Look on my Journal, ye mighty, and despair

Why? Because I can.

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:08:48 GMT

So I saw Faustus the other day! And because you're no doubt panting for it...

Sam's SYNOPSIS THEATER Presents...

The Merrye Comedie of the Evifceration of Dr Fauftuf

or

Be Careful... on JUDAS PRIEST Friday

(HOUSELIGHTS DOWN)

TOM GOUGH: GIVE GENEROUSLY TO THE CONSERVATORY!

CONSERVATORY GRADS IN AUDIENCE: Bitch, I gave you two years of my life!

TOM GOUGH: DO NOT USE CELL PHONES! I IMPROPERLY USE THE WORD "YE".

LITERARY FAGS IN AUDIENCE: God, we're in hell already!

(We hear the sound of METAL. It is certainly HEAVY)

FAUSTUS: ACT 1

"Dog Si Ghuog Mot"

or

"Making Friends with the Devil, Upsetting Some Popes"

(LIGHTS UP on the GERMAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, circa 1300 or WHENEVER THE FUCK. Enter JOHN FAUSTUS, our HERO I GUESS.)

FAUSTUS: All of these sciences I have learned are piffle! Claptrap! Balderdash! Logic!?! It's only good for arguing and asserting one's superiority over women. Medicine? It's only good for treating illness! Which is sort of what it's for now that I think about it, and the Bible! Pah! What use is the Bible!

(A PAUSE)

FAUSTUS: Well, it is pretty heavy. I could just chuck it at someone - NAY, FAUSTUS! Look not to the Bible for answers! It has none to give! I tug my ponytail with dismay!

(He DOES SO)

FAUSTUS: Clearly, vile necromancy is the only answer!

(There is the SOUND of NIGHTWISH. Enter Good Angel, and Devil)

GOOD ANGEL: Don't do it, Faustus!

DEVIL: Totally do it, Faustus!

FAUSTUS: I totally will! WAGNER!

(Enter ~~THE WORLD'S MOST ADORABLE TINY ROCKER CHICK~~ WAGNER, SERVANT to FAUSTUS)

WAGNER: Yeah?

FAUSTUS: Send for those two evil hippie sorcerors who live on campus!

WAGNER: Who...?

FAUSTUS: Check the theater department.

WAGNER: ...'kay.

(Exit WAGNER)

FAUSTUS: I have a great feeling about this whole "devil magic" thing.

(Enter WAGNER, and two EVIL HIPPIE SORCERORS)

WAGNER: Your godless commies, sir.

EVIL HIPPIE SORCEROR (MAN): Faaaaaaaaaaaaustus! Sup, dude?

EVIL HIPPIE SORCEROR (WOMAN): cackles, incessantly.

FAUSTUS: I want to sell my soul! Hook a brother up with some evil sorceries!

EVIL HIPPIE SORCEROR (MAN): Sure dude. Let's get some chow.

FAUSTUS: Excellent! I tug my ponytail for accomplishment!

EVIL HIPPIE SORCEROR (WOMAN): cackles

(They EXIT)

(ENTER SOME DICKS)

SOME DICKS: Hey Wagner!? Where's your master!?

WAGNER: Having dinner. I don't know. Look, I need to scrub the hippie goat-crotch smell out of the drapes.

(THEY EXIT)

(ENTER FAUSTUS)

FAUSTUS: Wow! Dark sorcery is like, way easier than I thought. Alright, here it goes.

(SOUND of NIGHTWISH)

ANGEL: Still totally shouldn't do it, Faustus!

DEVIL: Still totally should, Faustus!

FAUSTUS: Still totally will, hackneyed anacrhonisms! I hate god! Jehova can bite me! And now, the invocation! YO, MEPHISTOPHELES!

(There is a SOUND of HEAVY METAL. All at once, LOW-RES JPEG OF A SWEDISH DEATH-METAL ALBUM COVER appears)

FAUSTUS: AHHH! This is most loathesome to my sight! Appear before me in a form less terrifying! Assume the aspect of a monk!

(WORLD'S SEXIEST MONK APPEARS)

Mephistopheles: 'Sup, Faustus.

FAUSTUS: Wow. What monastery do you come from?

MEPHISTOPHELES: The Holy Order of Shut The Hell Up and Tell Me What You Want.

FAUSTUS: I like your garter.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Seriously, drop it. My nethers have teeth. Thousands upon thousands of teeth.

FAUSTUS: Alright, so here's the deal. I want to sell my soul. In exchange, you get to be my slave for the next twenty years or so. Cool?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Let me check with my infernal lords and masters.

(Much HEAVY METAL immediately ENSUES. Enter ~~JOAN JET~~ LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR and ~~THE REAL SLIM SHADY~~ BEELZEBUB, LORD OF THE FLIES)

LUCIFER: to audience, headbanging AAAAHHHHHH!

BEELZEBUB: to audience, throwing horns AAAHHHHHH!

LUCIFER: to Beelzebub AAAAUUUUUUGHHHH!

BEELZEBUB: to Lucifer AAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGHH!!

LUCIFER AND BEELZEBUB: to Mephistopheles ARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!

ROB ZOMBIE: YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!

(They EXIT)

MEPHISTOPHELES: Yeah, they say it's cool.

FAUSTUS: ...they do?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Yes. You'll get it once you know them. You know, during your endless tortured eternity in hell.

FAUSTUS: My what?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Never you mind, sweet Faustus. Here, give me your arm.

(She SLASHES IT OPEN)

FAUSTUS: AAAAAAAUUUUGH! That really stings!

MEPHISTOPHELES: Jeez, you're kind of a wuss. You might want to get used to pain, since you'll be experiencing a lot of it during your eons of unceasing agony at the hands of the infernal legions.

FAUSTUS: not even pretending to listen Do you have a band-aid?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Silence, Faustus! It is time to sign this contract...in blood!

(Takes INFERNAL CONTRACT from somewhere in her PRACTICALLY NON-EXISTENT CLOTHES)

FAUSTUS: Pretty sure you could have just pricked my finger rather than chopping my damned arm off but okay!

(He ATTEMPTS TO SIGN)

FAUSTUS: Hey, my blood is coagulating! As a doctor, I know that is something it does.

(A brief, meaningful PAUSE)

FAUSTUS: Perhaps I shouldn't do this! I tug my ponytail in turmoil!

(SOUND of NIGHTWISH)

ANGEL: You really shouldn't, Faustus!

DEVIL: All the cool scholars are doing it, Faustus!

FAUSTUS: Mephistopheles! Fetch me some flame so I can melt this chunky blood!

MEPHISTOPHELES: Here.

(She BURNS HIS ARM)

FAUSTUS: OW! GODDAMNIT!

MEPHISTOPHELES: You're about six billion years too late for that, sweetcheeks.

FAUSTUS: Good, my blood is all melty. And now...I have signed!

MEPHISTOPHELES: Excellent! Oh man, this is sweet. What now, master? Shall we topple the petty kingdoms of man, and destroy all that lives and loves for the glory of my master, Lucifer?

FAUSTUS: That sounds good too, but first I'm going to ask you some boring astronomy questions. First: I want to know if...

MEPHISTOPHELES: Goddamn scholars.

(LIGHTS DOWN)

(LIGHTS UP on a CHARMING PASTORAL SETTING. It is time for HILARIOUS PEASANT INTERLUDE #1)

(ENTER TINY ADORABLE WAGNER, looking EXTREMELY PENSIVE)

WAGNER: Man, stupid devil magic books. Does Faustus have any idea how hard it is to clean finger smudges off a malevolent living book bound in human skin by the devil herself?

BOOK: awkward chittering noises

WAGNER: Stop that! I just fed you like, an hour ago! Man! Fuck this noise!

(She DITCHES THE BOOK. It CHITTERS, MOURNFULLY)

(Enter ROBIN and DICK. Everyone in the AUDIENCE should immediately PREPARE FOR WACKY HIJINKS)

ROBIN: Hey! I think that's a book!

DICK: One o' them thinky things, I reckon. It has three eyes and a mouth of angry teeth, I reckon.

BOOK: gurgles

ROBIN: Aw, it likes me! I know, let's summon some demons. B...eee....belll...

(It is HILARIOUS that she is ILLITERATE, because she is a STUPID PEASANT)

ROBIN: Belcher! Burper!

KIT MARLOWE: I want everyone to know I totally didn't write this.

(ENTER TWO DEMONS.)

ROBIN: OH JEEZ!

DICK: OH JEEPERS!

(EXIT ROBIN and DICK, pursued by VASTY LEGIONS OF THE DAMNED)

(LIGHTS UP on the office of JOHN FAUSTUS. It is TIME TO GET BACK to the EXCITEMENT)

FAUSTUS: Really, fascinating! and that's how the planet works.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Yes. Yes it is. We've been at this for days. Can we go kill something, already?

FAUSTUS: Oh, fine. But wait! What ho! Perhaps I should repent my bargain!

(NIGHTWISH)

ANGEL: You should do that, Faustus!

DEVIL: Under the circumstances that is a pretty stupid idea, Faustus!

FAUSTUS: Perhaps I shall call on God!

(EVERYTHING goes to HELL in SEVERAL HANDBASKETS. The HEAVIEST METAL of ALL plays. Enter ~~"JUST A GIRL" ERA GWEN STEFANI~~ LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR and ~~KEVIN FEDDERLINE~~ BEELZEBUB, and a HORDE of CACKLING HOBGOBLINS in BONDAGE GEAR)

LUCIFER: to Faustus AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGH!

FAUSTUS: What? What is she saying?

MEPHISTOPHELES: She's really pissed!

FAUSTUS: Why?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Hold on. AAAAAARRRRRRRRGHHHHH!!?!

LUCIFER: AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

BEELZEBUB: aside YEEEAAAAAAAAARGHHHHH!!!!

MEPHISTOPHELES: She says if you don't knock it off with the "gee-oh-dee" word she's going to shove a spike up your rear and eat you like a popsicle. Also, she says you should watch this morality play.

FAUSTUS: How thrillingly current!

(Enter THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS)

PRIDE: Origin story! I'm so goddamn awesome!

ENVY: Origin story, but hers is better, the bitch!

GLUTTONY: mouth full O'rihin' stowy!

SLOTH: asleep

WRATH: EXTREMELY FURIOUS ORIGIN STORY!

COVETOUSNESS: I want your origin story, so bad!

LECHERY: Extremely erotic origin story!

FAUSTUS: Predictably she is my favorite! Truly, Hell is on the forefront of the entertainment industry!

(The AUDIENCE WAITS BREATHLESSLY for the INEVITABLE MASQUE)

(LIGHTS DOWN on HELLISH BONDAGE MORALITY DISCO. Prepare for HILARIOUS PEASANT INTERLUDE, #2)

ROBIN: Oi, Mephistopheles!

MEPHISTOPHELES: Kind of busy here, pricks!

DICK: Wow, she's purty. Like one of them...like one of them ewes.

MEPHISTOPHELES: You are a monkey and you are a dog! Begone!

ROBIN: Sweet!

DICK: Awesome!

MEPHISTOPHELES: aside Germans!

(LIGHTS DOWN)

(LIGHTS UP on the VATICAN. Prepare yourself for SOMETHING YOU WOULD FIND REALLY MEANINGFUL AND HILARIOUS, if you were a RHODES SCHOLAR of AUSTRIAN HISTORY. Enter FAUSTUS and MEPHISTOPHELES, looking MISCHIEVIOUS.)

FAUSTUS: Let's totally mess with the pope! Make me invisible!

MEPHISTOPHELES: Done! Man, the scale of your villainy has sort of trended downwards I gotta say. what happened to murdering the earth?

FAUSTUS: Soon, my sweet, soon. But first: I am going to wreck this dinner party!

(Enter THE BONDAGE POPE and AFRO SAMURAI.)

FAUSTUS: Man, I never knew the Pope dressed like a homosexual vampire warlord!

BONDAGE POPE: Man, we totally showed that other, stupid Pope!

AFRO SAMURAI: We sure did, foo'.

BONDAGE POPE: Guard monks! Bring him to me!

(ENTER TWO GUARD MONKS and THE RHINESTONE POPE)

RHINESTONE POPE: I allude to a super-important political situation you would totally understand if you lived 500 years ago!

BONDAGE POPE: Silence, fool!

(SPITS on RHINESTONE POPE. the THREE PEOPLE in the AUDIENCE WHO ARE INTO THAT KIND OF THING are now UNCOMFORTABLY AROUSED.)

BONDAGE POPE: Now, let us dine together!

AFRO SAMURAI: Sound coo, gee.

BONDAGE POPE: Oh, you wacky visigoths!

FAUSTUS: I TOTALLY BLOW YOUR MINDS!

BONDAGE POPE: Oh holy hell! Invisible germans!

AFRO SAMURAI: We out!

FAUSTUS: We have saved you for some reason, Rhinestone Pope!

RHINESTONE POPE: You can't spell "rhinestone" without "rhineland", baby!

BONDAGE POPE: Flee! Flee for your lives!

(THEY FLEE. THIS IS HILARIOUS.)

(LIGHTS DOWN ON FAUSTUS AND MEPHISTOPHELES LAUGHING THEIR ASSES OFF.)

FAUSTUS: This demonic covenant thing is the bees knees!

MEPHISTOPHELES: Yes, Faustus. Yes it is.

RHINESTONE POPE: Break it down now!

(DANCE PARTY ENSUES)

(END ACT 1)

ACT 2 STILL TO COME. Happy times, yes?

My childhood memories totally wanted it. Look how they were dressed.

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:52:51 GMT

Man, Hollywood is just hell-bent on making me wish I'd died at the age of ten, isn't it? A Johnny Quest movie starring Zac Efron? ~~Escape~~ "Race" To Witch Mountain, starring The Rock? What the hell is next, another "Star Wars" movie starring all the people who mocked me for my speech impediment in kindergarten? Or maybe just a video of all my humiliating moments, posted on a screen in time square.

Remember folks: being a solipsist means taking everything personally.

Well! Livejournal. It's been awhile, hasn't it. Of course this fascile little blogathon is going down faster than Paris Hilton spotting a shiny belt buckle, but really? The thing that creeps me out the most is that, apparently, there is this idea that geographic nearness is somehow a criterion for friendship. In the last couple of months I've been added by frankly horrific people whose sole reason for adding me is my zip code. Is this myspace, or something? I don't like the overwhelming majority of people I know, much less people I don't, and...what? I'm supposed to be interested in your life? Or not incredibly creeped out by the fact you're interested in mine?

Seriously, some of these journals make me want to scrub myself with a brillo pad to avoid catching smacktard. One of them? Here is her user info:

"I'm easy going, I LOVE meeting new people, I'm always open to new experiences....I'm also a student, I'm BI.... :-)"

Yes, this sounds like a person I want to be associated with. I imagine that previous line spoken in a kind of breathy, plegmy tranny voice. Hunter her down on my profile and look at her myspace. Go on, I dare you.

Another one instantly dropped me the instant I sent her a comment along the lines of "I don't fucking know you, fuck off" for some god-knows why reason. Dames! Too sensitive by far.

There's some fifteen year old poetry spouting lesbian who added me eons ago and who comments here sporadically despite me...never having met her. There's some faux-philosopher dude who writes nothing but long winded dissertations about his pedestrian conclusions about mankind and, naturally, how stoned he is, how stoned he got, how stoned he wants to be, ect. It's eerie. It's like I'm a magnet for sundry moist defectives. Oh joy, oh rapture.

This entry is going absolutely nowhere, so I'm going somewhere. Later, peeps.

For he's a sexy good fellow...

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:41:41 GMT

It has come to the attention of my mammoth space brain that this coming wednesday is the Christmas in february! Yes, my friends, it is the 21st anniversary of the day that my partner in many heinous crimes against the quivering pink Scions of Adam was expelled into this world! He emerged, hirsute and leering, from his mother's vagina, clutching a fatty boombattey in one grasping, foetal claw and a bottle of jaeger in the other, shouting "ACE of SPADES!" and stabbing to doctor who tried give him a breathing spank to death with a corkscrew. Yes, it is the birthday of Sam Rosenblum! I'd buy him something, but he's currently spending the year in Japan, where anything you desire is instantly made manifest by the telepathically activated matter compilers, appearing in a flash of soothing pink light out of pure platinum, where it gives you a polite bow as befits your station.

Hey, female friends! You should totally jump all over this guy. Seriously! He's:

-Hairy! Like, lycanthrope hairy!
-In possesion of basically my exact sense of humor and personality, but he's prettier than me! So it's like, a net gain!
-Probably has some other nice traits!

There, Sam. I gave you the gift of western hemnisphere trim for whenever you get back. Many happy returns, because I swear to my dark kinky tentacle god that if you die before I do I am raising your goddamn corpse SO FAST.

Wait, Jews go in for cremation, don't they? No, wait, that's the Japanese. Don't die in Japan, Rosenblum! Don't die in Japan!

CHAPTER DEUX

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:20:41 GMT

Chapter Two of the Epic Saga Nobody Reads!

Break the Sky

Chapter 1

Planning Session

In which the nature of The Underneath is more fully explained; the other side of the looking glass; in which we meet a large gentleman of singularly unpleasant disposition.

“So you're saying he isn't trustworthy.”

Ashlan barked a short laugh; unfortunate timing, since it made him spray cheeseburger bits everywhere. He swallowed “Josephus? Trustworthy?”

“So that's a big yes, then.”

“That is a big yes. The biggest yes,” Ashlan shook his head, apparently at Jericho's charming naivety “did you see how quickly he just agreed to help me out? He's obviously planning to sell me out or betray me, or at the very least attempt to manipulate me into taking out people he's got some beef with. Trustworthy? No so much.”

Jericho absently swirled a french fry in the dab of ketchup on his plate, making little loops on the porcelain as he gazed off into the distance “so there's no possibility he's going to help us. Or you, really, since he thinks I'm your hypnotized butt buddy.”

“As though you're pretty enough to be my catamite. You have glasses and I have standards, four-eyes,” Jericho grimaced a little at the mental image it conjured while Ashlan laughed “and no, to answer your question. He might very well be extremely helpful. It's just we shouldn't rely on it, and we should never, ever assume we know why.”

“Oh great, conspiracy. I was expecting something a little more...straightforward. Like, you bust into a warehouse and kill a bunch of people,” Jericho took a melancholy slurp from his milkshake “preferably, I must say, with a katana.”

“You've been watching those Blade movies again, haven't you. Well, yes. There will be a lot of that but...okay, the Underneath.”

“Stupid name.”

“No argument. Okay, so you've got all these creatures, right? The only thing they have in common is that they're individually powerful, they feed off humanity in some way, and they're not supposed to be real, right?”

“I still can't fucking believe that werewolves-”

“Jer, you gotta let the werewolves go. Just for right this moment. Alright? Plenty of times to discuss your lycanthrophobia later.”

“Are you shitting me? Lycanthropho-”

“Patience, my son! Patience, and perhaps you will learn something,” Ashlan said gravely.

“Hai, sensei.”

“Well, you've got all these powerful creatures with...somewhat common interests, right? Well, powerful as they are, they can be killed. If humanity were ever tipped off, they'd die. The casualties on the human side would probably be...unpleasant, but it could be done. Faster than you'd imagine. It's what happened to most of my folk, way back when.”

“Really? Humans went to war with the nephilim?” Jericho narrowed his eyes “when was this, exactly?”

“They called it the Third Crusade,” Ashlan replied, moodily “Fucking Templars.”

“...Templars. Like...the Knights Templar.”

“Oh yeah. They make the Freemasons look like the fucking Cub scouts,” Ashlan scoured the bottom of his empty glass, that had once contained a root beer float, and clarified “They own Norway, you know. Every square inch. Anyway, so the Underneath was formed to...I guess, regulate commerce. Much as they hate each other, all of them realize that there needs to be some kind of governing body, mostly to arbitrate disputes and ensure the continuing ignorance of the human race. Hence, the Underneath. Massive, ancient, powerful supernatural cabal.”

“And you're going to destroy it.”

“Absolutely,” Ashlan nodded vigorously, making a curt gesture to a passing waitress for the check “I want all of the nasty night creatures terrified and disenfranchised. Jer, I know this is going to sound, uh, old Ashlan to you, but...in the end, it's going to have to come down to a choice between following me, or death. Or...re-death, I suppose, if you count the vamp-”

“Please move on.”

“Pansy. Anyway, yes. Now, I know of three members of the high council on the west coast, so to speak. There's Jennifer Morgan, vampire, fairly ancient. She's set up with her coven somewhere down in Sebastapol, I think. There's Aengus McPharlan. He's...one of those weird things. A wizard, certainly. He's in San Diego, or was the last time I heard of him. I figure I'll start there.”

“And the third?”

“The third is Patrick O'Hare,” Ashlan smiled thinly “he's a vampire. And he lives here, in the city by the bay. So he's the first.”

“What about what Josephus' assertion that there's already a war going on?”

Ashlan shrugged “should I care? If it's got them distracted...”

“Sounds to me like it might have them cautious.”

“Cool,” Ashlan said “wouldn't want it to be too easy, would we?”

“Ashlan, I was wondering...I know I'm like, your mascot or whatever...”

“In lieu of being my raunchy brainwashed sodomy puppet, I suppose. But go on.”

“But what exactly is my role in this?”

Ashlan smiled, and it was his small, chilling smile “oh, come on, Jericho.”

“What?”

“I know what was living in your mind for all those weeks. I know what she left behind.”

“What?” then, “oh.”

“Yes. Oh indeed. When had you planned on telling me?”

Jericho's lips curled into what wasn't really a smile as he stared down at his plate “I kind of thought I was going crazy.”

“No, although that's certainly possible. She's gone, Jer, but if she hadn't left some stuff in your mind I'd have been very surprised. There isn't really...room for an angel in a human brain, especially not for any length of time. There have to be remnants. She had to have made room.”

“Azazel's dead, Ashlan.”

Azazel. The angel that had set up shop in his brain. The crazed, suffering thing. Jericho had mercifully few memories of that time, most of them tinged with a desperate madness that consumed everything. He tried to summon an image of how she'd looked, in his mind, when they'd thought of herself. When they'd been two riders on one horse.

All he could remember was the heart-stopping sadness of her smile, the sweetness of her voice, beneath her mad, mad eyes.

I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

“True. She's definitely dead. I know that. You might recall that I was there,” Ashlan said, infuriatingly nonchalant “your eyes are looking at one level, and hers are looking at another. You're staring crosswise at reality. I've heard about it happening before.”

“Do you have any idea,” Jericho said quietly “how strange it is to be looking at this table, and suddenly I'm seeing the dead cells of the wood, the individual atoms spinning, the carbon chains-” his voice strange and desperate “and sometimes I think I'm seeing it's movement through time, and it's-”

Ashlan reached over the table and smacked Jericho upside the head.

“Ow!”

“I see a lot better than you squishy pink meatmonkeys,” Ashlan said “farther, and clearer, and I think I see farther into the spectrum, as well. But you see things I don't. And most of all, Jer, you think. I...uh, don't, so well. So yeah. I need you. Besides,” he said “who the hell else can warn me when I'm being a wanker?”

Jericho rubbed his head. It had been a light smack from Ashlan, but the man was so damn strong it had been like receiving a fairly solid tap with a crowbar to his temple. On the plus side, he wasn't seeing anything that made him upset.

“Besides, you're in a rare position, you know. Seeing is one step before manipulating. You could be a-”

“Oh holy damnit Christmas-”

“Wizard.”

Jericho stared at Ashlan for a long, despairing moment, and them buried his face in his arms on the table.

“Jer?”

“M'not a wizard. Not an angel, not a vampire, not a wizard,”

“Of course not, sweetheart,” Ashlan cooed, patting Jericho on the head “you don't have to master the ineffable secrets of creation if you don't want to.”

“My life used to make sense, Ashlan.”

“I know, Jer, I know,” Ashlan consoled “but on the plus side? Chicks are way hotter on this side of the looking glass. Well,” Ashlan clarified “they're mostly dead, or succubi, or occasionally have sentient, carnivorous genitalia. But hey,” he said, reaching out to grip Jericho's forearm “they've got nice tits.”

<><><>

Laurence was asleep, stretched out in a ragged armchair in a dingy living room in the apartment of a recently deceased man, when the goddamn phone started ringing.

Laurence brushed some of his black hair that had escaped it's sloppy ponytail out of his eyes with a bleary gesture. He was suddenly aware that it was two in the afternoon, he'd been sleeping a solid eighteen hours, and, since the former owner was currently in several pieces in the bathtub, having a shower was...problematic.

Damn it. He never thought these things through.

“Laurence,” he said peremptorily as he flipped open the cell phone.

“The doctor has flown into nights embrace,” A spooky female voice replied.

Laurence blinked slowly; the procedure consumed at least five seconds. He was aware, somewhere under the grime and the three days of untended BO and a truly skull-splitting hangover, that these words should mean something to him.

“The fuck,” he didn't phrase it as a question. He hauled himself out of the armchair, holding his aching head and realizing that he was starving, smelly, thirsty, and that the dead guy was really starting to stink.

“Laurence, it's me,” she replied in an altogether normal sort of voice.

“You,” he said, shambling over to the fridge.

“Your sister. Stephanie.”

“Oh hi,” He said, before he took a gulp of distinctly expired orange juice and contemplated that “so some doctor is...jogging at night or something. Cool.”

“I killed Josephus, assclown.”

“Okay,” he replied “I'm shacked up in a little apartment I found on union. Come on over.”

“Am I going to be able to take a shower?” she asked with a distinct note of suspicion in her voice.

“Uh,” he replied lamely, taking a peek through the bathroom door. Between the flies and the congealed things and the goofy expression on the stiff's face (along the lines of “Who are you, enormous man in my bathroom, and why are you carrying a vegetable peeler?”), or at least on the half of it still attached, it was unlikely she'd find the accommodations...sufficient “Sure. I mean, you could.”

“Laurence,” exasperated, she sighed “remember, we're keeping moving so they don't trace us. That means, if you have to kill someone, make it look like an accident. And stop dumping them in the goddamn bathtub.”

“It could have been an accident!” He protested “he could have slipped. In the shower. Onto, uh...” he paused, counting wounds “several machetes.”

She sighed “look, I'm going to check into a residence motel for the next few hours. We'll leave by nightfall. Meet me there, alright?” She hung up.

Great, now he was gonna have to walk somewhere. He closed his eyes and, in a second, he knew where she was, in a general sense. She was moving but in a generally northerly direction. He pulled his enormous grey-brown duster coat, a birthday gift from Stephanie that she swore up and down was an antique worn by an extra in True Grit, and walked out the door.

<><><>

He found her wrapped in a white bathrobe on the hotel bed. Nice place. Two beds, tiny kitchen, tiny bathroom. Maybe he could convince her to stay for a couple of nights; all the people whose homes he'd crashed at in the past few weeks of uncertainty had said all sorts of frankly insulting things and it was starting to threaten his self-esteem.

She didn't look up from her book, some pulpy chick thing about horse racing and fucking stable boys, just pointed towards the bathroom “Shower. Now.”

“Clothes?”

She kept the truck, most of the time. She was so much better at the subtlety thing; or at least she didn't kill people when bored, hungry, angry, horny, tired, or whimsical.

Or for stepping on his foot. God, that really climbed his prick.

“I've got your bag out.”

He showered, and felt marginally more human when he came out, wearing a clean shirt and clean jeans. It was a nice change.

“Now,” she was still absorbed in her rich-middle-aged society woman-on-stableboy-action “I bought groceries. Make lunch.”

He made grilled cheese sandwiches, cutting the crust off his own. He sliced up some pickles, lengthwise, the way she liked it. Two plates, two sandwiches, two cokes, two mini bags of cheetos.

“So you'll never guess who I saw Josephus talking to,” she said after they'd eaten. Laurence was channel surfing on the tiny television, with the sound off.

“Who?”

“Fucking Raykael. He's back in town.”

“Oh, cool.”

Stephanie closed her eyes, probably counting silently back from a hundred.

“No, it's not cool, Laurence,” she responded with exaggerated patience.

“Oh okay,” Laurence replied agreeably “you gonna fish your cheetohs?”

She tossed him what was left of her bag.

“He's here. Do you remember that town that burned down? My sources swear he was involved. He was here, talking to Josephus. This could be a problem.”

Laurence shrugged.

“Then we kill him.”

Stephanie blinked “Hmm. I guess that could work. He's got some human fucktoy with him, let's see if he knows anything first.”

“Kay.”

<><><>

"You know Ashlan, I always thought Norway belonged to the Norwegians."

"Common mistake. Poor bastards are pratically slaves."

"Huh."

“So Jer.”

“Yeah?”

“I'm gonna get you some lessons.”

“...Oh mighty christ, lessons in what.”

“Magi-Jericho, wait, stop running, damn it, my boots have heels!”

Splendid!

BECAUSE SHE IS A SPECIAL GRRRRRRL

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:23:24 GMT

In honor of my Iceman.

****NSA OFFICIAL REPORT****

DE-CLASSIFIED 1-20-09

Agent Acheson: below is included all the present data we have on your target, Jenn Hewitt.

TRUE JENN FACTS:
-She has an organ above her eyes that converts seawater to freshwater.
-She is actually not a nut; she is a legume.
-A monthly vitamin A shot is known to give her a healthy, glossy coat.
-She has a bite pressure of over six thousand pounds per square inch, making her the sole consumer of the hard-shelled Brazil Nut.
-After mating, she emits a paralytic pherenome and then devours the gonad of her mate, to trigger the egg-laying process
-She is known to kill men of all races and creeds simply for "breathing my air, niggers".

Name: Jenn Hewitt
Age: 21
Place of Birth: Marrakesh
Political Leanings: Gleeful Anarchist
Preferred weapon: Assault rifle strapped to another assault rife; rusty bayonet, military grade industrial bagel slicer.

-Winner of the Noble Prize in political skullduggery after he successful overthrow of the King of Jordan using only a karaoke machine.
-Undisputed master of the dance floor.
-Due to her baboons heart, pig liver, velociraptor claws and crocodile teeth, is known to the side-show world as The Amazing Chimera-Woman.
-The only known woman to kill an entire platoon of fully armed Navy SEALS with a knitting needle and cutting remarks.
-Her chief export is sass.
-She is like the prow of a rude viking ship.

Thoughts on inauguration

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:14:28 GMT

Well, personally? I'm just disappointed he didn't walk across the Patomac to get to the podium.

He's holding out on us this early? Shame, shame.

Er?

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 06:09:54 GMT

I don't know. Struck by sudden inspiration!

Break the Sky

Prologue

The Devil Doctor

In Which we Meet some of the Principle Players of this Drama; we say goodbye and goodnight; a Treatise on Morality.

In so many ways, old age was like temptation. It never went away, no matter how much you might wish; it just went on, and on, and on.

Dr. Emmanuel Josephus felt the temptation in his heart every day. His feeble, aging heart. Tired, arrhythmic, temperamental. His sight grew a little dimmer every day, his joints bigged and stiffer and twisted inward. The hands with which he'd accomplished such wonders, such miracles in the long and seemingly endless decades of his youth were crabbed and swollen and all but useless, now.

It would be easy, so pathetically easy, to fix it all. To be young again, to feel new life coursing through his ancient hardened veins.

While he taught English Literature, an unpopular professor at a third-rate school, he could sometimes barely contain his fury at the young men, with their strong backs and their unclouded eyes and their damnable ignorance.

I could take it from you, he thought as he gazed at a strapping young man in the front row of the class. Thick hair, perfect skin, muscles clear-cut under his t-shirt. Handsome, smiling. A laughing baboon, a waste of life's grace. I could drain you dry of life and love and be young again, damn you.

Temptation.

He wrapped up his lecture fifteen minutes early; he just didn't have the heart or the patience for it today. He smiled vaguely as some students wished him a pleasant weekend. As though he wasn't completely aware of their hypocrisy. As though he couldn't smell their insincerity like musk.

Thou shalt not kill.

Oh, and he had killed. So often and so many he wondered if there was any point, any real point in denying what his education and experience had granted him...to refuse to use the power he'd wrested from books long forgotten, from people long mouldering in their unmarked graves.

But no. Rationalizations were not for him. He would find grace. He would, somehow, redeem the life he had lived. The masters he had served.

If only he had more time...

He walked stiffly, leaning on a cane, towards his office. The young man from the front row was standing in front of it. He had curly brown hair and an ingenuos smile. Another boy, taller and blond and wearing a thoroughly ridiculous coat, was standing with his back to them both, talking loudly into a cellphone about unspeakable things.

“Professor Smith?”

Josephus paid the voice no mind, and then remembered the whole pseudonym thing. This person, this gnat, was talking to him.

“Hello sir, I'm Jericho Loew,” the young man said with a smile and an extended hand, which Josephus didn't take “I was wondering if I could bother you for-”

“I have lab after my tuesday lecture,” Josephus responded, slipping into the persona of a crabby old man effortlessly. Well, he was a crabby old man.

“I know, and I'm really sorry, but see, my friend and I wanted to make sure-”

“Yes yes, fine, please come in, the both of you” Josephus replied irritably, just to cut the monologue short. He opened the door to his office, not looking directly at the boy, Jericho.

I could make you mine, he thought to himself mine to own and fuck and devour, at my leisure, beautiful boy.

No. Goddamnit, no.

“Now, what did you need-”

“I'm really sorry, Dr Josephus,” said another voice, with a drawl so thick it bordered on a speech impediment. The blond boy from the hallway slid through the door and shut it with a definitive motion “but that was a bit of a naughty fib.”

“Nephil bastard!” Josephus exclaimed in a hoarse voice, backing away with a speed he didn't know was in him.

It was a Nephilim, all right. It was so painfully obvious to Dr. Josephus he wondered how this man walked down the street without attracting the wrong kind of attention. He was vividly, poisonously beautiful, in a way humans simply...weren't. If you didn't notice the deadness of his brilliantine eyes. If you didn't see the promise of immaculate cruelty in his rich, slow smile. If the steady grace of his movements didn't remind one of a snake.

“Get out,” He said, in a fury. His wards, what about his wards-

“Now that's a bit of a mixed message,” the nephilim said smoothly “after all, you did invite me in, and everything.”

Damn it.

Jericho was smiling apologetically “I'm sorry, sir, but my friend felt-”

“Your 'friend',” Josephus spat with a venomous glare “is a goddamned monster. Or are you blind to what owns you?”

“He doesn't own me,” Jericho said, shaking his head with a smile.

“Renting is so much more practical in the current economic climate,” the nephilim noted.

“Shut up, Ashlan,” Jericho replied.

“He is a son of calamity,” Josephus replied acidly. He knew this creature. He'd met him before, with another face “an abomination. If you serve him willingly, you are worse than damned.”

“You'd know all about that, wouldn't you, Josephus? Or may I call you Emmanuel?” the nephilim said with a smirk, as he strode over to Josephus and gave him a mocking caress “you're looking a little seedy, old man. Health problems?”

“Do not address me, creature,” Josephus replied, shuddering under his touch. Feeling an unfamiliar stab of desire that the revulsion didn't quite suppress. The nephilim's hand was hot, almost unbearably hot, and Josephus had to fight the urge to lean into his touch. That was their power, after all. To lure, to subvert and seduce and destroy.

“Poor bastard,” Ashlan noted, his hands moving cupping Josephus's face. “I've come for information. Give it to me, and I'll leave.”

“I have none to give you. That is no longer my world.”

“That's...disappointing,” Ashlan said clinically, his hands moving down to the doctor's collarbone. It was like being in the maw of some vast machine “I suppose bribery is out of the question.”

“You have nothing to offer anyone, beast.”

The nephilim's green eyes went dark and cold, like outer space. His hands tightened, just the littlest bit. Josephus gasped from the pain.

“Does it have to be threats after all, old man?” he whispered in a voice that had wild sounds in it. The wind blowing over an empty plain, ravens in the woods. “do you want to meet what's waiting for you, face to face?”

“Ashlan.”

Jericho's voice was so quietly furious and so completely out of place that it broke the spell of Ashlan's voice and eyes and touch. Josephus shouldered out of his grip as Ashlan turned, incredulous. Jericho's jaw was clenched.

“You promised.”

Josephus wanted to laugh out loud. A human being, commanding a nephilim? Especially one of Ashlan's power? Now he'd truly seen everything there was to see.

“Jericho...” Ashlan said with a note of pleading in his voice.

“No, damn it,” Jericho replied “I said I'd help you, remember?”

Ashlan and Jericho stared at each other for a long moment. Jericho's expression was adamant. Ashlan sighed, sat down on the couch, and buried his face in his hands.

“There are nuances I'm missing here,” Josephus said to no-one in particular.

“Buddy,” Ashlan said, smiling up from the couch “You have no fucking idea. What am I supposed to do now?” he asked, directing the question at Jericho.

“Now you ask him. Politely,” Jericho said with exaggerated patience.

“But what if he says no?”

“Then he says no. That's his right,” Jericho replied “no coercion, no threats, no funky sex voice. Alright?”

Ashlan looked completely bewildered, but he stood and brushed himself off, and looked Josephus straight in the eyes.

“I need your help.”

It hung in the air. Dr. Josephus, who had a pretty broad world view as befits a centuries-old magician, felt like nothing quite made sense anymore.

“I'm trying to do something...good,” Ashlan said, puckering his lips as though he were sucking on a lemon and a collection of copper wires, all at once “and I...could really use your help. Sir,” He added as an afterthought, looking to Jericho with an expression of naked pleading. Jericho nodded encouragingly.

“What good can you possibly do?” Josephus asked, sitting down in his chair. In all his years of dealing with the damned creatures...

“Hey, listen you dried up old turd-” he replied heatedly. Jericho placed a restraining hand on his arm.

“You mistake me,” Josephus gestured impatiently “I wasn't speaking rhetorically. You are not a human, with choices. You were bred to destroy. For a thousand generations. You're living entropy. What good can you do the world of men?”

“I plan on killing a whole lot of people,” Ashlan replied, eyes glinting “I...just plan on...maybe trying to kill the right people. I want to topple the Underneath,” he said with finality.

“You want to wage war against the Underneath?” Josephus mused “interesting. Unfortunately, it would seem that somebody has beaten you to the punch.”

“I beg your pardon?” Ashlan blinked, his expression clearly expressing his outrage that someone would slaughter those he'd already targeted.

Well tough, Son of Calamity. Life's not fair.

“There's been some kind of ruckus. People in high places turning up dead,” he narrowed his eyes “your name was mentioned, in fact?”

“I, Ashlan?” He asked with an expression of innocent outrage.

“No, your real name, nephilim,” Josephus replied with a roll of his eyes.

“Raykael,” Jericho murmured quietly to himself, his expression drawn inward.

“No, I haven't been involved, yet...” Ashlan mused “that's...bad news. I want names and addresses. Dossiers. Whatever information you might have. I am prepared to pay. I want to know who's dead and who I need to make dead. I want your books and your knowledge. I want your weapons.”

“And if I told you to go to hell, and take your blood-cursed money with you?”

Jericho shot Ashlan a sharp glance; Ashlan gritted his teeth and recited, as if by rote: “I will respect your decision and not break both your brittle old-man legs.”

Josephus smiled to himself “come back tomorrow, then. I'll have to check the sources that will still talk to me.”

“Absolutely,” Ashlan said, standing “A word to the wise, however.”

Aha. Back on firmer ground.

“If you flee, or betray me, or try to work your smelly magicks on me, old man,” Ashlan hissed quietly, while the air around him seemed to waver like a heat-mirage “I will kill you, and send you to face the damnation you've earned. If you kill yourself to escape me, I'll suck your spirit back and make whatever torments you've experienced seem like goddamned schoolyard contretemps, got it?” without turning, he said “Shut up, Jericho,” and stalked out of the office. Jericho followed, after shrugging philosophically at Josephus and shaking his head.

Josephus hadn't felt this young in years. Or...something. He felt something he'd thought long dead, a torrent of deadly calm. Conspiracy had been his weapon, in the old days, playing between the great powers.

If Ashlan wanted a showdown with the God-Touched, then, by all means, Josephus would oblige him. Perhaps...if he manipulated them with a deft and precise touch, perhaps he could send them both to destruction.

That would count for something, surely. If he rid the world of those walking blights, that monstrous half-angel and those two heartless killers.

How many lives would he save, by consequence of this action?

Maybe enough. Maybe enough to be forgiven. Maybe enough to wash his hands clean of his abominable sins.

Every single one of his wards, from the wards of blood and salt to the ones of light and fire and fear and pain, snapped at once.

She was standing in his office. He'd heard nothing from the window, nothing from the door. His wards had simply failed, breaking when they touched her. Like all magicks did.

She was perky and pretty and incongruous, in her tight sweater and carrying a lacrosse bag, her hair bleach-blond and her skin glowing with a golden summer tan. She looked like a sorority girl with her wide, ingenuous blue eyes.

Stephanie, of the God-Touched.

“I was just thinking of you,” he said truthfully “I have something of import to tell you.”

She smiled warmly. “No doubt.”

He had exactly that much warning before she took two small steps and drove a knife into his throat.

There was no pain. How odd. He could heal this, of course...if he could just remember the words.

“You're so absolutely transparent, you know that? You were hoping you could manipulate events like you used to. Clear the playing field of the big players. You're an idiot, Josephus,” she said softly as he toppled to the floor like a rag doll. She leaned down and planted a soft kiss on his forehead.

He couldn't remember the words.

“My brother and I knew you'd interfere. All these years on the sidelines, and the first thing you do is attempt a triple cross. Bold. Stupid. Your hallmarks, really. We've been watching and waiting, fool. Or did you think we'd forgotten?”

He shuddered as she drove the thin-bladed knife into his heart; and twisted it, for good measure.

“Good night, old man.”

Yes...good night. It was so black, the thing closing over him like the wings of an enormous bird. So black and...comforting.

If he'd known all that was waiting for him was oblivion, why, he'd have died years ago.

So much was about to happen, he thought a little wistfully, as he faded into a nothingness he hadn't earned.

Shame to miss it.

<><><>

“Ashlan!”

“Christ, Jericho,” Ashlan seethed, eyes clenched shut “what have I done wrong now?”

“I thought I said no threats. I thought we were going to do this the right way. Browbeating a helpless old man...”

Ashlan turned, his face filled with helpless fury “ha! If you had any idea who what man is, what he's done...”

“That doesn't matter!”

“You know,” Ashlan said reflectively “I really don't get you. You, or your morality. That man is a monster.”

“So are you.”

There was a pause, and Ashlan seemed to collapse a little into himself.

“I know. But...I'm trying?”

“First rule of being a good person, Ashlan,” Jericho said. Ashlan collapsed on a nearby bench, and buried his face in his hands. Jericho sat down next to him, and put a hand on his shoulder “you can't control what other people do. You can only control what you do.”

“Technically I can make other people do things,” Ashlan observed “I merely point this out.”

“You're not doing that anymore either, damn it.”

“You're sucking all the fun out of my life, Jericho,” Ashlan snapped “is that morality too?”

“Not necessarily. But it's fun!” Jericho replied brightly, shooting Ashlan a thumbs-up.

“Cockblocker.”

“That's me. You hungry?”

“You paying?”

“I'm not a billionaire, Ashlan.”

“That's why the gesture would mean so much more coming from you, Jericho.”

“Gaaaaah, you're a fuckwit.”

They got up and walked down the street of the sunny little college town.

“He wanted to fuck you, you know. The old man. He thought you were super fine,” Ashlan said with barely suppressed glee, glancing sidelong to catch Jericho's reaction.

“Shut up, Ashlan.”

“You're like, evil shriveled bastard necromancer bait.”

“Hooray for me.”

“Jer?”

“Yeah, man?”

“I'm...doing my best. You know that, right?”

“Yeah. I do. You know I'm going to help you, however I can, whatever it takes, right?”

Ashlan smiled; it wasn't his deadly smile, but a smaller, crooked one. The one that almost made him look like a person, if you squinted.

"Yeah. I do."

READ OR DON'T!

For no reason at all!

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:59:23 GMT

Just a short story I dreamed up today. Read it, minions! Read it or suffer the wrath of Sam!

"Okay, so...vampires."

"Real."

Jericho stared at me with open hostility from his position on the couch, notebook opened on his lap. Jericho was stocky, muscular, Jewish, and convinced that just because he was slightly more forward thinking than me, he was goddamned Mahciavelli.

"You're shitting me. Vampires. Vampires are real." he asked, pen hovering over the notebook.

"I'm kind of curious about your credulity gap, Jericho," I replied, rubbing my forhead as I nursed the developing migraine I always got during Planning Sessions.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, hello, my dad was an angel," I intoned with my spookiest voice. I debated manifesting my wings just to make a point, but the etheric sonic boom would give every orb-gazing psychic within a hundred miles a migraine and Jericho would dismiss it with an eyeroll and a masturbatory gesutre.

"Fine, vampires. Are they...mopey douchebags, or what?"

"No, they're ravenous killing machines. Human pirahnna. Live about four hundred years, pain in the ass to kill, kind of unbelievably creepy. They act half-rabid most of the time."

"Okay. Fine. So their strategic usefulness..."

"I intend to slaughter them all," I said absently. Jericho stared at me again. Goddamnit, I hate it when he does that.

"What? It's not genocide if they're already dead!"

He continued staring. "I'm not going to help you perform a supernatural ethnic cleansing."

"'Vampire' is not a fucking ethnicity, Jericho!"

He sighed, then crossed something off his list. "Alright. Werewolves."

"Real."

"I fucking hate you."

"Look, I didn't invent them."

"Strategic usefulness," He said, soldiering on.

"Useless. Spend most of their time having puppies and biting college students. Kill them too."

"Ashlan!"

"What!" I protested "they're annoying and they smell."

"We've had this discussion before, you prick. Alright. 'I cannot kill people-'"

"'-simply because they annoy me,'" I finished through grated teeth "look, the world would thank me. When I say smelly, think old, wet shag carpet. Mixed with human blood and ammonia. All the time."

"No, Ashlan."

"Your whole 'morality' thing is nothing but an excuse to harsh my mellow."

"Your murder-mellow, yes. Now let's move on down the list. Demons."

"Oh, come on," I said impatiently "one lives in our guest bedroom."

"Oh. Right. Zaszael. Tell him to copy down everyone's messages, not just his own." Jericho circled something.

"Tell him yourself, I have an underworld to subjegate."

"He listens to you. I think he's a prick."

"Fine, consider it done. Next on the list." I waved my hand.

"Alright, now we're moving on into the realms of impossibility," Jericho said with some relief "alright. Zombies."

"Real."

He made a small noise back in his throat. I turned around and he was staring at the ceiling.

"My world-view is suffering some damage," he said distantly "just give me a second."

"Look, zombies are easy. It takes like, zero magic to galvanize a corpse. Hey, I tell you what. Where's the nearest graveyard, I'll show you-"

"We are not going to the graveyard, and shut up about magic, I'll flip a bitch about it being real another time," He said. Alright. Let's...just continue. Dwarves."

"Not real."

"Thank God. Elves."

"Well, there are the swartelfa, the dark elves of mytho-"

"Moving on. Unicorns."

"Extinct."

He leveled another death-stare at me. I shrugged "what? They were good eatin'."

"Sea monsters."

"Just the one, and you've met him."

"Oh right. Rahab. Okay. Uh...golems."

"Real."

"Kappa."

"Real. I'm killing them too."

"Ashlan, goddamnit."

"Jericho, they kill people by jamming a fist up their ass and ripping out their organs."

"...yeah. Okay. Kill all the kappas."

"Only for the safety of your sphincter, Jericho."

"Stop talking like that, you freaking homo. Alright. Ghosts."

"Real. Real nuisance."

"Alright, ninjas."

It was my turn to stare at him "what?" he said "I like martial arts movies. Are there ninjas still out and about?"

"Not that I know of," I said, wracking my memory "The Black Oni ninja clan died out after their unsuccessful attack on the White House in 1941. I think they were it."

Jericho looked slightly crestfallen.

"But," I replied "there's still a clan of Hashasshin living in a secret compound under Mount Alamut."

"Okay. Cool."

"We'll have to kill them too."

"Ashlan!"

"They're fucking assassins!"

"What part of the supernatural world do you not intend to kill?" he asked, exasperated.

"Just the mermaids."

A moment of silence.

"...there are...?" he seemed unwilling to finish the setence.

"Yup. They have fabulous-"

"I'm going to go get hammered," he said suddenly, standing up and walking purposefully towards the kitchen

"Cooking sherry's in the top shelf."

"Go fuck yourself, nephilim."

"Love you too!" I called back, sitting down on the couch to see what was on TV.

I don't know. Random!

Writers Block: Also acceptable; Where Did You Get Those Magnificent Pythons?

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:47:46 GMT

What is the one question you've always wanted someone to ask you?

View 501 Answers

"My god, man! What have you done, Dr. von Acheson! By the blood of the martyrs and the bones of the saints, you madman, what have you doooooooooooone!?"

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

[sound of large switch being thrown]

Oh, why the hell not.

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:42:55 GMT

Explain your LiveJournal user-name to me. How did you settle on it? What is its significance to you, if any? Bonus: Explain your journal's title and, if applicable, its subtitle as well.

Ashendi is the name of a capricious, nasty-minded wind demon in my Amazing Fantasy Epic That Will Be Enormously Popular and Mean I Never Have To Work Again, also known as World-Breaker. This is my third livejournal username, following samael_elsinore, named after a capricious and nasty-minded mage from another amazing fantasy epic, which followed taaerlyn, the name of a capricious and nasty-minded evil cat demon thing in, you guessed it, yet another amazing fantasy epic that, in this case, happened to take the form of a Final Fantasy IV RPG.

Title: Look on My Journal, Ye Mighty, and Despair - a modified quotation from a oft-quoted Victorian poem about the laughable hubris of human narcisissm.

Subtitle: My Purple Hell With the Seven-Breasted Cannibal Women of Chubley is a direct quotation from the faux about-the-author written for Alan Moore for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, volume 2.

So, livejournal! What is up, my friends? Not much, you're probably saying. I here there are dire things afoot in LJland, but you know, I was on this site when it was like three college students with an uncomfortable goat fetish and I'll be here long after society crumbles and I'm a crazed derelict living in the ruins of an internet cafe, skinning the deadly Ur-Mice with a leatherman and writing my blog entries in ink made from my own blood and the dried dung of the mighty velocimammoth.

Life's doing okay. Foothill is, no joke, draining my will to live like some sort of vampiric reverse enema. Oh well! UC Santa Cruz better be damned greatful to have me around.

I have nothing to say to this crude forum, so, uh, later.

The Villainy Index

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:02:47 GMT

Check this out, peeps: at work, my manager received an e-mail pitched, basically, like this: because the holidays are so very, very hectic, if you happen to come across a store in your own time that needs help, well then, you should help them! For free! For "from a few minutes, to a few hours".

Now, don't get me wrong --I do, in fact, enjoy my job. But...not so much that I'd do it for free. What really gets my goat though is that every starbucks, regardless of business or location, has had hours shaved off their schedule. So, in order to compensate for one stupid decision, we should, uh, work for free?

I can just imagine the reasoning.

EXECUTIVE A: How do we cut costs, but maintain efficiency?
EXECUTIVE B: Hire people to work for free!
EXECUTIVE A: Brilliant!

The life of a pro bono barrista does not appeal, I'm afraid! I have no such sense of community that would lead me to work for nothing. For chrissakes, I made them pay me twenty dollars to clean up kiddy vomit just last week.

Geeeeeez.

Things I have learned

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:42:58 GMT

-December 2008? Can suck a bag of dicks.

-If you seek to move a 15 gallon fish take across your bedroom and up onto your dresser by yourself, it's a good idea to empty it first.*

-If you put Chris Lebedeff and I into the same room, we will almost instantly begin talking in some sort of nerdy variant on the freemason's code because we are, basically, the same person.

-I'm sorry, James Macavoy, but you don't make a convincing action hero. I hate to be the one to tell you.

That's about it for today.

*please note that I did, in fact, successfully move this fishtank due to my mammoth strength. It was simply...unpleasant.

Just 'Cause

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:07:32 GMT

The people have spoken!

Please note that it's been awhile since I read the book in question: not for all the blowjobs in the world would I willingly descend into the depths of masochism necessary to actually re-read this goddamn thing.

So with no further ado...

(LIGHTS UP on a GENERIC (MEDIEVAL) FANTASY WORLD. Enter ELVEN PRINCESS, and TWO GUARDS)

PRINCESS ~~LEIA~~: Alright, men, we've almost made it back to the Rebel Alliance with this plot device of ghastly significance.
GUARD 1: You mean the Vardin, ma'am?
GUARD 2: Wee-hoo-hoo-wee! Boop boop!
PRINCESS ~~LEIA~~: Yes. Of...course that's what I meant. Silly me.

(ENTER an ominously cloaked figure)

OMINOUSLY CLOAKED FIGURE: Mwa ha, think again! MAGIC MAGIC MAGIC!
GUARD ONE: Oh dear, oh dear! dies
GUARD 2: RRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOAAWWWW! dies
PRINCESS ~~LEIA~~: teleports a small, presumably important rock, immediately faints like delicate elven swan.
OMINOUSLY CLOAKED FIGURE: Damn it!

(LIGHTS UP on a TOTALLY APPRECIABLY DIFFERENT PART of the same fantasy world. Enter ERAGON, a blond farmboy dissatisfied with the conventional course of his life, who is about to have a date with destiny.)

ERAGON: tosses silky blond locks Oh man, I really hate my conventional life of conventionality. I wish that something out there would allow me to break free from the inevitable course of my life. Maybe I could sign up for the Imperial Guard like my friend Biggs-

(A large, magical WHUMP is heard.)

ERAGON: Oh wow, it's a little blue rock. Perhaps this is the sign I was looking for! Perhaps the world will open up, and I will explore it's mysteries, conquer it's foes, become an epic hero of-

(The SOUND of CRICKETS is heard)

ERAGON: You know, I bet I could hock this to the butcher for lots of money!

(LIGHTS UP on Eragon's BELOVED PEASANT VILLAGE. The smell of doom hangs palpably in the air.)

BUTCHER: What have you got for me today?
ERAGON: Okay, listen, I know I was supposed to hunt down some quality meats, but look what I found instead.
BUTCHER: Son, this is a rock.
ERAGON: I know! It's a really pretty rock!
BUTCHER: I sell meat. Not rocks. Besides, you listen to that?
ERAGON: What, the sounds of ominous strings?
BUTCHER: This here's a plot device. 'Sides, I hate you.
ERAGON: But why?
BUTCHER: Some vague reason involving your mysterious vanished mother! Because it's good characterization! Shut up! Get out of my store.

(a DEJECTED ERAGON exits, tossing his blond, silky locks with an air of disappointment.)

ERAGON: Oh well. I guess I'll try the baker and the candlestick maker next.

(Enter ~~OBI-WAN BELGARATH~~ Brom, village storyteller)

BROM: What've you got there, boy?
ERAGON: gasp You're a distinguished British stage actor!
BROM: Yes, and see where I've ended up?
ERAGON: Man, that's depressing.
BROM: Tell me about it. Anyway, let me see your rock.
ERAGON: Here! It's so pretty!

(OMINOUS SWELLING OF STRINGS)

BROM: Hmm. It is pretty.
ERAGON: And shiny!
BROM: Eragon, sometimes I think your Mysterious Vanished Mother and Equally Mysterious Vaguely Malevolent Father must have been cousins.
ERAGON: hair toss
BROM: Anyway, off you go. Say hello to your dragon for me.
ERAGON: Wait, what?
BROM: Tally ho, must be off. Pip pip!
ERAGON: Man, I hate it when he does that.

(INT: Eragon's quaint peasant cottage)

UNCLE: Where have you been!?
ERAGON: Nowhere doing nothing!
UNCLE: Go to your room!
ERAGON: Man, I hate my emotionally distant foster parent. If only something really awful would happen to him, almost immediately.

(A sound of CHIRPING CRICKETS)

ERAGON: Too bad that's unlikely! Now, to spend the next few hours contemplating the beauty of my rock.
ROCK: cracks
ERAGON: What the hell!?
ROCK: cracks open completely, revealing tiny baby dragon.
ERAGON: Oh man! It's a dragon! Now I can become a member of that legendary order of warrior magicians who where all slaughtered by a traitor from amongst their number when the Emperor took power! You know, the Jedi!
TINY BABY DRAGON: snorts
ERAGON: I mean, uh, a Rider.
TINY BABY DRAGON: ...
ERAGON: Why, what did I say?
TINY BABY DRAGON: ...
ERAGON: touches tiny baby dragon, gains conspicuous silvery mark on palm OW!

(INT: Eragon's BELOVED PEASANT VILLAGE. The "inevitable imminent doom" quotient has risen at least 30%)

ERAGON: Good day, village! Top of the morning to you!
BUTCHER: Up yours, Eragon!

(He enters BROM'S HERMITAGE)

ERAGON: Say, just hypothetically, you understand, if I happened to have a dragon -and I don't!- what would you in theory do to raise it?

(We all PAUSE to admire ERAGON, MASTER OF SUBTERFUGE)

BROM: Oh, no worries. It'll mostly take care of itself.
ERAGON: Gee, that's a load off. So what should I name it? I mean. Theoretically. If I...had a dragon.
BROM: Judging from pattern analysis, I'd say you should name it "Chewbacca".
ERAGON: That's a dumb name. If I had a dragon which I don't of course I wouldn't name it that.
BROM: Fine. Is your dragon blue?
ERAGON: It isn't...not blue.
BROM: Name it Sapphira.
ERAGON: God, you're smart.
BROM: Don't I know it. Give her kisses from me!
ERAGON: Creepy old man kisses to my nonexistant dragon. Got it!

(INT: Eragon's Quaint Peasant Cottage)

UNCLE: Eragon, you haven't hunted in awhile. We're...we're getting kind of hungry.
ERAGON: Shut it, uncle, I need to go care for my fabulous magical animal.
UNCLE: What!?
ERAGON: SHUT UP, YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD!

(We all stand in AWE of Eragon's POTENT YOUTHFUL TURMOIL)

SAPPHIRA: So I can talk now.
ERAGON: Wow! And you're still like...the size of a basketball!
SAPPHIRA: No time to waste!

(We are treated to a painfully short SERIES OF TRAINING MONTAGES, where Eragon and Sapphira explore the magical bond between them while Sapphira grows at approximately fifteen times the daily rate of bamboo.)

SAPPHIRA: So now I'm roughly the size of a barn.
ERAGON: Kinda funny how a giant, immortal lizard would evolve to grow that fast huh!
SAPPHIRA: Shut up, blondie, nobody likes it when you think.
ERAGON: stares Dragon pretty!
SAPPHIRA: There we go.

(INT: Beloved Peasant Village, or Future Site of Tragic Smoking Crater Heaped with Shattered Bodies)

(Enter a crowd of TOTALLY NOT ORCS, led by a pair of cloaked and mysterious raspy-voiced riders who are ABSOLUTELY NOT NAZGUL.)

ABSOLUTELY NOT A NAZGUL: We're looking for a pretty rock.
BUTCHER: This smells like a deal! A local blond farmboy has your rock.
ABSOLUTELY NOT A NAZGUL: That was surprisingly easy.
BUTCHER: I take gold! No need to thank me-
ABSOLUTELY NOT A NAZGUL: Alright, burn the village to the ground, kill some babies, find the farmboy, and roast this fat douche over an open flame.
BUTCHER: Wait, but why?!
ABSOLUTELY NOT A NAZGUL: Consistency, I suppose. Go, Totally Not Orcs!
TOTALLY NOT ORCS: We're called "urkles".
ABSOLUTELY NOT A NAZGUL: You are fooling absolutely nobody.
TOTALLY NOT ORCS: Uruk-hai! Uruk-hai!

(The village is SET UPON by HORDES OF VILE MONSTERS. The audience ATTEMPTS to FEIGN SURPRISE, poorly.)

(MEANWHILE, somewhere nice, with butterflies)

ERAGON: Man, I love my dragon!
SAPPHIRA: cuddles
ERAGON: Aw, you're so sweet.
SAPPHIRA: Let's go kill the Emperor.
ERAGON: Maybe for your birthday. Say, I hope every thing's alright back at my Beloved Peasant Village.
SAPPHIRA: ...
ERAGON: Say, what's all that smoking coming from?
SAPPHIRA: Barbecue!
ERAGON: And the screams!
SAPPHIRA: Cannibal barbecue!

(INT: Smoking Abattoir Hellhole, Formerly Beloved Peasant Village)

ERAGON: drops to knees NOOOOOOOO! Damn you, Emperor Galbatorix! I swear revenge!

(ENTER BROM)

BROM: Surely you need me along.
ERAGON: What, on my epic quest for revenge? You look kind of brittle.
BROM: I know - brittle like a fox!
ERAGON: There's no arguing with that logic!
BROM: Come, let us embark!

(They DO SO)

(INT: A Field Somewhere)

BROM: You need to learn the art of the sword, boy.
ERAGON: Really? Awesome!
SAPPHIRA: No, no he doesn't. He has a giant dragon.
ERAGON: You know, the magic reptile has a point.
BROM: Did I mention the sword is extremely shiny?
ERAGON: Sword! Gimme gimme!
BROM: Here is a sword that...may or may not have belonged to your father. An elegant weapon...from a more civilized age.
SAPPHIRA: Really? What do people use now?
BROM: Mostly they make do with rocks.
ERAGON: Sword pretty!
BROM: Don't hold it by that end, Eragon.
ERAGON: drops it Sword sharp!
BROM: Maybe you'd better just stick with your dragon.

(A PAINFULLY SHORT SERIES of TRAINING MONTAGES begin, as Eragon becomes a MASTER SWORDSMAN)

(INT: Another field, somewhere else, sometime later.)

ERAGON: Say, what's the name of our genre again? Fantasy?
SAPPHIRA: Oh hello, I'm a talking dragon, have we been introduced?
ERAGON: I know. But it's sword and...something else.
SAPPHIRA: Sorcery.
ERAGON: Yeah, that! Make with the magic, old man!
BROM: You cannot simply receive the limitless powers of magic!
ERAGON: I can't?
BROM: No. Now, I need to go do something. Head to that abandoned village and look around for a bit.

(EXIT BROM)

ERAGON: Man, this village is depressing.
TOTALLY NOT ORCS: Surprise!
ERAGON: AH! MAGIC MAGIC MAGIC!
TOTALLY NOT ORCS: die
ERAGON: faints

(Yet ANOTHER PAINFULLY SHORT SERIES of TRAINING MONTAGES, in which Eragon learns to unlock the HIDDEN POWERS OF MAGIC.)

ERAGON: So how does this work, anyway?
BROM: So you gather your will together, and say a word-
ERAGON: So it's the will and the word, right?
DAVID EDDINGS: coughs significantly
BROM: No! Don't be stupid. It's the Will and the Specific word which happens to be in Norwegian for some reason.
ERAGON: Man, magic comes from Norway?!
BROM: And other cool things, as well.
ERAGON: Awesome!

(INT: A Seaside town)

ERAGON: Alright gramps, what gives?
BROM: Well, your uncle was tortured with a rare form of magic torture oil.
ERAGON: ...and?
BROM: Well, it's based off of oil they use to polish pearls.
ERAGON: They polish those?
BROM: Yes. And this is where that oil comes from!
ERAGON: So if we go around randomly asking people, surely they're remember the inhuman beasts!
BROM: Yes!
ERAGON: Ohmigod, it's so nuanced I just could scream!
BROM: Me too!
ERAGON: Eeeee!
BROM: Aaaaah!

(LATER THAT NIGHT IN ERAGON'S DREAMS)

PRINCESS ~~LEIA~~: Help me, Obi-Wan Belgarath, you're my only hope!
ERAGON: Woah, it's a smokin' hot dame!
PRINCESS ~~LEIA~~: And hurry it up, please, the whole "torture" thing is getting pretty old.
ERAGON: Holy crap!

(ERAGON WAKES UP)

ERAGON: Brom! Brom!
BROM: huzzawha?
ERAGON: Brom, you know all this magic crap. What does it mean when I dream about a girl?
BROM: ...Hmm.
ERAGON: She was all tied up and sweaty, if that helps.
BROM: Well...uh, Eragon, you see, when a boy reaches a certain age-
ERAGON: Maybe it's a magical vision of my soulmate!
BROM: ...maybe! Yeah, let's go with that.
ERAGON: AWESOME!
BROM: Dodged that bullet. Whew.

PART TWO LATER! Next time, we meet a mysterious stranger, fight another mysterious stranger, yet another mysterious stranger dies and dragons go "waugh!".

I decided to divide this little exercise into two parts because

A: Bugger it's long and
B: Scouring my brain and realizing just how much of a shitty book I read once six years ago I remember exactly is more than a little creepy.

Merry Christmas, darlings!

Just 'Cause

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 05:16:09 GMT

ATTENTION, SUPERFRIENDS!

Since my recent excursion into literary criticism (re: outright mockery) jettisoned me to heretofore unknown heights of power and manliness, I have decided that Sam's Synopsis Theater will be a permanent, weekly addition to this blog. Hopefully, within four to six months, bitches will be lined up outside my bedroom door, and I'll type one handed while chugging from a bottle of the finest brandy as dusky lads with smoldering eyes fan me with palm fronds. I will recline on my writing divan for hours at a time, in a room heady with opium-smoke.

Or not. In any case, I REQUIRE SOMETHING FROM YOU. Let's put it to a vote, shall we?

View Poll: NEXT VICTIM!

Remember, democracy is apparently a good thing! So vote your bastard brains out!

Later, lovers. Merry Christmas.

ATT: WOMEN

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:10:22 GMT

Alright, can you guys answer me something? Why the hell have I seen the begginings of three news cycles about Oprah's ass? Seriously. Yesterday and today, each station was doing some kind of piece about how, tragically, Oprah has gained forty pounds.

WHO. FUCKING. CARES.

Well, actually, that's an easy one. Apparently lots of people care. My question is: why? I mean okay yes I suppose Oprah does nice things every so often but in what sense is charitable work precluded by having an enormous ass? I just don't understand.

Other women gain forty pounds and we never hear a word. Hell, the prom queen from my high school has done it several times consequitively.

Oprah gaining forty pounds is not a tragedy! Let's reserve that word for, say, Mumbai, or something.

Do you guys ever get that feeling while watching television, that feeling of "I don't know what the fuck demographic this is catering to-- just that it isn't me?"

Well.

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:11:46 GMT

Saw the Conservatory Children's Show yesterday! It was an...interesting take on the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Highly abdridged, and, of course, like all Conservatory child-friendly productions, written by some form of ham-handed lackwit. Here is my modest effort to perhaps retool this children's show for future conservatory productions.

(ENTER stage right four charming British schoolchildren, including LUCY, EDMUND, PETER, and SUSAN)

SUSAN: Quickly, chaps! We've got four lines of dialog to set up non-Narnia!
PETER: Oh man I'm so glad we're here in this creepy manor house instead of being bombed all to hell by the Luftwaffe!
LUCY: Me too! Even though the professor smells like mothballs!
EDMUND: I wish I was back home being bombed because I am a sulky douchebag!
PETER: We all wish that, Ed.
SUSAN: Shut up all of you! We're wasting time! Lucy, go hide in the wardrobe. Peter, go check out some swords. Edmund, sit there and sulk.
LUCY: Right, Susan!
PETER: Yes ma'am!
EDMUND: sulks
SUSAN: Good show, Edmund.

(The Pevensies scatter to the four winds; Lucy enters the wardrobe. Sparkling noises are heard as the MAGICAL LAND OF NARNIA APPEARS. Enter MRS. UNICORN and MR. CENTAUR)

MRS. UNICORN: I wasn't in the books!
MR. CENTAUR: Me neither!
MR. CENTAUR and MRS. UNICORN: exeunt

(Enter FAUN TUMNUS, Regrettably not portrayed here by James Macavoy, though Kevin is still four kinds of sexy)

TUMNUS: Man, being a spy for the Evil Vile Witch-Queen sucks. I just have to sit here, all day, making sure no daughters of Eve show up and wreck all our shit. Small, luscious daughters of Eve...with their sultry eyes and their come-hither lips and- NO, NO, NO MR. TUMNUS! BAD FAUN!

(Enter LUCY)

Lucy: Wow, a huge magical land! This is so cool!
TUMNUS: beats himself with flute
LUCY: Oh, how interesting! A sadomasochistic animal-man! Hello!
TUMNUS: AHH! It's not what it looks like! It makes the hurting stop!
LUCY: I'm Lucy!
TUMNUS: I'm Tumnus! I kidnap children for a living.
LUCY: What?
TUMNUS: Nevermind that! Have some tea.
LUCY: Well, my mother told me never to accept drinks from strangers but...just this once can't hurt!
TUMNUS: Have I mentioned that your skin is like alabaster?
LUCY: What?
TUMNUS: Nevermind! Drink up, it's getting cold!
LUCY: Tumnus, this shit is not on.
TUMNUS: DO YOU KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE ROPHYNOL IS IN A MAGICAL FAIRYLAND?!
LUCY: I...did you just get like, 500% more shifty, or what?
TUMNUS: Just go. Go! Leave Narnia!
LUCY: Alright!

(LUCY exits)

TUMNUS: Good, I have betrayed my Queen with no consequences! Huzzah!

(Enter FENRIS, HE-WOLF OF THE S.S)

FENRIS: HEIL JADUS!
TUMNUS: Aww dang.
FENRIS: I'll leave this order of execution here in case someone wanders by here immediately and wants to know. Come on, you creepy little bugger.
TUMNUS: Can I at least bring my flute?
FENRIS: No, you may not bring your flute.

(TUMNUS, FENRIS EXIT. Enter MR. CENTAUR, MRS. UNICORN, and MR. and MRS. BEAVER)

MR. CENTAUR: Someone must defend the humans when they return! I cannot!
MRS. UNICORN: Me neither! Beavers, it's up to you!
MR. BEAVER: But why? We're beavers.
MR. CENTAUR: Because we weren't in the book!
MRS. UNICORN: Neener neener!

(MR. CENTAUR and MRS. UNICORN prance off, giggling)

MRS. BEAVER: I hate those blasted horse things.

(Meanwhile, in Merry Olde Englande)

LUCY: It was so cool! It was a magical fairyland!
EDMUND: Fairylands are boring. This is boring. Magic sucks.
LUCY: Come on, Edmund! Let's go adventure in Narnia!

(Sparkling noises)

EDMUND: Oh. Well. Huge magical world in the back of a cupboard. That's cool. I guess.
LUCY: Wait! Where's that creepy yet oddly compelling little animal person?
EDMUND: Oh man, animal people? This sucks.
LUCY: You wait here while I try to go find my strapping, hairy-legged, dreamy-eyed...
EDMUND: What?
LUCY: NOTHING! SHUT UP! DON'T JUDGE ME! YOU WAIT HERE!
EDMUND: Fine. God.

(LUCY exits. ENTER the WHITE WITCH)

WHITE WITCH: I smell the blood of small, English children! It smells like tweed! WHAT IS THIS TOMFOOLERY?!
EDMUND: Er, hello?
WHITE WITCH: Oh! It's a charming little human child. How quaint. How droll. This is a prophecy, and I'm thoroughly screwed.
EDMUND: I like your ruffles.
WHITE WITCH: SILENCE! I need to think of what to do...I could simply sink a dagger into his throat or turn him to stone, thus preventing the prophecy, but NO! Instead, I shall feed him hot chocolate.
EDMUND: I love hot chocolate!
WHITE WITCH: Of course. I'm very nice, aren't I.
EDMUND: Very nice, ma'am!
WHITE WITCH: and I'm very pretty, aren't I?
EDMUND: You're smokin', ma'am.
WHITE WITCH: And you want to go get your brother and sisters and lead them back to my huge, ominous icy fortress over there, don't you.
EDMUND: I want it so bad!
WHITE WITCH: Good! See you later, then!

(WHITE WITCH exits. Enter LUCY, looking woebegone)

LUCY: I couldn't find him, Ed, he's gone. Gone!
EDMUND: Er...let's go look for him!
LUCY: What? I thought you hated Narnia?
EDMUND: On reflection, no, this whole magical fairyland thing is first-rate. Let's go get our domineering, infantilizing brother and shrewish bitch of a sister so they can join the fun too!
LUCY: Alright! And then we'll find...find...find my sweet baboo?
EDMUND: Wow! Not touching that for anything. Let's go!

(They EXIT the Magical Land of Narnia, and immediately re-enter with SUSAN and PETER in tow)

SUSAN: ...I don't like this. Let's go home.
PETER: Thank you, Edmund.
LUCY: We have to find Mr. Tumnus!
PETER: Why, exactly?
LUCY: SHUT UP, PETER, YOU DON'T OWN ME.
PETER: Wait! What is this scrap of paper lying on the ground!
SUSAN: Read it!
PETER: "By Order of Her Majesty, Mr. Tumnus has been taken away for being kind of a creepy little nonce. Signed, Fenris Ulf, head of the Lupine Gestapo!"
LUCY: gives a heart cry
EDMUND: Maybe he's in that big, icy fortress over there.
SUSAN: Alright, let's check it out.
PETER: Capital suggestion!
LUCY: I sense fun times ahead!

(Enter MR. BEAVER)

MR. BEAVER: I think you should come with me instead.
LUCY: Alright.
SUSAN: Sounds nice.
PETER: Good plan!
EDMUND: WHAT?! You're taking the suggestions of a talking beaver over your own brother?
LUCY: Yes, basically.
EDMUND: Oh, you guys suck!

(They enter the house of the BEAVERS)

EDMUND: Oh man, dinner!
PETER: Always thinking of your stomach, fat boy?
EDMUND: Always thinking of your hair, gym queen?
SUSAN: Knock it off! You're making us look bad in front of the...actually kind of horrible beaver-people.
MRS. BEAVER: Oh, hello children! Eat up! Also, the witch is evil, the four of you are monarchs, and you need to go meet a giant talking cat and solve all our problems.
PETER: Wait, what?
MRS. BEAVER: My husband has prepared a lovely poem to mark the occasion-
MR. BEAVER: clears throat "When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone-"
LUCY: No, it's alright, we get it.
MR. BEAVER: crestfallen
SUSAN: So I'm a Queen, is basically what you're saying.
MR. BEAVER: Yes. I...it rhymed.
SUSAN: Cor! Bloody knew it.
PETER: Wait! Nobody's said anything sulky or petulant in like, five minutes!
MR. BEAVER: I did.
PETER: Nobody important said anything sulky or petulant! Where's Edmund!?

(MEANWHILE, in the snowy forest)

EDMUND: Hee hee hee!

(Back to the Beavers!)

MR. BEAVER: He's going to the White Witch!
SUSAN: We have to rescue him. Come, let us fly!
SANTA CLAUSE: Or perhaps you can get presents instead.
SUSAN: Edmund who? Gimme!
SANTA CLAUSE: Peter, here is a sword and shield. Go kill stuff with it. Susan, here's a bow and arrow that you never use, and a horn to blow in case you get scared or break a nail. Lucy, he's some magical moon juice and a knife. It's sharp, don't poke anybody with it.
ELF: No touching the Clause! Back the fuck up!
PEVENSIES: Thanks, Santa!
SANTA CLAUSE: Mr. Beaver, I fixed your dam. Mrs. Beaver, I gave you a sewing machine, to further your life of feminine bondage.
MR. BEAVER: Thanks, Santa!
MRS. BEAVER: Gee, thanks, C.S Lewis!
SUSAN: Oh, sister, you've got nothing to complain about.

(INT: the Witches Castle)

EDMUND: Hello lover! Where is my hot chocolate?
WHITE WITCH: Man, what is with you englishmen? Is it the inbreeding?
EDMUND: You invited me!
WHITE WITCH: Where the hell are your sisters and your impeccably groomed brother!?
EDMUND: Man, birds do dig the grooming. Damn.
WHITE WITCH: WELL!?!
EDMUND: They're off to meet Aslan!
WHITE WITCH: NO, don't say that name!
EDMUND: What, Aslan?
WHITE WITCH: BITCH.
EDMUND: I'M SORRY!
WHITE WITCH: Come, I must saddle my reindeer! We must intercept these children and make them dead!
EDMUND: Wait, what?
WHITE WITCH: No, wait! Drat! Spring has rendered my reindeer useless! For some reason! Come, bind his hands and whip him ahead of us!
EDMUND: Wow, uh, not sure I'm into that, could we take it kind of slow-
WHITE WITCH: Come on, we haven't got all day. FENRIS!

(Das Lied der Deutschen plays; enter FENRIS)

FENRIS: clicks his heels Jah?
WHITE WITCH: Go kill some children. Not this one, I've already got him tied up.
FENRIS: Jawohl, mein fuhrer!

(FENRIS, WHITE WITCH, and appealingly bound EDMUND exit)

(MEANWHILE, at the Stone Table)

A VOICE: Ladies and Gentlemen, anthropomorphic animals of all shapes and sizes! It is our very great pleasure to announce the Big Guy, the Great Lion, that Leonine Liberaci and the son of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea, ASLAN!
(enter ASLAN, King of the Lions)

ASLAN: I have arrived!
ANIMAL HOST: applauds
LUCY: Oh my! He's so...so...
PETER: I know! And his hair is perfect!
ASLAN: Of course! So you're Peter the Magnificent.
PETER: And you're Jesus basically!
SUSAN: Come on, Lucy, let's give them some privacy.
LUCY: SEE, I'M NOT WEIRD!

(SUSAN and LUCY exit)

ASLAN: So where's your brother?
PETER: Who? Tell me, what's your grooming regiment like?
ASLAN: Punishing.
PETER: ...!

(A Horn Sounds)

ASLAN: Susan's horn!
PETER: dreamily Who?

(Enter SUSAN AND LUCY, pursued by ~~bear~~ Fenris.)

SUSAN: OH MAN I AM TOTALLY NOT EQUIPPED FOR THIS.
LUCY: EEEEEEE!

ASLAN: Peter, you must slay him!
Peter: But you're a lion, and like seven feet tall. And you're Jesus!
ASLAN: Come on Peter, haven't got all day. Time's a wasting!
PETER: And there's like, fifteen tigers and leopards right behind you!
ASLAN: It is your destiny!

(Peter draws his sword, circles Fenris)

FENRIS: What? In an army of lions and gryphons, you field a twelve-year-old? Do you respect me so little?
ASLAN: Even less than that, Fenris.
FENRIS: This blows! You're always like this!
PETER: stabs
FENRIS: ACH DU LIEBER! I am slain!
PETER: That was surprisingly easy!
FENRIS: Runs off, apparently not all that slain.
ASLAN: Pursue him, flunkeys! I need a moment alone with Peter. Oh, and rescue the other one while you're at it.

(Exit ANIMAL HOST, sniggering softly)

ASLAN: I knight thee Sir Peter Fenrisbane!
PETER: Sweet!

(MEANWHILE, in a wooded glen)

WHITE WITCH: Alright, this whole chase-on-foot thing? Blows.
EDMUND: I'm...getting kind of tired...and I'm chafing...in places...
WHITE WITCH: Let's just knife the little twit and get it over with.
EDMUND: No! I thought we had something! Plus you promised me chocolate!
WHITE WITCH: You'll get all the chocolate you want...IN HELL!

(ENTER FENRIS ULF)

FENRIS: My queen, I die!
WHITE WITCH: What?!
FENRIS: Observe. dies
WHITE WITCH: Goddamnit!
EDMUND: Look, there's a bunch of animal people!
WHITE WITCH: Drat, you're right! The Animal host approaches! I fleeeeeeee!
EDMUND: Well that was fortunate.

(LATER, back at Chez Aslan)

EDMUND: Hey everyone, sorry for being a prick.
LUCY: It's okay, Edmund. We forgive you.
SUSAN: We're just glad you're okay!
PETER: Yeah. Prick.
EDMUND: What?
PETER: Nothing.
ASLAN: See, I kill winter, bring Christmas, am Jesus and fix families! I'm like if Dr. Phil were a Lion and awesome! Go me!
ANIMAL HOST: GO ASLAN!

(ENTER WHITE WITCH,)

WHITE WITCH: Not so fast, kitty!
ASLAN: What do you want?!
EDMUND: And where is my damned hot chocolate?
SUSAN: Edmund, you need to let this go.
WHITE WITCH: Well, remember the magic?
ASLAN: Which magic?
WHITE WITCH: The deep kind.
ASLAN: Oh right. I know...deeps...
WHITE WITCH: Well, the little one's a traitor. That means he's mine. Mine to murder. So, if you don't mind...
ASLAN: Let us briefly negotiate!
WHITE WITCH AND ASLAN: negotiations ensue
ASLAN: The White Witch has relinquished her claim! Go me!
WHITE WITCH: See you later, kitty-cat!

(EXIT WHITE WITCH AND DWARF)

ASLAN: Everyone leave except the little girls. I want them to watch.
ANIMAL HOST: exuents
LUCY: Er, Aslan, what exactly are we-
ASLAN: Shush! Go hide in the corner!
AN ENGLISHMAN: Seen but not heard!
SUSAN: To hell with you, C.S Lewis!

(They hide)

(enter WHITE WITCH and ASSORTED CACKLING HOBGOBLINS)

WHITE WITCH: Oh man, this is really so, so awesome.
ASLAN: Just get it over with!
WHITE WITCH: Aren't we eager! Well first, I'm going to tie you up!
ASLAN: Do your worst!
WHITE WITCH: Then I'm going to stab the hell out of you!
ASLAN: If you think you're hard enough!
WHITE WITCH: ...but first, I'm going to shave you!
ASLAN: ...YOU FUCKING BITCH! Spare me, take the little english twit, just don't-
ASLAN: is shorn, and then stabbed.
WHITE WITCH: Sometimes, it's so good to be me. Let's go, goblins!

(THEY EXIT)

LUCY: Well, this...kind of sucks.
SUSAN: I know! Wait, where'd he go?

(ENTER ASLAN ~~THE WHITE~~)

ASLAN: Nope, turns out I'm okay. Let's go to the witches castle!
SUSAN: But, Aslan, how-
ASLAN: I'm OKAY. Let's GO. To the witches CASTLE. Capiche?
LUCY: I call bullshit on this.
ASLAN: Don't blame me, blame C.S Lewis!

(THEY EXIT)

(MEANWHILE, at Chez Aslan)

EDMUND: Oh man, these hobgoblins are kicking our ass.
PETER: I know, right!
HOBGOBLINS: Rar!
ANIMAL HOST: OH, BUGGER.

(MEANWHILE, at the White Witch's icy doom citadel)

ASLAN: Let us revive these-
LUCY: Tumnus.
ASLAN: Let us bring them to fight-
LUCY: Tumnus, motherfucker, Tumnus.
ASLAN: No time for that! Let us go kill some people!
SUSAN: Man, Jesus sucks!
C.S LEWIS: I HEARD THAT, YOUNG LADY.

(INT: Chez Aslan, Epic Battleground)

ASLAN: Worry not! I am back from the dead, and come with another, slightly larger animal host!
PETER: Was he dead? I don't remember him being dead.
WHITE WITCH: Curses! Let us fight to the death!
ASLAN AND WHITE WITCH: fight
WHITE WITCH: dies
ANIMAL HOST: HURRAH!
EDMUND: Why didn't he do that in the first place?
PETER: Shut up, Edmund.
ASLAN: Yes! Back from the dead, bringing Christmas, and ruined her shit. I am so awesome!
SMOULDERING LEOPARD TEMPTRESS: So, Edmund...do you work out?
EDMUND: I'm eleven.
SMOULDERING LEOPARD TEMPTRESS: I'm not hearing a "no"!

(ENTER TUMNUS, carrying a box)

TUMNUS: I was somewhere doing something! Here are some crowns!
LUCY: TUMNUS!
ASLAN: No time for that! I crown thee Peter the Super Hot! I crown thee Edmund the Blond! I crown thee Susan the Sexually Precocious! I crown thee Lucy the Ingenue!
EDMUND: Sweet!
PETER: AWESOME!
LUCY: Oh, how lovely!
SUSAN: I'm Susan the what?
C.S LEWIS: You heard the man!

ASLAN: Of course, then they left Narnia!
PETER: Wait, already, but-
ASLAN: AND THEN THEY LEFT NARNIA!
PEVENSIES: leave
ASLAN: But they will all someday return, except for Susan, because she likes nylons. And boys. And lipstick.
TUMNUS: plays a gentle flute
ASLAN: Very nice, Tumnus, very nice.
TUMNUS: I like it when you pat my shoulder, sir. Do it again.
ASLAN: No. No, I'm...not going to do that.

(LIGHTS DOWN)

I AM A FUCKING GOD.

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:37:03 GMT

Well, Blue is dead. He stopped letting me feed him and could barely open his mouth, so we had him put to sleep yesterday.

It was absolutely the right thing to do. In the next few days he would have suffered unbearably, and I couldn't do that to him. So I let him go. It was the right thing to do.

Of course, that doesn't stop me from feeling like the biggest asshole in the world.

It really hurt this morning when I opened my eyes and didn't see him curled up next to my head, or sleeping on my heater vent, biting my mouse cord. They'd been longtime enemies, you see.

Fuck, man. I really tried.

Fine, heather, have it your way.

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:24:22 GMT

To say I've spent the last week cleaning my room is to do the thing no justice. Say instead I have spent the time assaulting my bedroom, whose megalithic piles of crap are performing a valiant rearguard action against my efforts. Call it a siege. A Blitzkrieg, even. I have perpetrated a cleaning atrocity; a Holocaust against dirt and clutter.

The most marked difference is now my bookshelf contains fifty percent fewer magical, sarcastic talking animals. I just have one bookshelf, and 500% too many books, so some things had to go. Goodbye, David Eddings! Your nineteen novels of Red vs Blue are with me no longer. Mercedes Lackey, you knew this was coming; not more of your stupid horses or your stupid Heralds or your stupid elves or your stupid talking nympho griffins. No more, I say! No more.

Steven Brust, you may stay. I love you yet. Neal Stephenson, the two awesome 3/4s of books I enjoy may remain, but you may consider yourself on probation. No more tweens getting raped by mutants, please. I'd appreciate it. All of my lovely vertigo comics, you have a shelf all your own; Lucifer, you're going in the bin as soon as I get all of Ex Machina or Fables. I'm sorry, Lucers, that's just how this has to be. You should have used your infinite will to suck a little less.

Kitty Update: Feeding him a third of a liter through a tiny plastic syringe is still no fun, but he seems to be doing okay I guess? Aside from not eating, he's pretty much the same cat plus drool. I'm deeply confused.

And now, since it is OFFICIALLY december...

1: I want to read a novel where vampires are goddamn monsters, not immortal glam superbeings who bitch all the time. It's like, seriously, dudes, enough already. It's akin to hearing celebrities bitch about the terrible plight of being famous and ludicrously wealthy.

2. I need my bell rung. Seriously. Somebody, find me an obliging friend with low self-esteem to service me. It's been way, way, WAY too long.

3: As usual, I desire vast, possibly necromantic powers. Seriously. Army of demons.

4: A hydrogen bomb, that I can hardwire to my brain and be as cool as Dmitri Ravinoff.

Blargh.

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:38:19 GMT

So, apparently, they're making a Thomas Kinkaide Christmas movie.

...what?

Fuck this shit, I'm converting to Islam.

(Note: I am delighted that my spellcheck wanted to make "Kinkaide" into "Kink Aide" because man does that set the imagination alight!)

Hmm, delicious.

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:01:41 GMT

So apparently Twilight sucks! Is anybody honestly surprised? I think in the next film, they should team up with ~~Bel~~Eragon and his Magic Telepathy Dragon Who is Blue and Therefor Named Sapphira (GET IT? GET IT? IT'S CAUSE SHE BE BLUE) and fight Emperor Galbasomething until Anne Rice and David Eddings join forces and explode them all to death.

Maybe they can help Tom Hanks solve a mystery vaguely involving the Catholic epistolatory hierarchy and gain the illusive "triple crown" of crappy book fad movies.

In Vatican City, they are joined by a telepathic barmaid and her Vampire Lover, who as a contrast to the two swoony ones, spend all of their time talking about how difficult their relationship is and having unbelievably kinky sex because you can do that on HBO.

Let's have Peter Jackson direct it so it'll be four hours longer than it needs to be!

Hooray!

And just like that...

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:34:35 GMT

You know, it strikes me as singularly amazing that I have somehow gone my whole life without knowing this "Heather" person. She is like my guardian angel; no, like my fairy godmother, clad in woolen worsted with wings of tweed, gazing dispassionately at my fuss through a sparkling monocle. Then, with an exasperated sigh at my fearful lack of decorum, she brandishes her magic wand and makes with the moon-magic, if only to stopper the never-ending tide of my shrill, unbecoming complaints.

Perhaps someday I will meet her in real life, but until then she is this benevolent internet presence, whose ongoing quest to instill me with some modicum of common dignity will no doubt become a Sisyphean epic when she realizes that she is fighting against my inherent contrariness; and that there is no victory in a war that cannot end.

Here's to you, Heather, and your remarkable moon magic.

(Also, as a side note? It is really odd that semagic doesn't know the word "internet". Let's see if it knows "blog".)

(Yes. Yes it does. Has "internet" been rendered passe? am I behind the times, falling from the forefront of fashion!? Oh good heavens! What will the other girls in my cotillion think!?)

For a change of pace!

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:43:57 GMT

As a sort of break from the norm, let me use this, my blog, to complain about something.

WHY THE FUCK CAN I NOT FIND A SINGLE GODDAMN COPY OF KUNG FU PANDA?!

No, seriously! Why not?! I want to watch it because I watched it eight times while I had typhoid in Ecuador because it made me feel good and believe in myself and goddamnit world why must you take such obvious relish in my pain.

I wanted to watch a heartwarming tale about a noodle-loving panda who learns the ancient mysteries of Kung Fu and I cannot, because once again a crass and unfeeling Providence conspires to shit in my mouth.

So, uh, anyway. What's up, guys? Tell me something that's going on in your life, unless it's gross. That means NO MENSTRUATION TALK, LADIES. I have not reached this pinnacle of human achievement to be bogged down in a conversational quagmire of feminine secretions.

Fuck.

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:35:52 GMT

Well. Cat has cancer. 2008 can officially go fuck itself.

Scifi!

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 06:24:17 GMT

You know, I've been on a bit of a sci-fi kick, and you know what bothers me? Screwing aliens.

It's like, not only does every creature in the universe kind of look human, or at least like bipedal monkeys who happen to be a different color, but all of them (a) do it like we do and (b) think the men/women of Earth are just super hot.

So you're an intrepid human space explorer, right? Perhaps you are a dastardly rogue, or a loose cannon, or a former mercenary, or just a charming milquetoast bumming his way across an infinite Multiverse with a ray gun in your pocket and a melody in your heart. Suddenly, a luscious space-maiden appears!

SPACE MAIDEN: You have a pleasing form, earth-man.
RUGGED SPACE CAPTAIN: Er, me?
SPACE MAIDEN: Please! Teach me of this earth-thing you call love!
RUGGED SPACE CAPTAIN: Well, that's the best offer I've had in fifteen parsecs.

Of course, in science fiction none of the terribly obvious (to me) pratfalls ever wind up being an issue. Like boning a mermaid, there are some basic anatomical concerns that raises putting-what-where to near crisis levels. These concerns are explained below:

Problem the First: Interspecies Sex Crimes: What Not to Do

Last time I checked, there wasn't really a manual for this kind of thing. Unless you are intimately acquainted with the customs of the alien race in question, how does one know what is appropriate? Perhaps your idea of vanilla is their rocky road. But it could be exponentially worse. Suppose you hesitantly caress one orifice of seventeen and are instantly treated to her outraged expression before you are transported nude and trembling to an alien tribunal who sentence you to one trillion years of forced labor in the antimatter mines in the deepest depths of space.

Suppose the reverse is true! Perhaps her species has sex by eviscerating her partner and laying a thousand quivering eggs in their struggling torso before sealing them into an airtight container to germinate. What if this is the status quo?

Problem the Second: Darling, are you in yet?

This one bears little explanation.

SPACE MAIDEN: Wait, that's it?
RUGGED SPACE CAPTAIN: Er, yes?
SPACE MAIDEN: But it's only in three dimensions.
RUGGED SPACE MAN: Wait, what do you mean 'only'?
SPACE MAIDEN: No no, sweetheart, it's alright, I'm sure I'll love it.

Then as your make sweet love to your star princess you realize that she is lying there completely bored because thirty-six of her erogenous zones are in dimensions your monkey brain cannot comprehend, let alone pleasure.

SPACE MAIDEN: No, no. That was...really great.
RUGGED SPACE CAPTAIN: Really, because I can try to address your extra-dimensional-
SPACE MAIDEN: No, you cannot.
RUGGED SPACE CAPTAIN: ...
SPACE MAIDEN: Because you are an insect, with the mind of an ant.

Problem the Third: The Vengeful Husband Who is the Eater of Worlds

Similar to spy movies, it is inevitable that your sensual alien love-puppet is also the lover/daughter/mother of some grotesquely evil Alien Overlord.

SPACE MAIDEN: That was nice.
RUGGED SPACE CAPTAIN: That was really nice.

Suddenly, the howling of a thousand damned and screaming souls is heard, as if from a great distance. A rip opens in the very fabric of space and time.

SPACE MAIDEN: Oh no!
RUGGED SPACE CAPTAIN: What the hell!? Oh man do I need my pants!
SPACE MAIDEN: Darling, it's not what it looks like!

He emerges, dripping fangs and ichor, a beast of unimaginable powers, ruiner of planets, eater of life

ALIEN OVERLORD: WHAT THE HELL CHERYL WHAT THE HELL
RUGGED SPACE CAPTAIN: Oh, look, man, she totally said she was-

A sudden wet sound as every molecule in the Rugged Space Captain's body bursts, as though from a stick of dynamite, blown to flinders by His Merest Gaze.

SPACE MAIDEN: ...you know, I really do love you.
ALIEN OVERLORD: SILENCE YOUR CATERWAULING, WOMB-ON-FEET. I HAVE A COSMOS TO SUBJUGATE.
SPACE MAIDEN: We never talk anymore.

To summarize: having sex with an alien is deeply, deeply inadvisable.

Behold!

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:30:29 GMT

Behold and tremble, for I have, through dint of my magic, sent this entry back in time!

So anyhow people, what is up.

Kitty is still coked out, and now in addition to the manifold delights of a methadone cat I also have the singular pleasure of feeding him thrice daily with a syringe. Oh yes, imagine how cooperative he is. I think the reasoning goes something like this:

VET: Alright, Sam, please take this plastic syringe, fill it with liquefied cat food, and stick it into the mouth of something with claws, fangs, and anger management issues. Go!
ME: Why do you want me to do this terrible thing?
VET: Because I hate that you live.
ME: ...
VET: I am personally invested in your suffering.
ME: ...
VET: Your kitty looks hungry! Chop chop!
ME: ...I'm kind of turned on a little.

So more about life tomorrow. Just note, people: the bears are on standby. They are ever hungry.