#pipistrellafelix

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pipistrellafelix replied to your post: I cannot even begin to de...

WELCOME to the greatest city on earth! I love it. I’m so glad it’s treating you nicely so far! :)

Thank you! It's really exciting haha :D

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Hey Seattle friends! I know it's a bit early, but are any of you planning on going to Sherlock Seattle? I want to go at least one of the days (my UW schedule permitting, of course) and it'd be awesome to have someone to go with :)

[mirabilelectu]

pipistrellafelix replied to your post: Good lord I had to blacklist Cabin Pressure...

I’m off to sleep before work tomorrow unfortunately, or I’d chat with you! but I’ll just be a horrible tease & say that Timbuktu was BRILLIANT (omg it was SO good to hear those voices saying new words!!)

OH MAN YOU ARE SUCH A TEASE

I am so looking forward to it though. And you all can definitely look forward to my explosion of feelings and other such nonsense tomorrow when I do. Prepare yourselves, insanity is coming.

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I've been tagged by pipistrellafelix!

Rules:

Rule 1: ONE MUST ALWAYS POST THE RULES

Rule 2: Answer the questions the person that tagged you has written and write 11 new ones

Rule 3: Tag 11 new people and link them to your post*

Rule 4: Let them know that you have tagged them.*

*I've done this a lot recently, so I'm going to leave this open. If you're interested in answering the questions (at the bottom of this post), please act as if I've tagged you an do so! This is a great chance to get to know my followers :)

The Questions:

1. you can meet one person from history and talk to them for a day, but be careful: anything you ask or talk about or do to them will affect the timestream and might change history (oh noes!). who do you talk to, and what do you talk about?

Maybe Shakespeare. We'd have to talk about something nondescript, though, like the weather.

2. your favorite organizational system, and what does it organize? (no, it doesn’t have to look organized to the outside eye, nor does it have to belong to you, though it can)

Bookshelves!

3. first book/story/poem etc you read that made you feel like a grown-up, and why?

Tamora Pierce's novels, because the heroines overcame obstacles and became mature, and I felt like I matured with them.

4. if you could instantly gain the ability to beautifully play any musical instrument the moment you touched it, or the ability to speak and understand every language whenever you heard it, which would you pick, and why?

Oh, language for sure. I can play a number of instruments, and I pick them up pretty quickly as it is, so that isn't as big of an issue for me. But, man, I'd love to be able to to learn languages like that!

5. tell me all about the one thing you really want to geek out about but rarely ever do in public/on your tumblr/to your usual group of people, for whatever reason.

Tamora Pierce's novels. They're just so... everything. Me. What I want to be. GO READ THEM (please?).

6. one musical album or artist that you wish you could get everyone else to listen to, too.

I dunno. The thing about undiscovered artists is that they're kind of fun, you know? I feel like if everyone know about them, they wouldn't be as personal - as special.

7. you gain the ability to teleport, but only ever to one specific location. where is that location?

London!

8. write me a paragraph or two from your autobiography (any time of your life, past or future) but as if the genre of it was a wild west heist adventure. 

I apologize in advance oh no.

I woke up and opened my eyes to a bright white light. It was as if God Almighty himself had decided to come down and grace me with his presence. I blinked, and the woman beside me came into focus.

"Y'all right, partner?"

Ah, of course. It was my trusty sidekick, Mom. I frowned. "What happened?"

"Yer in the infirmary. I 'spect you'll be feeling a bit odd. They loaded you up with gin."

Oh, I remembered now. I'd just had surgery.

9. what is your daemon? (if you’re not familiar with his dark materials: imagine your soul/conscience is outside your body in the shape of an animal, that can speak to you, interact with others & others’ daemons too, can argue with you, etc. the type of animal it settles as says a lot about who you are as a person.)

Well I just researched daemons, and took a few personality quizes (hah). The quizes all put me as foxes/wolves/that sort of thing. Mostly because I'm a sensitive introvert who will protect the people I love, methinks.

...seems legit.

10. what is your favorite myth, from any culture, any time? and why? (i’m thinking broadly here, go as big or small as you want.)

I love Greek mythology in general. It's so complex and interesting - and usually funny!

11. someone ushers you into a room with 49 other random people from anywhere in the world, and says, “if you can do something—your choice, any skill or talent or anything at all—better than anyone else in this room, i’ll give you one million dollars.” what’s the skill you choose? 

Yikes. No pressure, huh?

I'd say either playing the violin, writing, or staying silent (hah).

The (New) Questions:

1. If you were a plant, what plant would you be? Why?

2. Would you rather use your phone's camera, or just a regular camera? Why?

3. Write a message to your future significant other.

4. What book do you wish would become a movie?

5. Pens or pencils?

6. Do you prefer to text or call, and why?

7. What's one thing you wish everyone knew about you?

8. Write about yourself right now (this moment) from the perspective of an object near you.

9. Where are you glad you don't live?

10. What language do you wish you were fluent in? Why?

11. If you could dye your hair any color, without any social consequences from family or peers, what color would you dye it?

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23!

23) Who do you think is the most underrated character?

Ok, so I'm not sure if he's honestly underrated or if this is my own prejudice showing, but I truly think that Faramir is not nearly as appreciated as he should be. So much of the focus goes to Aragorn, or even to Boromir, and in the fandom much as he is in the books I feel like Faramir is overlooked in favor of the more outspoken and outgoing characters.

In my opinion, Faramir is actually the bravest, kindest, and most honorable character in the entire trilogy. That honor is usually given to Sam, and while Sam is definitely a truly admirable character, I think Faramir surpasses even him for one reason:

Faramir is the only character in the entire trilogy who never wanted the Ring.

Even Sam briefly wanted to take the Ring for his own. Yes, his motivations to save the Shire were pure, but the fact still remains that when he was rescuing Frodo from Minas Morgul there was a brief moment before returning the Ring that he wanted to take it. But Faramir, even though taking the Ring would have achieved all of his short-term desires (gaining honor and recognition, having his father finally appreciate him, no longer being in his brother's shadow), did not desire the Ring in the slightest. Even when he had the chance, he said that he would not pick the Ring up if he found it laying on the wayside. That's something that even Gandalf could not claim.

And when you take into account what Faramir's life was like, how it must have been to grow up with a father who literally could not stand the sight of him, what he had to endure as someone who only wanted to study and learn but instead was forced into warfare by his own sense of duty, I truly think that he is the strongest and most admirable character in the trilogy without question.

[mirabilelectu]

pipistrellafelix replied to your post: pipistrellafelix replied to your post:...

do you have a tag that you’re consistently going to be tagging this with? sometimes i am the worst at backreading my dash, but i’d track the hell out of this to make sure i don’t miss any.

From now on for all the posts that are short stories I'll use the tag #Intelligent Clockwork Universe

And omg you are too sweet wanting to track a tag for these. I don't even know what I'm doing with them so far but I'll definitely be motivated to write more short stories now.

[mirabilelectu]

pipistrellafelix replied to your post: Prelude

Living city storykink (!!). Yes yes yes. Keep on going (at whatever pace you need), I’ll always read more of this. <3

teain221b replied to your post: Prelude

This is beautifully written and I’m fascinated by the idea of the clockwork city!

Oh gosh, thank you darlings! I have another little story almost done that I'll probably post some time tomorrow if you're still interested in reading. Or who knows, maybe tonight if I get it finished. WHO KNOWS.

But thank you sweeties :D

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Q: What is the role of religion in the clockwork society, where science (of a sort) is running the world? Clockwork bible? Is there spirituality set up that relates to the clockwork somehow? Are there people that DO get the intelligence of it, that "talk" to the clocks, but are considered wackjobs? (What if Leander runs into any of those in his discoveries?) This is AU and pre-Victoria, but my mind's going to those Victorian-era seance/spiritual obsessed groups... anything like that?

While the role of God and religion has been downplayed somewhat, the Church of England has been incredibly proactive in appropriating the clockwork mechanisms and integrating them into their theology and understanding of the world. In a sense, the metaphor of "God as a watchmaker" has been taken to its fullest extent - theologians posit that the intelligent clockwork itself is proof of the existence of God, because how else could such a miraculous thing function if not for divine guidance and intervention? The Church still maintains much of its roots, but there is no denying that it has been somewhat reworked to allow for the new scientific understanding of the world to be included. Of course that is not to say it's been all bad for the Church of England - the fact that the British Empire now controls the majority of the world by means of the divine clockwork simply serves as further proof of their theology.

There are some people who have a sense of the clockwork's intelligence and the full extent of what that means, but they are very much on the fringes of society or do not share their feelings. Most of them are people like Leander, who have a distinct feeling of something being wrong, but cannot put a definite finger on what they feel or what it means. They are mostly people who are very in tune with the city and its inner workings, and I don't think it's implausible at all that they would eventually meet each other and begin to discuss what they haven't been able to share with anyone else. 

Also as a side-note, I intend to set this mid-Victoria in about 1880 or so, because the timeline actually works out rather perfectly. Victoria comes to the crown in 1837, which is when England is beginning to move against the rest of Europe and fully display the might of the clockwork. In about 1848 there are a series of Luddite rebellions in England and abroad to protest the spreading of the clockwork and what it means for society, but by 1850 the rebellions have been put down and Victoria can begin her full golden age rule of Britain. She was a strong and proactive ruler for many years, overseeing the first official integration of London with the clocks and the installation of public works projects like the Overhead Train Line, but when Albert died in 1861 she and the rest of the royal family retreated from public life and left the running of the empire to the newly-powerful Ministries. And the rest, they say, is alternate history.