I think it's a little like the Magical Athelas problem.

RL standards, compared to canon? Also, new mission blog. by Laburnum on 2010-06-17 20:40:00 UTC Reply

Okay, so we have an animated canon. In it, human biology does not work exactly the same way as it does in real life. For example, brain damage causes one's hair to turn blue, and the blue-haired guy's children inherited it even though it wasn't genetic; nobody thinks green skin is worthy of any sort of comment; the best way to bring someone out of a coma is to hit them with a car; and it's possible to survive drinking several bottles of rum per day for months on end. However, the characters do seem to react to consumption of various substances in a fairly similar way to normal humans, though to a far lesser extent; the aforementioned several-bottles-of-rum-per-day gets the drinker incredibly drunk but has yet to kill him, and another character is perpetually stoned on amounts of pain medication which also would probably kill a real human.

There is a fic in this fandom which, while pretty bad in other ways, featured a rescue scene which left me WTFing. See, the Sue suffers a gunshot wound. So, to save her, our heroes inject deadly nightshade into her. And it works. Instantly. To the point that the wound instantly closes up, she wakes from unconsciousness and is immediately able to sit up and talk.

Now, by normal standards, this fails. However, I'm not sure whether the aforementioned canonical oddities would affect the severity of the charge. They have yet to be able to do this in canon, and as I said, I'm pretty sure they react to substances in something resembling a logical way ("logical" by cartoon standards, but still, you can at least usually see where they got the idea). Anyone have any thoughts?

Also, I'm transferring my missions and MSTings off my personal website onto my new Dreamwidth blog: http://rc88.dreamwidth.org. It'll take me a while to get everything coded up and posted, but a couple things are up already. Missions won't be going down from my site for a while, but I thought I should tell people now.

And a similar problem about character's behaviour ... by Laburnum on 2010-06-18 23:19:00 UTC Reply

In the same fic, the characters barge into the emergency room and inject an unidentified substance into the patient in front of several doctors, none of whom actually make any attempt to stop them. They also don't get dragged out when the Sue apparently "dies" for a few seconds in order to create dramatic tension before her instant recovery, even though as far as the doctors would know they've just attempted to murder her, and if they get arrested the doctors would be arrested as well for letting them do so. In real life, this also fails. However, we're talking about a continuum in which three guys living in a zombie-infested building were allowed to keep an eight-year-old girl they found in a box with no legal difficulty at all, and in which a person like Murdoc Niccals (a self-absorbed petty criminal and Satan worshipper) was in fact forced by a community service order to look after a coma patient. So, y'know, distinct Somebody Else's Problem infection throughout the population. Still, the canon seems to run on the Rule of Awesome and the Rule of Funny, and this doesn't really fall into that category (except unintentionally in the latter case). So, still a charge, or not?

I'd say charge... by Techno-Dann on 2010-06-20 00:48:00 UTC Reply

There's a difference between unrealistic and just plain wrong.

Yeah, even in a continuum like this you'd think ... by Laburnum on 2010-06-20 22:59:00 UTC Reply

... that the doctors would at least comment on the scary green-skinned guy and the teenage girl barging into the intensive care unit, waving a huge syringe.

See, this is why I avoid animated continua by Sedri on 2010-06-18 03:28:00 UTC Reply

I'm not sure, but at the very least you can throw implausibility charges at her. Hmm...

No, can't think of anything more useful. Sorry.
I think we go by Canon standards by Simon on 2010-06-17 23:03:00 UTC Reply

I mean, magic doesn't work in RL, but we don't kill HP sues because they use magic. We kill them because they ignore Canon.
If nightshade works in Canon, it's fine.
What's the fandom, and can I have a link to this story? It sounds hilarious.

That's the thing, though, I'm pretty sure it shouldn't. by Laburnum on 2010-06-17 23:18:00 UTC Reply

Nobody in canon has taken nightshade onscreen, so I can't compare, and they don't seem AS affected by various substances as normal people would be, but they're still affected in a similar way; e.g. one character has been perpetually drunk for at least six months and hasn't died, but the alcohol got him drunk, it did not give him the ability to fly or anything. And the painkillers another character is addicted to help the migraines he got from the car accidents he's been in but don't, for example, heal up the scars. Therefore, it's never been tested in canon but I'm pretty certain deadly nightshade shouldn't do anything except kill them. They do operate on cartoon biology, but with cartoon biology, even if it's not accurate you can sort of see where they got the idea for what it does do. The nightshade thing is a bit random. I just thought I should ask to make sure.

The fandom is Gorillaz, in case you don't know: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2749666/1/Finding_Fate

I think it's a little like the Magical Athelas problem. by Calista on 2010-06-18 09:40:00 UTC Reply

In LotR, you often see Suethors assuming that athelas is a cure-all. Well, it's a pretty handy plant to have around, especially if you're in the company of Aragorn and/or fighting Ringwraiths; but it's not by any means the only item you'll ever need in your Middle-earth first aid kit.

You can charge for that--especially if it's obvious that the author just used athelas because s/he was too lazy to research actual herbal medication and practical field medicine of the sort that might actually be useful for a LotR character.

Similarly, if the author takes an aspect of canon and stretches it out of shape, that counts as a charge.

So it's still a charge? (nm) by Laburnum on 2010-06-18 19:34:00 UTC Reply

Ah right. by Simon on 2010-06-17 23:24:00 UTC Reply

From the sounds of it, she has bent the rules of Canon so far out of wack it's unreal. It might make for an interesting testing scene if you come up with a reason for the Flowers wanting to test it.