Thanks to some of the nonsense going on in certain communities I shall not name, my journal is now friends-only. Yes, I know, this is a pain in the ass. Just comment if you want to be added.
Because we can take a long, hard look at what the canon source is doing, and then say, "Hell no."
It's no secret that Lois and I are by turns confused and disgusted by the turn DC has taken in its comics the last couple years. Sinking the Clois ship so hard it's already a damn coral reef, fridging some of our favorite characters, the overall way they've treated women since the reboot--we're not sure what DC thinks it's doing, but if they're trying to stir up controversy and alienate long-term hardcore fans, that certainly seems to be working.
If we see something we like in the New 52, we'll use it. But so far? All we're seeing is what not to do.
And for today's news specifically: We've already shown you Talia and Damian in Love and Other Headaches. Let me just state for the record that we will not be reducing Talia to a one-note psychotic villain, and we will not be killing Damian--or any other ten-year-old--during the course of any fic. Both of those characters have important roles to play in Blood Will Tell, too, which is why we've introduced them here.
It all boils down to this: I love you all, just as you are. I'm not interested in fixing you, because I don't think any of you are broken. If you need a shoulder to lean on or just an ear to talk to, I'm here.
Yes, this entry is still part of the challenge located here. There are several ficlets below, none above a PG-13 rating (mostly for language and some nudity).
Title: A Shoulder to Lean On Pairing: Ella Lane/Perry White Prompts: loss, comfort, hug Rating: G Words: 402
Please npte: This IS canon to Little Secrets/Heirs to the House of El 'verse. No, there was never a comfort-sex hookup between them, but this exact scene did happen in the continuity of that story.
Here's the deal. Go to this entry to find the rules to the challenge saavikam77 and I came up with. The main objective is to challenge everyone's creativity and write as many different pairings as possible. So expect to see a LOT of small fic posts from me, some of them with seriously off-the-wall pairings.
Pairing: Ella Lane/Martha Kent Prompts: Smallville, friendship, understand Rating: G - the actual romantic reference flies waaaaaaaaaaaaaay under the radar. Words: 268
It's been clear to me for a while now - say the last year or so - that Heirs to the House of El isn't gonna be like Little Secrets. LS redefined a lot of things - loyalty, secrecy, even the meaning of family. Heirs is going several layers deeper than that. I always knew this was going to be a darker story, that we were gonna take one character right to the edge of the abyss, and drag several of them to within inches of their deaths. That's why we did that Authors' Note, wherein we warned everyone that nothing's what it seems and no one is safe. That's why the prologue opened with Ella Lane's death, because that one event is still echoing back and forth among the characters, and it's a harbinger of what is to come.
That's why the attack on Lana Lang occurred so much earlier than the rest of the action scenes: it was a warning shot. Because if my Lana, ever gracious Midwestern girl, kind-hearted and forgiving, who might manipulate you but only for your own good, can get carved up by one of Luthor's henchmen, and then in defense of her daughter turn around and damn near decapitate the woman with that lovely chef's knife we showed way back when Kala first ran away ... if Lana's a killer now, then hopefully everyone has their seatbelts on, because it's only going to get wilder from here.
Another member of the cast decided to enlighten me about the past while I was struggling to flesh out a scene last night. I did a little more research than we did for LS, and I was rather shocked by some of the things I learned. All of them have hidden depths, and Clark isn't the only one who has another identity or two lying around. Does that ever happen to you, fellow writers? Do your characters manage to shock you with revelations about themselves that you didn't know, but when you look at how you've written them, it seems you've been unconsciously accounting for those revelations all along?
Last chapter was heavy on the action, and so is this one. There's violence coming, and it's not over the top, but it was a little hard to write. My Luthor plays for keeps, and he doesn't care about collateral damage. Only against a villain like him, who has no limits, who will sacrifice anyone and anything to achieve his goals, can we plumb the depths of our heroes. Clark may be the only one wearing a cape, but I think we're demonstrating that heroism comes in quite a few other flavors, several of which are represented in this family.
I've read this book and its predecessor, The Wild Road, many times since their publication.I happen to be very fond of that genre of animal stories which include Richard Adams' Watership Down and Garris??'s Hunters' Moon (published in the US as The Foxes of Firstdark).Quite often these fanciful stories are grounded in a deep love for and understanding of the featured animals, and in some cases a scholarly study thereof.While I can't say that Gabriel King is a feral cat naturalist, he surely loves his cats, and his portrayal of them is delightful.The characters are fascinating, and the convoluted plot is worth the long ride with all its twists and turns.I must admit, my favorite character of all is Sealink, and if King ever gave the Delta Queen a book of her own, I'd be one of the first to purchase it.
67. Hunting Ground by Patricia Briggs
New favorite author.Briggs rocks - she does an amazing job of first-person description in the Mercy Thompson books, and with these novels set in the same world she shows how well she handles third-person perspective. The tradeoff is that I don't feel as close to Charles and Anna, the couple around whom the Alpha and Omega series revolves, as I do to Mercy.But I still like the pair.They're both werewolves, but he has some interesting background as a Native American, and she has some issues with having been Changed against her will.Exploring their relationship dynamic alongside the plot full of political maneuvering and interesting characters makes for very good reading.
68. On the Prowl by Patricia Briggs, Eileen Wilks, Karen Chance, and Sunny
I went to the library and checked out this anthology of four novellas just to get the story by Patricia Briggs, which is the prequel to the novels Cry Wolf and Hunting Ground.I have read both and reviewed them on my journal, so you can guess how much I like them.The tale of how Charles and Anna met is very interesting, but a little more sparse than Briggs' usual writing, the result of space constraints.As for the other three stories, I liked Eileen Wilks' Inhuman for its interesting premise and well-written characters, but all four in this book seem to suffer from a forced amount of romance.I don't subscribe to the premise that whoever makes your genitals sing is your perfect soul mate, and especially in Karen Chance's story, I was more annoyed with the hero than in awe of him.I think every story in the book has a moment in which the main characters are just SO in lust with each other that they have what sounds like completely involuntary physical reactions - they pounce on each other, grope and kiss and pant, and it just read like "hello, porn as plot device, right here" to me.If you like your horny heroines and irresistibly hunky heroes, though, read and enjoy.
69. Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
The next two books are on hold at the library.I've read three now, and I like them, even if I worry for Sookie and I'm getting pissed at Bill.I'm also more and more intrigued by Eric and Pam.Suffice it to say that I will likely finish the series.I like Harris' style, I like her characters - these are people I almost know, folks who wouldn't seem out of place in my own little slice of the south.I've read spoilers that tell me the direction I'm sensing the series heading in is probably the right one, so I'm happy to go along and see how Harris handles it.
70. No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach by Anthony Bourdain
I love the show - Lois and I record every episode.We're both more than half in love with Tony Bourdain himself, that endlessly snarky sonofabitch who's still somehow erudite and educated.He can sound so very highbrow one moment, practically declaiming poetry, and in the next make a crude, lewd joke, usually at his own expense.He manages to respect the culture and cuisine of the countries he visits, while reminding us that he's a New York chef, a curmudgeon of the highest order.This book lets us a little further in to the world of No Reservations, and shows us what it's like to make the show.Pretty much everything you want to know - production notes, photographs of splendid food, commentary on the crew, even the best and worst bathrooms in the world - is in these pages.Fans of the show should get the book, NOW.It's one I could read over and over again.
71. The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones by Anthony Bourdain
Based on the first three words of the title, I was hoping this would be a book about some of the crazy things Bourdain has eaten: warthog rectum, raw seal eye, things of that nature. Instead, I found a collection of Bourdain's essays, plus one short story, that are by turns riotously funny, heartwarming, profound, and frustrating. Worth the read for any fan of his show, his work, or seriously heavy-duty snark mixed with intelligent commentary.
So, here's some of that original fiction I've been talking about. I'm not making much progress on the illustrations I *wanted* to do for it, so I'm posting the one I did manage to get done.
This is set in the world of Dark Rising, the original urban fantasy series Lois and I have been working on since high school. The art and story below are absolutely copyrighted to Anissa Roy, and if anybody steals my work I shall rain fire and destruction and lawsuits upon them.
You don't need to know much about the backstory to enjoy this, other than the fact that Arianne is an American-born teenage witch currently living in Paris, where she's managed to fall in with all sorts of troubling people: witches, werewolves, and vampires, oh my.
**I've been editing my Adult Content filter on my LJ. This one is listed as Adult Concepts for its violence.
