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Subject: "FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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Conferences Mini-Stories Topic #168
Reading Topic #168, reply 12
Mercutio
Member since May-26-13
942 posts
Apr-24-14, 10:16 PM (EDT)
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12. "RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could"
In response to message #11
 
  
>>This whole paragraph really works on a lot of levels, especially the
>>ultimate sentence. Nicely done.
>
>Thank you. (Except for the typo; it's (obviously) supposed to say
>"that was what she was trained to do".)

And of course I completely missed that, because unlike the latter one my spellchecker didn't automatically flag it.

>>You know, for something that isn't commercially available even for the
>>truly, outrageously wealthy, people seem to stumble across
>>pseudo-immortality quite a lot in Known Space. :)
>
>Sample size artifact. Looked at more broadly, no more than a few
>dozen people have appeared with such things in hand vs. a galaxy
>containing many trillions of sentient beings.

True enough. And I suppose most of those would have been either uninterested in or incapable of monetizing it. Although one imagines the Kilrathi have gotten up to some intense bullshit with their strain of Omega-2. But now I'm wandering far afield. :)

>(Also, GENOM's "RETRO" treatment is in fact commercially
>available to the truly, outrageously wealthy, as are memory-transfer
>clones and the higher grades of cyborg replacement body.)

So what you're saying is, the Broadbanks are gonna be with us for awhile, and possibly even generate more daughters. :)

>>Editorial suggestion; you may want to embed a link to the forum thread
>>about Azula's heavily modified That Gun in there, and in the
>>inevitable omnibus, assuming the omnibus is published in html.
>
>Hmm, I was just preassembling the existing bits of that yesterday; I
>included the Mojave BPGD and Tops Casino Interlude, and the Phoenix
>Queen
BPGD, but I forgot about That Gun.

So the unintentional delay was actually serendipitous! Now I feel better.

>>>escaped from a lunatic asylum. (Having once done so herself, she was
>>>better-positioned than most to know what that looked like.)
>>
>>It's adorable that Azula thinks she "escaped" from that asylum. :)
>
>She kind of did, though. Admittedly, she didn't get very far,
>but she totally escaped.

Well, only if you count the company of her brother and his idiot friends as a kind of insane asylum.

Oh.

Hmm.

>>I am rather embarrassed to admit I had to go look it up before
>>remembering "Oh! Right! The Golden Apples of Idunn. They're not
>>just a Greek thing. Riiiiiiight."
>
>I enjoyed the convergence there while I was coming up with that scene.
> Zoner's connection to Eris and Discordianism in general makes the
>obvious connection to the "ΤΗΙ ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΗΙ" apple jump out,
>but they're in Asgard and what's about to happen is
>lifespan-related... it fits together really nicely.

It really does. Kudos. And I always enjoy seeing Zoner. I understand why you're reluctant to use him, of course, given that he doesn't really "belong" to you, but he occupies a narrative and metaphysical slot I find intensely interesting.

Well, intensely interesting when it isn't the umpteenth story whose theme boils down to "MegaZone deals with depression in unhealthy ways" but in that instance I am reluctant to judge, you know?

>>And generally speaking, absolution requires penance.
>
>Azula has presumably not considered this consciously, but her
>unconscious conclusion is that going the fuck insane and
>all that attended it, and then spending several decades convinced that
>the world she remembered either was no more or never had been, pretty
>well covered that part. She may not be right about that, but
>it's where she's coming from.

That much I figured. It is absolutely and completely the conclusion Azula would come to. I would be prepared to argue the point with her that there's a difference between "suffering" and "atonement" but that sort of shit is Aang's job. :)

>>>So saying, she turned on her heel and left the feasthall.
>>
>>Off course, Azula bails before there's a chance for any kind of
>>riposte.
>
>That is, indeed, her usual technique. Besides - in her experience, if
>you let Katara get in the last word, it tends to take the form of her
>drowning you.

It was just a little bit of drowning! She's taking it so personally. Why, after the psychotic break I bet she barely even remembers being encased in an icy tomb, completely cut off from her element and unable to move, but completely aware of what was happening.

>>It might just be because, like when you hint around the edges at Korra
>>and Asami, you're completely pandering to my pre-existing prejudices,
>
>Just for the record, that particular phenomenon has nothing to
>do
with your prejudices. :)

Well, I'll drink to that anyway, sir. :)

>>>"Sokka, darling," she said casually,
>>
>>Man, Katara has probably had nightmares that began with those
>>words and ended with firebending nieces.
>
>I am remembering a fan comic I once saw which ends with Zuko
>declaring, "I did not need to see that!"

That would be this'n right here.

(The accepted portmanteau for the two of them is "Sokkla." Depending on ones internet tolerance, one can have either an amusing or horrifying few hours entering that term into the search engine or art repository of your choice.)

>1) That's only the first drink, not a declaration of eternal
>sisterhood. Like you said - price of admission. It's an
>acknowledgement that a bridge might be buildable, not that there's
>already one there. (Patton had a drink with that Russian general in
>the scene this joke was based on, but he didn't change his opinion of
>the Soviet Union overall.)

Hmm. All right. The sudden halt at the end threw me off a bit. (More on THAT later.)

>2) It was offered very grudgingly, and in large part because to do
>otherwise would probably have caused a scene sufficient (unlike the
>last one) to permanently mar the occasion for everyone in the
>vicinity.

Now that makes a ton of sense. Katara is never, ever going to stop being everyone's mother.

>3) Katara's taking things a little more impulsively than usual at that
>point, on account of she's already a bit lit by that stage in the
>evening because
>
>4) THEY ALL JUST SURVIVED THE END OF THE WORLD.
>
>As such, you should a) not look at it as a resolution and b) cut
>Katara a little slack, I think. :)

Duly noted, and slack cut. While I feel as though (as you yourself are kind enough to acknowledge) my criticism is not without merit, it's always a bit tricky to do that with things that are in-progress. I felt like the fight at the end of Le Droit du Dragon was completely superfluous until we got back to Diqiu, you might recall.

So I try to balance "I don't know what's coming next" with my natural tendency to talk about everything all at once. :)

>That said, I've had a companion piece to this one in mind that depicts
>the following day (concurrent with the part of Twilight where
>everyone's picking up their stuff and trying to figure out what month
>it is). The first scene is largely written, but I've been uncertain
>whether it adds anything useful beyond a couple of cute one-liners to
>the storyline. In the light of the above, I think it does, or can be
>made to, and so there are most likely two pieces left to go in
>Desolation Angel (the last of which won't be a Forum story, but
>exclusive to the collected edition, as with the tag stories on the
>Mini-Omnis).

This. I approve of all of this and what it implies. So much.

-Merc
Keep Rat


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
 FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could [View All] Gryphonadmin Jan-14-14 TOP
   RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Star Ranger4 Jan-14-14 1
      RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Gryphonadmin Jan-14-14 2
          RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Verbena Jan-14-14 4
              RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Gryphonadmin Jan-14-14 5
      RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Bad Moon Jan-14-14 3
          RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could MuninsFire Jan-14-14 7
   RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could SpottedKitty Jan-14-14 6
      RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Gryphonadmin Jan-27-14 8
          RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could ebony14 Jan-28-14 9
   RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Mercutio Apr-24-14 10
      RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Gryphonadmin Apr-24-14 11
         RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Mercutio Apr-24-14 12
              RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Gryphonadmin Apr-24-14 13
                  RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Mercutio Apr-24-14 14
                      RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could TheOtherSean Apr-24-14 15
                          RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Droken Apr-25-14 17
                              RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could TheOtherSean Apr-25-14 19
                                  RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Mercutio Apr-26-14 20
                                  RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could rwpikul Apr-27-14 21
                                  RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Terminus Est Apr-27-14 22
                  RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Polychrome Apr-25-14 16
                      RE: FI/TWI: Tyrants If They Could Gryphonadmin Apr-25-14 18


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