I couldn't believe it the first twenty times you told us, but it's starting to sink in now.

Riley ,'Lessons'


Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


Consuela - Jan 24, 2012 11:48:54 am PST #17579 of 28261
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix

I want to know more about the Ontological Shift. What does the animaling mean? What are the parameters of that? But she never really got into it.

BTW, there were a couple of Zoo City stories in Yuletide this year, one of them talking about the Ontological Shift. It was pretty cool, although too short.


Polter-Cow - Jan 24, 2012 11:53:11 am PST #17580 of 28261
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

I want to know more about the Ontological Shift. What does the animaling mean? What are the parameters of that? But she never really got into it.

I know!! I was really hoping for more worldbuilding since the idea was so interesting.


hippocampus - Jan 24, 2012 1:14:49 pm PST #17581 of 28261
not your mom's socks.

I want to know more about the Ontological Shift. What does the animaling mean? What are the parameters of that? But she never really got into it

yes. This.

I hope we'll see more from her on the subject.


Sophia Brooks - Jan 24, 2012 1:21:19 pm PST #17582 of 28261
Cats to become a rabbit should gather immediately now here

Wait- do they become animals or have to carry around the animal?


Polter-Cow - Jan 24, 2012 1:22:12 pm PST #17583 of 28261
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

The latter.


hippocampus - Jan 24, 2012 1:28:15 pm PST #17584 of 28261
not your mom's socks.

There's a sense in one particular scene - at the hospital, with her brother, that it's not the act, it's the guilt that triggers it . That could actually be a very deft handling of a shift. Er, as long as I'm reading the author's intent correctly and not the just rejiggerings of one of her readers.


Connie Neil - Jan 25, 2012 7:13:41 am PST #17585 of 28261
brillig

Marks got "The Fighting Uruk-Hai" chapter up, and he immediately focused on the description of the Orks as "Mongol-type." He went into this speech about the horrible racism and how he's just going to have to forgive Tolkien for basing his evil race on Asians. For a change, most of the comments seem to be challenging his interpretation instead of just agreeing with it. I suspect a different pool of commenters than those who are following Mark Watches.


DavidS - Jan 25, 2012 7:29:38 am PST #17586 of 28261
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

Well, except I do think Tolkien does indulge in a lot of race essentialism in LotR. Anybody invested in the Aryan ideal would recognize it in all that talk about the True Race of Men/Númenórean stuff. And it's not just the Orcs he describes in terms of the savage other. All of those oliphaunt riders are from the East: swarthy, exotic etc.


§ ita § - Jan 25, 2012 7:32:04 am PST #17587 of 28261
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Yeah, I've yet to see convincing challenges to the point, and it's not like Peter Jackson fought the good fight.

But I don't have the energy to read Mark to see that particular conversation right now.


Connie Neil - Jan 25, 2012 7:36:19 am PST #17588 of 28261
brillig

Anybody invested in the Aryan ideal would recognize it

Which isn't Tolkien, considering the letter he wrote to a German publisher who wanted to know Tolkien's racial antecedents before translating The Hobbit.