Editing Connections (section)

==Types==
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===Social Ties===
Social connections such as enmity, friendship, love, marriage, can all be seen and manipulated.

===Ownership/Claim===
<blockquote>''Main article: [[Claim]]''</blockquote>

===Memory and Record===
Memories and records of things carry connections to them. These can be manipulated to erase or alter them. Magically retrieving lost books and the like is made more difficult by the need for reality to suddenly retrieve all the connections it had thought were no longer needed.

===Magics===
Any Practice, summon, curse etc. will generally have a connection or connections going back to the originator and reaching to the target; which might be broken to end the spell, used to send hostile magic back at them, used to [[Bounce]] an attack back at the perpetrator, etc.

===Names and Speech===
Using someone or something's name, or otherwise talking about and describing them, creates a connection to them. This connection can be strengthened with ritual, repetition, and/or [[power]], potentially drawing them towards you or manifesting them physically.<ref name=":2" /> 

This connection can make it easier for a Practitioner to overhear things said about them 

===Perception===
Seeing or otherwise perceiving something, even through a camera, creates a connection that can be perceived,<ref name=":0" />  exploited,{{Cite}} or even negated.<ref>“What if I told you this guy was one of the people who might be trying to kill me?”<br><br>He frowned a little, but it was very little emotion for what I was telling him.  “Is he?”<br><br>“I don’t know yet.  But maybe remember his face, and if something happens to me in the next few days, assume it’s him?”<br><br>“Yeah, sure,” he said, frowning a bit more.<br><br>Fell reached out to put his hand on my shoulder, and I stepped out of his reach.<br><br>“Enough nonsense,” he said.<br><br>“Whatever,” I said.  “Lock up my place, Joel?”<br><br>Joel nodded.  “Of course.”<br><br>I popped into the kitchen, found the plastic container and grabbed a cupcake.  I offered one to Fell, and he shook his head.<br><br>I headed down the hallway with Fell.  When we were out of sight of the apartment, he reached into a pocket and threw a full handful of white sand onto the ground behind us.  It made a small cloud as it hit the ground.<br><br>I saw the connection between him and Joel disappear entirely, in the midst of it. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/03/11 Excerpt] from [[Collateral 4.4]]</ref> Observing something more directly and intently creates a stronger connection, while only glimpsing something out of the corner of your eye is weaker.<ref name=":1">“Look to your three o’clock without turning your head,” she said.<br><br>I did.<br><br>Something that might have been a raccoon scampered down from the top of the garage to the far side.  It probably wasn’t a raccoon.<br><br>“It’s gone,” I said.<br><br>“It’s ''there'', it’s just out of sight.  Keep looking.”<br><br>I did.  I searched for the connection, but I couldn’t make out much.  The world was buried under a haze, and the wind was blowing in too many directions at once.<br><br>“Trace your eyes along the paths that things run in parallel, the straightest lines.  Good place to start, and good places to avoid if you think someone’s searching for you.”<br><br>I looked harder.  The saturation and contrast seemed exaggerated, the world painted in a impasto style with coarse brush strokes, animated with life and constant motion.  I followed the areas where the strokes and lines met, so I could see the flow of it, not stopping at a dead end but naturally sweeping my eyes along the straighter paths where the particles danced.<br><br>I caught it a second or two faster than I might have if I wasn’t already focused on the area.  It looked like the slop that you dug out of a gutter after a rain.  Leaves, branches, twigs, and a bit or two of trash.  There were only shadows where eyes were supposed to be, and a few pieces of stone, some teeth, and a bird’s beak where it was supposed to have teeth.<br><br>It stopped in its tracks, seemingly startled, as if my vision had transfixed it.<br><br>A moment later, it bolted, disappearing around the corner at edge of Hillsglade House.<br><br>“You looked too hard,” she said.  “You made a connection, and it noticed.  A lesser elemental.  Now keep looking.  Softer.  Relax, and try to see where the longest lines are.  If you don’t focus too hard, it’s easier to see them.”<br><br>I looked, relaxing my focus on the spirits.<br><br>It very deliberately avoided the railing of the fence as it perched on the stone of the wall, glancing my way.  It seemed ''bothered'' that I’d spotted it again.  Leaves and twigs stood up like an irritated cat or a dog with the hackles up. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/01/28 Excerpt] from [[Damages 2.4]]</ref>

===Similarity===
Connections can be generated between things if they are similar, especially if a Practitioner ritually emphasizes these similarities to the [[Spirit]]s. See [[Sympathetic magic]]

===Connections Made Physical===
Some magic can strengthen connections enough to have physical effects; such as causing the connection to behave like a physical cable connecting things, causing the targets to mirror each others' physical state, making them move in concert, etc. 

The ability of Practitioners or Others to physically teleport or teleport a target along certain connections could be considered an extreme version of this as well.

===Flows of Power===
A [[Familiar]] bond allows [[power]] to flow between the familiar and it's master, letting either draw on the energy of the other. Like the other [[Defining Rituals]], this bond is extremely strong and difficult to interfere with, but can be manipulated by some rare and powerful forms of magic.

Similar flows of power can exist without a familiar ritual, such as that between [[Blake Thorburn]] and [[Rose Thorburn Junior|Rose Thorburn Jr.]] (which the demon [[Pauz]] was able to temporarily invert),{{cite}} the bargain [[Padraic]] offered [[Maggie Holt]] to draw on his power freely through a ring, or the [[Kennet Trio]]'s bargain with the collected Others of [[Kennet]] to supply them with a fraction of their collective power.{{Cite}} Some Others, such as the [[Wraith]] of [[Molly Walker]], can draw power from a Practitioner in a one-way connection if they have been given [[blood]].<ref name=":2">“We chant the spirit’s name.  This should establish a tenuous connection.  You put power into that connection.”<br><br>“How?” I asked.<br><br>“Blood.  Draw a symbol, like you see in the book, the median line running parallel to any line of connection you see between yourself and the ghost.  Blood is power, basically the most distilled and direct form you can offer.  The caveat being that when you deal with some Others, you give an inch, they take a mile.  And you don’t want them taking a mile of your blood or personal power.”<br><br>I shook my head.  “No danger of that with ghosts?”<br><br>“There shouldn’t be.”<br><br>“Okay,” I said.  “Anything else?”<br><br>“We chant, you draw the line, feed just enough blood into things to bring the ghost into earshot.  After that, we can try communicating with it.” - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/02/25 Excerpt] from [[Breach 3.5]]</ref> Marriage between humans and Others can sometimes result in a similar power-sharing bond to that of a Familiar.<ref name=":6">The human-Other relationship extends further back than those early traditions, of course.  At the same time, such relationships were informal, often driven by times of necessity, and, according to old texts, often ended in the demise or subjugation of the practitioner or the practitioner’s wily escape from Other clutches.<br />[...]<br />What we do believe is that she, after weeks of daily beatings by her son, fled out to the woods, and struck a deal with the Forest King, marrying him. <br />[...]<br />Locke’s story does include one of the old forms of human-Other relationship, established through another type of bonding we are very familiar with; marriage.  The effects that are described in the texts and various versions of the story lend something to this.  From the time of the marriage, Locke demonstrates some of the Forest King’s native abilities, turning wood aside and going untouched by animal.  Her existing capabilities as a practitioner are stronger, as she uses taught practices with ease, such as the ability to walk among hunting hounds who would otherwise tear her to pieces, cowing them.  Finally, the Forest King gains the ability to enter the Motte through the gates, paving the way for his followers to charge in after.<br />Some speculation has been directed at the link between the death of Locke and the summary decline of the Forest King, an Other of unknown type.  In virtually all versions of the tale that have been seen in circulation, he dwindles after killing or eating Locke, and finds himself unable to stand up to the knight’s old wartime companions and the armies they lead.  Though they were not strictly master and familiar, some of the same factors may stand:<br />When one suffers, so does the other.<br />The mechanism of this suffering varies, and can be temporary or great, depending on a multitude of factors, including the type of Other and the balance of power.  For Locke and her Forest King, however, it seems to hold true, and may well be the intended ‘moral’ of the tale, reflected in Locke’s diary entries, for those who know of Others and practitioners. - Excerpt from [[Famulus]], quoted in Bonus Material: [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/10/29 Famulus Text]</ref>.
===Block===
Like everything else connections can be blocked which is very useful for practitioners avoiding [[innocent]] attention.<ref>[[Gone Ahead 7.cwtatg]]</ref> However these blocks can also be overridden. Blockers areen't useful against  [[Fae]] and a few [[Goblin]]s who in general are good at ignoring them which is why a [[Enchantress]] might partner with the former,<ref>Verona looked down at the connection block she’d drawn on the road.  A person had biked by earlier without giving them a glance.  It presumably helped them against that Other.<br><br>“What Others are good at bypassing connection blocks?” Verona asked, staring down at the chalk.<br><br>“Fae.  They do it like they breathe,” Avery said.  “Which is why enchantresses like to ally with them.”<br><br>“Goblins, presumably?” Lucy asked.  “Eighth court?”<br><br>“Maybe,” Verona said.  “But only the really human-facing ones, right?  They’re the only ones who have a reason to learn that skill, develop those talents, figure out connections, normal and warped?”<br><br>“Snow?” Avery asked.  She looked up at [[Snowdrop]].<br><br>“Doesn’t sound right.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/10/10 Excerpt] from [[In Absentia 21.2]]</ref> a [[Dog of War]] can also develop this talent if it isn't already innate.<ref>“I was just checking in.  I didn’t want to bother you so I used a connection blocker.  It burned out fast, there.”<br><br>“I wouldn’t be very effective at what I do if it was that easy to blind me to you.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/07/28 Excerpt] from [[Out on a Limb 3.5]]</ref> 
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