Hello, and welcome to another coffee-review segment!
Today's sample comes from "Califia Farms", link below, and the unfamiliar word emphasizes the third syllable: "Cal-uh-FEE-ahh", as the bottle itself explains.
I'm trying a few different things this time. For one, the stuff comes in a 48 ounce plastic bottle, so if you're looking for something to share with friends (or keep you awake longer than usual) this is an excellent choice. For another, I've been playing around with some settings on the recording, and I'll have two versions available for comparison.
The first recording is mostly 'raw'. I trimmed out the little clicks at the beginning and end of the whole clip, but otherwise this is how it sounded when I recorded. And yes, I still have the three fans going in the background. I haven't (yet) won the lottery or otherwise acquired enough money to install a proper climate-control system in the recording booth, so that's going to be an aspect of 'first stage' recordings for the foreseeable future.
The second recording involves turning the 'gain' up to 14, and applying a 'noise reduction' filter. Please let me know in the comments which one you like, and feel free to give details about why!
The coffee itself is delicious. Saying that the almond-milk provides 'nutty' flavor-notes should be somewhat redundant, but at least they don't overpower the coffee or cream flavors.
So, without further ado:
'Raw' recording:
'Cleaned up' recording:
Manufacturer Link:
Tuesday, September 27, 2022
Monday, September 12, 2022
Coffee Review: Presenting "Nitro Vanilla" Cold Brew from Cuvee
Hello!
Been having a bizarrely enervated week, lately, despite literally drinking at least a can of coffee every day.
Today's sample comes from Cuvee Coffe Company, out of Austin, Texas, link below. The "Nitro" part of the name comes from the tiny capsule of nitrogen gas inside the can, which gets punctured at the same time as the pull-tab opens the main chamber of the can. The technology is quite common but nevertheless can be startling, even for long-time usesrs. I like to think of it as the beverage equivalent of those sealed containers of biscuit dough; very few people can keep from at least a slight flinch when the can pops. The drink itself has very strong coffee notes, but is it actually drinkable? Give a listen and find out! And here's the link to the Cuvee Coffee Company's site, in case you're inspired to try some on your own:
Been having a bizarrely enervated week, lately, despite literally drinking at least a can of coffee every day.
Today's sample comes from Cuvee Coffe Company, out of Austin, Texas, link below. The "Nitro" part of the name comes from the tiny capsule of nitrogen gas inside the can, which gets punctured at the same time as the pull-tab opens the main chamber of the can. The technology is quite common but nevertheless can be startling, even for long-time usesrs. I like to think of it as the beverage equivalent of those sealed containers of biscuit dough; very few people can keep from at least a slight flinch when the can pops. The drink itself has very strong coffee notes, but is it actually drinkable? Give a listen and find out! And here's the link to the Cuvee Coffee Company's site, in case you're inspired to try some on your own:
Friday, September 2, 2022
Coffee Review: Presenting "Black And Bold" Cold Brew Coffee in a can, from High Brew Coffee
Greetings, one and all wanderers through the Web!
I'm experimenting with what sort of content I can post, mostly to see what topics really appeal.
Today, it's a voice-over sample of myself sampling some pre-made coffee. Basically, I can't drink most 'drip-brew' coffees because of the high acidity. Makes the stuff taste like ashes mixed with acid in hot water; it's three... three.. THREE kinds of pain in one to my mouth. And I have no particular desire to court diabetes, so I want to go easy on the sugar. So I'll have a recurring, if irregular, set of reviews on coffees either processed at the roastery to reduce the acidity, or brewed with methods to do the same.
The coffee in question comes from a company operating out of Austin, Texas. Skip on over to their page, link below, for more about them.
As far as the coffee itself goes, here's a recording of first impressions, delivered in my 'dulcet tones':
It's definitely a work in progress. So, by all means, let me know in the comments what kinds of information you want to hear, suggestions on what to do differently, or even other coffees you want me to try!
(I'm still building up the courage to show my mug on-camera, though. Pictures may come later... Video will take a while longer. But thanks for any words of support!)
What is the High Brew Coffee Co.?
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Galen Tries To Use Gugnir As His Shibboleth Through The Storm
16 Jan 2018
Galen rested one hand on the wall, idly noting the worn smoothness of the surface. Between the carving itself and the erosive work from the constantly shifting wind, the rocky cavern wall (granite, but with tempting flecks of feldspar and other rare minerals blended in) felt almost as flat as a brick.
That he now stood under a wonderful approximation of open sky for the first time in what seemed like months claimed the largest portion of his awareness, and his wings fluttered behind his back. Just a reflexive adjustment in response to the shifting breeze, he wanted to tell himself. And the winds were picking up.
But no, the truth was that Sky, the environment that called his hearts, no longer welcomed him. This space... a 'room' crafted by magic to feel so vast that he had to strain to find clues that he was still inside... formed what he hoped was the last of four gates. The previous ones drew on classical elements: a room of fire, another of water, and what he hoped was a 'gate' of earth. That one amounted to an agonizing, clawing excavation of a small tunnel into one large enough to admit his claustrophobic self.
This 'gate of air' presented an alluring trap after the previous ones... and the jaws of the trap appeared to be slamming shut on Galen. Were it simply an extension of the Elemental Plane of Air, Galen might well have struggled to stay on the trail he followed. Instead, the vast 'gate' contained a large enough volume to maintain it's own weather systems. Systems that seemed to oscillate between 'idyllic breezes' and 'raging thunderstorms'. The clear blue skies teasing Galen's desperate eyes as the aftermath of the previous gate flung him into the 'space' now turned from curdling milky white to angry grey iron. The undersides and interiors of the gathering storm clouds illuminated by ever more spectacular... and frequent... lightning bolts.
Galen had been struck by lightning before, on occasion. He had heard a strange Mystic who cloaked his understanding of magic in technological terms describe electricity as 'that child of capriciousness'. And the lightning bolts striking the side of the mountain seemed more like the act of an enraged, somewhat petulant deity than a 'mere' force of nature.
Which, of course, made a certain amount of sense. The carvings on the side of the mountain now providing ever less certain shelter amounted to crypts for some lost tribe of Norsemen, as evidenced by symbols honoring the Aesir, such as All Father Odin and All Mother Freyja. More to the point, the wooden spear shaft in Galen's left hand bore intricate carvings identifying it as none other than Gugnir, Odin's own weapon.
Somehow, the shaft had fallen... or been thrown... from its place of honor at the highest carving Galen had yet examined. Down the side of the cliff for what seemed like almost a full mile... to rest within what Galen could only describe as a 'forest' of metal.
Orichalcum.
The Bane of Gargolyes. One touch of the blood-tinged copper-gold metal would evaporate Galen's flesh like a white hot knife through ice. And yet... He could not risk taking to the air, striving for the highest part of the cliff and what he hoped was the way out of this place. Not empty handed, at any rate. He set his very life on the only gamble available: retrieve Gugnir from it's resting place, in the hopes that a token marked by Odin would somehow grant him safe passage through the onrushing storm.
Galen let a thin grin cross his lips. He held no illusions that Odin would allow 'easy' access, even if Gugnir served as Galen's passkey; Odin tested all who came to his attention, and this situation seemed to present no evidence that it would be an exception. Still, his choices seemed to amount to 'stay and die for certain, or try and risk dying in the process of escape'.
So. Galen somehow managed to worm his way through the forest of death metal, finding an approximation of a clear path to Gugnir's resting place carved by previous lightning storms. And then managed to retrace his steps back to the dubious safety of the mountain.
Which brought him to this place, to this moment.
He gripped Gugnir in his hand and studied the oncoming storm. The air positively sang with ozone and rising elemental fury. Above him, a tiny black speck in the upper reach of the rock face marked the highest cave.
He pinned his hopes on the All Father's dubious mercy, and cynical expectation that Odin would provide some means of escape from this trap... provided that the victim could properly puzzle his way through it all.
The spear in his hand seemed to shift, somehow; now a hardened piece of of wood, now a patterned length of crafted iron, now a buzzing solid mass of lightning. But all the aspects seemed to pull at Galen, communicating the thing's desire to rejoin its children in the storm and direct them at the object of its wrath.
Galen muttered to it, as many words as he could fit in a single, deep breath. He swore to return it to where it belonged, in exchange for guiding him to the goal of his desire with all due haste and with respect for the challenges he, himself, had undergone to return the shaft to its home.
The oath whipped away on the wind; Galen hoped that it somehow reached receptive ears.
He took another breath and launched himself into the air.
The wind wrapped him in flows and twists and turns as he clawed at the air. His joints and muscles strained to ride the forces trying to shake him like a dog with a toy in its jaws. For the second time that 'day', he murmured gratitude to the brutal training methods of the tengu, the Japanese bird-men. Human legend held them as nearly unbeatable with swords. But as humans lacked any natural means of flight, they had no way of knowing how well the tengu fought in the air.
But the Gargoyles knew.
As a reward for a service, Galen accepted an offer of training at the tengus' clawed fingers. For an entire year, they had subjected Galen to merciless attention: correcting miniscule errors in his stances while also stretching his muscles to their limits on a dual quest for strength and flexibility.
Once again, the tengus' training saved Galen's life.
The wind tossed and spun him. He absorbed the wind's force and rode it toward his goal from whatever direction presented itself.
And then the lightning began to streak and flare around him.
The tengu may have held vastly different opinions about flight than the Gargoyles, but one thing both groups agreed on in reference to flying in a lightning storm amounted to a very simple rule: Do not fly in a lightning storm.
While a large mass of reasonably low electrical conductivity... such as, for example, the stony flesh of a Gargoyle... would seem to offer little enticement for drawing lightning, the truth presented a far more treacherous challenge. Lightning followed trails of ionized air, from sky to ground or vice versa. A Gargoyle's nose and skin could only trace such a trail in the space between two layers of air; if an ionized channel happened to follow one layer moving faster than the Gargoyle could detect, a lightning strike could still conceivably detour through said Gargoyle on its way to its destination.
All of this flashed through Galen's thoughts as he gripped Gugnir, brandishing it before the storm in hopes of parting it like a curtain.
Instead, the lightning seemed to gather itself, to rush at Gugnir like a school of pirahna surging toward a bleeding and helpless animal in the water.
Galen rested one hand on the wall, idly noting the worn smoothness of the surface. Between the carving itself and the erosive work from the constantly shifting wind, the rocky cavern wall (granite, but with tempting flecks of feldspar and other rare minerals blended in) felt almost as flat as a brick.
That he now stood under a wonderful approximation of open sky for the first time in what seemed like months claimed the largest portion of his awareness, and his wings fluttered behind his back. Just a reflexive adjustment in response to the shifting breeze, he wanted to tell himself. And the winds were picking up.
But no, the truth was that Sky, the environment that called his hearts, no longer welcomed him. This space... a 'room' crafted by magic to feel so vast that he had to strain to find clues that he was still inside... formed what he hoped was the last of four gates. The previous ones drew on classical elements: a room of fire, another of water, and what he hoped was a 'gate' of earth. That one amounted to an agonizing, clawing excavation of a small tunnel into one large enough to admit his claustrophobic self.
This 'gate of air' presented an alluring trap after the previous ones... and the jaws of the trap appeared to be slamming shut on Galen. Were it simply an extension of the Elemental Plane of Air, Galen might well have struggled to stay on the trail he followed. Instead, the vast 'gate' contained a large enough volume to maintain it's own weather systems. Systems that seemed to oscillate between 'idyllic breezes' and 'raging thunderstorms'. The clear blue skies teasing Galen's desperate eyes as the aftermath of the previous gate flung him into the 'space' now turned from curdling milky white to angry grey iron. The undersides and interiors of the gathering storm clouds illuminated by ever more spectacular... and frequent... lightning bolts.
Galen had been struck by lightning before, on occasion. He had heard a strange Mystic who cloaked his understanding of magic in technological terms describe electricity as 'that child of capriciousness'. And the lightning bolts striking the side of the mountain seemed more like the act of an enraged, somewhat petulant deity than a 'mere' force of nature.
Which, of course, made a certain amount of sense. The carvings on the side of the mountain now providing ever less certain shelter amounted to crypts for some lost tribe of Norsemen, as evidenced by symbols honoring the Aesir, such as All Father Odin and All Mother Freyja. More to the point, the wooden spear shaft in Galen's left hand bore intricate carvings identifying it as none other than Gugnir, Odin's own weapon.
Somehow, the shaft had fallen... or been thrown... from its place of honor at the highest carving Galen had yet examined. Down the side of the cliff for what seemed like almost a full mile... to rest within what Galen could only describe as a 'forest' of metal.
Orichalcum.
The Bane of Gargolyes. One touch of the blood-tinged copper-gold metal would evaporate Galen's flesh like a white hot knife through ice. And yet... He could not risk taking to the air, striving for the highest part of the cliff and what he hoped was the way out of this place. Not empty handed, at any rate. He set his very life on the only gamble available: retrieve Gugnir from it's resting place, in the hopes that a token marked by Odin would somehow grant him safe passage through the onrushing storm.
Galen let a thin grin cross his lips. He held no illusions that Odin would allow 'easy' access, even if Gugnir served as Galen's passkey; Odin tested all who came to his attention, and this situation seemed to present no evidence that it would be an exception. Still, his choices seemed to amount to 'stay and die for certain, or try and risk dying in the process of escape'.
So. Galen somehow managed to worm his way through the forest of death metal, finding an approximation of a clear path to Gugnir's resting place carved by previous lightning storms. And then managed to retrace his steps back to the dubious safety of the mountain.
Which brought him to this place, to this moment.
He gripped Gugnir in his hand and studied the oncoming storm. The air positively sang with ozone and rising elemental fury. Above him, a tiny black speck in the upper reach of the rock face marked the highest cave.
He pinned his hopes on the All Father's dubious mercy, and cynical expectation that Odin would provide some means of escape from this trap... provided that the victim could properly puzzle his way through it all.
The spear in his hand seemed to shift, somehow; now a hardened piece of of wood, now a patterned length of crafted iron, now a buzzing solid mass of lightning. But all the aspects seemed to pull at Galen, communicating the thing's desire to rejoin its children in the storm and direct them at the object of its wrath.
Galen muttered to it, as many words as he could fit in a single, deep breath. He swore to return it to where it belonged, in exchange for guiding him to the goal of his desire with all due haste and with respect for the challenges he, himself, had undergone to return the shaft to its home.
The oath whipped away on the wind; Galen hoped that it somehow reached receptive ears.
He took another breath and launched himself into the air.
The wind wrapped him in flows and twists and turns as he clawed at the air. His joints and muscles strained to ride the forces trying to shake him like a dog with a toy in its jaws. For the second time that 'day', he murmured gratitude to the brutal training methods of the tengu, the Japanese bird-men. Human legend held them as nearly unbeatable with swords. But as humans lacked any natural means of flight, they had no way of knowing how well the tengu fought in the air.
But the Gargoyles knew.
As a reward for a service, Galen accepted an offer of training at the tengus' clawed fingers. For an entire year, they had subjected Galen to merciless attention: correcting miniscule errors in his stances while also stretching his muscles to their limits on a dual quest for strength and flexibility.
Once again, the tengus' training saved Galen's life.
The wind tossed and spun him. He absorbed the wind's force and rode it toward his goal from whatever direction presented itself.
And then the lightning began to streak and flare around him.
The tengu may have held vastly different opinions about flight than the Gargoyles, but one thing both groups agreed on in reference to flying in a lightning storm amounted to a very simple rule: Do not fly in a lightning storm.
While a large mass of reasonably low electrical conductivity... such as, for example, the stony flesh of a Gargoyle... would seem to offer little enticement for drawing lightning, the truth presented a far more treacherous challenge. Lightning followed trails of ionized air, from sky to ground or vice versa. A Gargoyle's nose and skin could only trace such a trail in the space between two layers of air; if an ionized channel happened to follow one layer moving faster than the Gargoyle could detect, a lightning strike could still conceivably detour through said Gargoyle on its way to its destination.
All of this flashed through Galen's thoughts as he gripped Gugnir, brandishing it before the storm in hopes of parting it like a curtain.
Instead, the lightning seemed to gather itself, to rush at Gugnir like a school of pirahna surging toward a bleeding and helpless animal in the water.
Friday, January 12, 2018
Terribleminds Writing Prompt: significant song lyrics
Source blog post:
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2018/01/12/flash-fiction-challenge-song-lyric-story/
Let's get one thing straight: my tastes in music are not exactly in alignment with whomever is on top of the pop charts this week, and hasn't been for quite a while.
(And yes, I just turned 47 a little more than a month ago.)
A perusal of some of the songs (specifically, the ones with lyrics) that are "in rotation" on my music devices should prove that:
"Karma Slave" by Splashdown
"Up And Away" by The Poxy Boggards
"Breathless (LP Version)" by The Corrs
"Dead Man's Party" by Oingo Boingo
"Edge of the Ocean" by Ivy
... to name but five.
So, given that the assignment specifically refers to "Now, take a slice of those words — a smidgen of the lyrics, a line, a short stanza — and use them as the theme or basis for a bit of flash fiction", what should I use for this assignment?
There has been a chorus with an image that keeps popping up in my thoughts for years now. And as tempting as it might be to pick "Blood From A Stone" by Cycle V (which has, in fact, been stuck in my head since I first heard it back in the 1990s), I have a string of words that has fascinated me for far longer.
It comes from "Tom O'Bedlam", an English traditional poem dating from the early 17th century. The word "bedlam", commonly defined to mean 'a scene of uproar or confusion', is a linguistic corruption of "Bethlehem Royal Hospital", a facility near London that became associated with the worst excesses of abusing patients suffering from mental illness. The poem has been set to music since it first hit public awareness, so it counts, nyah.
One verse of the eight "canonical" ones reads thus:
"With a host of furious fancies
Whereof I am commander
With a burning spear and a horse of air
Into the wilds I wander
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summon'd am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wild world's end
Methinks it is no journey."
I've never been able to get the image of "a knight of ghosts and shadows" out of my head for long. So, here goes, with a tip of the hat to Mercedes Lackey:
----------
"Your crest has a place at Tourney," the guy told me.
I looked up from my phone. I had my earbuds in for a reason, dangitall. I had no time for homeless bums trying to wheedle my spare change or any leftover food I might have in my pack.
I gave him a once-over, still shuffling my feet toward the bus stop. My height, give or take. Brown hair that hadn't been washed in a while, but held away from his face; I guessed he had it tied and running down his back. Serious weathering on his face; the man clearly lived most of his life outside.
"The ghosts have called," he went on, in that same voice. Low and umbling, like he and his mouth had regular contact with high octane rotgut. He fell into step beside me, matching my pace.
His shoulders looked like he might weigh over two hundred pounds, but the stiffness in his movements made me look again. And damn me if he wasn't wearing some kind of shoulder pads under a faded sarape, the narrow horizontal stripes faded and down to shades of brown or grey. And everything else I could see under the cover looked like some kind of armor. Scavenged from castoffs behind sporting goods stores or scrounged from donation boxes, but armor nevertheless.
I wrinkled my nose, expecting an olfactory assault from the filthy clothes. Thankfully, nothing happened on that score. What fabric I could see actually looked kind of threadbare, but no black gunk around the seams or cuffs or anything. It seemed clean. So what? If the guy wasn't homeless, then he was some kind of Internet sensation within his thousands of subscribers. His face didn't register; I have my own circle of online celebrities, thank you very much, and he certainly wasn't one of them.
"The shadows have found you," he added, as if that settled everything.
I didn't have time to get caught up in some stupid viral video event, prank or otherwise. My day job shift, back office stuff at one of the international banks that hasn't been caught laundering money (yet) had wrapped up ten minutes ago. I wanted to catch the next bus at the stop four blocks away; between the two transfers, followed by a seven block walk to my apartment, I could squeeze a pair of fifteen minute naps before getting home to the side hustle.
The day job paid for rent and utilities. The side hustle, transcribing recordings of droning meetings, let me actually afford to take public transportation to my day job, as well as eat about once a day and occasionally spring for a new pair of shoes.
"Got the wrong guy, pal," I told him. Kept a side-eye on him, but only that. Armor or no armor, fresh out of the homeless shelter shower or not, you only ignore crazy people when they're out of range. And I sped up, a little, to get that space cushion between us. If I was lucky, sometime in the next couple of blocks, I could cross an intersection before he did, and that would put a nice insurmountable barrier of city traffic between him and me.
And, hey, here's the curb and the street, the crosswalk countdown gives me three seconds to cross and I want to leave this guy eating my dust. I break into a sprint, catching up with the stragglers at the end of the crowd crossing with the light...
No joy. He matched my pace, easy as anything. Wasn't even breathing hard.
"You are summoned to tourney," he said again, an insistent note starting to come through in his tone.
"Screw off," I told him. I pulled my phone back up in front of my face, trying to ignore him into going away.
I felt a hand go onto my shoulder and tried to shake it off.
My shoulder went stiff, actually started getting cold.
I stopped, anger rising. I had absolutely no time for any of this, but if this guy wasn't going to take a hint, I had about a month's worth of stress from two jobs and the rest of my waking life just waiting to get let off in a fight with some random crazy dude.
"Hands off!" I told him, pointing my free hand at his nose.
He released my shoulder and stepped back, the tension in his face fading away. "Welcome to tourney," he told me.
I looked past him, and saw that the nifty Irish bar I had always meant to stop in at some point wasn't there any more. Along with that entire side of the street, the city traffic... Hell, the rest of the city.
Instead... tents. Wooden bleacher seats, facing away from me. The sounds of metal and horses and people, but no cars. The smells of sweat and dirt and roasting meat... but not a hint of exhaust from internal combustion engines.
It looked like the Renaissance Faire I had visited once, about ten years ago, along with a lovely young woman who was really into that kind of thing.
"Your pavilion awaits this way," the guy said, waving a hand....
The guy's armor made no kind of sense. For one thing, it was a collection of pieces from damned near every pre-firearm warrior culture on Earth. The left boot looked like the kind of
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2018/01/12/flash-fiction-challenge-song-lyric-story/
Let's get one thing straight: my tastes in music are not exactly in alignment with whomever is on top of the pop charts this week, and hasn't been for quite a while.
(And yes, I just turned 47 a little more than a month ago.)
A perusal of some of the songs (specifically, the ones with lyrics) that are "in rotation" on my music devices should prove that:
"Karma Slave" by Splashdown
"Up And Away" by The Poxy Boggards
"Breathless (LP Version)" by The Corrs
"Dead Man's Party" by Oingo Boingo
"Edge of the Ocean" by Ivy
... to name but five.
So, given that the assignment specifically refers to "Now, take a slice of those words — a smidgen of the lyrics, a line, a short stanza — and use them as the theme or basis for a bit of flash fiction", what should I use for this assignment?
There has been a chorus with an image that keeps popping up in my thoughts for years now. And as tempting as it might be to pick "Blood From A Stone" by Cycle V (which has, in fact, been stuck in my head since I first heard it back in the 1990s), I have a string of words that has fascinated me for far longer.
It comes from "Tom O'Bedlam", an English traditional poem dating from the early 17th century. The word "bedlam", commonly defined to mean 'a scene of uproar or confusion', is a linguistic corruption of "Bethlehem Royal Hospital", a facility near London that became associated with the worst excesses of abusing patients suffering from mental illness. The poem has been set to music since it first hit public awareness, so it counts, nyah.
One verse of the eight "canonical" ones reads thus:
"With a host of furious fancies
Whereof I am commander
With a burning spear and a horse of air
Into the wilds I wander
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summon'd am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wild world's end
Methinks it is no journey."
I've never been able to get the image of "a knight of ghosts and shadows" out of my head for long. So, here goes, with a tip of the hat to Mercedes Lackey:
----------
"Your crest has a place at Tourney," the guy told me.
I looked up from my phone. I had my earbuds in for a reason, dangitall. I had no time for homeless bums trying to wheedle my spare change or any leftover food I might have in my pack.
I gave him a once-over, still shuffling my feet toward the bus stop. My height, give or take. Brown hair that hadn't been washed in a while, but held away from his face; I guessed he had it tied and running down his back. Serious weathering on his face; the man clearly lived most of his life outside.
"The ghosts have called," he went on, in that same voice. Low and umbling, like he and his mouth had regular contact with high octane rotgut. He fell into step beside me, matching my pace.
His shoulders looked like he might weigh over two hundred pounds, but the stiffness in his movements made me look again. And damn me if he wasn't wearing some kind of shoulder pads under a faded sarape, the narrow horizontal stripes faded and down to shades of brown or grey. And everything else I could see under the cover looked like some kind of armor. Scavenged from castoffs behind sporting goods stores or scrounged from donation boxes, but armor nevertheless.
I wrinkled my nose, expecting an olfactory assault from the filthy clothes. Thankfully, nothing happened on that score. What fabric I could see actually looked kind of threadbare, but no black gunk around the seams or cuffs or anything. It seemed clean. So what? If the guy wasn't homeless, then he was some kind of Internet sensation within his thousands of subscribers. His face didn't register; I have my own circle of online celebrities, thank you very much, and he certainly wasn't one of them.
"The shadows have found you," he added, as if that settled everything.
I didn't have time to get caught up in some stupid viral video event, prank or otherwise. My day job shift, back office stuff at one of the international banks that hasn't been caught laundering money (yet) had wrapped up ten minutes ago. I wanted to catch the next bus at the stop four blocks away; between the two transfers, followed by a seven block walk to my apartment, I could squeeze a pair of fifteen minute naps before getting home to the side hustle.
The day job paid for rent and utilities. The side hustle, transcribing recordings of droning meetings, let me actually afford to take public transportation to my day job, as well as eat about once a day and occasionally spring for a new pair of shoes.
"Got the wrong guy, pal," I told him. Kept a side-eye on him, but only that. Armor or no armor, fresh out of the homeless shelter shower or not, you only ignore crazy people when they're out of range. And I sped up, a little, to get that space cushion between us. If I was lucky, sometime in the next couple of blocks, I could cross an intersection before he did, and that would put a nice insurmountable barrier of city traffic between him and me.
And, hey, here's the curb and the street, the crosswalk countdown gives me three seconds to cross and I want to leave this guy eating my dust. I break into a sprint, catching up with the stragglers at the end of the crowd crossing with the light...
No joy. He matched my pace, easy as anything. Wasn't even breathing hard.
"You are summoned to tourney," he said again, an insistent note starting to come through in his tone.
"Screw off," I told him. I pulled my phone back up in front of my face, trying to ignore him into going away.
I felt a hand go onto my shoulder and tried to shake it off.
My shoulder went stiff, actually started getting cold.
I stopped, anger rising. I had absolutely no time for any of this, but if this guy wasn't going to take a hint, I had about a month's worth of stress from two jobs and the rest of my waking life just waiting to get let off in a fight with some random crazy dude.
"Hands off!" I told him, pointing my free hand at his nose.
He released my shoulder and stepped back, the tension in his face fading away. "Welcome to tourney," he told me.
I looked past him, and saw that the nifty Irish bar I had always meant to stop in at some point wasn't there any more. Along with that entire side of the street, the city traffic... Hell, the rest of the city.
Instead... tents. Wooden bleacher seats, facing away from me. The sounds of metal and horses and people, but no cars. The smells of sweat and dirt and roasting meat... but not a hint of exhaust from internal combustion engines.
It looked like the Renaissance Faire I had visited once, about ten years ago, along with a lovely young woman who was really into that kind of thing.
"Your pavilion awaits this way," the guy said, waving a hand....
The guy's armor made no kind of sense. For one thing, it was a collection of pieces from damned near every pre-firearm warrior culture on Earth. The left boot looked like the kind of
Monday, December 28, 2015
Preparation for 2016
I'm planning, as so many others before me have done, to make some major changes with the new year. I hope to bolster my chances of success by planning, inasmuch as such a thing can be done with my work schedule.
First things first: my goals.
1. To set up a regular meditation/exercise practice.
2. To set up a regular writing practice.
3. To brush up on my Japanese-language studies.
4. To learn a new skill: basic electronics.
The fun thing about these four goals is that they are actually very simple with the materials I have close to hand. Meditation, obviously, can be done anywhere that I can remain still and mostly undisturbed, but it's more effective if done after some kind of physical workout. Fine; I've got just enough unoccupied floorspace in my little room to manage.
Bonus: I can fulfill some requirements to earn my White Belt in Hoshinjutsu via their distance learning program!
Writing, likewise. All I need is a pen and paper, though a keyboard and computer of one sort or another is definitely the way to produce something legible.
Japanese: I've got at least three different audio-programs available within arm's reach of where I'm typing, with online study-aids available wherever I have Internet access.
Basic electronics comes from an educational kit, but it's got online video support and it's still something I've been meaning to study for a while.
My plan is to alternate between spending an hour a day on each of these tasks over a five-day workweek (a la high school) and then spending a full day of the week on each topic. I'll borrow a writing trick for efficiency, breaking all the study and work into 25-minutes-on, 5-minutes-off for either 60 minutes or 8 hours, and see how well it all comes together. Maybe I'll add an additional subject on the fifth hour/day. We'll see...
First things first: my goals.
1. To set up a regular meditation/exercise practice.
2. To set up a regular writing practice.
3. To brush up on my Japanese-language studies.
4. To learn a new skill: basic electronics.
The fun thing about these four goals is that they are actually very simple with the materials I have close to hand. Meditation, obviously, can be done anywhere that I can remain still and mostly undisturbed, but it's more effective if done after some kind of physical workout. Fine; I've got just enough unoccupied floorspace in my little room to manage.
Bonus: I can fulfill some requirements to earn my White Belt in Hoshinjutsu via their distance learning program!
Writing, likewise. All I need is a pen and paper, though a keyboard and computer of one sort or another is definitely the way to produce something legible.
Japanese: I've got at least three different audio-programs available within arm's reach of where I'm typing, with online study-aids available wherever I have Internet access.
Basic electronics comes from an educational kit, but it's got online video support and it's still something I've been meaning to study for a while.
My plan is to alternate between spending an hour a day on each of these tasks over a five-day workweek (a la high school) and then spending a full day of the week on each topic. I'll borrow a writing trick for efficiency, breaking all the study and work into 25-minutes-on, 5-minutes-off for either 60 minutes or 8 hours, and see how well it all comes together. Maybe I'll add an additional subject on the fifth hour/day. We'll see...
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood" video: Sorry, I missed something
Hello, Ms. Swift.
Thank you for joining me in my little corner of cyberspace. Please make yourself comfortable. I certainly won't blame you if you don't stay long.
I had to look up the lyrics to the song to make sense of the video. What I seemed to hear during the first watch-through was a repetitive complaint of betrayal, directed at either the dark-haired woman who kicked your character (may I refer to her as "Jane", for brevity's sake?) out of the window at the beginning the video, or Mr. X, the featured rap-artist (presumably portraying Jane's boyfriend). With the lyrics, I was able to understand that Jane was explaining that the betrayal had left her in profound pain, and that forgiving the betrayer was not going to be possible.
To be fair, I'm turning 45 on 30 Nov 2015, so my ears are probably not longer sharp enough to pick up certain details from the audio track. I've also never had a falling-out with anyone so profound that I felt the need to go through the kind of "training montage" that Jane endured during the main "body" of the video, so I freely admit a lack of comprehension of that aspect of the story.
If you're still with me, I do have a few questions.
First, I understand that the "elite secret sisterhood" motif was meant to symbolize that the betraying woman was once Jane's most trusted friend. Given the resources that Jane clearly can draw upon (those experts training her in all manner of mayhem won't come cheap, either in money or favors), is there any particular reason why a high-level operative such as her wouldn't bother to investigate why the betrayal took place at all?
Second, who are the people smoking cigars while sitting around the table monitoring Jane? Are they her bosses or the ones who inspired the betrayal?
Third, the lucite car mock-up you shared with Mr. X was admittedly a very cool visual, but what was its purpose in the context of the video? (And does it seem like it designed with a right-hand drive?)
Fourth, I understand that the song isn't meant to be "interactive", in the sense that Jane isn't interested in hearing the betrayer's response (given that the lyrics clearly state that the betrayer doesn't care about Jane's feelings), so why is Jane even bothering trying to express her feelings at all?
Finally, the end fight scene is choreographed to set up the audience-expectations for a climactic battle, where all of Jane's new skills are put to the test. So why did the video end with what looks like the beginning of a Three Stooges slap-fest? Is it meant to imply that both Jane and the betrayer are so emotionally distraught that they regress to junior-high-level fighting instincts?
In the end, I found the video to be a visual treat, with Jane building up her rage at the betrayal and channeling it into making herself into an even more dangerous "combat machine", but I felt disappointed by the ending.
Thanks for visiting, and I wish you and yours the very best.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Depression
Depression, especially chronic depression, seems to be something that either you understand because you have experienced it, or you cannot understand because your "blue funks" have never lasted more than a day or so.
I am in the first category, and I envy those in the second.
Trying to describe it is mostly an exercise in futility, but here's my latest attempt.
Find a gym with a special kind of track. It's kind of like a fifteen-foot-wide wooden bowl, and the idea is for you to run in circles around it. It's based on the same tricks of physics that let motorcycles ride upside down on the inside of large steel cages, though I've never heard of any human with the leg-strength or stamina to let them pull that off. Anyway, the workout this track provides gets progressively worse the faster you run. As you accelerate, you can run higher up the side of the bowl, but your own inertia pushes you harder against the track. Most models have lines on the sides to tell you how much 'gravity' you're inflicting on yourself, based on how high up the side you are.
Run a few laps, see if you can get up to 2.5 gees, and pay attention to how it feels.
Now stop, stand in the middle of the track, and imagine that you're still feeling that 2.5 gees pulling you down.
Go ahead and fight it. Remember what it felt like to move from 1 gee to 1.5, then to 2, then to 2.5. Try to imagine what it would be like to go faster, to feel even more gravity pulling down on every part of you.
For you fitness buffs, who take that sort of thing as a challenge, you're missing the point. Try imagining those gee-forces pulling on you every waking moment. It's worse than "The Wall" experienced by long-distance runners; that's just your body telling you that it's run out of freely-accessible carbohydrates to burn for fuel, and now it's started to burn through your reserves of stored fat. As I understand the phenomenon, it's possible for runners to train themselves not to react emotionally to it, but there's no way to avoid the discomfort.
Depression is like gee-forces that never give up; your muscles never strengthen enough to stand up to them because they never get the rest they need to repair the damage.
Depression is like the Wall that you cannot burn through, no matter how hard you push.
Depression is a collection of different things that science is only now beginning to understand, and I pray to whatever gods there may be that I live long enough to avail myself of the new treatments just being popularized.
But depression is as patient as the oblivion whose clothing it has borrowed, and as merciless as gravity.
Those of you who have never felt it, count your blessings.
Those of you, my brothers and sisters in suffering, who understand... I pray that you continue to find the drips and crumbs of hope you need each day.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Where does the Path begin?
"It's a dangerous business, Frodo: going out your front door. You don't keep your head, there's no telling where you could end up." - Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring
I'm impoverished. Not merely for lack of funds, but from a lack of imagination, and of trust in myself. The Romantic ideal holds that all anyone... boy or girl, man or woman... ever need do to find adventure, fame, fortune and a Place In The World, is simple: pack a bag, walk out of one's home, and keep walking.
The riddle should be easily solved on the face of it: nothing worth having can be obtained by remaining within the familiar. Therefore, one must leave as much of it behind as possible in order to find something uniquely one's own. The warnings against the practice work on the metaphorical level, as well: if you don't know what you're doing, you could get lost or hurt or robbed or otherwise come home empty-handed, assuming that there's a home for you when you do come back.
But without risk, without testing one's skills as a way of testing one's resolve and character, what is human life but a series of cages?
Should I divest myself of every material item, save those which I can carry easily (amounting to absolutely no more than, say, forty pounds in all) and Seek My Fortune at random? Or is there some middle ground, perhaps choices unique to me, that may be more effective?
I have previously fantasized about suicide in many different ways. It could even be said that I avoided that end through the simple expedient of an inability to choose from many possible methods. Simply moving until all strength to continue is exhausted seems like an over-extended way of doing exactly that. Ironically, not moving in the sense of remaining precisely within my "rut" of sleep, work, eat, repeat until death, could result in a life very similar.
"If your life were made into a book, would anyone read it?" This sentence frequently sees use as a way to goad the listeners into taking risks or attempting something new. The technique fails to move me because I have no interest in entertaining those who follow with the story of my life; I will, after all, be dead and unable to appreciate their responses, positive or negative or even merely confused. On the other hand, asking if I am satisfied with my life as I have lived it offers very little motivation, either; while the question requires a certain degree of reflection, it does not provoke action, either to continue support for the current pattern or to set up a new one.
The modern phenomenon of a "midlife crisis" usually includes something of a set script, in which the sufferer randomly abandons certain elements or the totality of the previous external existence in hopes of achieving something more satisfying. It can be as minimal as purchasing a motorcycle (as a symbol of "individual freedom" or at least changing previous habits) or as extensive as faking one's own death and beginning an entire new life, complete with a new spouse and possibly children. The Romans believed that the entire body renewed itself every seven years; the Japanese artist commonly known as "Hokusai" held a funeral for his previous self on his birthday and chose a new name and identity for the subsequent year. Perhaps this could be the beginning of a useful answer?
Sunday, June 14, 2015
What's so scary about that?
There's a wonderful webcomic based on the protagonist's extremely non-literal search for pieces of his own mind. It's called "Alpha-Flag". One of the more interesting details is that the protagonist's "missing pieces" are all given names based on the phonetic alphabet; his lost self-confidence, his only companion, is called "Charlie".
There is at least one short story that may or may not have anything to do with the main narrative, whose title inspired this post:
http://joncairns.net/AlphaFlag/wordpress/?p=1112
Frankly, I've lived so much of my life alone and forgotten, or at least ignored, so the prospect of dying under those conditions doesn't bother me all that much. Have I gotten to this place because I'm so afraid of emotionally investing in other people? Or because I don't know how to find those in whom I can emotionally invest and who will do so to the same degree to me that I do to them?
It's probably got something to do with my poor track-record of self-acceptance. One of my previous therapists gave me a handout, some photocopied pages from a book called "The Principle of Self-Acceptance". In it, the author proposes that true self-acceptance is the absolute foundation for self-esteem and, ultimately, all healthy psychological states. It is defined as "my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with myself".
I didn't read the handout when my therapist gave it to me, and I probably would have forgotten it if it hadn't somehow drifted to the top of the pile of clutter in my room.
"I cannot be truly for myself, cannot build self-esteem, if I cannot accept myself."
That's the last sentence in the handout. The rest of the handout talks about the need to accept all my thoughts, feelings, desires, actions and dreams as an expression of who and what I am at the time that these things took place.
Which would be fine, except that so many of all these things are simply not acceptABLE. I don't want to accept that I thought about killing myself or someone else. I don't want to accept that I feel like a waste of a life. I don't want to accept that I desire to make the pain stop by either running away from the rest of humanity and (briefly) living alone in the middle of the nearest uninhabitable wasteland. I don't want to accept that my actions form an almost schitzophrenic split between self-preservation and self-destruction. I don't want to accept that my dreams of financial security and emotional fulfillment are beyond my reach.
I judge myself unworthy of continued existence, yet I cannot match the courage of my convictions with actions OR rejection of this self-destructive pattern to make something better of myself.
I am too damaged to be anything more but I am not damaged enough that killing myself quickly is a viable option. So I kill myself slowly, through neglect; I will never make enough money to afford health care, and the mental health care system will not accept me until I am truly destitute... by which time I hope to be sufficiently ill that medical science cannot save me.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Lessons about myself
Right now, I'm basically stuck at home. I quit my previous job, thinking that I could just jump right into the swing of things with a new one that was already in the bag; papers signed, i.d.'s copied, the works. Come to find out that I still have to wait another week or three for a background check to work its way through the bowels of bureaucracy.
The practical upshot is that I have almost no money to spend on anything: fuel, food, purchased/rented entertainment... nothing. I've got supplies to last me a little while yet, so I'm not going to starve (thanks for asking).
But it's also been an interesting eye-opener.
I'm a writer. Which is to say, I want to make my living at spinning tales that other people will buy. I've got the raw "craft" part down cold, with grammar, punctuation, spelling, and so on. I've even advanced to the next level, where I can not only talk about "characterization", "pacing" and other scholastic writerly-things, but can actually demonstrate them in my own work.
All I need to do is have faith in my own ideas.
I've produced a lot of stuff that I've layered around the seed of ideas I get from someone else. There's no particular problem with collaborating on big projects, though I often take ego-hits from others as well as my inner heckler that they only give out Nobel Prizes for Literature to individuals.
Which might not even be true, and certainly isn't true for other prizes; Phil and Kaja Foglio have been jointly awarded Hugos, after all.
It's just the adversarial relationship I have with myself. "Who are you to even try? That's a stupid idea, you can't create an internally-consistent character or a society based on that" are pretty common jibes.
Wish I could come up with a better strategy for dealing with that.
Failing that, I wish I could find a way to earn a massive amount of money, so I could afford the kind of therapy necessary to help me deal with it.
Monday, April 20, 2015
A Little... Lost
So, I have a girlfriend, a job, a car and a place to live. Barring vagaries of fate, this will likely remain true for at least the next few months. Then, the girlfriend and I will move into a house, together with at least one or two other people, and things will proceed from there.
I've self-diagnosed as a high-functioning autistic; I can't count matches as they fall out of a box, but I can lose myself in writing (or tabletop RPGs, or books or movies or things like that) pretty easily... and I can barely manage to live a life on my own.
How do normal people manage to do more, to live more? Is it due to feeling less? I'm strongly in love with my girlfriend and love our too-infrequent-by-necessity sex. I can lose whole hours with a book in my hand, or a computer and keyboard, or even a notebook and pen if the writing-inspiration flows smoothly enough. Do I just need to channel that into something that will make me scads of money?
Monday, July 21, 2014
Checking In, 21 July 2014
I'm heading into my midlife crisis as quietly and unobtrusively as I do everything else.
I'm poisonously lonely, but I lack the skills on which to build the oh-so-critical confidence necessary to become 'datable'.
I'm poisonously lonely, but I lack the skills on which to build the oh-so-critical confidence necessary to become 'datable'.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Hiding In My Cave
No, really.
I live in a room of about 212 square foot room (the door's at a funny angle) in a boarding house. I've got a hand-modified loft-bed that's something of a family heirloom; when it arrived from the factory, it was suitable for use with a twin-size mattress, but my dad has modified it so that it now supports a queen-size. As I'm more than 6 feet tall, it's now much more comfortable. Underneath it, where the "lower bunk" might go, is where I keep my "writing space": computer desk, one bookshelf, computer/monitor/printer rig, desk lamp and photos.
Well, not really photos, more like printouts of CG images with at least a little personal significance.
It's a nice, cozy little setup, perfect for an introvert like my humble self.
The only drawback is that it's a little too comfy. As long as the Internet stays active (and I've got my own little dialup connection, on the off-chance that the boarding house's wi-fi goes down) I hardly ever have to leave, except for my part time job. In fact, I make a decent bit of extra cash writing web content, and I'm looking around for additional jobs of that nature. Who knows, maybe I'll become a free-lance writer and become even more introverted...
... but I'm also really, really lonely.
My last girlfriend was with me as the result of what amounts to the most courageous thing I've done in my life. I kissed her, at a point where we would probably have gone our separate ways and never seen each other again if I hadn't.
I'll leave the sorry details of our breakup for another time, or you can e-mail me if you're really interested. For now, she's living her life with her new boyfriend (or not, as the case may be) and I'm trying to live mine. I've still got a few friends in RealSpace, and a few other friends online. It's kind of weird, knowing that I genuinely care about the opinions and lives of people with whom I'm in contact but whom I may never actually see face-to-face, but apparently that's how Phil Lovecraft carried on most of his relationships.
But I lie there, up in my little loft bed, and wish that I had a reason to work around the boarding-house rules about "no overnight guests".
What I want is not for a girl to be delivered to me wearing a nice little bow and a smile.
What I want is the courage to go out into the world and make connections with someone. I want the strength to weather rejections, and the wit to figure out better ways to meet someone special.
Most of all, I want the qualities of spirit necessary to live alone, so I don't exude desperation.
I live in a room of about 212 square foot room (the door's at a funny angle) in a boarding house. I've got a hand-modified loft-bed that's something of a family heirloom; when it arrived from the factory, it was suitable for use with a twin-size mattress, but my dad has modified it so that it now supports a queen-size. As I'm more than 6 feet tall, it's now much more comfortable. Underneath it, where the "lower bunk" might go, is where I keep my "writing space": computer desk, one bookshelf, computer/monitor/printer rig, desk lamp and photos.
Well, not really photos, more like printouts of CG images with at least a little personal significance.
It's a nice, cozy little setup, perfect for an introvert like my humble self.
The only drawback is that it's a little too comfy. As long as the Internet stays active (and I've got my own little dialup connection, on the off-chance that the boarding house's wi-fi goes down) I hardly ever have to leave, except for my part time job. In fact, I make a decent bit of extra cash writing web content, and I'm looking around for additional jobs of that nature. Who knows, maybe I'll become a free-lance writer and become even more introverted...
... but I'm also really, really lonely.
My last girlfriend was with me as the result of what amounts to the most courageous thing I've done in my life. I kissed her, at a point where we would probably have gone our separate ways and never seen each other again if I hadn't.
I'll leave the sorry details of our breakup for another time, or you can e-mail me if you're really interested. For now, she's living her life with her new boyfriend (or not, as the case may be) and I'm trying to live mine. I've still got a few friends in RealSpace, and a few other friends online. It's kind of weird, knowing that I genuinely care about the opinions and lives of people with whom I'm in contact but whom I may never actually see face-to-face, but apparently that's how Phil Lovecraft carried on most of his relationships.
But I lie there, up in my little loft bed, and wish that I had a reason to work around the boarding-house rules about "no overnight guests".
What I want is not for a girl to be delivered to me wearing a nice little bow and a smile.
What I want is the courage to go out into the world and make connections with someone. I want the strength to weather rejections, and the wit to figure out better ways to meet someone special.
Most of all, I want the qualities of spirit necessary to live alone, so I don't exude desperation.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
State of the writing
Okay. The following writing projects on the docket:
First, the paying gig: I generate content for Herballove, a site the offers sex advice and supplements based on Chinese medicine. The ongoing assignment is to write two articles per week, 400-700 words, relating to a list of approximately 50 different topics. Obviously, this is the highest priority, as I want to be a paid writer.
Next, a novel. I'm collaborating with a friend on "A Million Tomorrows". It's still in rough stages, but the concept and four of the five main characters (the villain, the 'girl', the artificially-intelligent house and the talking dog) are really interesting. Now all I have to do is build up the protagonist, and the rest of it should be easy. As it stands, I'm trying to establish why the villain is "picking" on the protagonist, out of millions of other possible candidates... and why the readers should care that this poor schmuck is being bullied at all. The villain has technical skills that leave the protagonist in the dust, and the protagonist... well, doesn't have much in terms of material goods that the villain can steal.
Finally, a 'riposte'. The same friend wrote a series of short stories that inspired me to write a twelve-chapter fanfic. I'm not completely happy with said fanfic, especially chapter five, but he was sufficiently impressed that he's borrowed one of the characters I created to use in his own next story. Assuming that it's finished, I now have all kinds of inspiration for my own "answer" to it. In essence, the protagonist of his story has made the mistake of trusting someone "much like him" who turns out to be walking a very selfish, cowardly path, but has no problem with that at all. So now, I feel obliged to run the protagonist through a path to some kind of redemption, because I feel that said protagonist could be so much more.
Gwen, the character I created, functions as a party girl. Julie, my friend's character, is trying to live a more exciting life and thinks that Gwen will be an excellent partner for seeking that goal. However, Gwen is a hollow, self-serving temptress who badly misjudges a situation and abandons her 'friend' when things get tough.
I'm now going to use a different character I created, Lynette, to provide a different example. As I'm entranced (heh) by White Wolf's "Mage" role-playing game lines (both the older "Mage: the Ascension" and the more recent "Mage: the Awakening"), I think I have lots of options for structure. Gwen might be a failed Cultist of Ecstasy, or an apostate Mastigos who never joined an Order because she does not play well with others. In contrast, Lynette upholds the Code of Ananda, though she also has the drive of an Obrimos (possibly of the Free Council, possibly of the Silver Ladder, I haven't decided). And if Julie gives her permission... Lynette will offer to find a path to redemption.
Of course, there's also the possibility that the story may bring Julie to something very primal (Thyrsus), something else quite final (Moros) and something else very fey (Acanthus, which resonates quite nicely with Julie's character). I've also got a thought about bringing in "Carnegie" (see previous posts) to offer a different tack on the Mastigos-type of personality. Specifically, I've got an idea for a scene where Lynette introduces Julie to Carnegie, then leaves them alone together (in a public place, naturally). Julie notices that Carnegie is looking after Lynette with a longing expression and asks, "How well do you know her?"
Carnegie turns to her, his craggy features softening somewhat. "Oh, I've made polite inquiries, that's for sure. Those eyes of hers cast a spell, almost without her realizing." He smiled, then shakes his head. "But rest assured that I'm not her type, and... well, we have an agreement."
"What, she's out of your league?"
Carnegie raises one eyebrow and gives a short, staccato laugh. "Oh, hardly." He tilts his head and gives her a half grin that puts a flush on Julie's face and quickens her breath. "If I really wanted to, I could show her the kind of parties that you could only dream of." A shadow falls across his eyes, and something enticing happens to his voice. "Places, sensations that would..." He catches himself, exhales slowly. "And it would be the wrong tack." He nods in her direction. "She's more than willing to have a good time, but she also wants to make sure that everyone else has a better time. Not that I have a problem with that, but it means the world... and more... to her."
He pauses, makes a little hand-wave to dismiss the very possibility that he and Lynette could ever be together. "No. What keeps her safe from me is one very simple truth." He releases a wistful sigh.
"Angels know their own."
First, the paying gig: I generate content for Herballove, a site the offers sex advice and supplements based on Chinese medicine. The ongoing assignment is to write two articles per week, 400-700 words, relating to a list of approximately 50 different topics. Obviously, this is the highest priority, as I want to be a paid writer.
Next, a novel. I'm collaborating with a friend on "A Million Tomorrows". It's still in rough stages, but the concept and four of the five main characters (the villain, the 'girl', the artificially-intelligent house and the talking dog) are really interesting. Now all I have to do is build up the protagonist, and the rest of it should be easy. As it stands, I'm trying to establish why the villain is "picking" on the protagonist, out of millions of other possible candidates... and why the readers should care that this poor schmuck is being bullied at all. The villain has technical skills that leave the protagonist in the dust, and the protagonist... well, doesn't have much in terms of material goods that the villain can steal.
Finally, a 'riposte'. The same friend wrote a series of short stories that inspired me to write a twelve-chapter fanfic. I'm not completely happy with said fanfic, especially chapter five, but he was sufficiently impressed that he's borrowed one of the characters I created to use in his own next story. Assuming that it's finished, I now have all kinds of inspiration for my own "answer" to it. In essence, the protagonist of his story has made the mistake of trusting someone "much like him" who turns out to be walking a very selfish, cowardly path, but has no problem with that at all. So now, I feel obliged to run the protagonist through a path to some kind of redemption, because I feel that said protagonist could be so much more.
Gwen, the character I created, functions as a party girl. Julie, my friend's character, is trying to live a more exciting life and thinks that Gwen will be an excellent partner for seeking that goal. However, Gwen is a hollow, self-serving temptress who badly misjudges a situation and abandons her 'friend' when things get tough.
I'm now going to use a different character I created, Lynette, to provide a different example. As I'm entranced (heh) by White Wolf's "Mage" role-playing game lines (both the older "Mage: the Ascension" and the more recent "Mage: the Awakening"), I think I have lots of options for structure. Gwen might be a failed Cultist of Ecstasy, or an apostate Mastigos who never joined an Order because she does not play well with others. In contrast, Lynette upholds the Code of Ananda, though she also has the drive of an Obrimos (possibly of the Free Council, possibly of the Silver Ladder, I haven't decided). And if Julie gives her permission... Lynette will offer to find a path to redemption.
Of course, there's also the possibility that the story may bring Julie to something very primal (Thyrsus), something else quite final (Moros) and something else very fey (Acanthus, which resonates quite nicely with Julie's character). I've also got a thought about bringing in "Carnegie" (see previous posts) to offer a different tack on the Mastigos-type of personality. Specifically, I've got an idea for a scene where Lynette introduces Julie to Carnegie, then leaves them alone together (in a public place, naturally). Julie notices that Carnegie is looking after Lynette with a longing expression and asks, "How well do you know her?"
Carnegie turns to her, his craggy features softening somewhat. "Oh, I've made polite inquiries, that's for sure. Those eyes of hers cast a spell, almost without her realizing." He smiled, then shakes his head. "But rest assured that I'm not her type, and... well, we have an agreement."
"What, she's out of your league?"
Carnegie raises one eyebrow and gives a short, staccato laugh. "Oh, hardly." He tilts his head and gives her a half grin that puts a flush on Julie's face and quickens her breath. "If I really wanted to, I could show her the kind of parties that you could only dream of." A shadow falls across his eyes, and something enticing happens to his voice. "Places, sensations that would..." He catches himself, exhales slowly. "And it would be the wrong tack." He nods in her direction. "She's more than willing to have a good time, but she also wants to make sure that everyone else has a better time. Not that I have a problem with that, but it means the world... and more... to her."
He pauses, makes a little hand-wave to dismiss the very possibility that he and Lynette could ever be together. "No. What keeps her safe from me is one very simple truth." He releases a wistful sigh.
"Angels know their own."
Saturday, May 18, 2013
I live... again!
Well, not really. I've just let this particular blog lie fallow for a while.
Stuff's been happening. You know: life.
But I'm trying to grapple with that and maybe, just maybe, I'll come out on top.
First order of business: I'm still collecting RPGs. My favorite is still White Wolf Game Studios' "Mage: The Awakening", and my heartbreak from the announcement that the line was being ended has almost healed. Perhaps some time soon I'll be able to look into their re-worked Mummy RPG, or even expand my GURPS library.
Secondly, I wrote a bit of fanfiction a while back. Twelve chapters, at least two or three of which I'm still not completely happy with, but I'll get back to them when my writer's muscles are better-developed, based on characters and situations created by another online writer. They're under a pen-name, but I'll pass along links to anyone who expresses any interest. And this leads to...
Thirdly, the fellow whose characters/situations I borrowed in the previous paragraph was sufficiently impressed that he asked me to help him with not one, not two, but three "trunk novels" (writer-talk for "big ol' projects that I haven't managed to finish yet"). As this was, for me, something like Jim Butcher (of "Dresden Files" and "Codex Alera" fame) offering me a beta-reader position for some new novels based in worlds other than the previous two series, I jumped at the chance and had an absolute blast coming up with themes and variations on the first draft of the most outlandish one, "A Million Tomorrows". Key elements include an artificially-intelligent house, virtual reality, murder mystery, and a talking dog. That was about four months ago. Not that we've made no progress, but I find that the world is fascinating and the story possibilities are very strong... but we're still stumped on execution.
To deal with that, I've naturally turned to the vast collection of books on writing advice I already have, and added a few extras. One is Chuck Wendig's "250 Things You Should Know About Writing"
His website is here: "Terrible Minds" and the specific book is here: 250 Things You Should Know About Writing
I recommend it for a number of reasons, not least of which is the price. It's hard to beat $0.99, right? Also, it's definitely written for writers who didn't get degrees in Literary Criticism, including "Take It For A Test Drive". Meaning: take the protagonist or other major character out to lunch (on paper, of course), or through a story or even a full-fledged adventure that may or may not have anything to do with the main story, but will give you some idea about how he/she/it/they/whatever thinks, feels, acts and so on.
He also offers a blog with writing challenges, which I fully intend to take up as part of my "writer's exercise regimen" to make writing a more regular part of my life.
The other one I'm working with is from Lisa Cron, and the web presence is here: Wired For Story
This includes a series of twelve "checkpoints" for any given story. I was going to use them as a "live" discussion of "A Million Tomorrows", but I think I'll keep it private for now. Legalities may apply, after all...
With the original writer's permission, I allowed another writer-friend of mine to give a critique, which seems to have drawn blood. Not "knife-to-the-guts" kind, but "knuckle-sandwich-to-the-cakehole" kind: it hurts, but I'm still of a mood to wipe my mouth, look the other writer in the face and say, "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" This is important, folks, because whether or not "A Million Tomorrows" is "mine", I took that editorial shellacking and I'm happy to come back for more. There was a time when I would have just slunk back into my hole and pulled it shut after me... but this story has gotten its hooks into my heart. And by all the gods, I will finish what I have started on it.
Who knows, maybe sometime soon, I'll have my own domain name with announcements about our book being published. Stay tuned...
Stuff's been happening. You know: life.
But I'm trying to grapple with that and maybe, just maybe, I'll come out on top.
First order of business: I'm still collecting RPGs. My favorite is still White Wolf Game Studios' "Mage: The Awakening", and my heartbreak from the announcement that the line was being ended has almost healed. Perhaps some time soon I'll be able to look into their re-worked Mummy RPG, or even expand my GURPS library.
Secondly, I wrote a bit of fanfiction a while back. Twelve chapters, at least two or three of which I'm still not completely happy with, but I'll get back to them when my writer's muscles are better-developed, based on characters and situations created by another online writer. They're under a pen-name, but I'll pass along links to anyone who expresses any interest. And this leads to...
Thirdly, the fellow whose characters/situations I borrowed in the previous paragraph was sufficiently impressed that he asked me to help him with not one, not two, but three "trunk novels" (writer-talk for "big ol' projects that I haven't managed to finish yet"). As this was, for me, something like Jim Butcher (of "Dresden Files" and "Codex Alera" fame) offering me a beta-reader position for some new novels based in worlds other than the previous two series, I jumped at the chance and had an absolute blast coming up with themes and variations on the first draft of the most outlandish one, "A Million Tomorrows". Key elements include an artificially-intelligent house, virtual reality, murder mystery, and a talking dog. That was about four months ago. Not that we've made no progress, but I find that the world is fascinating and the story possibilities are very strong... but we're still stumped on execution.
To deal with that, I've naturally turned to the vast collection of books on writing advice I already have, and added a few extras. One is Chuck Wendig's "250 Things You Should Know About Writing"
His website is here: "Terrible Minds" and the specific book is here: 250 Things You Should Know About Writing
I recommend it for a number of reasons, not least of which is the price. It's hard to beat $0.99, right? Also, it's definitely written for writers who didn't get degrees in Literary Criticism, including "Take It For A Test Drive". Meaning: take the protagonist or other major character out to lunch (on paper, of course), or through a story or even a full-fledged adventure that may or may not have anything to do with the main story, but will give you some idea about how he/she/it/they/whatever thinks, feels, acts and so on.
He also offers a blog with writing challenges, which I fully intend to take up as part of my "writer's exercise regimen" to make writing a more regular part of my life.
The other one I'm working with is from Lisa Cron, and the web presence is here: Wired For Story
This includes a series of twelve "checkpoints" for any given story. I was going to use them as a "live" discussion of "A Million Tomorrows", but I think I'll keep it private for now. Legalities may apply, after all...
With the original writer's permission, I allowed another writer-friend of mine to give a critique, which seems to have drawn blood. Not "knife-to-the-guts" kind, but "knuckle-sandwich-to-the-cakehole" kind: it hurts, but I'm still of a mood to wipe my mouth, look the other writer in the face and say, "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" This is important, folks, because whether or not "A Million Tomorrows" is "mine", I took that editorial shellacking and I'm happy to come back for more. There was a time when I would have just slunk back into my hole and pulled it shut after me... but this story has gotten its hooks into my heart. And by all the gods, I will finish what I have started on it.
Who knows, maybe sometime soon, I'll have my own domain name with announcements about our book being published. Stay tuned...
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Starwalker Perrin Rynning, reporting for duty
It's really ironic, in its way. Reality t.v. never really "grabbed" me, for a variety of reasons. One is that I'm perfectly capable of embarrassing myself on my own, and I've never felt the need to bring all the world in on the fun. Another is that none of the concepts around which reality t.v. is built have caught my attention.
That all changed when I got word about a show called "Starwalker"
http://www.starwalkershow.com/
The chance to become an astronaut rallied me. I've wanted to be an astronaut all my life, but the usual routes (military service, college) have not been available. But now, a group of visionaries have decided to use reality t.v. to put space exploration in the reach of everyone on earth. Don't get me wrong: I would dearly love to have a spare $200,000 USD to spend on a Virgin Galactic trip, but that's not within reach right now.
But a shot on a reality t.v. show? Okay, I can handle that.
The show has revealed that the first two 'elimination challenges' are, in order, a half-marathon (a wee bit more than 13 miles) and a "boating challenge" (which has not been clarified yet). I've walked 7.5 miles over the last week, trying to set up routes for building up my endurance, and working on my breathing. Of course, the most important things in the show is teamwork and problem-solving, so I've also got to keep my mental game sharp.
Frankly, I'm "in it to win it", but "winning" in this case is not limited to just being the last Starwalker standing. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want to be the winner, but I'm also interested in helping the show have a second season, and a third, and hopefully a spinoff set on the Moon. (Though they'll probably have to change the name. Think about it, but not too hard...)
They show's bigwigs still want more applicants, though apparently there's a second "wave" or something that won't open until March or so. But they've got a Facebook page as well as their own web-domain, so anyone can follow along if they so desire. If you're interested in space exploration in any way, you could do a lot worse than support this show.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
And now for something completely different
Per the advice from Darren Rouse's "31 Days To A Better Blog" challenge,
... here are a few "elevator pitch" drafts for "Perrin's Oddments":
"Life as a tabletop player character"
"I'm not a gamer, I'm a player character!"
"Gaming inspiration for real life"
"What would your character do?"
"Okay, your game console has just died. What will you do now?"
"Tabletop RPGs: Still relevant, and let me tell you why"
... more to come as inspiration strikes...
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Expanded character idea auditions
It's been a while since I worked with the Oddment Hunter. I won't say that I've gotten bored with the concept, but Jack seems to be living in something of a vacuum. So, let's see what happens if I give him a motley and additional supporting castmembers:
Motley:
- Fairest (Dragonkin) Mostly because exploring Draconic arrogance in a physically attractive mortal form might be interesting, especially if he or she "deigns" to become a genuine friend to Jack and the rest of the Motley
- Darkling (Mirrorskin) Mostly because every team needs a master of disguise, but it might also be fun to explore how such a person might form an inner core identity as a way to stabilize all the roles he or she assumes and discards
- Wizened (Brewer) Chemistry is the great equalizer, but a skilled brewmaster can be even more valuable.
- Elemental (Manikin): Mechanical people are just cool.
- Beast (Swimmerskin, manta ray): The story's set in Berkeley, close to the ocean. What it's like for an ocean life-form to live in a very cold and somewhat polluted body of water is another question entirely.
Freehold:
- Fairest (Flowering): Possible love interest for Jack, based on shared interest in Goblin Fruit. Conflict over her membership in the Spring Court; Jack doesn't like to be told how to act and think.
- Ogre (Gristlegrinder): Rival for "Oddment Hunter" title or post or whatever; specializes in tokens that must be harvested from still-living creatures, generally represents the path of monstrosity that tempts Jack far more often than he would admit. Winter Court. Same Keeper as Jack. Escaped earlier but took much longer to acquire a place in the Freehold and mortal society.
- Elemental (Stormlord): member of the Bishophric of Ravens, regularly offers Jack help and membership in that Order.
- Darkling (Tunnelgrub): member of the Margravate of the Brim. Thinks Jack would fit right in with the Margravate. Offers Jack tidbits and membership. Jack must usually bribe him with an Oddment to get him to back off.
Mortals:
- Coffeeshop operator - mentioned in a previous post.
- Beauty school manager - Where Jack gets some of his Glamour recharge.
- Hunter team - They know something about him, and it makes for more interesting storytelling if he gets to know them
- Mother - Does she know that "Richard" is not her son?
- Father - Does he care that "Richard" is toeing the line a lot more than he used to?
- Cousins - Rich has hinted to Jack that at least one of the cousins is another Fetch.
- Other relatives - Aunts and uncles, and batches of nieces/nephews and other relations.
Others:
"Rich" (fetch) - Rich has to represent something that Jack might have been if the Gentry had never taken an interest in him... though there should still be some distinctions. Rich has (at the beginning, anyway) embraced the degenerate lifestyle that Jack decided to refuse, but there's enough of a soul in there for Rich to start feeling remorse about how casually he dismisses other people's suffering.
Titikakte (Keeper) - Classic Ogre. Unlikely to encounter Jack except near "natural wild" areas, though he can force himself through the Hedge in parks that are sufficiently large and unkept to suit his tastes.
Anyone else see a part in the story or a Kith/Seeming they'd like me to write about? Leave a comment!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Oddment Hunter character sheet
Step One: Concept: Oddment Hunter
Details: Originally a wealthy playboy, Richard James Bridgeston-Wethy was originally kidnapped by a Fairest Keeper named Aiella, and she was responsible for making his Fetch. However, before Richard could be transformed into a Fairest or some kith therein, an Ogre named Kanyan Titikacte arrived on the scene. Kanyan demanded Richard in payment of a debt owed by the Fairest to the Ogre. After ten years as the Ogre’s prisoner and becoming a Farwalker, Richard escaped back through the Hedge to discover that barely one year has passed. The Fetch had taken Richard’s place in college and worked a cushy job arranged by Rich’s family… but most importantly, it was protected by the family security service. Richard (now using the alias Jack CraBapple) has moved away from the family stomping grounds of Massachusetts to the San Francisco Bay Area. Using a hefty bit of unmarked cash provided by the Fetch, Jack has started making a new life for himself.
Step Two: Attributes (minimum 1 in each score)
Mental:
Intelligence: 2
Wits: 2
Resolve: 2
Social
Presence: 2
Manipulation: 3
Composure: 3
Physical
Strength: 2
Dexterity: 2
Stamina: 3
Step Three: Skills
Mental
Academics: 1
Crafts: 1
Medicine: 1
Occult: 1
Social
Empathy: 1
Intimidation: 1
Persuasion: 1
Socialize: 1
Streetwise: 1
Subterfuge: 2
Physical
Athletics: 2
Brawl: 2
Stealth: 3
Survival: 2
Weaponry: 2
Step Four: Specialties
Occult: Oddments Identification
Survival: Oddment Application
Persuasion: Haggling
Step Five: Supernatural Features
Seeming: Ogre
Kith: Farwalker
Court: None
Wyrd: 1
Contracts:
Dream: 1 (Pathfinder)
Stone: 1 (Might of the Terrible Brute)
Hearth: 1 (Fickle Fate)
Mirror: 1 (Riddle Kith)
Smoke: 1 (Wrong Foot) (physical traces manifest as lemur tracks)
Step Six: Merits (total: 7)
Enemy (Adversarial Allies): 3
Team of mortals tracking Jack at behest of the Bridgeston-Wethy consortium, their employers. While trying to return to the family estate, Jack made references to various family secrets to security operatives. Security services are trying to keep him from doing any real damage to the family’s reputation and holdings. Their orders are to monitor and record Jack’s doings, and interfere with any attempt to blackmail the family. Monthly budget: $3,000.00 because Jack knows a lot, but has not tried to make any expected use of the knowledge.
(Note: they qualify as a cell of Hunters)
Iron Stomach (2 merit points)
Allies: 1 (local common Changelings)
Contacts: 2 (local coffee shops, local natural medicine enthusiasts)
Resources: 1 dot ($500/month, $1,000.00 in assets)
Harvest (Goblin Fruit/Oddments, Reaper’s Pledge ): 2 dots
New Identity: 1
Token (Cracked Mirror): 1 dot
Step Seven: Advantages
Defense: 2
Health: Stamina (3) + Size (5) = 8
Size: 5
Initiative: Dexterity (2) + Composure (2) = 4
Willpower: Resolve (2) + Composure (3) = 5
Clarity: 7 (standard= 7)
Speed: Strength (2) + Dexterity (4) + species factor (5) = 11 yards per turn
Step Eight: Coming to Life
How old are you? “I was born in 1986, but I was kidnapped into Faerie in 2004 on my 18th birthday. I spent ten years in Faerie to find that only four years had passed back here.”
• Jack reluctantly checks in with his Fetch about once per week or so, usually to see if the family has made any progress in neutralizing the threat value of what he knows, as well as to catch up on the gossip. The nature of Jack’s information centers on relatively harmless scandals about interpersonal relationships, with a few tidbits of questionable business practices thrown in for flavor. No one item should be worth Jack’s life.
• Jack has come to an accord with his Fetch, to the point of addressing it as “Rich”. Even before his Durance, he had been seriously thinking about getting out of the family business, and Rich had simply pointed out that this was the best opportunity to do so he would ever have.
• Jack was able to finagle the New Identity of “Jack CraBapple” as payment for some favor he earned. The Bridgeston-Wethy security forces have not firmly associated this name with Jack, though it is one of several aliases he used while traveling across the country.
• The Reaper’s Pledge involves Jack keeping the cosmetology school clean, as well as making sure that at least one vase of flowers in the entrance area is fresh.
• Jack’s future plans focus on learning how to build a Hallow, followed by figuring out how to cultivate Goblin Fruit and how to research oddments more effectively. Now that his family no longer supplies social pressure to keep him from pursuing ‘plebian’ interests such as handcrafts and agriculture, he has discovered his green thumb and knack for field research. Whether he has any aptitude for construction has yet to be determined.
• Virtue: Charity
• Vice: Gluttony
Details: Originally a wealthy playboy, Richard James Bridgeston-Wethy was originally kidnapped by a Fairest Keeper named Aiella, and she was responsible for making his Fetch. However, before Richard could be transformed into a Fairest or some kith therein, an Ogre named Kanyan Titikacte arrived on the scene. Kanyan demanded Richard in payment of a debt owed by the Fairest to the Ogre. After ten years as the Ogre’s prisoner and becoming a Farwalker, Richard escaped back through the Hedge to discover that barely one year has passed. The Fetch had taken Richard’s place in college and worked a cushy job arranged by Rich’s family… but most importantly, it was protected by the family security service. Richard (now using the alias Jack CraBapple) has moved away from the family stomping grounds of Massachusetts to the San Francisco Bay Area. Using a hefty bit of unmarked cash provided by the Fetch, Jack has started making a new life for himself.
Step Two: Attributes (minimum 1 in each score)
Mental:
Intelligence: 2
Wits: 2
Resolve: 2
Social
Presence: 2
Manipulation: 3
Composure: 3
Physical
Strength: 2
Dexterity: 2
Stamina: 3
Step Three: Skills
Mental
Academics: 1
Crafts: 1
Medicine: 1
Occult: 1
Social
Empathy: 1
Intimidation: 1
Persuasion: 1
Socialize: 1
Streetwise: 1
Subterfuge: 2
Physical
Athletics: 2
Brawl: 2
Stealth: 3
Survival: 2
Weaponry: 2
Step Four: Specialties
Occult: Oddments Identification
Survival: Oddment Application
Persuasion: Haggling
Step Five: Supernatural Features
Seeming: Ogre
Kith: Farwalker
Court: None
Wyrd: 1
Contracts:
Dream: 1 (Pathfinder)
Stone: 1 (Might of the Terrible Brute)
Hearth: 1 (Fickle Fate)
Mirror: 1 (Riddle Kith)
Smoke: 1 (Wrong Foot) (physical traces manifest as lemur tracks)
Step Six: Merits (total: 7)
Enemy (Adversarial Allies): 3
Team of mortals tracking Jack at behest of the Bridgeston-Wethy consortium, their employers. While trying to return to the family estate, Jack made references to various family secrets to security operatives. Security services are trying to keep him from doing any real damage to the family’s reputation and holdings. Their orders are to monitor and record Jack’s doings, and interfere with any attempt to blackmail the family. Monthly budget: $3,000.00 because Jack knows a lot, but has not tried to make any expected use of the knowledge.
(Note: they qualify as a cell of Hunters)
Iron Stomach (2 merit points)
Allies: 1 (local common Changelings)
Contacts: 2 (local coffee shops, local natural medicine enthusiasts)
Resources: 1 dot ($500/month, $1,000.00 in assets)
Harvest (Goblin Fruit/Oddments, Reaper’s Pledge ): 2 dots
New Identity: 1
Token (Cracked Mirror): 1 dot
Step Seven: Advantages
Defense: 2
Health: Stamina (3) + Size (5) = 8
Size: 5
Initiative: Dexterity (2) + Composure (2) = 4
Willpower: Resolve (2) + Composure (3) = 5
Clarity: 7 (standard= 7)
Speed: Strength (2) + Dexterity (4) + species factor (5) = 11 yards per turn
Step Eight: Coming to Life
How old are you? “I was born in 1986, but I was kidnapped into Faerie in 2004 on my 18th birthday. I spent ten years in Faerie to find that only four years had passed back here.”
What was your existence in Faerie like? “’Wild’ is the first word that comes to mind. Kinyan Titicacte, my Keeper, apparently had a thing for what you might call unspoiled wilderness. Every major terrain and climate type kind of mashed together, like what the Earth might have been like if it were the size of… oh, call it the size of Boston, had never known people and the environment could change radically after you took seven steps in any direction. From what I can remember about my time there, he always had a stable of at least a dozen other Lost knocking around. I guess I took on the Farwalker seeming because Kinyan Titicacte was always chasing me. I don’t remember ever getting any kind of food from him, or anything else. It’s how I learned to survive in the wild; I had to, or Kinyan would catch me, and… I don’t want to remember any of that. All I know is that it hurts to think about thinking about it. Ow.”
What are your motivations? “Picking up the pieces. My Fetch… I’ve kind of taken to calling him ‘Rich’… well, he’s had four years to learn how to be me, while I had ten years to learn how to be… Well, how would any Changeling explain their Durance? My old life was gone for good. I’d be lying if I said that I was completely heartbroken about it. My family… well, we’re not exactly a pack of saints, and there are still a few things that turn my stomach about how we do business. So Rich played on that, gave me a suitcase with a rather sizeable quantity of small, unmarked bills, and I decided to see what I could do with a clean slate. I’ve had discussions about that with a few other Lost, and I’ve made my peace with it.”
Physical appearance: To mortal eyes, Jack CraBapple’s face is tanned and weathered. His blue eyes, however, retain a youthful spark, making his age hard to guess. His dark brown facial hair is thick and difficult to keep trimmed, though he tries to tame it at least once a week or so. He has made a pledge with a local cosmetology school in which his unruly head-hair is used as an extra-credit assignment for students asking for “a challenge”. His body hair is also thicker than usual, but rarely seen. While the vast majority of his clothing is chosen for sturdy construction and muted colors, he has not completely given up his childhood habits; he has one shirt of bright blue raw silk and may acquire more in time.
Supernatural appearance: Jack’s Fae mien is covered with hair on virtually every part of his body. His features are heavier and resemble a mountain gorilla’s, except for his eyes, which remain blue and quite human-like. His musculature is lean, rather than bulky. As a result, many inexperienced Changelings mistake him for a monkey-like Beast-kith, even when he is not using his Riddle Kith contract.
Other notes:
• Jack reluctantly checks in with his Fetch about once per week or so, usually to see if the family has made any progress in neutralizing the threat value of what he knows, as well as to catch up on the gossip. The nature of Jack’s information centers on relatively harmless scandals about interpersonal relationships, with a few tidbits of questionable business practices thrown in for flavor. No one item should be worth Jack’s life.
• Jack has come to an accord with his Fetch, to the point of addressing it as “Rich”. Even before his Durance, he had been seriously thinking about getting out of the family business, and Rich had simply pointed out that this was the best opportunity to do so he would ever have.
• Jack was able to finagle the New Identity of “Jack CraBapple” as payment for some favor he earned. The Bridgeston-Wethy security forces have not firmly associated this name with Jack, though it is one of several aliases he used while traveling across the country.
• The Reaper’s Pledge involves Jack keeping the cosmetology school clean, as well as making sure that at least one vase of flowers in the entrance area is fresh.
• Jack’s future plans focus on learning how to build a Hallow, followed by figuring out how to cultivate Goblin Fruit and how to research oddments more effectively. Now that his family no longer supplies social pressure to keep him from pursuing ‘plebian’ interests such as handcrafts and agriculture, he has discovered his green thumb and knack for field research. Whether he has any aptitude for construction has yet to be determined.
• Virtue: Charity
• Vice: Gluttony
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)