007 • video

[cigarbribery]

Did you know that in New York, you can't take a selfie with a tiger? Technically speaking, it's illegal for anyone who owns a tiger, lion, leopard, or any kind of cat that's not a housecat to knowingly allow the public to have direct contact with those animals. You know, since they're wild animals.

[Foggy huffs out a laugh. He's having a slow day in the office at the moment, and there's a list of weird laws pulled up on his laptop that he's apparently reading off. He chortles at a couple, shaking his head.]

And hey, here's a good one: in Washington, if you find Bigfoot, it's illegal to kill him. I'm serious! You'd be guilty of a misdemeanor and then you'd end up facing either a huge fine or jail time for killing Bigfoot. I know, it's nuts, but it's the law.

[He snorts out another laugh, leaning back into his chair.]

Anyway, I'm having a pretty slow day and I've reorganized my files twice over for something to do, so I just wanna ask: do you know if your world has any really weird laws?

And, oh, yeah, I think it's around that time new imPorts start coming in, so: welcome to bizarro America! Or just America if it doesn't exist for you. If you have questions, Ken Kaneki Ported out just recently, but his FAQ's still up, and if you ask another imPort for it we'll send you the link.

Comments

[cigarbribery]

[This link lands in her inbox, soon enough.]

Sent! Like I said, the guy who wrote that Ported out a little while ago, so there might be new information that he didn't get the chance to write in, but it's still good enough to serve as an intro.

[A beat.] ...I feel like there has to be a limit on what's likely to bring you back from wherever you went, and shrines to a bikini-clad version of you that sweaty guys in their basements worship should be way beyond it. [That's sort of how it works, right? He's going off context clues here.]

Not really. People have been finding loopholes in laws and legally binding documents since god knows when, [and he's a lawyer, that's part of his job,] it's only the mildest of surprises it took them a while to start trying to close it.

By "North American folklore", are we just talking about Paul Bunyan and his cow, Johnny Appleseed, the hitchhiking ghost, that kind of thing? Because that's a vague way of putting it, it could honestly include pretty much anything.

[by_candlelight]

Thanks. I'll give it a good read over. I'll also keep in mind it's probably a little dated.

I agree that there should be a limit. I think it became a law because the people in charge don't know anything about 'the youth' and their culture, and just panicked. Either that or they didn't think about that at first and skimpy-bikini-anime-Oda-Nobunaga just got caught up in the lack of fine detail. It's stupid in a really funny way, no matter what caused it.

As for the loophole thing, the part that's surprising to me is that no one making the law realised it would be an obvious loophole. Don't get me wrong, the fact that it took someone so long to act on the law is pretty surprising, too, but I think that might have been due to people being terrified that they'd be smote for blasphemy or whatever for a long time. That or no one read the rules and realised it accounted for new shrines, too. Actually wish I could check on this, because for all I know it's less that it's a new problem, and more that it's only just now coming to public attention as a real issue.

I'll be honest, I don't really know much about North American folklore. I think things like a hitchhiking ghost would be safe, because that's pretty modern, and no one really worries about modern stories because the idiots always assume modern stories are just stories, and never account for the fact that spirits and stuff come from somewhere, and that place is probably not suddenly non-existent just because we have computers, and that the spread of internet communication might be helpful to the manifestation of new entities due to science suggesting that minor entities come to being in part due to widespread human belief and the internet allows such stories to gain more traction and thus believers. And they don't think about the possibility of old gods taking on new forms, even though there is plenty of history saying they can do exactly that. It's-- [a deep breath, a sigh.] Sorry. I have a LOT of opinions on that sort of thing due to my history, which meant I did a lot of research, read a lot of papers, and had to do a lot of thinking on just how this stuff can work.

Anyway, my knowledge of North American folklore is pretty bad, but I know it was that giant guy's giant cow who caused all sorts of chaos in the mid 1900's.

[cigarbribery]

Speaking as a lawyer, I'd believe it if nobody read the rules and figured out that it meant new shrines, too. Nobody reads the terms and conditions if they can help it, so it's not a surprise either that no one figured out there was a loophole in the law until it was too late and it was already being exploited. Of course, if you try to patch it up, that's a whole new can of worms you're about to open there.

Hey, hey. [He holds his hands up.] Don't apologize! I'm the guy asking after weird laws here, I want to hear your opinions. And honestly, you're probably doing better than me, I'm just reading off a list I pulled up on the Internet 'cause I got bored.

[by_candlelight]

I'll err on the side of the lawyer in this matter then, heh. My knowledge of the law is, patchy in some areas. Do have to admit I don't usually read the terms and conditions back in my own world, but I was kind of in charge of some stuff that would probably break them anyway, so I was clearly not too bothered by whatever I was signing. I think I'll at least skim them here, because it matters now.

You know what? Fair enough. In my world, well, gods and other types of deities exist. Most of them have gone off to other places, or pissed off humans enough that they said 'screw you, you're going to jail, do not pass go' and sealed them away. Or in a few cases, like Zeus, just up and murdered them. Though, with what Zeus did it probably counts less as 'murder' and more as 'taking out the trash'. Didn't help the guy wasn't loyal to his people and took on the name 'Jupiter' and hung out with another culture pulling the same damn crap. A lot of gods forgot that there are a LOT of powerful weapons and artifacts they themselves made or had commissioned that can damage deities. Probably also forgot their half-god spawn, though no one really knows how someone like Zeus could forget THAT many people... And animals.

Anyway, since scientists a long time ago figured out that one of the ways to call a god back was to worship them actively, people in various countries have a 'no worshiping deities who are chaotic in nature. Please.' law or twenty in place to keep dead gods from coming back. And there have been instances where local figures became deities after death... Or just didn't die. That's always an option, too. So some places are really strict on what's allowed, because people don't want celebs to suddenly become deities. Chuck Norris (if he doesn't exist in your world: he's some actor who everyone makes jokes about him being on the level of a creation deity. Mostly an English-speaking parts of the world thing, but it got vaguely popular in Japan and a few other places thanks to memetic mutation) jokes are literally banned in some of the strictest countries, just in case. But most countries follow that idea I mentioned before, that all possibilities of deities and spirits coming into existence in the modern day are limited if not impossible.

The current theory by the scientific world is that deities can come into being by way of belief, both number of people and intensity of belief. While there are a lot of things suggesting that deities can just come into being on their own - a lot of deities pre-date humanity as a whole, after all, some being there before single-celled organisms if you hear them tell it - but more often minor deities started out as folk stories, like Santa Clause, who kinda started out as a couple different guys [she leans in and stage-whispers into the microphone] (including some guy who killed children - which is probably really embarrassing now that his job is dropping off presents to good kids and leaving coal for the bad ones while the kids still qualify as innocent) [she leans back out and continues at a normal volume] and sort of ended up one amalgamation in the end, who occasionally does media presentations and reminds people that just because he gives presents to under-privileged children that doesn't mean that they shouldn't try to help out, too.

There's a lot of confusion on what needs to happen for a deity to form, though. Because there's this one rabbit for a holiday called Easter, that there is no evidence of existing, but he's apparently just a popular in the English-speaking world as Santa is, and Santa started out somewhere in Europe. I think. A lot of the in-depth articles on Santa are in English so I'm missing a lot of data, and while I can read English really well, I'm not really all that educated on the scientific terms in that language, and I haven't read everything on my own country's deities.

We have a looooooooooooot of deities.

[cigarbribery]

When I'm off the clock, neither do I. [LE GASP.]

Chuck Norris exists, and so do the Chuck Norris jokes. He's not actually a god in my world, but we like to joke that he's probably secretly an Avenger instead. [It's kind of a comfort to know that Chuck Norris is a constant between universes, even if the jokes vary.] Have celebrities become deities before? If the prevailing theory is that deities become deities because lots of people have a strong enough belief, then there's gotta be more than just Chuck Norris who toe the line.

...also, I can't believe Santa Claus is real in your world. That's kind of unfair, can we swap or something?

[There's a quiet laugh.]

Apparently so. We don't have anything like that where I'm from, but we've got aliens and superheroes, so I guess it's just different flavors of weird.

[by_candlelight]

[Oh that gets a laughs] At least it's probably illegal to try and enforce 'by using this service you give us rights to your first born child' or any such thing.

What's an Avenger? As for celebs becoming deities, well, no one recent, but in history there are a lot of instances. I think the reason it's less common now is that the idea that talent is a supernatural quality is less prevalent. As for people who toe the line... There is Keanu Reeves who may or may not already be immortal? A lot of people are positive that Gackt is also immortal, but the so called proof doesn't go back nearly as far as it does for Keanu and is more based on his gimmick.

I'm sure Santa would be happy to visit your world too if he can find a way. The guy's got a huge heart, even if he's the most passive aggressive adult I've ever seen when in the company of rich people. At least, if media clips are any indication. I honestly approve, because if anyone's able to get rich people to donate even close to a 'fair' amount to charity, it's Santa.

Yeah. I mean. We technically have a couple super heroes ourselves, but we don't count them that? I mean, when you've got less than ten people who use supernatural powers to fight crime in the entire world, it's not really a needed title? Also those powers are mostly minor things. Like the ability to breathe under water, or see auras. No super-strength or flying.

[cigarbribery]

Gackt who? But I'm not surprised about Keanu Reeves, honestly.

Yeah, we definitely have people with super-strength and flight. And as for the Avengers—okay, years back there was this incident where an alien fleet went through literal, actual holes in the sky and basically tore New York City up. The Avengers, at the time, were just six people, but they managed to turn the fleet back, save the city and capture the guy responsible for it all.

There was also this thing in Sokovia—a whole country got raised up in the air, and if it dropped then it would've been really bad for Sokovia and a good chunk of the world in general. The Avengers managed to avert that, too—that, I wasn't there for, but it was all over the news for a few weeks.

[by_candlelight]

Gackt is a popular musician in Japan. He had an early start in the Visual Kei style, and rock. I think he's an actor now? But the rumours got started back in his Visual Kei days, and people claim he hasn't aged a day in over a decade now.

Oh wow. So they're world-class superheroes then? That sounds like some really hardcore stuff to deal with. And only six of them were needed to stop an alien invasion? That's jaw-droppingly powerful.

[cigarbribery]

Either he's really good at makeup, has a plastic surgeon on speed dial, or he's immortal.

Yeah, at the time there really were just six of them to deal with the alien invasion, it wasn't like there were a whole lot of other choices. From what I hear they've added a couple more people to the count, but that's a little further into the future from where I'm at.

[by_candlelight]

That's something impressive right there.

Speaking of impressive? Holy shit. And here I felt loads of pressure when I was sent out on way less dangerous missions with only five or six other people. I mean, I wasn't doing good things at the time, but that doesn't make the idea of failure any less terrifying. Being one of six people who could save the world at the time... That must have had one hell of an effect on them after. Even before you take into account how people get jerk-y about it later.