Reading and Writing, Weekend October 24–27

[scribblemyname]

This entry is part 23 of 23 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

So playing total catch-up here (I know, I know). On Thursday, I managed to write some at the end in the Justus POV fic of "Its Own Absolution" due to a wonderful antagonists prompt from in_the_blue. It gave me a good headstart. I percolated a lot on Sabbath about it, but didn't turn that sketch into fic until Sunday, and awkward fic at that.

Somewhere in there, I also sketched down some other stuff and have started to rethink my approach to this collaboration. I need something that doesn't fit easily into worldbuilding I've already done for any other story. It's not fair to thecatisacritic.

Also, trovia got me off on an amazing Avengers fanfic novel (I'm a sucker for brothers), so there's that. It took time to read and was good for when I was feeling totally bleh on the mental front.

To the counts:

October 24, 2013

• Fiction: 1041 words - Month to Date: 29,911 words
• Blog: 0 words - Month to Date: 8,803 words
• Nonfiction: 48 words - Month to Date: 362 words

October 26, 2013

• Fiction: 180 words - Month to Date: 30,091 words
• Blog: 0 words - Month to Date: 8,803 words
• Nonfiction: 0 words - Month to Date: 362 words

October 27, 2013

• Fiction: 1139 words - Month to Date: 31,230 words
• Blog: 0 words - Month to Date: 8,803 words
• Nonfiction: 0 words - Month to Date: 362 words

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Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comments

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

He relayed it through his prophets, but that didn't make the prophets the ones that knew. Most of them didn't, and some of them died hundreds of years before the prophecies were fulfilled.

I like intuition. Plenty of my characters have good intuition. I just don't like the prediction thing. It bothers me.

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[scribblemyname]

Um... This is totally a theological tangent, but since my grandmother has accurately prophesied, I just want to point out that God is the power, but that doesn't mean the prophet's mind does not receive the prophecy. Of course, they KNEW what He said. They heard Him say it.

But like I said, that aside, I'm not talking prophecy here.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what intuition is then. 'Cause being able to understand the probable outcome of certain factors (not even what's going to happen, but what could if this, or what could if that) is intuition to me, somewhat prediction, but in no way prophecy.

Let me put it this way:

Spock the Vulcan. He could predict odds to a ridiculously accurate level due to eidetic memory, etc. With intuition, I'm thinking able to notice enough factors to coalesce/realize a probable picture of how things will go if this and this factor is true. For example: Recall's leaps of logic, just more accurate due to being more intuitive than deductive. Make sense? Of course, that doesn't even require special gifts. There are people who can do that if they're operating at genius level, but this would be the only area of genius.

Again, we don't have to use that gift, but it seems strange to rule it out by associating it with something it isn't.

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[scribblemyname]

Whatever we come up with, fact is, I can't stand to not think through underlying genetics/functionality, so we'll certainly get it all hammered out scientific-like.

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

I know we're going to need a scientific reason for me, too. I have to have that clarity because there are so many lines that I've drawn that I won't cross that are rather... tangled and convoluted.

I based Recall's strange leaps of logic on the things she carries in her head from all those peoples' memories and her training/experience as an agent. Most of my characters with intuition are agents/operatives/had to learn the hard way how people will act because they were in bad situations growing up, but that just gave them a sense of things going bad or knowing that people are up to no good when they approach, that sort of thing.

I don't like the idea of them being able to predict the exact circumstances or scenarios. That goes too close to one of those lines of mine.

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[scribblemyname]

Fine enough. But I didn't say exact either. And like I said, I understand the line, but people who DON'T have "gifts" and are alive today can predict if this happens, that follows, so while I respect your line about not writing it, it happens in real life. People have hunches all the time that are uncannily accurate. I personally think it's the Holy Spirit, and I know geniuses also have it, but it exists. So there's that.

Thus, while I responded to your points, I moved on with my other set of questions. I'm not invested in using the ounce of prevention scenario, just thought I'd point out the rationality is there for what you wanted without suggesting the things you were concerned about.

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[scribblemyname]

I don't think it's just needing a scientific reason though, because for example, I have the stories where the reader KNOWS it's nanobots and I make it abundantly clear, but the characters DON'T KNOW, so think it's magic.

I think it's more there are things you won't touch with a ten-foot-pole, and sometimes I think it's just something you need clear and it's really a ten-foot-pole thing, in which case science doesn't make a smidgen of difference. You just don't go there.

And that's okay. I have a list of things I just don't go there: mediums, vampires, were-creatures, murders, etc. to give an extremely tiny sampling of the whole. So yeah. We'll find each other's and that's okay.

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I have a very long list of things I don't touch with the ten-foot pole, and that ten foot pole usually includes the implication of those things as well.

Mine does include most of those you listed off. I don't do mediums, vampires, or were-creatures, either. There's also magic, witches/wizards, prophecy, precognition, psychics (though I have watched shows where there were acknowledged fraudulent psychics like Psych and Mentalist,) destiny/fate, and demons...

And a lot of other things, too.

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[scribblemyname]

Not just implication, which is how I get off on these tangents thinking that's what it is when it's a ten-foot-pole thing.

Because if it's blatantly obviously clear that it's not that, you still won't touch it, just as I won't touch scientific vampires that were created by a plausible science fiction origin and handled in a clearly different manner (yes, I'm thinking of a very specific example). I just won't touch it.

:blinks:

No psychics, but you do telepaths? Now, I choose my phraseology, but I'm not sure there's a huge difference. I just looked it up. There isn't a difference. It's another word for what I just call mental or mind-based, which is technically what psychic means: mental. I don't use the word because of the connotations but yeah. So is telepathy out? Pretty basic stuff that.

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

Like I said, my lines are convoluted.

Sounds almost like Stargate Atlantis' wraiths to me, and I was willing to watch that, at least for a while.

Psychics always seemed to me to get visions, and it was the source of the visions (like mediums) that bothered me, and as for telepaths...

I have been thinking for a long time that I shouldn't have anything to do with them. I've had a hard time sticking to that line, but part of the reason I didn't give many prompts for Cate was because she was a telepath (and yet I ended up crossing Recall with Special Unit, so you can see I'm not good about that line. It doesn't help that I liked Jean Grey and other telepaths before I tried to be more faithful and cut the inappropriate things out of my life.)

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[scribblemyname]

I'm don't do mind control, but seeing as it's scientifically and chemically possible to mess with brain waves or read them, then I don't see a problem letting a human mind talk to another one, especially because the hard-wiring is so close to there.

So we'll skip it in this story, but recognize that it won't be nixed from Kingdoms and Thorn. In my vernacular, due to the meaning of the words, telepaths can essentially hear and talk with brain waves instead of mouths if they wish. Nothing crosses the line with that really. Mindreaders on the other hand are another kettle of fish as they do essentially mind meld and can only HEAR minds by either linking in or by being in the line of fire when someone projects thoughts.* In Kingdoms and Thorn speak, Recall is an aggressive touch mindreader. They are both broad categories but that's essentially how they operate.

*Thought projection is like when I'm thinking in the direction of a stoplight, Turn green!

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying that you would or should take it out of Kingdoms and Thorn.

I have done telepathic bonds myself. Ren has a couple when she goes into the other world. I don't know if that's why I could never finish her story (the guilt of me knowing I was writing things I thought I shouldn't even though her bond started with Ascanati who creatures that are incomprehensible without some level of mental connection.) And Alora was a telepath/telekenetic.

I didn't see Recall as a mindreader at all, or she would never have gotten on the page. Then again, there was a scifi show I watched where they had the technology to project memories onto a screen and watch them, and that was how her ability started to form itself in my mind, as a way of... playback at first.

Now I say that, and I'm just getting more convoluted. I just have that nagging sense that even though I explain it with science, it's still not okay, and sometimes I think I shouldn't be in scifi at all since it must all be wrong somehow.

*sigh*

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[scribblemyname]

Sorry I mentioned anything, but all I meant was that in my worlds mindreading is simply and strictly in reference to being able to read something that originated in someone else's mind. Memories and thoughts are the typical form of that. Telepathy is simply and strictly in reference to be able to catch or throw brain waves and make sense of them even when they're not your own. I don't think that's wrong. But like I said, mind-control. Out.

I don't think there's anything wrong with Recall and sorry I mentioned her. Didn't mean to prompt you to reconsider her.

Re: Brain dump to follow...

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

Yeah... My definitions are different.

I don't do mind control, either.

I have... a lot of issues, obviously. I don't think I could throw out Recall's story. I have a hard time with that once I've started. *sigh*