Yay! ^__^ Having fun. Details? Wouldn't you like to know. Seriously, very relaxed, slaking that thirst to be within ten feet of each other instead of 500 miles.
Now... I know none of you steal art, right... Do forgive me my paranoia. In any case, have some newly scanned art for you to look at. Much of it needs a coloring job, and I am withholding a few which are just too yums for a preview. This is raw and *very* large. It'll take a while to load.
How can I even attempt to find mere words to try to capture the true essence of sensual mystery and grand wickedness- that which surrounds you in a permanent aura of pure EVIL?!?!
(Wow.. And I seriously thought I had rigged this test so that you couldn't possibly achieve such a high rank!)
10:34 AM The Persian Boy by Mary Renault ...just got interesting. Rowr, it -is- about boy-sex, all the way through. And historically accurate. Whee!
The high peaks were touched with white, when from the head of the last pass we saw Ekbatana.
It is, if you like, a palace and walled city. But it seemed more like some splendid sculpture wrought from the mountainside. The westering sun warmed the rich faded colors that crested its sevenfold walls, rising in tiers with the slope; the white, the black, the scarlet and blue and orange. The inmost two, which enclose the Palace and treasuries, had a fiery gleam. The outer was sheathed with silver, the innermost with gold.
To me, bred in the hills, it was lovelier than Susa a thousand times. I almost shed tears beholding it. I saw that Boubakes too seemed near to weeping. But what grieved him, he said, was that the King should be driven to his summer palace with winter coming on, and no other left for him.
Edit: Bad me. I finished it. 468 pages. Totally in love with it. It may yet drive Jenrya from my fevered mind. Beautiful, historical, and it could be true. All the principals lived. Most of the intrigues actually happened. And oh, the steady undying love of a boy for the man who conquered most of the known world... across culture, against odds, witnessing the frailities and brilliance and pure charisma that was Alexander.
Yesterday I went to the public library... dallied too long on getting a card. Instead, I bought books. Hardbacks for a dollar each?! C'mon, I'm insane but not dumb.
Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov (ah, the Good Doctor, may he rest in the galactic consciousness. the one early Foundation book I didn't get through.)
In the Beginning by Isaac Asimov (Asimov vs. the book of Genesis. more to see what he thought of it than anything else. ^^)
Exploring the Earth and the Cosmos (if you want some big scientific Thing explained, Asimov is one way to go. Carl Sagan and Stephen J. Gould are others.)
Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear (one of the killer B's. Greg's awesome, I never have time to read his epics though.)
Anywhen by James Blish (short story anthology. Blish is one of the Golden Age UK guys. not as nutty as Moorcock *g*)
Xenogenesis by Octavia E. Butler (brilliant, *brilliant* African American SF writer. I do wish SF were less white, frankly. Which reminds me, I need to check out Nalo Hopkinson.)
Hickory Dickory Death by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot is da bomb! ^^)
Dubliners by James Joyce (I am a closet fan of the bastard-who-ruins-English-students'-lives. *g* there's just something about the sheer intellectual arrogance of remaking literature as the world knows it. and succeeding.)
The Persian Boy by Mary Renault (historical fiction re: Alexander the Great. part of me figured there would be some hint of boy-sex. I so called it. ^^ yep, I'm sick.)
Island in the Sea of Time by S.M. Stirling (she's a good one. ["she", I think] And any alternate history recommended by Harry Turtledove has to be good)
The Two Georges by Richard Dreyfuss and Harry Turtledove (Harry vs. celebrity author. place your bets. ^^)
Quest for the Future by A.E. van Vogt (didn't even look at the title. van Vogt is a genius of the old school)
War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk (Yes, it's as big as they say it is. Um... I own it? Does that make me literate? ^_^ Seriously, my dad's WW2 fascination has diffused down. will get to it after Shogun.)
Last but not least, "Video Movie Guide 2000"! My gosh, what a deal. LOL. If I could sit through the damn things and have the money to pay, I'd watch more movies. They do tend to overtake my psyche more than books and TV though, so I take 'em in moderation. So if you need info on a movie, you can ask me now. ^^
random movie review of the day:
Dagora, the Space Monster Rating: turkey. A cache of gems stolen by Japanese gangsters is ripped off by a giant, flying, diamond-eating jellyfish. Probably a true story. 80m. Dir: Inoshiro Honda. 1964
Oohhh, I long for some Joanna Russ or James Tiptree, Jr (who was really a woman named Alice Sheldon. No one believed he was a she for a while. She and her husband died under tragic circumstances.) Feminist SF! Woooo.
Alas, my SF knowledge is severely backdated. You know, I haven't even read that many Gaimans. Hell, my friend is on a first name basis with him, I still haven't. This takes time, and so does fandom. But that's okay. ^^ There's more to life than leisure.
Time is the great unvariant, but the unvariance is no simple relation. Time is here where you are. It is never the same elsewhere. A starbeam penetrates the atmosphere. It brings a picture from seven hundred thousand years in the past. An electron makes a path of light across a cloud chamber. It brings a picture from fifty, a hundred, or more, years in the future. The stars, the world of finitely large, are always in the past. The world of the immensely, but still finitely, small is always in the future.
This is the rigor of the universe. This is the secret of time.
-- A.E. van Vogt, frontspiece of Quest for the Future
9:33 AM
Weird dream. Must have been the onion rings. High school friends... actually they weren't my friends. Same grade. They were people from several parts of the social ladder... hm, most of them were elementary school people, but we were all in high school. Worrying about grades and all. I'm not sure I was misplaced once, I stayed in character. Blissfully unaware, just high school. Nothing else.
Warning: the following bunny does not contain any sexual references. It does not contain shonen-ai. It doesn't even contain *boys*. In fact, it doesn't contain humans. Inspired by a fabulous answer to my ezBoard post at Megchan's which listed all the formality levels of all the characters. Gatomon talks like an adult. Patamon talks rather young. (And Jenrya talks normally with shades of formal, while Ryo talks normally with shades of informal. My in-character march continues!)
Tailmon = Gatomon. Kitty with an attitude. She's Hikari's. She used to be evil.
Patamon. Batpig. Takeru's headgear. Innocent as apple pie.
Japanese names used. SPOILERS for 02.
They called it their hiding tree. None of the other digimon used it because none of them had figured out how to sneak out of their partners' houses yet. Perhaps Iori had told Armadimon to stay put; he seemed like that kind of kid. In Poromon's case, he likely stayed out of politeness, or some attempt to avoid inconveniencing Miyako. Tailmon found it silly. If she were a miniature raptor, she wouldn't spend her day as a pink powderpuff with a beak. If she were a bird, she'd fly.
As for Chibimon, kami help them if he ever got out.
"Is it lunch yet?" Patamon hopped up to her branch and waddled over on his hindpaws.
"No, Pata-chan. Another hour and the lunch lady will leave the door open again." Tailmon's whiskers twitched. Patamon looked awfully tired. They'd done a lot of flying the day before. No problem for Nefertimon; in whatever form she took, Tailmon always had a fine-tuned control over her power levels, a necessary consequence of her now missing tail ring. Patamon, on the other hand... Takeru had grown up quite a bit, but Patamon was still terribly naive about his own powers.
"There's lots of room on this branch," she said.
Patamon nodded, curling up by her side, big blue eyes drooping. "Takeru was having nightmares again."
"Aa. What about, akei?" She let him cuddle up and gently groomed his back with her claws.
"Afraid of losing me."
Tailmon nodded, her vision going misty. Oh, she was familiar with the feeling. Except her beloved friend had never returned. Perhaps it was something about dying in the real world, instead of in the digital world. Maybe your data didn't know where to go to become a digitama again.
Patamon nuzzled her fur, aware that she was tensing up. Tailmon smiled. He was still terribly sweet after all this time. She couldn't understand it sometimes. He'd died. It had been his first digivolution to Angemon and he'd sacrificed himself. She had no doubt he'd do it again if Takeru or the others were in danger and there was no other way. Born and died and reborn untainted.
Maybe it bothered her because she couldn't remember a time when she wasn't.
It hadn't been easy being a small Salamon, all alone in the digital world. She'd fought her way out of more scrapes than she cared to count. When she'd become Tailmon it had been easier, but lonely. Then she'd met Vamdemon, and was never lonely again.
Just ruthless, murderous, and evil.
It was no use dwelling on the past, Hikari told her. Tailmon would have trouble believing her if she didn't know how perceptive she was. Hikari was the Light of the Digidestined, but she was not innocent. There were times when she Saw things; not exactly predictions, just the way reality was shaped. Tailmon didn't doubt she knew all about the atrocities she'd committed in Vamdemon's service.
"Whatcha thinking about, Tailmon?"
She frowned. Patamon was so exhausted. He ought to sleep, not be exposed to her dark thoughts. But she knew Patamon, and he was persistent when one evaded the question. "I was wondering if it was my fault that the Dark Ocean is after Hikari."
"Why would you think that? Those crazy Numemon remembered the child of Light. So they called her."
"But how did they find her?!" Tailmon stifled a growl, keeping her claws away from Patamon's hide. "She was taken right in front of me. What if they find her again. What if I'm leading them to her?"
Patamon squirmed and sat back on his rump, looking rather comical as he leaned on her. "Why would you do that?"
Tailmon sighed and patted his head. "Because I was evil before, Pata-chan. The Dark Ocean feeds on it. Hikari's not evil at all."
The little batpig scrunched his face up in concentration. Bless him, he was actually thinking of a way to resolve it. "But you're not evil now, right? Except for how you lead V-mon on."
"No, I'm no-- what?!"
Patamon giggled. "C'mon, he has a crush on you."
"Ewww. You're kidding."
"Uh huh. But I dunno if he's just following Daisuke's lead."
"Possibly. He's a good kid, but how did he get to be leader? At least Agumon was reasonably calm."
"But not Taichi!" Patamon giggled again. He did like a good head-rub.
"Why are we talking about this, again?" Tailmon sniffed, but fondly.
"To cheer you up." Little orange wings fluttered briefly. "If you're happier maybe the Dark Ocean can't reach you."
Tailmon sighed. What a kid. "They've already reached 'Kari."
"She'll be okay. I know, I know. There's all kinds of things you can't protect her from." A large blue eye peeked up at her. "You just have to believe."
It was just like the digimon of Hope's child to say that. Tailmon smiled down at him. "Thank you, Pata-chan."
"Anytime, girl," he said, a trace saucily. Probably picked it up from her.
"We're a pretty good team, ne."
"Got that right."
A breeze fluttered the leaves around them. Tailmon shifted the other digimon around so he was more comfortable. "You know, Patamon, I feel so odd fighting with you sometimes. I mean, we both digivolve to angel types, and we have similar power levels. Still, there are times..."
"Yeah, Tailmon?"
"It feels odd for me to be an angel, yet be impure." I pale in comparison, next to you. Patamon shrugged, his lids drooping again. "Hope's purity is what makes it powerful. But it's nothing next to the strength of Light. And you've always been the strong one for us."
Tailmon blinked at her friend. "You really think so, Patamon?"
"I know so." Patamon's voice was getting softer. "Learned it from my aneki."
The feline digimon shook her head in amazement as the little batpig fell asleep. Her precious little brother. One of the most powerful digimon in two worlds, and he drooled in his sleep and liked strawberry pocky. What would they ever do without him?
She tucked an errant wing-ear back, and settled down to wait for lunch.
~60K of graphics :: Koani by
Alice in Wonderland :: Scorpion by Ushikai Background and buttons by Triple Orbit Graphics ~ Sadly it's no longer at its former website.
