Pish

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:39:28 GMT

17,022 / 50,000
(34.0%)

Still a little bit behind, but just being where I am makes me feel pretty good. \o/

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 06:41:08 GMT

12027 / 50000 words. 24% done!

I'm a bit behind where I wanted to be right now. But still: doing well!

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 01:59:18 GMT

Wheeeeeee. I sucked today. But I guess I'd rather have crap on paper to be edited than crap in my head!

************************************

“I never thought you’d be one to become a rose, little Evie,” he commented as he spun her, with a wry smile.

“Not so little anymore,” she returned. “Or I never would have. I’d thank you to remember that.” She felt a little irked at his statement, and didn’t quite know why. It felt belittling to her, as if widening their age gap, though theirs and larger had been crossed by many couples before.

He must have seen the irritation in her eyes, because he laughed at her. “I didn’t mean to offend you. You must forgive us old men, for not seeing change before it is thrust before them and they are forced to notice. We’re still reeling from the shock.”

“Old!” She exclaimed, his transgression immediately forgiven. “Merric, you mock me. You graduated with Robbie, and he’s only twenty-six. You can’t be more than a year his senior, if even that.”

He nodded sagely. “Oh yes,” he said, steering their movement towards the edge of the hall, then suddenly breaking the dance to pull her around a corner into an archway that hid them from the view of the rest of the party. Pressed up between his body and the wall, she felt her heart racing. His hand held her chin for a moment, lifting her face upwards to look at him, before his lips touched hers in a kiss tingling with passion. She melted into him, her eyes fluttering open in confusion after he stopped a moment later. “I am an old man. Old enough to take what I want…” Here he kissed her again, in gentle, light caresses that left her aching. “And old enough to know where to stop.”

She made a little cry of disappointment as he stepped back, still holding her hand. “Don’t worry,” he said with a soft laugh. “I’ll be in the bidding for you. Just can’t jeopardize my chances until then.”

************************************

5034 / 50000 words. 10% done!

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:18:28 GMT

First day of NaNo! Exciting day! I was wholly unprepared this year, having nothing more than a general idea and not even a clue of an ending. So today I went especially slow, since I had to keep stopping to figure out where to go next. Posting what I have so far here- it's not very good, I'll be the first to admit, because I think I'm moving through things too quickly again. Or it might be boring, because for once there's no action or adventure to speak of. So I'll probably end up doing rewrites as I change the plot down the road anyway.

********************

“It’s here! Hurry, put that down, it’s here! Come on!”

Eva looked up from fiddling with the knobs of the luxurious wood radio, the static she was trying to avoid breaking through in her moment of distraction. “What? Oh! The newspaper! Is the announcement in it? Did you see it?” She quickly gathered her skirts to rise from the floor, leaving the radio playing as she rushed, following her sister, out of the room and down the long hall.

They found their mother just shutting the parlor doors, clicking a tarnished silver key in the lock, paper tucked under one arm. She laughed musically to see her girls so excited, but refused to give in to their demands to see the news till they had settled in to her private sitting room set far into the back of the house. Eva went straight to a lounge before large, arcing glass windows, a place familiar and full of great comfort, upon entering the room. Here she waited eagerly for her mother to sit upon the couch, open the paper with dramatic flair, and scan its columns.

A page turned, then another, deafening in the silence that followed. Eva watched her mother’s eyes go up and down each page, till they lit up when she found what she was looking for. A moment to read through it, and she looked up at her daughter, smiling her answer.

“Yes!” Eva couldn’t help but exclaim, clapping her hands together in her excitement, then greedily grasping for the paper to read the article herself.

On this day, the sixth of January, it said in faded-looking print, the Council of Brothers is pleased to announce the Eligible Ladies who will take up the Status of the Roses Grey. And her name fifth down, there in black and white, for none to deny. She scanned the others, found many she recognized, a few she rejoiced at, and a few she scoffed at; depending on how their families got on at the time.

The Ladies are to report to the Council’s Hall during the Afternoon of this day, the sixth, to acquire Fittings for their Uniform and Basic Instruction as to their Behavior at this time, the article finished up. This part she hardly noticed, dropping the paper back onto the couch to swoon onto the lounge with glee. “Vita wasn’t on there,” she noted cattily. “She’s going to be so jealous, mama!”

“Yes, I’m sure,” the elder woman absentmindedly demurred, unconcerned with the trials between girls. She rose regally from the couch, swaying as she walked to the door, and turned back before she exited. “Go and get yourself ready to go out, I’ll telephone your instructors to excuse you. Wear the dark blue, if you would, it looks lovely with your hair. Joie, you too, you must make an appearance for your chance in a few years.”

Both girls rose to obey. The younger, who had remained silently jealous throughout the exchange, followed Eva up the stairs to their room with only a single heavy sigh, and even deigned to help her sister button the sleek dark blue bodice as she changed. They quarreled over ribbons, sat in stony silence while they brushed and tied back their hair, and finally made up and went down the stairs arm in arm to meet their waiting mother at the door.

The rest of the day passed in a seeming blur for Eva – they arrived at the hall to find it swarming with other girls, all descending on each other with shrieks of delight and hugs all around, for those they actually liked as well as they pretended to, and those that they didn’t. Harried looking women attempted to wrangle them here and there for measurements and fittings, hard pressed to keep a giddy teenager in one place long enough to pin in the needed areas. Mothers harangued them, requesting that the necklines be lowered or the waist pinched in just a tiny bit tighter, despite protests that they were already as low as they could go and they’d not fit in a waist that was any smaller. It was an exhausting and unsatisfied venture for everyone involved, and not a soul was sad to see the last family out the door with promises of the finished garment being delivered on the morrow.

They would have, Eva knew, a large group of middle class women working on the outfits overnight to have the adjustments ready by morning. She also knew that she, as well as her mother, would not stand for anything wrong with the finished product, and it had better be perfect.

The morning came, and a courier delivered the dress as promised. Eva took it to her room in a rush, donning it an admiringly what she saw in the mirror. It was perfect, from the trim waist to the square neckline trimmed in dusky lace, baring the tops of her very modest assets; the long, elegant sleeves, and the full bustle lifting the skirt out with layers of crinoline underneath. Her shiny black boots, bought new for the occasion the day prior, buttoned up primly to where the skirt began below her knees, leaving nothing showing. Of course, she thought, there’s nothing to say I can’t pull it up a bit when I need to make an impression.

The entirety of the dress was in shades of grey. That part she found thoroughly boring, but had to admit that it made the final piece of the look – a satin ribbon the brightest blood red, tied at the tender flesh of her throat – draw the eyes, emphasized as it was. The loose ends of the ribbon trailed down into the frame created by her neckline, and she was pleased they brought further attention to her bust.

However Eva didn’t feel the colors did her hair any favors: her blond was ashy to begin with, and the grey only seemed to emphasize that. It upset her that she wasn’t given the privilege of time with the stylist, and couldn’t manage the intricate updos that were popular at the time. She resigned herself to tying it back in a low ponytail, and artfully curling the loose strands that fell about her face. After this she stepped back to admire the effect, and finding it passable, wrapped her shawl about her shoulders and went downstairs.

Calling a goodbye to her family, she swept out the door, summarily disappointed when passersby didn’t stop to stare at her in her new position. She had expected much more interest. She stepped daintily down the block to where the tram made its stop, and while she found a few curious looks from the other passengers as she boarded, she got little attention from them. She realized after a moment that the majority of those she was seeing were women and children, not the type to be interested in what she was selling.

Her luck didn’t change when she left the tram to walk the remaining blocks to her dance school, and she entered the building feeling disappointed at the lack of attention. Before heading to change, she walked through the grand theatre that always made her feel so much better, and hopped up to sit on the edge of the stage and look out over the seats.

Eva didn’t notice the workers behind her, lowering scenery to be changed out and hanging lights, but they paid no attention to her either, after seeing she wasn’t going to get in their way. Except for one, on the catwalk above her head, who saw her uniform and could not stop staring.

It wasn’t until he fumbled the gel frame he was holding, the tin clattering on the grate of the catwalk, that she looked up, meeting his eyes in one electric moment. She saw brilliant blue set in a young face, with a sweet mouth: but in that second, he disappeared backwards, and she was left gaping upwards.

A quick glance at her watch got her on her feet and running off to the changing room, however, unsettled by the reaction a mere glance of those eyes had set off in her. She had never seen them before – no surprise, really, considering how she studiously avoided notice of the stagehands. They were lower class, hardly someone fit for her to be associating with. But those eyes would haunt her.

Those eyes followed her that day, all through her practice. They watched her rise on her pointe shoes, tottering around in a wooden box on the floor for reasons unknown to them. They watched her stretch, elongating her body, hardly anything obscured from view in the small costumes needed for dancers to move uninhibited. They watched the airy skirt of the costume flair outwards as she twirled, practicing the technique of always turning her face to the same direction, despite the turning body, to avoid dizziness. They saw more in that day than they had noticed ever before, despite having worked backstage for over a year. That rose uniform was all that was needed to get his attention, and now that it was fixed, it wasn’t going anywhere.

Eva almost thought she could feel those eyes on her. It wasn’t until the day was over, and she was changed and safely out the door, that she relaxed. She wasn’t sure how she felt about those eyes.

Certainly she didn’t want eyes off of her, because she found great pleasure that evening attending a party set up specifically for the introduction of the Roses to society. She, along with the nine others, reveled in the attentions they received even immediately upon entering the grand hall where the party was being hosted.

Everywhere she turned, she saw the eyes of men tracing the line of her waist, zeroing in on a tiny bit of skin showing above her boots if her skirt lifted while she danced, aching for a peek down her bodice if she bent over. She noticed, and she encouraged. She flirted outrageously, perhaps curtseying a little lower than necessary and bending forward more than needed to offer an optimum view, or brushing a little closer, carelessly, against the front of a man’s pants. Some she recognized as friends of her brother, in whose expressions she read saw her as no longer the baby sister, but a desirable woman in her own right. Even in some men the age of her father she saw the lines of desire traced, though both she and they knew it was one they could no longer fulfill. That didn’t stop her from obliging them with dances and coquettish conversation, coy gestures making them feel almost young again.

********************

1786 / 50000 words. 4% done!

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 05:17:49 GMT

Caught up! It was difficult again tonight. Damn houseguests and their damn distractions. Dear god this thing is utter, utter crap.

Total wordcount: 10,101/50,000
Story wordcount: 4,953/50,000

10101 / 50000 words. 20% done!

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 05:00:20 GMT

Was 200 words behind by the end of yesterday - because I wanted really, really badly to level to 30 in WoW. XD

Tried to catch up today.. and I'm 200 words behind again. I'm just so tired ;_; Hopefully I'll fix that all tomorrow.

Total wordcount: 8,140/50,000
Story wordcount: 3,410/50,000

8140 / 50000 words. 16% done!

It's interesting how the characters evolve. It seems like I don't even pick personalities for them to begin with - they just kind of develop them, and I write their actions accordingly. I'm.. not sure if that's a good thing or not, because it probably leads to some glaring inconsistencies.

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 04:37:38 GMT

Finally- began the actual writing. About time.

Agriani was a unique city. Build on a completely terraced mountain, each tier growing in affluence as it rose higher and higher. At night, the streets – lined with homes and shops on one side, and open to the sky on the other – filled with the more unsavory of folk; the prostitutes, the gamblers, vendors of stolen goods, those who offered chemical bliss. The streets were made of sin in the darkness, but once dawn broke, they all retreated. They never stopped their business, they simply hid it where the light never touched. Tunnels wound through the mountain, simply claimed by those who got there first and lined their walls with brick or stone. Here the fun ran unabated, twenty-four hours a day. The entrances to such places were kept hidden, so if one didn’t have a connection, someone in-the-know, they’d hardly know that such a place existed.

The top tier of the city belonged to the mayor of this grand but secretive city, one Ser Bzordui. Tunnels ran here too, but far older than the ones of the common people. These, built when not a soul even considered there might be possible encroachment, were naught but wooden support beams with packed earthen walls, hardly secure by modern day’s standards. Yet, it had been so long since they were useful, that they were all but forgotten in favor of more pressing concerns, such as budget cuts for the city guardsmen, or whether to wear the blue wrap or the gray one to the reception held for officials from neighboring cities. Clearly, there was enough more important things happening that the existence of the earthen tunnels was hardly even thought of.

But at least one person thought of them. A man, somewhere in his thirties, thin and starved, scraggly and ragged, was digging. If he could only carve out his own personal grotto, not a soul could take it from him, guaranteeing a place to begin a business and finally have the stability he was looking for. This man, who went by the name of Gat, was making slow progress. Unlike many of the others who excavated space to operate in, he didn’t have the money to hire help.

Total wordcount: 5,097/50,000
Story wordcount: 367/50,000

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 03:54:53 GMT

The first one they encounter is Neuse. A 15 year old boy, attuned to water. He lives with his father outside a city, and tends a pharmaceutical garden for use in his father’s medicine business. He uses his water skills to nuture the plants, usually by pulling it through compost and extracting the minerals with the water, to then be deposited in the plants. He can also use it to encourage plants to grow, in general or in specific directions. He is a quiet person, and though opposite in personality from Kyevi, he bonds with him. Rue stays with them and speaks with him and his father about what she’s learned of magic use- and how it will eventually make him go insane. She convinces them that its best for him to accompany her, for she can take his powers and prevent this from happening. Neuse is conflicted, for it is something he loves, but he goes with anyway.

Next they meet Poli and Pui, fraternal twins who work are circus performers. Poli is light and Pui is air, and between them both they can create fantastic tricks that nobody ever suspects are actually magic – they are the most public of all the children. They are both 12, and thin. They look similar, but not identical; Poli has darker hair of the two though they are both blonde. Pui is the more flighty of the two, less prone to paying attention and more interested in investigating her surroundings. Poli too is inquisitive, but she focuses on what’s going on with the people around her, mostly concerning her companions. She wants to know the plans, the next steps they’re going to take, while Pui wants to check out a certain bug flying to that tree over there. They don’t have parents, and are in fact owned by the circus company, and really don’t particularly want to leave. Kyevi uses his male charm to both charm them and convince them of what a great adventure it would be, catering to their specific interests – He tells Poli of their plans for their mission, and he tells Pui of the strange sights they’ve seen.

At this point, they split. Rue takes Poli and Pui and goes off in one direction, and Kyevi and Neuse head off for another city.

Conda is found by the girls, a 10 year old girl who is attuned to dark. She is completely emo. She doesn’t dress as a ‘goth’ would, but her primary trait is viewing the world as being a horrible place, full of pain and despair. She despises Poli. All she can ever think of is what can go wrong. She tends to be impulsive, jumping into situations while the others prefer to sit back and analyze first. Her main use of her powers revolves around pulling darkness into her surroundings – she can make a dark night darker, a dark corner deeper, she can darken someone’s vision momentarily to slip past them unnoticed; she also likes to manipulate shadows for her own amusement, which sometimes run to the darker side, no pun intended. She lives with her parents, who are actors in a theatre troupe – they travel, and she is usually used to help backstage, and she occasionally ‘assists’ with effects. They rest of the theatre workers think she is just skilled at effects. The theatre is her only joy. Rue uses the same tactic on her parents as she did on Neuse’s father.

The boys find Ogume, an 8 year old boy attuned to earth. He is brilliant, wise beyond his years. He lives with his grandparents, his grandfather is an aging fisherman. He is loving and friendly, but evasive about his powers, and they don’t really get to know anything about what he does. The boys stay with them for a while, during which they notice odd occurrences that Kyevi keeps attempting to associate with an element, and yet he can’t catch him in the act. He seems to have an obsession with flipping a coin, which unbeknownst to the others, he can actually manipulate so it’s not as random as it seems. Somehow Neuse discovers this and confronts him, and he finally explains what’s going on. Kyevi by this time is fed up with the kid and ready to leave, but Ogume flips a coin – for real – and decides to go with them, making the decision that maybe he needs to stop manipulating circumstances and just live.

Total wordcount: 3,432/50,000
Story wordcount: 0/50,000

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:31:18 GMT

Starting off with my basic overall summary - it is big, it is pretty much all-encompassing, and it's far from specific. Certain spots are still big blanks to me. But this is my starting point where I throw everything down regardless of what order it's in, and use this to come back and do specific chapter summaries. I haven't decided yet if I should cheat and count these as my word count. XD I'll probably do seperate counts, one including it and one excluding it.

In times past, the elves were a plentiful race. They were separate from man, and were the only people to study magics. Through their research, they found seven basic essences- fire, earth, water, air, light, dark and spirit. Not only did magic come in these different essences, even the elves themselves showed talents torwards different element.

But magic proved to be an addicting substance, and within a few hundred years it had corrupted them. It was around this time they discovered humans, in simple societies, and took them in. They taught them, improved their cultures, but also used them mercilessly.

Humans began to revolt. Elves used magic to massacre in retaliation. A war was born, thought to be even - elves, few in number but powerful; humans, without magic but not lacking in numbers or recklessness.

It may have gone on much longer were it not for the inherent danger in magic - it destroyed the elves from the inside. It ate away at their own bodies, flesh and muscle, and eventually ate pathways through their brains, sending in haywire. They killed more of themselves through dementia than humans ever killed of them.

Eventually, all who dabbled in magic - only the elves - fell to the disease, freeing humans to muck themselves up. But the elven blood remained, in non-magic users, in half-children whose parents - whose human parents - desperately kept their origins secret.

Chidlren with trace amounts of elven blood remained for many decades, often with no outward signs at all. They tended to be taller, slimmer, with lighter colored eyes- but all of that, too, could be found in pure human stock so it was difficult to make the call. Now and then, a child popped up with pointed ears - and if they wanted to stay alive, they stayed hidden.

For even after a century, fear and hatred of the magic users did not diminish. Only the eldest who remained still remembered, and they were only children at the time; so it was only the horror stories that stayed in humans' minds.

Current story takes place in the city of Agriani. A city with separate worlds - built on a terraced mountain, the outer world is lawful and peaceful, for the most part. At night the undesirables emerge and that which is despised runs rampant in the streets. At daybreak they retreat into their underground world, where the light never reaches. Tunnels originally ran from separate nobles quarters, but commaners began excavating the underground and it turned into a place with no law.

Areas are claimed through lining the excavated tunnels and rooms with stone, but the older nobles' tunnels lack this feature, since at the time of their construction they never expected possible encroachment.

One such tunnel is broken into, and a thief steals into the main keep where the mayor presides, initially only to steal but when he is seen by the mayor's young daughter, he kills her and makes his escape.

The mayor, while a good man and a good ruler, consents in his grief and rage to allow the city's forces to enter the underground to find this man and bring hi to justic. However, the underground has never before been subject to sunlit laws, and the guards use the opportunity to attempt to bring it under their rule. The city erupts into rebellion, at first just a murmur.

But the day the thief is discovered, the city erupts into full riots.

Rue is a girl who lives in this city. She is part elven, and has hte proof of a point to her ears, so she wears a headband at all times. Neither her parents knew before she was born. Her father is dead, and her mother is blind - she makes a living as a seamstress, seeing with her fingers and sometimes, she can identify people. She says she sees auras, but Rue doesn't exactly believe her. She has an older brother, who is off studying the Barren Keeps with a group of scientists, and a cousin, who is part of the city guard. She also has a close friend named Marek.

Rue is caught up in the riots when the thief is discovered. He's trying to make an escape and happens to come within arms reach of her and so tries to use her as a hostage, but threatening her with his weapon causes a gut reaction in her, some sort of magical attack at him. For a half second the crowd is stunned, but then they go apeshit, realizing what's happened in front of them. They converge on her, intent to destroy the monster, until a building to the side of them explodes in debris and tons of thick oil smoke. In that instant she's pulled back, wrapped up in a cloak and thrown over someone's shoulder, whot akes off.

The cloak is removed when they enter a bookstore, and she sees her captors- a younger byo, and a tall, lithe man. She protests, is shown his ears - also pointed - and is convinced to accompany them down through a trapdoor.

Here she learns of the others like her, livingin secret. They have a kind of coalition, to protect each other when needed. After some deliberation they decide to send her out of the city - she's known now, and it's not safe. The boy will accompany her, an explosions expert. They'll go to a known halfblood camp, in the barren keeps. Before they leave, Rue asks them to take her mother into their care. The man asks the boy to teach her what he knows of fighting, to give her a means of defending herself that won't make her an immediate target. He makes diversion with his firey toys while she steals two knives, similar to his weapons of choice. Though he is an explosions expert, he uses his own knives when more subtle means are needed.

-More inserted here. Perhaps one encounter or two as they travel, but the focus should not be on the travel for very long.-

When they arrive at the keeps, they come across her brother and his group that is studying the area. They are studying it because nothing, not even a single blade of grass, will grow there. She tries to convince him to accompany her, reasoning he has the same blood as her, but he refuses - he's never shown any signs and they would be unlikely to welcome him. She and the boy enter the keeps to find the entrance to the camps. Eventually they come across some outriders who take them to the camp. Rue enters a training period - they teach her about the properties of magic, and find she is attuned to spirit, which is uncommon. Mainly, however, they teach her control, and why she must learn control - this is the main purpose of her visit. This control can keep her from unwittingly exposing herself later and can keep her alive. One man offers her more. He secretly teaches her how to use her powers for attack, and how to hide them in swordsmanship.

Since her attunement is uncommon, he reveals to her his life's goal - to achieve the powers of the gods. With someone of each attunement, those powers can be achieved. Already, the power addiction is planting its roots in her, or she wouldn't have learned attack or been drawn to his ideas.

While she finds the ideas intruiging, she's concerned for her mother and Marek back home. She's been occasionally going to see her brother, and when she learns the scientists are heading back to their headquarters in Agriani, she decides to go with.

Unfortunately, upon her arrival, chaos kind of.. ensues.

Volcanic activity was present in that particular mountain range, but hasn't been for the last million years or so; the city was built long since the last one went dormant. But the edge of one pocket of magma has been migrating slowly northwards, and unfortunately for the city, it reaches the very deepest portions of the tunnels. As it begins to flow upwards, it fills each chamber it comes across - but since rock heats and melts very slowly, it takes time for it to actually eat away at the walls. Eventually, however, things begin to collapse, causing minute tremors in the city above. They dismiss it as a minor earthquakes at first. But as they become more frequent, and more violent, the city begins to get worried.

In particular, the coalition's base is in the underground - one entry. That entry is soon blocked by magma, trapping the majority of the coalition inside.

Suddenly, the entire top 1/4 of the mountain city is no longer supported on the inside, as its tunnels are breached and collapsed. The top noble's quarter crashes down into the inside, and magma begins oozing from the crevices thereof. The streets below become fluid before and during this time, occasionally breaking, trapping citizens on floating islands. The poorest, living at the bottom, have the best chance of escape and many do; but much of the more affluential denizens and those living in the underground have no chance at all.

This all takes place over many hours. It is after this time that Rue and the group of scientists come into view, returning on packhorse-type giant birds. She was in contact with Marek prior to leaving - her old friend, who had left Agriani to work in the central government as a minor official - and they had arranged for her brother to detour to the west to pick him up before they return to the city. All three have been close their entire lives, so it doesn't take much convincing. As they come into view of the city from the air, they discover a smoldering ruin; its people fleeing from the mountain's feet and the entire top portion of the mountain caved in. They are, understandably, shocked. Marek especially, as he makes a comment along the lines of "But.. I thought.. I thought they had warned them about the magma!"

A refugee camp is being set up several miles away. The group goes there, to help and regroup and look for their families. Rue's mother is not there, and only a tiny handful of the coalition can be found, who reveal that the majority of them perished underground. Marek elaborates on what he said earlier, and Rue vows to make them pay. The central government knew of the magma pocket - it's not exactly easy to hide from expert geologists. Yet, they never warned the city. The city, trusting the central government to have a complete handle on any possible situations, never even suspects. To Rue, this is tantamount to murder and she vows to take revenge for their negligence. Interestingly, this is out of character. It is her first true outward sign of magic changing her.

Continuing tomorrow, as it's time for tv now!
Total wordcount: 1,826/50,000
Story wordcount: 0/50,000

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:31:11 GMT

So, like, I'm totally switching journals, like, okay?

Got my paid account, and needed a name change. I would be much obliged if y'all would friend pishbadlarr, and feel free to unfriend this journal, as I really don't think I'll be doing much of anything with it anymore. Thx yo

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 01:26:36 GMT

Just finished watch 'The Queen'. What a thoroughly boring film.

In summary: "This is the queen. Diana dies. The queen does nothing. The people spaz. So the queen does something. And everything is ok."

Not everything that happens is really worth making into a movie D:

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 13:43:07 GMT

I thought I might make an intro post of sorts, since I have nothing else in here yet but a really rough fic- and since I'm hoping to be friending new people relatively soon. I've been on JF for a year and a half now, and I've never used it for anything but reading wank and the occassional comment. Thank god for shywank, or I'd never get to know anyone :P

My name is Shelly, and I'll go by that or Jez on here, either is fine. I live in SW Texas, but I'm originally from Minnesota. You've got to imagine the people with southern and spanish accents down here really get a kick out of my abuse of vowels. It was a helluva culture shock moving down here too- the town I'm from in Minnesota is on the smaller end of medium-sized, and pretty homogenous. The food is bland, the people are all pretty much the same, and apparently they like it that way. I come here, and not only is there variety in what I get to look at, there's all the most awesome restaraunts and stores I have ever seen: asian groceries especially. Mm. It's nice to have more to pick from when I want to go shopping or dine out, rather than "Pseudo-mexican or pseudo-italian tonight, honey? Which do you prefer?"

I volunteer at the local zoo, which is an endless source of fascinating stories. When I'm there I help care for the education animals, my favorite of which is a Congo African Grey parrot named Maximus- he's a total sweetheart. There's also a blue-and-gold Macaw named Mack who tried to take my finger off one day. Got me pretty good, as it was D: We also have various reptiles- a couple ball pythons, a desert kingsnake, and a savannah monitor lizard, to name a few. Mammals include chinchillas, ferrets, hedgehogs, a desert cottontail, mouse possums, and guinea pigs, and my favorite (Inverts!) include the tarantulas, millipedes, centipedes, cockroaches, scorpions, and two of the only three spiders in North America that can invenomate mammals- the black widow and the brown recluse. Most of my job entails taking these animals to schools and giving presentations on them to kids, but I also do things on-grounds like talk about our BioFacts (skins, bones, artifacts) to visitors and work with the under-18 volunteer program kids Roots and Shoots.

I am hugely obsessed with plants, and constantly have /something/ starting from seed growing in my window. I am also HUGELY obsessed with tea and have over 40 varieties of blends and 20 different straight herbs to mix-and-match and make tea with every day. Loveitloveitloveit.

As for online or fandom-related stuff: I play Furry Paws, a dog show sim, and have played for three years; as well as World of Warcraft and Sims2. On LJ I watch a few fandom-related communities, mostly icon-makers, but I try to stay on the edges of them. If it weren't for the crazy, I'd be knee-deep in Avatar, Scrubs, Song of Ice and Fire, Ugly Betty, SVU, CSI and Harry Potter fandoms. I love a lot of animes, but I usually don't list them out because there's so damn many, but I especially enjoyed Inuyasha and Naruto (to my everlasting shame), Elfen Lied, Gunslinger Girl, Full Metal Alchemist, Ayashi no Ceres, Hikaru No Go. Fruits Basket was pretty enjoyable and I LOVED Twin Spica. DN Angel = teh awesome, Shingetsutan Tsukihime, Sailor Moon (especially the live action, bwahaha)were good, and Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien made me cry. Like a little girl. Repeatedly. And Chrono Crusade, mostly because I found the mythology they created fascinating.

I also read like crazy, mostly science fiction and fantasy. Favorite authors include Jo Clayton, Piers Anthony, George R. R. Martin, Sheri S Tepper, Harry Turtledove, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. I used to like Anne McCaffrey when I was younger, and played a lot of rpg's based off of her Pern books, but then discovered how crazy her son(s) was/were about lawsuits (I'm sure she's a very nice albeit eccentric old lady, but her kid(s) is/are rabid) and came back to the books years later and discovered how much they actually /do/ suck.

Hope that didn't get too long. I'll stick it behind a cut in any case.