080 - Death of the Author

Ritual: Death of the Author

Cost: 3+ significant charges.

Ritual Action: Pick a work of art: painting, song, movie, book, whatever. It helps if it’s well known. It’s not necessary per se, but the value of performing this ritual on an unknown work is questionable.

Spend a complete lunar month - new moon to new moon - in complete seclusion recreating it over and over. These "studies" don’t have to be good by any standard, but they do have to be unmistakable as copies (and later, interpretations). As the month and your “studies” progress skew them towards a desired subtext which gradually becomes more and more explicit. In the final version it shouldn’t be equivocal, characters should bluntly state your message and paintings resemble the most unimaginative political cartoons. If you communicate with another person during this month you have to scrap everything and start over, you need to be cut-off. This makes for some interesting logistics if your target art is a film.

Once you’ve finished that stage take the brain of the original creator and a department store mannequin that matches their gender orientation. Secure the brain to the head of the mannequin and showcase the artwork to it in the place you’ve been working. Have a one-sided argument with it about various established interpretations of their work, making strong points against them that favour your interpretation (if you’re convincing and/or succeed at a roll on a relevant identity take a positive shift to your ritual roll). Get angry, really work yourself up and then storm off. On your way out burn the place and everything in it to the ground. Spend a minimum of 3 significant charges.

Variant: Trick someone into performing the ritual on you, but before they do make preparations. You only need to make one “study” of your work, what would be the final version if you were performing the ritual on someone else. Once you’ve finished get it gold-plated and stash it somewhere. If it remains undisturbed until someone tries the ritual on you then you get to co-opt their attempt with your own (you don’t even have to supply the charges if they do it, but if you do yours are added to the effect).

Despite the name you don't necessarily have to be dead although that's academic. Probably. Arguably there may be a charger out there somewhere who could survive having their brain removed.

Effect: You have decided what the prevailing interpretation of the selected artwork is from this point onwards. This reorientation is a one-time thing, the zeitgeist continues to move forward. It’s not a retcon or mind control either, more like a sourceless rumour that most people take seriously without examining.

There is one other lingering effect that gives it some punch. Anyone openly and publicly opposing your magickally-backed interpretation gets smacked around by unnatural phenomenon. Each significant charge beyond the base 3 invested in the ritual is good for one significant unnatural phenomenon. They tend to be violent and heavy on the dramatic irony.