2009-12-09: Chasing Fairies

[Gunndalf]

Sarine's gonna be there, helping to tie the titmoths up again.

[Initial B]

I'm not sure if Meji's new powers are about to wake up, but if not, then the Fairies are going to have their way with our merry band.

Sarine is probably still being held in detention pending orders which will never arrive.

[mindstalk]

Sarine is probably still being held in detention pending orders which will never arrive.

This suddenly made me think that the elven equivalent of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead is, above all, really long.

I've speculated on the effect of immortality on elven psychology, but never before on artistic culture. Hmm.

[Labrat]

Yes, I know that face all too well: That is the morning after 'I will never drink tequila again and what the hell is jammed up my anus' face.
Fully supporting my theory that divine power is made out of tequila and sodomy.

[Slamlander]

Am I the only one who has Fred Willard flashbacks in the last panel?

Fred Willard flashbacks? What kind of acid were you dripping in the 70s?

If he remembers then he wasn't there.

[ChunLing]

Wow. Meji looks...like, infinity years older. If that's the effect of tequila and sodomy, I'm glad I abstain from both.

Interestingly, Ian also reported that he only really regained consciousness after leaving the super-secret hideout. So far, Meji is on-track to the flying and dramatic mood-swings. But perhaps her polar stars will be attempting to graduate and reconciling with her family ("What, I've obtained god-like power and your flunking me for turning it in late? MoOOom! Gramps! The teacher was mean to me. I'm going to tell fa..." Hmmmm). That may or may not work out better than Ian's goals.

[Graybeard]

+1, CL.

You know, it's alarming how much Meji looks like her mom at this point in time.

[mindstalk]

Wow. Meji looks...like, infinity years older. If that's the effect of tequila and sodomy, I'm glad I abstain from both.

Yeah, I can barely recognize her. Or tell if her eyes are open. Yeah, looks like mom.

Of note: half-elf genetics are a lottery, with outcomes ranging from suicidal psychopaths with bad hearts (well, choose one) to Meji whom Poe described as having hit the jackpot. (A lot stronger than she looks, no congenital health problems, mental stability up in the air.) Ian's looked pretty lucky too... OTOH he had a suicidally depressive mother and is the result of 2000+ years of half-elf inbreeding, vs. Meji who's a fresh production, and Sarine said half-elf problems seemed to get worse over the generations.

So possibly Meji will end up more successfully integrating, or saner.

OTOH Ian before godhood gave some evidence of being a stronger or more flexible mage... mostly that he was able to recover faster from the mindblast in Saus, engaging in combat long before Meji woke up. Or maybe he just shielded himself faster/better. Even so.

[Mord]

OTOH Ian before godhood gave some evidence of being a stronger or more flexible mage... mostly that he was able to recover faster from the mindblast in Saus, engaging in combat long before Meji woke up. Or maybe he just shielded himself faster/better. Even so.

Don't forget that Ian probably has quite a bit more experience then Meji seeing as he is nearly twice as old as she is.

[ChunLing]

A valid point. True, most of that experience was probably trying to heal congenital defects that reset themselves a couple of hours later, but magic might be a discipline with a high degree of cross-training. In that, the actual effect of the spells cast differ dramatically but all use the same basic set of skills and abilities.

The thing about Meji being jail-bait (in sooo many ways) is funny. But, her own adolescent impulses aside, it seems like hardly anyone else really sees her that way. Which brings us back to the effect of super-longevity and the reproductive consequences on cultural attitudes. For the half-elves, they live long enough and are hunted aggressively enough that probably few of them really grow old. On the other hand, the high rate of physical errancy does seem to take its toll, Ian felt an out-sized sense of responsibility for his sister, but that situation can't be atypical among their community.

On the other hand, Sarine explains that elves get bored of each other after a while. Think about that for a moment, bored of an eternally youthful and energetic companion, with reproductive concerns intervening so rarely as to represent a minor interlude. If they get bored of that (which seems possible), wouldn't they get bored of themselves just as fast? I wonder how often elves do stupid things just because they can't quite see the point of avoiding doing them since the only reward is to live with themselves for more millennia. For people who cannot look forward to dying in bed (though who really looks forward to that?), there might be an accumulated boredom which makes almost any risk seem temporarily like a good idea.

Then again, do humans really develop their cultural attitudes in relation to life-span and reproductive opportunities? Hmmm...I guess that to a certain extent they do. For instance, where medical technology (and other factors like social and nutritive security) raises life expectancy at birth, humans naturally have fewer children even in the absence of contraception (which can seem nearly inexplicable until you remember that PMS can make women horny if they subconsciously desire to become pregnant, the "bitchy" version is apparently atypical in societies with high infant mortality or low political stability). This can have a pronounced effect on how highly people value life generally (and their own lives specifically) in light of various possible dangers. A society which begins to suffer from a glut of the living begins to question whether a morality fundamentally based on constantly striving to increase the population is really correct.

Still, I can't help but approach the problem from the perspective that the world is suffering from a glut of 'everyone else' rather than myself.

Spoiler: show

Maybe my signature should be something like, "Population Control means hitting your target."