Question Metro & Company Anthology Discussion

So. For the first story not ending up in the Micro-Scenes threat, but not really fitting in with "Chewing Through The Straps" per se, "If I Had A Hammer", or "Parents' Day": something based off something JG wrote in "Siblings and Savages".

Morgan was the boy the doctors were working with, and he was a shapeshifter.  He kept shifting slightly randomly, often picking up traits of people he was looking at unless he was paying attention.  His Ron Weasely red hair had shifted a couple times, as had his eye color and build.  Miranda could hear him in his head, trying not to cry because he was here at some bizarre school for superheroes or something, and he missed his parents.

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"For the record, I did ask Abbie to take notes for a couple of my morning classes. Doctor Bellows knew the whole plan - who do you think narced on Billie's fishing hobby? AND Mrs. Ryan agrees completely with backing up simple illusion work with the appropriate make-up!"

"Also ... What T doesn't know about old One-Eye doesn't get me yelled at. Much."

Moving Pictures is a bit of follow-up to a micro-scene that got stuck in my head while I was cutting up a downed tree in my backyard after Hurricane Irma went through. Maybe I can get back to the story I was working on now

Along the way, I got to thinking that the newly-improved Greasy might be a good choice as a photographer for the modeling clubs. Most of the VI models will have graduated by the end of Spring 2009.

A question for those who read the modeling piece: How badly OOC were the canon characters presented?

Taking some time to think about warper-based flight and how that could work out.

Plus, the Parkour Hooligans shouldn't have all the fun on campus. (At the end I envision a puppet controller tricked out with acceleromoters and motion-sensing for use as a control yoke.)

Cultural research gone wrong.

Some of the comments from Danes are as amusing as the reactions.

It came to mind that the recent meteorological event in The evil That Men Do, Part 2 bore enough semblance to an event in Ill Winds, Part 6 that it could be an attack on The Grove and the world tree it shelters.

And the school, but collateral damage, y'know...

Metro wrote: "Kris, we've got to get you more comfortable talking with pretty girls. Luckily for you, I have a cunning plan."

Is it painted purple and dancing naked on a harpsicord singing 'cunning plans are here again'?

(Yeah, I know it was 'subtle' in the original, but since Edmund usually said 'cunning', I figure it fits.)



It would be even funnier if he said it would be appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxfam, given the current failure of cunning (and basic human decency) coming to light there. And didn't exist yet. That, and, you know, because Oxfam isn't a school.

Schol-R-LEA wrote:

Metro wrote: "Kris, we've got to get you more comfortable talking with pretty girls. Luckily for you, I have a cunning plan."

Is it painted purple and dancing naked on a harpsicord singing 'cunning plans are here again'?

(Yeah, I know it was 'subtle' in the original, but since Edmund usually said 'cunning', I figure it fits.)

That would likely be an improvement, coming from a guy who thinks taking a shortcut through Faerie is a good idea.

in another topic, something just occurs to me that probably should have come to mind a lot earlier. It seems to me that the story of Narfi and Váli was likely a major influence on the character of Fëanor in The Silmarillion , and in particular, the events of the First Kinslaying. While Fëanor is usually seen as being an analog to Wayland , it is almost certain that Tolkien knew several versions of the Narfi and Váli legend as well. Given that he had another Völundr equivalent later in his legendarium ( Celebrimbor ), it is likely that he wasn't using just one inspiration for the character of Fëanor (or any of the others he created, for that matter). Would any mythopoeiaists here happen to know if this is the case?

It's been years since I've read "The Silmarillion", but given his profession, Tolkien would have studied the remaining portions of the Nibelungenlied in depth.

Three gifts/treasures, such as the Silmarils, is a recurring theme in Prince Ivan stories as well as in Norse sagas. It's not unlikely that one would need to look outside the Germanic,Celtic, and Slavic languages (and their stories) to see if any non-PIE relicts also went into the work.

EDIT: I just re-read your post, and I think I misunderstood it originally - I gather that what you were saying was that there definitely were non-PIE influences in the Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic source materials, above and beyond anything else. I will keep what I wrote below anyway, though, for the sake of anyone interested in it.

Oh, quite a few did; he was also a scholar of Finnish legends, especially the Kalevala. Finnish (Suomi) is in the Uralic family (the same family as Hungarian), and the affinities between Proto-Uralic and Proto-Indo-European are tenuous at best - based on what I am reading right now on the subject , some reconstructions connect it to the Turkic group, the (proposed but widely disputed) 'Altaic' family, or even Inuit-Aleut languages.

Indeed, the idea of a connection to the 'Turco-Uyghur' family (another formulation of the central Asian languages which, like the 'Altaic' model, apparently isn't generally accepted right now) was so widespread at one time that a lot of people - including myself - had the impression that it was the accepted view.

Now, I will admit that I only know about this from looking things up today, and since my main source (Wikipedia) is both inconsistent (since different people edited different entries) and unreliable (since it is possible that the current edit is based on a biased opinion on the subject - not that unbiased ones really exist in archaeo-philology). But the one thing most sources seem to agree on is that if there is a connection between Finnish and the Indo-European languages, it is a very distant one.

But that doesn't say that the stories don't come from an IE-language source, as that kind of cultural transmission is always possible (something you can see simply by reading an English-language version the Old Testament - which is a translation of the Torah from Classical Hebrew, after all - or for that matter by watching a dubbed anime). I don't know nearly enough about the history of those legends and epics to speak about that, and I don't know if anyone does.

(Is the 'archaeo' part even necessary with philology? Also, what does King Kong have to do with it? Oh, wait, no, I get it, the connection is to Howard Hughes and John Wayne - because yellowface and yellowcake go so well together).

Schol-R-LEA wrote: EDIT: I just re-read your post, and I think I misunderstood it originally - I gather that what you were saying was that there definitely were non-PIE influences in the Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic source materials, above and beyond anything else. I will keep what I wrote below anyway, though, for the sake of anyone interested in it.

It stands to reason that there could be survivals, as some aspects of Norse myths and naming practices point to cultural friction among the existing farmers and hunter-gatherers who would not have spoken an Indo-European language, and the Bronze/Iron Age influx of proto-Germanic-speaking horse riders. The languages may have been completely replaced, but the people weren't. Thus, looking for the stories that didn't come with the conquerors would require comparisons much further abroad.

The task becomes even more difficult if you want to identify unltimate literary sources for a scholar like Tolkien, who like most Englishmen (even in Essex, the population is genetically as much Briton as it is Saxon or Jute), spoke a West Germanic language heavily influenced linguistically and culturally by Latin, Norse, and French. That's before one even delves into the influences of Greco-Roman myth and literature and Middle Eastern religion.

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Not being Tolkien myself, I'm a little stumped just by the prospect of writing the logical consequences of seating a EX-2 changeling empath with one or two of the non-exemplars he might be interested in for 16 hours, keeping some of the lore from Sara's Little Purple Book in mind.


(This could be a little uncomfortable if the sleepy one has antlers)

Fascinating discussion.

One other good reference that may be worth checking out is Bruno Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantment" which gives some wonderful comparisons, though he limits himself to ( mostly ) Western European stories;

However, while they were written as fiction, Robert Holdstock's "Mythago Wood", and "Lavondyss", are two excellent examples of an author trying to drill down to find the events and people, that became the "bones of the myth."

Very chewy reading, with lots of slight hints, that can lead down some wonderful rabbit-holes.

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There is also another theory that may be worth considering.

One description of Freud's work on the Oedipus complex, and the Electra complex, is that they were socially acceptable ways of discussing child abuse in upper-class Viennese society.

By describing the experiences of the individual patient, as a general form of syndrome, Freud was able to discuss with his patients what had happened to them in specific terms, so as to help them heal.

The problem with this approach was that while it enabled Freud to help that individual when he would not have been able to do so as he would have been ostracised from "polite society" if he had gone public with this, it also ended up normalising this behaviour.

As in, the memories of having been raped by a relative, became, just an example of the general syndrome, and not an experience that actually took place.

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Applying these patterns to the stories that we have today, and there are all kinds of events that could be explained by the stories that we have now, being originally actions by individual people, that later had all kinds of accretions added on after the events that led to the creation of the story, like a pearl being formed around a speck of sand in an oyster.

"Where are Team Kimba now?"

That may depend on where is now.

My muse has been hung up on a possible Marvel/Whately crossover fic . I suppose there are worse things to dwell on.

Hmmn, you know, in my own meta-deuterocanon (that is, my fanfics based your fanfic), it is possible that Spindrifter has been on Earth-616 recently enough that she would recognize Ms America...

Schol-R-LEA wrote: Hmmn, you know, in my own meta-deuterocanon (that is, my fanfics based your fanfic), it is possible that Spindrifter has been on Earth-616 recently enough that she would recognize Ms America...

Or they could have crossed paths elsewhere - America sure gets around (no, not in that way!).

If I go forward, I'd have to nerf America's speed and strength to match the local orthophysics, but I don't think that that would necessarily harm the character. I'd guess she must either have some means of adapting to a new parallel's environment, or Tennyo levels of regen.

True, true. So, does this mean that Molly and Josie are getting an unannounced guest lecturer this week?

"Breakfast meats to go: How to road-trip the Multiverse with your crew and not lose your mind
(Protip: Don't let Loki out of your sight!)"

An alternative view of the boys' return in Chewing Through The Straps (Part 4) . Inspired by events in The Evil That Men Do (Part 4) and the idea that if there could be a graveyard that is all graveyards, then in some fashion any graveyard could be accessed via that Ideal space from any other by those that have business with such spaces.

Hmmn, so what is le Baron's interest in this, I wonder?

Schol-R-LEA wrote: Hmmn, so what is le Baron's interest in this, I wonder?

Metro's altered appearance here is the mystical equivalent of carrying ID while he's travelling on his own recognizance. It also turns out he's drinking spring water, not rum or whiskey.

The Baron doesn't have a horse in this race unless the Special K Spirit goes after his wife's grandkid, Damballah, or Wakanda. Zulu Hour is another matter altogether.

null0trooper wrote: An alternative view of the boys' return in Chewing Through The Straps (Part 4) . Inspired by events in The Evil That Men Do (Part 4) and the idea that if there could be a graveyard that is all graveyards, then in some fashion any graveyard could be accessed via that Ideal space from any other by those that have business with such spaces.

After chatting with some Wiccans i know, they said that this would be an excellent idea for a technique.

I'll let you know what results they get when i hear about it.


Charles Stross, and Douglas Adams have both mentioned similar ideas relating to Chain Hotels, and airports.

There is also Pterry's L-Space, connecting all libraries.

And one more I know of, which... well, let's just say I don't want to too my own fnord too much.

Paging through DeviantArt, I ran across this deviation by msciuto :



It's tempting to adjust stories a little bit

Mads: "That's. umm... Why would you print that out?"
Kris: "I think it's adorable."
Thomas: "I think it's flammable."

Poor Rorsmand.

I wonder if Kristian and Gus each thinks the other one got off easy - they both know different aspects of Mads' and Thomas' stories, and I am guessing they've had the good sense not to compare notes.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: Poor Rorsmand.

I wonder if Kristian and Gus each thinks the other one got off easy - they both know different aspects of Mads' and Thomas' stories, and I am guessing they've had the good sense not to compare notes.

I think Whateley tries to pound it into telepaths' and precogs' heads to keep other people's matters to themselves and not to go poking around for more.

One complicating factor for both guys is that "need to know" trumps "want to know". Another is that every official secret that they have to keep is another brick in a wall between them and the people they have known and loved. Mads and Lars grew up with that. Elve did as well, although to a lesser extent.

I figure I should explain one part of the scene with Kodiak . I'm assuming that as a mutant avatar pulling in enough essence to host The Kodiak, Wyatt would be drawing and/or holding considerably more power than Metro lets on, so it might reasonably look like some WIZ-1 plebe is "congratulating" him.

Circe's always a good one to ask about magic-y things .

A little something to read until the Dr. Who marathon wraps up.

FWIW, I'm 97% certain that Imp would not normally go along with duct-taping a Knight of Purity to a vehicle and then handing the keys to a punch-drunk 14-year-old in the middle of a Mythos hell-hole. But if you're going to have an adventure go noodle incident with it!

null0trooper wrote: FWIW, I'm 97% certain that Imp would not normally go along with duct-taping a Knight of Purity to a vehicle and then handing the keys to a punch-drunk 14-year-old in the middle of a Mythos hell-hole. But if you're going to have an adventure go noodle incident with it!

That might depend on whether or not said KOP had managed to pull her tail, or do so more than once! Then she might personally duct tape the KOP to the bumper and go play smash-up derby herself!

Anne wrote:

null0trooper wrote: FWIW, I'm 97% certain that Imp would not normally go along with duct-taping a Knight of Purity to a vehicle and then handing the keys to a punch-drunk 14-year-old in the middle of a Mythos hell-hole. But if you're going to have an adventure go noodle incident with it!

That might depend on whether or not said KOP had managed to pull her tail, or do so more than once! Then she might personally duct tape the KOP to the bumper and go play smash-up derby herself!

I think she'd stick with something "emotionally scarring", but not "potentially lethal". After all, there are impressionable minors with her (who've all now made it onto the List of People Mischief Is NOT Allowed To Date)!


Edit: A list, because the photos of Mads and his Catch are being confiscated by ARC.

fiancée

So, you're assuming one of them proposed that early? Interesting! ... Unless I've missed something, neither of them have even thought about marriage yet?

Wait... Did Paramount and Hartford say they were fiancée / fiancé???!? Gotta check later...

While (IIRC) Amelia Hartford does refer to him as her fiancé in "Haunting of Jennifer Kelly", I am pretty sure that in 2007 at least, both Hartford and Lord Paramour Parachute Paramount have reasons to keep it secret.

Malady wrote:

fiancée

So, you're assuming one of them proposed that early? Interesting! ... Unless I've missed something, neither of them have even thought about marriage yet?

Carson couldn't exactly go with:

Mary: Shame on you! I'm going to tell your mother on you.

George Bailey: Well, my mother is way up on the corner.

...when she knows Imp's parents are dead, now could she? Some gently-mocking hyperbole to keep up her end of the joke, on the other hand, wouldn't be unreasonable.

Malady wrote: Wait... Did Paramount and Hartford say they were fiancée / fiancé???!? Gotta check later...

From "To Seal Our Happiness":

"Mrs Carson spared him a glance from watching the line of buses filled with parents approaching down the main drive of the school. “Oh?” she drawled somewhat sardonically, but for the most part she approved of Amelia's fiancee. No one could deny that Fredrick Coveanu had made his mark upon the world. She had certainly done worse herself in the husband department."

The odds of Liz Carson not knowing about that proposal were fairly low.

Stepping back a couple of installments, what if you could teach Barney a magic trick or two... Is Imp sure she wants him to be trying magic unless she is pretty sure that she can find a way to make it go awry on him?

Anne wrote: Stepping back a couple of installments, what if you could teach Barney a magic trick or two... Is Imp sure she wants him to be trying magic unless she is pretty sure that she can find a way to make it go awry on him?

Except for a few exceptions, when does magic ever NOT go awry for beginners on a semi-regular basis? If nothing else, the student is forced to look at reality in a new light.

Mads has been a practicing magician for four or so years and hasn't slacked off. He still gets thrown for a loop trying to adapt what he's being taught to what he's been taught already, and while helping Thomas learn as well.

Whateley Academy Neopagan Knowledge, Education, and Research Society

That acronym!

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The rest of it was cool too!

Instead of trying to picture a safe, sane, and consensual intimate scene involving Metro with his shirt off, let's try some totes legit fanfic .

Some glimpses into what it's been like for the folks in Metro's life back when he was working.


"... Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

-- John Milton, "When I Consider How My Light is Spent"

Time to start the tour

But first, you could say that America and Loki have a shared past:

This one might be in questionable taste as it includes real people. They are public figures, but I'm open to comments.

This is Halloween after all.

For the last one on page 2 of the anthology, who's communicating with Metro using italics in the first conversation?

Malady wrote: For the last one on page 2 of the anthology, who's communicating with Metro using italics in the first conversation?

Louis, a) because he knows who's been storing books he shouldn't even have access to in the Lovecraft Room, and b) because Mads doesn't have a psychic "inside voice".

Decided to go with an anthology post in response to some of the Dreams of Nightmares comments.

For those wondering about the referenced events


c. 535, Ilopango erupted in a VEI 6 eruption, chucking 84 cubic kilometers of tephra in the air. It is one of the primary candidates for causing the 535-536 AD cooling event (bringing widespread crop failure and famine), which may in turn have set up conditions for even more people to have died from Justinian's Plague. Saxons were already migrating to eastern Great Britain, but this could not have helped the Britons in holding the migrating German tribes at bay.

c. 934: VEI 6 eruption at Eldgjá (a vent of Katla)
c. 939: Eldgjá erupted. The summer of 940 may have been one of the coolest summers in 1500 years. It may have inspired the Vǫluspá in contemporary literature.

It's possible that the eruption at Eldgjá may not have been the only hit the northern latitudes took.
c. 950 +/- 50: VEI 6 eruption, at Hveravellir
c. 960 +/- 10: VEI 3 eruption at Ljósufjöll.

c. 950-1050: L'Anse aux Meadows abandoned, but maybe not for the obvious reasons.

Fair warning; my notes still include the following quotes (although exploiting them is still an exercise best left to the Reader):

"All Foundation personnel are now required to attend a seminar on the difference between an original idea and a good idea before being allowed new or continuing contact with Dr. Bright, Dr. Clef, or Dr. Kondraki."

"Fuck Death, War, Famine and Pestilence. We've got Clef, Gears, Kondraki and Bright."

null0trooper wrote: All Foundation personnel

??

Hash collision on my part, I expect, but whatev'.

Harry's far less scary than the other Doctors, and perhaps far more sane.

Reintroducing one of the characters from "If I Had A Hammer", a little more grown up now.

Who's Ellen Peters?

I reread Smithy 1, 2 parts, 2 hours.

Malady wrote: Who's Ellen Peters?

I reread Smithy 1, 2 parts, 2 hours.

née Ellen Boucher, a.k.a Goria

Thoughts that might've been it. Not sure if we never got her name, or what.

I wonder if she married anyone we know...