black_sluggard | Meme: 11 Questions (Reply)

Rule 1- Post the rules.
Rule 2- Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and then make 11 new ones.
Rule 3- Tag 11 people and link them to your post.
Rule 4- Let them know you’ve tagged them!

Tagged by violet_eyes.

1. Who would you like to sit down and have coffee or a beer with? (Real or fictional, alive or dead) And what's the first question you'd ask them?
Philip K. Dick. I haven't had the chance to check out his fiction as much as I'd like, but I adore everything that has been adapted to film, and every documentary/article I've ever seen about him is just so fucking intriguing. I would love to be able to ask my own questions about perception and reality.

And actually, because it's him, my first question would probably be, "So, you've been resurrected thirty years after your death to have a drink with some random art student... Is that even weird for you?"

2. Who's been the biggest influence on you, and why?
Uhhhh... Also Philip K. Dick?
No. Greg Weisman, creator of Gargoyles, which was my first real experience with both urban fantasy and police drama (no, seriously) as genres, my first experience with fantasy programming that was intelligently written, my first experience with arc-based plotting, one of my first experiences with Faeries who were serious business (Labyrinth was the real first, and Brian Froud therefore a strong secondary influence, but I didn't really know goblins were part of Faerie when I was a kid), and my earliest example of how historical and mythological themes could enhance storytelling.

Though I don't know to what degree Weisman might have been involved in it, the art of Gargoyles also had a huge impact on my own style. So that could be considered a peripheral influence at the very least.

3. What's your plan in the event of a zombie attack?
Short term plan: Hatchet on my dresser. Not specifically for zombies, mind, I just like having a hatchet.
Long term plan: Greenland.

4. I've come to your house for dinner. What are you cooking?
Fried rice. It's the best thing I make. And because I planned ahead, I made it with beef instead of pork and have proper vegetables Cabbage, snow peas, sprouts, peppers, possibly baby carrots...no water chestnuts, though. It's a long story.

*shudders*

5. Who would play you in a movie?
Stephen Fry. No, I know. I'm not male, middle aged, or British, but he's really good at self-deprecating and sarcastic, so... Yeah.

6. Best book you've ever read, and why.
Raven by S.A. Swinairski. There are probably better books, but this just throws so many of my personal plot kinks it's not even funny:

It's about a man who wakes up in the freezing cold with amnesia, tries to put together pieces of his identity, discovers that he is a private investigator and former cop (who randomly likes to quote Edgar Allen Poe), whose ex-wife was recently murdered, and has to protect his adult daughter while he tries to recover his memory of the past week and solve a kidnapping...

...and a murder? His own murder? Because apparently, he finds out, during the time he's missing he got turned into a vampire. And the rules for vampires in the story are just the perfect balance of supernatural and science, and their powers are way, way unique.

7. Do animals have souls? Discuss.
Flat answer: Humans are animals. If souls exist and humans have them, animals have them to some degree proportionate to whatever souls even are.

Discussion answer:
I'm a Discordian and not a Christian. The former means (in my personal case) I'm like an incredibly irreverent Agnostic. I strongly "believe" in very little, and believe (since all perceptions may ultimately be false) that anything can be "known" even less. The latter means that I'll have to work within my own definitions.

I don't know if I believe in souls, but I know that we all do our best to survive in a "reality" that is a construct of a lot of really weird biological processes we barely understand. That leaf isn't green, after all, it just how our brain interprets the particular a wavelength of light that bounces back at us. Candy isn't just sweet, our brains actually release opiates when our taste buds detect glucose.

Over time, life has corrected itself to respond to the physical world in ways that cross in our brainmeat to read as consciousness. Like a self-programming computer. But just because those perceptions and reactions are programmed doesn't mean that the thoughts and personalities that result aren't real or important. And human brains might have more complex responses to that physical world, and a capability to anticipate them that most other animals can't, but I don't think that makes us anything special.

So yeah, maybe I don't believe in a "soul" as a tangibly intangible thing, but I know I can hurt and want. I've observed evidence that other humans hurt and want. I know my mom's dog cries when his paw gets stepped on, and flinches if he thinks he's going to get stepped on again. I know that he cries when my mom is gone, and cries even harder when he thinks she's going to leave.

If I did believe I had a soul, how could I justify believing he doesn't?

8. Money is no object, you can go wherever you want - how do you spend the weekend?
Europe. Not sure where yet, but some place importantly historical. Some place where I can stand there and try to see what someone else saw hundreds or thousands of years ago and think "They were here. Now I'm here. That's awesome."
I live on the West Coast of the U.S. We have our historical sites, but they're...not that old. I want to know what real history feels like.

9. When's the last time you cried?
Probably...a week or so ago. Had a panic attack at the train station over school related stress. Didn't really cry-cry though. Other than that I don't really remember. I'm kind of a hold-it-all-in type, which I know isn't great, but it's true.

10. What's your favourite cocktail?
Tossup between a Horny Bull (tequila+orange juice) and what I personally choose to call a "Bloody Screwdriver" (i.e. vodka+orange juice, as a Screwdriver, with tomato juice a la a Bloody Mary). I know I'm odd, but I like the orange + tomato combination, and vodka goes with nearly anything anyway. I've been meaning to try it with tequila, too. I guess I'd call that a "Bloody Bull".

Honorable mention goes to one I've never tried, but nonetheless find hilarious: Irish cream+coffee liqueur, topped with a squirt of whipped cream. Sometimes served in a tall shot glass and traditionally consumed without using your hands, this cocktail is known as a "Blow Job".

(My sister got one of these on her 21st. The shot glass was pink.)

11. Tell me your favourite Horror Movie Rule. (mine is "whenever someone asks if that sound was an animal or a baby, it never is")
Googled rules, just to find a good one...

If you find that your house was built upon or near a cemetery, was once a church that was used for black masses, had previous inhabitants who went mad or committed suicide or died in some horrible fashion, or had inhabitants who performed necrophilia or satanic practices, move away immediately.

Oh, yeah, perfect. I lived this one back in the third grade.

Suspicious cold spots? Check.
Car crash the night we move in? Check.
Animals (vultures, rattle snakes, goats, stray dogs, ants, ducks, gophers, turkeys, friggin' squirrels) behaving unusually/threateningly? Check.
Creepy neighbors? Check.
Weird phenomena (swinging chandeliers, strange lights, noises, etc)? Check.
Close to a Native American gravesite? Uh...check?
Landlords who don't tell you this until you've been living there for several months? Check.
Incredibly stupid landlords who used to go looking around for artifacts in said gravesite before you moved in? Double check.
Younger sibling talking to the old man who lives in the cabin in the woods behind the house...which doesn't exist, but apparently used to? Check. O.o
An entire wall of your house built out of said cabin, complete with a door that doesn't open? Check.
A walled-in closet...which creepily sits directly opposite the useless door? Check.

Yeah... We were out of there and living with friends with a quickness.

And for those I am tagging, here are your questions:
1. If you could have any single superpower/magical talent/psychic ability, what would you want and why?
2. If you could change one tangible fact about the world or humanity (the color of the sky, the strength of gravity, number of moons, which gender(s) give(s) birth, what Cherry Cola tastes like, where Iceland is located, etc) to try and make the world a better place, what would you change, and why do you think it would help?
3. If you could invite three fictional characters to your next birthday party, who would they be?
4. If you could choose to have become interested in one thing (an activity, a subject, a future, a fandom, whatever) earlier than you did in reality, what would it be?
5. If you could perform a single action or deed with complete impunity (you automatically succeed, no consequences to yourself, no one ever knows it was you) what would you choose to do?
6. Did you believe in the bogeyman as a kid? If you did, what did he look like. If you didn't, was there something else similar you believed in?
7. If you could bring a single animated character to life, who would it be?
8. You and any celebrity. It's a date, they have to say yes. Who do you ask and what do you do together?
9. You have one "Get out of Canon Free" card to change/retcon/rewrite any single plot point of any single show/movie/book. What do you change?
10. If you could gain any mundane talent you don't now possess (dancing ability, singing voice, artistic talent, a knack for language/math/physics) what would you ask for?
11. Aaaand because I've run out of interesting questions... Who is your favorite cartoon character?

Tagging: adja999, roachstar, coffeebuddha, mb_jazz_freak87, cedara, dancingdragon3, game_byrd, ifshadowsoffend, sonophax, cyren_2132, and sillysillykira.