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Ivy
Jan 23, 2010 11:47:01 GMT -5
Post by customdesigned on Jan 23, 2010 11:47:01 GMT -5
Another thought about tele-kinesis. For humans, muscles are extremely important. They don't just provide internal and external motive force, but provide energy for other things. For instance, the immune system depends on muscle to power its army and produce the chemical "bombs" white cells unleash on intruders. Muscles have the ability to store ATP, and release its energy in larger quantities than other body parts. They are the bodies "dilithium crystals". When muscles atrophy, we become more disease prone, and the brain operates less efficiently as well.
For this reason, I would think that any real tele-kinesis would depend on muscles to generate the required energy - although the brain may be essential for controlling the process. So the depiction of Ivy as barely having the strength to walk, but having lots of tele-kinetic energy is disturbing my suspension of disbelief.
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Ivy
Jan 23, 2010 12:35:10 GMT -5
Post by swankivy on Jan 23, 2010 12:35:10 GMT -5
I don't know if it's quite accurate to say she "barely has the strength to walk," but it's definitely true that she doesn't have the dexterity and balance to do so yet. It's interesting that you mention the muscles being important in this context, though--her relative muscle weakness does affect her quite a lot (especially as she gets older). Children usually are assisted in their ability to be potty-trained, for instance, once they start using related muscles in walking. Though it probably won't be very apparent in the comic itself since she isn't acutely aware of it, Ivy takes a ridiculous amount of time to learn to walk properly, and has a similarly long process of potty-training. (She's VERY prone to bed-wetting long past the point where it would be normal.) Ivy DOES marginally use her muscles, so they don't atrophy to the point that they would if she were physically incapacitated or disabled or something like that. It's just that as soon as any appreciable effort is involved, she tends to give herself a boost. Even after she can walk like a normal person, she tends toward using her energy to balance, and is incapable of even simple things like walking backwards or spinning in a circle without telekinetic assistance. And of course she has tremendous dexterity issues if she doesn't cheat. (You should see her handwriting and her art from when she's older. It's pretty funny.) Regarding your difficulty with the suspension of disbelief, I'd say there are quite a lot of mysteries regarding her ability that suggest a rather more fantastic explanation than we might be used to. In addition to not appearing to depend on her muscles, this is an invisible, intangible force that is capable of going through walls. It's connected enough to her that she can move and sense things outside her body, but it doesn't operate by the usual parameters (i.e., the nervous system, with its closed relationship with the body and its ability to relay messages through neurons with neurotransmitters). In short, we've got more to worry about here than whether she should have the strength to do what she can. And despite being the author, I know about as much as she does about how her ability works. . . .
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Ivy
Jan 23, 2010 15:37:25 GMT -5
Post by SHO! on Jan 23, 2010 15:37:25 GMT -5
Regarding your difficulty with the suspension of disbelief, I'd say there are quite a lot of mysteries regarding her ability that suggest a rather more fantastic explanation than we might be used to. Tell me about it. She lifts people (and morphable things like water) or pins them against things, but where are the pressure points? Normally, if something is holding you in place then you feel pressures at the points of contact where you and/or gravity are resisting the restrictive force. In other words, if you're being held up by a harness then you are very aware of your weight where the harness is digging in to you. In a car crash, where your body wants to continue moving in the direction the car was going before the crash, the seat belt and airbags push hard into your flesh. And if someone is trying to pull you off the jungle gym by your ankles and you don't want to go, you feel the main force where their hands grip your ankles and where your hands hold the bars. However, with Amanda it seems like people are moved and pushed but without a "presence" to discern exactly where from. In fact, though Amanda's force is very adamant in holding them where she wants, they seem to still be able to move around, wiggle, speak, breathe, etc. without any new difficulty. When she lifts water it forms a sphere as if floating in weightlessness, but the way other people and objects react to being moved by her ability makes it seem unlikely that she is forming a bubble of gravity negation around the person/object and that there is something else more complex happening.
And don't get me started on the whole being able to grab something out of boiling water but not really feeling the water unless she moves her attention on manipulating it. Although, after I typed that I realize that it's probably part of the same phenomenon of manipulating through glass without interference.
At first I thought maybe her power was similar to the "invisible arms" of the Diclonius creatures from Elfen lied (since Amanda can feel tactile sensations through her power) but adding in all of these other factors it makes me want to really rethink that.
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Ivy
Jan 23, 2010 17:56:31 GMT -5
Post by swankivy on Jan 23, 2010 17:56:31 GMT -5
In fact, though Amanda's force is very adamant in holding them where she wants, they seem to still be able to move around, wiggle, speak, breathe, etc. without any new difficulty. Actually, while this is usually true, it doesn't have to be. A person she's moving will very rarely be able to tell how she is holding them (unless she does it on purpose, like deliberately levitating their feet or something), but she has a sort of automatic understanding of how to grip things around the parts that seem sturdiest to her, and if she picks up a person she usually lifts the middle of them (with some exceptions). They generally do feel like they're just "floating" though, and would only really notice where they were being "anchored" if they did a bit of experimentation and found what bits they couldn't move. She CAN (but usually doesn't) immobilize a person entirely, though I don't recall her ever even attempting to stop a person from breathing. (She could, though. And she's been known to squeeze pretty tight in certain situations, at which point they do have an awareness of where they're getting squished.) They can "wiggle" in a limited fashion, depending on how tightly she is holding on. Usually there's plenty of room for that, definitely--but they wouldn't be able to "wiggle" into a different position if they were restricted from moving in that direction. Not unless she gleaned by their movement attempts what they wanted to do and felt like letting them. (That happens a lot too, actually. Once she decides she wants other people to be comfortable flying with her, that is.) When she lifts water it forms a sphere as if floating in weightlessness [ . . . ] And don't get me started on the whole being able to grab something out of boiling water but not really feeling the water unless she moves her attention on manipulating it. Aw. All stuff nobody's seen in the comic yet, SHO! No fair! Eyes flashing diabolically, the webcomic author says, "He knows too much. . . . "
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Ivy
Jan 23, 2010 23:21:10 GMT -5
Post by SHO! on Jan 23, 2010 23:21:10 GMT -5
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Ivy
May 4, 2010 15:51:22 GMT -5
Post by navian on May 4, 2010 15:51:22 GMT -5
Hey! Stuff about tastebuds! You know, the change in preference as we get older can be traced more easily to evolutionary reasons than to more general developmental issues, children need a lot of energy and they need it delivered efficiently. It's a lot harder for a child to take on a vegan diet plan than an adult and still avoid stunting, but that's a protein thing.
As far as candy goes, not only do children get a lot more mileage out of their sweets and have more reason to want to avoid the tough-to-digest stuff like leafy greens, but adults have their dental health to worry about and are a lot better at coping with things that are less palatable, having built up their immune systems already, having completed their growth and having enough life experience to know what is edible and what is toxic.
Ivy's pretty far from needing to worry about that, though, so getting back on topic, while there's a lot of talk about what her powers might do for her muscle strength or dexterity, I'm wondering about her bones and circulatory system! She's a zero-G baby most of the time... sort of. Still, without the weight on her, that's gotta be weird for her bones!
Normally our bones are constantly rebuilding themselves in response to stress, if someone's bones aren't put under stress they'll remain soft, low density and flexible forever... probably. It hasn't been tested to that extreme as far as I know, but who knows? Ivy's an oddity as it is, though, so presumably her powers come with all required secondary powers required to maintain her health and well-being. It's just like how speedster superheroes need to be able to control their movements and survive the stress, among a million other crazy things they do. Granted, a few developmental problems is pretty minor compared to a guy's legs running off of him or him turning himself into spaghetti or cream cheese when he turns on a street corner, but I'd say that's because telekinesis is a way cooler power than whatchamacallit thing.
Getting back off topic again, sweet tastes have been out of vogue for me for a while. I think it's because eating lots of sugar makes me ill. It should! Though I'm generally more sensitive to, well, sensations in general than most people. I don't like bitter tastes any more than before, though, so I'm eating... buttery garlic rice with cayenne pepper in it. Mmm. Oww.
Aaaand back on topic again. I like the idea of how her spatial sense works, it's pretty familiar even if the powers with it aren't. Did you know that the human brain likes to extend its perceptions to the tools we use? Whether you're operating a pincher device or a robotic arm in the next room, if you're manipulating objects remotely your brain sets it up so it feels like it's right there. I can definitely imagine how Ivy feels when she does that, though I can also imaging getting pretty disoriented when trying to swap back to my immediate manipulators! It's a good thing she doesn't really need to use her hands, then, huh?
One last thing for this message. On the subject of her 'strength', it's... just outright impossible for her body to contain enough energy to do anything of the things she does, so what's the big idea with trying to link her capacity for it to her physical development? It's like a bunch of physics loopholes she can manipulate with her brain, and we all know how draining that can be, right? Ha ha... Well, whether it requires physical manipulation or no, arranging objects in space can be a real drain on the brain especially when the tasks are largely repetitive. (I worked at a store arranging objects on shelves for a while. Phew! Excitement!)
Since it's a mental ability, I like the idea of it working that way, and I also like to think about the kind of brain development that goes into it. I think I've got a pretty good sense in those areas, I'm always making mental maps and judging distances... I have to, I have no depth perception! My eyes don't cooperate. Anyway, though I can't actually move objects like Ivy can, I can definitely track and focus on them in space and use a combination of senses to keep trying to recalibrate my awareness of their position, and /that/ is where I imagine Ivy's real talent comes in, and makes her powers work for her.
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Ivy
May 8, 2010 17:28:25 GMT -5
Post by swankivy on May 8, 2010 17:28:25 GMT -5
while there's a lot of talk about what her powers might do for her muscle strength or dexterity, I'm wondering about her bones and circulatory system! She's a zero-G baby most of the time... sort of. Still, without the weight on her, that's gotta be weird for her bones! I wouldn't say she's in zero-G actually. She does fly a lot, but gravity is still applying itself to her. She isn't floating in a vacuum or anything, and her heart still has to pump blood normally. Normally our bones are constantly rebuilding themselves in response to stress, if someone's bones aren't put under stress they'll remain soft, low density and flexible forever... probably. It hasn't been tested to that extreme as far as I know, but who knows? That's interesting--how would that affect someone, in your experience, if they grew to an adult with notably less stress on their bones? Hopefully this isn't a spoiler or anything, but Ivy as a late teen does have some physical anomalies besides the ones that are already apparent, and it has been noticed by many people that she is unusually flexible. Ivy's an oddity as it is, though, so presumably her powers come with all required secondary powers required to maintain her health and well-being. Actually I'm not sure about that. She's just a baby and you can't tell yet, but she is growing up in a situation where anything that takes appreciable effort will be taken care of by her powers and not her muscles, so there are obvious side effects. She weighs much less than she should due to low muscle weight (actually, when she's an adult she and I weigh about the same, despite her being a foot taller), and sometimes people who don't know her think she is sick or anorexic because of how little meat she has on her bones, so to speak. I like the idea of how her spatial sense works, it's pretty familiar even if the powers with it aren't. Did you know that the human brain likes to extend its perceptions to the tools we use? That's cool. Though in her case it's decidedly an extra sense (well, it's an alternate way by which to gather tactile feedback, I guess). When she remotely handles objects, the perceptions aren't just "extended" the way you're talking about above. She could do it blindly, and could discern what she's handling without any other senses helping her figure it out. (In fact, it kinda annoys her when people suggest she's imagining the feedback--a lot of people think it's really odd and don't want to think she really can, for some reason--and as a teenager she actually did a test to prove it once, involving being able to correctly report the temperature of three identical jars filled with cold, lukewarm, and hot water, discerning which was which just by lifting them from across the room.) On the subject of her 'strength', it's... just outright impossible for her body to contain enough energy to do anything of the things she does, so what's the big idea with trying to link her capacity for it to her physical development? Yeah, it's definitely got pretty much nothing to do with her body. It does seem to be sorta connected to her emotions (understandably), but as far as strength goes she isn't weaker when her body is weaker. Lifting weights wouldn't make her energy stronger, heh. And once when she was feeling sick and very weak, her energy didn't decrease at all, which was very handy when she needed to stay in bed to recuperate. Well, whether it requires physical manipulation or no, arranging objects in space can be a real drain on the brain especially when the tasks are largely repetitive. Interesting that you say that. In Ivy's story, the first thing that ever made her feel like she overused her energy involved a very repetitive task that she did for an extended period.
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Ivy
May 14, 2010 23:43:42 GMT -5
Post by SHO! on May 14, 2010 23:43:42 GMT -5
One last thing for this message. On the subject of her 'strength', it's... just outright impossible for her body to contain enough energy to do anything of the things she does, so what's the big idea with trying to link her capacity for it to her physical development? I missed this comment the first time around. What exactly are the physical laws you're basing this "fact" on? From what I understand (in this universe at least, and the physics of the Negative One universe don't seem to be all that different) a minuscule amount of matter has the potential to release vast amounts of energy. You have no idea what's going on inside Amanda's body (or even in a pocket dimension with which her will could possibly be linked, sapping energy, similar to the "Speed Force" of the DC universe). For all we know every cup of applesauce or "chikka nugget" she eats could be dropping into a miniature fusion reactor somewhere inside her odd physiology. Perhaps her eyes and ears being so large are a side effect of the extra dimensional white hole she taps into to channel the energy to move cars with her mind.
So exactly how is it you know so much to squash my "big idea" of what has never been explained by the author in a piece of speculative fiction with such "matter-of-fact" authority?
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Ivy
May 15, 2010 0:03:20 GMT -5
Post by swankivy on May 15, 2010 0:03:20 GMT -5
So exactly how is it you know so much to squash my "big idea" of what has never been explained by the author in a piece of speculative fiction with such "matter-of-fact" authority? For the record, I see no squashing of anything you said . . . I see that customdesigned seemed skeptical about telekinesis of Ivy's caliber being linked to a tiny and fairly weak body, and navian's post appears to be a reply to that. Did you post something that proposes Ivy's telekinesis needs to be linked to her physical maturity? I don't see anything in your speculation that's being shot down by this comment. It's absolutely true that no information has been given about HOW her power is able to work, though we're learning what it can do and under what circumstances it performs. It could certainly be something that has a fantastic-sounding explanation and might not seem logical, but I don't know what the explanation is. :/
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Ivy
May 15, 2010 1:14:34 GMT -5
Post by SHO! on May 15, 2010 1:14:34 GMT -5
For the record, I see no squashing of anything you said . . . I see that customdesigned seemed skeptical about telekinesis of Ivy's caliber being linked to a tiny and fairly weak body, and navian's post appears to be a reply to that. Did you post something that proposes Ivy's telekinesis needs to be linked to her physical maturity? I don't see anything in your speculation that's being shot down by this comment. You know what? You're right, Navian wasn't shooting down any of my [expressed] opinions (from this thread at least). I guess when people start throwing around terms like "what's the big idea..." and "outright impossible" with authority it digs at me to immediately question it and possibly even be somewhat offended by it.
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Ivy
May 15, 2010 1:40:46 GMT -5
Post by swankivy on May 15, 2010 1:40:46 GMT -5
You know what? You're right, Navian wasn't shooting down any of my [expressed] opinions (from this thread at least). Ah, okay, 'cause I was gonna say, I must've been missing something. . . . ;D I guess when people start throwing around terms like "what's the big idea..." and "outright impossible" with authority it digs at me to immediately question it and possibly even be somewhat offended by it. Ah okay. I didn't see it in the same light (as being a finger in anyone's face about the established reality of this comic's universe), so I just took it as if it was basically an agreement with what I expressed above (where I addressed customdesigned's difficulty with suspension of disbelief by confirming that Ivy's powers don't depend on the power of her body). I will say for the record that since there is no established "way that telekinesis works" on Ivy's scale as far as we know, it'd be premature to assume something's impossible. She's doing something that's impossible based on our biological and physical understanding of the brain, after all. Sensations and interactions use the body as a middleman, making use of neurotransmitters, and since obviously by our understanding neurotransmitters can't operate outside the body without a framework, it should be impossible for Ivy to move or feel something outside her body. Something else has to be happening, though it's curious that the feedback she can gather remotely is more or less indistinguishable from the same sort of information she'd gather through any of her body parts that can pick up tactile sensations. I have no idea how it works, but yes, folks, do keep in mind this is speculative fiction!
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Ivy
May 15, 2010 1:48:12 GMT -5
Post by SHO! on May 15, 2010 1:48:12 GMT -5
I will say for the record that since there is no established "way that telekinesis works" on Ivy's scale as far as we know, it'd be premature to assume something's impossible. She's doing something that's impossible based on our biological and physical understanding of the brain, after all. Sensations and interactions use the body as a middleman, making use of neurotransmitters, and since obviously by our understanding neurotransmitters can't operate outside the body without a framework, it should be impossible for Ivy to move or feel something outside her body. Something else has to be happening, though it's curious that the feedback she can gather remotely is more or less indistinguishable from the same sort of information she'd gather through any of her body parts that can pick up tactile sensations. I have no idea how it works, but yes, folks, do keep in mind this is speculative fiction! Hmm, must be Diclonious arms. That changeling is Elfen, and she Lied.
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