I miss colors.
Some of the others here- I wouldn't call them friends- some of the others say they miss warmth, or touch. But me? I miss colors.
I was never that big on warmth in the first place, and as for touch- this numbness is preferable to what I felt... before. But colors... no, it was definitely better when there were colors.
Although I guess they're still there. They must be. Surely the people of the world would have made a bigger fuss if they'd disappeared. But no one has said anything, so they must still be there- it's just I can't see them anymore.
Then again, no one made any fuss when I disappeared. Does that mean I'm still there, but unable to see myself?
I never used to have thoughts like this... before.
Sometimes I wonder why the colors went away. Why warmth went away, and touch, and smell. And I assume taste, but since I don't eat anymore, I'm not really sure. I wonder why all these things went away, but I can still hear. Sort of. Sometimes. If I concentrate. Everyone's voice sounds the same, now.
I don't know why.
Maybe voices are somehow tied to colors. Maybe your voice is the color of your... thoughts? Or maybe colors are the voice of your... soul? Does a flower have a voice? Does it have a soul?
...do I?
(Small Wild Flowers in Black and White)
6.06.2010
Blue Menagerie Pt XI
(I went back to work on this one and found that I'd already written enough for a new entry- but I went ahead and wrote more, so as to keep to the spirit of this challenge, as well as the letter, which means you get a longer-than-intended post. Yay you! Once I'm done putting this up I'm going to go start laying down some initial pencils for the fanfic [which is now looking like it will be two pages, unless I get crazy and tweak it into three...] )
The next day was Sunday, and Sallie was in full-on Plotting mode. She had updated her list so it now looked more like this:
The next day was Sunday, and Sallie was in full-on Plotting mode. She had updated her list so it now looked more like this:
What We Know
*Amulet bright blue jewel, gold chain, eye(?) carvings, apx size of cookie
Horrible Woman- who is she? Mrs. Canarina, owner of menagerie
‘Auntie Strega’? Yes? Sort of? Said it was a “joke”?
Weaknesses? Sarcastic?
Motivation?? Pure evil horribleness. Said something about Zeb having potent “veev”. What is veev? Is it something she needs? Something blue-eyed kids have?
Destroy? Hit with hammer?
Use? Try this first- maybe we can transform kids back?
She could not help but notice that her list still contained more questions than answers. Furthermore, she was pretty sure that “sarcastic” did not count as a weakness. She sighed and leaned back against her desk chair. Zeb, who had been making short work of the two bananas she’d brought him for breakfast, bounded over and gave a reassuring chirp.
“I know, I know. At least we have a place to start, right? And if I’m going to be doing any breaking and entering, I guess you’re a pretty good ally for that sort of activity.
Zeb flashed his fangs at her in a lemur-grin, and then demonstrated his usefulness by springing to the top of her desk over to a high shelf, which he managed to navigate without knocking anything off. From there he made a great leap out the open window to land in the swaying tree branches.
“Definitely handy,” she smiled, and turned back to her list.
Time to do a little research, she thought, and turned on her computer monitor.
***
A few minutes later she was glaring at the screen. According to what she’d found, “strega” was either a kind of yellow alcohol, or else a witch. Based on the pass-times of Mrs. Canarina, she was willing to gamble that the Horrible Woman was, in fact, a witch.
That’s why it’s a “joke”, she thought grimly. Her name may not actually be Strega, but it’s what she is. Although somehow I doubt she’s anyone’s aunt.
The other word she’d attempted to look up- “veev” was also the name of an alcohol- a clear one. Sallie did not get why grownups had to have so many alcohols. Anyway she knew there was no way the Horrible Woman valued Zeb for his alcohol. It must have been another foreign word- at first she thought maybe it was Italian, like strega, but two seconds with the translator tool had shot that idea down.
She had to risk asking her parents.
***
“Hey Daddy,”
“Hey what, Sallie-girl?” Daddy was hunched over a map covered in lots of wavy lines. Sallie knew it was called a topographic map, and she also knew that when he was studying them he often wasn’t 100% listening to whoever was talking to her, which worked well for her purposes.
“I heard a word the other day and I can’t find it in the dictionary.” It was important to clarify this, because both her parents had a bizarre knee-jerk reaction to someone asking what a word meant- they inevitably sent the person (ie, Sallie) searching for a dictionary. “I think it might be foreign.”
“Mmm?” Daddy was making little dashes on the map.
“The word is ‘veev’. Uh, I-“ but before she could invent a scenario in which she’d heard it, her dad immediately shot back,
“Viva Zapata!”
“Huh?”
“What?” Daddy put down the grease pencil and looked at her. “Oh, sorry. Viva Zapata!- it’s an old movie. Older than me, actually.”
“But… what does it mean?”
“What, viva?”
“Um, I guess.”
“In this instance it means ‘Long live Zapata!’ or more literally, ‘Live Zapata!’ like they’re telling him to live. Zapata, of course, being the name of the Mexican revolutionary that movie is more or less about. They used it the same way the revolutionaries during the French revolution would say ‘Viva la Revolucion!’. Haven’t you studied that in school yet?”
“Nope. We’ve been talking about Lewis and Clarke.”
“Well I guess that does have something to do with France, in a round-about way. Remind me to lecture you on it later. Anyway kiddo, I really need to work on this, so maybe you could go bug your mom for a while, huh?” He reached out and tousled her hair.
Sallie wandered off, mulling this new information over.
Long live… long life?
***
The internet was good for a lot of things, but for some things Sallie had found you just couldn’t beat the library. Specifically the library’s collection of old newspapers. Specifically the local newspapers.
She’d left Zeb playing happily in the tree branches (after explaining to him what she was up to) then hopped on her bike and headed for the library. The librarians there all knew Sallie and her family, which was good in that they were willing to indulge her in certain things (like checking out more books than junior library members were strictly allowed to), but bad in that anything out of the ordinary she did inevitably got mentioned to her parents. Still, Sallie spent enough time looking up random things that plunging into the newspaper archives wasn’t likely to raise any alarm amongst the grown-ups.
That’s the best thing about being naturally curious, she thought to herself as she settled down in front of one of the computers dedicated to housing the archive scans. People forget to take notice when you go poking into something new.
She typed in a few search words, like menagerie and strega, and missing child- and then waited to see what popped up. The computer thought about it for a while, then spat out a couple dozen articles. She didn’t bother to open up the first few- she had already read them more times than she could count. They were the articles about Zeb. Feeling sick, she clicked on an article dated a week previous to that first cluster. It popped open to reveal a short “Out and About in the Community” article outlining the fact that a menagerie had come to town, and giving info on location and price. She found one of these articles every three or five years, stretching back for decades, each time only a week or two before a cluster of “Missing Child” articles appeared.
Well the Horrible Woman did say it had been in her family for generations, Sallie thought grimly.
Finally, in 1967, she found a grainy color picture attached to the article- it was labeled Mrs Canarina, Proprietress. Sallie wasn’t really surprised to see that the woman looked exactly like the Horrible Woman.
That’s over forty years ago, she thought. Maybe she just looks like her grandma…
But Sallie doubted it.
She clicked on the earliest “menagerie” article she could find- dated 1883. It contained a very weird-looking black and white photograph of the Horrible Woman in a stiff pose, holding a leash that was connected to a jeweled collar worn by a sad looking cheetah. Sallie didn’t bother to read the article- the look in the animal’s eyes was enough for her. On a whim she tried one more search.
Canarina.
This brought up only one new article- from 1811. Sallie was pretty sure they hadn’t had photography back then, but she clicked on it anyway.
The image with the article wasn’t a photo- it was a beautiful line drawing of a very familiar woman (although the shoulders were oddly sloped). And the familiar woman was wearing a very familiar pendant. The label read, Mme. Canarina wearing her Eye of Lost Souls. The article was mostly about the necklace and how fabulous it was. Legend said it was cursed, but the author felt that surely someone as lovely and gracious as Madame Canarina couldn’t possibly be wrapped up in something so tragic as a curse. The article went on to mention, almost as an afterthought, that even though Madame Canarina was new to the community she was already very active with local charities, and could often be found delivering comfort and blessings to the poor unfortunates of Our Lady of Mercy Orphanage. Sallie bared her teeth at the screen in an unconscious imitation of Zeb.
I’ll just bet she “blessed” them, she thought fiercely, and stomped out of the library.
6.05.2010
Recipe
She stared at the little red lumps in the orange bowl. They were potatoes, but they weren't the kind of potatoes her mother had always used.
She wondered if that would ruin everything.
Probably not, right? Potatoes were pretty much potatoes, weren't they? Surely using little red potatoes instead of big brown ones couldn't possibly ruin everything. Surely not.
She sighed and grabbed one, put it under the running water, and scrubbed it vigorously with her long-sought-after, finally-attained, jealously-guarded vegetable scrub brush. Her husband had once tried to use it to wash dishes: that had not ended well.
Once the potatoes were all cleaned she set them aside and turned to her next obstacle: oil and vinegar. The problem with trying to recreate her mother's recipes (which were actually her grandmother's recipes) was that they weren't written down, and they weren't exact. It was all, "and then you add this and that until the texture/taste/consistency is right," which was fine if you'd been making something for thirty years, but less useful if you'd only ever been on the eating end of the equation.
"Right," she muttered. "Oil first," and she poured about a quarter cup into her measuring cup. Surely that would be enough- she only had about a dozen of those little potatoes, after all. She shook the vinegar on top of it, watching the level rise to just shy of a half cup. More oil than vinegar, that sounded good... she added a dash of Maggi, then a dash more.
Three minutes were wasted as she hunted down her mini-whisk, which was not where it was supposed to be, and also not in the other place it shouldn't be but might understandably be, but then it turned out that it was where it was supposed to be, it's just that someone had put it away upside down.
(She suspected the someone might have been herself, but one can't be held responsible for what one does first thing in the morning before one even has breakfast...)
She whisked the mixture, then dipped a pinky in to taste. She was pretty sure it needed more vinegar, but she figured she'd double check with the man who had requested the dish in the first place. "Hey hon, will you taste this?" Her husband wandered into the kitchen, gave her a dubious look as she held out the measuring cup, but gamely dipped in a finger and brought it to his tongue.
"I think it needs more vinegar," he said in the tone of voice that meant he didn't feel totally qualified to give such opinions, and was doing so only because she was giving him an Imploring Look.
"I thought so, too."
She added more vinegar, then set the mixture aside, along with the potatoes. Her husband, offering his help, was put to chopping up green onions while she transferred the potatoes into the now boiling, slightly salted water and set the timer for twenty minutes. Definitely not long enough, but she was paranoid about them getting too mushy.
In the end she kept them in for twenty-five minutes, then used a fork to rescue them one-by-one and put them on the cutting board. The water she'd boiled them in she set off to the side for later. Then began the long and painful process of peeling boiling-hot potatoes. She decided that one benefit to using the little reds was that they didn't hold the heat so well as the large brown ones, which meant that as she made her way through the small pile it started to hurt less. Or maybe she'd just done enough nerve damage to her fingers that it seemed that way.
Once they were all peeled and quartered she dumped them in a bowl, added a bit of the boiled-water to her oil-and vinegar mix, muttered a little invocation and poured it over the potatoes. Salt and pepper came next, then green onions, then she tossed everything together by hand. Her mom never did it by hand, but she liked tossing things that way- it gave her a better feel for whatever it was she was cooking or baking. Now for a taste-test...
The reds hadn't ruined anything, so that was good, but they definitely needed more of both salt and pepper.
"Hon, will you add more salt and pepper?" she held up her oily hands as an excuse, then said, "When!" after he'd added enough of each. She tossed the concoction again, tasted again, and finally allowed him a taste.
"Oh yeah," he said. "That's awesome." She smiled and washed her hands.
It wasn't until later that she was truly convinced she'd done it right, however. She'd gone out on the porch to keep him company while he grilled the brats, then decided that such a scene demanded a cold beer for each of them. She opened the door to go back into the house-
And stopped, grinning. Because when she'd inhaled just now, as she'd walked into the house, it hadn't smelled like her house- it smelled like her grandmother's. It smelled like good German cooking.
She wondered if that would ruin everything.
Probably not, right? Potatoes were pretty much potatoes, weren't they? Surely using little red potatoes instead of big brown ones couldn't possibly ruin everything. Surely not.
She sighed and grabbed one, put it under the running water, and scrubbed it vigorously with her long-sought-after, finally-attained, jealously-guarded vegetable scrub brush. Her husband had once tried to use it to wash dishes: that had not ended well.
Once the potatoes were all cleaned she set them aside and turned to her next obstacle: oil and vinegar. The problem with trying to recreate her mother's recipes (which were actually her grandmother's recipes) was that they weren't written down, and they weren't exact. It was all, "and then you add this and that until the texture/taste/consistency is right," which was fine if you'd been making something for thirty years, but less useful if you'd only ever been on the eating end of the equation.
"Right," she muttered. "Oil first," and she poured about a quarter cup into her measuring cup. Surely that would be enough- she only had about a dozen of those little potatoes, after all. She shook the vinegar on top of it, watching the level rise to just shy of a half cup. More oil than vinegar, that sounded good... she added a dash of Maggi, then a dash more.
Three minutes were wasted as she hunted down her mini-whisk, which was not where it was supposed to be, and also not in the other place it shouldn't be but might understandably be, but then it turned out that it was where it was supposed to be, it's just that someone had put it away upside down.
(She suspected the someone might have been herself, but one can't be held responsible for what one does first thing in the morning before one even has breakfast...)
She whisked the mixture, then dipped a pinky in to taste. She was pretty sure it needed more vinegar, but she figured she'd double check with the man who had requested the dish in the first place. "Hey hon, will you taste this?" Her husband wandered into the kitchen, gave her a dubious look as she held out the measuring cup, but gamely dipped in a finger and brought it to his tongue.
"I think it needs more vinegar," he said in the tone of voice that meant he didn't feel totally qualified to give such opinions, and was doing so only because she was giving him an Imploring Look.
"I thought so, too."
She added more vinegar, then set the mixture aside, along with the potatoes. Her husband, offering his help, was put to chopping up green onions while she transferred the potatoes into the now boiling, slightly salted water and set the timer for twenty minutes. Definitely not long enough, but she was paranoid about them getting too mushy.
In the end she kept them in for twenty-five minutes, then used a fork to rescue them one-by-one and put them on the cutting board. The water she'd boiled them in she set off to the side for later. Then began the long and painful process of peeling boiling-hot potatoes. She decided that one benefit to using the little reds was that they didn't hold the heat so well as the large brown ones, which meant that as she made her way through the small pile it started to hurt less. Or maybe she'd just done enough nerve damage to her fingers that it seemed that way.
Once they were all peeled and quartered she dumped them in a bowl, added a bit of the boiled-water to her oil-and vinegar mix, muttered a little invocation and poured it over the potatoes. Salt and pepper came next, then green onions, then she tossed everything together by hand. Her mom never did it by hand, but she liked tossing things that way- it gave her a better feel for whatever it was she was cooking or baking. Now for a taste-test...
The reds hadn't ruined anything, so that was good, but they definitely needed more of both salt and pepper.
"Hon, will you add more salt and pepper?" she held up her oily hands as an excuse, then said, "When!" after he'd added enough of each. She tossed the concoction again, tasted again, and finally allowed him a taste.
"Oh yeah," he said. "That's awesome." She smiled and washed her hands.
It wasn't until later that she was truly convinced she'd done it right, however. She'd gone out on the porch to keep him company while he grilled the brats, then decided that such a scene demanded a cold beer for each of them. She opened the door to go back into the house-
And stopped, grinning. Because when she'd inhaled just now, as she'd walked into the house, it hadn't smelled like her house- it smelled like her grandmother's. It smelled like good German cooking.
6.04.2010
Development
(It's possible that this is cheating. I don't care, because I have cramps and I hate the world.)
The following are my initial character sketches for yesterday's script. Just faces, no bodies yet- just trying to get a feel for how to simplify the characters into my art style. Kaylee and Wash are not so much there yet... but they will be.
I'm trying not to think too much about the fact that I'll be drawing the interior of Serenity's cockpit. For a girl who doesn't have much of a gift for rendering That Which is Inorganic, it's a bit daunting.
But it'll be fine.
The following are my initial character sketches for yesterday's script. Just faces, no bodies yet- just trying to get a feel for how to simplify the characters into my art style. Kaylee and Wash are not so much there yet... but they will be.
I'm trying not to think too much about the fact that I'll be drawing the interior of Serenity's cockpit. For a girl who doesn't have much of a gift for rendering That Which is Inorganic, it's a bit daunting.
But it'll be fine.
I darkened up the contrast so you could see the pencil-marks better. I hope you appreciate the novelty that is me using a pencil; typically I am a straight-up pen woman for my sketches, which thoroughly baffles Nathan. (He's definitely a pencil man.)
Speaking of my obscenely talented spouse, he took a sweet-ass photo tonight, and I really like it. I feel like there is most assuredly a narrative to be found in there... but I'm not the girl to find it tonight. Tonight I'm the girl to sit in a bath and eat chocolate. Yes, that is definitely me...
(Fountain Chaos)
Speaking of my obscenely talented spouse, he took a sweet-ass photo tonight, and I really like it. I feel like there is most assuredly a narrative to be found in there... but I'm not the girl to find it tonight. Tonight I'm the girl to sit in a bath and eat chocolate. Yes, that is definitely me...
(Fountain Chaos)
6.03.2010
OMG Serenity Fanfic!!!11!1!one!!
!!!!!SPOILERS FOR SERENITY AND THE TIE IN COMIC FLOAT OUT!!!!!
(In other words, Mom, you're not allowed to read this one yet. I mean it.)
Okay, so what you need to know is that this highly unusual posting came about in a fit of rage. Wait- let me give you some background.
I am a huge Joss Whedon fan. This should come as a suprise to exactly zero percent of you. One of Whedon's best works is the show Firefly and it's follow-up movie, Serenity. If you haven't seen them, you should stop reading this at the end of this paragraph, go buy the dvds of everything (it's worth every penny and then some), watch them, and get back to me. I'll wait.
*
**
***
**
*
Okay, so, now you understand my love, and also you know that Wash is dead (feel free to cry. A lot. I still do.) So you might also understand why I was more than a little excited to get my paws on the Wash-centered Float Out, which I managed to do today.
Man, what a load of steaming disapointment. The story was crap (moreover it was confusing crap- I had to keep going back to re-read to try to figure out what the hell was going on), and the art was whatever excrement crap produces. And it just... it just really pissed me off. And all I could think was, "Man, I could do so much better than this!" And then I couldn't stand it a moment longer- I whipped out my netbook and threw down a far more fitting tribute to Wash (one which included the same "big reveal" as the comic- which, come on- was not that big of a friggin' reveal).
I rewrote it and did the thumbnails, then came home and rewrote it a third time, and did thumbnails for that. And you, gentle readers, now get script and thumbnails, and will eventually get the finished product (which I don't expect to be longer than two pages- more likely one, because I was trying to write something I could finish in a reasonable span of time- and it will be b&w unless I get totally carried away) because hot damn Wash deserved better than that.
I'm just sayin'.
I don't have a title for it yet- feel free to suggest. And for those of you who love the Firefly universe as much as I do, please give me your honest feedback- was I true to the characters?
(note- you'll notice this is an exceptionally loose script- that's 'cos I don't have to worry about explaining the layout for another artist)
(obligatory disclaimer- all characters are the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, who doesn't even know I exist, let alone that I'm toying with his creation- in other words, this is done without knowledge or approval. Furthermore, I'm not doing this for money or glory or to infringe on anybody's copyanything- I'm just doing it because I'm pissed off about bad storytelling and worse art.) (please don't sue me, kthnxbye)
"Working Title: Better Than Float Out"
We begin with a field of stars, then pull back enough to reveal a woman’s profile- it’s Zoe, face turned upwards, eyes closed. A further pull back reveals that she is not outside- she’s in Serenity’s cockpit, specifically in Wash’s old chair. One hand rests on her flat stomach, the other holds a toy dinosaur. One more pull back reveals River, Kaylee, and Simon watching from the door.
(In other words, Mom, you're not allowed to read this one yet. I mean it.)
Okay, so what you need to know is that this highly unusual posting came about in a fit of rage. Wait- let me give you some background.
I am a huge Joss Whedon fan. This should come as a suprise to exactly zero percent of you. One of Whedon's best works is the show Firefly and it's follow-up movie, Serenity. If you haven't seen them, you should stop reading this at the end of this paragraph, go buy the dvds of everything (it's worth every penny and then some), watch them, and get back to me. I'll wait.
*
**
***
**
*
Okay, so, now you understand my love, and also you know that Wash is dead (feel free to cry. A lot. I still do.) So you might also understand why I was more than a little excited to get my paws on the Wash-centered Float Out, which I managed to do today.
Man, what a load of steaming disapointment. The story was crap (moreover it was confusing crap- I had to keep going back to re-read to try to figure out what the hell was going on), and the art was whatever excrement crap produces. And it just... it just really pissed me off. And all I could think was, "Man, I could do so much better than this!" And then I couldn't stand it a moment longer- I whipped out my netbook and threw down a far more fitting tribute to Wash (one which included the same "big reveal" as the comic- which, come on- was not that big of a friggin' reveal).
I rewrote it and did the thumbnails, then came home and rewrote it a third time, and did thumbnails for that. And you, gentle readers, now get script and thumbnails, and will eventually get the finished product (which I don't expect to be longer than two pages- more likely one, because I was trying to write something I could finish in a reasonable span of time- and it will be b&w unless I get totally carried away) because hot damn Wash deserved better than that.
I'm just sayin'.
I don't have a title for it yet- feel free to suggest. And for those of you who love the Firefly universe as much as I do, please give me your honest feedback- was I true to the characters?
(note- you'll notice this is an exceptionally loose script- that's 'cos I don't have to worry about explaining the layout for another artist)
(obligatory disclaimer- all characters are the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, who doesn't even know I exist, let alone that I'm toying with his creation- in other words, this is done without knowledge or approval. Furthermore, I'm not doing this for money or glory or to infringe on anybody's copyanything- I'm just doing it because I'm pissed off about bad storytelling and worse art.) (please don't sue me, kthnxbye)
"Working Title: Better Than Float Out"
We begin with a field of stars, then pull back enough to reveal a woman’s profile- it’s Zoe, face turned upwards, eyes closed. A further pull back reveals that she is not outside- she’s in Serenity’s cockpit, specifically in Wash’s old chair. One hand rests on her flat stomach, the other holds a toy dinosaur. One more pull back reveals River, Kaylee, and Simon watching from the door.
“Why do you think she does that?” Simon asks. Kaylee give a little shrug.
“It makes her joyful…” says River, hand hovering near her abdomen.
“Zoe’s joyful?” asks Kylie, wrapping an arm around Simon’s. “Seems mighty unlikely, what with Wash so recently… well, what with Wash bein’ gone, and all.”
“Not Zoe. The baby.”
“What baby?” says Simon, looking sharply at River.
Kaylee looks at Zoe’s hand resting on her stomach. Her eyes go wide. “Ohhhh…”
“But, but…” stammers Simon.
“I wonder why it makes her joyful…” says River.
Kaylee looks at Zoe, then at the dinosaur. “I don’t,”
Full shot of Zoe smiling gently, still face-up to the stars, with ghostly Wash face smiling amongst them.
(Click to Embiggen) (Totally stole that phrase, yes I did.)
(PS don't hurt your brain trying to figure out what's in the third-to-last panel: it's a scribbled-out screw up)
6.02.2010
Silence
If you had asked me, at the beginning of my trials, what the worst part was, I'd certainly have told you it was the pain. At least, I would have told you that, had I been allowed to speak- which of course I was not.
In the beginning I thought the pain was unendurable- it was all I could do to keep from crying out with every touch, and the soundless tears streamed down my face without pause. I had spent my entire life protected and pampered, never feeling anything more harsh than the soft grass of the lawn. The first time I, in my innocence, reached down to grab a nettle- well, I almost lost everything before I'd even begun. But I bit back my yelp and was silent.
In the end it was the silence that was most difficult, you see. After enough time had gone by the pain became bearable; the body adapts wonderfully well, and before two years had passed I hardly noticed the pain at all. It was just the way things were. But I never, ever got used to the silence, to the tedium and the loneliness such silence brings. My brothers had each other, but I had no one, could not even sing to pass the time as I turned plants into fiber, fiber into cloth, cloth into garments.
No one, that is, until he came. Before he came I thought I knew how frustrating the silence was, but in truth I had no idea. Until he came, and fell in love with me, and carried me off and married me against my will... Maybe I might have loved him, had things been different. But as it was- I literally had no say in the matter. I couldn't even resist- how could I deny a king whatever he might want? At least he was honorable enough to marry me- and if I had tried to fight him off, or escape, he might have taken away my work- or worse, he might have killed me, and then my brothers would never be free. And so I was married to a man who fell in love with a woman without a voice, and who had no interests outside making shirts.
Oh, of course the times with the children and the blood smears were pretty bad, too- and there's no denying that coming so close to being burned alive was also horrible. But none of it compares to my current torment. My brothers are free- even the youngest, with his single arm- but I remained trapped, queen of a country that is not my own, mother to three children I do not know, and married to a man who so fears my power that he will not speak to me as once he did, but instead leaves me in solitude.
And so I pass my time in silence still, and long for the days when nettle stings were the greatest of my pain.
In the beginning I thought the pain was unendurable- it was all I could do to keep from crying out with every touch, and the soundless tears streamed down my face without pause. I had spent my entire life protected and pampered, never feeling anything more harsh than the soft grass of the lawn. The first time I, in my innocence, reached down to grab a nettle- well, I almost lost everything before I'd even begun. But I bit back my yelp and was silent.
In the end it was the silence that was most difficult, you see. After enough time had gone by the pain became bearable; the body adapts wonderfully well, and before two years had passed I hardly noticed the pain at all. It was just the way things were. But I never, ever got used to the silence, to the tedium and the loneliness such silence brings. My brothers had each other, but I had no one, could not even sing to pass the time as I turned plants into fiber, fiber into cloth, cloth into garments.
No one, that is, until he came. Before he came I thought I knew how frustrating the silence was, but in truth I had no idea. Until he came, and fell in love with me, and carried me off and married me against my will... Maybe I might have loved him, had things been different. But as it was- I literally had no say in the matter. I couldn't even resist- how could I deny a king whatever he might want? At least he was honorable enough to marry me- and if I had tried to fight him off, or escape, he might have taken away my work- or worse, he might have killed me, and then my brothers would never be free. And so I was married to a man who fell in love with a woman without a voice, and who had no interests outside making shirts.
Oh, of course the times with the children and the blood smears were pretty bad, too- and there's no denying that coming so close to being burned alive was also horrible. But none of it compares to my current torment. My brothers are free- even the youngest, with his single arm- but I remained trapped, queen of a country that is not my own, mother to three children I do not know, and married to a man who so fears my power that he will not speak to me as once he did, but instead leaves me in solitude.
And so I pass my time in silence still, and long for the days when nettle stings were the greatest of my pain.
6.01.2010
Misplaced Marbles
You may remember that I recently was singing the praises of Brandon Sanderson. I'd like to revisit said singing for a moment, as a convenient segue into tonight's post. Sanderson is the sort of author whose work makes me excited about my own work- because his is so well done that it makes me want to go make mine as well done. Plus when you poke around on his blog you really get the idea that he's a cool guy, and very enthusiastic about the craft of writing. Like all good teachers, he can't help but actively rub that enthusiasm off all over you.
(How's that for a thrilling mental image...)
But anyway, I was reading some of his annotations for Elantris today (yeah, that's right- he puts annotations for his books on his website. He's just that awesome.) and I got squirmy with the desire to work on my book- specifically to take some time to hammer out the magic system of single (living) magic user in my universe. A furious fit of typing followed, which I will summarize and then expound upon here.
My character was blessed by the gods at birth with extraordinary strength, speed, and dexterity- all with the idea of making her a devastating warrior, a one-woman army, as it were. But none of that is magical per se- everyone starts with a base potential for athleticism, some people higher than others. She just happens to have a base level about twice as high as normal- but it's not really that much of an advantage if she doesn't work to keep her body in peak condition. Had she opted to spend her entire life lounging about it's perfectly reasonable to expect that a person with a "normal" base and a lifetime of training could kick her ass on the battlefield. So her physical gifts are not really that supernatural- she has to work for them.
Ah, but she also has a healing gift, and that is supernatural, is "magic". The way things currently stand in my book, it's your run-of-the-mill, faintly-glowing, tires-her-out, could-kill-her-if-she-over-does-it sort of healing power. Which, frankly, has kind of been done to death, and is sort of boring, to boot. Oh, there is one other limitation; she can't use it on herself- only others (okay, so that's a little less run-of-the-mill, which mollifies me somewhat).
When she first manifests it she has no conscious control over it- her vital energy is almost liek water, flowing downhill. If she touches someone who needs it, it goes. As she gets older she learns to turn the tap on or off, and as she learns more about meditation and self-awareness (and non-magical doctoring) she begins to be able to direct it to specific parts of the body, to heal specific injuries while leaving others to heal on their own.
But I want to lay out a set of logical rules for all of this- give it a better system. Especially because, while she is currently the only living person with this power (and is having to keep it hidden), it was more prevalent in the past.
After a lot of dithering about with various energy conduit concepts, I finally had this thought- what if it's more like she's a conductor? Like copper for vital energy rather than electricity. She completes a circuit, allowing it to transfer. Sort of. Only it's more of a conservation thing, a balancing thing. See, people naturally build up vital energy, but we can only use so much of it at a time. Imagine a chinese checker board with a dome over it, if you will. There are a finite number of divots on that board for marbles to lay in (121, according to our friend the interwebs), and each divot can hold only one marble. But say that you have 150 marbles- what happens to the others? Well, if we didn't have a dome over the board, they might just fall off and roll away, with the divots none the wiser (why should they care? They're full!). But we do have the dome over the board, so the excess marbles can't go anywhere- they just sort of build up, doing nothing. Well, when my character touches a person, it's like she puts a little pathway between that person's board and hers, and all the excess marbles go rolling over. All the marbles needed to fill the divots stay where they are: in the divots. And actually the board (person) will continue to manifest and build up marbles (energy) (okay this is getting weird- are you still with me?) but it's not like they will make the board (person) extra-healthy or anything. They just hang out doing nothing. But if my character were to come across a board with empty divots (a sick or injured person) and touches them, she creates a little pathway that lets her roll the extra marbles she's collected into that person, until they have the full complement of 121. But if she runs out of the excess marbles (energy) she's collected from other people, she can begin to take away from her own divot-filling collection (which she cannot do with others) and move them over to fill someone else's dearth. Which is how the healing can result in her becoming weak, herself. Of course, everyone replenishes/builds up vital energy at different rates, some people taking more time, some people less, and fortunately my character (and her eventual love interest) are two of the quick-builders. She especially so (it ties in somehow to her physical abilities, I'm sure).
So now you've read a long, weird, probably very confusing-if-you're-not-in-my-brain example of how I hammer things like this out. Thoughts on the logic? Suggestions? I'm wide open...
Also, Nathan took a highly flattering photo of me this evening. The rogue.
(Certified Flattering)
(How's that for a thrilling mental image...)
But anyway, I was reading some of his annotations for Elantris today (yeah, that's right- he puts annotations for his books on his website. He's just that awesome.) and I got squirmy with the desire to work on my book- specifically to take some time to hammer out the magic system of single (living) magic user in my universe. A furious fit of typing followed, which I will summarize and then expound upon here.
My character was blessed by the gods at birth with extraordinary strength, speed, and dexterity- all with the idea of making her a devastating warrior, a one-woman army, as it were. But none of that is magical per se- everyone starts with a base potential for athleticism, some people higher than others. She just happens to have a base level about twice as high as normal- but it's not really that much of an advantage if she doesn't work to keep her body in peak condition. Had she opted to spend her entire life lounging about it's perfectly reasonable to expect that a person with a "normal" base and a lifetime of training could kick her ass on the battlefield. So her physical gifts are not really that supernatural- she has to work for them.
Ah, but she also has a healing gift, and that is supernatural, is "magic". The way things currently stand in my book, it's your run-of-the-mill, faintly-glowing, tires-her-out, could-kill-her-if-she-over-does-it sort of healing power. Which, frankly, has kind of been done to death, and is sort of boring, to boot. Oh, there is one other limitation; she can't use it on herself- only others (okay, so that's a little less run-of-the-mill, which mollifies me somewhat).
When she first manifests it she has no conscious control over it- her vital energy is almost liek water, flowing downhill. If she touches someone who needs it, it goes. As she gets older she learns to turn the tap on or off, and as she learns more about meditation and self-awareness (and non-magical doctoring) she begins to be able to direct it to specific parts of the body, to heal specific injuries while leaving others to heal on their own.
But I want to lay out a set of logical rules for all of this- give it a better system. Especially because, while she is currently the only living person with this power (and is having to keep it hidden), it was more prevalent in the past.
After a lot of dithering about with various energy conduit concepts, I finally had this thought- what if it's more like she's a conductor? Like copper for vital energy rather than electricity. She completes a circuit, allowing it to transfer. Sort of. Only it's more of a conservation thing, a balancing thing. See, people naturally build up vital energy, but we can only use so much of it at a time. Imagine a chinese checker board with a dome over it, if you will. There are a finite number of divots on that board for marbles to lay in (121, according to our friend the interwebs), and each divot can hold only one marble. But say that you have 150 marbles- what happens to the others? Well, if we didn't have a dome over the board, they might just fall off and roll away, with the divots none the wiser (why should they care? They're full!). But we do have the dome over the board, so the excess marbles can't go anywhere- they just sort of build up, doing nothing. Well, when my character touches a person, it's like she puts a little pathway between that person's board and hers, and all the excess marbles go rolling over. All the marbles needed to fill the divots stay where they are: in the divots. And actually the board (person) will continue to manifest and build up marbles (energy) (okay this is getting weird- are you still with me?) but it's not like they will make the board (person) extra-healthy or anything. They just hang out doing nothing. But if my character were to come across a board with empty divots (a sick or injured person) and touches them, she creates a little pathway that lets her roll the extra marbles she's collected into that person, until they have the full complement of 121. But if she runs out of the excess marbles (energy) she's collected from other people, she can begin to take away from her own divot-filling collection (which she cannot do with others) and move them over to fill someone else's dearth. Which is how the healing can result in her becoming weak, herself. Of course, everyone replenishes/builds up vital energy at different rates, some people taking more time, some people less, and fortunately my character (and her eventual love interest) are two of the quick-builders. She especially so (it ties in somehow to her physical abilities, I'm sure).
So now you've read a long, weird, probably very confusing-if-you're-not-in-my-brain example of how I hammer things like this out. Thoughts on the logic? Suggestions? I'm wide open...
Also, Nathan took a highly flattering photo of me this evening. The rogue.
(Certified Flattering)
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