I am Bob.
First off. I, Bob, am not the defender of reality. Reality is ... reality. It can defend itself perfectly well. I actually like the strange and unknown, provided they are reality compliant. What people DO often do, with scifi, fantasy, and otherwise outlandish plots, is imagine escaping reality. When people propose powerful new modifications to reality, then use them simply as magical wish fulfillment, it almost causes me physical pain. So I shield my eyes and ignore it. Or sometimes I step in and point out some of those messy logical implications that reality would impose.
Second. I, Bob, am not boring. I may be perceived as boring, but, ... this probably requires an example. See, here's some code I wrote, it took about a year to reach it:
Cosmos.prototype.step8 = function(moon)
{
var v = moon.v; var oa = moon.oa; var head = moon.head; var a = oa[head];
var temp = new Point(a.x, a.y, a.z); temp.add(oa[head - 7]);
v.copy(temp); v.scale(22081.0);
temp.copy(oa[head - 6]); temp.add(oa[head - 1]); v.addCP(-7337.0, temp);
temp.copy(oa[head - 5]); temp.add(oa[head - 2]); v.addCP(45765.0, temp);
temp.copy(oa[head - 4]); temp.add(oa[head - 3]); v.addCP(-29.0, temp);
v.scale(1.0 / 15120.0); v.add(moon.ov[head - 7]); moon.p.add(v);
}
|
Now, is that boring? Well certainly it is, it's completely incomprehensible, tons of magic constants, just shuts the mind right down. But if you knew it was a time-reversible multistep method for gravitational simulation ... wait, that's still boring incomprehensible gobbledigook, isn't it? OK what if I use it to show the longterm resonant behavior of Pluto and Neptune? Still no dice, huh? Fine, fine, I admit it, I'm boring. I see what I'm doing and why and I don't care if anybody else does. I start at boring and then dig deeper, reaching hitherto unknown depths of boringness.
Third. Bobs are always seen as thinking they're important, even though they're the epitome of normal. Even the name "Bob" means "Bright Fame", a joke on their hopelessly wrong self-importance. Well, I don't think I'm important. Wait. No. Actually I do. But just a little. I mean it's going to take a Bob to spend a year learning to accurately simulate the resonance of Neptune and Pluto without wandering away due to boredom first. Hum. OK maybe they've got a point there.
So, when I complete the bloodcurdling adventure of driving home from work and have survived the bizarre yet somehow predictable interactions of the other humans I live around, I go to writingprompts. I upvote every prompt I see that doesn't require the supernatural. I write stories about opening sticks of gum. Or about a squirrel and a birdfeeder. Or about a functional family sitting around on a Sunday evening. And what I try to capture is the intricate detail of the normal. I try to simulate the world correctly, and if that's boring, I don't care. I see that detail all the time, but I want others to see it too. I'd like to read about others seeing details that I've missed. But others, often, don't.
When I read of fantasy worlds with dragons and magic, and they're SIMPLER than normal reality ... I don't know. I pull a thread here, I poke an implication there. So, please forgive me. I'm not trying to make your worlds fall apart into oblivion. I'd like them to work. But, y'know, I'd like them to WORK. If I seem to be pulling fantasy down to normalcy, well, from where I sit, I'm trying to pull it UP to normalcy. Because that everyday normal around you? It's really amazing.
This was in response to a prompt on reddit.com r/WritingPrompts, "You are the ultimate defender against the strange and unknown: You are Bob. A man so boring that scifi, fantasy and otherwise outlandish plots actively fall apart into oblivion as reality conforms itself to normalcy around you.".