A: We've got the upper hand!
B: And the lower foot too!
A: The lo... what?
B: It's hard to stand on one leg, you know?
B: And the lower foot too!
A: The lo... what?
B: It's hard to stand on one leg, you know?
March 21st, 2013
April 22nd, 2012
I found it!
For the sake of amusement and to touch on memory I’m going to post an abridged version of Trina’s original character profile which was birthed February 7th, 1991.
I am also going to do my damndest to remain loyal to Rob’s former character.
originally from $Prodigy’$ X-Gen OC
( Scarlet’s ProfileCollapse )
( Mystic’s ProfileCollapse )
For the sake of amusement and to touch on memory I’m going to post an abridged version of Trina’s original character profile which was birthed February 7th, 1991.
I am also going to do my damndest to remain loyal to Rob’s former character.
originally from $Prodigy’$ X-Gen OC
( Scarlet’s ProfileCollapse )
( Mystic’s ProfileCollapse )
April 15th, 2012
You are walking down a roughly cobbled road. A forest rolls to either side, the sound of rushing river distant. As it begins to rain you contemplate the apparent infinity your path stretches, wondering how you arrived here.
A drop of water chills the top of your head causing you to pause. A second drop spatters followed by another and then another. Soon you are continuing beneath a downpour, your clothing growing increasingly weighted and clingy. The wind rises and chills you as you hurry forward.
If you have never walked on slippery pavers you might be surprised by the way the rivulets of wet suck at your feet and nudge you sideways. It takes effort to move.
Just as your body begins to shiver you catch through the gloom of trees ahead a faint pinpoint of light. You speed up managing a near jog, arms extended to catch you if you fall. Your shivering intensifies as the wind whistles and whips, but you are intent on the light ahead and soon reach its position.
The light however is on the move. It bobs gently toward your right, skimming over bushes and crags. You turn, curious and hopeful but stagger as a particularly deep puddle pulls you downward. The light pauses, hovering as if waiting until you right yourself, and then continues on.
You follow sensing some vague invitation that gives you hope for a specific destination.
The trees break some of the wind and you find minor relief in a more sheltered path, overgrown and obscure.
The light is like a glowing fuzz carried gently by the wind upward.
As you track after the path begins an incline. You curve back and forth while the terrain around you becomes progressively more rocky and steep. Great trees eventually give way to lower lying scrub and the wind returns icy and intense.
Suddenly you are nearly shoved over as the rain slices sheets across your body and you begin to shake uncontrollably. The light is barely detectable against a high cliff face several paces in the distance and you must brace yourself before you continue on.
It waits once again, quietly bobbing up and down until you are close enough to touch. Once there however it darts away, squirming through a long crack down the side of the escarpment.
You fall to your side, sick with cold, feeling a sense of loss and allow yourself to be propped by the hardness of rock. The wind is less vicious and yet rain continues its harsh assault as you peer through the squall in search of better shelter.
Just as you make out a thick copse of trees hundreds of meters distant a low rumble from the earth begins to sound. The shake and scrape of rock cause you to slip and scramble for balance. The cliff seems to be moving sideways, its crack widening slowly.
A drop of water chills the top of your head causing you to pause. A second drop spatters followed by another and then another. Soon you are continuing beneath a downpour, your clothing growing increasingly weighted and clingy. The wind rises and chills you as you hurry forward.
If you have never walked on slippery pavers you might be surprised by the way the rivulets of wet suck at your feet and nudge you sideways. It takes effort to move.
Just as your body begins to shiver you catch through the gloom of trees ahead a faint pinpoint of light. You speed up managing a near jog, arms extended to catch you if you fall. Your shivering intensifies as the wind whistles and whips, but you are intent on the light ahead and soon reach its position.
The light however is on the move. It bobs gently toward your right, skimming over bushes and crags. You turn, curious and hopeful but stagger as a particularly deep puddle pulls you downward. The light pauses, hovering as if waiting until you right yourself, and then continues on.
You follow sensing some vague invitation that gives you hope for a specific destination.
The trees break some of the wind and you find minor relief in a more sheltered path, overgrown and obscure.
The light is like a glowing fuzz carried gently by the wind upward.
As you track after the path begins an incline. You curve back and forth while the terrain around you becomes progressively more rocky and steep. Great trees eventually give way to lower lying scrub and the wind returns icy and intense.
Suddenly you are nearly shoved over as the rain slices sheets across your body and you begin to shake uncontrollably. The light is barely detectable against a high cliff face several paces in the distance and you must brace yourself before you continue on.
It waits once again, quietly bobbing up and down until you are close enough to touch. Once there however it darts away, squirming through a long crack down the side of the escarpment.
You fall to your side, sick with cold, feeling a sense of loss and allow yourself to be propped by the hardness of rock. The wind is less vicious and yet rain continues its harsh assault as you peer through the squall in search of better shelter.
Just as you make out a thick copse of trees hundreds of meters distant a low rumble from the earth begins to sound. The shake and scrape of rock cause you to slip and scramble for balance. The cliff seems to be moving sideways, its crack widening slowly.
April 5th, 2012
At the southernmost end of the central courtyard was a path of stones that wended its way through high iron gates to a private garden. Statues, vines, and flowers competed with the scent of freshly cut grass and birdsong. The gates were bracketed by ominous guardsmen whose hard eyes belied boredom. It was there that Lester led her, pace a scuffling frenzy as sweeping gestures pointed to historical figures and significant symbols. Eva thought he looked like a manic chicken zigging hither thither. They walked for several minutes deep into the fragrant fare until they reached a circular set of stone benches surrounding a fountain. There he stopped, paused for breath, and then launched into another of his commentaries.
“Right, you are to meet Celeste. She is the eldest of your kind and most revered. Nearing two hundred years old she is. Attractive woman but severe, mind your P’s and Q’s and you two will be fine. I don’t know if you’ll like her; you won’t dislike her. She is worth respect. Pay attention to what she doesn’t say and learn much,” he rocked to the balls of his feet, plucking at her sleeve and gesturing toward a seat. “She rarely has visitors,” he added as an afterthought. Eva sank down in response, fidgeting at his fluster.
“Very important woman. She is our mother of a sorts; your mother now,” he continued on. “Take care and it’ll be fine.” And he bent, smoothing some of her hair, straightening the seams at her shoulders, and tugging the frothy white hem so that it coiled at her feet. “You look very nice, very much the part. Just don’t move too much and everything will be fine.”
Eva was fairly certain Lester was unaware of his repetition, not that it mattered. She just wished he’d settle down. He was making her nervous. A gong sounded in the distance at which he jumped and gulped. Nodding he patted her hand in a reassuring way and promised to return once the meeting had concluded, then he turned and fled back the way they’d come.
“Right, you are to meet Celeste. She is the eldest of your kind and most revered. Nearing two hundred years old she is. Attractive woman but severe, mind your P’s and Q’s and you two will be fine. I don’t know if you’ll like her; you won’t dislike her. She is worth respect. Pay attention to what she doesn’t say and learn much,” he rocked to the balls of his feet, plucking at her sleeve and gesturing toward a seat. “She rarely has visitors,” he added as an afterthought. Eva sank down in response, fidgeting at his fluster.
“Very important woman. She is our mother of a sorts; your mother now,” he continued on. “Take care and it’ll be fine.” And he bent, smoothing some of her hair, straightening the seams at her shoulders, and tugging the frothy white hem so that it coiled at her feet. “You look very nice, very much the part. Just don’t move too much and everything will be fine.”
Eva was fairly certain Lester was unaware of his repetition, not that it mattered. She just wished he’d settle down. He was making her nervous. A gong sounded in the distance at which he jumped and gulped. Nodding he patted her hand in a reassuring way and promised to return once the meeting had concluded, then he turned and fled back the way they’d come.
May 26th, 2011
I am not a brave person. I've been called practical and compassionate; I've been called boring by those who do not know me and kooky by those who do, but never brave. My idea of bravery is giving blood; have you seen those needles?
This, walking away from life as I know it is an act of bravery. The suffocating yet intoxicating strangeness of the alien is overwhelming. I have no idea how to react. I am frozen to my toes inside, so out of my element I shake. This is adventure?
A lot of us come to a point in life where we stop for a second, take a look around, and wonder what happened. Life has ceased to be an adventure. Is this what it means to be an adult?
There is comfort found in predictability, the routine like a security blanket. Despite this one's self-inspection invariably leads to those unexpected nuances that veered the expected path. Had you once intended for life to be this way? Had you pictured it?
It is a dangerous line of questioning and if you are feeling smart you will begin to remind yourself of all the things that make you smile or bring you a feeling of warmth. If however, as everyone experiences occasionally, you are feeling morose you will slip down that rocky slope and pick at the holes that were never filled. This will lead to depression, anger, or frustration and you will binge in response. It could be food, or sleep, or self-pity, something will catch you and keep you down. But, if you wait long enough or lament hard enough the world will right itself and the routine will become comfortable again.
I can tell you that the comfortable path can be sorely missed once lost. The predictability, the safety that normalcy brings is too often taken for granted. When you lose it often you lose a piece of yourself as well. So rejoice in your life; it is not bad, it is shaped by the choices that you willingly continue to make.
May 23rd, 2011
On types of magic and creatures:
All of us are human, or rather started as human; those who did not belong to other places like stories, fantasies, and other-realms. That is not to say creatures of mystical means can't exist within our reality, but rather that they find us alien. Our world is treated with suspicion, distaste, or ambivalence. It takes something significant to drive and/or keep them here.
It is important to note that nearly every person on the planet has the innate ability to tap meta-energies, what some would dub magical power. But what is also important to note is that almost no one does. Usually it takes some extreme event to trigger a harnessing of that energy, and then the person is not aware they have actually done so. For example, little Johnny runs into the street after a ball and gets bowled over by a station wagon which pins him underneath. Old Lady Miller, the seventy year old gossip who was watching from her window, comes racing out and on autopilot lifts the car so that Johnny's mother can drag out her son. Scientists explain her ability to do so with a super adrenaline rush and the body's weird ability to do amazing things in a time of crisis. What Old Lady Miller fails to realize is that she's unconsciously tapped meta-energies to gain the much needed boost and made the impossible, for that moment, possible.
Then there are the few, the often not so proud, receptives who are either born to meta-stream influence or have it thrust upon them.
The most common live relatively normal lives but can do a little something extra, usually kept hidden or played off as trickery in order to maintain normalcy. These are the people who might be able to slow something down, speed it up, hear the echo of thoughts, dream of an event the day before it happens, or some other strangeness. Mostly these people are harmless and ignored by my community. They may know something else is there but rarely do they have enough strength or control to make waves.
The next group is where my interest takes hold. Sensitives are people who actively manipulate the meta-energies. Maybe one in a thousand people not only have this ability but also recognize and take advantage of it. Telekinesis, precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, astral projection, precognition are under a discernible degree of control by the wielder. Some of these individuals may also be able to shape energies for the purpose of enhancement, recovery, or even damage. This somewhat plays into certain Buddhist philosophies which call for directing of the chi. Often some form of ritual or training is necessary in order to establish proper focus. It also goes without saying that like a measure of intelligence, there are varying degrees of ability.
Last are the rarest types. These once humans have morphed over time to become something else, perhaps more. Usually this takes place over the course of generations as families or groups learn and adapt.
Some are unusually long-lived, some are unusually resilient to damage, some display enhanced attributes. Despite this however their inherent humanity is still very real. Their lives are driven by many of the same emotions and desires as the rest of us, and when it comes to the crux of their defining identities they are still relatively understandable.
Beings who do not fall into one of these aforementioned categories mostly do not belong to our reality.
There are creatures of course who evolve from the common once they too learn to direct meta-energies. Many myths are based on such things, like the cat who walks through walls for example, or the witches' familiar, but they are still notably creatures of this world. Angels and demons on the other hand, beings of otherness like tiny pixies and mammoth trolls may be real somewhere, but they have no interest in us or our domain. We are not of their kind and so we are lucky to encounter them even in passing.
All of us are human, or rather started as human; those who did not belong to other places like stories, fantasies, and other-realms. That is not to say creatures of mystical means can't exist within our reality, but rather that they find us alien. Our world is treated with suspicion, distaste, or ambivalence. It takes something significant to drive and/or keep them here.
It is important to note that nearly every person on the planet has the innate ability to tap meta-energies, what some would dub magical power. But what is also important to note is that almost no one does. Usually it takes some extreme event to trigger a harnessing of that energy, and then the person is not aware they have actually done so. For example, little Johnny runs into the street after a ball and gets bowled over by a station wagon which pins him underneath. Old Lady Miller, the seventy year old gossip who was watching from her window, comes racing out and on autopilot lifts the car so that Johnny's mother can drag out her son. Scientists explain her ability to do so with a super adrenaline rush and the body's weird ability to do amazing things in a time of crisis. What Old Lady Miller fails to realize is that she's unconsciously tapped meta-energies to gain the much needed boost and made the impossible, for that moment, possible.
Then there are the few, the often not so proud, receptives who are either born to meta-stream influence or have it thrust upon them.
The most common live relatively normal lives but can do a little something extra, usually kept hidden or played off as trickery in order to maintain normalcy. These are the people who might be able to slow something down, speed it up, hear the echo of thoughts, dream of an event the day before it happens, or some other strangeness. Mostly these people are harmless and ignored by my community. They may know something else is there but rarely do they have enough strength or control to make waves.
The next group is where my interest takes hold. Sensitives are people who actively manipulate the meta-energies. Maybe one in a thousand people not only have this ability but also recognize and take advantage of it. Telekinesis, precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, astral projection, precognition are under a discernible degree of control by the wielder. Some of these individuals may also be able to shape energies for the purpose of enhancement, recovery, or even damage. This somewhat plays into certain Buddhist philosophies which call for directing of the chi. Often some form of ritual or training is necessary in order to establish proper focus. It also goes without saying that like a measure of intelligence, there are varying degrees of ability.
Last are the rarest types. These once humans have morphed over time to become something else, perhaps more. Usually this takes place over the course of generations as families or groups learn and adapt.
Some are unusually long-lived, some are unusually resilient to damage, some display enhanced attributes. Despite this however their inherent humanity is still very real. Their lives are driven by many of the same emotions and desires as the rest of us, and when it comes to the crux of their defining identities they are still relatively understandable.
Beings who do not fall into one of these aforementioned categories mostly do not belong to our reality.
There are creatures of course who evolve from the common once they too learn to direct meta-energies. Many myths are based on such things, like the cat who walks through walls for example, or the witches' familiar, but they are still notably creatures of this world. Angels and demons on the other hand, beings of otherness like tiny pixies and mammoth trolls may be real somewhere, but they have no interest in us or our domain. We are not of their kind and so we are lucky to encounter them even in passing.
October 27th, 2010
Right, so here is my midterm short story.
I'm going to preface it by stating this was extremely difficult to write because:
1. I do not like the tone of the short stories I am asked to in some manner emulate.
2. I do not care for the way short stories seem to just drop off at the end.
3. I fail to enjoy the not-so-subtle preachiness our instructor seems to think they should entail.
4. If you can't tell, I have a bit of an attitude problem concerning the assignment.
5. This particular story could use so much more but I ran out of patience.
( Read moreCollapse )
I'm going to preface it by stating this was extremely difficult to write because:
1. I do not like the tone of the short stories I am asked to in some manner emulate.
2. I do not care for the way short stories seem to just drop off at the end.
3. I fail to enjoy the not-so-subtle preachiness our instructor seems to think they should entail.
4. If you can't tell, I have a bit of an attitude problem concerning the assignment.
5. This particular story could use so much more but I ran out of patience.
( Read moreCollapse )
July 26th, 2010
Since September of 2008 I have been a member of dictionary.com's Word of the Day.
Since that time I have also saved every word that has made an impression, been new, or inspired some creative thought.
Good idea, right?
Since September 2008 I have also failed to use a single one of those words as a prompt which is just silly given they're right there.
And so today I vow that I will have used every one of those words in some form of fiction be it short or tall by January 1, 2011.
The list is as follows:
Misprize
Legerdemain
Plaudit
Bailiwick
Gloaming
Sidereal
Eminence grise
Lucullan
Xanthous
Pandiculation
Victuals
Froward
Inanition
Frisson
Outré
Quiddity
Imbroglio
Abnegate
Oneiric
Nimiety
Daedal
Bravura
Adumbrate
Ineluctable
Métier
Carom
Crapulous
Logorrhea
Eldritch
Esurient
Bonhomie
Numinous
Nebbish
Gelid
Mulct
Quisling
Mugwump
Afterclap
Undercast
Potlatch
Zaftig
Noctivagant
Saturnine
~ T'will mean two posts per week beginning August 8th.
One hopes it's swingable.
Since that time I have also saved every word that has made an impression, been new, or inspired some creative thought.
Good idea, right?
Since September 2008 I have also failed to use a single one of those words as a prompt which is just silly given they're right there.
And so today I vow that I will have used every one of those words in some form of fiction be it short or tall by January 1, 2011.
The list is as follows:
Misprize
Legerdemain
Plaudit
Bailiwick
Gloaming
Sidereal
Eminence grise
Lucullan
Xanthous
Pandiculation
Victuals
Froward
Inanition
Frisson
Outré
Quiddity
Imbroglio
Abnegate
Oneiric
Nimiety
Daedal
Bravura
Adumbrate
Ineluctable
Métier
Carom
Crapulous
Logorrhea
Eldritch
Esurient
Bonhomie
Numinous
Nebbish
Gelid
Mulct
Quisling
Mugwump
Afterclap
Undercast
Potlatch
Zaftig
Noctivagant
Saturnine
~ T'will mean two posts per week beginning August 8th.
One hopes it's swingable.
January 6th, 2010
today is my birthday
like dominos plans have fallen due to inclement weather
due to unforeseen obligations
due to careless negligence
one remembered to phone a wish of happiness
otherwise I have been entirely alone
my sniveling is quiet
it is my birthday
please pardon me
I am feeling selfish
like dominos plans have fallen due to inclement weather
due to unforeseen obligations
due to careless negligence
one remembered to phone a wish of happiness
otherwise I have been entirely alone
my sniveling is quiet
it is my birthday
please pardon me
I am feeling selfish
July 5th, 2009
War is a common thing.
Amidst these lives of normalcy it is waged silently but deadly next door, across the street, or around the corner.
Battles you did not know existed pull and plague close by and you are a stone's throw from destruction every minute of every day.
You live your lives with blinders on, happy to go about your routines.
I live in the truth.
I am soldier though not of your military nor any government, but a soldier all the same.
And, I have done things of which you would not wish to dream.
Amidst these lives of normalcy it is waged silently but deadly next door, across the street, or around the corner.
Battles you did not know existed pull and plague close by and you are a stone's throw from destruction every minute of every day.
You live your lives with blinders on, happy to go about your routines.
I live in the truth.
I am soldier though not of your military nor any government, but a soldier all the same.
And, I have done things of which you would not wish to dream.