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Still plodding through Doom 3. I don't remember it being a particularly long game, although one of the achievements is to complete it in less than 10 hours which I guess means it's a lot longer than I thought. ANYWAY. When I first played through it took me aaaages to complete, because after like, half-an-hour I would be so creeped out I'd have to stop. (I'd like to say 'It was because I was young' but I was in college at the time, SO.) That hasn't really been an issue during this playthrough, but at one point, I was in a room that seemed like a dead end, and then a vent panel in the floor popped up, accompanied by ominous red light and eerie whispery noises to make it clear that a) crawling into a vent was inevitable and b) demons would be in said vent. And I just went lol NOPE and turned the game off.
THE THING IS, there were only two kinds of enemies that I could have encountered, both of which die in 1-2 hits, and I had approximately a zillion shotgun shells--it's not like any potential encounter would be unexpected or even hard to deal with. But somehow, using nothing more than ambient sound and dynamic shadows, the game convinced me to...I dunno, fearquit? WELL PLAYED, id.
Also! One of my favorite things about Doom 3 is the implication that Hell is like, not a religious thing at all, it's just a place where extremely kill-happy aliens live, and the human race's idea of demons and hell come from prehistoric encounters with those aliens. And stuff like pentagrams and demon-summoning rituals are just how the demon/alien teleportation technology manifests, so when humans begin faffing around with super-advanced science like instant teleportation, or building devices that break down materials at the atomic level to create crazy destructive weaponry demon-contact is inevitable. Then humanity discovers that what they thought was supernatural WAS REALLY SCIENCE THE WHOLE TIME OMG.
Obviously this is a well-worn trope but I always appreciate it when a story makes use of it. It's a fun way to subvert the 'religion/spiritual/paranormal vs. science' conflict, and because I am a great big dork I love it when a story goes the extra mile and tries to explain fantasy shenanigans with science-fiction technobabble. IT JUST MAKES ME INEXPLICABLY HAPPY.
SO ANYWAY. The whole "magic is really science" thing is one of my favorite things about the MCU version of Asgard. (I don't think it holds up for comics Asgard because--even though there are a lot of sci-fi elements in the Thor comics, there's a fairly strong definition between magic stuff and science stuff there.) But weirdly it has become an issue in the slash fiction I read lately. ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN. In like, nearly every slash fic involving Loki, the author uses Loki-magic to get around the 'boring' parts of the sexy bits, like taking off clothing and/or lubing up, because nobody ever wants to just like, describe people doing these things for some reason. And every single time this happens in fic instead of thinking about an undressed ready-for-fuckings Loki I start thinking 'BUT WAIT. If magic is just highly advanced science what are the processes involved in waving your hand to lube yourself up HOW DOES IT HAPPEN, EXPLAIN IT TO ME WITH SCIENCE PLEASE' and try to think of how one could manipulate the natural surroundings in such a way as to create lubricant out of thin air, and how to get the lube on/in the pertinent places without actually putting one's hands there which is maybe missing the point of the fic?
so yeah that's today's post
i am far, FAR too pleased at somehow seguing from Doom 3 to MCU slash fic tropes. clearly, I AM THE BEST BLOGGER.
THE THING IS, there were only two kinds of enemies that I could have encountered, both of which die in 1-2 hits, and I had approximately a zillion shotgun shells--it's not like any potential encounter would be unexpected or even hard to deal with. But somehow, using nothing more than ambient sound and dynamic shadows, the game convinced me to...I dunno, fearquit? WELL PLAYED, id.
Also! One of my favorite things about Doom 3 is the implication that Hell is like, not a religious thing at all, it's just a place where extremely kill-happy aliens live, and the human race's idea of demons and hell come from prehistoric encounters with those aliens. And stuff like pentagrams and demon-summoning rituals are just how the demon/alien teleportation technology manifests, so when humans begin faffing around with super-advanced science like instant teleportation, or building devices that break down materials at the atomic level to create crazy destructive weaponry demon-contact is inevitable. Then humanity discovers that what they thought was supernatural WAS REALLY SCIENCE THE WHOLE TIME OMG.
Obviously this is a well-worn trope but I always appreciate it when a story makes use of it. It's a fun way to subvert the 'religion/spiritual/paranormal vs. science' conflict, and because I am a great big dork I love it when a story goes the extra mile and tries to explain fantasy shenanigans with science-fiction technobabble. IT JUST MAKES ME INEXPLICABLY HAPPY.
SO ANYWAY. The whole "magic is really science" thing is one of my favorite things about the MCU version of Asgard. (I don't think it holds up for comics Asgard because--even though there are a lot of sci-fi elements in the Thor comics, there's a fairly strong definition between magic stuff and science stuff there.) But weirdly it has become an issue in the slash fiction I read lately. ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN. In like, nearly every slash fic involving Loki, the author uses Loki-magic to get around the 'boring' parts of the sexy bits, like taking off clothing and/or lubing up, because nobody ever wants to just like, describe people doing these things for some reason. And every single time this happens in fic instead of thinking about an undressed ready-for-fuckings Loki I start thinking 'BUT WAIT. If magic is just highly advanced science what are the processes involved in waving your hand to lube yourself up HOW DOES IT HAPPEN, EXPLAIN IT TO ME WITH SCIENCE PLEASE' and try to think of how one could manipulate the natural surroundings in such a way as to create lubricant out of thin air, and how to get the lube on/in the pertinent places without actually putting one's hands there which is maybe missing the point of the fic?
so yeah that's today's post
i am far, FAR too pleased at somehow seguing from Doom 3 to MCU slash fic tropes. clearly, I AM THE BEST BLOGGER.
