Q

(For musing_way.)

"Do you have any family?" the child asked him.

Q is startled by the question. He's simply never considered it, one way or another.

What does "family" even mean, in this context? He examines the child's mind. To her, family means a unit of genetic continuity -- parents, siblings, grandparents. She's thinking of her own family, of a little brother and an older sister, of the parents of her parents, of the siblings of her parents and their children, her cousins. It's a small unit, isolated in her mind from the rest of her species, a special little group of "us" in a sea of "them."

Q does not have anything like that.

( What is family? )

Crossposted from musing_way, today.

"Let me get this straight," Q said to the entity sitting across from him in the bar.

Actually that isn't accurate at all. To say they were in a "bar" implies that they were in a physical, matter-based location where beings consumed alcoholic beverages in order to alter their mental states. The two entities in question, being non-corporeal, couldn't have been affected by alcohol even if there had been any there, which there wasn't, because the location they were actually in was also non-corporeal, and alcohol, being made of matter, could not have existed there. Neither of them were sitting, because sitting implies the existence of legs and a posterior, and neither of them were speaking English, or any language humans could have comprehended, or, in fact, any language at all, really... as beings of thought made real in energy, they communicated in pure concepts.

They were actually floating together in an anomalous region of extra-dimensional space whose unique properties reflect the thought energies generated by sentient beings back at them, producing an echo/interference effect which is somewhat disorientg, but in a pleasant way, to entities who are normally incapable of experiencing disorientation, thus producing a slight impairment that many entities find disinhibiting and relaxing, as well as a somewhat euphoric sensation. The location is popular among Beings of Power for precisely that reason, and is often filled with entities of different species, all of whom are generally powerful enough to be worshipped by mortals as gods, relaxing and socializing with one another.

In other words, they were both in a place where beings like them often went to hang out, converse, and get buzzed. A bar, by any other name.

And the information that Q transmitted to his temporary companion, which was expressed conceptually rather than in words, translates more literally as "response to your statement: amusement/mild disbelief/slightly less mild disapproval (embedded concept: suspicion that your concept was communicated as fiction for purposes of generating amusement) (embedded concept: if the concept you communicated was true, I strongly suspect that you are a moron): Request more detailed information to clarify that my comprehension of your concept matches your transmission." However, Q himself frequently argues that when attempting to communicate with alien beings about something that happened to him, it is much better to express the events in metaphors that accurately communicate how he perceived the event rather than attempting to accurately render an actual description of the event. Using language that closely describes his actual means of communicating with other entities like himself makes Q sound much more alien to the beings he's talking to than using language that assumes that he is "normal", however the people he's talking to perceive "normal" to be, and translating his experiences into emotionally similar experiences they might have in order to make himself appear "normal" to their frame of reference.

In other words, Q lies all the time to make himself sound less alien than he actually is. It's a Q thing. They all do it. Except for the ones that don't, but mortals never get a chance to talk to them, largely because they're completely incomprehensible.

So. Q was in a bar, sitting next to another entity, and he said, "Let me get this straight..." because Q never describes his own experiences to mortals in terms of what actually happened, and that's the best metaphor to use to describe what happened in terms that mortals easily understand.

( The dying god's a junkie? )

OOC: Crossposted from theatrical_muse today.
Prompt 314: Write about a memorable family meal.

Oh, you have no idea.

See, the Q don't eat. We consider it... gauche. Oh, we might choose to consume food like mortals do when we're in a mortal avatar (I'm rather partial to ice cream sundaes myself), but in our true forms, what we consume is energy... and frankly, there isn't enough of it in the mortal dimension to feed us. You cannot possibly imagine how many calories it burns just to manifest a *tiny* pocket dimension, let alone populate it with realistic-seeming life forms. Omnipotence is tremendously slimming.

So we get our energy directly from the Q Continuum. Except when we don't. We're *capable* of consuming stars, but if we went around doing that all the time there wouldn't be many stars left, so we tend to view eating as... well, rather gross. There are sexual connotations to it as well; drawing energy from another Q is one of the things we do for fun and games around here, so watching another Q consume energy has some rather unavoidable implications for us.

At this point in the story, I probably need to explain q.

( Imagine your baby sister canoodling with your teenage son. Or don't. You might need brain bleach afterward. )
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek (TNG and VOY)
This prompt involves characters and environments created by Heather Jarman in "String Theory: Evolution", a Voyager novel published by Pocket Books.

OOC: crossposted from theatrical_muse from Oct 26.
Prompt 305: What have you outlived?

Everything.

Or damn near it, anyway.

( Billions of years covers a lot of outliving. )

Prompt 299: Madness.

(I know everything that's happening here. That makes sense, if you think about it. I used to be God, after all. Of course I know everything that's going on in the city.)

Dixon Hill is walking to his office, because the cross-town bus has square wheels today and Dix can't afford a taxi. Giant flying dogs don't come cheap. On his way, he tosses a handful of minnows at the newspaper vendor. "What's going on in the world, Will?" he asks.

The bearded newspaper vendor grins at him. "Absolutely nothing, Dix. Absolutely nothing." He takes Dix's minnows (two of which are still wiggling, fresh-caught) and hands him a sheet of newsprint with nothing whatsoever printed on it. Dix takes it, scans it, and hands it back to Will, reassured that there's no news. No news is good news, after all.

On his way, he passes Geordi LaForge. LaForge has a large, stale loaf of Italian bread in his hands. He's swinging it against the side of a building, and tiny bits of it crumble, the breadcrumbs falling to the ground where they vanish, devoured by invisible pigeons. "Hello there, Geordi! How's it hanging?" Dixon Hill shouts.

"Ah, you know, Dix. Same old, same old." The bread cracks in half. LaForge picks up a new loaf. "It's not exciting, but it keeps the fish coming in."

"That it does, Geordi, that it does."

( The Dancing Doctor meets Spot the Cat and his/her muscle; Durango the gunslinger meets Worf the landlady; and Dixon Hill meets God. I mean me. I mean I am God. )

( OOC Note )
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG

OOC: Crossposted from theatrical_muse, today.
Hey there! Lemme introduce myself here; I'm not your usual Q. 'Fraid he's off at a party. So today you get me instead! Fun, huh?

See, Q... well, the Q who usually writes in this, uh, journal whatsit thingy? That's what you call it, right? Anyway, he sorta lost a bet to me. Since he's away at an April Fool's day party, and the idea of totally humiliating him on his favorite mortal holiday is, mmm, surprisingly appealing, I'm collecting on the bet we made now. So now I get to tell you about one of the episodes in his life that he was never, ever gonna tell you guys, due to the sheer embarrassment factor. And since I'm, y'know, omniscient and all, I'm going to tell it to ya like a real story, in third person and everything. The thing about being a Q that's really great when you're not on the wrong side of it, and really awful when you are, is that we know every embarrassing secret that ever happened to any of us, in full technicolor detail and usually from the perspective of everyone who was in the room at the time. So I'm gonna tell this story from the perspective of the human in it, 'cause most of you are human, or almost human, and besides, it's *much* funnier this way.

( Embarrassing the hell out of other Q for fun and profit... naah, I'm lying, there's no profit in this. It's just fun. Oh, by the way, adult content here. Shield the kiddies. )

And that, pals, is the story that Q was never gonna tell you. Since Ben Sisko punched him in the nose, I think he's been rejected now by every starship captain you people have ever heard of besides Archer, and I don't think he's gonna go for Archer. He has *some* standards.

Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek Next Generation, Original Series and Voyager

OOC: Crossposted from theatrical_muse, today.
Let’s get the lame questions out of the way first, shall we?

( Absurdly inappropriate questions )

Okay, now that the ridiculous ones are out of the way...

I was going to classify this one as ridiculous too, and then I realized that I actually can say something interesting in response to this.

( I enjoy being a girl!... ok, ok, I'll stop singing. You'd think I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket the way you people carry on. )
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG