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May. 15th, 2023 06:12 pma server i'm in was chatting somewhat recently about a character who's an academic/normally curious about science being seemingly uneasy about checking out the limits of his [ill-gotten-body-horror-y-new-body-for-spoiler-reasons].
original comment by me below, lightly edited to be more readable and less chat speak:
original comment by me below, lightly edited to be more readable and less chat speak:
> honestly i get it, the not wanting to inspect body horror-adjacent stuff too closely, and i'm pretty scientifically curious as a default. it's a little different when it's yourself and the sheer act of poking around too much might Break Yer Body. :P the audiologist who checks up on my cochlear implant (CI) tells me there's two distinct types of people who get and respond to the CI:
> 1) people who get it early on (before how you learn to talk) and do NOT want to upgrade, or change it any little more than they absolutely have to. no bluetooth stuff, no nothin'. don't poke the thing, pretend it's like your usual ear. (because this slice of person tends to rely on it for every waking hour.) this also possibly has a large overlap with the slice of people who are very aware about IT things and are extremely skeptical of how easily stuff in general can break if you fuzz with it enough. you know that meme about IT professionals having a loaded gun by their printers? anyway, the character above we were talking about is this category.
> 2) middle-aged-to-elderly people who get it later on who gradually lost their hearing and who treat it like their new smartphone. these people want all the new bells and whistles and gizmos and treat it as an optional advanced hearing aid rather than something genuinely required for day to day living, and often take it off for a substantial number of hours a day.
(Neither is better or worse, by the way! It's only two different reactions to a new body transformation, with interesting cultural and social overlaps.)
for a tangential compare-and-contrast read with somebody else's experiences, this also felt like a brutally honest (and refreshing) comment on an upper-arm amputee's thoughts on prosthesis in fiction. > 1) people who get it early on (before how you learn to talk) and do NOT want to upgrade, or change it any little more than they absolutely have to. no bluetooth stuff, no nothin'. don't poke the thing, pretend it's like your usual ear. (because this slice of person tends to rely on it for every waking hour.) this also possibly has a large overlap with the slice of people who are very aware about IT things and are extremely skeptical of how easily stuff in general can break if you fuzz with it enough. you know that meme about IT professionals having a loaded gun by their printers? anyway, the character above we were talking about is this category.
> 2) middle-aged-to-elderly people who get it later on who gradually lost their hearing and who treat it like their new smartphone. these people want all the new bells and whistles and gizmos and treat it as an optional advanced hearing aid rather than something genuinely required for day to day living, and often take it off for a substantial number of hours a day.
(Neither is better or worse, by the way! It's only two different reactions to a new body transformation, with interesting cultural and social overlaps.)
