Utility song: _Defying Gravity_ from Wicked

[classicdrogn]

Doesn't actually fit the characters so well, or I'd have stuck it in Videos of the Day or Plotpony, but the lipsynch job and scene choice is impressive.



As a candidate for powers, the basic effect is obvious enough- within his area of effect, gravity becomes Doug's bitch. The twist is if he can get another reality-controller to work with him in the same volume, acting together everything is their bitch, at godlike levels. That doesn't mean that doing things like raising the dead or unmaking a badguy won't have repercussions, but they can do it, and until the song ends no other mortal power can stop them. Kind of an overpowered effect, granted, but Doug has a severe allergy to annoying divinities (he calls it "enjoying not being a grease stain under a farmhouse") so it is its own disincentive for abusing that high gear.

- CD
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Bob Schroeck]

I've been aware of the song for some years now, and have it on at least 2 mix CDs; it could certainly be used that way, although I've tended to think of it as a source for dialogue instead (Doug, in the middle of Konya was Hurricane. a lightning bolt in one hand as the winds hold him in the air, to a band of Death Eaters: "So if you care to find me, look to the Western sky!"). What the hell, maybe I'll use it as both!
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Proginoskes]

Gravity warping is certainly more versatile and interesting than my suggestion of Yet Another Flight Song, and the "Together we're unlimited" bit is a very nice touch.

[classicdrogn]

By way of the lines about "together we're unlimited" and "You can do anything" thinking about this one again led me to the Reading Rainbow song, and wondering what it might do for Doug, if anything.

I was thinking it might generate a prop book, which shoots out a rainbow when he opens it that drops little glowing sprinkles of light on the book end - the arch extends well beyond his normal AoE if there's room in the current space, buut it's just light and doesn't do anything except maybe add dim illumination in a blacked-out cave or warehouse - but close to (as in, within normal effect radius of) Doug anyone who fails to defend against a neutral (as in, not hostile, not allied, unless they ARE allies, and this is the sort of thing you'd usually tell people about first so they don't resist anyway) telepathic contact will have a functional level of literacy in any one language he knows downloaded into their brain over the course of the (pretty short as I recall) song.

This does not confer any ability to form the sounds associated with the words or even recognise them, or for that matter the concept of sound if the subject is completely deaf and lacks it, but as long as they're intelligent enough to have a language and have some way to perceive written or embossed letters of the language as he knows it and create those shapes in some way themselves, they can read and write fluently. Another thing it doesn't do is add foreign concepts for the words themselves i the subject is lacking them - an alien who only sees in black and white won't know what "green" is just because he can spell it any more than a human blind form birth would.

Anyway, just thought I'd put it out there, maybe it could be useful on the Potter step for a minor scene to get the wizzy kiddies to realise that some of these "magical beasts" are a lot smarter than they look even if they don't speak in human languages, or to resolve the question of who spiked the thestral chow with firewhiskey when only the thestrals saw, or something like that.

- CD, because telling the firsties that there's a herd of Nightmares behind Hagrid's shack when there's a bunch of dimly-outlined flaming horse-shapes staggering around may be funny, but shoveling out the stalls of sick obligate carnivores that size is not

Edited for clarity, now I'll look for a link.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Bob Schroeck]

Um. I'll have to find the Reading Rainbow song, and then decode that massively run-on sentence a bit more than I have managed so far...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[classicdrogn]

Meh. After actually tracking it down, I think this may be a case of goldem memoires syndrome. At best, I was thinking of the more recent instrumentation ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQWrlTtrRFQ ) with the tempo and lyric quality of the old school version ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6j8EiWIVZs ) Still might work as above, but it depends greatly on whether this is actually inspiring from Doug's point of view, or just an earworm.

- CD
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows