misc

[fridgepunk]

- Livejournal is down apparently ONLY FOR ME, maybe it's a UK thing, but it's been down for more than a day now. Ignore that, Livejournal managed to find some yarn to replace the string the old women had stolen from their server. Ignore that ignore that, the little old ladies apparently needed some yarn as well as some string.

- there needs to be a Capcom Vs. Marvel style side scrolling fighting game called "BBC Vs. FOX".
imagine the matchups: Paxman Vs. Bill O'Rly, Geraldo Vs. Kate Adie, Victoria Coren Vs. Glenn Beck, Director General of the BBC Vs. Rupert Murdoch. It would be awesome.

- I'm surprised I haven't seen this character concept used: Hipster Ariel as an actual fantasy setting character. She left the ocean because it was too mainstream, but now travels the land in a wheel chair made out of $fantasysetting tech because of her well known views about legs (or possibly she has some problem with morphing spells that would give her legs). Possibly a spellcaster because physics is also too mainstream for her (though she liked Conjugation spells before they became popular) but could also be a silver hoard style barbarian, mowing down other hipsters with her spikey war-chair.

Comments

[fridgepunk]

What annoys me is "mermaid tootles about on land in a wheelchair" is such an obvious concept – the whole thing where mermaids and mermen get legs automagically when they go on land is a specific bit linked to legends and stories that need the mermaid to pass when they're among humans.

But why couldn't a mermaid end up with a geas being placed upon her that forces her onto land in a setting where Our Mermaids Are Different and don't get automagical legs? Where she's forced to crawl out of the surf and build a rudimentary chair out of steering wheels and other washed up bits of wrecked ships before she even gets to questing properly.

There's enough metaphors and similes and symbolism there to drive a thousand stories, and a thousand more if you add in potential antagonist versions of that concept as well.

Yet it's never been done AFAIK!? wtf fantasy fiction?

[capri0mni]

I'm posting to a) respond with this icon, b) say that while I prefer geeks to hipsters, I too would totally go for this fic, and c) it took me a couple of beats before realizing you were talking about The Little Mermaid and not The Tempest.

PS Both modern Fantasy fiction in general and Hans Christian Andersen in particular have some problematic subtexts about Disability, the latter, like whoa. He was, in fact, a great writer, with a great many insightful comments on the human condition, but that doesn't mean spoke The Truth on Every Subject he put his pen to. Unfortunately, because of his genius, later generations act as though he did (same goes for Shakespeare :::Give the Stink-eye to Richard III, and Freud's endorsement of same:::)