I recently re-watched Dr. Horrible

[conuly]

And when I say "recently" I mean "several times over the past few days". I tend to fixate on things like that. As a child, it wasn't at all unusual for me to read the same book three or four or more times in a row, and then pick it up again a few weeks later to repeat the process (and that's why I have parts of A Little Princess memorized).

Anyway, this has gotten me thinking about Penny's last words. Thinking about them more than just "God, Joss Whedon really sucks", that is. Am I the only one who thinks that maybe Penny was intentionally trying to twist the knife there? I mean, she'd just watched her boyfriend humiliate her and insult all the people in the room (people she works with and cares about) and her friend-friend went nuts and shot up the place, incidentally injuring her in the process. I mean, I don't know, it just seems like if there's ever a chance to be a little bit vindictive, that's the time. A lifetime of suppressed bitchiness coming out right at the end, to somebody who whole-heartedly deserves it - I'd do it. Wouldn't you? You're supposed to lie and be nice to dying people, but dying people get to do what they want consequence-free, don't they?

I need to find a new hobby, I think.

And on the subject of hobbies, I think we've worked out that centaurs probably don't work and humans can't fly, but mermaids are still on the table, right? (Borrowers and Tinkerbell-type fairies are right out, of course. Too small. Maybe if they were chubby and furry like mice? But then they'd effectively BE mice, wouldn't they?)

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

*raises hand* Altered humanity right here. Still can't fly, can't shape-shift, can't breathe water, can't turn invisible, can't 'phase' through walls... because altered or not, human is still human, and there's only so much alteration we can take.

But hey, you WANT spiders the size of wolves, or worse, the size of houses? You want triffids walking around spitting poison, and giant talking carnivorous plants, and murderous disembodied hands, and the Lepus? You want have to to worry about gremlins tearing up the wings of your plane, and your kids falling out of bed into alternate dimensions, and your dead relatives coming back to eat your brains?

You want invisible people, flying people, people who can walk through a wall or mist through a keyhole, random shape-shifters turning into who-knows-what whenever they feel like it? You want telepaths and firestarters? Sheesh, ask most people what they'd do if they had a super-power, and the usual answer is that they'd make mischief!

The laws of science are what protect us from all this.

[conuly]

The laws of science are what protect us from all this.

Yeah, but it's like reading a regency drama. When I read books set in the past and daydream, I'm not the peasant. Not unless the peasant is going to get rich. I'm not the prisoner either, or the nun. No, I'm the one swooshing around in gorgeous period dress and getting all the guys and, incidentally, all the cash. (I'm also solving everybody's problems because, hey, it's my fantasy and I can be like that.)

When the laws of science change to match the way I *want* them to be rather than the way they *are*, I'm not the one getting smooshed by a gigantic spider or having my house burned down. I'm the one getting rich by selling spider repellant and non-toxic abestos. And if they're a real nuisance, I don't see why I can't selectively edit science. Other than the fact that there's apparently no appeals process, that is.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

LOL, of course there's an appeals process. It's called "Peer review".

Y'know, as a young Witch, I learned how to scry, how to astral travel, how to read the Tarot, cast a horoscope, bless and purify a house, see my past lives and help others find theirs, invoke the faeries and the spirits, banish harmful elements and draw down the essence of the Goddess. And I was very good at all these things, and later, very successful at teaching others how to do them. So much for the laws of science, eh?

Wrong, because... okay, when I do certain things, certain things happen, or appear to happen... ahh, there's the rub; how can I tell what appears to happen from what does happen? What exactly AM I doing, when I do thus-and-so; if it's really working, why is it working? And if it's not, why does it loook like it's working?

This is why any sufficiently advanced Magick is indistinguishable from Science: sooner or later, one is going to ask that fateful question, "How can I tell what is true?", and the Mystic Folderol all becomes irrelevant.

My endless fantasy-adventure tale is all about the consequences of magick - specifically, the accidental (or was it?) collision/intertwining of three drastically different forms of magick. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch for my characters - they got a lot of magickal power, plus functional immortality, dumped on them without asking, warning or telling them, with no instruction manual, shortly after they'd been magickally trapped in a mostly-dead state for 500 years, so life has been kinda difficult for them. One of them can fly, but twice he's gone too high and run out of air, and he's also nearly impaled himself on a tree-branch. Oh, and fallen naked out of the sky into a river in the middle of the night.

With fictional magic, one can have all the giant spiders and rabbits in waistcoats one desires, and no one complaining that Mr. Mole's lifestyle is insufficiently mole-like. It's like in that old song Three Laws of Thermo (http://pigsandfishes.com/filks/mikefilk/thermo.html), right? If you're writing science fiction, the science has to be plausible; if you're writing fantasy, you just have to make it sound mystic enough.

Nobody knows where the Hobbits came from. The Elves and Men were created by Iluvatar; the Dwarves were created by Aule and the Ents by Yavanna; the evil creatures were created by Morgoth, but the Hobbits just sort of... appeared. Tom Bombadil, too; the Elves call him Eldest of All, and he has a special bond with the Hobbits.

Anyway, Tolkien specifically says that after the Third Age, the Hobbits grew smaller, shyer and fewer. They were always clever, though; quiet, sensible folk, good at making things - and we know that some of them cross-bred with the remaining Elves, the Avari who did not wish to go to Valinor - so, there's the magic and the dwindling, all explained in one neat package; the Borrowers are the descendents of the half-Elven Hobbits of the Fourth Age.

[conuly]

Peer review never reviews my peers in the way I hope. Last time I tried them they kept telling me I should play more nicely and not shout out the answers. Boo to peer review.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Nah, that's just their way. All true scientists shout out the answers, and a whole lot of them don't play nicely. It's like going on one of those dreadful talent-search programs: being treated like shit isn't about *you*; they treat everyone that way.

[conuly]

Or, to put it another way - I have the wings and they don't weigh me down, but that doesn't mean people are divebombing me either. They're just nifty.