Mermaids IN SPACE random babble

[askerian]

One day I'll have to stop blathering about this story and actually write it. One day...!

In the meantime, I have my basic plot down, I have some emotional scenes, but what I really need is visually striking scenes. Like the first time Liadan sees Arun's spaceship and just doesn't get what it is. Stuff like that.

What I've got in mind so far : Liadan's first time in Zero-grav, and Blue's first time underwater.

Which prompted an interesting discussion.

askerian: I want Liadan in Zero-g at some point (preferably before the end)
also everyone hiding underwater -- which is a big problem since they only have the one breather. >D
Arun will try to share with Blue, but Blue = OMG DROWNING
They might end up losing the breather. XD
proanon: (Heh. I've read too much manga - the first thought was "heh, indirect kisses.")
askerian: XD Liadan might have to share her air directly...
proanon: Not so indirect, then.
askerian: >:3 how's that for subtext.
proanon: How would they calm Blue down?
askerian: Well, he doesn't flail too much. (at first) they'd just hold him there, I suppose. Liadan might have to Send to him to calm him down, and she'd feel very awkward about it. (and about touching him too)
proanon: Holding. Him. There. With no air to breathe. Surrounded by water. (And it just occurred to me, he might be slightly hydrophobic, at least of "natural state" water. Considering how acidic the water on his world is...)
Talk about trauma.
askerian: He might grab her too, and even wind his legs around her, and she might kind of freak at that XD I mean, EW, legs.
Oh yeah, he's definitely hydrophobic. >D if it doesn't come from a bottle, it's bad.
proanon: Query - can empaths project? Or is Blue purely-purely receptive? Because if he can project even a little, he'd run the risk of making Liadan panic, too. Or if Liadan is at all receptive.
askerian: It's a spectrum, not either-or, so when she's touching him he can project. But then when you touch someone you're naturally listening a little, so even if he didn't send she'd receive.
Liadan has some receiving ability (more than he has sending) but it's been trained out of her. A bit like peeing your pants. Technically, you can -- but an adult will have a hell of a hard time doing it deliberately.
proanon: *laughs* That's one heck of an analogy.
askerian: It's seen about the same way. XD And it's conditioning in both cases.
proanon: But mmm, think of the aftermath of that scene. Blue will be having nightmares for months. And he's going to be extra-jumpy around Arun and Liadan because they TRIED TO DROWN HIM. At least, that's what his emotions say, even though his head knows why they did it. Heck, he might become more hydrophobic as a result.
askerian: >D
He might also be half-conscious at the time and badly hurt. If it happens when they just grabbed him and are trying to get the hell away. He'd still be reeling from about half his crew getting killed.
proanon: And, hmmm. Having Blue be jumpy around his companions and maybe going off on his own more often = opportunities for bad things to happen.
...
How well does he know Arun and Liadan at the time?
askerian: Hell, I think the worst would be XXX's death -- XXX is a projective empath and Blue was very attached to him. Secretly. >.>
... >D the pirates were holding them captive for a couple of days at the time?
proanon: So why save Blue? Principle only?
askerian: Blue was nice to Liadan so she grabs him. Arun just had to abandon his own colleague at the time so he's Not Happy.
proanon: (What I was thinking is, okay. Injured. Half-conscious. Psychic shock. And then people he doesn't know holding him underwater.)
askerian: Mmh. Yes. °__°
proanon: ... Which means Arun will be projecting resentment and hostility. While holding Blue underwater.
He really is going to think they're trying to drown him!
askerian: Bwahaha.
Well, Arun is almost null on the psi scale, which means to most psychics he just doesn't exist. But holding Blue at the time and feeling such powerful emotions, and with Blue hyper-sensitive... >DDDDDD

sarolynne: .....This raises a question. >.> If they're going to bring Liadan on the space ship. Um. What kind of bladder control does she have?
askerian: HAHAHA XDDDD
askerian: umm, some? I mean the smell/trail can attract predators, so they try to do it in fast currents. But... yeah. XD
proanon: I can hear the, "You clean it up!" arguments now.
askerian: *snerk* well, it's in the sea, it cleans itself up.
proanon: I meant on the ship.
askerian: Ahh. XD Yes. Well, she stays in the water-ways usually.
proanon: Why would pirates have water-ways?
askerian: I meant on Arun's ship. But yes, you're right. >D
But i'm not sure I should use it. The readers might have a knee-jerk reaction of eww.
It would be justifiable enough to have her know not to do it on dry land. XD
proanon: Mmm, I think you're right on the eww. This is probably one of those points where you suspend absolute accuracy for the sake of readability.
askerian: Alas.
proanon: ...ironic, when over-accuracy interferes with suspension of disbelief. XP
askerian: Yeah. *sigh* Oh well. I think even Arun would go "ewwww" so... XD
proanon: *laughs* Arun is fascinated by the shiny, but he's not really an anthropologist. He's a little too Middle Class Rich Boy.
He has dewicate sensibiwities!
askerian: Poor darling.
proanon: But such great fun to tease.
askerian: Indeed. XD

askerian: liadan: *tied up in a corner* *squirm squirm* ... 9_9 pee?
pirates: ... umm. *try to get her to the bathroom*
liadan: *sitting on toilet* now what?
pirates: *stare at mermaid anatomy* ... well shit.
All her, um, exits are in front.>_>;; there's kind of a backbone in the back.
proanon: *snerk*
askerian: Blue could always take her to a pool or something. XD
proanon: Hold her up while she tries to go the way a man would?
askerian: It would dribble all over her tail DX
Hahahahaha, they try to ask Arun how she does it usually.
Arun: I don't know! Why should i know? Do you think I asked?!
proanon: Would Blue really do that? (Toss her in a pool.) By the simple fact that most of the water on his world is contaminated, fouling clean water would be a NO.
askerian: It would be saltwater.
proanon: (...if it dribbles, they can sluice her down.)
askerian: And when she has to do her big business, then what? XD
proanon: She probably would need to immerse herself periodically anyway. Skin drying out fully is probably baaad.
askerian: Oh yeah. u.u
proanon: And I repeat - why would pirates just happen to be carrying all this salt water around? @_@
askerian: um, they're landed on an island? XD
they'd mostly do a few trips around the planet, but they have to land often to look for the stuff they want to loot.
proanon: Ah. So they'd be on the ground. Okay, that makes a lot more sense.



Anyway, I have a little more plot now -- I know what the first and second OH SHIT big disasters are, but now I need the third and final one (zomg confrontation against Evil Polluting Corporation), and I need it to be EPIC.

I'm thinking of involving a sea dragon somehow. >.> But would it be cliche to have a "Sea Protector/Spirit Rises From The Waves To Punish The Polluting, Materialistic Invaders" or what? Oh yeah, completely cliche. XD Maybe I can flip it by having the dragon rising just because they disurbed it, the bad guys kill it, and the merpeople clans allying over that, because they're considered sacred... I dunno.

Also, the bad guys have telekinetic bodyguards. I feel like I should do stuff with that but I can't think of anything very special at the moment. hnn. If I don't find anything for them to do, I can take it off... but it's so shiny. >.>

Oh, and also Liadan needs to drown someone so Blue and Arun can go WTF D: And Arun needs to use that mind-blindness to his advantage, preferably by sneaking behind someone powerful and nasty and clobbering them (and then having issues over finishing them off. Yeeeah.) While we're talking about making them confront their big issues, Liadan needs to be grabbed by a mer pod and told to be a nice obedient wife at some point. (as for Blue I think I already mentioned being forced underwater and having his crew get killed or otherwise lost, so he's good. XD)

Comments

[pridefall.livejournal.com]

This sounds far too interesting for you to keep thinking about it so much. xD

@the Sea Dragon -- the second idea you have for it is much less cliche than the first; but, if you really wanted an epic scene you could arrange it so that the Sea Dragon comes because of your own character's doing? Maybe they trick the thing into coming at the very last moment to save everyone else? (though, thinking about it...that does seem kind of cliched. Hm. Problems.)

@the Telekinetic Bodyguards -- You should figure out how much matter they can move with their minds and what they can do, telekinetically, before you try to apply their powers to a fight scene. Do they just use a hell of a lot of brute force to shove things away/break things at a distance (a la Lucy, from manga Elfen Lied), or are they trained to use their powers more finely?

[askerian]

.______. ♥

@Sea dragon : Nooo, poor sea dragon! Also, Liadan would never ever let the guys do anything like that. D: proanon had a great idea, though -- that some kinds of dragon use the copper for their own skeletal structure/armored body/whatever, so they'd hang out around prospective mining sites (which then by default would be holy grounds), which means mining WOULD rouse at least one of them and the merpeople WOULD get twice as pissed. XD

I could still make an awesome scene of ANGRY DRAAAAAGON KILLINATES THINGS >O and have the company people be good and traumatized before they manage to get rid of the beastie. XD

@ TK guards : You're totally right. Hrrrrm. ...I think they tend to go with crushing hearts that are still inside people... DX But yes, need to figure out how heavy they can move and what kind of momentum they can redirect. Hmm hmm hmm. They probably have good training.

Now the question is, do the merpeople and two-tails also have this kind of psi gift at all. >_>; I'm thinking it's more rare and requires more selective breeding for it to occur outside of direct gene manipulation... But does it exist at all. Hmmmmm.

[hastentodrown.livejournal.com]

@ TK Guards: Good training could range anywhere from deflecting bullets at point-blank range to crushing someone's skull (or elbow. I forget which one is harder per inch) at a distance. If a heart is the limit of their abilities, than I'd say that...hm -- applied to a battle scenario? They'd probably use it to not-so-much as deflect bullets as curve them away from themselves. They could also increase the distance that they jump (but not how fast they run, I think), and incapacitate people by breaking their joints.

If you're making it a genetic trait, I'm assuming it's be a type of beneficial mutation, no? Your average human brain (no matter what "science" tells you) just isn't configured in the "right" way to manipulate matter like that. They'd have to have an organ or...something that would allow them to move/manipulate air-particles. (I think. My brain hurts when I try to make sci-fi make sense.)

[askerian]

I'll have to limit them more than that, I don't want them super-powerful. As for the genetic thing, eh, i'm going with the idea that it's a sequence that exists in normal humans, but it needs to be repeated for a lot of generations before it gets powerful enough to use. (History of this 'verse says there was a big reign that was way into genetic manipulation and they introduced artificial TK-ness along with several other psi gifts, which to this day survives (just not as powerful.) The mermaids were all somewhat telepathic at creation, so they're all telepathic today.)

It's not manipulation of air particles. It's manipulation of... just about anything, really. I'll find a way to bullshit it right. Kinda slow-thinking right now... XD;;

[animeprincess.livejournal.com]

Curve it away? Hrrrmm. That makes me think of Air or Water bending from Avatar... But yeah, if it's not actually moving air particles but an object to change a course? By that mode of thinking what kind of mind-power would anyone have? Could they "phase" objects thru people? Or is that different entirely?

[pridefall.livejournal.com]

The only way I could think of "phasing" an object through a person would be to vibrate it fast enough so that it travels through them as you move it. But then you'd have a problem of said moving molecules/particles getting "Caught" within the other person in a way that might hurt them very, very badly. ( <sub>I think that's how it works, anyway.)

The most feasible thing someone could do with their mind is somehow arranging their brain so that it can compute faster, ergo making them able to process information as fast as a computer could. Or something. Moving things with your mind or "Reading" someone's mind just doesn't sound all that possible with how your brain is arranged -- though, really, reading someone's thoughts could be possible if a human being somehow evolved a way to externally interpret the internal neurological processes that happen when someone "thinks" (the electric pulses that move around in your brain, etc, etc; though I'd imagine you'd only be able to read what a person was about to do and not what they're thinking, if that makes sense?)


It's really late, and I'm probably wrong about a lot of this, so anyone with more knowledge on the subject please correct me if I'm wrong.</sub>

[lurker-lost.livejournal.com]

You know, it sounds a little like sharingan XD

Also, wouldn't TK take a lot of concentration? So maybe they can't multi-task all that well unless they're the speshul head-of-guards guy .___. , and have to either stand still and chuck stuff around, or alternatively do high jumps and stuff... Actually, if they can high jump, doesn't that mean they can TK themselves? So they could technically fly if they were powerful enough/had enough concentration.
Also, bending in Avatar really reminds me of TK, except for the whole physical/martial arts aspect. Maybe the TK guards can chuck water/earth/other natural things at them? Or they could guide bullets etc. at them?
But perhaps they can only do one thing at a time (eg. one bullet), because it takes concentration (and maybe they get headaches after, like doing an exam/studying and then being all urgh it over!!). And as a result of them only being able to do one thing at a time, perhaps they are paired up into attack-and-defense teams, where the defensive-person's job is to guard the the attacking-person (oooh, the guilt if the attacker dies!! *__*).
Just some thoughts =D

[askerian]

I like the idea that they couldn't multitask very well. And the teams thing! Perrrrfect. They'd probably be paired telepath/TK actually -- the telepath would notice people arriving from farther away. (unless they're Arun in your blind spot. >D)

I'm not going to make them able to move themselves, I think -- in my mind it would be kind of like getting to fly by pulling yourself up by your shoelaces. XD So no flying, and no huge jumps. They might punch harder, but that's because their mind pushes against the other object along with their fist, so that's actually a double impact.

As for the headaches, yeah, but that's only when you strain. Blue, for example, is all kinds of badly trained (make that not trained at all), so he strains all the time and has migraines regularly. >_>;;


*already planning to make you write fanfic for the bodyguard-hitman team btw* >.>

[pridefall.livejournal.com]

_{Ew, don't say that}.

I gotta agree with lurker_lost here. This seems like a good way to "nerf" them, as it were, and it also opens up the possibility for fanfiction in the future. xD

[askerian]

Phasing via vibrating? Can't, that's way too much like that Bart kid from comics.

there's no "right" set of knowledge about this -- it's not biologically possible anyway so I really don't care if I should make it seem biologically likely. I mean, even if your suggested alterations somehow happened it still wouldn't work IRL. XD There are dozens of possible justifications for mind powers in novels; I'll find some way to bullshit it. As long as it sounds okay, it doesn't matter if the science behind it doesn't actually support it. I'm not doing hard scifi there, it's more like a strange mermaid adventure that happens to happen in the future. It's really not the kind of detail that deserves to have a whole plot get hung up over it.

[pridefall.livejournal.com]

Bullshit away, love. I'm just trying to throw out possibilities :p

[uneko.livejournal.com]

Thoughts about bathrooms...

Here's a thought on it.. I haven't been following your notes about this story extremely closely, so pardon me if I'm getting something integraly wrong...

She's a mermaid... so, she's used to being in the water when she... does her business. Warm flowing water, gliding past her, etc... for her to go on dry land might be completly impossible for her... as you said like an adult trying to pee their pants on purpose.. or a girl standing and peeing. (I can only do that in the shower... with the water dribbling, etc) It could be a huge mental block for her to do, unless she's about to just lose complete control.

Alternatively... I could see it being physically imposible (or really difficult) for her.. Maybe her body needs to be held out straight (as they'd be while swimming) for all the tubes to be aligned properly, and the muscles to push and pull in the right directions.

Potentially, I could also see perhaps the anatomy down there being as such as to disperse urine over a wide area... so.. either in a spray... or just letting it trickle outward slowly... with very little force.

I would imagine that they pee a lot too, assuming they end up ingesting a lot of water... so, it could be something like they end up peeing, slowly, for like 20 minutes of each day.

Which could be funny too:

"... a...are you DONE yet??"

[askerian]

*dies*

*revives*

*dies again*

BWAHAHAHA. XD Oh, it makes total sense, and that could be just the thing. But still it cracks me up.

I like the "she can only go in water" thing. It's gonna be fun teaching her otherwise when she's in the spaceship. >.> I guess she'll have to take lots of showers.