I’m sorry. I apologize for that. Didn’t mean to hit you, it’s just that my body parts are mostly in rebellion right now. Yeah, the whole right side, especially. Almost never does a damn thing I… Whup! Sorry again. Crap, there they go! Just a minute. Let me bring my left hand to bear. There, that should keep them halted a while. Oh, the left side is just as out of control, but I have a deal worked out with them. They’re mercenary but reasonable. No idea what set it all off in the first place. Maybe they’re just dicks.
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For consideration: "There's a war going on inside your body; your mind's goin' along for the ride"
So who can tell me what the Deathfall is? Has anyone in the class ever heard of that before? ... Yes, um, Bladeflake? Yes? ... Well, sure, that's one way to put it. It *is* a sort of "crazy blizzard", I suppose.
You see, when you are all grown up and you have done all the grown-up things you were meant to do in your life, and you begin to hear the icy groan in your limbs - the creak and crack that happens as your crystalline bones weaken with age - then you will gather your strength one last time, along with all the other Ice Lords of your age, to make the trek over the mountains, across the plain, all the way around the world to invade and besiege the fiery tropical realm of the Fire Princesses.
Yes, of course it's very hot there! Blistering! The Princesses live in eternal daylight, the sun forever above them, their homes built right into the thousands of sputtering, shaking volcanoes that smolder in the bright, scorching light. And the Princesses themselves run red-hot with the boiling fluid that runs through their veins.
Yes, Stormhammer. It does sound like a dangerous place and yes, in fact, it can kill you. It *will* kill you. It *does* kill you. The Deathfall is the last thing you do in your life: You invade their land and you slake your desire on any and every Princess you can. Their flesh will burn your eyes and splinter your skin but your icy seed can survive - and it will. You will leave it in as many of their boiling wombs as you can before your body can take no more, and you melt.
That's right. You will melt. All that is you will eventually fail to hold and you will break into pieces and vanish as steam off the body of your final conquest. That is how we Ice Lords die. And that is how we make new life.
Yes, babies. This is where babies come from. The seed's stony case will melt and fertilize and the Princesses will bear new children. Those who are girls will be, of course, Fire Princesses, to be raised under the bright and scorching sun. Those who are boys will be Ice Lords, to be raised here in the comforting embrace of night.
How? Well, of course the newborns cannot travel all the way back around the world on their own, and they cannot survive long among the volcanoes. So they must be brought to us. Each year, at the Birthspring, the oldest among the Princesses - the ones who have done all the grown-up things they were meant to do in their lives, who no longer feel the heat of their own blood, whose skins have begun to crack from the smoke - gather their strength one last time to trek across the plain and over the mountains, all the way around the world before the last of their life-spark expires... to bring us our sons.
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For consideration: ...it's like MARCH OF THE PENGUINS meets a Ralph Bakshi cartoon...
Sara tried to shake her head clear. What happened? Dale was a good hider but her x-ray vision found in him in an Icelandic volcano shaft. She’d flown in and…
She was on a ledge, her wings bound. Behind her, she could hear the throat of the mountain, lava bubbling somewhere below. Dale was standing over her.
“What are you doing, Dale? This isn’t funny.”
“I’m tired of hide-and-tag. We’re playing heroes-and-villains now. Welcome to my lava trap.”
“You’re going to be in so much trouble with Dad.”
“Dad’s a has-been.”
Dale pushed with his boot and over she went.
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For consideration: "If I survive, I'll tell on you"
“Pyrolio, come here.”
“Yeah, boss?”
“What’s that?”
“Your potion-kettle.”
“That’s right. Is it simmering?”
“No.”
“And over here. What’s this?”
“The signal lamp.”
“That’s right. Is it lit?”
“No.”
“And here?”
“Haunch of unicorn. For dinner.”
“That’s right. Is it slow-roasting on the spit?”
“No.”
“Pyrolio, are there any fires still going anywhere in the castle?”
“Maybe…?”
“Whose job is it to provide me with fire at all times?”
“Sorry, boss.”
“You’re the dumbest elemental I ever summoned.”
“Yeah. Guess I’m sort of an… igneo-ramus.”
“Was that a pun?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you’re fired.”
“Was that a pun, boss?”
“No. Begone.”
------
For consideration: "And if the fires burn out there's only fire to blame"
Nobody knew where it had originated from, or where it was going. In fact, until we laid eyes on it ourselves, nobody was certain there was actually a tanker. For a while, it was just a handful of reports from trans-Atlantic flights: an enormous oil slick trail west of the Cape Verdes.
We picked up the trail about 200 miles WNW but the view from the air had it wrong: whoever she was, she wasn't leaking oil. When we hit the slick, we put some scoops down over the side to bring up samples. Petty Officer Stiles opened the first canister and looked slightly ill: "What the hell is it?"
"It" turned out to be human fat. The slick was ninety miles long so far, as much as half a mile across in places. So much for the assumption she was coming from Venezuela… We didn't have anything like a full bio lab for serious DNA work but the ship's doctor was reasonably certain that even our small samples represented material from hundreds of people.
It was about that point that we spotted the ship - we were practically on top of her before we did, though. She was big, for sure, a hefty supertanker, but all done up in a really strange color scheme reminiscent of those old "dazzle" camo schemes from the first world war. Hard to keep your eyes on her. Hard to tell how far away she was. Also: No name. No visible registry number. Perhaps unsurprisingly, no response to radio.
We approached carefully.
She wasn't the biggest tanker I've ever seen but she was bigger than most. It wasn't apparent where, if anywhere, she had hull damage that was causing the leak of material. Somewhere below the waterline, probably. We came about a hundred meters behind and slightly to port and tried signaling with lights and calling over the bullhorn. No response. No evidence of life, even, though on a ship like that the crew would have only numbered a dozen or two anyway.
The captain picked out a boarding party: Warrant Officer, doctor in case there were injured aboard, and four of us with small arms… just in case. Rather than set zodiacs into the churning oily froth, we went ahead and fired up the helicopter. Gave us a better opportunity for a quick recon around the entire ship from the air first, anyway.
Nothing. Nobody, no lights on, nothing. Just the ship, in its weird uncanny color scheme, ploughing the water and leaving a smear of homogenized human flesh in its wake.
We set down in the large clear space just fore of the superstructure. Lars was the first one out. His face soured: "What's that smell?"
Yeah, it smelled bad on the deck. Worse inside the superstructure, once we opened the nearest hatch. What the fuck happened here?
Then, something shifted. Something down inside. Down in the tanks. In the hold, something… meaty… shifted its weight, and the entire ship tilted slightly.
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For consideration: came to mind in the wake of those reports of rendered human fat being found in jars in Peru
It turns out spacetime mostly isn’t. It’s just vacuum and meaningless bullshit that compresses quite easily. In fact, it can entirely collapse to a single selected moment. Trillions of stars and every stupid thing anyone ever did, compacted to just one thing that mattered.
So when I say I look at you and everything else just goes away...? I'm speaking quite literally. When I activate this, the entire universe will be pressed down into the single point in spacetime where I first met you, and that’s where it will remain.
Fuck the universe. I just want to see you again.
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For consideration: "I waited so long for this moment, as the others were wasted"
This morning I heard a car pulling into the driveway. Looking out the window over the sink, I saw an entirely unfamiliar Cadillac being parked by a goblin in a suit. I went outside, mug of dewspark in hand, to find out what he wanted. The goblin appeared to be getting a briefcase or laptop case of some sort out of the passenger seat. What? Yes, it's relevant to the story that he was a goblin.
"Good morning... Can I help you with something?"
He leaned out to look me over. "No," he gurgled somewhat dismissively. "I don't think so." Then he... Yes, I mean gurgled. Oh, come on. It's not just an accent. You've heard them talk. They f'ing gurgle. Anyway, case in hand, he closed the door and locked it with his little key-fob, and was about to walk away.
"What the hell, dude?" I said to him.
He stopped and looked back with his good eye. "I'm sorry?" he asked. Oh, let's not pretend that they don't have a potent eye and a cursed eye. If he'd looked at me with his cursed eye, this would have become a different kind of story and you know it.
"Why are you leaving your car in my driveway?" I asked.
"Driveway? This is my personal parking space at work," he sniffed. "My office is right over here."
"Your what...? Bullshit. Wait... Where's your office, exactly?"
He waved his arms (and the briefcase) around to sort of indicate the entire neighborhood, and the old-fish stank hit me. What? What? I know they don't all smell like old fish but this one most certainly did and you know what it means when they do. It's totally relevant. I'm not just bringing it up because I don't like them.
"Okay, buddy, I think..." I started to say in as calm a voice as I could, but then he suddenly made the little devil-flick sign with his free hand. The last of the dewspark in my mug magically superheated into explosive steam, blasting up at my... I'll call it what I damn well want to, and I damn well want to call it magic. It's *not* superstitious of me! It's not like you know how they do it either, do you? No. Nobody does. Probably they don't even know how they do it. That's f'ing magic.
Anyway, once he threw a flick at me, the gloves were off. I tossed the hissing mug onto the lawn hastily and got out my cold iron taser. The shock of recognition flared in his good eye about two seconds later, but before he could glare a curse into me, I shot him full of juice and he exploded in a puff of smoke. Given the reek and the obvious encroachment of insanity, he wasn't long for the world anyway; his glamour, the glamour that had no doubt enabled whatever career had bought that expensive Cadillac, was on its way out.
Oh, really? Name one goblin you know in a serious professional career who got there through being qualified and not through night-glamour. In fact, name one f'ing goblin you actually know, personally, well enough to spend time with. That's what I thought. I'm no racist where people are concerned - elves are elves, whether sky or sea or forest or cave - but let's not kid ourselves: goblins are something else entirely.
------
For consideration: orcs, on the other hand, orcs we can at least do business with
Officer, this is going to sound nuts but let me explain.
For two years, I’ve been working on a project for the military to store small inanimate items in an extra-dimensional space, so soldiers on the battlefield don’t have to carry everything with them. Food, flashlight, gun: all stored in No-Space until needed. But I had a little accident with the prototype and now it’s activating randomly.
So while I’m not saying I didn’t shoot all those people, I *am* saying it’s not exactly my fault. The gun keeps phasing back in, firing, then disappearing off into…
**BANG**
…Officer?
Shiiiiiiiit.
------
For consideration: "The gun's in my hand and I know it looks bad but believe me I'm innocent"
For Tu B'shvat, C. got Liana a little potting tray and some zinnia seeds to plant over the weekend. The seeds need to be spray-misted for the first few weeks until they're sprouted sufficiently to move into larger beds of some sort. So we needed to get some sort of little spray-mister for L. to use.
"Let's get a pink one!" she suggests.
"Well, I dunno that there will even be such a thing so we'll probably just get the cheapest one," I counter.
This morning, we got out of the house early enough to stop at OSH on the way to Liana's school. Spray misters were on aisle 1 in Lawn & Garden. There were all sorts of elaborate ones costing $4.99 and $6.99 and even $8.99, but there were some small ones for $2.49 as well. Perfect: plain, generic white plastic, that'll do fine.
Then: Liana points at the top shelf, where a handful of totally unlabeled little mister bottles are clustered together in vivid pink and vivid blue, for $2.99. At fifty cents difference from the absolute cheapest, am I going to say NO to the pink sprayer? Of course not. Genius. Someone somewhere is a f'ing genius who correctly identified the crossover value of the "little boys' and girls' first gardening tools" demographic and the "mom and dad don't really want to throw any money into this right now" demographic and got their share of my three bucks today.
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For consideration: some of the zinnias are apparently already sprouting
Find your place in space!
That’s right, pilgrim: Here's your chance to walk among the stars!
The Megastar is filling bunks for her flight to Barnards. The launch countdown is already underway!
In a few short weeks, she’ll be taking one million intrepid explorers to the next chapter in human destiny. When they awake, they’ll plant their boots on a strange and marvelous landscape that beckons them to carve their own names into history.
Meanwhile, the ship’s streaming-singularity drive will have done so much damage to Earth’s own mass the planet will be entirely collapsed in ten years.
So… interested?
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For consideration: "Murderers of generations, come to lead us to the promised land"
Damn. I let it sit out here too long.
"Hey there. Long time no see! What's on the agenda for today?"
It's best not to talk back to the stuff when it gets like this. You just keep reminding yourself that it's not what it seems like. It's not alive. It's not self-aware. Despite the popular label, it's not even actually intelligent. The obviously artificial voice helps.
( Read more... )
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For consideration: why yes I do have some long overdue cleaning to do in the garage why do you ask
"Let's go over it again."
"No! Okay? Just… no."
"What 'no'? What do you mean, 'no'?"
"I mean, we've got it."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah, that's most certainly 'so'. There ain't that much to it. We've got it."
"Well, *I* want to make sure we're really sure before we start."
"Do you have any other ideas?"
"No."
"Me either. So I think that's close enough to 'sure-we're-sure' to count."
"Close enough? Close. *Enough*?"
"Yes. It's close enough, okay?"
"'Close enough' is not close enough. We need to be exact about this."
"We don't need to be exact!"
"We *do* need to be exact. Every little bit matters. We're all that's left." ( Read more... )
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For consideration: Numbers 1:1 - 4:20; census in the desert; the importance of keeping records
Last fall, right after Alexandra's birth, I went through a round of finding and reading bought-but-as-yet-unproduced screenplays that were floating around. My initial portal into this has been a blog called Scriptshadow; if you're interested in this sort of thing, I highly recommend it for your RSS feed.
The following are some thoughts on the first twenty scripts that I read, many of which were from the "Top 25" list of the Scriptshadow crew. My want-to-read pile has about forty more sitting in it - a lot of Black List '08 and '09 selections - so at some point soon hopefully I'll do another round. They go quick, much much quicker than the films they would (or will, or have) eventually become.
At the time I read them, they were all bought but unreleased, though several are now underway (title links to IMDB provided in such cases) and one of them (Law-Abiding Citizen) has already come out. While I was reading them, I tried ranking them on a few axes (such as "enjoyed reading" vs. "would like to see the movie") and then plotting the whole thing in Excel, but ultimately I think I'm just going to line them up here, from least to greatest, in "the order that I liked 'em".
( I'll try not to give too many good bits away, especially for the ones that are actually going to come out, but if you care about spoilers for films that won't be out for years and may never actually get made, back out now. )
EDIT to add just the list of the titles in "worst to best" order, with some genre/keywords, in case you want to know what's behind the cut before you go behind the cut:
Never seen the Boss look so… defeated. Not even after the actual Fall.
“They haven’t said, but it’s obvious. We’re gonna be scaled back to a skeleton crew for the few inmates that really can’t be released. Probably put one of the Dukes in charge. They won’t need a Prince like me anymore.”
“You know what, Boss? We should steal everything in the place before they close the doors. I mean, what are they gonna do if they catch us…? Send us to Hell?”
A few seconds pass and then, suddenly, it’s back: that Old Scratch twinkle in his eye.
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For consideration: "Yeah, sure, Satan rules. Doesn't mean I can't be practical."
The audit is becoming more uncomfortable by the minute.
“All this… this fire. What does it cost to heat this place?”
Satan grimaces. He doesn’t even know… but the Auditor surely already does.
“Look,” the bespectacled angel finally sighs. “It’s not like this is a new thing. The Love of the Divine Creator has been pretty much All-Encompassing for millennia now. How many truly Evil souls do you actually take in, in any given year?”
The devil tries to keep his voice from trembling: “When someone like Hitler…”
The binder snaps shut as the Auditor stands. “We’ll let you know.”
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For consideration: "It's hard to believe we need a place called Hell."
It's my intent to write something new, here, every day this year.
By something new, I mean fiction or poetry or song lyric - hopefully more than just a smart-ass off the cuff topical comment or celebrity memorial haiku, though there will still be those at times as well. By something new, I mean something complete in itself, even if it's short. (Anyway, sometimes short writing is the very best of the craft.)
I won't always post it the day-of. Yesterday, I was down a particularly annoying rabbit hole and didn't post anything new. This is that post. The other 364 days of the year, the something-new will probably not be some non-fictional thing about my own personal life, because that's not really what I intend to use this LJ for (and it never really was the intent from the start), but for Rabbit Hole Day the exceptions become the rules - this is some new fiction on Rabbit Hole Day, ( by which I mean non-fiction not-on the day. )
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For consideration: No idea what yet, which is what I like about it
Pretty much the only soda I drink anymore is a Cherry Coke during the Wednesday night game.
Shortly: D&D time! Wearin' the d20 socks. Tonight, we hit up the Prince's festivities and wreck shop. #dnd
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