Random Questions Thread

It depends whether they're part of a minority group or not. If they are, they're going to be immediately portrayed as "going down a bad path" and end up under arrest to "set them straight"

If they're not, most likely they'd be ordered to pay for any damages, and possibly spend the night in a cell, with further prosecution if they fail to pay for the damages. It helps that one lives in the same building. If they were in a building that none of them lived in, they'd have a lot less lenience.

One of them is black, but this takes place in England, so I'm not sure if that makes a big difference.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 16th 2022 at 5:06:59 AM

Some more kiddie related questions from me: Would two boys (~13 years old) who are out in the early morning (at 6-7) in a well-off neighbourhood of southern California in December 2013 and who are on a jogging run raise concern? To be clear they are reasonably clothed for running but in shorts and are not accompanied by an adult.

Speaking as an adult who lost the ability to visually distinguish late middle schoolers from early high schoolers a mere five years after finishing high school, I'd probably think they were on the school cross country team (essentially distance running) getting some extra morning training in. So no, nothing weird or bad.

So, I'm unsure about the UK, but in the US, the answer would be 'it entirely depends.' Race is one factor, but other factors are what cop happens to arrive, how much fuss the landlord kicks up (can they pay for the damage caused, or not?), how busy is the prosecutor and can they afford a fine/community service.

My guess would be most likely you're looking at either a moderately large fine/restitution, or a misdemeanor conviction and community service/probation. Worse outcomes are possible, if you want them to happen, but they're fairly unlikely.

If you're looking for a negative outcome which isn't too crippling storywise, but causes major negative effects, one might be eviction of the family who lives in the building.

Can anybody think of an explanation why Dracula (in the book) could get inside Lucy's room during his last attack on her, if he otherwise Must Be Invited to enter anywhere and nobody said anything that could be interpreted as invitation?

Does going through a window somehow not count? Or was the intended implication that he had somehow already been there since the alcohol was drugged?

Can you describe or write down the chain of events for the rest of us for the sake of context?

Would help immensely.

Here’s one I’ve been pondering about.

The very presence of Eldritch Abominations can turn people who are near them into gibbering wrecks. Thanks to H. P. Lovecraft and his fellow Cthulhu Mythos writers, we saw how the maddening effects of the setting’s monsters can affect humans, cultist and unlucky layperson alike. So I was pondering about how it would affect a dwarf.

Probably the same way.

Rule of thumb: If it thinks like a human, it will suffer like a human upon looking at the Eldritch.

Unless you are so open-minded that you can just look at the Eldritch and shrug it off with a "COOL!" rather than breaking apart internally from the sight, accepting it for what it is without trying to make sense of it.

Thanks. :)

To be honest, the whole idea that everybody would go insane just by looking at something weird or incomprehensible is unrealistic and a bit ridiculous. Then again, Lovecraft himself was a ridiculous man who was afraid of everything. Maybe he thought every other human was as mentally fragile as him.

x4

Chapter 11, in the part subtitled "Memorandum left by Lucy Westenra".

The entire book is on one page, but when you use the "search from page" function of your browser and type "memorandum", the hit number one is the title. There's some more elaboration on the events after the memorandum, when Seward and Van Helsing show up in the morning.

Edited by Nukeli on Jan 16th 2022 at 10:40:14 PM

Hey, so I know that naming a character a foreign name without them actually being from that country is usually frowned upon and seen as Mary Sue-ish.

In my story, one of the major characters is completely American, and the setting is America, however her Amazingly Embarrassing Parents are giant Otakus who are completely obsessed with Japan, and ended up giving her a Japanese name that she really hates, with her preferring to be called an Americanized version of it as a nickname instead.

Is this OK, or is it a stupid justification that I shouldn't bother with?

What that is true. I remeber coming acorss soemthing that might eb a bit more realistic. Lets see if I can dig it back up.

found it. Basically it is a take on eldritch madness that is derived from "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome. Where its not the revelation itself that drives men to madness, its the forgetting of the revelation but not the learning of it that does.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jan 16th 2022 at 10:48:38 AM

@Demetrios:

I think that it would depend heavily on the type of dwarf—despite the trope-name, there is some variation in their depictions, I believe.

Indeed, looking at Tolkien's dwarves I note that they were resilient of mind enough that they were not controlled by Sauron's rings of power (that is, the "seven [rings] for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone"). Unlike humans and even elves, they were able to wear their rings, even gain from them, without coming into Sauron's dominion.

Thus it's entirely plausible that even Tolkien's fairly humanlike dwarves might simply be sufficiently hardy of thought that they might not go mad.

On the other hand you also have the more childlike dwarves that popped up around FFXIV's release and relaunch (I'm pretty sure their Lalafell race was the codifier for this subtype of dwarves^note Though that might also be due to mixing it up with hobbits or halflings, do note that a firm connection was only established starting with XIV's Shadowbringers expansion), which might react to eldritch abominations in similar ways as the kids their designs and maybe personalities emulate. Which can range form the usually mind breaking horror to resisting it through sheer curiosity, wonder or innocence.

And then there are the Dwarves that likely encounter such horrors on a regular basis. Which are likely to be more resistance if only due to the mundanity of it all. And may or may not be maddened into sanity by their experiences with such.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jan 16th 2022 at 12:11:36 PM

Ooh, that's some drama. The girl actually lives in her apartment alone, but she's also moved over from America and doesn't have a ton of money so this'll cause her to have to bunk with one or multiple of her friends for a while... And a misdemeanor charge isn't too extreme either for the circumstances. The point is really less that I need them to be punished and more that I need this villain to really show his chops and put them in a bad situation with their parents and the law.

Can anybody think of an explanation why Dracula (in the book) could get inside Lucy's room during his last attack on her, if he otherwise Must Be Invited to enter anywhere and nobody said anything that could be interpreted as invitation?

Does going through a window somehow not count? Or was the intended implication that he had somehow already been there since the alcohol was drugged?

Chapter 11, in the part subtitled "Memorandum left by Lucy Westenra".

The entire book is on one page, but when you use the "search from page" function of your browser and type "memorandum", the hit number one is the title. There's some more elaboration on the events after the memorandum, when Seward and Van Helsing show up in the morning. I've read it all up to Van Helsing patrolling the house after Lucy's "death" just yesterday, but i don't remember any implication that Dracula was invited by anybody.

Maybe the Must Be Invited bit got waived since he had already bitten Lucy?

Also, no need to repost your question on the same page. If people can't see it at first, that's okay, but people can read one page pretty easily.

Altris provided the answer I was going to give already, but I'll add some detail.

Stoker's "Dracula", like most Victorian literature, never heard of "Magic A is Magic A", and if either Stoker or his audience had heard of it, they would likely have regarded it as nonsense, because that wasn't an expectation readers had of fantastic literature at the time. Magic is magic because it does not follow the logic of the material universe we live in—it's closer to poetry, or what we would think of as dream logic. So looking for a rational, consistent explanation of the limitations on Dracula's powers that is also consistent with Stoker's canon is futile.

But instead the supernatural follows an emotional logic, not unlike the law of sympathetic magic. Like attracts (or "activates" is perhaps a more accurate way of putting it) like.

Dracula is evil. Evil, according to the cultural understanding of the time, cannot affect someone unless they choose it. But Stoker is also, at a literary level, evoking the power of superstition (according to the experts of the time, vampires were a folk superstition of the people living in the Balkans). Part of the creepiness that Dracula evoked for the audience of the day could be summarized as "what if the superstitions of uncivilized people were real? And could affect us here in England?"

So Dracula is evil, and evil can only affect you if you let it, but superstitious "nonsense" is real. So you can choose to allow evil to affect you by accident, without understanding what you are doing (much like a folktale). So the rule (following the logic of dreams or poetry) is that you have to invite a vampire into your home before it can attack you. This effectively validates the safety of the Victorian era home while simultaneously creating a loophole that an evil entity could exploit.

Lucy, however, by the time of her last attack, is already affected (infected?) by Dracula's evil, so an invitation is redundant.

Edited by DeMarquis on Jan 16th 2022 at 4:29:51 AM

Regarding my question, wouldn't one expect that there be more than two kids if they were part of a CC team? And not so early in the morning since it's holiday season.

Another kiddie question: What might a group of 3-4 12-16 year old boys be doing during a hike? For context, it's winter, they are on a stream and without any adults around.

[Yeah, I realize these are odd questions. But I don't remember my school time well and as an autistic youth my personal experiences is not representative of how normal people behave like]

As far as i know, Stoker didn't invent Must Be Invited, and the thought that vampires need to be invited is folklore.

And he does need Renfield's invitation later to another house, though he's already been influencing him somehow for a while. It isn't really about magic as victorians understood, but internal consistency.

Somebody definitely drugged the alcohol, though, so somebody had to have been there at some point, even if the narration didn't mention anybody except Van Helsing, Seward, and Quincy coming and going. There was a vague time gap after them leaving and the attack.

Edited by Nukeli on Jan 16th 2022 at 2:17:38 PM

Not sure about in 2013, but when I was a kid, that size group wouldn't be a surprise, or concern. A group going on a hike like that would usually be trying to get somewhere, so moving pretty fast, or camping. Maybe hunting (though that would usually require supervision). Otherwise, there might be some conversation, or joking around. Maybe fishing, if the stream has fish. Given 2013, smartphones would be less common, but maybe some would have electronic entertainment of various sorts. I tended to read while I walked, but hiking is a different matter from walking on a sidewalk.

If you're asking what they'd discuss, I'm far enough away from that age (and when I was that age it was far enough away from 2013) that I really don't know. Girls, games and life?

@Nukeli: That's definitely more of a debate to have maybe in the literature subforum or something; I don't think this thread is even designed for conversations like this.

If they're specifically in some part of LA, it might raise questions, if just because seeing people jogging places is so unusual there (everything is so far apart you need to be on transit or in a car, and if they're in the San Fernando Valley bit specifically, there's too much smog some days to jog). But in practice, if it's a well-off area they'll probably be relatively unbothered if they look like they belong in the area outside of how early it is. (That is, pass as white or east-to-southeast asian.) If they're in San Diego, they'll probably be unbothered. If they're in a more rural inland county like Imperial or Riverside, they might get questioned.

Southern California is a big place.

Then relatively unbothered in general, Laguna Beach is one of the few parts of orange county that doesn't tend to aggressively racially profile. (Unless both kids are outright african american, in which case the racial profiling will almost universally happen.)

Edited by Florien on Jan 17th 2022 at 3:45:51 AM

I need to work on being more specific ... Laguna Beach and surroundings, in Orange County.