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Unable to finish this in time to post on Halloween, I have to post it the day after. In a way, it's more appropriate that way, since Bea can't really enjoy Halloween. She wears a silly costume full-time, can't get bombed at a party, and can't taste Halloween candy. In fact, after more than 13 years in her "invulnerabillity" suit she can barely remember what food tastes like.
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Bea hasn't tasted ANYTHING in over a decade. That maroon suit is just the visible manifestation of her invulnerability. It's actually a full-body shield, skin tight, and it never comes off.
Ever.
Yes, Never-Ever.
It even extends into her mouth and throat. She can eat if she wants, but the food will never touch her body. Sandwiches are like flavorless mush felt dimly through a screen, Even boiling hot coffee poured town the throat is only the barest sensation of 'warm.' She has gained invulnerability, but lost her sense of taste and smell, and her sense of touch is all but gone due to the 'protection' of the suit.
And yes, the suit never goes away, never comes off, never opens up anywhere, not even to use the facilities, (no need anyway, the suit provides nourishment directly into the bloodstream, and waste products are shunted off to subspace), not even for a boyfriend, not even for, um, 'self attention.'
I'm surprised she can even keep her sanity after so long, if I had been 'gifted' with invulnerability at such a cost, I would probably find myself swinging from a noose before too long. But then that would get boring, since the suit protects from broken necks and asphyxiation.
Ever.
Yes, Never-Ever.
It even extends into her mouth and throat. She can eat if she wants, but the food will never touch her body. Sandwiches are like flavorless mush felt dimly through a screen, Even boiling hot coffee poured town the throat is only the barest sensation of 'warm.' She has gained invulnerability, but lost her sense of taste and smell, and her sense of touch is all but gone due to the 'protection' of the suit.
And yes, the suit never goes away, never comes off, never opens up anywhere, not even to use the facilities, (no need anyway, the suit provides nourishment directly into the bloodstream, and waste products are shunted off to subspace), not even for a boyfriend, not even for, um, 'self attention.'
I'm surprised she can even keep her sanity after so long, if I had been 'gifted' with invulnerability at such a cost, I would probably find myself swinging from a noose before too long. But then that would get boring, since the suit protects from broken necks and asphyxiation.
I'll surrender the point on meat, despite the fact that I love beef but hate veal; however calling Synesthesia people 'flukes of nature' is a bit offensive, but more to the point it's a rather biased point of view. What makes one set of neurological wiring superior to another, as long as both are able to function in society?
Remember, the 'survival of the fittest' argument about nature does not favor the strongest, or the fastest, but the one most able to adapt to their environment, or to adapt their environment to themselves. After all, some synesthetes have a much better ability in 'speed coding' (spotting if a string of numbers or characters match another string), something very useful for someone like a UPS sorter (Yes, despite all the barcodes and 2D codes on the labels, UPS still sorts packages my hand, by manually reading the zip code).
This looks like it will turn into an interesting debate.
Remember, the 'survival of the fittest' argument about nature does not favor the strongest, or the fastest, but the one most able to adapt to their environment, or to adapt their environment to themselves. After all, some synesthetes have a much better ability in 'speed coding' (spotting if a string of numbers or characters match another string), something very useful for someone like a UPS sorter (Yes, despite all the barcodes and 2D codes on the labels, UPS still sorts packages my hand, by manually reading the zip code).
This looks like it will turn into an interesting debate.
From what I've read on synesthesia in Scientific American, it isn't exactly so that people taste apple pie as blue, or hear The Sound of Music as grapes, potatoes, pepper, etc.
The article I read said it was more that people with the disorder strongly associated one sense with another, so that if they saw the number two in print, or heard the word, they always thought of red -- but they also knew they were reading the word two. This sometimes had benefits -- it might make remembering a phone number easier, for instance. Other times it was a nuisance, by making it harder to pick coloured numbers out of a deck of cards, say. You're looking for the six of hearts, but whenever you see six you think yellow, so are apt to miss the *red* six.
Anyway, that's what the article seemed to be saying. It was in SA only a year or two ago.
The article I read said it was more that people with the disorder strongly associated one sense with another, so that if they saw the number two in print, or heard the word, they always thought of red -- but they also knew they were reading the word two. This sometimes had benefits -- it might make remembering a phone number easier, for instance. Other times it was a nuisance, by making it harder to pick coloured numbers out of a deck of cards, say. You're looking for the six of hearts, but whenever you see six you think yellow, so are apt to miss the *red* six.
Anyway, that's what the article seemed to be saying. It was in SA only a year or two ago.
You can make two different things taste the same... but it's difficult. There's a whole science involved, and an whole industry, trying to make potato chips taste like pheasant-under-glass, baked Alaska or Acapulco Gold. About the most successful job was making soluable vegetable oils taste like butter.
WILDA**ED SPECULATION: At least some sound and light gets through (even if only replicated by the suit), although I'd expect that there would be some filtering done. Anything approaching harmful levels getting reduced, epilepsy-inducing strobes disrupted, hurtful frequencies countered, that sort of thing. The telepathy is a bigger question, though. It would be an unpleasant discovery to learn she was immune to telepathy, as it would mean she couldn't even be mentally sent the sensations she used to enjoy.
Possibly when I'm retired I can explore these issues... assuming I can find a publisher who offers a better deal. You can easy find one who will publish the book and take all of whatever small profit it makes, and gives you 30 copies, maybe, to try to sell yourself.
"Protects her from going mad"? Now THAT is a horrifying thought, to 'protect' from madness, the suit would need to 'readjust' the mind when it heads in that direction. If it's 'protecting her from madness,' is she really in control of herself? is she really even her? If her mind is being constantly 'tweaked' by the suit, she's little more than a meat puppet, a biological Pinocchio.
The pandimensional doohickies seemed to be on her side, they rescued her from certain death after all. If the suit is tweaking her wetware, it would probably be specific to anything that might harm her mind, nothing more. Still, it does imply at least a degree of mind control, doesn't it? Biological control too, if it "protects" her from growing old. Anyway, the suit itself with all the "shielding" it gives her makes her somewhat less than human... lapine... whatever, which I take it was the whole point of the series.
FTM, those doohickies must not have really thought that suit through. It's defenses could have been intelligently selective, letting anything harmless touch her, instead of just excluding everything. In fact it does let light and sound through, since she can see and hear... They did not spend nearly long enough thinking about the design specs. Silly pandimensional doohickies!
FTM, those doohickies must not have really thought that suit through. It's defenses could have been intelligently selective, letting anything harmless touch her, instead of just excluding everything. In fact it does let light and sound through, since she can see and hear... They did not spend nearly long enough thinking about the design specs. Silly pandimensional doohickies!
Yes, the pandimentional whatisits 'seemed' to be on her side, based on our limited understanding of them, but then again, perhaps they simply don't quite understand lower-dimensional beings, and are using Bea as a free-roaming experiment.
Let's use a Flatland example. Say we are looking over Flatland, and decide to talk to a triangle that has just been attacked by squares, all because it wanted to be with a cute circle. We decide to help out my moving the triangle in the mythical 'Up' direction, and set it down right next to the circle. We are used to the idea of 'stacking' items, so we aren't concerned when we put the triangle down so it overlaps the circle slightly, we assume it would be like appearing out of thin air and landing in the triangle's 'lap.' However, since Flatland lacks a third dimension, what we have done is destroy the triangle and the circle, replacing them with some weird mutant creature.
Let's use a Flatland example. Say we are looking over Flatland, and decide to talk to a triangle that has just been attacked by squares, all because it wanted to be with a cute circle. We decide to help out my moving the triangle in the mythical 'Up' direction, and set it down right next to the circle. We are used to the idea of 'stacking' items, so we aren't concerned when we put the triangle down so it overlaps the circle slightly, we assume it would be like appearing out of thin air and landing in the triangle's 'lap.' However, since Flatland lacks a third dimension, what we have done is destroy the triangle and the circle, replacing them with some weird mutant creature.
In fact, it occurred to me (after clicking "Add Reply") that they might be deliberately mucking about with her to see how she reacts. Sadly, only Steve Gallacci knows for sure -- and possibly Taral, I don't know how much of the story arch Steve gave him, or had actually planned. I vaguely recall Taral mentioning somewhere what happened to the series; maybe if he reads this he'll point to it.
Myself, I doubt that the Beings took Bea's mental state into consideration, or they probably wouldn't have allowed the suit to shut out ordinary senses like taste and touch. However, Bea is an unusually stable personallity, whose main virtue is common sense. She was never the type to enjoy herself when there was something to do. "Hmm... I could listen to Neil Sedakta on the stereo or clean up Dorothy's mess in the bathroom. No contest... where's the Bon Ami?"
Still, thirteen years is a long time to stay sane. Lucky she had something else to do in all that time. But just what she's beeing doing is my little secret... and hers.
Still, thirteen years is a long time to stay sane. Lucky she had something else to do in all that time. But just what she's beeing doing is my little secret... and hers.
That reminds me of Robocop. Do you remember when they tried to create another Robocop staring from a cop and both the times their second model went insane and killed himself? And then they found out that it worked with Murphy just because he had an extreme sense of duty.
So then they decided to use a criminal (Oh! What a great idea!) because he might like the idea of being immortal and they ended up creating a monster.
So then they decided to use a criminal (Oh! What a great idea!) because he might like the idea of being immortal and they ended up creating a monster.
That was the second or third Robocop movie, wasn't it? I recall the video being shown to company execs of one of the "new" robocops doing a 360 degree turn-around, snapping his own back. Ugh. And didn't the other turn his guns on the spectators?
The later is relevant because the US army is, in fact, trying out various kinds of "robots" for the battle field, and one of the models did indeed train its weapons on the spectators. But the brass was a little smarter than the guys in the movies -- the robot's guns weren't loaded.
The later is relevant because the US army is, in fact, trying out various kinds of "robots" for the battle field, and one of the models did indeed train its weapons on the spectators. But the brass was a little smarter than the guys in the movies -- the robot's guns weren't loaded.
We more or less share rights, though there is no formal agreement. Steve has pretty much left all decisions to me and I doubt would object if I resurreced the character. For my part, I insisted the last publisher refer to Bea as "Steve Gallacci's BEATRIX FARMER" -- "by Taral Wayne." I suspect trouble might come if one or the other of us sold rights to Disney or Nickelodeon and didn't consult the other, but A) it will never happen, and B) I hope both of us have more sense of decency than that.
It didn't even outsell... well, never mind. But there was the weakness of the furry genre in a nutshell. Most of the really best stuff that had some hope of an audience outside of the fandom -- Mary Hanson Roberts' "Here Comes a Candle," Mike Kazallah's "The Suit," and Lisa Dowling's "Raccoons" -- never sold well.
The furries could be counted on buying Associated Student Bodies, though, and Shanda, so the publishers concentrated on that sort of thing. They got their 2,000 to 3,000 readers, but ended any hope of a wider audience completely.
The furries could be counted on buying Associated Student Bodies, though, and Shanda, so the publishers concentrated on that sort of thing. They got their 2,000 to 3,000 readers, but ended any hope of a wider audience completely.
Beatrix may have needed advertising support that it never got -- otherwise it might have gotten the attention it needed if it had lasted 20 issues. But I couldn't have done that much work for so little return.
As for advertising, the publishers were all shoestring outfits that only advertised in their own comics, or in furry con program books. But that's only preaching to the converted. When I was at Vision Comics, they spent money on ads in the Diamond distribution catalog, but I had issues with how they did it. I think they spent a lot of money the wrong way and on the wrong titles. Vision had a real talent for shooting themselves in the foot.
As for advertising, the publishers were all shoestring outfits that only advertised in their own comics, or in furry con program books. But that's only preaching to the converted. When I was at Vision Comics, they spent money on ads in the Diamond distribution catalog, but I had issues with how they did it. I think they spent a lot of money the wrong way and on the wrong titles. Vision had a real talent for shooting themselves in the foot.
She can taste food and she can't have sex, nor even masturbation
Did they realize how horrible nasty thing they have done to her?
Without phisical gratifications, and without having to worry about death it's only a matter of time before Bea will decide to join the dark side. But I guess those extradimensional bitches don't care about that
Did they realize how horrible nasty thing they have done to her?
Without phisical gratifications, and without having to worry about death it's only a matter of time before Bea will decide to join the dark side. But I guess those extradimensional bitches don't care about that
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