Posts tagged with "theory" - Faerye Net

The Antilles Theorem

2010-12-26T21:23:59+00:00

In the course of acquainting myself with Ryan‘s childhood favorites, the Star Wars: X-Wing series by Michael Stackpole, I have come up with yet another of my kooky and largely impractical theories. I call it The Antilles Theorem. It is a litmus test for (old school) Star Wars fandom. Because, let’s face it, they’re lovable movies. Many people like them but are not fans. Fans watch and rewatch and quote; some know the Expanded Universe or play the roleplaying game. Before you jump to conclusions and start talking about mouse droids and assuming your interlocutors are aware that Han shot first, I suggest applying this.

The Antilles Theorem: Any real fan of the original Star Wars series knows who Wedge Antilles is.

So you just say, “One of my favorite characters in Star Wars is Wedge Antilles,” and if the respondent says “Get clear, Wedge, you can’t do any more good back there!” or starts babbling about Rogue Squadron tie-in novels, you are gold. (Likewise if they say, “Did you know that the captain of the blockade-runner in the first scene of New Hope was going to be named Antilles too?”) If they stare blankly at you, unable to recall this crucial and beloved but secondary character, I recommend smiling kindly and keeping the conversation general.

Many Bothans died to bring you this post. You’re welcome.

Austenian theories

2010-10-23T11:57:18+00:00

Theory #1: Your favorite Austen novel has a heroine whose personality is akin to yours. It has long been my theory that which Austen novel one prefers could be used as a personality category. Perhaps not as useful as Myers-Briggs, but useful all the same. In truth, I have not collected enough data to support or disprove, and since I formulated this theory in my teens, I am willing to confess I may have been more motivated by a desire to compare myself to Elizabeth Bennet than by the demands of purest science.

Theory #2: You can determine your favorite Austen novel by rereading any of the others. This is especially important if #1 is to be believed: we need a way of experimentally determining someone’s favorite, rather than trusting them when they say “Oh, not Emma,” thinking I don’t want Felicity to say I’m an Emma! This I only recently realized. Every time I reread another Austen novel, I find myself longing to reread Pride and Prejudice as soon as I finish. Therefore, whether or not #1 allows me to flatter myself, Pride and Prejudice must be my real favorite.

Of course, since I just came up with #2, I’ve no idea whether this longing occurs to anyone else. Well? Gentle reader, my eagerness to hear your views can well be imagined.

Theorizing

2007-04-06T23:17:29+00:00

Theory: cat tranquilizers are placebos. They are intended to make your cat sleepy by inducing her to fight you tooth and nail to avoid swallowing the pill, thus tiring her.

Data points collected: It took 45 minutes to force-feed the pill to Qubit, who wails on car rides. She mewed three times total. Tazendra, who usually is barely annoying at all on car rides, swallowed her tranq on the first try, and whined a third of the time.

Sharks and Dolphins

2005-07-28T10:04:02+00:00

A report by Elinor Roberts, Mrs. Fiction’s 4th Grade

I was very upset to see ‘dolphins and sharks’ on the list of report topics for ‘things kids get confused,’ and that’s why I chose them for my report. Nobody should confuse dolphins and sharks, Mrs. Fiction.

I read a lot of books for this report, but all of them were wrong, so I will just tell you the truth.

A lot of people think dolphins are aliens, or angels, or something, because they are so smart. But it’s not dolphins that are aliens, it’s sharks!

Sharks came down to Earth a loooooong time ago, like 300 million years. We know this because there are places, like in Montana, where a huge strangely-shaped landing party was buried and preserved so we would know the truth. Sharks don’t make good fossils because their skeletons are made of cartilage, which is deliberate so that we can’t trace their movements over the planet’s history! Anyway, when they came there were all sorts of them, but soon they settled down to ruling our oceans (because oceans are like three quarters of the planet) and chose the shapes they needed. There are Great Whites, which are the bosses, because in evil societies like the Empire the toughest ones are the bosses. There are the mako sharks, which are the messengers because they go very fast. There’s the hammerhead sharks, which are like the KGB, but for sharks. And whale sharks… I’m not sure, but I think if you’re bad the great whites suck out your brain and your big teeth and make you a whale shark, which is the thing sharks are really afraid of because they like eating people.

Anyway, so some people think that dolphins are angels, or can heal people, or something. I found this researching on the internet. These people are silly. Dolphins cannot heal, because they are all about killing! The closest they get to healing things is that they are like the white blood cells of the planet, stalking the virus sharks.

Dolphins kill sharks with their noses, by pummeling them in their secret vulnerable underbellies until they die. All the time that dolphins talk, they are talking about killing sharks. “There was this one time,” a bottlenose might say, “I saw this reef shark swimming by. Now he LOOKS like he’s just minding his own business, but he’s a shark, so I know that’s not true. I woulda gotten my friends, but it was just a reefie, so I knew I could take him.” They talk like that, but with more swearing. Like on NYPD Blue, not that I’ve ever seen that. Dolphins are the cops of the sea. Sometimes they swim beside ships and people think they’re so cute, but they’re really saying “Shark advisory, next 20 miles, landwalking people!” People have a lot of wrong ideas about dolphins. There were some ideas even wronger than the glowy angel healing alien dolphins, but my parents wouldn’t let me read about them.

So that’s the difference between dolphins and sharks. Sharks are evil alien overlords of the deep. Dolphins were developed by the Earth to combat their menace. Sharks are a plague on this planet, and dolphins are the cure! Not that I’ve seen The Matrix. Because I haven’t.

Elinor, usually an excellent student, received a D on this assignment, with a note that if it weren’t for the occasional fact imbedded in her nonsense, it would be an F. Sure that this meant the Carcharian Conspiracy stretched even onto the land and into the heart of her beloved teacher, Elinor worked on expanding her theory.

Mrs. Fiction now teaches 3rd grade.

Dolphins and sharks are still at large.

The Roulette Wheel of Death and Rebirth

2004-03-18T14:07:43+00:00

Some of you may know – in fact, many people who have a minimal or marginal interest in comic books know – that Jean Grey (aka Marvel Girl, aka Phoenix, aka The first X-Woman) dies all the freakin’ time. So much so that I have it on good authority that the following exchange actually occured in X-Men continuity at a recent Jean Grey funeral:
Emma Frost (reformed villainess and X-Man): snicker
Scott “Cyclops” Summers: Goddammit Emma! It’s not funny!
Emma: Yes it is, Scott, and you know it.

If my source didn’t invent that passage through wishful thinking, then Marvel knows damn well that Jean Grey’s tragic deaths are as predictable as the tragic deaths of any number of Captain Kirk girlfriends. Why do they keep doing it? Why? I think I have the answer.

Last night I was perusing the polychromatic pages of the periodical (okay, I’ll stop now) Batman/Superman. Er, Superman/Batman. Whatever, this is why they have a logo, not a title. And the last frame of this comic book, after several frames of people talkin’ Kryptonian (yeah, Kryptonian. It’s kindee funny-lookin’.) shows Superman telling Batman as he gives the blonde girl he’s been talking to his cape to wear, “This is Kara Zor-El, my cousin from Krypton.” At this point, my head broke.

You see, DC has had this here “Cousin from Krypton” angle before. She was the original Supergirl. Or the second one. Or something. Before Supergirl was an angel, or an alien-human hybrid, or an angel-human hybrid, or a shapeshifting girlfriend of Lex Luthor’s…umm, okay, I’m already confused. I don’t read Superman, and I don’t understand Supergirl history. But I do know she’s been reinvented so many times that even I, who, as I said, do not read Superman titles have seen at least one Supergirl debut â€” she was supposed to be Lois and Clark’s daughter from the future. So do you start to see what I’m saying here?

A long long time ago, someone at DC and someone at Marvel made a bet that he (Marvel) could kill Jean Grey (Marvel Girl) more often than he (DC) could reinvent Supergirl. It all makes sense! At the time, it was a lark! Now, so many Jean Greys stenciled on that Marvel guy’s desk, a dartboard of Supergirl concepts mounted on the DC office wall, it’s a grim battle, each comics titan straining against the other to control the cheesiness of the superheroine ethos. This week some poor schmo at Marvel, with “counterintelligence” scrawled on his cubicle tag, read Batman/Superman and groaned. “Guys? Do you have the next Jean Grey death ready? I mean, have you got her alive again and ready to go? Those wily bastards have hidden it in this Batman/Superman thing – I know, a Bat-title! Sneaky! But “cousin from Krypton” only has one meaning…”

Or, you know, maybe it sells comics.