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Tipping Point
Daylight Savings Time starts tonight in the US of A. We’re that much closer to Spring and now the days will be even longer.
Spring Ahead
Some people dread it and some people are simply annoyed by having to change the clocks that don’t automatically update.
A lot of people look forward to it. The little boost toward Spring and Summer makes some people happy.
Not me.
If I could, I’d live in a holodeck where it varied between gothic gloom, crisp Autumn days and decorative Christmastime snow. I could totally skip Spring and Summer and be perfectly happy. If I could have a couple of weeks of moody gothic gloom followed by a few weeks of colorful Autumn days, that would be my permanent setting.
The Yuletide would last from All Saint’s Day to Groundhog Day. There would be varying depths of snow throughout the season but you’d never have to shovel it (that’s the point of a holodeck, you can do what you want and not do what you don’t want).
I suppose you think this might become terribly boring for me, but no. I assure you that I would be perfectly fine bypassing Spring and particularly Summer indefinitely. I just can’t stand the freaking bugs!
I know there would be no growing season for food to be produced and no adorable woodland creatures to scurry around my back yard if this happened in the world at large. That’s why I’d do it in a holodeck. I don’t want to abolish Spring and Summer for real. I would simply rather bypass them in my holodeck.
Of course, control of the weather, scenery and just about everything isn’t the only reason to have a holodeck…
DS9 Nice Hat
(The Way of the Warrior)
The Pivotal Question
Why Superheroes Don’t Kill
Issue At Hand, Episode 20
Hers is an interesting opinion, but it sort of depends on comic books being comic books. They were, in fact, subject to the Comics Code Authority from 1954 to 2011.
The allegations that comics contributed to juvenile delinquency was dealt with by the implementation of the CCA’s criteria. This was at the end of the Golden Age of Comics and the dawn of the Silver Age.
Given that the comics appealed to and were widely available to kids, implementation of this type of code was appropriate.
With the ability to characterize one’s work more in keeping with that of Movies and TV, simply putting something in the Adult Fiction category ought to be adequate warning for those looking to read newer titles.
It used to be that having superheroes automatically meant you’d be PG or PG-13 (depending on how epic the fights are and how tight the tights are). Now, it might be anything from G to XXX.
Parental warnings are needed.
My own work will vary between PG-13 and NC-17.
Some Folks Just Need Killing
The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. ~Gustave Flaubert
The discussions that the characters are having about their adherence to Foxfire’s Bronze Age dedication to remaining nonlethal continue to evolve.
The Blue Banshee and Foxfire are steadfastly against the taking of lives for all the usual reasons (many of which were mentioned in the video above).
Captain Freedom was in the Army almost continually from 1880 to 1992. He is also in favor of the Sentinels remaining nonlethal but, as a soldier, he recognizes that there are circumstances that call for lethal force.
Mary Christmas has issues. The grief she has suffered since she came to our world has led her to make some choices that more balanced people typically would not. She only remains nonlethal at the explicit request of her friends.
The situation at the beginning of the story is that the Sentinels have been “in business” since 1992. They have a social outreach mission and they also provide support for specific police actions. For the most part, their adversaries aren’t irredeemably evil.
The people who abducted Mary from her home dimension definitely are. The more contact the Sentinels begin to have with them and their minions, the more the question of remaining nonlethal will need to be asked and the harder it will be to answer.
The justice system is fine for street criminals, but ruthless secret oligarchs who answer to no one require justice that the system isn’t structured to deliver. Because, when it comes right down to it, some people just need killing…
That’s a wrap for the week. I hope you’re enjoying your weekend.