Look To the North

I totally need a new catagory for Nanowrimo or something. Which, by the way, I finished with 100k, two novels–one with 67k and the other with 33k. My wrists ache. I wrote 16k the last day.

ANYWAY.

My characters, makeup, and I!

Ah, yes, a subject that for some reason got mentally brought up. Which characters wear makeup?! WHO BOTHERS?! I mean, they’ve got villians attemting to kick their rears, or they’re villians attempting to kick the good guy rears… who’s wearing makeup?

So my characters faced the interrogation, and I found the replies most…………….. interesting.

AWARD FOR MOST MAKEUP WORN:
Raiyn Serak. No surprise there. Ah, yes, Raiyn. Raiyn the vampire, Raiyn the whore, Raiyn the singular existing prostitute character that disturbs all my other female characters, Raiyn the positive she can convince humans that vampires aren’t monsters. *sighs* I love her. Her character is so very different from me. Nonetheless, her chosen makeup, as a general rule, in order of importance.

1) Eyeliner. Black, duh.
2) Mascara
3) Dark red lipstick/gloss
4) Concealer
5) Eyeshadow… very likely a green or blue… maybe a redish.
6) Any sort of powder to make her face paler (did I mention she’s also my only female semi-dark skinned character?)
7) Hairgel.
8) Lipliner.
9) Jewlery.
10) Scented stuff.
11) Nailpolish.

That about sums up what she wears. I’m not well versed in makeup… there’s probably more. Seriously, she looks like a different person without all those layers on. o_o

She wears it out of habit.

AWARD FOR LEAST MAKEUP WORN (on a female character)!
Surprisingly, Talnaver Arinon. Yeah, another undefinate TDE character… Talnaver wears no makeup at all, at least to the best of my observations. She finds it a waste of time running back and forth and tends to avoid it, even working undercover. The worst she’s done is hair styling. Generally, she relies on clothing and basic mannerisms to make herself different.

For TDE…
Drum roll…….

Ryian Khess. She uses makeup to disguise minor facial scars and uses a bit of lipgloss occasionally. She used to use it before she became a mercenary, but now finds it a waste of time.

(And just for a record: the male award for most makeup is Nikolas and Varok. Unsurprisingly, both vampires. Lol)

Now, in no specific order, other characters opinions on makeup for those curious!

Tiana:
Before she was Calthye, in the Legacy era, and previous to that, she basically got away with using lipgloss and hair stuff. She was too busy to bother with anything. But in the post Reunion era… I guess it’d be TDE: Fealty era… she does use some. To keep up appearances. She hates eye makeup and uses nothing more than a bit of a brown liner and a hint of mascara when necessary for stage lighting appearances. She’ll use blush and lipgloss as well as a bit of purfume. Gotta appear royal, eh what? Off duty, it depends on whether she keeps to habit or not, but she nixes all the eye makeup.

She has some facial tattoos.

Ariane:
Ariane is actually very good at using makeup, and can completely alter her appearance in about a half hour or so with the right stuff. As she used to work in mostly undercover senarios, she learned how to do incredible things with a bit of makeup. As Calthye, she uses purple eyeshadow, concealer (yes, yes, facial flaws!), and a pale pink lipgloss. She has thick enough eyelashes that she’s always found using eyelash glue (HER TERM! HER TERM, NOT MINE!!) to be pointless. She was always amused by shiny things and will use the stick-on type marks for occasions.

On stage, she uses proper stage makeup… eyes and mouth, mainly, though she refuses to use lipliner even with thin lips, and mostly goes for shinies.

Off complete duty, she still sometimes uses eyeshadow and concealer (hmm… acne?), but is totally freaked out about the very IDEA of having to kiss Elachi while wearing lipgloss, so she generally nixes most of the rest.

Marien:
Depends on her mood. She’s always liked dark eyeliner and mascara, though. The whole gothic look always fit her Shadow self. She goes with more charcoaly tones for makeup, and uses nailpolish on a regular basis. And toenail polish. ^^;;

That covers my female mains, doesn’t it? I can’t think…. zzzzzzzzz……………….. remind me later if I missed some MCs.

Oh, as for the I part of it…

I wear no makeup. But I bought some lipgloss because my lips have been very chapped and am trying to get used to having sticky, candy flavored lips. >< I want to put a bunch on and go kiss someone to see if it works.... hmmmmm.

The blather has been brought up more than once… who’s the worst kisser? Ironically, no one ever questions or wonders who’s the BEST character to kiss… simply, who’s the worst. The characters gather here to throw their votes in on who… is the best, and the worst.

(At least, my characters do. And I’m using the more tag, not because it’s dirty (it’s not), but because it’s EMBARRASSING them.)

(more…)

I’ll bet it’s more in character than the first script appearances he had. And, Jandalf, any comfort and you have Ariane closer to her character than I had her in her first appearances as well.

This is a purposeless rambly POVish scene which makes no sense, has no purpose, and is… boring. Snrk. But it introduces Elachi to the wonderful world of my brain.

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Disclaimer: This is not Jandalf’s Elachi Kyrie. Please hold his actions explained by the fact that this is a… fanfiction of a sort. I felt like explaining Ariane through his eyes, and with the character switcheroo… whee.

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There is a strong incongruity in existing; but yet one even stronger in attempting to twist your personality around something so utterly foreign that not even your mind can accept it as existing. There is something alien in accepting a perspective which doesn’t conflict and then hide in terror, instead falling silent.

Yet not silent.

Even in comprehension, it is still alien.

<><><><><>

It is very strange to exist and be feared, and yet be humbled by one thing. Perhaps as Elachi had grown older, this had changed, but nonetheless in his life, there had always seemed to be at least one thing that could humble him. No matter what external appearances said, there was always something to bring someone down. In his case, it was something as simple as a fear of lizards, as tiny as they might have been.

It branched out far beyond that, though.

Perhaps, in a way, he was afraid of his wife.

To him, she was an alien. Not by race. Most certain, she wasn’t a human by birth, race, or rights. That had never mattered, though so often she protested otherwise. She never had quite understood things from his eyes, as if she refused to even try to bend while he tried forcing himself through her square hole in the circle knotted board.

She scared him.

Elachi existed as a six foot seven human with piercing and startlingly blank gray eyes. Well built due to a need to keep himself physically fit, he was strong, tall, and an imposing figurehead in society. People listened to him, gave him sideways glances while walking through the streets. They were _afraid_ of him. On the opposite hand, Ariane was tiny, dark haired and eyed, and barely noticeable when she wasn’t attempting to make a scene. Unable to outwardly control due to a continual line of people taking her ill-seriously, she was a master manipulator of things not noticed.

And she turned that ability against herself. She manipulated to an extreme where he had to fight to restrain the urge to simply bat her away. And yet that desire wasn’t there at all. He _loved_ her, and love didn’t bring about the need to physically harm someone. So why she continually seemed to try force it upon herself, to try strain things, was beyond him.

And there was a theory he could not grasp. Why someone could be forever wounded by an emotional hurt when those left no scars…

“Ironic, isn’t it? Some of us never get to talk.”

He paused, having been unaware that he was even walking at a brisk pace down…

…a long and what appeared to be unending road in the Shadow Realms. An alley, certainly, overhung with tall and rusty buildings and scattered garbage littering the lane. It seemed to stretch on and on; there was no sky with the firm blackness overhead and dim glow of volcanic light. The pressure was overwhelming, something utterly beyond his ordinary stretch.

“Did they pull another switch?”

“What?” He turned; the face that stared up at him was an amber-blue eyed female with vaguely recognizable features. Elachi took a moment to place her. Ryian.

She smiled at him dryly. “Ariane. Are you Ariane?”

“No.”

“Well, of course not, she wouldn’t sound that stuck-up if she tried.”

The moment’s flicker of an insulted expression touched his eyes, but it was only there for the sharp-sighted. She hadn’t been searching for expressions or nuances, and didn’t particularly care. It was a different area, after all. A different person. “As I said. We’ve never talked,” she repeated. “When they did the switch thing, Ariane was you in here for a while, and she’s used your body for amusement’s purposes. But you’re not her, are you?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Amusement?”

“She thinks it’s easier to argue with Tiana in your body.”

“Where is this?”

Ryian blinked. “N2’s head, where else?”

“Ah.”

“Shadow Realms, to be more specific. Yrkia. It seems to be a bit of a random thing to happen, her own amusement where people talk.” Ryian’s eyes narrowed. “Speaking of which, you really don’t belong here. Even if it’s just a setup conversation, and not _really_ inside her head.”

He had given up trying to comprehend a word she was saying. It was a ramble of a sort, different than what Ariane would’ve given him, but as strange as had the woman been speaking Ekaeli-old. There was a long silence, during which Ryian came up with chairs and a table from a nearby wall (again, he didn’t question this, for the sake of his own sanity) and tossed them down to the alley roadway.

“You were complaining that she got emotionally hurt too easily.”

He sat down after a while. “Yes.”

Then there were no thought barriers here? It was different, then. Far different.

“’S easy. Ariane’s Calthye. She hears thoughts, but doesn’t make sense of them. For her, getting physically hurt’s a sort of reminder that she’s real. It leaves scars, sure, but not the same type, you know? When you walk away silently, she feels abandoned.”

He frowned. “Were it that easy, this would hardly be taking place, now would it?”

“No, of course not.” Ryian smiled. “You wouldn’t even be here. My narrator doesn’t take freedom with godmodding in writing. But you know.”

“No. I don’t know.”

“You _are_ annoying. Cheesh. Get used to it, anyway. She’ll develop you pretty well. It’ll be a pain, but good for you.”

At Elachi’s silence, Ryian smiled. “And this is why you fail. You’ll get used to it yet.” She stood up, and vanished. Somehow, he had a feeling that such occurrences were an ordinary occasion in the mind of one drastically different from his previous _writer_. A writer. It disgusted him, their lack of respect.

And how the two narrators tolerated each other, with such differing opinions on silence, perspective, and style, was beyond even him.

Even one who relied on a relationship with someone his utter opposite couldn’t yet understand. Not yet. But he would, if it took a death to prove it.

A godmod of Jandalf’s characters and a parody. Enjoy.

**********

A long time ago, in… well… a forest not so far away, unless you were from, say, Terra, in which case it was… er…

Somewhere in a forest, there was a little village. There. That’s better. Well, actually, it was a clearing in a forest, and stuff. It was like a woodcutter’s village. Which means it probably wasn’t approprate for kids to be growing up in, but whatever. There were kids, meaning the lumberjacks had to watch their language.

But that’s beside the point.

The point was that Little Blue’s grandm…cough…cough…old relative was ill. Er. Yes.

Old relative.

So her… er…

Blue’s a guy.

I hate to break it to y’all, but he is. Sorry to break story continugity. Really, but I have to. Little Blue Spiky Hair wasn’t at all like the cute blond girl with a red hood. And his old relative was ill. (My characters were trying to convince me to put Ariane as the grandmother, but she rebelled)

So one day, when his relative was particularly ill, his mother called him aside and granted him a basket of goodies, wine, and cheese, and various other stuff you send to ill grandparents. No one knows why you’d want to get them drunk, but whatever…

So his unnamed mother, as no one knows who his mother is anyway, though…

Oh. Okay.

Tiana says she’s his mother. We won’t question her, or the fact that he’s older than her.

“Why do I want to get my grandparent drunken, mother?” Xendor aka Little Blue Spiky Hair asked cheerfully, taking the basket and plotting to eat the cheese himself.

“Because.” Tiana glowered… well… up at him, but that’s beside the point. “Besides, it’ll get rid of you for a day!”

“Oh. All right!” He hugged her and skipped off into the forest, immediately tripping on a portruding root and breaking his ankle.

Of course, in the amount of time it took for his ankle to heal, his grandparent recovered. We have to wait a few years for the relative to get ill again.

The relative DID get ill again! Woo-hoo! And Xendor was sent off into the tall, creepy, and foreboding forest with a basket of all sorts of sinful goodies to plug his grandparents with.

Of course, no matter how horribly foreboding and malicious the forest looked from the exterior, somehow there was sunbeams dancing over daisies and beautiful flowers lining the forest paths. Soft moss outlined the path, making one wonder if it hadn’t been planned to be this way.

Xendor, as distracted as he was, decided to go and pick bluebells for his relative. No one knows why, because his relative didn’t particularly like flowers. But he decided to go get flowers. And perhaps there was a bit of rock music filtering through the trees. But besides that…

He got lost in the forest.

Gee. Big surprise THERE.

Evil beady eyes glowered from between the branches and an unhuman howl split the air.

Xendor dropped his basket and covered his ear. “That can’t be good.”

“MY FINGERNAILS!!!!” a female voice wailed, stumbling from the branches and crashing into Xendor.

A moment later, one of the wine bottles shattered onto the ground. It had been a delayed reaction, after all. Gravity never worked quite right in fairy tales.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!! YOU GOT WINE ON MY MANICURED TOENAILS!! MY SHOES WILL BE RUINED!!” Meqime wailed, beating on Xendor.

“Peticure.”

“What?”

“Not a manicure. That’s your toes,” Xendor pointed out logically. “Do you mind? You’re standing on my basket, your highness.”

She smacked him. “That’s for your impudence! Bow before me!”

“…You’re freaking standing on my basket!” Xendor shoved her. “Get off of it! My grandparent is scarier than you.”

Meqime sidled up to him. “What’s a basket when you could have me, love?”

“It’s a basket.” He pushed her off of the basket and picked it up again. “Aw, look, you crushed the chocolates.”

And so, in a fit of ultimate fury, she grabbed the blue-haired Xendor and ate him up! Not that way, pervert! As in cannibalistic! You know, flesh, blood, bones, gore, and all that rot? There was much screaming, and blood, and pain, and stuff.

But let’s not go there.

Disgusted, Meqime dug around in his basket for an after dinner mint. “So much more satisfying to whip the young welps,” she muttered, using the basket to wipe the blood off of her face.

Xendor pounded on the inside of her stomach. It sounded distinctly like thunder. For some odd reason, even though he was still alive within her, her stomach wasn’t abnormally portruded, or otherwise odd shaped. Fairy tales can work some awfully odd ways.

Coming up with some magic hairdye, she changed her hair color and went off with the basket to grandmother’s house.

Even though it actually wasn’t a grandMOTHER, but whatever…

Suddenly, a very orange figure crashed into Meqime. “THE SKY IS FALLING!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!”

A piece of the sky fell and crushed Jandalf flat, rendering the wizard’s appearance nothing more than a cameo.

“O_o.”

Meqime carried on through the forest still, though now scarred by the sight of a piece of the sky crushing someone flat. It severely bothered her. But then again, when she was run over by a person in a very shiny dress, she was ticked off.

Kemmie stood up and smacked the person. “It’s my job to be the prettiest person in the story!”

Then she double took.

Ira glowered down at her from a very stylized version of Cinderella’s dress. “It wasn’t my choice, all right?”

Kemmie doubled over in fits of laughter.

Of course, Ira got ticked off. The situation only led to one thing.

“Aren’t you a pretty young girl,” Kemmie breathed at him.

Ira glared at her. “It’s a drycleaning job. I was getting it cleaned for Tiana, all right? And they cut my clothes off and insisted I wear this.”

“…”

He stomped off, the white dress getting rather dirty from dragging through the dirt.

But we’ll get to the point. Finally, Meqime arrived at the grandparent’s house. It had a lot of windows. Smoothing back her impersonation of Xendor’s hair, she knocked on the door.

The door was opened, and she found herself knocked over by a very long scarf. A few moments later, a tall figure peered out from behind the scarf. “Yes?”

Meqime, winded by being crushed by a very long knitted scarf, only was able to stare up at her… father. “Get… this… thing… off me!”

“Meqime?” He raised his eyebrows. “I thought they were going to send someone more… sane.”

“Gack…” Meqime shoved the long red scarf off of her chest and stood up.

Elachi examined her hair with raised eyebrows.

“I’m Xendor,” she chirped.

“You sound remarkably female, Xendor.”

“I… er… have a cold.”

Elachi snorted. Meqime couldn’t wait any longer. She bounded on Elachi and somehow managed to swallow him whole. We won’t even try describing how she managed this.

Inside of Kemmie’s stomach, the following conversation took place as she went and placed herself behind a newspaper.

Xendor: Hi, gramps!

Elachi: Hmph. Of all the people she had to eat, she had to eat you.

Xendor: I didn’t know she was a cannibal.

Elachi. (gets newspaper and reads it with a flashlight)

And so, back in the village, Tiana considered the fact that Xendor would probably get sidetracked by the nearby Pillar concert. So she sent off her backup after berating Ira for getting her dress muddy again.

She sent off…

Her daughter.

Wow. Things finally follow the story!

So, Thalia set off with a laptop computer, no fancy colored hoods, and another basket of stuff. One wonders why Tiana didn’t just go herself, but perhaps she was busy with Jether in the background. Kissing, or painting walls, or something.

Thalia made it through the forest completely unharmed. But arriving at the hut in the forest, she paused.

Entering without knocking (because the door was blocked by the exceedingly long knitted scarf), she peered at her supposed grandparent, hiding behind a newspaper.

“Grandpa, your hair is very blue.”

“I know child.”

“You missed a comma. How horrible your grammar is today, grandpa.”

“Er… reading the comics, child.”

“Grandpa, you’ve got breasts.”

“Er…” And Kemmie bounded from behind the newspaper and swallowed Thalia whole! The child was far too observant for her own good.

But, fortunately, a good woodcutter was passing by and heard rather weird sounds coming from the cottage in the woods. Most notable, Meqime’s stomach stretching in strange manners, due to the fact that she had eating three people whole, including a six foot seven man.

And, of course, the conversations coming from within.

“Shaddup!” she muttered to her stomach.

The woodcutterer popped in and gave her a weird look. “Whit did ye do to your hair, Meqime?”

“Gah… I’m Elachi!”

Gaheris peered at her. “No, ye most definately are not.”

We won’t go into the brutality of this scene, but in the end, he killed her and took the people out. Elachi was ticked, Xendor thought it was cool and went off to get high on a tower, and Thalia needed a bath.

After that, Tiana always went to visit her grandparents herself, Ariane kept a close eye on Elachi’s knitting so that it wouldn’t break through the wall, Elachi got to drink all the wine that Thalia brought him, and everything was good.

Well, mostly. Bar the fact that the three characters who got eaten stank for a year and a day.

The moral of this story is make sure your grandparents live in the same town as you if they’re going to get sick, or you’ll get eaten by a seductress of a wolf.

I discovered this in my bored search for something of merit to post.

This isn’t anything of real merit, really… it’s just what Jandalf and I wrote when we only had one computer. (rolling of eyes) Oh, Master, guess what? I discovered we could’ve had two keyboards hooked up after all, and it would’ve worked perfectly normally. Mom and I were doing that one day, to my great amusement…

Too bad. This is proof that we write a LOT better when over each other’s shoulders.

This is also proof that we didn’t switch out of SW canon until recently. Gahhh.

Comes complete with OOC babble. I thought it was hilarious. Comes complete with snazzy more tag because it’s fairly long. Totally clean, though.

(more…)

This post merits the cute “more” button because it’s semi-explicit for the implied remarks. Basically, a summary, this is a post made to get it out of my system—what my characters will and won’t do. It starts off very mild, but will probably get more explicit, just to get it out of my system…

This is a character interview, more or less, but not one fit for Yoda Clones… not that it’s smut, or anything, it’s just implicational.

(more…)

A trailer.

It’s not perfect… far from it… and I forgot about the stretching thing, and the transaction thing is overdone, but, hey! This time it has text AND two different SOUNDS! I was too lazy to search out a good shattering sound, though. The rain was as close as I got. The music’s from the Hulk, the images from Star Wars (the AotC and RotS trailers), and… yeah…

The result of not feeling up to making signatures…

I’m aware this one is a huge file. Odd, considering it’s just text. I know the music timing’s off, and the stars vanish, and stuff… but give me a break. It’s the Jedi.net text crawl, a la Star Wars.

It’s far from finished. I’ve taken to doing some awfully large projects on the computer… I take the penciled bit, and go to town on colorizing. But it becomes one heck of a projects. I’ve taken the theory of emotional images, and turned that elemental lately… my current facinations have been with an extremist’s fantasy art style. Photoreal, more or less, but entirely… fantastical. Facial tattoos, swords, dragons, mermaids, fire… basically, exceedingly extreme.

It’s fun.

That’s the only way to sum it up.

I’ve never tried drawing in this level of high fantasy before. Always before, I’d simply add perhaps pointy ears to make my image “fantasy”, but now what I’m doing is anything BUT. It’s intense, bold, and utterly fantastical, containing emotions far deeper than I’ve ever tried before, containing stories that could never be told, and containing aspects that seem to be unspoken. Everything I draw has an emotion behind it, everything somehow covers something that’s been going through my mind in a very metaphorical (though that’s not the right word) manner. I think, if I keep up with this style, you’ll begin to understand what I mean… it effects my writing just as much as it does my drawing, this need to indicate in unspoken manners.

For example, Tiana now canonically has facial tattoos. Not the Terran form of punk expression, but a subtle and yet far from subtle series of designs. Ariane now plays electric guitar and has a CD out (it’s not her group; Hale’s sort of the leader… it’s Nadir for now) (AND she writes songs… I even managed to write one of them). Ryian writes. Her story actually is being written by me… I mean, the story she’d be writing. And through these in character character expressions, things get spoken that are otherwise not spoken.

It’s strange.

It’s also quite fun.

I guess this image started it.

It should make a clickable thumbnail… heh…

It was my first attempts with the facial marking idea. Tiana’s aren’t so intense… remove the cheek ma and most from the chin… basically the diamond marks, circle marks by eyes, and the weird slashy thingiers. I was bored, so I went crazy with some markers (I want more markers, by the way… I mean, I want some of the good quality ones… kid ones suck, and sharpies are too dark)

Then it went off on this track…

Pencil crayons. I hated the original. Sums it up. I decided to go crazy. She ended up with wings.

Then on…

Ryian, I think we’ve seen this one before… added the dragon…

(though this painting REALLY started it… art teacher told me to put an animal in a flower…)

Then, of course… the cover for The Genesis…the tenative name for Ryian’s “novel”. It has to be the most hugely complex image I’ve ever done, not to mention the most… containing of a story not told. Actually, it probably won’t end up the final for Ryian’s book, if only because Teniae shouldn’t wear Tiana’s clothing, Saerin doesn’t look that much like Ryian, and I’m not sure why Ariane ended up in there…

THIS is what Tenaie looks like.

Notice the similarities to Tiana? Good. Notice the eyes in the background? Probably not, the background’s really light because only Tenaie’s finished.

And I’ll finish up with the pencil for Seperation, which I know I’m spelling wrong in the file name… too lazy to spell check.

That image has one heck of a story within it, let me tell you that… (grins sheepishly) Character models were originally Ryian and Ariane, if you’ll note the whole elemental thing. Of course, I realize now that for an effective demonstration for them, it should be Earth and Fire rather than Water and Fire/Air. But it works. Contemplating that their characters were seperated… the whole emotion of the image should be “never again to see your face” type of thing. It’s the most intensive image I’ve done for a long while, really…

…And it makes me want to draw more mermaids/men.

(goes to get pencil) Oh well, so what if I draw a bunch of crap, this is FUN! Must consider finishing images, though…

Hey. Either it’s Nadir for Ariane and Hale’s band, or else we use THIS generator…!!

With my name:

Your Band Name is:

The Barnyard Apocolypse

I like that name… ^^

Tiana:

Your Band Name is:

The Bald Bunnies

Ariane…

Your Band Name is:

The Stinky Police

Jandalf… (chokes and dies)

Your Band Name is:

The Puffy Housewives

Elachi. (dies AGAIN)

Your Band Name is:

The Pink Officers

Jether…

Your Band Name is:

The Blow Up Pit Bulls

Xiian

Your Band Name is:

The Amish Ponys

Gaheris.

Your Band Name is:

The Pink Eyedrops

Anya

Your Band Name is:

The Alien Cafeteria

Yeah…