Science!

[healingmirth]

(I feel like I should post something else so that this isn't adjacent to the last entry, but I don't have anything else to say at the moment)

So, mpreg, yeah? I was scrolling through someone's fic today (for purely non-entertainment purposes, actually) and came across this gem:

The doctor said it's a boy. Since you know, I'm a guy, [character A is] a guy, [character B is] a guy... There's no girl DNA... So the baby can't be a girl.

Seriously, people. I will suspend my disbelief like you have no idea. I am on your side here, but either make it all the hell up, or spend 20 seconds on wikipedia. I'll even forgive you for not having learned about X and Y in school, because I know people are science-averse. Just, seriously.

Comments

[muccamukk]

Well... if you flipped the genders on that, it would work, but...

yeah

Girl DNA?

[healingmirth]

It makes me want to write fic where two guys are trying to get pregnant via fertility clinic and their efforts are being thwarted by YY zygotes or something, just so I can have a paragraph that explains meiosis.

[scaramouche]

That would be gloriously geeky.

[healingmirth]

I'm totally (not) going to start a niche of educational fanfic.

[kate]

Oh, but. I would totally be all over that niche. Seriously.

[healingmirth]

It could be like self-insertion with a purpose. Write us a fanfic layperson's guide to your career and/or hobby. With references.

[kate]

OMG, seriously. I WANT THIS. This is how I end up writing ALL my major fics - because someone's written something I know about... poorly.

[elspethdixon]

I'm still waiting for an mpreg fic that explains how two sperm cells can form a zygote without extensive magical or scientific intervention. Or even acknowledges the issue by saying something like, "well, Kryptonian males are adapted to produce both kinds of gamete in times of severe underpopulation, like those African frogs that can change sex that get used as a plot handwave in Jurassic Park, which explains why Clark can get pregnant with a guy, but still doesn't answer how the hell an alien can breed with a human."

[alchemise]

Wow, I wow... Wow. I got nothing.

[healingmirth]

I look at that, and then I look at the ridiculously detailed questions that people ask on little_details and my brain hurts.

[bluemeridian]

Sadly, Wikipedia only helps if it occurs to them to look in the first place.

...and, obviously, there's no girl DNA, so there's no question, right?

(EDUCATIONAL FANFIC WOULD BE AWESOME. A WHOLE NEW CATEGORY OF LEARNING.)

[healingmirth]

I'm not sure if its worse if they're confident in their incorrect knowledge, or too apathetic to bother to check.

(Like Schoolhouse Rock, but sometimes with porn.)

[elspethdixon]

The doctor said it's a boy. Since you know, I'm a guy, [character A is] a guy, [character B is] a guy... There's no girl DNA... So the baby can't be a girl.

I recently read a fic set in NYC where the author either put the Brooklyn Bridge on the wrong side of Manhattan or mixed the Hudson and East Rivers up.

This is much, much more painful than that. It's even more painful than mp3 players at Hogwarts.