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minkhollow*You know, it's really hard to read philosophy stuff on a computer screen (which I have to do since the bookstore's out of hard copy). Especially when the translation throws in stuff like And I swear to you, Athenians, by the dog I swear! - I mean, really.
*I seem to have six Gmail invites. If anyone or a figment thereof finds themselves wanting, speak now or forever hold your peace (peas?).
*Also, Ji's gone and made up a meme that I as a writer simply cannot resist:
Leave me a drabble of backstory. It can be about anyone -- one of your characters, one of mine, someone else's, no-one's. Anyone. Then I'll write one for you.
*I seem to have six Gmail invites. If anyone or a figment thereof finds themselves wanting, speak now or forever hold your peace (peas?).
*Also, Ji's gone and made up a meme that I as a writer simply cannot resist:
Leave me a drabble of backstory. It can be about anyone -- one of your characters, one of mine, someone else's, no-one's. Anyone. Then I'll write one for you.
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Athenians....
Date: 2004-09-13 07:53 pm (UTC)Re: Athenians....
Date: 2004-09-13 08:14 pm (UTC)I'm pretty sure it was supposed to say 'god' and not 'dog,' but even so...
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Date: 2004-09-13 10:13 pm (UTC)Mice are like people, inside, Soll knows. His mice are better than most people, in fact. Trained mice, mice that dance and mice that eat cheese and mice that eat his homework.
All right, perhaps they aren't perfect, not yet. But it's good to have a goal.
At the moment, his goal is not to pass out with sleep deprivation. He's only got two months left, and it's crunch time for Solstice Dibbler if he wants his degree. He and dreams fight a never-ending battle.
So far, he's winning. The mice are helping.
Counting sheep puts you to sleep, so, it follows (in his exhausted mind) that counting mice keeps you awake.
One-a-mouse.
Two-a-mouse.
Three-a-mouse, four a-sleep.
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Date: 2004-09-15 07:34 pm (UTC)Soll's problem is that his dreams are stuck in the past. He closes his eyes and it's all fog and monsters and panic and five minutes' wasted film on a bad attempt at subliminal advertising.
He'll take sleep over Holy Wood any day. Or night, for that matter.
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Date: 2004-09-15 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-15 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-15 08:22 pm (UTC)Backstory: William Gedge
Date: 2004-09-13 10:28 pm (UTC)At eighteen, Gedge takes the Queen's shilling, and lets others worry about how he'll get enough to eat.
Re: Backstory: William Gedge
Date: 2004-09-15 07:20 pm (UTC)I don't think I know the Fenndom boys well enough to try writing 'em, so instead...)
The plague finds its way everywhere, eventually. The rats probably have something to do with that.
At first the nobility thinks it's some sort of plan on God's part to smite the unrighteous poor, but rats find their way into castles just as well as shacks. Everyone is praying, putting trust in flowers in their pockets and other such superstitions, united against a common enemy but unable to do anything about it - anything really effective, at least.
Pestilence is rather enjoying the fourteenth century.
Re: Backstory: William Gedge
Date: 2004-09-15 11:54 pm (UTC)I lied! Unintentionally, but still... drabble!
Date: 2004-09-15 06:00 pm (UTC)*************************************************************
If you don’t do as you’re told, the Great God Orm will come and take you away.
He was very young when his father went out on a job one night and never came back. His mother never explained why Jonah Ludorum had died, but the priests were quick to explain that the apostate Assassin had turned his back on the Great Orm, and thus their god had struck him down, as punishment for his faithlessness. When he was young, he still believed that.
He watched as the priests slaughter goats, rams, countless animals on the blood-stained sandstone altar. Couldn’t look away, it was forbidden, Orm despised weakness in his followers. The petrified bleating of the sacrificial animals stayed in his head even after their throats were cut and their hearts torn out. His mother leaned down after the ritual and whispered, her voice full of pride, one day you will perform these rituals in reverence of our Great God.
If you aren’t pious enough, the Great God Orm will wind your entrails on a sharp stick and stab your eyes out.
He hated the sound that the animals made as the priests dragged them to their doom. Hated the sick, choked sounds of animals dying after their throats had been cut, drowning in their own blood. He hated the ugly, sneering expressions on the priests’ faces when they told him that he’d be responsible for the rituals when they were gone. As though they were already planning to leave.
If you turn away from Him, the Great God Orm will destroy you.
With the priests gone, it was only him and his mother. Katerin Ludorum was a good, kind woman, but she didn’t know how to raise a son, and when the offer of a scholarship at the Assassin’s Academy came, she accepted because she didn’t know what else to do. And despite the priests’ condemnation of her husband, Jonah had been a good man and a better Assassin, and she couldn’t see why Orm would condemn her son for having the same training. As long as he stayed faithful.
He tried to stay faithful and do everything he was supposed to do. But then he met Teppic and Chidder, and everything changed.
Re: I lied! Unintentionally, but still... drabble!
Date: 2004-09-15 07:59 pm (UTC)And then the priests were gone, and Orm's hopes hinged on an elderly woman (not allowed to perform the sacrifices by the religion's code; perhaps, in hindsight, that was a mistake) and a young boy. While the boy was capable of performing the sacrifices, he was extremely unwilling; since Orm lacked the strength to properly smite him, he soon reasoned himself out of the faith.
Orm contented himself in the years until the boy's mother died with memories of the good old days, when people were properly afraid and devout, and then he was gone.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 02:44 am (UTC)Only, there are one or two little problems around Ade.
First, Ade kissed his Chiddy. Admitted, he wasn't his Chiddy back then. At least not in that way. He was anybody's Chiddy for the taking, yet. Teppic still wonders why nobody did. Yeah, he knows, Chids really loved him all the time. But that had never stopped him for long, had it? Chiddy has way more experience than Teppic, and one of them is Ade. That rankles.
Now he and Chiddy are together as they're supposed to be, Ade is so not going to touch Chiddy again. Ever. Teppic vows that. At the same time he thinks it, he knows it's crap. They're friends, after all. Underworld, Ade is his friend as well, really. And he knows, deep down, that Chidder has no intention in the world of trying on anything stupid. Not now that he's finally got his hands on his true love. Which is, totally amazingly, Teppic. It's been almost half a year now.
Still, there's a part in Teppic that's still totally amazed. That touches all the tattoos with loving reverence every time he sees them. Especially the one saying "Eternally Prevails the Justice of The Sun God" in hieroglyphs. That's Teppic's favourite. Chids so should have been more careful which pretty meaningless hieroglyphs he picked to have tattooed on his pretty rear...
But then, there's another part that can't stop being wary of Ade. More superficial to his soul, but underworldly persistent. Teppic has been introduced to Love by her green-eyed step-sister Jealousy, after all. It is hard to get her out of the equation. The best thing is getting Ade occupied, she whispers to him. He won't have time for Chiddy then. And this is where Imp came in, originally.
Imp is a decent fellow, and so easy to talk to. Teppic is certain they'd have become friends even without the Ade situation. But bloody, bony Ade made their alliance vital. Teppic wanted Ade's skeletal paws off his Chiddy. Imp wanted a whole and de-cursed Ade back in his life, his bed, and wherever else he underwordly belongs. So they stuck together. In the end, with threats and coaxing and cajoling, they prevailed. They didn't have the time to do a high-five, so quick were they off to where they really wanted to be.
By way of celebration, Teppic has been to many of Imp's gigs with Chidder. After one of those gigs, Teppic found himself dragged off to get his own first tattoo. Later on, he got his second, together with Chiddy. They both have the same little chariot on the forearm now. For luck. They were good, at that charioteering competition. They are so going again next year. They have a life together now, vaccillating between Chidder's luxurious apartment and Teppics spare rooms at the Guild. There are things they do together, like preparing their lessons in Teppic's study and taking out the chariot and dutifully turning up at the Chidder family home almost every Octeday. There are things they do separately, like importing cake and stalking vampires and discussing about ships and moving recalcitrant sofas.
And then they go to Imp's next gig, together. And Ade is almost never there. By now, Teppic regrets that. He is so happy with Chidder. There never was really anything going on with Chidder and Ade, either. So why can't Imp have what he deserves?
Life is damn unfair. To the underworld with bloody Ade, really. Ah, urgs, no - Imp wouldn't be able to get at him there. Would he?
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Date: 2004-09-16 08:04 pm (UTC)Chidder and Teppic are quite fun people; they seem to balance being about ten years older than Ade by acting five years younger. Makes life interesting, that does. Tepp in particular is at turns incredibly perceptive and frighteningly dense, though admittedly, most of the density factors in in regards to his best friend's rather deeper feelings for him. Ade would think that's the sort of thing you notice when you've known someone for twenty years, but then again, he's taken a somewhat unorthodox approach to the subject for most of his life.
And anyway, who is he to talk? He's only been in love for about a week (and what a week it's been).
(Events this drabble's based on are chronicled here - my God, that was yearly a YEAR ago.)
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Date: 2004-09-16 08:09 pm (UTC)>>at turns incredibly perceptive and frighteningly dense<<
That so describes Teppic - he's a very weird character to RP, at times. But I have enjoyed getting him de-mothballed, recently. Now if we'd just get "our" respective Aussies back...
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Date: 2004-09-16 08:17 pm (UTC)yay! I've got someone else's character right! (I've written Ade's POV before, so that one's not quite as exciting. XD)
As for the Aussies... Ashie and Frar got eaten by Milliways (never mind Nny...), and Celestina's most likely being eaten by school. But yes! Come back, people! We miss your characters.
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Date: 2004-09-16 08:28 pm (UTC)Ashie said something about coming back as Skazz during her holidays, and Frar as well, even though that was much, much more vague. I sometimes happen on some of their characters when I'm in Milliways, which is very rare, about once every fortnight, although I spontaneously went yesterday because Ashie was there as Delia, and I had so wanted to let Rasputin meet Delia. He ended up talking to two beautiful ladies at once and enjoying himself terribly...
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Date: 2004-09-16 08:44 pm (UTC)Skazz! Skazz is good. Morgan will be quite pleased about that one. (Now all we have to do is get the other two in... XD)
Oh, and about this party thing Beth's planning. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get in for loggage, if you had that in mind, but I could give it a shot. And if it's one of those monster comment-chat threads, what's a little conversation in the past? (Watch closely, kids. This is what Milliways does to the RPing mindset.)
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Date: 2004-09-16 08:49 pm (UTC)I think I shall post at the comm presto pronto and ask which they'd prefer. But a monster comment chat places less stress and obligationa nd so on on everyone, I think, and takes less logistics, and doesn't have to be edited later.
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Date: 2004-09-16 09:00 pm (UTC)Threadzilla = better option, I'm thinking.
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Date: 2004-09-16 09:24 pm (UTC)Let's see what everybody else say, but I'd say comments chat.