FAIRBANKS, Alaska - Alaska State Troopers are puzzled by a gruesome discovery in the city of North Pole: 26 headless chickens carefully arranged at a coop.
Oh, Santa, what have you done this time?
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Witches and familiars
(via the morningstarr)
Word quickly spread amongst the villagers that the mystery child rapist was a tokoloshe, a hairy dwarf zombie created by witches for sexual purposes by removing the eyes and tongue of a human corpse. According to African legend the corpse then shrinks, grows hair and is reanimated to life to act as the witch’s familiar and sex toy.Keeping this critter for possible (modified) use in something down the road. It makes for a fascinating mythology and, really, if one is going to have witches as evil, then this makes a hell of a lot more sense then black cats and the like. If a myth has witches as evil, then make them be evil. (I'd personally nix the child rape, for obvious reasons, but the idea of a familiar that is a witch's sex toy is amazing.)
A tokoloshe cannot be seen by adults, it carries a magic pebble in it’s mouth to make it invisible to grown ups.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Facebook Status Updates
I've fallen into the habit of posting bits of writing on facebook as status updates. Some are just lines jotted down in a file, others are bits and pieces that may (or may not) end up in a current WIP and some are short stories seeds for stories I will never actually write.
Bob knew he was being fired if he didn't upgrade to BrainBot 6.0, but all his education and programs worked with 4.0. Her'd avoided 5.0 by claiming it was too buggy, and now it was too late. Pushing thirty, he didn't even know if his brain could handle the upgrade. But he had no choice.
He told everyone he was a paranormal detective, but really he just liked seeing naked ghosts. Almost as much as watching them have sex.
He stepped out of the time machine, staring at his mantle clock and thinking it had worked, that he had moved an hour into the future and time would be his for the plundering. And then he read the paper, and damned daylight savings time with a heartfelt bitter sob.
"Why did you invent the time machine? To see the battle of Waterloo? The birth of Jesus? To meet Genghis Khan? Find out about the dinosaurs?"
"I wanted to go to my high school prom."
".... For the record, I'm writing down Jesus."
"I can't visit Jesus with a death ray!"
"What death ray?"
"The one I'm taking back with me."
The secret of magic is this: every work of fiction is really a travelouge. Understand that and you know all of magic you need to learn.
"Sanity is nothing more than proof your mind is a virgin," the man in the lab coat said with his cheery smile. "It will all be better soon. Scapel."
Cassie shrugged away Terry's question, her response light and dismissive: "We have an infinite capacity to bear the pain of others."
Jared smiled crookedly. When he spoke, his voice was terribly gentle. "To forgive requires a kind of judgement too."
"College girls?" The vampire managed to look paler than normal, like wamed-over oatmeal. "You don't go after them, little fledgling. What do you mean, why? They have mace! You want to know what it will feel like when the sun burns you to a crisp, get some mace in the eyes."
"Catching the pack of werepoodles was quite easy," Detective Christensen told the press conference. "We just went to pet stores and found out who was buying an excess amount of flea collars."
"You have to understand, mom and dad. I paid Joe Chill to kill you. I had to. There was no other way to become the Bat. The Bat needed your sacrifice for me to grow strong, to become the Batman, to fight crime. Because I couldn't do that with the vast fortune you ... left ... me. Oh."
"It is not that the dead don't wish to return; it's that they lose their way in the other world, lost without a Starbucks to guide them back through the darkness to the day."
There is a moment before the burning begins. The brief, fragile hope that you might escape, might not burn, that even fire can be kind.
"I don't think I get it," Terry said. "I mean, you've helped create a goddess. Doesn't that make you spiritual more than, you know, religious?"
Jared grinned. " Spirituality is just the privatization of religion."
Bob knew he was being fired if he didn't upgrade to BrainBot 6.0, but all his education and programs worked with 4.0. Her'd avoided 5.0 by claiming it was too buggy, and now it was too late. Pushing thirty, he didn't even know if his brain could handle the upgrade. But he had no choice.
He told everyone he was a paranormal detective, but really he just liked seeing naked ghosts. Almost as much as watching them have sex.
He stepped out of the time machine, staring at his mantle clock and thinking it had worked, that he had moved an hour into the future and time would be his for the plundering. And then he read the paper, and damned daylight savings time with a heartfelt bitter sob.
"Why did you invent the time machine? To see the battle of Waterloo? The birth of Jesus? To meet Genghis Khan? Find out about the dinosaurs?"
"I wanted to go to my high school prom."
".... For the record, I'm writing down Jesus."
"I can't visit Jesus with a death ray!"
"What death ray?"
"The one I'm taking back with me."
The secret of magic is this: every work of fiction is really a travelouge. Understand that and you know all of magic you need to learn.
"Sanity is nothing more than proof your mind is a virgin," the man in the lab coat said with his cheery smile. "It will all be better soon. Scapel."
Cassie shrugged away Terry's question, her response light and dismissive: "We have an infinite capacity to bear the pain of others."
Jared smiled crookedly. When he spoke, his voice was terribly gentle. "To forgive requires a kind of judgement too."
"College girls?" The vampire managed to look paler than normal, like wamed-over oatmeal. "You don't go after them, little fledgling. What do you mean, why? They have mace! You want to know what it will feel like when the sun burns you to a crisp, get some mace in the eyes."
"Catching the pack of werepoodles was quite easy," Detective Christensen told the press conference. "We just went to pet stores and found out who was buying an excess amount of flea collars."
"You have to understand, mom and dad. I paid Joe Chill to kill you. I had to. There was no other way to become the Bat. The Bat needed your sacrifice for me to grow strong, to become the Batman, to fight crime. Because I couldn't do that with the vast fortune you ... left ... me. Oh."
"It is not that the dead don't wish to return; it's that they lose their way in the other world, lost without a Starbucks to guide them back through the darkness to the day."
There is a moment before the burning begins. The brief, fragile hope that you might escape, might not burn, that even fire can be kind.
"I don't think I get it," Terry said. "I mean, you've helped create a goddess. Doesn't that make you spiritual more than, you know, religious?"
Jared grinned. " Spirituality is just the privatization of religion."
Thursday, May 13, 2010
A ghoul and his mother, a conversation
"This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes."
Terry held the phone in his hand and said nothing. She always answered the phone like that, a family joke that now seemed strange, forced now that her husband was dead.
"Terry, I know that's you," his mother said on the other end.
"How?" he whispered.
There was a brief pause. "Call display. What did you think?"
"I don't know. Sandra called, about dad."
"And?"
"You know." Terry took a breath. "His body was missing."
"Ah. Missing."
"Mom," he began, the urge to confess choking his voice.
"Don't," she snapped. There was a longer pause. "I did tell you this call may be monitored, didn't I?"
"That's always a joke," Terry said reflexively, mind racing over the conversation; he didn't think he'd said anything incriminating yet, and nothing to tell people he'd eaten his father's corpse. He remembered to hang up a moment later, fingers trembling a little. Real police work wasn't hollywood; Ethan had told him that long enough. They'd have traced him, if they wanted to.
He set his phone down on the counter carefully and turned. His fist hit the wall before he'd consciously considered it, drywall cracking as he hit it again and again until bones broke, the smell of his own marrow easing something inside him. Terry shuddered slightly and watched the hand mend itself and pretended his tears were only from the pain.
Terry held the phone in his hand and said nothing. She always answered the phone like that, a family joke that now seemed strange, forced now that her husband was dead.
"Terry, I know that's you," his mother said on the other end.
"How?" he whispered.
There was a brief pause. "Call display. What did you think?"
"I don't know. Sandra called, about dad."
"And?"
"You know." Terry took a breath. "His body was missing."
"Ah. Missing."
"Mom," he began, the urge to confess choking his voice.
"Don't," she snapped. There was a longer pause. "I did tell you this call may be monitored, didn't I?"
"That's always a joke," Terry said reflexively, mind racing over the conversation; he didn't think he'd said anything incriminating yet, and nothing to tell people he'd eaten his father's corpse. He remembered to hang up a moment later, fingers trembling a little. Real police work wasn't hollywood; Ethan had told him that long enough. They'd have traced him, if they wanted to.
He set his phone down on the counter carefully and turned. His fist hit the wall before he'd consciously considered it, drywall cracking as he hit it again and again until bones broke, the smell of his own marrow easing something inside him. Terry shuddered slightly and watched the hand mend itself and pretended his tears were only from the pain.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Comments (for 2010)
Anonymous commenting has now been disabled, due to spam. (Catchpas isn't enabled for comments, because I hates it.) Not that too many people do ever comment, but even so.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Mister Disaster
(In response to writing prompt 167.)
Mister Disaster doesn’t know he has that name. In folders that are classified 36 levels of security above the President (and this is the real one, not the show one that gets elected), there is a very thick file with his real name on it, and this one as well.
The file contains every trip he has taken in his life. And at each one, precisely two days and six hours after he leaves, a major natural disaster happens. No one knows why, but he had been awarded ‘free’ vacations in the mail and sent places the secret government wishes to damage. Sometimes he goes, othertimes Mister Disaster does not.
Despite the danger he could be to both king and country (and there is always a king, as long as there is a country), no one has ordered Mister Disaster suicided, because there are levels of government more secret even than that, where nothing is written down and only steel-trap memory records their comings and goings; and there, they worry Mister Disaster is something far more than a mere man, and keep a careful watch upon him.
And, naturally, they never vacation where Mister Disaster goes.
Mister Disaster doesn’t know he has that name. In folders that are classified 36 levels of security above the President (and this is the real one, not the show one that gets elected), there is a very thick file with his real name on it, and this one as well.
The file contains every trip he has taken in his life. And at each one, precisely two days and six hours after he leaves, a major natural disaster happens. No one knows why, but he had been awarded ‘free’ vacations in the mail and sent places the secret government wishes to damage. Sometimes he goes, othertimes Mister Disaster does not.
Despite the danger he could be to both king and country (and there is always a king, as long as there is a country), no one has ordered Mister Disaster suicided, because there are levels of government more secret even than that, where nothing is written down and only steel-trap memory records their comings and goings; and there, they worry Mister Disaster is something far more than a mere man, and keep a careful watch upon him.
And, naturally, they never vacation where Mister Disaster goes.
Monday, April 05, 2010
Novel research
Useless fact of the day while researching surnames for novel: Parents are not permitted by Urhobo cultural practices to count their children. The number of fingers often represents a count of one's children.
What the heck? you wonder, and rightly so. All I needed was to find out how common Johnson is as a surname in Canada (I was pretty sure it was #2 in the USA, though did check to make sure that was actually correct). Which led to the interesting oddity that the Canadian Census does not release that kind of information, that Li is the most common surname in Canada, and from that to the reason behind the few Chinese surnames, and from that information about Welsh, British, Irish, Urhobo and Byzantine naming conventions.
I surfaced from that with a deeper understanding of some oddities in such conventions, how they change over time and if the next fantasy world I do will even have surnames, beyond son of X and so forth. (Probably not.) The Chinese practise of giving everyone kin region C the same surname made me wonder about applying that to said settings but for now it's going to the back corner of my mind and the MC's last name is, simply, Johnson.
Mostly because another main character has Smith as hers and she's going to complain about it a fair bit, while it's never occurred to Terry to even really think about his.And for this little tidbit of characterization, the internet stole half an hour of my life :)
What the heck? you wonder, and rightly so. All I needed was to find out how common Johnson is as a surname in Canada (I was pretty sure it was #2 in the USA, though did check to make sure that was actually correct). Which led to the interesting oddity that the Canadian Census does not release that kind of information, that Li is the most common surname in Canada, and from that to the reason behind the few Chinese surnames, and from that information about Welsh, British, Irish, Urhobo and Byzantine naming conventions.
I surfaced from that with a deeper understanding of some oddities in such conventions, how they change over time and if the next fantasy world I do will even have surnames, beyond son of X and so forth. (Probably not.) The Chinese practise of giving everyone kin region C the same surname made me wonder about applying that to said settings but for now it's going to the back corner of my mind and the MC's last name is, simply, Johnson.
Mostly because another main character has Smith as hers and she's going to complain about it a fair bit, while it's never occurred to Terry to even really think about his.And for this little tidbit of characterization, the internet stole half an hour of my life :)
Friday, April 02, 2010
Statutory Holiday Haiku
A day off from work,
Spring wakens flowers and trees --
Sadness: shops are closed
Spring wakens flowers and trees --
Sadness: shops are closed
Thursday, March 25, 2010
A writing Prompt Thing I guess
Via a friends writing blog, I ended up doing a post about Peter the Great and some quick research on him. It being the internet, I ended up on the mad monarchs site and reading a fair bit of it.
What struck me as fascinating was how many rulers in Russia managed to rule -- if only by proxy -- despite being either physically or mentally unfit for the throne. Rulers of other countries would refuse to sign anything, wallow in their own waste and the country grind to a halt. And yet no one took matters into their own hands to end that, which strikes me as a little puzzling.
Is it fear of retribution? Divine rights of kings? I figure it's more that having a ruler is far better than the chaos that can follow not having one, with various parties battling over a throne. Which is the prompt: Have a king (or queen, prince, princess) who is liable to get a throne despite being "unfit", and follow through with where that leads a plot. Even if it's only background to the major story, it could be quite interesting to follow through on.
What struck me as fascinating was how many rulers in Russia managed to rule -- if only by proxy -- despite being either physically or mentally unfit for the throne. Rulers of other countries would refuse to sign anything, wallow in their own waste and the country grind to a halt. And yet no one took matters into their own hands to end that, which strikes me as a little puzzling.
Is it fear of retribution? Divine rights of kings? I figure it's more that having a ruler is far better than the chaos that can follow not having one, with various parties battling over a throne. Which is the prompt: Have a king (or queen, prince, princess) who is liable to get a throne despite being "unfit", and follow through with where that leads a plot. Even if it's only background to the major story, it could be quite interesting to follow through on.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Worked (also: a rant)
The old alcar.blogspot has been incoporated into this, which probably means some of the older posts will have weird formatting but should be readable anyway. Said blog has been deleted in its entirely. The nice import/export feature did this.
After the fourth try. Because of 'catchpa'. Which seems to assume that anyone can read writing that seems to foil humans more often than spammer. And, if they cannot, can hear the so-called handicapped assist thing. I almost gave up entirely, on both of them, and would be quite, quite happy if catchpa was tossed into the bin of useless internet things.
After the fourth try. Because of 'catchpa'. Which seems to assume that anyone can read writing that seems to foil humans more often than spammer. And, if they cannot, can hear the so-called handicapped assist thing. I almost gave up entirely, on both of them, and would be quite, quite happy if catchpa was tossed into the bin of useless internet things.
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