Tuesday, Jan 8, 2013

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Posted by Shizukera Nightfury ()

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Post belongs to the Writing category

Hey, me being candid because why not.

Have you ever had one of those days when you want to write – a blog post, a story, a book chapter, a letter, an email, anything – and no matter how hard you try, you can’t get two thoughts to emerge coherently onto the page? Like the whole damn thing just gets stuck in your head, and finally you throw your hands up in the air and say “Okay, screw it, I’m done,” because otherwise you’ll end up in a shrieking rage and that won’t do anybody any good.

That’s me with my post on female characters.

I am literally the worst blogger. And if I can’t even write one stupid little blog post, how the hell am I supposed to write an entire novel, where I have to construct a whole plot using nothing but my imagination and a couple of characters who just wandered into my head demanding to be written?

I don’t know how to do any of this and I used to and it’s so frustrating. How do you even do any of this?

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Thursday, Nov 29, 2012

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Posted by Shizukera Nightfury ()

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I’m thinking way ahead here, but bear with me. If I go ahead and work this out now, I may actually be able to get past the first draft for once. ;) And I very definitely want to get past the first draft on this story. For the dynamics between Alexandra and Emily alone, I must write this story.

-

Not long after we moved into our new house, my husband handed me this blue three-ring binder with an inch-thick pile of paper neatly clipped into it. He said, “I promise I didn’t read it, but holy crap, did you write all that?” And I blushed and was like, “Yeah…* shy toe shuffle*” And now I’m sitting here in the basement, watching “Everybody Loves Raymond” on Netflix, eyeing that binder with a combination of horror, amusement, and fondness.

The thing in the binder is the manuscript from an old NaNoWriMo project that I wrote in…I don’t even know. 2006, I think? If I recall correctly, that particular one was 76,000 words and I was ever so proud at the time because in comparison to my other NaNo wins, that one is fairly epic. In fact, I’ve thought back to that piece many times since then, wondering if that was my writing peak, and worrying because I was only in my late 20s and what if that was my one big idea and I never come up with anything else omg why God why.

I have yet to reread it.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I have given it some superficial once-overs. I’ve gone through the file and been like, “Dude, this was cool. This was…less cool. Oh good God, what was I even thinking with this part?! Okay, this was awesome and needs to be expanded. Oooh…a theme!” I even recall one plot thread that left there in the heat of a NaNo word asplosion, then forgot where it was going afterward, which would probably end up being removed lest it become a plot hole big enough to swallow Optimus Prime. But I’ve never sat down and really read the story. I’ve never looked at it with an eye toward revision.

I could go on and on about why I’ve avoided that rewrite – for instance, that it was a fairly personal piece, not autobiographical or anything, just one with a high “get these feels off my chest” value that was more for me than for anyone else. But I think what it comes down to is this:

Rereading, and the inevitable rewrite that would follow said rereading, scares the bejeebus out of me.

To me, having done my biggest writings as NaNo projects, that first draft is usually the part that gives me the least trouble. I’ve got the basic storyline worked out, enough to give me the direction I need to keep my ADD from making the process impossible. I know my characters, minus the occasional side characters who become unexpected mains, but I don’t mind those. I have a basic idea of where I need to start and where I want to finish. Most important of all, I’ve given myself permission to be not-awesome. All I have to do is yack up the words. I don’t even have to worry about getting hung up on troublesome scenes that refuse to cooperate; I can scribble out a placeholder passage or just leave myself a note and come back to it later. I can even go outof order! For all the trouble I’ve had in the last few years with just getting the words out onto the page, the first draft is still the most forgiving, the least structured, and therefore – for me – the least scary (and consequently the least difficult to get through).

Rewriting is harder. Rewriting means I have to look at what I’ve just written and own the thing. It’s the part where I have to think about fixing all the plot holes and story inconsistencies and flesh out the characters and check the world building (a big weak spot of mine; I’m a terrible world builder, it’s why I haven’t written much sci-fi/fantasy in spite of my interest in the genres). It’s a little overwhelming, nothing I couldn’t work my way through, but overwhelming.

Unfortunately, it’s also the part where my biggest insecurity hits. It’s where I think, hey, this is where I should maybe have someone read this thing so I can get some feedback and oh my God, I have to SHOW THIS to actual PEOPLE?! At which point the stage fright kicks in and I hyperventilate and just kind of shut down and run away and end up losing the whole freaking thing. It’s frustrating as hell and is the reason I have trouble thinking of myself as a writer at all. Which makes it harder to write. Which means I write less. Which means I feel like a crappy writer who can’t write. Which means I don’t trust my ideas. Which means I don’t even try to write them. Which leads me to believe I can’t write. So I don’t. And next thing I know, boom! There’s that soul-shatteringly awful sneaky hate spiral that kept me from writing at all for years.

So, what does this mean for my Cranky Lady Supersoldier’s story, which I haven’t even written yet? What does it mean for later on, if I decide I want to actually publish something? It means that when I do come to Rewrite Time (which I WILL, by golly), I need to keep a few things in mind:

- Find people I trust absolutely, who will critique honestly, but kindly. (FYI: Husband is at the top of that list. <3)

- I know a ton of wonderful, talented writers. They are also wonderful people and I should not be afraid of them. I should UTILIZE THEM.

- So I can’t seem to discuss my storyline face to face. Whatever, it’s 2012. Hello, email! (Addendum: Suck it up and hit Send.)

- It is not the end of the world if someone tells me something doesn’t work.

- If someone tells me something is good, it’s okay to take such comments as encouragement instead of fretting that they’re just being nice because they’re my friend and they like me. I trust that anyone I ask to be my beta wouldn’t tell me they liked my stuff unless they actually meant it.

- Whatever else I might figure out when I actually get to the rewrite.

- Any advice you all who’ve gotten all the way to a final draft might have :D

In other words: Stop being paranoid, trust myself, trust my (eventual) readers, and learn to love the rewrite instead of letting it intimidate me.

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Wednesday, Nov 21, 2012

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Posted by Shizukera Nightfury ()

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So, it’s NaNoWriMo again! Over halfway through at that!

First, I want to say: to those of you participating, I salute you! You are doing an intense and amazing thing and never doubt that you are awesome. 50k in 30 days is hard! I know it is because I’ve done it four times myself. And oh, I have all the feelings about the whole thing.

First, backstory (because even my opinion posts always seem to have backstory).

I’ve had a very up-and-down relationship with writing over the years. In school I was teased and bullied a lot – being a shy, chubby, nerdy, non-athletic kid who wears glasses and gets straight A’s will get you that – so I used it, plus lots of reading, as a coping mechanism. Then I discovered fanfic and started writing actual stories. Not good ones, necessarily, but it got me thinking seriously about writing.

Moving on to original fiction…well. That’s where the “down” part of the relationship comes in. I’ve never had the best self-esteem, and for some reason I’ve tied a lot of what I have into my writing. I’ve had periods where I feel good about my writing, and it’s, like…it borders on euphoric, because I CREATED A THING Y’ALL, I LOVE IT AND AM AWESOME, HOLY CRAP!! During that period I did – and won – three consecutive NaNos. One was a 76,000 word spy(ish?) novel that I will someday edit into a readable thing that I can share with people. One was fantasy, which I’d eventually like to convert to urban fantasy and try to wring something workable out of. And there is the other thing that I can never remember, so. :P

Then came the period of “I fail at writing and everything I write is shit and my writing and therefore I will never be anything but shit.” I don’t know that I can blame one specific thing for it. I had a low period in my life, emotionally speaking, and all it took was a couple of badly timed contest failures to cement the “my writing and I suck” thing in my head. It wasn’t just writer’s block that happened, either – it was art too. I’ve never claimed to be particularly good at either writing or art, but apparently they both come from the same place, and while losing writing was bad enough, losing the inner artist I was just beginning to uncover along with it just made it infinitely worse.

Losing my entire creative outlet was like having part of myself die, and it hurt enough that I made several attempts to just force my way through, even though it was emotionally agonizing. I participated in NaNo again in 2010, with a short story collection of sorts – part WoW stuff (I was still trying to RP, and not doing well there either), part catching up with OCs from previous NaNo things. I haven’t had the heart to go back to that one. And while I somehow scraped out a win at 50k, it didn’t help me to start writing again. I just *couldn’t.* I was stuck in the comparison game – you know, why even bother, I’m surrounded by people so much more talented than I am, I know so many amazing storytellers, and I will never be good enough, so why try? And with every piece I tried to write, it just got worse and worse and worse, like a sneaky hate spiral for writers.

That was when I decided that I needed to give up writing. I didn’t want to. People I care about a lot tried to convince me not to, and I tried as hard as I could, but at that point trying to hang on was causing actual harm to my mental health. So, after agonizing and shedding a ridiculous number of tears over the decision, I let go, promising to come back. I read more and took art classes, with the intention to come back when the time was right.

Fast forward to 2012.

If you know me on Twitter or in real life, you may remember me starting to play Mass Effect 2 (badly), then suddenly squeeing endlessly about FemShep getting my art groove back. It’s only because she did. ;) But what I never told anyone was that Commander Shepard also sparked an idea that actually planted itself firmly in the back of my mind, which stuck in spite of me. I didn’t think anything of it because lol, it wanted me to write it and hello, I can’t write, but I let it stay, because why not.

And then November came. I’m always like AWWW YEAH NANOWRIMO, HERE I COME FORUMS, and I started poking around on the forums and getting excited at everyone doing this huge creative thing even though I couldn’t – or could I? And somehow I found myself actually *wanting* to write again, and I looked at this teeny-tiny idea in the back of my mind and went, “…who are you, anyway?”

And that little idea converged with that sudden desire to write again to help form Alexandra, who goes by Aly (with one L, she is very insistent about that spelling), the character I’ve been referring to on Twitter and LJ as Cranky Lady Supersoldier. She’s developing very much into her own character, with her own story, which she’s finally starting to reveal THANK YOU GOD TIGHT-LIPPED MUSE IS WORST MUSE, and her own personality, but yes. Shepard and NaNo forums gave me Cranky. Yeah. WHO KNEW. ¯\(°_°)/¯

Am I participating in NaNo this year? Other than spending way too much time cruising and commenting on the forums, no. I just didn’t have enough to go on at the beginning, and I’m too much of a completionist to jump in in the middle with the knowledge that I won’t be able to hit 50k (my participation icons on my author page have to be the SAME COLOR otherwise the page looks ALL WRONG). I haven’t even started writing yet, other than a couple of experimental “might go something like this” scenes. Instead, I’m using it as a plotting month instead. NaNoPloMo? :D ?

So after all the weirdness and WTFery in my own head and inspiration kicking off in the most unexpected places ever, here is what NaNoWriMo means to me:

Ideas. Unbridled creativity. Reckless abandon. The freedom to create minus the pressure to do it perfectly. Artistic rebirth. Finding part of myself that I truly thought I’d lost forever. Permission to think lofty, dorky, desperately-needing-refinement ideas without worrying about whether they’re beyond my ability to write, or “unworthy” of even being written. Getting that freakin’ story out of my head and onto paper, where I can actually DO something with it if I choose to. No competition, no comparison, just writing purely for the sake of writing.

NaNoWriMo allowed me to give myself permission to write again. Maybe that’s all I needed.

Thanks, NaNo. <3

(Word count: 1153)

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Wednesday, Sep 19, 2012

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Posted by Shizukera Nightfury ()

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Post belongs to the Jaina Proudmoore,Mists of Pandaria,Opinion,Theramore categories

You guys. YOU GUYS. This has got me blogging for the first time in *mumble* months. HUZZAH.

Okay, obligatory warning: HERE BE SPOILERS.

SPOILERS FOR THERAMORE SCENARIO

SPOILERS FOR JAINA PROUDMOORE: TIDES OF WAR

Every day I’m spoilerin’.

Oh, and DISCLAIMER: I don’t have an 85 Hordie to do the scenario, so I’m writing this solely from an Alliance perspective. I know there are issues and shortcomings on the Horde side too, and I’ll try to address some of that, but my primary focus for this entry is on the Alliance-side problems, because that’s what I know.

I also have another bias: I was directly, personally affected by an IRL event we call the Murrah Building bombing, and I have special feels about bombs. Tides of War caused reactions that will be – okay, on rereading my own post, definitely ARE reflected in this post. So, fair warning: emotions and feelings lie ahead.

Got it? Good. Here we go!

THE GOOD:

Strictly from a gameplay sense, I enjoyed the scenario. I ran it Monday evening when it opened, three times, and didn’t experience any bugs or weirdness. I ran it with friends, so I can’t comment on wait times. The only issue was that it felt slightly undertuned at an iLvl of 365 (I understand the mobs have since been buffed and it’s a bit more challenging now. I don’t see this as a bad thing. Challenge is good.)

The scenario was easy to follow, even without in-place questgivers. The markers were easy to follow, objectives were marked clearly, and the mechanics explained themselves well. Also, well, “(Friend), interact with that Leaking Oil Drum” was a fun command to see pop up in chat, I can’t lie. /easily amused

The voice acting wasn’t half bad – not amazing, but not awful; the exchange between Jaina and Rok’nah actually felt like it had some feeling behind it – and seeing Jaina surrounded by 7 frozen mobs while she sent 3 elementals out against the orcs was kind of a neat hint as to her power. It’s subtle, but it’s there.

In terms of loot, two of my bags gave me fireworks, the third gave me the mail agi helm, which was an upgrade for me. Not bad odds. If the upcoming scenarios in Mists are this compact, I can see myself doing lots of them when I don’t have the time or the inclination to do instances.

THE BAD:

Too abrupt. You come in to a cinematic of the bomb being dropped (aside: the goblin accent really, really needs work), and at the end you just port back to Stormwind. There’s no lead-in quest to fill you in on the battle that preceded your entry, no explanation as to why you’re there. Nor is there any follow-up afterward. The battle and its aftermath were very well described in Tides of War, and the abrupt nature of the scenario did the story a huge disservice.

Also, why on earth would Jaina put fireworks in my bag?! They’re pretty, don’t get me wrong, but are we celebrating the magical nuke that just took out a city? I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of any times I’ve seen fireworks used in anything but celebration, and WMDs are hardly to be celebrated.

Which brings me to…

THE UGLY:

The story. Oh, my heavens, the story.

When I read Tides of War, it left me with, for lack of a better phrase, a lot of feelings (which is why I need to read it again before I do a proper review). The book was not what I’d call flawless, but one thing it did very well was capture not only Jaina’s emotional response to what had happened to her city, but also the horrific aftermath of what that weapon did (and it was horrific; it was a weapon of mass destruction, the magical equivalent of a nuclear bomb). From the devastation of the city and landscape itself to the recognition of her friends among the dead, and the “books here, severed body parts there” description of the blast site – there were parts where I had to stop, breathe, and remind myself that I was reading a work of fiction. I don’t know if Christie Golden has ever visited a bomb site, but her writing of the Theramore aftermath, of both the arcane and the physical damage, was very believable, and thus very emotional. Her visit to Dalaran and to a particular gnome family afterward brought the whole thing home, it made it personal, and it had such impact. I was in tears, and I spent the rest of the book wanting to just wrap my arms around Jaina and tell her yes, it’ll be okay, you have the strength to get through this. It’s the first WoW book that has ever actually made me cry.

And we saw none of that impact in the scenario.

Now, I’m not saying we needed to be treated to every gory detail of the battle. I’m not saying we needed a Jaina’s-eye view of the destruction of her city and the deaths of her friends and citizens. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have handled that kind of detail all that well; hell, I had to close my eyes when the bomb dropped in the cinematic, and all they did was fade to white! But come on, Blizzard. This was a HUGE lore event. It led to a change of leadership for the Kirin Tor, established a precedent for the Kirin Tor actually taking non-neutral actions under extraordinary circumstances, and completely changed at least one character forever. It led to active dissent and even more strife within the Horde. It has, or should have, a major story impact on leaders and players of both factions. It deserved to be a self-contained story for both sides. And yet I’m seeing so many complaints – from players of both factions – about how abrupt and unsatisfactory it was, and how little sense it made to people who didn’t read the book?

I understand that an entire book’s contents can’t be squeezed into a 20-minute scenario. But how many Alliance players know what that thing is that’s falling on the city and why Jaina suddenly has white hair  if they haven’t read ToW? How many Horde players know who Thalen Songweaver is if they haven’t read ToW? Why on earth didn’t Blizzard stick a few quests in at one end or the other to round out the story?

That, to me, is the one failing of the Theramore scenario – and to me, it’s huge. That, and apparently the Horde scenario is set just before the bomb, while the Alliance version is set just after? That smacks too much of splitting the story so you have to roll a character on the other faction to see the full version – only the scenario doesn’t quite tell the full story, even if you *do* see both sides.

CONCLUSION:

In terms of gameplay, the scenario met expectations. It was a good preview of how they’ll work in Mists, and it got me interested in running more of them: mission accomplished. But the story fell apart; with no quests or intro or follow-up to explain what went on, it’s a underwhelming storywise and ultimately unsatisfying on both sides. Hopefully with other scenarios we’ll have some one-time quests or something to provide context and a more rounded-out story for us lore nerds.

(Fortunately, Blizzard has heard the complaints; they stated in the Best Buy Q&A that they’d heard the concerns about context and planned to carry that lesson forward. Theramore is what it is, but hopefully they’ll keep that problem in mind and give us a bit more context in future scenarios. So, we’ll see what happens!)

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Monday, Nov 21, 2011

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Posted by Shizukera Nightfury ()

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Hi folks!

It’s that time of the year again – the 2011 Twitter Secret Santa Art Trade!  I participated last year, I’m incredibly excited to be a part of it again this year.  :D

My refs are here, but here’s a bit of supplemental info on Shizu, for whoever happens to be drawing for me this year:

Shizu has had a bit of a rough life.  She lost both her parents at the battle of Mt. Hyjal, only to have her mother come back several years later as a death knight.  A deeply imbalanced, murderous death knight.  (She’s sane now, but that was a rough patch for both of them.)  Then she became a demon hunter.

But she’s coped pretty well.  She’s cheerful and friendly and bouncy, and she has this weird habit of greeting people by purring at them (she knows a *lot* of kitty druids).  She’s pretty much exactly as she appears on her ref pics, although she has some scarring on her torso from being swiped at with a runeblade.  Her Winterspring saber and cub, Sharmila and … miniMila? XD … are just as they appear too.  You don’t have to draw them though – they just happened to be in the pic and are there if you’re in the mood to draw kitties.  :)

Annnnnnd that’s it!  Happy #SSArtTrade2011, everyone!  <3

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Sunday, May 15, 2011

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Posted by Shizukera Nightfury ()

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…and try giving Amy a knife in the opening scene along with her “stick” (it’s a staff, but she calls it a stick for some reason).

Badassery ensues.  Great, bloody, stick-it-with-the-pointy-end badassery.  So, is it staying in?

“I lifted the knife and stuck the beast with the pointy end, right in its neck.”

Hell yeah it’s staying in.  *evil grin*

(And yes, the ASOIAF reference is intentional.  Arya Stark is my sassy left-handed hero.)

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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

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Apparently taking a hiatus from “Tooth and Claw” means not only that the characters don’t shut up, but also that they drop great big bombshells on my head at totally inopportune times (for instance, at work, when I’m trying to work) to tempt me back.

Basically, the Gilnean Ginger Brigade* has always consisted of Ambriss (<3 Amy) and her parents, Eain and Andreia.  I poked a bit deeper and ended up adding Andreia’s estranged sister, Elisabethe, to the mix.  I have all these weird little details about them lurking in my head.  Eain has the infamous Lucky Hat and likes to name his guns.  Andreia cooks when she’s stressed (she cooked A LOT during the time when Eain was hiding his curse from Amy).  Elisabethe dyed her hair black during her rebel days so she could conceal herself better and now continues to do so out of habit.  Amy’s right ear is droopy in worgen form (her lazy ear) – she’s deaf in that same ear, having lost her hearing due to a childhood illness.  Things like that.

Then, yesterday, right after deciding I needed to put “Tooth and Claw” on hiatus, Amy informed me that the same illness that cost her her hearing also killed her brother.

What.  WHAT.

On the one hand, this explains why I always felt like there was another Fowler I couldn’t quite find.  This also explains why Andreia completely fell apart when Amy, barely holding off the worgen curse, told her parents she planned to stay behind with Crowley and his people when Gilneas City was evacuated – she wasn’t just losing a child, she was losing another child.

On the other hand, what the hell?  Now I’m composing Amy’s find-your-balance ceremony and she’s talking to her dead brother and that only makes me want to work on “Tooth and Claw” EVEN MORE.  (And yes, that’s bad.  The story’s on hiatus for a reason.)

Also wtf, random brother is random and how on earth did I not know this sooner.  You would think I’d have some say here, but no, not so much.

/divides by zero

/world implodes

*I call them that because they’re all redheads.  When ginger marries ginger, ginger happens, at least with this family.  XD

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Sunday, May 8, 2011

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No, seriously, I am Emo McEmoface and this post is 100% whinge.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  >_>

You guys, I’ve been working on Tooth and Claw since January.  It’s sitting at 6400 words (down from 8000ish;  I chopped a couple of scenes out for rewriting and haven’t done said rewriting yet).  It’s still not done.  In fact, it is nowhere near done.  It’s not even a complete rough draft.  It’s like the story that refuses to be finished and I just can’t find that spark I thought I had before.  The basic elements of the story are there, it’s just…I can’t finish the thing.  It’s like the story itself doesn’t want to be finished.

And it’s like this every time I write.  I know I’m no great writer.  I’m average at best, with the occasional oh-this-was-actually-really-good moment.  I don’t have any innate sense of how to write a story.  I am not gifted.  I am not talented.  I fight for every word I write.  “Blood, sweat, and tears”?  Oh yes, in the most literal sense.  I don’t expect writing to be easy, nothing worth doing is ever easy, but for months now it’s been all struggle and agony with nothing to balance it out, not even the simple accomplishment of just finishing a story.  I don’t even know why I bother.  Just…why?

What the hell do you do when the fire fades and you find yourself losing your grasp on a story you’ve come to care about so deeply?  This is only a fanfic, it’ll never be anything special, but I want to finish it – hell, at this point just finishing the bloody rough draft would be a major moral victory.  I can’t just let it die, but what can I do?  Am I doomed to go through this with every story I write?

I don’t know.  I just don’t know.

/frustrated face.

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Thursday, Mar 3, 2011

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Posted by Shizukera Nightfury ()

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Last time I did a story preview, I lost the plot shortly after.  Wharrgarbl!  However, considering I already have most of this written, I can safely say that won’t happen this time.  Huzzah!

Yes, it’s more ‘Tooth and Claw’ rambling.  I can’t help it, it’s stuck in my head!  And it will undoubtedly stay there until I finish the thing. 

As a note, when reading stuff the Fowlers say, one might imagine Amy and Andreia with a bit of a Cockney-ish accent, and Eain with a more “standard” British-ish one.

If this were Livejournal I’d do a cut, because this is long!  But alas.  *apologizes profusely for many words, both sides, handle it*

*

“Get out of ‘ere, you smelly beast!” – Andreia, unafraid of rampaging worgen.  I always imagine her trying to shoo it away with a broom or something, because the closest weapon is never an object that’s actually effective.

“Looking back on it later, I would fully agree that poking a feral worgen with a stick while armed only with the handful of spells I’d learned from my mother and Celestine was undoubtedly my worst idea to date.” – Narrating!Ambriss.  This is her voice in a nutshell.

“I did what any loyal, loving, slightly impulsive daughter would do in my position. Brandishing my staff, I yelled, “Oi, fleabag!” and gave the beast a good sharp poke in the bum.” Narrating!Ambriss.  This is her behavior in a nutshell.  She doesn’t always think things through, that one.

“That thing…it bit me. D’you think I ‘ave rabies?” – Ambriss, honey, I think rabies is the least of your worries.  (Though to be fair, that was before they knew what the worgen bite does.)

“I won’t let a…a silly little injury stop me.” – Ambriss. It’s just a flesh wound!

“She’s right, Andreia.” – Three tiny words with which Eain stopped Ambriss and Andreia yelling at each other in the middle of the attack on the city: siding with Ambriss on the Leave me behind to help those guys distract the worgen while y’all evacuate with everyone else, since I’ve already been bitten anyway issue. That went over well with Andreia.

“Thank you, Lord Obvious.” – Ambriss gets a little snarky when the obvious is stated.

“-> intervening Bad Stuff™ here? <-” – That’s not actually part of the story, I just haven’t nailed down exactly when Amy’s bite happened. I author good, y’all. (I do think it happened quite early in the evacuation of Gilneas City though. So there does need to be intervening stuff there. Damnation.)

“[I didn’t like that paragraph anyway. Maybe I'll like this one better?]” – And this is how I do my author’s notes when I take something out for rewriting. It’s like a bookmark, only goofier.

“Eain goes worgen hunting, with unintended consequences. Good thing he’s wearing the Lucky Hat.” – My synopsis of Part 2. Summaries are not my strong suit.

“So, dearest ‘usband, next time you get it in your ‘ead to sneak off an’ do things that are likely to get you killed or maimed, you just take a good look at those scars an’ think long an’ ‘ard about what a stupid, stupid idea you’re ‘aving. Are we quite clear on this?” – The closest Andreia will probably ever come to saying I told you to stay out of the Blackwald and away from the worgen, you moron.

“I looked up at the man holding the shotgun. Godfrey. This day was getting better and better!” – Narrator!Ambriss. Waking up to find yourself in stocks with a known asshat pointing a gun at you? That’s gotta be off-the-charts suck.

“Holy Light, I’m naked!” – Ambriss. Fur or no, the realization that she was standing there without a stitch of clothing on her was pretty disconcerting. After all, she’s a proper Gilnean…mostly. (This probably won’t make it into the final version, but her reaction in my head was hilarious and it had to be written down, yo.)

“Can I get you anything, dear? Something to eat or drink?” – Andreia. Her Curse-afflicted daughter randomly appears on her doorstep and is like “Hi Mum!” and the first thing she does after the initial shock of worgen in living room is offer food. Quintessential mommy. :3

“I told you not to go chasin’ worgen.” – Ambriss to Eain. Unlike her mother, she has no trouble saying I told you so.

“Unperturbed, Andreia shimmied on up the tree until she was level with her daughter.” – This is here because I love the fact that I actually got to use the word shimmy.

“Goldrinn’s teeth!” – Ambriss’s favorite swear.

“Damnation.” – Ambriss’s second favorite swear. (And my favorite. Try it. It’s cool!)

“You know ‘ow parents sometimes do stupid things out of love?” – Andreia on why Eain spent nearly three months trying to conceal his Curse status from his daughter.

“We’re the lucky ones, you an’ your father an’ I. Remember that.” – Andreia’s gentle way of saying, Talk to your father, you silly girl.

*

See, there’s a reason I love writing these people so much!  ‘cuz they rock.  <3

For those with burning curiosity, I hope to actually start posting this monstrosity sometime in early April. Why not sooner? Because the final issue of the Curse of the Worgen comics comes out on March 30 and I am wondering “WHAT IF THERE ARE SURPRISES?” so I am waiting until then). Also procrastination.

I pinch.

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Wednesday, Feb 23, 2011

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Posted by Shizukera Nightfury ()

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First, y’all, this is perhaps the most amazing thing I’ve seen in four years of playing WoW:  Shandris Feathermoon gets kited to Orgrimmar.  Watch what her Prayer of the Moon Goddess does in the city as more people gather.  XD

Link because the embed code refuses to play nice:  Dark Pact kites Shandris Feathermoon to Orgrimmar

Second, I am not dead, though if you follow me on Twitter you already know that.  :P   Of course, if you follow me there, you’ve also been subjected to heard me rattling on about something called “Tooth and Claw.”  It started as a short story about how Ambriss, my worgen, got bitten, since it varies slightly from the starting zone storyline (she was bitten early in the evacuation, when she poked a worgen with a stick to keep it from attacking her mother – yeah, that ended well).  It’s grown into a 6600-word, 18-page, 4-part monstrosity that still has incomplete scenes and currently includes her father getting bitten and nearly killed, Amy regaining her sanity and tracking her parents down in Duskhaven, and Amy and Eain having that talk.  Why is there a that talk, you ask?  Because Eain has been concealing his curse status for several months now and Amy is swimming in denial about him being a worgen – not because she has a problem with him being one (I mean, heck, she’s one herself!) but because she was the one who bit him.  :3  Oh, the explanations she’s come up with for why he smells like a worgen…

Yeah, they’re giving poor Andreia a lot of grey hairs.  That poor woman.  And yes, I am working on profiles for all three of them, in addition to Tooth and Claw.  I am a busy bee.

I have also been knitting hats, many hats, and there was a fire in my office building last week, but these things are neither here nor there.

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