#probably errors oh well

[archaeopter-ace]

⭐star⭐ for Autoeponym

😁 Alright!So, there were a lot of topics that I couldn’t quite decide between when it came to this Director’s Cut, so I might end up writing out some follow-up posts because whynot

I get a lot of comments on my research and how I tie together science and magic, so I think I’ll start there.

First off, I love how fanfiction can be such an interactive experience, that gives authors an easy platform from which to show their research, the work they put in, or just some of their thought processes. I mean sure, some authors put notes at the end, especially if they’re writing YA historical fiction or hard SF, but that doesn’t feel as organic to me, and often feels driven by a desire to educate. Fanfiction author notes, on the other hand, can be ‘hey, did you know this cool fact? it’s not essential or anything, just some fun trivia.’ 

As a fanfic writer, I think I first saw heavy use of incorporated research in Vathara’s works, and I fell in love with it as a writing style. I would say I’ve been strongly influenced by her works in a number of ways, like the advantages to keeping a close POV and letting a character’s experiences and expertise guide their thought process; that it’s fine to assume your readers are smart and can keep up; and ways to bridge the supernatural/science divide (I’m thinking of ‘Project Tatterdemalion’ and ‘To Be Invisible’ in particular). Also: hybrids. Lots and lots and lots of hybrids and xenobiology, it’s great.

‘Embers’ takes a nuanced view of hybrids with an understanding of how genetics work, and why a hybrid could be more or less alright but that hybrid crosses - the offspring of two hybrids - can be viable but messed up in lots of ways because gene complexes can get broken up, which are usually inherited as individual units from one parent or the other (because you inherit one set of chromosomes from each parent, and gene complexes are related genes, close together on a chromosome). But the gametes (egg or sperm) of hybrids are made by meiosis, a form of cell division which has this step called ‘crossing over,’ which means the chromosome pairs line up and then swap bits back and forth, to create a new chromosome that isn’t an exact match for either of the parent chromosomes which make up its own genome. Sorry that this gets so technical, but basically because a hybrid’s chromosome pairs might not be organized exactly the same way, sometimes essential complexes can be broken up. 

Analogy time! For a not-hybrid: It would be as if both your parents kept DVDs on the top shelf of their bookcases, and you inherit one bookcase from each parent. You can only pass on one bookcase to your kid, so you randomly switch back and forth as you grab movies. Your new bookcase will look different, but it will still have all the essentials - a documentary about birds, a space opera, a buddy cop movie, a drama tv series, etc. Which buddy cop movie, specifically, might differ, but the point is you have one

For a hybrid: One parent kept DVDs on the top shelf, and the other kept VHS tapes. You can still turn out alright, since each of your two bookcases has a complete set of everything you might need. If you need a movie about birds, you pull from the DVD bookcase. If you need a movie about the Vietnam war, you pull from the VHS bookcase.

For a hybrid cross: When your parents were preparing their bookcases to pass on to you, they grabbed DVDs and VHS tapes at random and put them together on one shelf. You do not have a complete set of Ken Burns’s ‘Vietnam,’ because in one of your bookcases Part 1 was replaced with ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ and in the other bookcase Parts 1 - 3 were replaced with ‘Fast and Furious’ films. (Incidentally, you do not have a complete set of ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Fast and Furious’ either). Hybrid crosses, consequently, can be seriously messed up, if they’re even viable at all.

(There was a hilarious joke in ‘Dave the Barbarian’ where the narrator is listing all sorts of family traditions, and he ends with ‘And in some families it is traditional to be a mule.’ This was a really funny line, but much later, thinking it over, I was like holdonaminute. Mules are horse-donkey hybrids. They are for the most part sterile. It is impossible for there to be a family of mules. Of all the animals they could have chosen for this joke, did they choose the infertile on on purpose, or by accident?)

(Incidentally, yes, in my AU half-changeling!Jim is biologically incapable of having kids for this reason, though that’s not going to really come up)

… I’ve lost a bit of my original thread, which was going to focus more on the philosophy of science but I seem to have gotten lost in the weeds. Ah well. I’ll just finish with this then: I think it’s really important to put science-thinking into fiction. Not scientific facts, that’s less important. Right now, society tends to act like there’s a divide between Science and Creativity, using outdated left-brain/right-brain models as their basis. And perhaps as a consequence, a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking that because they are not a scientist, they don’t have any use for understanding it. Climate denial and anti-vaxx movements have managed to take root as deeply as they have because there is widespread misunderstanding about what the scientific process is, that it has a codified approach to answering questions. You come up with a hypothsis, you test it, you analyze the results - and maybe you change your hypothesis as needed. 

Understanding science doesn’t have to mean understanding a lick of what I just babbled about about genomes and chromosomes. That’s not for everyone, and nor should it be. But appreciating science can be reading about Barbara, who starts by making an observation. She then collects more data, tries to come up with hypotheses which she dismisses one by one as they are contradicted by the evidence she observes. 

Science can be a thought process summed up with ‘trial and error and revision,’ and it can be applied to just about any vocation. Also, science can be an incredibly creative endeavor, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise