#macguffins

[prokopetz]

Baroque works of sorcerous artifice have their place, but as magical MacGuffins go you really can't go wrong with a good nondescript orb.

[physalian]

Evil MacGuffins (Or an excuse to gush about Lord of the Rings)

It’s kind of crazy how so much of Tolkien’s worldbuilding has defined fantasy. The default for Elves and Dwarves, fantasy kingdoms, character archetypes, themes, and motifs come from Tolkien’s works.

But you know what’s rarely ever redone in modern fantasy? The One Ring. Probably because works piggybacking off the success of their predecessors rarely understand the themes of what made the original so legendary *cough* teen dystopia *cough*.

So—the One Ring.

Addressing the infamous Eagles “plot hole” once again for any stragglers who still think *gotcha* for this masterpiece: 1) The Eagles were busy. 2) The Eagles are not subtle at all and this mission required absolute stealth, because the one place the One Ring can be destroyed is in Sauron’s house, thus the closer they get to destroying it, the closer Sauron gets to just reaching out and taking it. 3) There were 9 Nazgul and Fellbeasts in the way. 4) The Eagles are basically gods, second only to the actual gods of the world. This makes them deeply inadvisable to go anywhere near the One Ring.

Why? Yes the Ring gives you some random powers like invisibility and slower aging but its purpose is temptation and political power. As you can see in the movie’s prologue, all the Rings of Power were subservient to Sauron’s master ring, the One Ring, to bend to his will… to varying degrees of success.

The power of the One Ring is proportional to the power of its wielder, giving you social and political influence over all your followers. So if you’re, say, a king of men, and you become Sauron’s minion, you’re going to lead your kingdom to ruin doing his bidding whether you realize you’re doing it or not. If you have no political or social power, like, say a hobbit? The Ring doesn’t have much use for you and you, seeing no benefit to world domination, are more resistant to its beguiling.

All this to say: The story makes it very clear that Frodo has to be the ring-bearer because he’s impervious to the Ring’s wiles. Anyone more competent, like Aragorn or Legolas, or Gandalf, are more susceptible to its power. The more power you have, the more destruction you will wreak under the Ring’s influence, and everyone bends to the Ring’s will eventually, no matter how good your intentions.

Eagles are great. Evil Eagles would be very, very bad.

Gandalf is great. Evil Gandalf looks like Saruman, and we all saw how that went.

That is a built-in plot armor I never see in modern fiction—Why?

—

One of the many messages of LOTR is not “good always triumphs” but instead “evil always loses”. The difference being here that it’s not necessarily the Power of Friendship that defeats evil, it’s evil’s selfish and self-sabotaging nature that eats itself to its own demise.

Example: Neither Frodo nor Sam strike the killing blow on Gollum. Gollum falls fighting Frodo for the Ring and can't let go of it to save himself. The Power of Friendship saves Frodo, but it doesn't destroy the Ring.

The One Ring is a MacGuffin like no other in that it’s not just a cool inanimate and useless object that only holds meaning to the characters that want it—the Ring is its own character enticing all these people to lust after it and fall on their own swords doing so.

Obviously, if you find the enemy’s magic weapon in your possession, you’re going to want to use it against them, which is exactly Boromir’s argument. Any other story and you’d have a difficult time justifying why your characters wouldn’t seize this golden opportunity. In this story, by the weapon’s very nature, trying to use it is exactly what it, and its creator, wants.

The point of the Ring, and at least my interpretation of its meaning, is this: When you’re going up against the evil and corrupt, you cannot let yourself become corrupted trying to defeat it, or else the cycle will never be broken. Or, “Hate can­not dri­ve out hate; only love can do that.”

I almost wish we had seen it seriously tempt the more powerful characters—like seeing Aragorn forced to use it in an emergency the way Frodo does several times. See what it does to him and how hard it is to resist this beguiling weapon’s siren song.

“Evil weapon is super conveniently powerful and would solve all our problems but alas, it has some nasty side effects” has been done before, frequently in anime. Usually, though, that weapon isn’t the centerpiece of the story. It’s the edgy side-character’s Hail Mary when things have gone Very Wrong.

—

Most LOTR copycats focus on the cool species and the magical lands and the magic systems and a generically evil villain who wants world domination. Yes, Sauron is, by modern standards, pretty one-note. He wants to rule the world. Why? Because he’s Evil and Prideful. There’s nothing wrong with a pure-evil villain, they can be highly entertaining without angst dragging them down.

However, Pure Evil villains work best when either they’re incredibly charismatic, like Disney Renaissance villains, or they’re just the face of the metaphor. Ozai from ATLA does not need character development, Netflix. He may be the face of the Fire Nation, but it’s his regime and this one element’s unbalanced crusade for world domination that’s the “villain”.

Sauron isn’t even a giant, corporeal eye in the book. He’s just this disembodied entity represented by the eye in visions. His influence and how it motivates legions of orcs, humans, and anyone else tempted by power, is the “villain”.

The One Ring serves as his thematic proxy. It’s not just a magic ring, it’s a cosmic mousetrap waiting to spring on anyone proud enough to think they can overcome it.

And I just never see that in modern fantasy.

—

TLDR; There is no MacGuffin quite like the One Ring and no, the Eagles aren’t a lazy or forgotten deus ex machina. When you’re coming up with your heroes and villains in fantasy and sci-fi, consider something like the Ring as this double-edged sword that has everyone gunning for it either unknowing that it’s exactly what the villain wants, or too proud to think they can fall victim to it.

[digi-tally]

one of my absolute favorite things to do is to find macguffins ("thing" in literature that everyone wants and is relatively "insignificant") in stories. I tend to discard the "insignificant" part of the definition and the because it's relative and makes the game less fun. And also the "thing" part because that expands the definition and sometimes makes them wild and hilarious and sometimes they make you think really hard about a story. Er, spoilers for yanxi palace.

And I just realized...

Fuca Fuheng is a macguffin. Let's check.

Everyone wants? Check, Erqing and Consort Chun and Mingyu and the gazillion palace maids who all fawn over him.

Plot-relevant? Check, his existence and possession of wants that aren't what everyone else wants fuels Consort Chun's villain arc, he causes tension between Mingyu and Yingluo for a while, makes Erqing kinda a bitch.

Obviously he has a purpose in the plot other than "everyone wants him" but that's kind of his character during the first few episodes when he's introduced and it does change later but I just found the thought hilarious.

Can you tell I'm on a yanxi palace binge

[moonfeatherblue]

Here's the notes from our lovely brainstorming stream so all the wonderful MacGuffins don't need to trawl through the VOD to write their incredible gas-phase-state-telekinesis-related stories ~

I haven't tried to tidy them up, so they're a mess, but they're exactly what we finished with. So very much looking forward to seeing what you all come up with! Remember, use #MacGuffinsUwrite to share your work here on Tumblr or over on Twitter to make sure I can find it to read out on March 16 (or another nearby date if for whatever reason the 16th doesn't work out) ~

Brainstorming

“Gas Phase State Telekinesis”

Random Thoughts

Oh no, so many hyped-up electrons

If you think cats are hard to herd, wait till you try sub-atomic particles

Air-bending/Wind Elemental Magic – except applies to all gases, not just air

Same level of control as air-bending/wind elemental magic, or does gas phase state telekinesis have to be more concise, more subtle, etc?

Could the soul be considered a gas (if that’s true, there are many, MANY potential evil applications)

The word ‘chemistry’ is derived from the word ‘alchemy’, borrowed from Arabic, ‘al’ being Arabic ‘the’ – symbolism??

Silly/Cute/Annoying Uses – Various Shenanigans

Moving the gas particles of unpleasant body odours to other individuals to pass the blame…

Mess with barometers (very annoying to meteorologists)

Mess with various other instruments of measurement

Show off making miniature tornados

Turn neon signs on and off

Push someone’s sneeze back up their nose…

Have fun with helium (surreptitiously get in people’s systems and bask in the rising voice)

Creating gas light shows

Choreograph kite displays

Keep knocking the wind out of someone’s kite…

Make a laser pointer?

Make own bubble of ideal air pressure/weather/etc

How Could This Work

Mind can generate wells of low/high pressure to push/push gases, gathering and moving, like weather patterns – less controlling the gas and more creating force to move the gas?

Does the mind affect individual gas molecules? Very difficult because so spaced out and they’re moving so fast

Can you pick out and differentiate between different gases in the same area and affect only one type?

Can you control what the gas is by controlling/changing its elements/atoms in its molecules e.g. creating water by combining hydrogen and oxygen

Mix and match atoms to create the gases you want?

Innate understanding/sensing of air pressure?

Could plasma be considered a gas?

Difficulties/Limitations

Seeing/senses/finding gases to control (besides oxygen/all the gases that make up our atmosphere) – how to wrap your mind around them

Is there a way to learn how to sense different gases – e.g., smell; colors

How much can they move/what’s their gas load limit/how specifically can they grab, e.g. individual molecules

Are some telekinetic people naturally more gifted? Can they train to improve their limits?

A gift that requires A LOT of discipline to be able to do anything – lots of gas telekinetic people who are never discovered/can’t ever do anything because they don’t have the discipline

Can you control the speed of the gas – those who are very good could probably move as fast/slow as they like, but those less skilled are more cumbersome

Can only people with gaseous telekinesis use products made with/requiring gas telekinesis, or is there some way to imbue the telekinetic power in the items/make the gases stay in place?

HOW TO IMBUE WITH THESE POWERS/MAKE IT SO THEY DON’T DISPERSE OR DISAPPEAR

Everyday Applications

Official flag blower – so flags always flapping majestically

Filling sailboat sails, etc

Lifting flying machines before mechanical planes existed; flight would have been around a lot sooner;

Official gas checker

Applications with windmills, turbines, etc – electricity production

Gas works – can transport gas without containers; can easily load containers

Manual control of gas stoves

Using gases as a mode of measurement

Firefighting – can remove noxious fumes; can suck oxygen from a space so there’s no oxygen to burn (must be sure the space is empty)

Medicine – doctors, nurses, pharmacists; improved resuscitation

Sensing high oncotic pressure, finding lung punctures, etc

Applications in alleviating the symptoms of asthma

Operation of various medical scanners that use e.g. helium

Can this be used to circumvent certain diseases; is there a way to safely grab the air around viruses, etc, in the body and pull them out without depriving the body of oxygen?

Chiropracting – popping joint gas

Gardening applications – help regulate plants; create perfect atmosphere for plants in greenhouse

Applications in perfumery – the gaseous state of perfume is what gives it its aroma; also other fields of smell

Applications in natural gas mining

Radon – control radon to treat cancer, etc

Make your own water when thirsty

Everyday alchemy – could we make gold from anything by messing with elements while gaseous and then letting them reach solid state?

Blind uses of gaseous telekinesis could use their abilities to sense the world around them

Gas merchant – can sell concoctions; perfumes and poisons and new elements…

Lamp selling

Using self-made helium to make things float – childcare applications?? Keeping kids entertained; venturing into the realms of normal telekinesis

Demolitions expert – safe controlled explosions

Applications with sound – diminishing sound, making it louder, etc; if we’re messing with gases, it could affect sound; knock people out with sound? Break glass with sound – amplify a normal volume enough to break things?

Play an ENTIRE WIND ORCHESTRA

Projectile guidance – messing with air resistance, etc, ensuring projectiles hit their targets

Making gases denser or lighter

Criminal Applications

Waft gases into spaces to knock people out and clear the way for crime

Explosions extraordinaire – blow up anything you need at any time; need to carry what you need; be able to store in whatever size containers you need

Suck the air out of lungs

Moving other gases in the body to cause problems

Create air bubbles in blood

Give someone the bends

Get-away driver with hot-air balloon (probably too silly…)

Pop eardrums

Subtle poisonings

Radon – control to cause radiation poisoning

Nuclear bombs (please no more detail)

Make a vacuum and explode a person due to differences in pressure

HOLD AN ENTIRE PLANET HOSTAGE by threatening to deprive of oxygen

Make a person breathe pure nitrogen so they don’t notice they’re asphyxiating and they’ll simply pass away after a few minutes

Arson

BIG Applications

Affect the ozone layer (for good or evil)

Affect the weather – cyclones/hurricanes/typhoons; tornados

Reduce effects of wind-based natural disasters?? Could that kill you??

Reduce some effects of wildfires

Carry own oxygen supply into space, keep it around you, wrap with ozone to survive the void of space; possibly extend to others; huge applications for distant space travel; require many different things working in synchrony, creating atmosphere with enough pressure (so we don’t explode…), correct mixture of gases to allow natural breathing; need to continually produce ozone; lots of training involved, one of the most highly-skilled jobs in existence; lots of young gas telekinetic people dreaming of doing such a cool job

Grab the air around airborne viruses/bacteria to move away/towards populated areas (for good and evil); use in war scenarios, pandemic scenarios

Help end world hunger by creating perfect atmosphere for growing crops

Can capture radiation and store somewhere safe/send it out into space

Help solve water shortages

CREATE MORE OF GASES NEEDED IN THE WORLD AND/OR CREATE NEW GASEOUS ELEMENTS

Pollution control – boost gas containment; bubble and send into space; is there a way to change the bad gas into good gas?

Rescuing planes, etc, that are falling

Terraforming inhospitable planets to make the air breathable

High-Fantasy Quest-y Uses

Transportation – controlling a hot-air balloon

Equivalent of air-bending/wind elemental magic

Uses various gases as weapons – physical or chemical

Carry bottles of gaseous poisons and attack using the fumes

Control dragon breath – make a dragon swallow its own breath

Combine gases with other magical properties e.g. pixie dust

Are there certain smells that can dispel evil spirits, dangerous magical creatures?

ALCHEMY

Projectile guidance – messing with air resistance, etc, ensuring projectiles hit their targets – our archer would never miss

 

New Industries??

Making hoverboards, etc

Personal heaters/coolers

Controlling giant mechanical steampunk-style suit??

Floating platforms – revolutionise city designs

Superhero/Supervillain Uses

Create uplifts of oxygen to slow/prevent people from falling

Flight?

Affecting air pressure (what are the uses for affecting air pressure)

Clearing noxious fumes

Light generation

Use of gases to distract enemies

Use of gases for battle support/medic uses

Uses gases to help circumvent obstacles e.g. moving helium under an object so it floats

Uses gases to make things float (let’s make our own helium)

Exploding people

Making explosions

Projectile guidance – messing with air resistance, etc, ensuring projectiles hit their targets – perfect aim

[bandcampsnoop]

1/12/24.

I've been listening to "Time" by Beachwood Sparks from the Sandbox Sessions a lot lately. I've always been drawn to sweet pop in the Americana (I really don't actually like that label) style - The Jayhawks, Wilco, and The Autumn Defense are other examples.

Then, Rowan Smith's "Slow Clouds" came across my radar this morning. Smith was a member of Macguffins (Melbourne, Australia) in the late 80s and early 90s (Cloudberry Records has an excellent CD retrospective available).

After listening to "Slow Clouds" I almost immediately came across Misty Lanes "Colourless Green Ideas" on Third Eye Stimuli Records. Misty Lanes is the vehicle for the work of Steven Schouten. Bandcamp describes his music as influenced by The 13th Floor Elevators and The Kinks.

[randomitemdrop]

Item: the president’s brain

From The Long Tomorrow by Moebius and Dan O'Bannon, 1976.

(via)

[egophiliac]

just thinking about hair and faces

[macguffinandco]

MURDER AT MIST TREE MANOR 🔎

Our latest microsetting features an idyllic trip to a remote country house that’s definitely, for certain, going to contain absolutely no murders oh god oh no is that a body on the floor

quick please help us solve this fiasco by running to the patreon

[starstruckodysseys]

hi not to be insane again but isn’t it crazy that wolfman ann’s entire deal is either “be effectively immortal but you have to live the same life over and over with no way to change it once it resets” or “live an actual life with the knowledge you are going to die in about a year if not less��

[randomitemdrop]

Item: Positronic Laser Oscillo-Tron (or “P.L.O.T. Device” for short) of unknown but surely powerful purpose, disguised by its makers as an ear of corn to hide it from their enemies

Hisashi Saito, 1980

[psygull-arts]

finally, i have finished drawings of the fifth and most important member of OPERATION SILENT MOUNTAIN:

BERNICE MACGUFFIN: researcher and archivist for the Marines with an ex-husband back in Quebec she chews out over the phone. she has a cat she loves very much and once ran into Indrid Cold in the Gallipolis, Ohio public library

[applebees4prez]

i really wish we got to see more behind the scenes of dimension 20. i want to see every character sheet before vs. after the every season. i want the dm notes. i want to watch the session zero, maybe release it after the end of the season as extra content. i want to see the one-on-ones between the dm and players. @dimension20official do you hear me?

[ask-tami-and-their-friends]

Please don’t vote just see results, I actually do want to know what you guys think

No matter what, you would basically gain a skill in either before you get the 1st light stone, if the 2nd option is the one chosen, these skills use cp, cp is shared by the whole party, meaning it can be used by everyone in it, and must be charged up, with each light stone skill using a different amount of CP.

[theendorisit]

So there are this pair of Cool Dudes (@macguffinandco) who are going to be at TableTop Scotland this weekend (6th-8th September), and you should check them out! They are MacGuffin & Co and they make amazing ttrpgs, solo role-playing games and zines, zines, zines!

[rqgender]

Today's gender is half man, half man.

[low-po1y-princess]

It's Goemon Monday, and he had a lovely time in Virginia!

Plus, he got a pretty good haul out of it!