Or I might do some spamming but I’ve been blackpilled on that for a while now since I keep getting banned and spamming on gab or twitter or minds is basically a waste of time. And even spamming on facebook maybe five people see it unless you throw some money behind it and even then it’s just some fucking asshole telling me I need an editor for my raw manuscript, no fucking shit I need an editor. So fucking constructive, it’s why I hate writing groups. Most writers are assholes, myself included, they don’t want to help you, they want to stand on your face and make a slamdunk haha. Those groups are cancerous, full of bullshit political shit and crabs in a bucket that want to get together to justify their own mediocrity.
Or I might do some spamming but I’ve been blackpilled on that for a while now since I keep getting banned and spamming on gab or twitter or minds is basically a waste of time. And even spamming on facebook maybe five people see it unless you throw some money behind it and even then it’s just some fucking asshole telling me I need an editor for my raw manuscript, no fucking shit I need an editor. So fucking constructive, it’s why I hate writing groups. Most writers are assholes, myself included, they don’t want to help you, they want to stand on your face and make a slamdunk haha. Those groups are cancerous, full of bullshit political shit and crabs in a bucket that want to get together to justify their own mediocrity.
Shit, fucking facebook, I’ve literally just been shitposting all day and forgot to even post this haha.
And now I have nothing to talk about.
Welp, enjoy the chapter haha.
This is not true, I was looking for a new job still.
But I hope you enjoyed the poem yesterday, by all the likes I’m guessing people did, I was just listening to that song the other day and it stirred up something inside of me and I had to make it my own, just a little bit.
This chapter is the start of part two and it’s kind of the start of a subnarrative, and sort of the theme for the whole book. If the last book was about death, this book is about rebirth and the pains associated I guess.
Anyway, enjoy the rest of your day.
See you…
–
“I say if you cross the devils ladder you must pay the devil!” A voice carried over the howling of the cold wind coming down the mountain.
The carriage halted it’s horses, the carriage driver was a large broad man wrapped up tightly. He got down from coachman’s seat to see what the ruckus was about.
The coachman cautiously scanned the snowy trail that passed through the rocky cliffs. The trail lead up the Carrauntoohil mountains known colloquially as ‘the devils ladder’. There was nary a soul to be seen. Only the rocky crags dusted with fine snow and the cold wind blowing in the coachman’s face. He wrapped his face tighter and climbed back up onto into the drivers seat and mushed the horses to continue up the trail. They whined bitterly and the coach creaked as it climbed the steepening trail.
“That is I, I am the devil!” A voice called out and then a man appeared as if from nowhere. The snow and the wind made it hard to see but the man had been laying in wait behind a large rocky outcropping. The hiding spot has blended into the rest of the mountain under the snow.
The coachman pulled his face covering down to gawp at the strange man.
“Be done with this foolishness and get out of my way!” The coachman called out.
“I will get out of your way” The man said. He was of average height but had a long bedgraggled beard and wild eyes rubbed red raw. The man just stood there but as he did more of his ilk came out of their hiding place behind the outcropping and joined at his side. They were savage looking carrying scythes and pitch forks and large butcher’s knives and woodcutters axes as weapons. “As soon as you give us all that you carry and then a little more.” The wild man said wide eyed
“Highwaymen then?” The coachman shouted over the roar of the wind.
“Call us what you like but you will not leave Carrauntoohil alive this day unless you give us whats in that carriage.” The highwayman said gesturing with a large rusty butchers knife.
The coach driver looked back thoughtfully at his carriage and then turning back to the highwayman he said. “I’m afraid I cannot do that, this day or any other.”
The highwayman laughed and wiped frost from his large unkempt beard. “You speak such honeyed words for a coachman, perhaps we will cut out your silver tongue and fashion a necklace from it.” The wildman chuckled with his shaggy cohorts.
The coachman seemed to slump in his seat exhaling deeply. Not from fear or doubt but instead a profound resignation that washed over him. Again the coachman climbed down from the carriage and landed heavy footed in the snow in the shadow of mount Carrauntoohil.
“You may take whatever you want after you kill me.” The coach man said as he drew an iron warclub from his belt. “But not before.”
The bearded man laughed and nodded “But not before, you are a brave one.” He looked eitherside of himself and said to his cohorts “Kill him!”
The bandits were a disorganized rabble and their attack was that of desperate fury. They leapt into battle as if the coachman were the cold and the wind and their empty bellies personified. Their feet crunching the snow as they charged.
The coachman did not flee their shouts, he stood his ground and waited his distance. They fought without formation or strategy, relying on numbers, surprise and brute force.
But none of these factors phased the coachman. The first bandit came at him with a pitch fork. He expected them to be cowards and encircle him and strike at his back but the hunger in their eyes betrayed their savagery. They were thin and starved and cold, their desperation had turned them into little more than wolves. They struck out as dying men struck out at the living, mindlessly and with unrelenting ferocity.
But they were slow and weak and the coachman was neither, he caught the head of the pitchfork and twisted it away from his body. The wooden shaft of it was so damp from the snow and the cold it snapped off in his hand. Not to break off his attack the bandit attempted to skewer the coachman with broken haft.
The coachmen’s strike was a perfect measured brutality, in stark contrast to their own. He struck the bandit with military precision to the side of his head to soften his skull. Then he struck it again in the same place to completely obliterate it. The blow sending shards of skull and brain matter at the other bandits.
Something that would have deterred other men, but not hungry wolves. They kept coming, spurred on by the steady roar of their bellies.
“I have no desire to kill you all, but mark my words, I will do so!” He was tall and stood firm like the mountains and the cold winds rushed through his words but they were too far gone to hear it.
They kept coming like an avalanche of pure need striking at him with tattered old scythes covered in rust. Axes with burred handles and knives that were as blunt as spoons. They did not stop, but neither did the coachman. He struck them down one after another with the cool clinical disinterest of a butcher slaughtering lambs until but one remained.
A woman with a kitchen knife roaring like an evil spirit leapt at the coachman and for a moment he hesitated and he could not parry the blow. The knife struck home tearing through the layers of raggedy clothing revealing a thick plate and chainmail armor. The tip of the knife shattered on contact. But the woman, undeterred by this and driven by pure madness aimed to cut the coachman’s throat. Something he could not allow.
He struck the woman with an upward blow killing her instantly, blood erupting from her mouth as she toppled into the snow.
The coachman looked down at her as she seemed to shrink into the snow, pink with her blood.
“Forgive me, by my honor I cannot allow you to have what I carry.”
The man with the beard was the last one left alive.
“What have you devil? Should I spare your life?” The coachman called out as he approached the highwayman.
“Nay sir” He highwayman said dropping to his knees in the snow surrounded by the bloodied bodies of his kinfolk. “I will join my village” He smiled, his red eyes seemed almost relieved looking up at the coachman. “And you, I hope to see you one day kind sir, in Mag Mell.”
“As you wish” The coachman said his voice ringing with a tone of resignation.
He killed the man with one blow to his head. There was very little blood. The man slumped to his side and fell to sleep as the snow started once more, covering him and his comrades in a blanket of fine white sleet.
The scene was maudlin and the coachman felt cursed to be standing in this graveyard of his making. He wished bitterly that it could have been different. He cursed himself as he cleaned his iron cudgel with a handkerchief as he made his way back to his coach.
–
Check out the rest of the chapter here.
Hey there,
So I haven’t heard any updates on the starship troopers tv show in development. It could just be one of those things where it’s a rumour trying to meme into existence support for a real project. Or it’s a project that just never gets off the ground. Considering the budget constraints I imagine it’s not a risk many studios would want to burden themselves with. Like if I was going to pitch this I would want to sell it as game of thrones in space with giant alien bugs instead of ice zombies. And this is me the person who hasn’t seen a single episode of of GOT (and never wants to) haha.
Although saying GOT might not be the best strategy considering how I heard it concluded. I haven’t seen it but apparently it’s like an eight year build for the big bad to get metooed in the back haha.
I mean I don’t give a shit, I’ve never given a shit, the show has never interested me, I honestly don’t really like fantasy or sci-fi haha.
Well I do but only a specific type of each. I’m just really particular. I hate lord of the rings, but I love Conan and Solomon Kane. I hate the fanciful, ponsey fantasy and I love the gritty, brutal, bone crushing fantasy. So I prefered stuff like Vikings over GOT, although Vikings kinda lost me because the main character sort of got cucked or died. I watch shows mainly for characters so when the characters no longer appeal to me I just stop watching.
I’m kinda the same with sci-fi because I hate shows like star trek but I loved Lexx unironically because it was fun and funny but also felt kind of real and gritty at the same time. And I also loved Battlestar galactica because it felt real, like it was just the real world in the future, it didn’t feel silly or out of place it felt grounded and real.
I’m watching this show called the Expanse on amazon prime right now and it’s even more of that kind of feeling, like just the real world in the future. The characters are a bit eh so far but I love the feel of the show. I just wish all of them didn’t have to whisper their fucking lines with like spaceship asmr playing in the background. Although I love spaceship asmr, I just also love hearing what people are saying. I can’t always read subtitles because I’m usually lifting weights while I watch these shows. But I’m really enjoying it, not really for the story or the characters because they’re both kinda meh honestly. I just love the atmosphere of the show, I like how the world looks and how it feels. It’s one of the reasons I like battlestar because it feels like this could be happening in elite dangerous. Like it’s a micro story in elite, like I’m on the otherside of the galaxy fighting some war while this story is playing out on some space station somewhere and it makes the world feel bigger.
The story is sort of I wanna say Laura in space to sound pretentious (because I read Laura look at me). But it really only borrows the ‘guy falls in love with dead chick he’s investigating’ trope. The story is kinda bog standard but I just love the feel of the world. I could totally imagine myself living on a space station like this and being like a space trucker hauling ice to some far off colony.
I didn’t do a blog the other day because I was busy, work stuff, bit of gardening irl stuff. Work has been particularly shitty recently but I’m excited about the future, I really want that new job. But I got a phone call that didn’t pick up recently from jamaica which freaks me out. Because my phone constantly gets wrong where the call is coming from and that country is too close to be considered a coincidence to the one I actually want to work in. So I’m shitting bricks and the reason I didn’t pick up is because my phone was on silent for my shitty job. So my shitty job might have cost me the good one I actually want which blows so fucking hard.
But it’s not the end of the world because my cv is gonna be looking a lot stronger by the end of the year.
So about this scene/scenes, err, I kinda like this one from the book because it’s actually decent satire. Which people attribute more to the movie than to the book but there is subtle satire in the book sort of making fun of the intellectual class who thinks they should be running things but don’t really have the will or the balls to really do anything or seize power and probably wouldn’t know what to do with it if they got it. Despite constantly pontificating that they do.
It’s satire because it’s sort of the way things are run now, the intellectual class make the policy and the science we’re supposed to live our lives by but it doesn’t really work and obviously in this world it all came tumbling down which it will eventually in this world too. Because the point he’s making is that the people that make the decisions have to be the ones who face the consequences of those decisions. You can’t give power to people who aren’t expected to go out and fight to protect it. Which is why I love the logic of this world. The power to vote or be a citizen isn’t based on your intelligence, it’s based on your commitment to the system. It based on your willingness to give your life to protect it and all it stands for because with that comes the understanding necessary to wield power.
No longer in this world with people wield power who are so disconnected from the consequences of their choices. The people that make the decisions feel the direct consequence of their actions and they know the effect it will have on them and other servicemen and women and I love that.
The system we have now people just all vote for their own interest so all you really ever get is a tug of war with all these disparate factions arguing over a dwindling pile of resources not knowing or caring what will happen to the other groups, only caring about their own.
This philosophy entirely does away with that and only gives power to a group that has the capacity to see the big picture and sees voting not as a way to get themselves more money and benefit but as a sacred duty to protect the lives and liberties of the people they serve.
That’s what I love about this world, voting isn’t just this meaningless, selfish, pointless thing. It actually has weight and means something and isn’t just a puppet show for big business interests or a shell game to give you the illusion of freedom of choice. It’s a real functioning democracy that functions as a military dictatorship.
It’s like when people say ‘well if you don’t like the system vote to change it’ but it’s a joke because your vote doesn’t really matter. But in this world it does but to get the right to vote you have to be willing to sacrifice your life or at the very least two miserable years of it in which you will be tempered into the kind of person that deserves to vote.
I think it’s a really interesting system that could actually work. I don’t want to go too much into my politics but I’m with Churchill when he said that democracy is great until you talk to the average voter. I genuinely that the right to vote should be more sacred than it is, it shouldn’t be just given to everyone. I’m not taking an elitist position where I think the populace is too stupid like the doctor in the book. I don’t think that smart doctor should vote either. It’s not just about intelligence it’s about being able to see outside of yourself. It’s about being able to put the needs of the many of your needs.
You don’t just give the right to vote to any average person you give to someone that’s really seen what it means, that understands the consequences of voting for a war because they or someone just like them has to fight it.
How many wars would be started if just the military and veterans were allowed to vote? Probably not very many and if they did they’d be for damn good reasons. The book and the movie hint at the idea of perpetual wars like 1984 for instance with the skinnies where you can’t be certain the aggressor. But I mean what better war to fight in than with the bugs who are this mindless killing force that just want to erase humanity. Although obviously in the later movies and the tv show it sort of builds that there’s more to it to that and they’re not mindless bugs and they still dangle that lame trope of ‘oh maybe we’re the bad guys hurr durr’.
I think that’s really overdone and just sort of solipsistic in my opinion. I think it’s been done to death and people aren’t really interested in it. It’s like a starting block question, or something a stoner would ask. The story starts and you’re ‘hmm am I the good guy or the bad guy’. No you should already know that before the story starts and if you think that’s a twist, it’s not an interesting one. Can we just have a decent story where we’re either the good guys or it doesn’t matter haha? This whole introspective, neurotic questioning of motives is just boring filler. And moreover it’s part of this anti-western attack on imperialism. It’s become sort of trendy to dump on imperialism, you know that thing that built most of the modern world.
It’s just nonsense, without imperialism, the people who complain about imperialism literally wouldn’t exist or they wouldn’t have the means to even complain about it haha. Literally everyone benefited from imperialism and anyone that criticises it is just too stupid to imagine what their lives/countries/cultures would have been like without it.
Now whether it was our place to improve these places is another matter all together. But in my opinion survival is like a shark, if it stops swimming it dies. You need to keep growing and striving and pushing forward with technology and advancement and we need to ultimately make it to the stars or we’ll die as a species. And if we hadn’t advanced, if we’d stayed hunter gatherers and lived off the land we’d have all just ended up like 99.9% of all species on this earth and died. We need to get off this rock if we’re gonna live on as a species, so anyone on the opposite side of that is basically pro-extinction and there’s nothing more nihilistic than that haha.
It’s like people want to ask ‘is it moral for us to exist?’ when I’m like ‘I can’t hear you because I’m too busy existing and propagating my existence into the starts to perpetuate my existence into the millenia’. If you ask yourself this question you will literally just die pondering something that’s ultimately not important, because nothing is more important than your continued existence.
Ok well that fucking went down a weird place into like metaphysical philosophy or some shit, I dunno.
Ok enough ranting, I have editing and cooking to do and maybe more job hunting.
Oh and I just remembered I saw the new Mary Poppins movie and it was one of the most shameless cash grabs I’ve ever seen haha. I’ll probably talk about that tomorrow, or more likely I’ll start ranting and it’ll turn into a review haha.
See you…
–
InT. Recruitment facility doctor’s office. Day
Rico is getting a physical from the doctor, who pokes and prods him in a disinterested way.
RICO
What’s the rate at which people fail these tests?
Doctor
I never fail anyone. The law doesn’t permit us to.
RicO
Then why am I being tested at all?
DOCTOR
It’s part of the selection process, finding out what duties you’re physically able to perform.
DoCTOR (
CONT’D
)
You know you can’t choose your duties right?
RiCO
But I thought we could state a preference.
DoCTOR
Sure I can say I’d prefer to be a plastic surgeon living on mars but that doesn’t mean it’s
gonna
happen.
RiCO
Is that why you’re here, is this your service?
DOCTOR
Me? No I’m a civilian employee.
DoCTOR (
CONT’D
)
Military service is for ants.
DOCTOR (
CONT’D
)
I
see’em
go and I
see’em
come back, if they come back and for what? A nominal political privilege they don’t even understand.
DoCTOR (
CONT’D
)
If I were you, I’d get out while you still can.
He hands Rico his test papers.
INT. desk Sergeants office. Day.
Karl and Rico are in front of the desk sergeant as he reads over their medical reports.
DeSK SERGEANT
Apparently both of you are insufferably healthy.
He looks at Karl’s papers again and gives him and odd glance. Two clerks come and look at them and there’s whispering.
DeSK SERGEANT (
CONT’D
)
We have established you are of sound mind and body and in your right minds to take the oath.
DeSK SERGEANT (
CONT’D
)
Repeat after me –
DeSK SERGEANT (
CONT’D
)
I, being of legal age and of my own free will –
Karl and rico together
I, being of legal age and of my own free will –
DeSK SERGEANT
– do now enroll in the federal service of the
Terran
federation for a term of not less than two years and as much longer as may be required by the needs of my service-
KARL AND RICO TOGETHER
– do now enroll in the federal service of the
Terran
federation for a term of not less than two years and as much longer as may be required by the needs of my service-
DeSK SERGEANT
I swear to uphold and defend the constitution of the federation against all its enemies on or off Terra, to protect and defend the constitutional liberties and privileges of all citizens and lawful residents of the federation.
KARL AND RICO TOGETHER
I swear to uphold and defend the constitution of the federation against all its enemies on or off Terra, to protect and defend the constitutional liberties and privileges of all citizens and lawful residents of the federation.
DeSK SERGEANT
So help me God!
KaRL AND RICO TOGETHER
So help me God!
They finalise the paperwork and take pictures of both boys.
DeSK SERGEANT
All done, time to break for lunch.
RICO
Sir can I call my folks?
DeSK SERGEANT
You’re on leave for the next 48 hours son, so you can do whatever you damn well please.
DeSK SERGEANT (
CONT’D
)
But do you know what happens if you don’t come back after those 48 hours?
RICO
No sir.
DeSK SERGEANT
Not a damn thing.
DeSK SERGEANT (
CONT’D
)
This is where we
seperate
the overgrown babies from the men who are serious.
DeSK SERGEANT (
CONT’D
)
Your paperwork will just be marked ‘term not completed’ and you’ll never get another chance.
DeSK SERGEANT (
CONT’D
)
So I’ll see you noonday after tomorrow.
DESK SERGEANT (
CONT’D
)
If I see you.
This chapter as you can probably tell is me trying to subtly ease you into a massive exposition dump haha. Something I pride myself on, I am the ultimate luber of exposition dumps haha. I will make you swallow that big pill of information with a spoonful of sugar. No seriously though I think that is one of my strengths, exposition is one of those things you can’t get around sometimes and I see it done so badly in a lot of stuff even in Conan there are big exposition dumps that are really out of place and pointless. I try my best to see them and break them up and deliver them in a way that doesn’t feel like a slog. So I hope you get that and it doesn’t seem to heavy, trying to show not tell but it’s really hard to avoid that sometimes.
Hey there,
Been a kinda meh week, writing wise specifically, I couldn’t seem to get into the groove until yesterday really. I just sort of muddled through it a little bit not quite sir where I was going but it’s getting there, it’s taking shape.
Specifically in part two I started getting into it and feeling the story a bit more. I think the plot overall is pretty good, you have like an A plot and a B plot and then they progress separately and then intertwine and come together at the end. I think this one might be better received because there’s a lot more stuff happening and maybe it’s more or less convoluted than the first one haha. More characters more villains, tonnes more villains.
Remember this was meant to be two books so it has as many boss battles as a fucking videogame haha. Villains coming out of my ears, I ripped one right out of a lovecraft story while I was writing the synopsis so you know he’s racist! No, he’s a weird zombie thing, his personal opinions on the other races will not be divulged. Although I have a sneaking suspicion he hates fish people but so do most people in this book.
Come to think of it this whole series is about literal race wars, in fact most fantasy books are, jesus fantasy is racist haha.
But I still have a fair bit to proof read, I’ll clean up a lot of it there but I’m happy the direction it’s going, we’ll just have to wait and see. Now here’s more of this fill- I mean great content from Diana in the dark again but better.
See you…
–
Whatever the esoteric message of the photocopy meant, I didn’t have enough time to make any sense of it.
A tight popping cracking noise of a microphone being tapped and tested sounded, then a nasally voice filled the whole room. “Folks, can I have your attention please?” Principle Maria Petro said. She stood looking down from the balcony, dressed a little like a character from the fifth element in a leopard print onesie?
Cat suit? What are those called? It actually fit with the neon space jungle theme.
She was a short stodgy woman with a nest of badly dyed hair that resembled ramen noodles. She stood under what looked like a brightly-lit star gate or arch, her hair done up as high as it would go.
Thankfully it was a high ceiling, without any fans or low hanging lights. Her face was a perfect mask of confidence and years of stored up aggression from dealing with the most spoiled kids on earth. All the make up in the world couldn’t cover up those frown lines.
“Ahem, good evening, everybody, I hope you’re all having a great time.” Pause for effect. Looking down at her subjects, expecting an answer or maybe an uproarious applause. Ms. Petro cleared her throat and continued on without it. “It’s my pleasure to announce this year’s senior prom queen and king.”
I made my way back over to Paul, strategically elbowing people in their solar plexuses. Solar plexi? Swimming through the crowd, only spilling about half the contents of each cup on other people’s rented shoes. I handed him one.
“Thanks.” He smiled for a moment, then stood bolt upright and his eyes got a little wider.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Err…”
“Don’t say shit!” a coiled voice hissed.
“Wendy?”
“No, it’s the fucking tooth fairy!”
“What are you?” Paul asked looking over his shoulder, but keeping his neck stiff.
Wendy stepped out of his large shadow and poked him in the side with that deadly DG purse, her hand inside it.
I imagined not clasped around her lip gloss. Her hair was coming undone, rogue strands now sticking in places to her patchy fake tan, running from the sweat.
“Brodie stood me up!” she said, shooting me a glare like it was my fault. “They’re about to announce it now, and the queen needs a king, got it?” She spat through her expensive bridgework. “So I’m just gonna borrow yours, you got a problem with that?”
“Err…” I said, eloquent as ever.
“It’s okay, it’s cool,” Paul said as he tried his best not to look as stiff as Frankenstein’s monster with a hand up his ass.
“Walk.” Wendy was still glaring at me.
Paul seemed as if he was resisting the urge to raise his hands like a hostage and started to pad slowly toward the balcony stairs.
There was no direct access to the stage.
Wendy poked him through a set of doors, and they disappeared—hopefully to reappear on the other side of the star gate in one piece. There was an awfully long pause and silence that followed.
“I’m happy to announce—” Principle Petro unsealed a sparkly envelope, very glamorous. She unsheathed a gold piece of card. “This years prom king and queen are…” Sudden sounds of a scuffle could be heard behind her, then a dull pop and another before a shrill scream.
The room froze trying to recognize the din.
Wendy burst out onto the stage, the small pistol in her hand. A ruby red stream of blood flowed from an obviously broken nose.
Paul was nowhere to be seen.
“Gimme that!” She snatched the studded prom queen tiara from Principle Petro’s hand, and shoved the woman out of the way. She tried to pin it to her head with the gun still in her hand. Once it was level, she scanned the room of all the faces still frozen in stunned silence.
Her existence was now a morbid curiosity, a downward spiral, a car crash happening in slow motion.
She saw me looking up at her. Part of me wondering if Paul was still alive, but the other was distinctly darker, and couldn’t keep my smirk at bay. Here I was, a peasant in the crowd watching a debutante fall face first in the mud, and I couldn’t stop the muscles in my face tensing into something like a smile.
“Fucking bitch! This is all your fault!” Wendy screamed and aimed the small weapon. She started firing wildly into the crowd I happened to be mingled in. The tiara drooped down and tangled in her hair as she cried.
Luckily this was probably her first school shooting, in her hands that little pistol was about as deadly as a spud gun and there was just far too much confusion to hit anyone in particular.
The crowd predictably woke from their frozen morbidity, erupting into a flurry of fight or flight lizard brain comprehension. They stampeded toward the nearest exit. Climbed all over each other so as not to become the lucky recipient of a nine millimeter kiss blown from a killer queen.
My first instinct, unlike that of a mere prey species, was not to fight or to flight but to hide and wait. Watch and see. I told myself I couldn’t leave without knowing what happened to Paul. He wouldn’t abandon me, and I couldn’t let my mask slip off completely without at least trying to save face. What kind of girlfriend would I be if I just ran and melted into the maddening crowd of lurching farm animals, leaving him to bleed to death?
The exits were currently expurgating a constant stream of furious humanity. The true meaning of an ancient Roman vomitorium now fully realized. Another fortuitous exit was marked out for me with a sign above the alcove that read, “The glow zone.”
I broke from the herd and darted for the exit, looking up to make sure she noticed I was distinct from the throng. She cursed in Spanish and fired a warning shot over the bow of the balcony, missing and chipping the horsehead ice sculptor. “Go Trojans!”
Wendy banged the guard rail of the balcony and disappeared into the back.
I pushed past a door with a porthole in it; it flapped shut behind me like a saloon door, screeching loud.
In the laser arcade equipment room, racks of laser tag sets hung from multi-colored racks glowing with the magic of LED. An instructional video on game safety was playing in a loop. A middle aged Hispanic man with a shaved head and set of terminator sunglasses appeared on screen, instructing me on how to safely clip on one of the vests in a succinct monotone.
Thanks but no thanks, a glowing piece of plastic on my chest wouldn’t do me much good in a gun fight.
Never bring a glowing plastic laser gun to a gunfight, Diana.
–
Hey,
Don’t have much to go off today but here’s the latest chapter, it’s slow going honestly, I’m not as focused as I was before. I dunno I think my writing at one point was getting better but now I sort of think it’s getting worse haha. Not worse, just lazier I guess.
I was reading Conan last night and the story was sort of garbage, Conan goes to steal a thing finds ancient aliens and then the tower falls down the end but it had a lot of flair and it was fun and the description isn’t over the top a lot of it just plot but you get a good feel like you’re really there seeing what he’s seeing and I’m not sure you get that from what I’m writing.
But you know, I hope it’s fun at least, there’s some action in this chapter, after the sort of slow start, this new character who I sort of borrowed from Arthurian legend is a lot of fun, I just had to steal him. He’s one of these characters like Cur that takes on several mantles because in these mythological stories there’s a limit to how much stuff a certain character can do. This wasn’t marvel where you have a billion writers taking one character and stretching them across a million books of total nonsense where they fight alongside the jackson five or whatever. Total bullshit where comics are basically fanfiction where spiderman is a transgender midget polynesian hemophiliac diaper fur with glocoma.
They’re more like real life where a person does one awesome thing their whole life and maybe not even that. So I sort of had to take Cur and make a plot by combining him with a few different characters because otherwise his story would have ended after the first battle. And I sort of created my own meta universe where he was supposed to die but he didn’t creating a new time line.
Anyway, that’s enough nonsense ranting, I promised myself I would try to find a new job today. I keep thinking about starting up a youtube channel but I just couldn’t do that, my autism wouldn’t allow it. I just don’t think it would do well and I want a real job where I can be around people a couple of hours a day. I know I hate people and my autism makes me want to lock myself away infinitely but I think I need to be around people every now and then just so I don’t forget how to talk haha.
See you…
–
South of Meenlaragh in Corveen bog the ruins of a small castle lay overgrown by the marsh. Creeping vines covered it like a fur coat as it seemed to sink into the murk.
The sun was slowly sinking into the bog, the light bluing with the strange mists that hovered over the peat and muck. The sounds of birds in the trees were thick and deafening in their splendour. But deep in the hold of the castle there was a stolen warmth and a cloaked merriment.
In the keep a small group of strangely dressed brigands sat around a broken feast table strewn with unappetizing foreign dishes. Fish heads in sea brine, boiled toad, all manner of eels and snakes from the bog writhed in states of death and half-life, insects too seemed to be on the menu.
The feast hall was small and decrepit and dark, only a few sconces were lit, others seemed to be long burnt out or ripped from the walls. All decorations and finery the castle once had were undoubtedly pilfered long ago. All that remained were tattered moth eaten tapestries and a few decorative weapons caked in decades of rust. All but one item seemed unloved and aged. On the wall behind the head of the table hung a decorative harp made of finely hewn wood and encrusted with beautiful shining gems. The carvings on the harp were intricate and spiralled all around the finely crafted instrument. Images engraven were that of various animals and a horned man sitting amongst them.
The brigands feasted under black hoods and armoured cloaks. Their hands were more clawlike than human shining dimly with what seemed like scales and other malformed oddities. Their mouths clacking as they ate as some lacked teeth while others had sharp thin shark teeth shining like daggers in the dim fire light.
Suddenly an odd noise tickled them as if it had been there all along under the sounds of their merriment but only now had they noticed it. A strange whistling like that of many birds singing together but not coming from outside.
The head of the table flipped his cloak and stretched out a scaled humanoid arm. At the end of it were fat toadlike fingers forming something almost like a fin, he held it up to silence the others at the table.
They froze and turned to a darkened corner which seemed to be the source of the strange bird noise. Then came the sound of clinking metal and shaking of chain.
Out of the darkness emerged a huge humanoid figure dressed in a green armour. He had a distinctive covered helmet of which large antlers that looked like tree branches grew out of the top. On his belt hung an ornate axe. It’s handle appeared to be simply a strong birch branch holding a piece of silvery metal which had raw edges. It shone like that of a stone that fell from the sky glinting like a diamond or a quartz in the sconce light. In his hand the knight carried a bow of holly and he whistled as he walked creating an unnerving sound as if thousands of birds filled the room.
“Who goes there?” The head of the table called out. A slender dark figure with a sly hushed voice.
“Fear not, child of the dark depths, I mean you no harm”
The head of the table was confused but sneered when he heard what the stranger called him. “How do you come to know us?” He questioned.
The knight bowed humbly “Forgive me sir, for I have watched you and your countenance speaks to foreign blood, not of this soil.”
“Our blood is older than this soil.” The host spat.
“That too I am aware of, therefore we are the same sir.” The strange green knight bowed again crossing the holly in front of his plated chest.
The head of the table was an alien figure, with bulbous black fishy eyes and glinting scaled skin and a wide mouth full of sharp tiny teeth. “Well then, come sit with us and tell us why you have come visitor.” The man grinned and then scowled at his underling who sat at his side. The underling was a squat creature with huge whiskered lips and wide slanted slits for eyes. He looked up at his master startled and then quickly vacated his seat and pulled it out for the knight.
The knight rose from his bow “Most hospitable of you.” The knight said as he slowly walked around the table. Passing the other inhuman malformed creatures that sat staring up at the stranger with their wide fish eyes.
The knight sat upon the chair and waited for his host to speak. Closer to the light of the table the knight’s armor was more apparent. An unusual set that shone an emerald green with gold inlays and patterns that seemed to replicate trees and roots forming spiral symbols.
“So what is it you seek stranger?”
“I would that you would know me that I would not be a considered a stranger. My name Bertilak de Hautdesert but you may know me as ‘Bredbeddle’ if you so wish.”
The host breathed heavily and spoke through his teeth “Goodly Bredbeddle, wouldst that you would tell me why you’ve come, that I would know you!”
“I find it odd you don’t remember me.” The knight chuckled “For am I not memorable?”
“Should I remember you, have we met before?” The strange head of the table asked.
“I am certain sir, we have met before, in this very room no less.” The knight gestured as he spoke, his armor clinking but displaying no weight as he moved. “Are you not the one they call Forgal the wily?”
“You must be mistaken, I’ve never heard that name before” The host said as he turned to one of his men and signalled for him to bring them more wine.
“One year ago today, we met in this room and struck a bargain.”
“I recall no such bargain, what does this pertain to?” The host asked.
“But you will admit that you are Forgal the wily?” The knight turned his head up and pointed over his hosts head without raising his elbow. “For you have the harp he took from me”.
“Are you calling me a thief?”
“Nay sir, I am calling you the possessor of my harp and one year ago today we struck a bargain.”
“What of this nonsense, what bargain?”
“The bargain made here that I would let you strike me and one year after I would return the strike and reclaim the harp.”
“I tire of this foolishness” The host waved his hand and instantly out of the dark came a curved long blade and cut the knights head from his shoulders.
The helmet with the head fell on the table and knocked over a bowl of live crickets.
The group of brigands erupted into triumphant laughter, all conspiring in whispers as to whom would claim his armor and weapon.
“Fool!” The host spat. “Forgal the wily recognises no bargains made with the tuatha.”
“There is no need for name calling sir” A disembodied voice said.
The brigands instantly stopped their cavorting as the voice seemed to come from all around them. It seemed animal in aspect, as if the birds in the trees were forming words of their own.
The body of the knight had not fallen, still it sat upright in it’s seat and then without pretence it reached for it’s detached head. “I see that you have no desire to honour our agreement” The knight said as he stood and tucked his own head under his arm. “I bid you good day sir.” He said bowing with his head under the crook of his arm as he left the keep.
Forgal looking after him with his wide fishy mouth hanging open.
The brigands sat for a moment befuddled as if they’d been visited by a spirit or fallen to some drink that had given them all the same strange dreams.
Twilight was upon the bog and the world was still and grey.
The knight of green replaced his detached head on his shoulders and sighed.
“Come Daurdabla, apple-sweet murmurer!
Come, Coir-cethair-chuir, four-angled frame of harmony,
Come summer, come winter,
Out of the mouths of harps and bags and pipes!”
–
If you want to see what happens next, head on over to inkitt by clicking this link In the pines.
You think I feel bad about that? Not really, it was probably ripped off of Conan first, I just haven’t read that far. But I am reading it and it’s way more interesting than the Shadow even though the stories are so much more simple and really the whole thing is plot. You just get a story and it’s like ‘Conan wants to steal thing’ so he does that and even though it’s just that simple it really works because it’s just well written and fun and you want to see what happens and how does it.
Hey there,
Yeah still milking the starship troopers thing in loo of real writing haha. I dunno I think I’m dreading doing prose again for some reason, keep trying to put it off but now I really can’t get away from it. Having to commit my heart and soul to something again, it’s like a relationship almost, I feel like I lose a little piece of my soul every time I write something just for some unmarried cat lady in an office in new york or london who smells like box wine and elevator farts to shit on it haha.
Especially since all the bullshit around chritmas, I just feel so fucked recently, by everything but I keep on not killing myself like the selfless prick I am haha. Hey those videogames don’t play themselves.
For some reason I was thinking about how bad american horror story apocalypse was last night in the shower and I realised the part that pissed me off the most was how ambitious yet incompetent it was. It’s the first season where I noticed how little money actually went into it. Because it’s set initially in a ‘bunker’, now the reason I say that is that it’s basically just a house with no natural light where the windows are covered up and they tell you its underground and ‘naturally shielded’. It also handily functions as a school for teen warlocks so that’s convenient, don’t need to make two sets, you literally just use the same set over and over.
And the reason the school is underground is because ‘muh persecution’ apparently there was a time where weird effeminate warlocks were seen as ok then here comes ‘trumps america’ stirring up all this gay warlock hate and they need to make a new school that’s underground. And I literally mean they’re all gay because apparently in this universe testosterone suppresses magic so only women and really effeminate men can be warlocks. Which gives way to one of the best Cheyenne Jackson characters that was criminally under used. He basically played a camp Constantine haha. He’s just shoved out of the way for the boring witch characters that weren’t interesting in season 3.
So they have a post apocalyptic show set in a bunker and they don’t have the cash to get a real bunker set, so it’s all just set in this dark house. It’s incredibly lame and you never get to see any of the other bunkers or the sanctuary they hinted at, it’s just one big flashback cheesy clip show.
Ok all my rage out for that show, it’s apparently been renewed but the original writer has gone on to work for netflix so it’ll either get a new life under a new writer or be peacefully sunsetted.
Anyway, about this actual scene, in the movie starship troopers Rico’s father is just kind of this two dimensional character, rich dad man, rich dad man angry because son not want to go to harvard and continue the family business. He’s a little like that in the start of the book but he’s much more than that. He does get mad when Rico disobeys him and goes off to join the MI because he really has no good reason to. There’s no family tradition, he never really has a good reason, he says it’s not to impress a girl but it kind of is, more so in the movie but also because his friend is doing it and he has no real direction and just wants to strike out on his own and find himself.
His father has an understandable position, he doesn’t want his son to get killed fighting some war he thinks is pointless but he’s happy to send other people’s kids off and he doesn’t have a good perspective on what’s really at stake. That’s it’s not just about the individual, I think that’s one of the major themes of the book. That being a citizen is more than just voting, it’s about understanding that you’re part of something greater and the responsibility is on your shoulders to carry the society. And not everyone can be entrusted with that right, because some people are happy just to be part of it, just to be carried and they choose not to see the things and the people holding them up and in some regards they even resent them. Which I think is perfectly highlighted in the book by intellectuals who scoff at the system but don’t have the fortitude of character or the selflessness to take part in it.
And rico’s father lives in the book and he has a change of heart and it’s a really interesting part of the book that I would love to see in a tv show. It’s not something they could really go into in the movies because they’re so surface level. They don’t want to tell a real story with real characters like in the book, they just want a big set piece explosion movie to make money off the fans of the original. Like all these animated movies, they use the names of the characters only as a draw for all the explosions and bugs being killed, they don’t actually have the balls to do anything with them. They’re just there to appease the fans when there’s no way there can be any development of these characters.
In a way these characters are just sort of frozen forever, waiting for someone to actually thaw them and give them an arc, bring them to life.
Anyhoo, waffled enough for one day. Gonna try and get some more eyes on Cur for now I think, try and get a publisher possibly, I dunno, getting an indie publisher didn’t really work out for me last time. I’m thinking of writing all three books and releasing it as a full trilogy.
See you…
–
InT. rico’s bedroom. Night.
RICO is getting ready for the senior dance, he’s wearing a tux and his parents are helping him get ready.
Rico’s mom
You look wonderful sweetheart.
RiCO
Thanks mom.
RiCO’S MOM
Go see your father before you go, I’m sure he’ll want to see you too.
RICO
Sure thing mom.
InT. Rico’s house living. night.
Rico’s dad is in his chair reading the news paper smoking a pipe in front of the fire. He puts his paper down and smiles at Rico as he comes in.
Rico’s Dad
Looking sharp boy.
RiCO
Thanks dad.
Rico looks hesitant but he has something he want to say.
RiCO’S DAD
Something on your mind son?
RICO
Dad, I wanna join up for federal service.
Rico’s dad puts his pipe down.
RiCO’S
DAD
Boy, have you lost your mind?
RiCO
Sir?
RiCO’S DAD
Are you looking to get yourself killed?
RICO
No, sir.
RicO’S DAD
Have you told your mother about this?
RiCO
No, sir.
RICO’S DAD
(sighing) I suppose there’s a time in every boy’s life when he wants to do something phenomenally stupid.
RICO’S DAD (
CONT’D
)
I remember when you learned to walk just yay high and you were a little
sonofabitch
, breaking everything not nailed down.
RICO’S DAD (
CONT’D
)
I remember the time you and your friend Karl stole one of my cigars and I didn’t say anything because some mistakes it’s good to learn on your own. How sick it made you was a lesson on it’s own.
RicO’S DAD (
CONT’D
)
This, isn’t one of those mistakes, this could ruin your life if it doesn’t take it first.
RicO
I wouldn’t ruin my life, just a term of service that’s all, not a career.
RicO’S DAD
This family has stayed out of politics for over a hundred years, why would you want to stray from that? We made our own way, followed no man but our fathers before us.
RICO’S DAD (
CONT’D
)
Why would you want to change that proud tradition?
RiCO’S DAD (
CONT’D
)
Tell me it’s not for a girl?
RICO
No, sir.
RicO’S DAD
It’s that teacher of yours, the veteran?
RICO’S DAD (
CONT’D
)
What was his name.
RICO
Mr. Dubois.
RiCO’S DAD
That’s it, did he put you up to this, there ought to be a law against turning a classroom into a recruitment centre.
RICO
No, sir. Mr. Dubois, he isn’t like that, if anything he tries to talk us out of service.
RiCO’S DAD
Son, your life can be so much more than this, you can go to
harvard
and study business, do some travelling and when you come back the business will be waiting for you to take over.
RICO’S DAD (
CONT’D
)
It would be different if there was a war on but there isn’t you’ll just be wasting two years of your life for nothing.
RICO’S DAD (
CONT’D
)
Is Karl doing it?
RiCO
Yeah but dad, it’s not…
RiCO’S DAD
(sighing) he’s a fine boy, but misguided.
RicO’S DAD (
CONT’D
)
I wanted to keep this as a surprise for after when you graduate.
RicO’S DAD (
CONT’D
)
How does a vacation to mars sound instead of all this federal service nonsense?
RICO
Wow, dad, I had no idea.
RiCO’S DAD
Have fun at the dance son, and think about what I said.
RICO
I will, thanks dad.

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