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Elizabeth Bear
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« Reply #195 on: May 11, 2011, 09:45:26 am » |
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*snrk*
Coherency is in the eye of the gamma.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chaz: "As if puberty weren't stressful enough."
Todd: "See? That's why we're better than all those other law enforcement agencies. Correct use of the subjunctive."
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DavidG
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« Reply #196 on: May 11, 2011, 02:54:55 pm » |
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*whistles*
See? Completely coincidental. Our Powers That Be would never play some sort of deep game, putting in things for us to find out years later. We are not worthy! |
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DavidG
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« Reply #197 on: May 11, 2011, 02:56:01 pm » |
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"Decaf, not from the hotel."
Just noticed this. How bad was the hotel if they can even spoil decaf!
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DavidG
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« Reply #198 on: May 11, 2011, 03:00:21 pm » |
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Felicity Tabor? Really?
Unicorns, apocalyptic imaginings, and a desperate wish to be Special were pretty consistent with *my* experience as a teenaged girl... and apparently there's a pretty big market for it, given the popularity of certain strains of urban fantasy, especially in YA...
Well, popular doesn't make it coherent.  So it was the splicing unicorns in with the Gitchee Manitou you had a problem with? Felicity's logic was twisted so far back on itself that incoherency was pretty much a given. |
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Scedasticity
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« Reply #199 on: May 11, 2011, 03:49:41 pm » |
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Felicity Tabor? Really?
Unicorns, apocalyptic imaginings, and a desperate wish to be Special were pretty consistent with *my* experience as a teenaged girl... and apparently there's a pretty big market for it, given the popularity of certain strains of urban fantasy, especially in YA...
Well, popular doesn't make it coherent. So it was the splicing unicorns in with the Gitchee Manitou you had a problem with? Felicity's logic was twisted so far back on itself that incoherency was pretty much a given. It's like someone threw a bunch of mythologies in a blender. |
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tylik
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« Reply #200 on: May 11, 2011, 06:50:38 pm » |
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Unicorns, apocalyptic imaginings, and a desperate wish to be Special were pretty consistent with *my* experience as a teenaged girl... and apparently there's a pretty big market for it, given the popularity of certain strains of urban fantasy, especially in YA...
I'm afraid that gets my vote. I'm thinking of all the people I've met with mythologies at least that elaborate and nonsensical. The guy who was a dragon - really.* Who was also a member of the soulmate of the month club, and who was constantly running across people who'd been his soulmate in a past life... except I was a nymph he'd known and occasionally had sex with, a relationship he was hoping to restart... which is all pretty standard, though the subplots were immense and often involved threats to the world (or some special magical part of it) but he's particularly remembered because of two related stories: once, six women (including I) were all at a pizza hut and started talking about crazy quasi-stalker men we'd dealt with. All from very different contexts. And then we slowly realized that four of us were talking about the same guy... Another time, I was talking about that last story with a different friend, and for a bit there it seemed like we both knew the same person. Except the more we talked, despite the similarity in background stories, it became clear that they were different people, and one was a Silver Dragon of Chaos and another was a Gold Dragon of Order. (Or, er, maybe the other way around on the chaos and order.) I mean, who wouldn't want to lock them in a room together and see if it explodes? Or then there were the folks my sister was hanging out with during one of her living on the street periods (I've mentioned that my family sucks, yes? okay, I mean our parents...) who told her that someone had accidentally left a pentagram open on their staff, and a demon had come through it and settled on her, etc. etc. ad nauseum. The funny bit was that at the time I was running the local pagan community full moon celebrations (and, well, I kind of have background). So after they'd gotten her almost in tears, she narrowed her eyes, announced that her sister had more magic in her little fingernail that the whole group of them together, and she called me. (And I basically said, yeah, they're just messing with you.) Or then there was the chick who was obsessed with one of my then housemates who alternately claimed to have four personalities, or only three, but that she was also occasionally possessed by a fire elemental. (Oh, dear, then there's the one about when she met the dragon guy.) Or the one who last I heard is still claiming that she's Cherokee (there is some reason to believe otherwise) and was taught shamanism by the ghost of her dead father. ...I mean, I can't be the only person who ran into this kind of thing hanging out in the fan community and the SCA in my teens... * Not even in an interesting well thought out otherkin sort of way. (I suspect there are other sorts of otherkin, but the ones I know are pretty cool, really.) |
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DavidG
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« Reply #201 on: May 11, 2011, 07:04:46 pm » |
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So it was the splicing unicorns in with the Gitchee Manitou you had a problem with? Felicity's logic was twisted so far back on itself that incoherency was pretty much a given.
It's like someone threw a bunch of mythologies in a blender. Yep, think troubled, unicorn fetish, Native American fascination, then add the Anomaly to the mix and stir well. This is someone who ended up at 'it became necessary to destroy the tribe in order to save it', we're lucky her manifestation and mythology were this consistent. |
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Elizabeth Bear
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« Reply #202 on: May 11, 2011, 07:33:25 pm » |
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Felicity Tabor? Really?
Unicorns, apocalyptic imaginings, and a desperate wish to be Special were pretty consistent with *my* experience as a teenaged girl... and apparently there's a pretty big market for it, given the popularity of certain strains of urban fantasy, especially in YA...
Well, popular doesn't make it coherent. So it was the splicing unicorns in with the Gitchee Manitou you had a problem with? Felicity's logic was twisted so far back on itself that incoherency was pretty much a given. It's like someone threw a bunch of mythologies in a blender. Yep. Exactly my point. |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chaz: "As if puberty weren't stressful enough."
Todd: "See? That's why we're better than all those other law enforcement agencies. Correct use of the subjunctive."
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DavidG
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« Reply #203 on: May 11, 2011, 07:34:54 pm » |
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Another time, I was talking about that last story with a different friend, and for a bit there it seemed like we both knew the same person. Except the more we talked, despite the similarity in background stories, it became clear that they were different people, and one was a Silver Dragon of Chaos and another was a Gold Dragon of Order. (Or, er, maybe the other way around on the chaos and order.) I mean, who wouldn't want to lock them in a room together and see if it explodes? "You folks know better than I do, but repeated behavior can show up in unconnected mental cases--like tinfoil hats to keep out the voices. You'd think sometimes there was a handbook got passed out." Captain Thiele Or the one who last I heard is still claiming that she's Cherokee (there is some reason to believe otherwise) She snorted. "Why does every white guy who wants to claim Indian heritage say he's part Cherokee?" Robin Spears in Unicorn Evils...I mean, I can't be the only person who ran into this kind of thing hanging out in the fan community and the SCA in my teens... I think it's fairly common, but that the environment shapes it. Yours was open to the fantastic, so the stories opened to the magical. Whereas I'm in an environment where an unkind assessment of my friends and extended circle would be the chattering classes, and the stories tend to be ones that would be dumped as unreasonably improbable by even the more lurid shopping and f***ing authors. |
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Elizabeth Bear
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« Reply #204 on: May 11, 2011, 07:35:42 pm » |
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Unicorns, apocalyptic imaginings, and a desperate wish to be Special were pretty consistent with *my* experience as a teenaged girl... and apparently there's a pretty big market for it, given the popularity of certain strains of urban fantasy, especially in YA...
I'm thinking of all the people I've met with mythologies at least that elaborate and nonsensical. The guy who was a dragon - really.* Who was also a member of the soulmate of the month club, and who was constantly running across people who'd been his soulmate in a past life... except I was a nymph he'd known and occasionally had sex with, a relationship he was hoping to restart... which is all pretty standard, though the subplots were immense and often involved threats to the world (or some special magical part of it) but he's particularly remembered because of two related stories: once, six women (including I) were all at a pizza hut and started talking about crazy quasi-stalker men we'd dealt with. ...I think I had a run in with this same dude. 0.0 |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chaz: "As if puberty weren't stressful enough."
Todd: "See? That's why we're better than all those other law enforcement agencies. Correct use of the subjunctive."
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DavidG
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« Reply #205 on: May 11, 2011, 07:38:21 pm » |
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It's like someone threw a bunch of mythologies in a blender.
Yep. Exactly my point. Inconsistency is the hobgoblin of anomaloid minds  |
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Elizabeth Bear
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« Reply #206 on: May 11, 2011, 07:39:08 pm » |
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Or the one who last I heard is still claiming that she's Cherokee (there is some reason to believe otherwise) She snorted. "Why does every white guy who wants to claim Indian heritage say he's part Cherokee?" Robin Spears in Unicorn Evils
Hah! I actually know the answer to that one. (I am something like 1/132nd Cherokee. Which is about as much as the Scottish and Pennsylvania Dutch, I think.)
Patterns of intermarriage. There are a lot of "black" Pequots, and a lot of "white" Cherokees and Iroquois.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chaz: "As if puberty weren't stressful enough."
Todd: "See? That's why we're better than all those other law enforcement agencies. Correct use of the subjunctive."
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DavidG
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« Reply #207 on: May 11, 2011, 07:46:33 pm » |
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he's particularly remembered because of two related stories: once, six women (including I) were all at a pizza hut and started talking about crazy quasi-stalker men we'd dealt with. All from very different contexts. And then we slowly realized that four of us were talking about the same guy...
I knew there was something about that scenario sounded familiar So they walked out to Krispy Kruller's All Nite Sugar Palace It was there in the doorway he said"Oh, well maybe not." Inside there were six women talking They were the most justified angry ex-girlfriends And they swivelled around slowly like they saw something bad Through the eyes in the back of their heads Like he always knew they had And they said "what a coincidence" ,and "Hey you're just the man, Party Generation Dar Williams Seems like some stories keep repeating, and yes, I know someone who this could apply to as well, though as far as I know the ex's haven't ever gotten together consciously. |
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Scedasticity
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« Reply #208 on: May 11, 2011, 09:55:04 pm » |
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...And it's not like we ever went back and checked out the bedrooms and diaries of most of the gammas, did we? With most of them we're trying to guess the mythology from manifestation and victimology, and in Felicity's case that would not have led me to unicorns.
Some of them seem so one-note and straightforward -- like Eddie, everything's about the left hands, or Melinda Grossman, who obviously found a Gonne, or Betty Johnson, in whose head everything was terribly tidy in a totally wrong sort of way. I guess it's easy for me to forget that some of the other mythologies are not organized. At all.
Soooo... which gamma has had the most complex mythology which does not break down like a bad trip?
Also, I was going to say that I clearly move in very boring circles, but then I remembered that one person who said he was a Paladin of Aphrodite.
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HebrewRose
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« Reply #209 on: May 11, 2011, 10:08:28 pm » |
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Felicity Tabor? Really?
Unicorns, apocalyptic imaginings, and a desperate wish to be Special were pretty consistent with *my* experience as a teenaged girl... and apparently there's a pretty big market for it, given the popularity of certain strains of urban fantasy, especially in YA...
Now I'm wondering what Felicity Tabor would think of my current crack-read, the Killer Unicorn series by Diana Peterfreund. |
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He's a semi-aquatic egg-laying mammal OF ACTION... "Hey, where's Villette?"
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