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Starwind Rohana's LiveJournal:
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| Thursday, November 5th, 2009 | | 12:32 pm |
Story idea!
I recently had an idea for a story that's half sci-fi, half fantasy. It's also what you get when you start thinking about heros in terms of World of Warcraft. The premise is that there's one world of people that's found out how to break through into other worlds in other universes. They start conquering some of these worlds, for riches and resources and because some of them like the idea of living in those worlds, and a whole variety of other reasons. They also discover that it's useful to spy on their victims before moving in, and get used to spying on important political leaders, discovering military strength, etc, and judge their enemies by the level of their technology. They have encountered magic, but know that that's not worth much if it's not used tactically. They spy on one world. It's technologically backward except for a few mavericks, has magic but no noticeable magical organisations, and there are a few sentient species with not much that they think of in the way of armies. There's also plenty of stuff they want, so they move in. ...and run into trouble as it emerges that the governments in this world are in the habit of training people to fight, be it magically or physically, and letting them wander off into the wilderness and countryside to fight monsters, protect citizens, and fight against anything that could threaten their world. Which means that there are a lot of people out there -not many out of the total population, but quite a few -who are good at fighting, know the terrain, can move around easily, are used to fighting alone and really good at it, can form up (and will) to manage bigger targets, notice weak spots, make connections, and also some of them can make their own gear. Their world is being invaded. At which point they are more than happy to start cutting supply lines, distract patrols, kill scouts, poison water sources, sit in good vantage points and pepper enemies with arrows, train rebels, make weapons and armour, and, if they get the chance, they can and will disrupt the portal technology. Which is hard to set up, expensive, and rare. And they can do a lot of other things. A wyvern or gryphon might not be as fast or powerful as a fighter plane, but neither do they show up as brightly on infra-red. So, for example, there are hunters sitting several hundred metres up in very big trees, calmly picking off incoming soldiers with arrows. There are mages leading enemies into large deserts, secure in the knowledge that they (the mages) can create their own water. There are druids using the sewers to sneak fish and edible seaweed into blockaded cities. And there are people who fly up on wyverns just before dawn, get out of bullet-range, and drop low-tech firebombs onto invading armies. I want to write this. Unfortunately, I'm doing something else for NaNoWriMo. ...do I have to do the thing I was doing for NaNo? And since I've been gone a while, how is everyone else? | | Thursday, February 5th, 2009 | | 8:21 am |
No school!
Came downstairs this morning to discover that three to five inches of snow had fallen in our garden overnight, and it was deeper on the road. Most of Bristol's shut down -public transport's gone out the window, and at least a few of the main roads are ankle-deep in slush, so it's walk where you're going or drive at about six miles an hour. I usually walk to school, but I flatly refuse to travel through three or more inches of snow when it's still snowing. So it was a relief when our head teacher's daughter called my sister to say that our school's shut for today. | | Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 | | 8:25 am |
Snow!
It started snowing yesterday -just a few flakes at first, but by lunchtime it was flurrying down. Of course, we had to stay in school anyway, but it was nice to watch. Snow periodically left off and then resumed, in time for me to freeze my fingers off walking home. I think it snowed most of the night. Anyway, by this morning the sky had cleared, so we got to see the full effect. It's beautiful. A carpet of snow under a blue morning sky? Just...wonderful. | | Saturday, January 17th, 2009 | | 7:25 am |
So. World-boss-raid last night.
My guild decided to down a world boss, and it was scheduled for last night. It lasted about two hours, but it was fun! Nine o'clock. Everyone's being sorted out, getting invites to the raid group, et cetera. I hearth out of Feralas and head over to Darkshire, where we're meeting. I have no idea which boss we're going to down and am generally clueless. When I show up, about ten other guildies are standing in the middle of town on assorted cats, elephants, and bears. We pass the time by riding around the fountain and attempting to jump over each other. ( Read more... ) | | Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 | | 7:17 pm |
Birthday.
But I don't want to be eighteen! *Wails.* So, it's happened. I've finally grown up. I wonder what happens now... | | Thursday, December 25th, 2008 | | 7:20 am |
| | Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 | | 6:09 pm |
Back from a three-month absence.
*Delurks.* Sorry for the long hiatus; World of Warcraft stole my life and school nicked the rest of it. Just got a Christmas card from Miss Cam, which I am jumpy and very cheerful about. Life has been good in general, although I have discovered an intense hatred of one thing: UCAS. The despised, time-filling, abominable UCAS form. The whole slow, awkwards, infuriating process that makes me want to rip out the computer from the mains and smash it against the wall. Now that that's off my chest... *Vanishes back into the gloomy deeps.* | | Thursday, August 28th, 2008 | | 6:07 pm |
Airborne Displays.
I went cycling up along the Downs today. I hadn't realised that there was going to be some sort of feestival going on. Specifically, some sort of kite festival. There were dozens of kites in the air, all very colourful. And these weren't your basic uneven-diamond kites, either. Oh, no. There were two 3D abstracted footballers, with balls attatched to their 'feet'. There was a pair of disembodied legs. There was a very large blonde woman. There was a panda. There were three geckoes, in blue, red, and green, striped black. There was a blue bear with a white T-shirt. There was a scuba diver with accompanying fish. There was a black spider, which apparently couldn't get off the ground. There was a rainbow-striped sting ray about forty feet long. Keep in mind that all these things were in 3D. Goodness only knows how they stayed up. There were plenty of 2D kites as well, of course, including a number of weird, arched kites with sharp tips that did very fast spirals close to the ground. And a Star of David in red and blue, with a streamer attached. And a black-and-white portrait of someone famous (I guess). There was also a long rope tied to about fifty traditional kites. That's not the best bit, although it was really colourful. There's this birdwatching point up at the Gorge. About twenty seconds after I got there, a pair of ravens arrived. And then a pair of buzzards appeared. And then a peregrine falcon showed up and started mobbing one of the buzzards, which was possibly having a showdown with the ravens. Five spectacular birds, all in that one patch of sky. It is absolutely the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The ravens -they had slightly wedge-shaped tails, and long, narrow wings. They looked like they were just playing in the air. And then they formed a kind of ring with the buzzards almost. The buzards were incredible. And the peregrine dived on one of the buzzards, and watching the close-contact...it was simply amazing. I'm going up there tomorrow. | | Sunday, July 27th, 2008 | | 7:08 pm |
France.
I'm in France. The scenery is truly spectacular. The house is halfway up a hill, so you get a great view if the valley. There's also a lot of sun. My arms are pretty tanned anyway, but I have a pale strip of skin above my wrist where my watch strap goes. You guessed it; it's sunburned. Thqt one little patch. There are very few insects (apart for a lot of long-legged wasps, which I'm told aren't hornets), presumably due to the swallows and other small birds everywhere. This has some revelence, because... My aunt, who notices my hobbies, bought me a pair of small binoculars. YEEEEEE! | | Monday, July 21st, 2008 | | 9:01 pm |
Seals!
I went to the zoo today (yes, again), and noticed that the seals were doing something odd. *Drumroll.* Why, why, WHY do seals always swim upside down? 'Cause every seal I saw was apparently spending seventy percent of its time on its back. In the water, people. Upside down. Why? Also, there was one seal that was weirdly attracted to bottles. I spent some time making it do elaborate 'follow the empty Dr. Pepper bottle' maneouvres around the underwater tunnel. I don't know, maybe it thought it was a fish? | | Saturday, July 12th, 2008 | | 9:13 pm |
On the stupidity of an expanding population.
The human population of Earth is six billion and growing. Fifty years ago -as far as I know -it was more like five billion. Waaay back in medieval times, it was...about two billion early on (soon after agriculture became both widespread and reasonably developed?) and more like three billion before we hit the 'early modern' stage. There's a name for this. It's 'population explosion'. The huge, undeniable damage that the human race has collectively inflicted on other animals, numerous species, entire ecosystems, and in a couple of cases the actual climate? It's not a result of using too many cars.* It's not (just) because we're irresponsible and selfish. It's because there are far too many human beings around. Really, our NOT causing immense problems would be kind of a feat. People living destitute on the edge of a rainforest will fell the trees indiscriminately to survive. That's natural suvival instinct -but there are thousands of people doing that, and while one person doesn't have much of an impact, add them together and they do. People all over the world are trying to improve other people's standards of living. Great. Good for you. What nobody seems to have realised is the fairly elementary point that human beings reproduce. Human beings in optimal conditions reproduce rather rapidly. And with fewer deaths to balance the suddenly boosted survival rate, the population expansion gets going with considerable vigour. Really, is it any surprise that there are suddenly so many of us? Modern medicine and hygine.** Both are very necessary things, and I agree that as many people as possible ought to have access. But once these were introduced, human numbers took off. We increased and increased. We didn't stop having kids just because suddenly more of them suvived, you know. (This point is --kind of --refuted by the fact that most First World countries do have, on average, enough children to replace their parents. Stable, in other words. But it took a while to slow down.) Our numbers grew fast. And I guess that I'm okay with. But what gets me is that everyone seems to think we need to carry on with this insane trend. They say that we need more land and better crops to supply the burgeoning population. Um, no. What we need is a contraceptive. Preferably a cheap one that can be dissolved in water. And then distributed to all places where population growth is out of control. We need it, and fast. We need to stop the world overloading of humans right now, before we, in our vast and expanding numbers, cause irreversible harm. We need to stop human expansion. We need to find a way to reduce our numbers over the generations --not only in the 'First World', but everywhere. There are way, way too many of us. Often it seems like I'm the only one who thinks that. So...does anyone else think something like this? Or have any opinions to share? An insight into any relevant factors would be appreciated. *(Not that we don't do that too.) **Agriculture is another culprit. I'll rant on that later. | | Friday, July 4th, 2008 | | 6:07 pm |
Wildlife Watch.
School trip to Reading happened on Monday. It is utterly characteristic of me that I spent the entire trip there and back looking for birds. Wildlife count: Three rabbits, one deer, eleven kestrels, thirty-four buzzards, and a possible peregrine falcon. (Almost as large as a buzzard, but with scythe-shaped wings.) In the interests of allowing for double counting, the bird tally on the trip outwards tallied six kestrels and twelve buzzards. Nobody probably wanted to know about this. | | Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 | | 6:07 pm |
Walks in the semi-country.
It was a nice, sunny day today, so I went for a walk on the Downs. There's this place which is full of dips and valleys, with cycle tracks along the ridges, that's really quite lovely. Apart from the cycle tracks, it's completely overgrown -several different types of long grass, loads of different flowers, plus thistles and nettles and other stuff. Really beautiful. I think I saw a black-cap, too. It was just...nice, you know? Dreamy and lovely and real. | | Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 | | 9:00 pm |
Snakes.
It says quite a lot about me that I went to the Bath Uni Open Day and the only thing I can think is, "I got to hold a corn snake!" | | Saturday, June 14th, 2008 | | 7:09 am |
Lucid Dreaming.
Last night, I had a very odd dream. I was kind of...awake inside the dream. Recently, I've found that things pop into my head without me wanting them to and really confusing what I'm thinking of at the time. This annoys me. So, in the dream, I walk into this wooden building and into this room. There's someone in a green T-shirt standing opposite me. It's me standing opposite me. I couldn't see the face, but it was my green shirt, and I just knew I was looking at myself. And the other me said, "These things keep popping into your head because you're worried about them coming into your head. If you just stop worrying, and let them come, they'll go away. They keep coming in because you're always sort of thinking about them and sometimes your mental blocks fail." (That was the gist of it, anyway.) I said, "Okay," and walked out of the building. And then I halfway woke up and realised that I had given myself a psychological analysis and a solution...in a dream. This is very weird indeed. I suppose it supports the theory that dreams are a safe way of working out real-life problems. | | Saturday, June 7th, 2008 | | 6:08 pm |
Day Awesome/Day Awful.
I went riding today. We had 'buzzard weather' -that's when it's really warm so the buzzards fly up on the thermals. It was a singularly apt name today. I saw loads of them. At one point I was riding around and I happen to look over -there are EIGHT BUZZARDS in the air. Six of them are over the same field and in a height range of 50-200 feet. At one point about halfway through four of them came close enough for me to see wing markings. Ten minutes into the lesson, I saw one flying low after the field next to the ring. So I felt pretty awesome. Then at the end of the lesson I went to lead Ebony into her box -and she trod on my foot. Ouch.No bones broken, fortunately, but my big toe is going to be pretty bruised. Horses are heavy. | | Friday, June 6th, 2008 | | 8:44 am |
Zoo!
I went to the zoo yesterday. For three hours. Got there around ten, was there till half-one. What did I find out? That lions and okapi are larger than you imagine even when seen at a distance, that sand cats are very shy, and that seals like to swim upside down. And gorillas are smaller than you think. I went inside the red-ruffed lemur enclosure -there's a kind of walk-through you can do -and they kept jumping all over the place. They made this weird loud hoot/growl noise, too. They are cute. They're the size of a big cat, with long, fluffy fur and long black tails and these weird yellow eyes. The rockhopper penguins were entertaining, but not as much as the seals. The gorillas had surprisingly long canine teeth, and the howler monkeys have had a baby. I wish the tigers had still been there, though. | | Thursday, May 8th, 2008 | | 8:49 pm |
| | Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 | | 3:00 pm |
Festivities.
Does anyone know of an English custom which apparently involves walking around the streets with your face painted green, dressed in strips of fabric (also green), carrying long sticks (which are clacked together at intervals) and accompanied by a person dressed as a ten-foot tree with a crown of flowers, while accompanied by an accordian and a drum? If it helps, the accordian was playing a rather medieval-sounding tune, and the tree had strips of fabric attached. Um...just such a procession walked through the streets from Redland Park about five minutes ago. They took exactly the same route I remember seeing them take two or three years ago. The music was nice, but it was all a bit bewildering. | | Friday, May 2nd, 2008 | | 6:04 pm |
On writing.
Spent sixty-nine minutes today drilling the keyboard, an activity otherwise known as 'writing'. I refer to it as 'drilling the keyboard' because for a large period of it I was typing frantically in an effort to see where the story was going, and the noise made it sound like I was braking the keys with a hammer. Why was I so eager to find out where the story was going? I had three girls, one of them blind, stuck in the hold of an aeroplane (destination unknown) full of enemies, trying to work out why one end of the hold was equipped with cages, and also trying to find a way off because if they were aboard when the plane landed they were, quite literally, dead. Eventually they jumped out in mid-air while being shot at and turned into birds on the way down, subsequently discovering that the country they were flying over was Africa. Next time I can access the document, I intend to make them have a dangerous run-in with hippopotomuses. Hippopotomi. Whatever. |
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