The Watchtower of Destruction: The Ferrett's Journal - A Meme I Find Kind Of Interesting
June 17th, 2012
03:12 pm

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A Meme I Find Kind Of Interesting

So Ken Schneyer posted his take on the “Lucky Seven” meme, which is as follows:

“Go to page 7 or 77 of your latest work. Read down to the seventh line and then post online the next seven lines or sentences. Then head off and tag seven more writers.”

I’m not gonna tag seven writers, because, well, I always hate tagging people.  But I like this one, so I’m gonna play – and actually, the snippet is damn near perfect as an excerpt.

That’s where the jumper had infected him; he’d been looking aimlessly at the Chrysler building as though taking a picture of it might have healed him, and I’d gone inside to get us some coffee.

Once the Toxoplasma Decumba organism wormed its way into your bloodstream, it created cascades of subtle brain chemistry changes that made you obsessed with climbing — the higher you went, the better you felt.  And when you leapt off, as your body smashed onto the pavement in the middle of a crowded lunch hour, you splattered everyone with your infected blood.  To reproduce.

Not so good in small country towns.  In rougher lands you’d find some infected way up in trees, leaping awkwardly as the postman walked by, breaking bones and tree limbs alike.  They didn’t get close to infecting anyone, but the parasite had evolved to live in a very specific environment.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

This entry has also been posted at http://theferrett.dreamwidth.org/219929.html. You can comment here, or comment there; makes no never-mind by me.

(15 shouts of denial | Tell me I'm full of it)

Comments
 
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From:soberloki
Date:June 17th, 2012 07:19 pm (UTC)
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What is this tale? I must know!

Well, OK, I guess you don't have to tell me, but... please?

Edited at 2012-06-17 07:23 pm (UTC)
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From:theferrett
Date:June 17th, 2012 07:25 pm (UTC)
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It's just a story I finished the first draft of this week. I dunno if it'll ever see print; the ending's a bit of a mess, methinks. But it's a nice idea.
From:simulated_knave
Date:June 18th, 2012 08:50 am (UTC)
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Hehe. Mess.

Because someone will totally splatter on the pavement, of course.
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From:pachamama
Date:June 17th, 2012 07:52 pm (UTC)
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In Linnaen nomenclature, the species designation is lower case, e.g. Toxoplasma decumba

This makes me want to read more.
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From:theferrett
Date:June 18th, 2012 08:05 pm (UTC)
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Thank you so much. I'm glad you stopped me from making a fool of myself!
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From:little_ribbit
Date:June 17th, 2012 08:26 pm (UTC)
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Oh awesome. I really hope I get to read this one eventually.
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From:theferrett
Date:June 18th, 2012 08:05 pm (UTC)
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If you want, I'll send you the beta.
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From:stripedsocks
Date:June 18th, 2012 05:11 am (UTC)
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I'm just dying to know how the parasite makes you want to leap off the top if climbing higher makes you feel better? And why Toxoplasma?

This is quite interesting!!
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From:cartesiandaemon
Date:June 18th, 2012 01:46 pm (UTC)
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Oh, that's great. I doubt that splattering is that biologically plausible as a transmission vector, but I'm not sure. (I think forcing people to climb is unlikely but plausible, at least to a non-biologist.) But I enjoy the concept a lot.
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From:singingdragon
Date:June 19th, 2012 12:40 am (UTC)
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There actually is a parasite that causes ants to climb to the top of grass stalks called Dicrocoelium dendriticum, or the Lancet liver fluke. It does so by taking over the nervous system. If the ant doesn't get eaten by some herbivore (the next host in the liver fluke life cycle) before the sun comes up and bakes the ant, it goes back to the colony and tries again later.

Parasites can induce surprisingly complicated behavioral changes in their hosts.

Splattering sounds moderately plausible as a vector to me. I'm not really sure what kind of volume and... blast radius? there's got to be a better term than that... of contagious fluid we're talking about.
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From:lysystratae
Date:June 18th, 2012 04:57 pm (UTC)
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Ok, you have to finish thid
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From:lysystratae
Date:June 18th, 2012 04:58 pm (UTC)
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This, not thid lol
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From:theferrett
Date:June 18th, 2012 08:05 pm (UTC)
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I already have. The question is, will I draft it to a final state?
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From:lysystratae
Date:June 18th, 2012 08:48 pm (UTC)
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Well, ok; in my head, finished = i get to read it :)
From:deep_blue_see
Date:June 20th, 2012 07:34 pm (UTC)
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As has been said... this makes me want to read the whole thing!
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