More comics- Templesmith pwns me.

I picked up issue #5 of Fell over the weekend; have I mentioned that I adore cop dramas? The real reason I collected all of Fake (aside from teh gay) was because it was about policemen doing policey things. The occasional make-out sessions were a tasty bonus. Fell continues to make me wildly happy. (Rich and Mayko are so cute in a sociopathic sort of way.)

I also picked up issues 1 and 2 of Hatter M by Frank Beddor and Liz Cavalier with art by Ben Templesmith. Yes, I've become as much of a whore for Mr Templesmith's art as I am for Mr Ellis's writing. It's sketchy, frenetic, and grotesque- and I can't get enough of it.

I'll admit I bought Hatter M solely because of the art- I didn't even bother reading the intro blurb on the title page. Turns out the comics are connected to a book series coming out in the fall called The Looking Glass Wars; it's all Alice in Wonderland themed stuff, with a twist. The main character, Hatter Madigan, is a Milliner in the Royal Guard, entrusted with the safety of Princess Alyss. Alyss goes missing, and he has to track her down across 19th century earth, armed with dozens upon dozens of blades and a hat.

...omg hat. It's the coolest hat since the invention of hats. And the story starts of in France, where Madigan loses his hat. A native comes across it and says, "Le huh?" and from that point on, I think I fell in love. It didn't hurt that right around that time, Madigan busted out with the blades and started slaughtering people, but the silly French was definitely the thing that did it. Also: "It's a pigeon!" "It's a dirigible!" "It's- Le Monstre!"

I'm a sucker for cheese, what can I say. (omg hat) Silliness aside, the story feels rather well thought out and romantically lovely- Wonderland operates on the power of imagination, and Madigan tracks the Princess by following people who glow with an excess of imagination. It's just one of those things that makes me squirm in my seat and go, "Cooooool!" And, y'know- omg hat, and steampunk necromancy. I've got such a soft spot for steampunk necromancy.

I need to find a comic shop and quickly, because I've got too many series to keep up with now. I guess I could always order from Khepri.com, but I'd much rather purchase from a shop.

Feeling vaguely tempted to write to Warren Ellis's Fell account, because yes. I am that much of a fangirl.

(omg hat)

Index of Recs

Fic and other thing recs: THE INDEX. (DUN DUN DUUUNNNNNNNN)

02/05 (Naruto, multiple genres, multiple pairings)
04/05 (Naruto, other crossovers)
07/05 (Naruto, FMA)
08/05 (Naruto, various pairings, various genres)
09/05 (Bleach, various parings, genres, and the 11th division; FFVII, IX, IV; Saiyuki; Naruto)
09/05 (Naruto, FFVII, Bleach)
11/05 (webcomics)
02/06 (one piece)
07/06 (X-Men, PotC, FFVII, Firefly, House)
8/06 (Generation X)
01/07 (FFXII)

Toggle: something like a timeline

I'm going to have to go on an indexing spree soon. Bleh. Not especially looking forward to that. On the other hand, a lot of my old info/backstory posts are no longer applicable, because I keep rewriting the details of this universe in my head.

Also, I'm still lacking huge pieces of plot, but I think I now know how Silverlock and Co stop Dekar from rearranging the universe. (I have names! And plot points! *does the happy dance*)

Timeline!

4E 29
Ketheden DeLavrey makes a deal with the newborn god Natash'Azuan; in exchange for immortality, he agrees to serve the death aspect of the god for the rest of his existence.
4E 37
Ketheden founds the Assassins' Guild; Kaya DeLavrey kicks him in the face, exiles him from the family, and shuts down the Guild.
4E 40
Keth assassinates Kaya; Kalena DeLavrey becomes the next head of the family. Kalena threatens to reopen the Tower just to revoke Keth's immortality if he doesn't behave. He points out that he could have just opened the tower on his own- he was behaving. She eventually strikes a deal with him and Azuan regarding the Assassins' Guild, and allows it to exist.
4E 43
Someone tries to assassinate Kalena and a number of other important political figures; Keth and the rest of his Guild hunt down the people responsible and slaughter them. The Assassins' Guild becomes the first guild recognized by the census board; it sets a precedent for guild licensing rights. Parliament grants all of the guildsmen noble titles and tries to buy the Guild to use for their own purposes. Keth refuses to become affiliated with the government; as a result, the Guild is allowed to exist, but the assassins remain criminals.

4E 726
Nagendra becomes the Avatar of Varun; her first act as Avatar is to issue a list of activities and objects that are considered forbidden and profane. The list includes the following, among others: Leechmages, alcohol, drugs, mongooses, and anesthesia. In the future, hundreds of assassins grit their teeth and hope that the twitchy priest isn't on duty in the infirmary when they get injured; assassins are a stoic lot, but even they appreciate painkillers on occasion.
4E 734
Silverlock is born.
4E 737
Silverlock is sold to The Black Cherry Tree (AUGH I HATE NAMING THINGS) and begins his training and indoctrination.
("The Black- you're kidding. Isn't that just a bit...lewd?" Blaine valiantly tried to repress his snickering.

"There's a tree. In the courtyard. It happens to be a black cherry tree. Go ahead and laugh, but bear in mind that any off color comments you could ever think of have already been made.")
4E 751
Dekar DeLavrey is born; he is the youngest of eleven children (all half siblings), and the only one who carries Rianna's Legacy.
4E 754
Ayanna DeLavrey is born, and adopted as Ninaya's successor. Ninaya refuses to ever endure pregnancy again, and drops all of the men in her retinue like a bad habit (which, technically, they were).
4E 769
Gannet Sorlin cuts off half of Silverlock's face in a debacle that remains legendary at The Tree; due to a strict "You break it, you buy it" policy, he gets to keep Silverlock.
("You ought to be happy I've taken you away from that place- I'm not interested in you for your body."

His face still hurt and Sorlin's attitude of moral superiority was just adding insult to injury. "The fuck you don't. In three weeks, you'll be begging to fuck me."

"In three weeks, I'll have broken you five times over and will want you just as much as I do now- which is to say, not at all."

"Don't flatter yourself, old man. Everyone wants me.")
4E 784
Silverlock's indenture ends; Ninaya DeLavrey dies of natural causes; Ayanna DeLavrey becomes the new head of the family; Dekar attains a seat in Parliament.
4E 785
Silverlock becomes so bored with being free he signs himself away to the Assassins' Guild; Banshee Harkiss takes him on as an apprentice in the ways of assassin magery.
4E 786
Tyrin Samarkand is born to the assassins Hawk and Civet.
4E 794
Tyrin gets traded to the Thieves' Guild.
4E 802
Tyrin's team gets caught by the mage they were attempting to burgle; most of his teammates die immediately. He is unlucky enough to survive long enough to be found by an Acolyte of Varun. Tyrin officially dies; Blaine Torkehaav becomes the newest Apostle of Varun. Word of Tyrin's death gets back to Civet and Hawk; Civet, somewhat overwhelmed by grief, agrees to become the Guildmaster's next body. Hawk leaves the Guild.
4E 804
Foxbird shows up on the doorstep of the temple; Blaine adopts her (or rather, she adopts him) and gets banished and cursed. He goes back to the Assassins' Guild, hoping to find his parents. (Oh, buuuuurn.) The Guildmaster realizes he should've checked his intelligence better before propositioning Civet, and gives Blaine a job and a place to stay. A few months later, Blaine meets Greymalkin again.
("If I ask you why, exactly, the Guildmaster owes you so many favors, will I have any chance of getting an answer?"

"Does a snowball have a chance in hell? Will Nagendra let me go back to the temple? Is Lady DeLavrey ever going to sleep with you?"

"That's a lot more promising than I thought it would be, actually.")
4E 805
Greymalkin reveals himself to be a number of things, none of which are a decent person; the Shrive threaten to dismember Greymalkin slowly and painfully if he does anything at all to upset either Blaine or Foxbird in any way.
4E 806
Silverlock meets Foxbird.
4E 811
Foxbird earns her tags.
4E 813
Blaine meets Silverlock. A month or so later, Silverlock learns to detatch his soul enough to keep Blaine from going into convulsions. They start dating spending time together- mostly this involves Silverlock dragging Blaine out into the sunlight occasionally, and the two of them going to ridiculously expensive restaurants in Southmark. A few months after that, Blaine realizes he's being courted (he's a little slow on the uptake). About a week later, they start screwing like minks.
4E 816
Blaine and Silverlock stop speaking to one another for about three months (because of the Foxbird thing), during which they are both fairly miserable and irritable. Nagendra dies, and they get back together; Mandhatri becomes the next Avatar of Varun and abolishes all of Nagendra's decrees; assassins start disappearing.
4E 817
INSERT STORY HERE; afterwards, Silverlock and Blaine go back to screwing like minks. Foxbird kicks Harbard in the face for hitting on her one too many times; the Malestri are recognized as full citizens under the protection of Rothcaran and Shaivhen law. Varun apologizes profusely to Silverlock, Blaine, the surviving Apostles, the Guildmaster, and Natash'Azuan, and agrees to owe them all huge favors.
4E 830
Silverlock retires from active duty in the Guild and starts teaching. Foxbird continues to not marry Harbard.
4E 839
Blaine dies; Silverlock and Foxbird leave the Guild. Foxbird, Harbard, and a few other Malestri leave the city and go looking for their relatives. Silverlock hires a Mystic for a seance and Blaine, filled with righteous ghostly wrath, tells him to get a new hobby that doesn't involve bothering his exes post-mortem. Silverlock sulks.
4E 843
Silverlock goes to work for the mafia as a crime lord's "personal assistant".
("I'm not a pet." They'd bound his hands properly; it would take him several minutes to untie the knots. "If you treat me as such, our contract becomes void and I'll extract my compensation from you however I see fit."

"I don't need another body guard. Why else would I decide to keep you?"

He glanced around the room lazily and catalogued the condition of the other body guards. There were six of them, each well armed. "Nine seconds."

"What?"

He tripped the first guard and used his body in mid-fall as a stepping block to better break the face of the second with his knee and use that one's body for leverage to pull his arms back in front of himself. By that point, the other four were rushing him; a moment later all four were disarmed and on the ground, and two chairs were broken.

He shook his head to settle his hair back into place. "Nine seconds. It would have been eight, but I didn't want to kill them."

The man gestured to the remaining unbroken chair with a slightly unsteady hand. "Would you prefer to be paid on a monthly schedule or a bi-weekly one?")

Somewhere around 4E 950ish
Silverlock becomes an Acolyte of Joshel for half a year before Joshel himself tells Silverlock to bugger off; Blaine laughs hysterically for about a week.

4E 1042
Theron is "born." Whimsy replaces Shanreth's memories.
4E 1054
Theron and Shanreth move to Luthra; Theron meets Bren.
4E 1056
The dragon Rhapsody breaks the seal on Shanonil's memories in Theron's head; Theron goes into a coma for a few months; Bren weaves tapestries in the basement and talks until his throat bleeds.
4E 1057
Theron stumbles into Shaivhen and gets kidnapped by some slavers on his first night in the city; Silverlock finds him and purchases him and starts fucking with his head.
4E 1062
The remnants of the seal on Shanonil's memory shatters all at once; Theron spends several weeks thinking he is actually his mother.
4E 1064
Theron goes back to Radrezhaea, gets Blacklisted, gets Bren Blacklisted (and maybe Mihonil, too), gets arrested, gets Bren arrested, chews off his fingers, kills Bren, fucks Bren, turns Bren into the Walker, kills his father, becomes the Voyance, and turns the majority of the population into an army of mindless zombies.
4E 1097
The Voyance perfects the creation of Revenants and Ghosts, and starts his conquest of the eastern half of the continent.
4E 1231
Stella Matin dies; in the process, she goes blind accidentally acquires a piece of the Voyance's soul. After a few years, she starts seeing the future.
4E 1263
The Voyance finds out about Stella and keeps her around as his personal advisor; she hangs out with the Walker a lot, and they become something like friends. A group of living humans and sympathetic Revnants start planning to overthrow the Voyance.
4E 1289
Walker puts down the terrorist rebellion but finds himself remembering things about the leader of the rebels- she turns out to be Whimsy, who was a friend of Bren's in Luthra. Whimsy turns out to be the lost goddess Razhia, and she convinces Walker and Stella to help her destroy the Voyancy. Everyone dies, the Voyance recovers his old memories and becomes Theron again, and they all wander across the border to have wacky hijinx in Shaivhen and open a pawn shop.

Roleplay babble: 'Stacia Venomtongue

I've been rather lax about posting here in this, the merry month of May. Been busy, I suppose; I'm likely to remain busy for a while yet.

Yesterday I engaged in my first serious act of online roleplaying over at Izland H0ppin. It was pretty fuckin' awesome, all things considered. The character I'm playing will probably get incorporated into Toggle at some point; many of my roleplay characters either originate or settle there (Tana and Neru lived in the Second Era; Vlad settled into the Fourth, and brought his god along with him; my D&D character for next year will be another Second Era personality).

Back when I first started playing D&D with my brothers, I was always stuck being one of two things: the cleric, or the kobold. And then when we started playing 3rd edition, I was occasionally allowed to play a halfling sorceress. I'm still fond of those old cleric characters- my favorite was the rogue/cleric with the sun and trickery domains. I worshipped a very confused god, used a scythe as my primary weapon, and backstabbed things to death more often than I healed them. It was good times.

Haven't gamed with my brother since first year; the mess with Alan and James came to a head, and then people got girlfriends and jobs, and the gaming stopped. It's a good thing Renegades is as awesome as it is, because otherwise I'd be quite sad. Roleplaying is what keeps me sane these days.

My Island Hopping character is Anastacia Venomtongue; she goes by 'Stacia most of the time, and doesn't tell people her last name. It raises too many annoying questions. She's a Jerren, which is a variation of halfling from the Book of Vile Darkness; they radiate evil the way orcs radiate body odor. Stacia's bluff is pretty good, though, and she isn't very evil. (The paladin in the party hasn't started throwing fits yet.) I hate the D&D alignment system; people can't be pared down to two qualifiers on a sliding scale. Stacia sees herself as a law abiding citizen of the Islands; she doesn't cause trouble, she doesn't kill people, and she doesn't cheat at cards. On the other hand, she's a drug addict, a thief, and a poisonmaker.

Stacia is a horizon walker; she lives to travel and research new places. Poison is her passion- she travels to find new poison components, and supports herself by selling the fruits of her research. She steals things when they interest her or when she's short on cash and needs to restock her supplies. She uses blue mushroom powder to increase her concentration; technically she isn't a drug addict (her fortitude save is too high), as she's very careful about not overdosing or taking too much, too often. The powder increases her intelligence and charisma, but lowers her strength, will, and constitution; when she's on it, she's brilliant, but she has a strength of 3.

Blue mushroom powder is also a mild hallucinogenic, so she tends to giggle a lot when she's on it. She giggles a fair amount the rest of the time, too; the antics of her party members amuse her to no end. When she's not higher than a kite, she's a good humored, easy going sort of person. She's polite and tends to speak formally, with a lot of pauses and thoughtful noises mixed in with her words. It's a bad habit, but it's one she's never quite been able to lose; she's slightly spacey at the best of times, in that stereotypical academic sort of way.

She's small, even for a halfling- barely more than two and a half feet tall, and very weak. She wears boots of flying to avoid being trampled, and wears sunglasses all the time, even at night. This isn't because her eyes are sensitive- it's because the sunglasses are magical. She has two pairs- one pair with round lenses, one with rectangular- and she switches between them periodically. She's got bright red hair, tied back in a high ponytail and covered by a bandana, pale blue eyes, and very fair, freckled skin. In short, she's adorable, or she would be if she smiled more often. She tends to look very serious and thoughtful, and covers her mouth when she laughs. She carries a small crossbow at all times, and is decked out in belts full of pouches and flasks. She has a pair of heavy gloves for dealing with contact poisons, and a lot of sharp and nasty looking tools for dissecting things. She doesn't wear armor; with all of her equipment, she's already bordering on encumbered, and when she's on drugs, she has to drop a lot of stuff just to be able to walk.

So yes. She's cute, she's poisonous, and she does drugs (but she can quit any time, honest). And I have far too much fun playing her, because, wow. I love roleplaying, especially with my Renegades darlings, and anyone associated with Trina. It's good times.

If Stacia shows up in Toggle, she'll probably be one of the Guild's independent contactors; they make their own poisons, but 'Stacia supplies rarer components and new toxins for the right price. And she'd be a friend of Silverlock's, because he's friends with everyone, except Greymalkin. (I should work on that plot point. Hm.)

Toggle (rasputin) creation mythos

You know, I used to be really good at naming things. Now I suck at it; I'm afraid to name characters and places because naming something gives it permanence, and names are harder to change than any other detail. Meh.

I think Silverlock would qualify as neutral evil in D&D terms; he's got a number of antisocial personality traits, but he operates within the laws of society for negotiable values of "society." (He was a model slave until Gannet stole him; he's completely devoted to the Guild. But he feels that Rothcaran and Shaivhen laws are gentle suggestions at best.) He's very rarely capable of actual empathy; things like remorse and guilt are purely academic concepts to him (much to Blaine's irritation).

Anyway. I also realized, in D&D terms, he probably started out as a bard and then multiclassed to sorceror and assassin. And that just burns me inside, but it's not like D&D has a geisha or companion equivalent class. So, bard. (This is entertaining, because he's kind of tone deaf. Great sense of rhythm, though.)

I vaguely feel that I should work more on the villain part of the story- villains have always been my weak point, because they end up being faceless and cliche. But, as this is only a very vague feeling, I will instead discuss more backstory.

Creation Myths: Because they don't actually need to make sense.

The Toggle world hatched out of a giant egg; the thing that laid the egg nurtured and cultivated the universe until it could support life, and then it laid three more eggs. From the first egg hatched a multitude of creatures to fill the land, the sea, and the sky- creatures that ran and slithered and swam and flew. The very first of these creatures to escape the egg were dragons (of course), and they spread across the land and watched over the lesser creatures as an elder brother or sister does its younger siblings. From the second egg hatched a multitude of creatures that walked on two legs and spoke in many tongues, and they spread across the land and lived in relative harmony with their elder siblings. From the third egg hatched a multitude of creatures to fill all corners of the plane with the faces and voices of Men and the bodies of Monsters; these half-breeds filled in the spaces between their elder siblings, and the creator was pleased to see her children thriving.

The creator laid a fourth egg and hid it in the dark wilderness, and built a tower around it to keep it safe. She left it there and kept watch over her other children.

The Men built cities and Monsters built lairs, while the Demi-Beasts settled between them, and there was peace and prosperity. There were wars, of course, as civilizations grew, but they were small, brief skirmishes, involving no more than a few species, if that.

That was the First Era, which took place mostly before recorded history. Some humans and dwarves settled in the mountains to the south that would eventually come to be named the Reichen Mountains, and built a city there. The creator settled into the city and watched and waited, and when a war broke out that involved all of her children, she declared her allegiance and fought alongside the Men and Monsters of her city against the others that threatened its walls.

She was not all powerful when it came to waging war; creation was her sole purpose, and for every one of her children she destroyed, she destroyed a piece of herself. But not long after the war broke out, the egg within the hidden tower hatched.

A dragon noble and her gryphon retainer were fleeing the armies of the enemy when they came across a young human woman in the middle of the uninhabited forest. The only thing she had on her to identify herself was a signet ring. They took her back to the city in the south, where she was clothed, fed, given a sword, and sent out onto the battlefield.

She came back with the head of the enemy commander; the king of the city gave her a noble house, and the dragon who found her adopted her into her clan. This was Rianna DeLavrey, who became the general of the Men and Monsters who fought on the side of the creator. People called her a god of war, but even with her aid, the fighting raged on for years.

(Christ, I'm wordy. And dumb.) Anyway. The city withstood a siege for a good long while, but eventually the walls broke, and the place was overrun. The creator sacrificed her life to save her daughter- up until that point, Rianna had no idea who she was or where she'd come from. With the creator's death, all the potential of creation was set loose on the world- and that much untamed potential is incredibly destructive. Psychic cancer everwhere. Rianna took her closest companions (the gryphon and the dragon, a few fae, the royal family) and fled back to the forest where she'd been hatched. The tower had been made to contain excess creative potential; the inside of it was practically dripping from the leftover energy of Rianna's birth. Rianna opened the tower, creating an energy sink that drew in all of the wild potential of the creator's death.

The creator was reborn in the tower; acts of sacrifice and rebirth hold great significance in this universe, so she came back with the ability to lay down the righteous smackdown on her children. She split the universe in half and banished all of the monsters and demi-beasts into the hole and sealed it up. Then she laid another egg. Three things hatched out of it: the Aetherial Plane, and two androgenous beings made of creative potential, one to represent the past, and one to represent the future. Their names are currently up for debate; most people just refer to them as the Twain.

The creator kicked everyone out of the tower and went to sleep; Rianna locked the doors and told the two godlets to keep track of the Aetherial Plane and the Rift. Then she went out into the world to help people rebuild and whatnot.

The royal family of the destroyed city in the Reichen Mountains built a new city on the coast, around the tower, and swore to protect it at all costs. Rianna was sort of like, "Uh, whatever," since only someone of her race could open it, and the thing is indestructible.

Rianna's signet ring is the key to the tower; it gets passed down to the most responsible woman who carries Rianna's legacy every generation. (Rianna's legacy being the gene or what-have-you that lets her open the tower.) The tower is only ever opened to end an Era, when the balance of creative potential goes awry. The creator is less of a sentient entity than an unconscious imaginative power sink at this point; when the tower is opened, it draws in all of the Godhead, chews it up, and spits it out in a more palatable form. Or just in more pieces, as that's what chewing things tends to do.

Jump forward to the Fourth Era, where Ayanna DeLavrey is the current head of the family. She's about twenty years younger than Silverlock; the DeLavreys tend to live human lifespans, but the women who carry Rianna's legacy are healthier and age better than the rest of the family. Ayanna's mother, Ninaya DeLavrey, had a hard time producing an heir with Rianna's legacy; as a result, Ayanna has a lot of bastard half siblings. (Traditionally, the DeLavrey women never marry; they bear children out of wedlock and then adopt the heir.) Aya was the only girl to carry the legacy; she has a half-brother who also carries it.

The children who don't inherit are usually exiled or foisted off on foster parents with no one the wiser; the DeLavrey family has a number of retainers whose sole purpose is to deal with these children.

Anyway. I said I wasn't going to give Silverlock a sister, but he's half convinced he's Aya's brother. If she knows, she isn't telling; the only person who would know is Ninaya, and she's definitely not telling, if she even knows. (She had at least twelve children, and didn't acknowledge any of them except Aya and the son with the legacy; it's more than possible that she had the rest sold to brothels.)

And, now that I think about it, they probably haven't had sex, so I wouldn't even have to worry about the incest. This has more to do with the fact that Silverlock is terrified of her than the fact that she really just isn't interested. (Terror aside, I think he finds her lack of interest partly insulting and partly a blatant challange. *sigh*)

So really, he wouldn't get anything out of being a DeLavrey. It would just be horrible indulgent of me, which is why I shouldn't do it. >_< Augh. Really, it's a bad idea- he'd be related to all of Aya's half siblings, and he's probably slept with several of them. And incest is never a good idea. I know this. I've read the first few books of Angel Sanctuary.

But anyway. Eggs everywhere, and the creation/rebirth thing means there's an Easter-equivalent holiday, complete with candy eggs. The creator (who had a name, but she doesn't really need one anymore) probably tried to hatch a universe several times before she actually succeeded; I imagine all the unsuccessful universes were delicious. Scrambled, sunny side up, omelettes, served raw over rice...all the other godlike entities in the void ate well for ages.

...AUGH.

comics- Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse

OH. OH. OHGOD.

Ben Templesmith is a comics writer/illustrator. He does horror. He does zombies. I want to do his zombies, and I'm not actually channeling Theron at the moment. Templesmith does the art for Fell, which is amazing and you really, really ought to be reading it because it's pulp noir detective fiction by Warren Ellis, and the least you can do is shell out two bucks for the first issue.

Anyway Ben Templesmith. He's done a few series of his own, and illustrated a few others. His latest solo project just put out its zeroth issue- and now I have have Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse in my hot little hands. It is so amazing I just put it down and felt the need to babble incoherently on my blog about it.

Interdimensional strip clubs filled with zombies(patrons and employees) and tentacular plant monsters, women wearing thongs and dragon tattoos and little else, interdimensional cell phone (easy minutes plan), robot sidekicks with shotguns and beards and reflective sunglasses, and Ben Templesmith's dirty, gorgeous, disgusting, luminous art. I am in love. (And I want some of these prints so very badly. So. Fucking. Pretty.) The main character is a zombie- a tentacle monster sprouts out of his eye sockets so his sidekick has to blast his head off with a shotgun, and afterwards, the bits of his head that are still intact on the floor ask if anyone has a stapler. Next panel, Wormwood is back on his feet, with the caption, "Minutes and 54 staples later-" and it is amazing.

I'm not at all certain where this love of detective stories came from (the zombies are easy- entirely Trina and Gina's faults, and I do mean entirely)- I mean, I'm not feeling any particular urge to start reading Doyle or Chandler (maybe Chandler), but then, I don't feel many urges to read books these days. Comics seem uniquely suited to noir- it works well as a visual genre. And I love it. I may have always loved it, and just not realized it until I picked up Fell. And now I've got Wormwood to keep me entertained, too, and I think I may need to find more noir comics to feed this gaping black void in my soul.

Comics: like cake, only better. (And after yesterday, I have so many of them. I haven't even counted them, because they are so multitudinous, and almost all of them were free. The only things I bought were Wormwood, Blackgas #2 (zombie survivial by Warren Ellis), The Apparat Singles Collection (self contained SF by Warren Ellis), and Samurai Champloo volume 2.)

God, I'm such a whore for Warren Ellis and all things related to him. I really need to finish reading Transmet.

Life is so good right now. :)

on writing

(The feed is acting weird again, and I'm not sure why. Hm.)

Sometimes I find myself using phrases that are completely cliched and overused without even realizing it. Take the Temari fragment down there- Sonya is quite right, the "sexless as her weapons" thing has been used and over used by multitudes of authors.

And yeah, sure, in a general sort of way, a knife is sexless in that it is an inanimate object and has no gender. But weapons have an inherent sensuality to them that transcends gender. And while I was going for lack-of-gender in the fragment, the lack of sensuality/sexuality was more important.

It's like every time I realize I've actually used the word "stunning" in a paper. I can't think of what I actually want to say, so I fall back on something someone else has said. (This is the second time Sonya's caught me doing this. For the win!) I wish I had someone to grab me by the shoulders and shake me violently every time I do it.

Anyway, knives are sexy and so is Temari. Maybe I'll fix it.

Also, on the subject of unoriginality, I'm getting the temptation to stick Marcus and Blaine in a room together just to let them complain about their small redheaded children, secret identities, and fucked up religions. They're the same person, augh. This is what I get for rereading my 2002 Nano when I ought to be doing homework.

I think, however, that the Seventh Hour universe is about seven million times more fucked up and unstable than Toggle even at its most ridiculous. What the hell was I thinkin? I know part of the point of Seventh Hour was to see if I could maintain an elevated style of writing for extended lengths of time, but damn. The grammar, it burns.

Remember, kids: it may look pretty on the page and it may sound pretty in your head, but chances are that dangling modifier is just going to confuse the hell out of you later on in life. I'm still occasionally guilty of convoluted sentence structure (oh, man, prepositional phrases, I hate you so much), but I've been trying very hard to cut back. Simplicity is the key to not wanting to gouge your own eyes out.

In other news, I've tracked down a copy of "Beauty and the Mess," and now I want to see Nickel Creek in concert so badly it hurts. *sigh* Will probably do a song post for it, because it's one of my favorite songs evar.

Temari fragment

I don't read Naruto fic anymore, but I'll read anything Sunfreak writes, especially if it's something new and full of eyeballs. (Shit! She beat me to it! XD)

Rather than rant about how much I hate Sasuke/Sakura, despite the fact that I have no interest in Naruto any longer, I give you this (I still like making shit up about Hidden Sand):

In Sunagakure, the word "kunoichi" is an insult.

Women cannot be shinobi in the desert; the sand strips away femininity the way it strips away skin- until there is nothing left but bleached bone. Those among the ranks of shinobi who happen to be female are as hard and weathered as the men, and as sexless as their weapons.

Temari bares her legs to the brutal desert sun and the equally brutal disapproval of her superiors, and hides the pale crosshatch of unburned skin on her thighs from her brothers and her father when she removes her skirt and mesh half-leggings. She ignores the whispers that tell her she should be ashamed, the voices that tell her to bind her breasts and cover her hair.

Temari is a shinobi, the equal of any man and the better of most; she is also a woman, and she will not let her family, her village, or the desert take that from her.

Women are meant to be protected, cherished. Shinobi are tools, to be used until they break.

Temari thinks of her mother and knows: she will not be protected, she will not be cherished, she will not be used.

And she will never break.
---

AHAHAHADRIVEL *spontaneously combusts*

ToGgle and scribble

I've figured out a title for the fucking story! "Tower of the Gods," which is both silly and cliched, and shall henceforth be shortened to "Toggle."

I did a sketch page of most of the major Toggle characters- scribbly things, ahoy. It was originally just going to be Blaine and a random snake, but then I realized that I can't actually draw full bodies without them looking like crap. So I cut off his legs and doodled everyone else in the whitespace.

The rift horror may look all cute and squishable, but it'll melt your face right off if you get too close to it.

Greymalkin is supposed to look kind of terrifying; he's a lot like Silverlock, only without the charm, the restraint, or the good intentions to counteract his overwhelming sleaze and creepiness. (He's one of the very few people Silverlock will never, ever sleep with. Ever. It's the principle of the thing.) He's part demon of some sort- in D&D terms, he'd probably be considered a tiefling.

Ayanna DeLavrey controls Rianna's Tower, which makes her the most powerful woman in the world. The Tower has been in the care of the DeLavrey family since the First Era, when the creator (who has a name, I swear) entrusted it to Rianna DeLavrey. Apart from being at the center of the worlds creation mythos, the Tower acts as a command center for the entirety of the Godhead; whoever controls the Tower has the powers of all of the gods, including the Radrezarian ones, at their disposal. It is, essentially, all the power of creation. It's only been opened a few times since the First Era, and then only to keep the world from blowing up.

Ayanna is a general in the army by birth and by merit; she's the sort of person who doesn't take shit from anyone, for any reason. (She may or may not be Silverlock's half sister, just like Varun may or may not secretly be the patron deity of tentacle sex. AUGH.) Officially, she has no political influence, but she tends to ignore the family tradition of noninvolvement. She's something of a loose cannon; she makes a lot of people very, very nervous.

Mandhatri is, like, twelve, or whatever the equivalent is to the Naga. He's a nice kid, really. Just a little...misguided. And psychotic. He's directly responsible for the dead assassins; he has them kidnapped, tortured, diced, and sent back to the Guild in bags. At some point in the story, he cuts off one of Silverlock's hands, just for the hell of it. (It gets put back on. Eventually.)

Blaine (who really ought to be a lot paler- he lives in a frickin' cave, after all) is saying "tits!" as in "Varun's tits!" It's his favorite curse (he's been saying it in my head since long before I really knew who Varun was)- it gets him all kinds of strange looks, though.

(Silverlock: Waitaminute- does Varun even have tits?
Blaine: Well, actually...uh...sometimes. We're really not sure why- it just happens.
Silverlock: Huh. That's kind of hot.
Blaine: *facepalm*)

Varun is a fairly popular deity- any god that promotes free healing tends to get a lot of support from the general populace. He was originally a Naga deity, but there are very few Naga left, and his followers have become more diverse.

Natash'Azaun is a dual deity; Natasha is a luck goddess, and Azaun is a death god. Assassins and thieves tend to have a very personal relationship with both of them, for obvious reasons. Azaun is responsible for the Guildmaster's immortality- it's still unclear whether or not this was meant as a blessing or a curse.

Joshel is probably the most popular deity in the country. He doesn't have very many actual followers, but he gets a week long celebration every spring that everyone takes part in- it's a little like Mardi Gras (or the Radrezarian Festival, without the historical connotations). Lots of drinking and dancing and nakedness. Joshel is the patron of slaves, the oppressed, and half-elves; his holy symbol is a pair of interlocking shackles with a broken chain.

So, The Kleptones. They're a bunch of British DJs and mix artists who do mash-ups, which are tasty combinations of songs and soundclips which are more delicious than the sum of their parts. They also violate all kinds of copyrights, which is why The Kleptones have all of their music available for free on their website. I've got their latest EP; the individual tracks are all pretty cool, but when you listen to the whole thing in order, it's got a powerful sort of resonance to it. It's story telling at its most oblique, and I like that.

Mashups are pretty addictive things, actually- I've now got three different ones involving NIN's "Bite the Hand that Feeds." I don't even like NIN, but I'm almost tempted to get the original song. I think it would just be a disappointment, though. I mean, it'll be weird hearing the song without pieces of the Ghostbusters theme in the background, or "Dude Looks Like a Lady". XD

Possibly I'll write my final paper for English on them; I'm not really an expert on the mixing scene. Middle sk00l video games, on the other hand...well. I'm sure I could write an 8 page journalistic analysis of FFVII as art, but I'm not sure I could hand it in for a grade. (I did get an A- on my Fell paper. It was actually pretty shitty, as far as the writing quality goes, but damn if you couldn't hear me chortling in the background of every paragraph.)

...for some reason, the word "chortle" always makes me think of birds. Something like a chicken crossed with a turtle, with fewer brain cells.

My brain has gone dry; this is a disconcerting feeling. I finally finished that chunk of story I just posted- and it still needs work, everything always needs work- but now, 4800 words later, I don't have anything else in my head. Nothing but dust bunnies and crumpled gum wrappers. It's startling to think that I'm running out of backstory.

When I get home, I'm going to have to tear my room apart to find the notebook that birthed this story; it's one of the little spiral bound ones I've had since eighth grade. I'll tear out everything I've already written and start over again, until I remember how much I hate handwriting things.

Two weeks, and I'm out. I can't wait.