Question Josie Gillman and Ecila Mason

Does the power that these two girls use have a name in the Whateley verse. are they using Goo Magic, or is their ability to see and travel through other realities via mathematics (without going insane) something else again?

Neither of them are mutants, I believe. They just have such a weird ability there isn't anywhere else safe to put them, they can't actually BE contained, and having Josie at Whateley is about the only way they can keep Ecila in one spot...

So do they count as baseline wizards, or something else?

Also, they are not the only non-mutants at Whateley. Catalin, Sara and Chou are not mutants either.

konzill wrote: are they using Goo Magic, or is their ability to see and travel through other realities via mathematics (without going insane) something else again?

Yes. Neither one is entirely sane, but their comprehension of mathematics and non-Euclidean hypergeometries is such that their minds no longer filter out the "impossible" places and things in-between realities or just barely impinging on our own. In some cases, simply visualizing some constructs with intent just might be functionally equivalent to casting an extradimensional travel spell.

It's a feature of Lovecraftian universes, for certain values of "feature".

As to why they're allowed to stay at Whateley? It's the safest place (for the rest of the world) for them to be. For an advanced student like Pejuta, Miss Mason is probably one of the few people who might have something to teach that she didn't already learn years ago.

We may be using different definitions of insane here. Sure Ecila is a Cloudcuckoolander and has a tendency to get distracted easily but she is fully functional and capable of looking after herself and such. She is not the kind of insane that happens to other people that encounter Class X entities, you know the kind that have to be restrained to prevent them gouging their own eyes out or the kind that don't have to be restrained because they are in a vegetative state

And when it comes to Josie, she isn't even eccentric, sure I suspect she will get there eventually but she isn't there yet.

konzill wrote: We may be using different definitions of insane here. Sure Ecila is a Cloudcuckoolander and has a tendency to get distracted easily but she is fully functional and capable of looking after herself and such. She is not the kind of insane that happens to other people that encounter Class X entities, you know the kind that have to be restrained to prevent them gouging their own eyes out or the kind that don't have to be restrained because they are in a vegetative state

And when it comes to Josie, she isn't even eccentric, sure I suspect she will get there eventually but she isn't there yet.

Sanity is relative to the frame of reference you inhabit, and the cultural context that you come from.

Some standard behaviours in some cultures, are seen as strong signifiers of lunacy in other cultures.

The fact that Ecila and Josie can be consistent about what they do, and that it can work in a relatively controlled manner, implies that they're sane.

The fact that when they are dimension-hopping, they end up travelling to places where the frames of reference are nowhere remotely human, is where the descriptions of insanity come from.

Compare the effect of the Voodoo Wolves on unprotected baseline humans, with the potential effects of Ecila and Josie, travelling to places that are similarily extreme.

It's not that they are crazy, it's that the frames of reference that they view the world from are so different, and unhuman, that they stop being safe for unprotected people to interact with.

And, yes, seeing the conversations about maths between Ecila, Josie, and Kayda would be extremely entertaining...

Mister D is on the right track. When one says "insane", the context really matters.

Are they legally "insane"? That is essentially a legal concept. "Mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior." It appears they are not, so for legal purposes they would be sane.

Other accepted definitions of insanity may apply however. The concept covers a wide range of situations. The common thread being "abnormal mental or behavioral patterns". At least some of their behaviors and mental patterns can only be described as abnormal.

In the medical field the term "insane" (as well as insanity) are pretty much out of use except in very informal discussions. The medical community likes to now focus on specific diagnoses instead. Which of those would apply? Not a clue, I stopped digging into that area of human psychology as soon as I finished the mandatory classes for my degree...the entire field was too disturbing for me, I decided that one pretty much had to be a few fries short of a happy meal to get deep into that field. To properly understand that area one pretty much has to have some screws loose themselves.

konzill wrote: Does the power that these two girls use have a name in the Whateley verse.

Yes: Advanced Hyper Dimensional Non-Euclidean Mathematics