Reach beyond the normal boundries...

Story idea!

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:57:46 GMT

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?

No school!

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:51:47 GMT

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.

Snow!

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 08:30:34 GMT

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.

So. World-boss-raid last night.

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 08:49:13 GMT

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.

After a while of this, we've picked up a few more people and start straggling out of town. I am slow on the uptake and catch them up on the path up to the Twilight Grove. (We're still missing half the raid and there's a friendly argument over tanks and healers going on.) During raid conversation it emerges that there may be a dragon in the grove.
(I have been up there three times and never seen a dragon. This is fortunate for me, as I later discover.)

Everyone rides into the grove to see if the dragon's there. It isn't. After some slight milling around, the raid leader tells us to head for Aerie Peak. We all gallop off for Darkshire and hop onto gryphons bound for Aerie Peak. I get to the gryphon master behind almost everyone else. There is some confusion in raid chat as everyone who isn't there wants to know where we're going.

The raid leader and someone else, due to getting to the gryphon master ahead of everyone else, say they'll go and scout the possible spawning area. This occurs while everyone else is mid-flight.

The dragon is apparently there. Unfortunately, another raid got there ahead of us, and the dragon is nearly dead. There's a brief discussion of spawning points, and the order is given to go to Feralas. (On the other continent.) We're still mid-air, and strung out, so as soon as we touch down at Aerie Peak, we turn around and head for Menethil.

Five people arrive at Menethil at around the same time, and we ride onto the boat in a mass. I head up the stairs and end up on the rigging, which means I'm standing over everyone's heads.

Boat crosses sea. Boat docks at Theramore. We all ride off the boat and head over to the gryphon master. Everyone who's been to Feathermoon Stronghold flies there directly. A few other people haven't, and have to go the long way. This involves going around a camp belonging to the opposite faction. Some people have accidentally gone to the wrong country.

I arrive at Feathermoon in time to see the boat between me and the mainland sail off. (Feathermoon's on a island.) A few other people touch down and we all hang around on the end of the jetty. Boat arrives, we pile on, we pile off at the other end, and we all ride up to the Dream Bough.

There is a very large, very tough dragon sitting at the top of a ramp.

After a few minutes, almost everyone's there. We decide to go for it.

First try. Tank runs up the ramp, second tank on his heels, Emeriss notices him, we all start attacking, and then a couple of other dragons that were wandering around safely away from us come over and trample everyone. We all die before you can say 'Where in Azeroth did they come from?'

Second try. Everone runs back to their corpses and tries to grab a snack. Raid leader decides that next time we have to turn the dragon around, and everyone's to avoid the tail. Melee attack the feet, ranged fighters to be as ranged as possible. Apparently this dragon breathes something nasty. About half the group form up and take out the dragons that trampled us last time.

Tanks run up ramp, dragon notices them, dragon turns around, and the rest of us run up the ramp to be in attack range. Dragon does some kind of backwards disease-attack, and we all die again after bringing it to half health.

Third try. Everyone rezzes (again). We eat and drink to get our health back, while waiting for this weird debuff to expire. While we eat, the raid leader lays out the full strategy: Tnks pull the dragon to the base of the ramp and turn him around. The rest of us stay spread out. Ranged fighters attack from as far away as possible. Melee fighters attack when the leader yells 'Phase one', and retreat when she calls 'phase two'. This hopefully lets everyone avoid the poison clouds, or at least minimise the effect.

Tanks run in, everything goes as planned. There's afew issues with pet management, but we bring down the dragon with most of the raid still standing. Me not among them.

And it was fun!

Birthday.

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:18:20 GMT

But I don't want to be eighteen! *Wails.*

So, it's happened. I've finally grown up. I wonder what happens now...

Snow is falling, all around...

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 07:21:34 GMT

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Back from a three-month absence.

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:14:06 GMT

*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.*

Airborne Displays.

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:24:29 GMT

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.

France.

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:14:21 GMT

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!

Seals!

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:06:16 GMT

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?

On the stupidity of an expanding population.

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:44:54 GMT

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.

Wildlife Watch.

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:11:06 GMT

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.

Walks in the semi-country.

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:10:50 GMT

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.

Snakes.

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:01:47 GMT

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!"

Lucid Dreaming.

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:23:41 GMT

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.

Day Awesome/Day Awful.

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 17:13:26 GMT

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.

Zoo!

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:50:04 GMT

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.

Decidedly silly story of the plural of platypus.

Thu, 08 May 2008 20:05:03 GMT

For some reason this snippet came into my head. (Okay, okay, it was Two in the Bush, all right?) The idea of wartime leaders demanding Australian wildlife kind of lodged and turned into...this.

Warning: May contain silliness.

"You know what we need?" Tom said thoughtfully.

"No. Do tell."

"A platypus."

There was a pause.

"A platypus," Jordan said carefully.

"Yep. A platypus."

Collette eyed the pair of them. "I don't suppose you'd tell me why we need a platypus?" she asked.

"Historical rule," Tom said. " All outnumbered leaders on the side of right must, at some point during a difficult war, demand platypuses. Milit'ry tradition."

"What is the plural of platypus?" Sara wondered and then began experimenting with endings.

"Good idea though," Jordan said thoughtfully. "It'd be nice to have a platypus around the place."

"We could keep it in the lake," Tom suggested.

"Two things," said Collette. "Where are we supposed to get a platypus, and how, exactly, did this tradition start?"

"Winston Churchill," Tom explained. "He demanded a platypus in the middle of World War Two. Bloke in Austrailia caught one and trained it up, sent it over to England..."

"What did they do with it?"

"Nothing, really; it died two days out from Liverpool."

"And you think our venture will be more successful because...?"

"Wel, for one thing," Tom said, pushing himself up on an elbow, "we won't be dropping depth charges."

"How would we get it here?" Jordan asked. "Troop of eagles carrying it in a net?"

"Good grief, that'd give the most stotic of platy...podes a heart attack."

"Isn't Austrailia far away?" Sara asked.

"That's not the point," Tom said firmly. "The point is that we are obtaining a platypus."

"For no reason."

"Of course there's a reason," Jordan said. "It'll be fun."

Festivities.

Sat, 03 May 2008 14:05:36 GMT

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.

On writing.

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:10:13 GMT

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.

This is...kind of strange.

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:52:56 GMT

Witness me attempting to be deep.

It's a dialogue from a Yeerk talking about love and hosts and how the two can mix together until they become addictive. The host is asking the questions. Has a sad ending.

"Do you know why I didn't turn you in?" Yesin 485 of the Kian Sichar pool asked aloud.

"No," Jordan replied grumpily, regaining control of her vocal apparatus. "I thought at first it was to reassure the others...but that wasn't it, was it? You weren't...I don't know." Her voice faded away.

"It was because..." Yesin trailed off. She shook her --their --head and started again. "Do you know what a Yeerk feels?"

Jordan shrugged, gazing at the golden sun on the horizon. "Fear, anger, pain. Ambition, I think. Uh, loyalty...I'm not sure of. Friendship? Respect?"

"Yes. We are...trained to feel hatred, fear, and anger. Ambition and respect -admiration -tend to show up as part of the process. Loyalty and friendship are not hard currency in the Yeerk pool though, I'm afraid. But there's one thing we really don't feel."

"And what's that?"

Yesin was silent for a moment.

"Jordan, when I entered your brain...you don't know what it was like, it was...when we are first given hosts, in training, we experience a great deal of sensory input, almost an overload. There is so much to experience. Sight, sound, touch, taste...all of it, it is overwhelming! It's wonderful and terrifying in equal measures.

"When I entered your brain...it was almost like that. It was emotional overload. To go your whole life with such a limited range of emotions, things I didn't even really feel, and then to be bombarded with everything you felt...your mind was so alive, so vivid. It knocked me over. And yet I wanted more of it."

Yesin laughed sadly. "Maybe not at first, maybe not then...but even in the pool, tying into your brain was like tapping into a firework display. All the anger, all the accusation was a dozen times stronger than I'd ever felt it. Your mind was alive, screaming at me, fighting me."

"Yeah, I do /know/ that."

"It wasn't until afterwards, when we were out of the pool, with the others --that was what made me want to stay. All the feelings you felt right then."

Yesin was laughing and crying, tears trickling down grimy cheeks. "Everything you felt was stronger than I could feel. The exultation you experienced when you were flying. The love when you looked at your sister. Your grief and joy. I didn't even know what love was, and I...I wanted more of it. I wanted to feel it, again and again. That burst when I, when /we/ realised that someone loved you. The way Tom looked at you when you weren't arguing and he was just happy to have you there. The way you loved."

The geese were flying, honking, and the rising sun had stitched the land with threads of gold where the rivers ran. The leaves brushed her arms like the ghost of a promise for a better life, more whole, and she knew that she had accepted it.

"It was addictive. You were more than me, so much more than me, in the way you thought and felt and lived. You were bright and vibrant and I was tired and so, so hungry. I lived for those moments --for the thrill of flying, the laughter on a friend's face..."

"And then?"

Yesin shook her head. "And then," she said in a low voice, "I realised I couldn't."

There was something cold at her back and the day stretched out before her, bright and perfect. If only she could have enjoyed it.

"I couldn't hold onto you. I couldn't damp you down. And I wouldn't go back to the pool, to live out my life with only the memories."

She felt the suspicion growing in Jordan's mind. "It's been almost three days."

"Yes. And in a few minutes...a few minutes...I shall die with this memory."

Buzzards.

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:53:06 GMT

Saw three buzzards out yesterday. It was a glorious day -very sunny, warm, bit of a breeze -and the buzzards around the riding stables sometimes come out on the thermals.

The first one was in the air -as soon as I saw it I knew it wasn't a crow, because it was twice as big as they were. At one point it got close enough for me to see the stripy pattern underneath the wings, but by then we'd started trotting and, as I was in the front, I couldn't keep bird-spotting.

The second one was in a tree next to a field just outside the stables, and the third -and nearest -was sitting on a telephone pole halfway back to town.

I love birds of prey.

Canon.

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 06:15:34 GMT

...so, the realisation occurs that while I am always pairing Tom up with people, I don't much seem to mind who. In Birds of Prey, it's Collette; in Escape 'verse, it's Melissa. Heck, in Miracle it was Inest. The only thing I seem to require is that the person he's paired with is morph-capable, is a decent person, and has gone through/goes through at least one hair-raising dangerous experience with him.

Compare this to Jake or Rachel, who I always pair with Cassie and Tobias respectively. Or Jordan, who, when she is romantically involved, ends up with Marco.

My brain is weird at times. (But then, you noticed that...right?)

Solution.

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 06:37:10 GMT

For anyone wanting to adjust the way things fit the screen in Vista:

Right click.

Hit 'Personalize'.

Go into 'Display settings', and adjust the screen resolution until everything is the right size.

ARGH.

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:23:22 GMT

You know what? Just once, JUST ONCE, I would like the computer layout to stay the way it is.

I would like the boxes that go around the text to fill the screen, the way they are supposed to, and not, as in the case of this entry text box, be squished over to fill the left half of the window. I would like the text to be in proportion and of a reasonable size. I would like the columns that some LJs appear in to have a sensible width, not a prescribed one.

Whatever has just been done to the computer has rendered these desires unfulfilled, or whatever you call it. Everything looks too small and is stupid. I. Hate. It.