Showing posts with label Tuesday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tuesday. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

A disturbance in the fiction

I found this meme a couple of months ago on a blog that has since disappeared. You can look at a few others (or not) and do your own (let me know!). Here's mine:

First, select ten fictional characters (from any medium) by whichever method you like best.

1. Jayne Cobb
2. Yosaffbridge
3. Chewey
4. Maximus Decimus Meridius
5. Captain Jack Sparrow
6. Mona Lisa Vito
7. River Tam
8. Sawyer
9. Worf
10. Data

Divide the list up by even and odd.

Team One: Yosaffbridge, Maximus, Miz Vito, Sawyer, Data
Team Two: Jayne, Chewey, Jack, River, Worf

Which group of five would make a better Five Man Band (like a Power Rangers team)?

Team One

Who would you slot in each position: Leader, Lancer (second-in-command), Big Guy, Smart Guy, The Chick?

Team One
Leader = Maximus
Lancer = Sawyer
Big Guy = Data
Smart Guy = Miz Vito
Chick = Yosaffbridge

Team Two (yow)
Leader = Chewey
Lancer = Worf
Big Guy = Jayne
Smart Guy = River
Chick = Jack

If you think the team would be improved by swapping one character between the even and odd groups, which ones would you switch?

Data and Jayne, switching teams, but keeping position. But I'm leaving them on their original teams.

Gender-swap 2, 8 and 10. Which character would have the most change in their story arc? Which the least? Would any of these characters have to have a complete personality change to be believable as the opposite sex?

Most change in story = Sawyer. Ana Lucia's death deprived the Island of Sawyer's female equal. (IMHO); a character with cocky independence layered over sensitivity. As a storyline, wouldn't a lesbian Sawyer competing with Jack for Kate's affections be great?

Least change = Data. I'm not sure any change in his programming would be necessary. And I'm not sure I'd leave it up to him to reprogram if he thought it was!

Most personality change = Yosaffbridge. A male with the sexual cunning of Yolanda, Saffron, or Bridget?? Not a chance. Men just can't think that way.

Compare the matchups of 1 and 8 and 5 and 9. (Ignore canon sexual preferences for the moment.) Which couple would be more compatible?

If Captain Picard were watching, Worf would lock Captain Sparrow into some strange game on the holodeck. Forever. In the absence of Picard, Worf might have Sparrow for lunch.

Jayne and Sawyer aren't going to be a happy couple when they aren't pillaging and plundering. There would be some heated arguments about Vera. If they had sex (would they?), I wouldn't want to be in the room (would they?).

Which couple would be more plausible to people from either principal's home culture? Jayne could easily step into Island life and Sawyer would be right at home on Serenity. At World's End, Worf wouldn't cause that much of a stir. But Capt. Sparrow on the Enterprise? No. On the Klingon home world? Lunch again.

Your team is 3, 4 and 9. The mission consists of a social challenge, a mental challenge and a physical challenge. Which team member do you assign to each challenge?

Social = Maximus has thrown a few good parties, I'm sure.

Mental = Worf can draw on his Academy training, and Klingons can always get right to the point.
Physical = Chewey. Don't piss him off.

7 becomes 1's boss for a week in some plausible fashion. How's their working relationship?

Strained. Jayne knows River can kill him with her brain. But Jayne has great respect for violence, which River owns.
Nothing in the 'Verse can stop her.

2 finds him/her/itself inserted into 6's continuity. As far as anyone other than 2 or 6 is concerned, they've always been there. What role would 2 be presumed to have had in 6's story, and could they fit in without going wonky?

Fit in? Logically, yes. Yosaffbridge would love New York City, but Alabama? No. (Who does, after all?) Nevertheless, she accompanies her sister, Miz Vito, and her sister's fiance, Vinny, to Alabama just for a lark. Vinny is not fond of Yo. She is not fond of Vinny. Upon discovering there are no larks (or new husbands) to be had, she retires to the gorram motel to await the return drive to NYC. Boring, but what's a girl to do?

3 and 5 get three wishes. The catch is that they have to agree on all three wishes before they get the benefits of any of them. What three wishes would they make?

At first, I thought that they couldn't even communicate, but I quickly realized that they are perfectly aligned in that regard. Their wishes were something else... Wookiees shun material goods, are intelligent and intensely loyal, and are gentle until they lose their short tempers. Capt. Sparrow is cunning and, uh, tidal. But they are both explorers and adventurers and their first thought is "go."

First wish: Transport. Chewbacca has no knowledge of the sea and Sparrow knows nada about space travel. A wet Wookiee has to smell bad, so they opt for space travel. Chewey calls in some favors and the Millenium Falcon is theirs for a spell. Many stories are exchanged and they become wary friends. Neither has revealed his underlying wish, of course. Chewey wants to get away and Jack wants rum.

Second wish: Yo Ho Yo Ho. Chewbacca, knowing Jack's acquisitory nature and that the rum is gone, convinces Sparrow that he should experience Mos Eisley. And after all, Mos Eisley exists for smugglers and pirates and the cantina, well, it's a pirate bar. Sparrow agrees to the wish. Deals are made, kegs of rum and a smashing hangover are acquired.

Third wish: Home. Sparrow has had enough of (very) dry land and wishes to return to the Black Pearl. Chewbacca is jubilant. On the return trip, they land briefly on an island and bury most of the rum. Jack gives Chewwy the Timekeeper as a gift for Yoda and a small jar of dirt. Chewwy gifts Sparrow with a bowcaster (knowing that he hasn't the strength to use it). As the Falcon hovers over the deck of the Pearl, Chewbacca deposits Sparrow and his loot.
Lightspeed.

1 and 2 are brainwashed by a one-time artifact that works even on people immune to mind control to attack and kill 4. They keep their normal personalities, skills, and competence levels, except any Code vs. Killing has been turned off. Can 4 survive?

Maximus is full of fresh grief over his wife and son and wouldn't be the usual easy target for Yosaffbridge (would he ever be?), especially if she were keeping company with Jayne. Jayne would want to kill Maximus straight on, but Yosaffbridge loves cooking up a wily plan and could easily bend Jayne to her will. She'll be the death of them. Maximus would know instantly that something was up, wait for the opportunity to disarm Jayne, and dispatch them both to Elysium. Strength and honor.

6, 7, 9 & 10 must help an orphanage full of small and depressed children have a merry Christmas. Who does what, knowing that at the very least the kids will be expecting a visit from Santa?

River, especially sensitive to the absence of family, and Mona Lisa, with her biological clock still ticking, go full-tilt. Trees and halls are decked. Presents are wrapped, stockings are stuffed. Food abounds. Shiny.

Upon learning the stories and activities surrounding Christmas, Worf declares it child abuse and refuses to participate. He is not a merry man.

Data knows everything about the Christmas legends. By default, he'll be Santa so he warily activates his emotion chip, dons the puffy suit and whiskers, and grants every wish. He and Miz Vito make a deal and return to the Enterprise with 17 adopted kids. And Worf.
20 to beam up, sir.

3 and 8 are challenged to circumnavigate the Earth in eighty days or less, using only forms of transportation invented before 1900. Can they do it, or will they be fatally distracted by sidequests or their own personality conflicts?

Fatally distracted by sidequests for sure. Sawyer won't leave the island and though Chewey likes the trees and all, he owes a life debt to Han.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Escape from editor's corner

Thesaurus

It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.

It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes,
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.

Here father is next to sire and brother close
to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning.
And every group has its odd cousin, the one
who traveled the farthest to be here:
astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven
syllable, unpronounceable substitute for the word tool.
Even their own relatives have to squint at their name tags.

I can see my own copy up on a high shelf.
I rarely open it, because I know there is no
such thing as a synonym and because I get nervous
around people who always assemble with their own kind,
forming clubs and nailing signs to closed front doors
while others huddle alone in the dark streets.

I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.

~Billy Collins

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

It only takes one

Lifted from Ronnie.

1. Where is your cell phone? over there
2. Your significant other? Trappeze
3. Your hair? longer
4. Your mother? gone
5. Your father? Denver
6. Your favorite thing? loves
7. Your dream last night? hazy
8. Your favorite drink? water
9. Your dream/goal? tomorrow
10. What room you are in? dining
11. Your hobby? artsy
12. Your fear? loss
13. Regrets? some
14. Where were you last night? here
15. 15? naive
16. Muffins? nah
17. Wish list item? books
18. Where you grew up? SoCal
19. Last thing you did? e-mail
20. What are you wearing? red
21. Your TV? Firefly
22. Your pets? deceased
23. Friends? far
24. Your life? ongoing
25. Your mood? edgy
26. Missing someone? periodically
27. Car? parked
28. Something you're not wearing? makeup
29. Your favorite store? downtown
30. Your favorite color? rust
33. When is the last time you laughed? earlier
34. Last time you cried? dunno
35. Who will resend this? unnecessary
36. One place that I go to over and over? bed
37. One person who emails me regularly? Ronnie
38. My favorite place to eat? Farm
39. Why you participated in this survey? fun
40. What are you doing tonight? waiting