capades all over again by saying, ælook at how much fun we had taking advantage of those ignorant young folks!Æ
Ironically, the existence of a catalog of spells intended for taking advantage of the users of the innocent side of sex magic, taking control over bonds formed between them (or breaking them) and otherwise toying with people who were in it for the fun, has in large part prevented any sort of wide scale resurgence of the use of sex magic. Any time any group tries, sooner rather than later somebody with a copy of the Diary of Versailles shows up and ruins it for everyone.
The scarcity of CasanovaÆs second book means most such groups are vulnerable.
By the way, by my interpretation sex magic is VERY much focused on the essential energies of life and living, but they are also a great deal of fun.
However, the energies of life and death are not compatible in the same creature at the same time. So, I could so *easily* see a situation where Buffy, now having been introduced to the concept, looks into and likes the idea of sex magic, tries it with Angel on her sweet first time... only to dust him, the living energies of the sex ritual having competed with and cancelled out the necromatic energies animating him as a vampire.
Can I just go ahead and say that I want to see the aftermath of that scene so badly? :yay:
However, the energies of life and death are not compatible in the same creature at the same time. So, I could so *easily* see a situation where Buffy, now having been introduced to the concept, looks into and likes the idea of sex magic, tries it with Angel on her sweet first time... only to dust him, the living energies of the sex ritual having competed with and cancelled out the necromatic energies animating him as a vampire.
Can I just go ahead and say that I want to see the aftermath of that scene so badly? :yay:
This is an idea that would go over well on the XanderZone. :snigger: Much hatred for Angel, there. I agree with you on sex magic being all about life, as well.
I'm imagining that certain sex spells can be used to prevent, reduce, or cure the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that most of the BtVS cast suffers from in the last four or five seasons, as well as possibly being able to cure Joyce's tumour, or at least help her survive the surgical complications that killed her in canon. Whether the spell for Joyce is cast by Xander or Giles is, as yet, undecided.
I'm imagining that certain sex spells can be used to prevent, reduce, or cure the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that most of the BtVS cast suffers from in the last four or five seasons, as well as possibly being able to cure Joyce's tumour, or at least help her survive the surgical complications that killed her in canon. Whether the spell for Joyce is cast by Xander or Giles is, as yet, undecided.
OK, the first part has again been updated. All I really need is a title, and I can post it to XanderZone - though I'll probably add a couple more paragraphs to the beginning and end.
I went to Babel Fish to translate Lionheart's book titles, but it seems to think that 'Self' means 'Art of the Self-Portrait'. The other two translate as 'La Magie de la Vie, la Magie de l'Amour' and 'Le Journal Intime de Versailles', but given that its Babel Fish, I haven't put them in the fic, and I'm hoping some real Francophones read this forum.
I went to Babel Fish to translate Lionheart's book titles, but it seems to think that 'Self' means 'Art of the Self-Portrait'. The other two translate as 'La Magie de la Vie, la Magie de l'Amour' and 'Le Journal Intime de Versailles', but given that its Babel Fish, I haven't put them in the fic, and I'm hoping some real Francophones read this forum.
'La Magie de la Vie, la Magie de l'Amour' is perfect, no need to changes anything there.
Take out the "intime" from the second title, it implies that Versailles is a person.
'To my younger self' is tougher, because there's no elegant way to translate "self" in french. The best I could come up with is 'A mon jeune Alter Ego', And I'm not completely satisfied with this one.
Take out the "intime" from the second title, it implies that Versailles is a person.
'To my younger self' is tougher, because there's no elegant way to translate "self" in french. The best I could come up with is 'A mon jeune Alter Ego', And I'm not completely satisfied with this one.
How about '? Moi Si Plus Jeune' or '? Moi Quand J'Útais Plus Jeune'?
I could see either of those being translated into English as 'To My Younger Self', as that would be less awkward than 'To Me When Younger' or 'To Me When I Was Younger'.
I'm actually thinking of having, in my version, Mr. Mage Dude being unable to find Casanova's second book of Magic, and just giving Xander the Diary, with an appendix of the counters the mage and his friends came up with, notes on how they came up with them, and the suggestion that Xander ought to try to develop counters to the rest of the hostile spells. He has the tools to do that, after all.
I'm also thinking that Giles read the Diary when he was Ripper, and/or the first book, but may not have had any access to the second. OTOH, he might have the second in his personal collection.
Either way, I'm thinking that 'La Magie de la Vie, la Magie de l'Amour', in various translations, may be available online, possibly put there by someone who has the Diary, and wants more people to have 'fun' with.
I could see either of those being translated into English as 'To My Younger Self', as that would be less awkward than 'To Me When Younger' or 'To Me When I Was Younger'.
I'm actually thinking of having, in my version, Mr. Mage Dude being unable to find Casanova's second book of Magic, and just giving Xander the Diary, with an appendix of the counters the mage and his friends came up with, notes on how they came up with them, and the suggestion that Xander ought to try to develop counters to the rest of the hostile spells. He has the tools to do that, after all.
I'm also thinking that Giles read the Diary when he was Ripper, and/or the first book, but may not have had any access to the second. OTOH, he might have the second in his personal collection.
Either way, I'm thinking that 'La Magie de la Vie, la Magie de l'Amour', in various translations, may be available online, possibly put there by someone who has the Diary, and wants more people to have 'fun' with.
I'm also thinking that it's certainly possible the Mayor has a copy of the Diary.
I like the idea of Mr. Mage Dude not having a copy of the second book, as that fits in keeping with its rarity - but also it (more importantly) gives Xander something to struggle and search for, and thus material for driving your plot forward.
So, having him read a copy of the Diary, with someone else's notes on suggested counters, plus a suggestion to develop more himself, provides a path for him to grow along during the story, and is thus almost certainly a Good Thing.
As for Giles, it is almost certain that he had a copy of the Diary during his Ripper days, and a good probability that he had access to the first book as well. From there, I can almost certainly see that the archives of the Watcher's Council have a copy of the ultra-rare second volume, but I can also SO see a repentant Giles having known it was there, but not having read it, as he wanted those days of heady sex magic put fully behind him.
Now, of course, he'd have quite a struggle on his hands trying to get the Council to release a copy to him. And 'My Slayer wants it' doesn't cut it as she is supposed to be devoting what remains of her life Slaying, thank you very much.
Having the 'bait' book online would also make a lot of sense, as you say there are many possibly predators who would love to have that information available to provide a supply of victims. And, I could see a story where Xander learns the third (the Diary) via hypnotism, and Willow or someone finds the first, the 'Magic of Love' online, while Giles knew of the second, but no longer has easy access.
Something to think on: it is *possible* that sex magic contains less about contraceptives than anyone would suppose, as it is a known fact that Casanova left MANY children behind, and he is, in our story here, the acknowledged master.
If we do go that route I could see the theory being that, as the magic is focused in LIFE, any attempt to reduce or threaten that essential energy inherent in the act of reproduction spoiling the magic of the spells. Thus, unprotected (either magically or physically) sex is the norm.
There would naturally BE contraceptive spells, but they could very well be incompatible with the any of the actual sex magic ones for that very reason. :blink:
I like the idea of Mr. Mage Dude not having a copy of the second book, as that fits in keeping with its rarity - but also it (more importantly) gives Xander something to struggle and search for, and thus material for driving your plot forward.
So, having him read a copy of the Diary, with someone else's notes on suggested counters, plus a suggestion to develop more himself, provides a path for him to grow along during the story, and is thus almost certainly a Good Thing.
As for Giles, it is almost certain that he had a copy of the Diary during his Ripper days, and a good probability that he had access to the first book as well. From there, I can almost certainly see that the archives of the Watcher's Council have a copy of the ultra-rare second volume, but I can also SO see a repentant Giles having known it was there, but not having read it, as he wanted those days of heady sex magic put fully behind him.
Now, of course, he'd have quite a struggle on his hands trying to get the Council to release a copy to him. And 'My Slayer wants it' doesn't cut it as she is supposed to be devoting what remains of her life Slaying, thank you very much.
Having the 'bait' book online would also make a lot of sense, as you say there are many possibly predators who would love to have that information available to provide a supply of victims. And, I could see a story where Xander learns the third (the Diary) via hypnotism, and Willow or someone finds the first, the 'Magic of Love' online, while Giles knew of the second, but no longer has easy access.
Something to think on: it is *possible* that sex magic contains less about contraceptives than anyone would suppose, as it is a known fact that Casanova left MANY children behind, and he is, in our story here, the acknowledged master.
If we do go that route I could see the theory being that, as the magic is focused in LIFE, any attempt to reduce or threaten that essential energy inherent in the act of reproduction spoiling the magic of the spells. Thus, unprotected (either magically or physically) sex is the norm.
There would naturally BE contraceptive spells, but they could very well be incompatible with the any of the actual sex magic ones for that very reason. :blink: