Chant the 'wrong' way and be hexed - Z's threat for 'misusing' her chant

[cigfran]

With the open agenda being proper use and respect for the author, and the hidden one being a kick-back built into the charm/chant/song so that every time it is performed correctly the mage gets an extra boost of power.

If it's going to buff the composer, I think it might work as a magical Ponzi scheme. The song would have to be potent enough to make people want to sing it. It would need to confer some actual effect to the singer... at least a temporary feeling of good will or false power (fireside ballads and nationalist anthems come to mind). The feeling could actually be a residue of lifeforce being channeled through the singer toward the sorcerer, further depleting earlier singers. The tune would be a virus - an almost literal earworm - spreading into the population and draining it of will, and eventually life, as the dark magician who launched it becomes stronger.

More malefic than my original thought, but a possible offshoot, certainly.

[Melamphoros]

If it's going to buff the composer, I think it might work as a magical Ponzi scheme. The song would have to be potent enough to make people want to sing it. It would need to confer some actual effect to the singer... at least a temporary feeling of good will or false power (fireside ballads and nationalist anthems come to mind). The feeling could actually be a residue of lifeforce being channeled through the singer toward the sorcerer, further depleting earlier singers. The tune would be a virus - an almost literal earworm - spreading into the population and draining it of will, and eventually life, as the dark magician who launched it becomes stronger.

More malefic than my original thought, but a possible offshoot, certainly.

Oh...my....

So THAT is Lady Gaga's plan. And all this time I thought she was just trying in summon Cthulhu.

[Juni]

Oh...my....

So THAT is Lady Gaga's plan. And all this time I thought she was just trying in summon Cthulhu.

Woah.

It's a great story idea, I have to say.

[Asch]

If it's going to buff the composer, I think it might work as a magical Ponzi scheme. The song would have to be potent enough to make people want to sing it. It would need to confer some actual effect to the singer... at least a temporary feeling of good will or false power (fireside ballads and nationalist anthems come to mind). The feeling could actually be a residue of lifeforce being channeled through the singer toward the sorcerer, further depleting earlier singers. The tune would be a virus - an almost literal earworm - spreading into the population and draining it of will, and eventually life, as the dark magician who launched it becomes stronger.

More malefic than my original thought, but a possible offshoot, certainly.

Reminds me of a scene in Gaiman's Neverwhere, a busking musician recieves a catchy tune from a character and has to be rescued a short time later by the same character when the slack jawed mob of commuters he had been playing to are near to killing him with their attempts to give him money. 'Least that's how I recall the scene. (been a few years since I read the book or saw the miniseries)

[Asch]

Oh...my....

So THAT is Lady Gaga's plan. And all this time I thought she was just trying in summon Cthulhu.

Lol

And more to the point IF z had that kind of power why would she need to warn people about her super!scary!powerful!doom!hex! instead of, y'know, just making it so people didn't mess with her chant in the first place? What a dork...

[Aine Rayne]

Oh Z, you're trying your hardest to remind people you are still around. And yet, all you're doing is reminding us just how out of touch and irrelevant you have become.

I'd feel sad for her if her head wasn't buried deep up her ass.

I've never heard of her. Who is Z?

[Lokabrenna]

Lol
And more to the point IF z had that kind of power why would she need to warn people about her super!scary!powerful!doom!hex! instead of, y'know, just making it so people didn't mess with her chant in the first place? What a dork...

I honestly don't get how she didn't clue into this sooner. I've been hearing the "hoof and horn" addition to the chant for years (and I haven't been into Paganism for that long). Why is it only now that she's taking issue with it? Copyright concerns aside, it sounds like a cry for attention to me.

[Elani Temperance]

I've never heard of her. Who is Z?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zsuzsanna_Budapest

[Melamphoros]

I honestly don't get how she didn't clue into this sooner. I've been hearing the "hoof and horn" addition to the chant for years (and I haven't been into Paganism for that long). Why is it only now that she's taking issue with it? Copyright concerns aside, it sounds like a cry for attention to me.

As someone upthread said: She probably enjoyed the attention she got the past two years and is now actively trolling us.

[Jenett]

I did not know who she was before undies were vocally twisted about her bigotry two years ago. Then again this year and louder. And I think she is addicted now. She's said how much she enjoyed creating controversy.

She really isn't a stranger to controversy - she got arrested back in the 70s for fortune telling, and it was that that broke the back of some of the anti-fortune-telling laws still on the books (which, really, good thing, mostly.)

I've never heard the song/chant. If I can escape that, I win a giant can of asparagus.

To be fair, it is a widely used chant - not just near her, but across the US. If you go to more than, oh, 5-10 witchy/Goddess-friendly public rituals, chances are pretty good you're going to hear it at one of them at *some* point. It's also wrapped into several other more modern songs: Charlie Murphy's "The Burning Times", but also another couple I can't lay brain on right now.

Best chant on the planet? No. But widely usable and used? Really, it's sort of hard to deny that. (That said, the time to put "please use it in these circumstances, not that" is *not* twenty years after it's been in wide general use.)