Spoiler or Grue?

[MadGastronomer]

I love the spoiler warning!
Also love the hyperfiction/meta-ness of the link to the relevant entry.  Yay for taking good advantage of the medium!

[Zacharde]

Ditto. I survived the grue, and am now absorbing the extra.

Interesting how Chaz seems to have connected deeply with Dyson.

[Bunny M]

Ditto. I survived the grue, and am now absorbing the extra.

Interesting how Chaz seems to have connected deeply with Dyson.

Hardly surprising, given the similarity of their childhoods. Dice was an unsubtle reminder that, for all that Chaz had it tough growing up, he could have had it much worse. And it could easily have still been happening, even though he was an adult now, had things gone differently.

I'm not sure that connected is the right word, more empathised, IMO.

[Zacharde]

After sleeping on it, the implications of the similar events taking place while Eddie is under supervision raises a lot of questions for me. Did an anomaly just 'move' from one host to another? Or did two anomaly's just express in similar ways.  If so, the fact that the hosts kink is similar is exceptionally revealing.

I am speculating wildly now, using "anomaly as an external force"  as my foundation.  I wonder if the anomaly needs to take root in a brain with susceptible patterns, and if those patterns are very specific. There might even be different strains of the anomaly - like there are different viruses. Like an antibody has a certain virus it is designed to match with - the anomaly might need a certain brain pattern.

Here is the scary thought. What if we are statistically right handed because being vulnerable to the anomaly is not a survival trait? 

[Razorsmile]

Interesting thought. Under that model, the anomaly might even be capable of mutation.

[kayjayoh]

Well, if you think about it, Eddie got his twist from his stepfather. Where did his stepfather get that left hand=the devil? It goes back a ways. So it could be a case of the anomaly "moving" or it could be a case of a number of people from the same generation getting hit with the same sort of BS. Maybe the guy in Idaho had a parent/step-parent/other adult who went to the same school as Art Cieslewicz and got the same sort of twisting. Who knows?

[rekre8]

And here I'd always adhered to the notion that right handed was "proper" because you were supposed to use the left hand for matters of personal hygiene before the days of toilet paper.   

(But when I was told that, I asked, "why couldn't lefties just use their right hands to wipe?"  My brother, even more irreverent then I, asked me if I'd shake the hand of the random stranger on the street without knowing their handedness.)

Go ahead and "ew" at  me.  I know.

[txanne]

Maybe the guy in Idaho had a parent/step-parent/other adult who went to the same school as Art Cieslewicz and got the same sort of twisting. Who knows?

I do. It was a fairly common thing all over the US until relatively recently--my parents had to tell my first-grade teacher that I was lefthanded and that she was _not_ to try messing with me, and that was in 1974. (Then she took away my real scissors, gave me right-handed scissors, and got upset because I was "tearing" my construction paper. The cow. No, I have no lingering trauma at all, thanks for asking.)

[txanne]

And here I'd always adhered to the notion that right handed was "proper" because you were supposed to use the left hand for matters of personal hygiene before the days of toilet paper.   

That's why there aren't any lefties in the Middle East. I don't think that was ever the objection in countries where you have, you know, leaves and stuff.

[MadGastronomer]

The association of left-handedness with evil in Europe goes back pretty far, at least as far as Classical Rome.  The Latin word for left is sinister, which acquired its modern meaning from the association of left with evil.

[Zacharde]

The association of left-handedness with evil in Europe goes back pretty far, at least as far as Classical Rome.  The Latin word for left is sinister, which acquired its modern meaning from the association of left with evil.

Right. Which is why I find the idea of an anomaly that preys on left handed people intriguing. We already know the anomaly makes people behave in extreme, usually violent ways. So if the anomaly has a predeliction for left handed people, AND the anomaly has been around long enough, then we would start selecting against left handedness both socially and biologically.

The concept of left hand = devil could easily then come from an early observation that unstable violent people with extraordinary powers were frequently left handed.

What really intrigues me about it though is the idea that we might have evolved alongside the anomaly. All speculation of course, my mind tends to wander when its not supervised closely.

[glinda_w]

And here I'd always adhered to the notion that right handed was "proper" because you were supposed to use the left hand for matters of personal hygiene before the days of toilet paper.   

And other things: "nearly branded / Communist, 'cause I'm left-handed. That's the hand I use, well, never mind!" from Simon & Garfunkel's "A Simple Desultory Philippic."<sup>1

1</sup>I always misspell that. Had to look it up again today. Aarrgghh.

[MadGastronomer]

What really intrigues me about it though is the idea that we might have evolved alongside the anomaly. All speculation of course, my mind tends to wander when its not supervised closely.

Personally, I have yet to see any evidence that the anomaly is external rather than internal, so I would personally consider whether or not the anomaly is part of our evolution.

[txanne]

Personally, I have yet to see any evidence that the anomaly is external rather than internal, so I would personally consider whether or not the anomaly is part of our evolution.

True. You'd get a lot of dud mutations before you got to the beneficial one that gives you superpowered good guys.

[BruceCohenPDX]

I've begun to think of the Anomaly as a highly-infectious meme. like One True in Barnes' Kaleidoscope Century books.  Functionally it would something like a virus, an obligate parasite that can't reproduce without a host, but it would be non-physical; made of information, not matter.  Putting on my skeptical enquirer hat, I see some serious problems with that idea in the real world, but hey, we're through the Looking Glass here, and I'm willing to suspend my disbelief if it gets me stories like Dexterity.  How does a meme make physical modifications to the human brain?  Well, you know the way the infant brain develops in the first year or two of life is through a massive program of rewiring, in which connections that are useful in adapting the child to the world are conserved, and others are replaced.  Suppose (he said, waving his hands wildly) there are trigger patterns, thoughts that can cause that rewiring to start up again, and can direct it.