“You know,” Harry’s voice said quietly from beside him where his arms leaned on the railing next to Draco’s, “one of the things that Muggles get really wrong, is that they don’t turn all their lights out at night. Not even for one hour every month, not even for fifteen minutes once a year. The photons scatter in the atmosphere and wash out all but the brightest stars, and the night sky doesn’t look the same at all, not unless you go far away from any cities. Once you’ve looked up at the sky over Hogwarts, it’s hard to imagine living in a Muggle city, where you wouldn’t be able to see the stars. You certainly wouldn’t want to spend your whole life in Muggle cities, once you’d seen the night sky over Hogwarts.”‘

excuse me but fuck you


Tags:

#Brin reads HPMOR #Brin is touchy about stars #I think this is a stronger version of the reaction I had a couple dozen chapters ago #when he casually claimed that human emotions were universal among humans #I know *very* well that just because you’re running on human wetware *doesn’t* necessarily mean you’ve got the full suite of human emotions #very well indeed #oh look an original post #things that make me uncomfortably aware of my apparent inability to feel awe

“I will only ask that you think twice and ponder three times again, the next time someone tells you to distrust me.”

…because that’s not suspicious at all. Especially from someone who proceeds to more or less state outright that he knows he’s in a fantasy novel, inhabiting the role of mentor.


Tags:

#Brin reads HPMOR #mostly unspoiled #a while back I was thinking about The Boy Who Cried Wolf #the supposed moral is that lying is bad #the friendly neighbourhood Cardassian thinks the moral is that one should never tell the same lie twice #but it seemed to me that the moral is that a reputation for honesty is important #not *being* honest mind you #having a *reputation* for honesty #tell enough truths for a long enough time and people will believe the first lie you tell #save up social currency so you can spend it at the right moment #sounds to me like Dumbledore’s making a deposit #(I guess I’ll find out) #oh look an original post

Arrogant little bastard, but so entertaining.


Tags:

#five points to anyone who correctly guessed I was referring to Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres #(I wouldn’t be *too* surprised if someone actually *did* guess) #last night I was upset and looking for a good distraction #and it occurred to me that I would like to be a person who has read HPMOR #so I can understand better when people talk about it #(Worm will have to wait) #and I’ll probably enjoy the process of becoming such a person because I enjoyed other stories in the genre #and stories of that genre *are* very distracting #distracting enough that summer break is probably the best opportunity I’ll get to read such a long one #so basically there’s no time like the present #except not really because fifteen minutes before bedtime is a *terrible* time to start reading a book you expect to be page-turny #so I waited until morning #ftr I mentally composed this post halfway through Chapter 14 and wrote it up and posted it after finishing the chapter #I tagged the other post involving HPMOR #I still don’t have a rationalist tag #which is a weird thing to use as a category tag but maybe I will go back and add a proper one later #I’ll also throw in #Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality #tag rambles #oh look an original post