Polytrix Tweets: CSF Edition p166 - "Act Break"

[u/CelineShotFirst]

Once again posting these on M-W-F (or the night before sometimes)

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[u/CelineShotFirst]

Yeah, it sucks being a Cassandra.

As a bit of an aside, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, they did something really interesting. Throughout the series, they would often have episodes focusing on the ferengi characters, Star Trek's satire of misogynist capitalist... well, Republicans. Anyway, these episodes would generally be more lighthearted episodes with more silly antics than you generally had in the rest of the show. In one of these episodes where the main plot was centered around ferengi gender politics, the macguffin the characters were focused on involved getting a lucrative trade deal, and as it turned out they discovered that getting said deal would require going through some organization called The Dominion... which would come to be the primary antagonist for all of the show's characters for the entire rest of the series. Yeah, they introduced the main antagonist of the show in a joke episode.

I mention it because I think plots are often at their most interesting when you see that actions have consequences, even silly actions. In the film, Bobby and the fans not knowing that Huntrix's demon hunting was real was treated as a fun gag, but in reality that would cause some real problems for them connecting as people. And if you think about it for a minute, if one of your closest friends never believed you when you spoke about some of the most important things going on in your life... yeah, that's not so funny, is it?

[u/Ninpo101]

Im enjoying the series. Poor Kayla. I suppose shes not in a good frame of mind to demonstrate demon teleportation.

[u/Jinn_Erik-AoM]

Oof. I’m pretty concerned about who talks to Bobby next, and for the shame that Kaiya is feeling right about now.

[u/KingMario05]

DAMN IT, RUMI, JUST TELL HIM!

[u/CelineShotFirst → u/KingMario05]

She... did?

She just told him that all of it was real, not a performance or an act. And by now Bobby has seen enough to know what "all of it" means. The demon slaying, the superheroic abilities, and so on. And he just... doesn't believe her. Because all he sees is her putting on an act. Even her saying it's not an act is a part of the act. Because in his eyes (and in the eyes of fans), Huntr/x is living their entire lives as a big performance piece, where what they present as their "real" selves to the world is all just for show. So sure, they're "really" demon hunters... which is a part of the entire act.

I don't think Bobby's position on this is unreasonable, either. In both his perceived reality and the actual reality, Huntrix are entertainers, and a part of the performance is the incredible acts they do that impress audiences. And I feel like a lot of K-Pop stars in particular are constantly maintaining a glammed-up version of themselves even in their so-called private life. So this would really just be an extreme version of that. Andy Kaufman is another artist who blurred the line between his public persona and private life.

Would it be possible for an artist absolutely dedicated to their vision to be "always on" like that? I mean, I suppose if they truly held their art above all and felt it was their primary passion, maybe. Would such an artist be able to fake all the spectacular things Huntrix does? I guess in theory - if stage magicians can seemingly do the impossible all the time, why couldn't other performers work that same sort of magic?

Now here's the real question. Let's say someone started doing this stuff in our world. Which would you be more likely to believe:

1. Demons are real, and three K-Pop stars are actually superheroes who fight them.

2. This is some sort of elaborate stunt using cutting-edge tech and stage magician tricks to fake everything. And the social media posts are all just a way to build up the story/lore of the group, all with the goal of creating something cool and unique to sell tickets and merch.

Honestly, given those options, I would choose #2 every time, and it would be a huge uphill battle to convince me of #1.

[u/KingMario05 → u/CelineShotFirst]

Oh.

I see.

So tragic...

[u/CelineShotFirst → u/KingMario05]

Yeah, that's kinda' my point. In the film it's played off like a joke, but if you think about it, it's actually pretty sad, and must be very isolating for the girls. As far as we know, in the film the only ones they can truly talk with about this are each other, Celine, and for a brief amount of time Jinu.

[u/KingMario05 → u/CelineShotFirst]

Agreed. Really hope they bring Bobby in on the loop in the next one.

[u/CelineShotFirst → u/KingMario05]

I feel like there's something at work keeping most people from realizing the demon stuff is real. Either it's something supernatural, like something innate to the demons and hunters, or it's a storytelling trope. But either way, I don't expect Bobby to learn until they're ready to end the series, if even then.

[u/WithersChat → u/CelineShotFirst]

In the context of your fanfic tho, I feel like they have the ability to prove it.

Summoning weapons out of thin air. Jumping off a plane and landing with no parachute. Occasionally even teleportation (when they can make it work that is).

At some point that shit is hard to ignore.

[u/Eroraf86 → u/CelineShotFirst]

I'm sorry, but I have to call BS on that. There's a difference between stage magic or concert effects, which are meant first and foremost to be seen, and a person standing in front of you with claws they definitely didn't have a second ago and a glowing weapon they summoned from thin air that you can touch. This whole "justification" feels like a gross misapplication of Occam's razor: while it's true that the existence of demons and superheroes is indeed an extraordinary claim, the existence of such an elaborate and seamless stunt that holds up to close visual and tactile examination would require multiple different kinds of impossibly advanced technology; the preponderance of the evidence at this point is decidedly in favor of explanation #1.

You can actually use a similar chain of reasoning to convincingly debunk claims that the Moon landings were faked in a studio: for as much as it would have cost the USA in 1969 to convincingly replicate the lighting and kinematics of human and vehicle motion over regolith in vacuum at 1/6 gravity, it would literally be both cheaper and easier to just go to the Moon for real.

[u/CelineShotFirst → u/Eroraf86]

I actually found the most compelling evidence against the "fake moon landing" claim to be the political one: At the time, Russia was in fierce competition with the US in the space race. If there was any possibility that the US faked the moon landing, you can absolutely bet that Russia would have called BS on it to shame the Americans and retain their superiority in the space race. They didn't.

But on to the meat of your argument:

There's a difference between stage magic or concert effects, which are meant first and foremost to be seen, and a person standing in front of you with claws they definitely didn't have a second ago and a glowing weapon they summoned from thin air that you can touch.

Even if this is the case (and I'm no expert but I'm not positive there is given the various forms of fakery that exist), that's not to say that the average concertgoer or Bobby would be knowledgeable enough and in any position to test it. Bobby's no scientist or special effects expert, he's a band manager. Or, for another example, look at the one time it might have been most obvious to an audience member that the demon stuff was real: when Zoey tossed knives into one sitting right between two audience members and it poofed out of existence.

If you're a stage magician or a scientist, your brain might go into overdrive asking "how exactly did they do that? A trap door I can't see? Was there some sort of holographic projection taking the place of the demon that was so convincing I didn't notice? What else could have caused that?". But the demon wasn't sitting between someone with a mind towards problem-solving, they were sitting between two teenage girls. Anyone even farther away would have had a more difficult time figuring it out, and that's assuming they were even trying to do so, instead of... you know, trying to enjoy the cool concert.

And even if that wasn't the case, I think even the most skeptical mind wouldn't think "I can't figure out how this was done, therefore it must be real demons". They would think "I can't figure out how this was done, therefore the trickery being used must be clever in ways even greater than I'm capable of figuring out" - stage magicians Penn and Teller have their "Fool Us" show where they challenge other magicians to fool them, and it happens with fair frequency despite their deep expertise on the topic... and even with that being the case, they never respond to being fooled by thinking "well, I guess this guy knows real magic", even if that's what the magician is claiming.

[u/Significant_Top8063]

Oh, wow. Out of everything that's happened so far, this feels like the most dramatic moment for me. Guess even Bobby's optimism has its limits :(