Difference between revisions of "Joysweepers Incoherent Idea Bank"

Revision as of 21:52, 2 December 2008

This is Joy's Idea Bank. It isn't a story. It isn't an article. It is a list, and a list without organization, at that. To get ridiculously metaphorical, this is a garden of story-seeds, fertilized with things that supercharge me with enthusiasm. Joysweeper is easy to inspire, but for various reasons can't act on everything. This is a backup - her computer is crashy, and she doesn't want to lose all of these. Why is she typing in third person?

You can look through it, but it isn't for you. By which I don't mean that you can't use bits and pieces of it - I mean that I picked things out for me, and I haven't reformatted it, explained the in-jokes, or anything like that. To go back to the garden metaphor, I haven't hewn a path, and although I know where everything is and what is or isn't pleasing to touch, smell, or eat, you're likely to be lost. Here we have definitions, a couple of links, and some story concepts and fragments. Oh, and I repeatedly express a juvenile love for Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America. Why? Because he is the straightforward, good-natured, usually-confident, idealistic, stoic, goal-driven, responsible leader type. And awesome.

Pictures.

Some whispering poem was calling us home, to a place we know never existed.

Chris texted from DC that his plane crashed and he was dead, but thought he'd be okay. I wrote back and told him to stay out of the sun.

You have destroyed me utterly.

Do it again.

What's love? This sense of freezing-bitter loss, the pit of anguish whose eyes I can't quite bring myself to fully meet yet, and which I am becoming heartily sick of? Or the way the sunlight catches briefly on a strand of your hair and the world collapses itself into a breathless and giddy moment of beauty, as piercing and pure-tasting as ice water? The moment in which I catch a breath of your scent by accident and, before I check myself, am moved to bliss?

It's November, and I can feel myself dying again. I'm starting to forget how many times it's been, but then I've never been fantastic with numbers. I wonder what new thing will rise from my compost heap this time?

FDR: "A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted — in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest-at the command — of his head."

Siren (ginger, jasmine, vanilla and apricot)

He is a lovely, lovely singer. His acting skills are on par with a certain Captain James "The T Stands For Manwhore, What Do You Mean I Failed Spelling?" Kirk portrayer.

'Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia !'

'Be yourself. Everyone else is taken!'

Fainting: "I was walking, and then I was asleep with silent blackness all around me, and then I heard music and people talking and dishes clinking like at a party, and then I woke up and I was sitting in a chair with worried people all around me and my vision was clouded with little silver-edged black sparkles. I felt like I had been asleep for hours, but everyone said it was only a few seconds. I kept asking "Where am I?" but I knew where I was, I just couldn't comprehend what was going on. I felt like I must have traveled some enormous distance, I must have passed out and been unconscious for hours, surely they would have taken me to a hospital, so why would I still be at the doctor's office? It was completely disorienting. Being passed out felt just like being asleep."

Let me insert a slightly more annoyed rant about what it's like to be a non-traditional bio-female in the army. Judging from what other people say, every female (I think we're still at less than 10% of the total military population) has this same rocky reef to navigate, so my own personal set of grievances is just the way that this institution manifested in my case. I have heard it summed up like this: - If you don't sleep with any of the army guys, you must be a lesbian. - If you sleep with one army guy, then you're probably okay, or at least normal. - If you sleep with more than one army guy, then you're a total slut and deserve no respect. - (And if you watch enough Powerpoint briefings, bullet points really start to grow on you.)

Dantooine - dorian passion fruit

"Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String"

Breathe easy?! I'm trapped inside a psychopathic corpse! I can't get out!

I am the boomstick.

I have needs now - dirty, horrible needs.

I, for one, think it's pretty awesome that a god-tier space lord with phenomenal cosmic powers can just kick back every so often and have a brew with his dad, talking about all the wicked cool shit he's been doing.

I'm happy, hope you're happy too.

The main difference, I guess, is that the hydraulic “muscles” work more by pushing, while human muscles work by pulling.

Tomorrow starts today.

Dead!

"And that's why I don't like magic, Captain. 'cos it's magic. You can't ask questions, it's magic. It doesn't explain anything, it's magic. You don't know where it comes from, it's magic! That's what I don't like about magic, it does everything by magic!"

I thought it was a guiding omen, but it screams in the night.

Greek term thauma (marvel)

Technically, Zaktan from Bionicle. When his old boss tried to vaporize him, he was somehow able to pull himself back together as microscopic "protodites". In this new, permanent state, Zaktan can easily avoid attacks by turning into an insect swarm; change the shape of body parts; heal damage by filling the gaps with Protodites; and engulf a foe in an attack that must feel like getting hit with thousands of needles. Zaktan himself calls it a curse however, as his voice now sounds like a crowd speaking; and whenever he wakes up he can feel his body shifting "where there once were tissue and solid metal".

The boss of a level who plans to kill a bunch of civilians to cover his tracks is revealed to be an ex-employee of Stark industries fired for stealing supplies: "My inventions helped make you rich Stark! You never should have fired me!" Tony (Iron Man) "You were stealing pens!"

[lj-cut text = "This is a massive piece of ASM"] Lots of pictures [/lj-cut] But with pointy brackets instead of square brackets.

"Tony is molested by technology" is almost as popular an Iron Man storyline as "Something's wrong with Tony's heart/nervous sytem/etc--again!" Then there's the combination plot of "Tony's armor is killing him, yet he keeps wearing it anyway because he's just that stubborn."

"See, a side-effect of being able to break bricks with my bare hands is that I have a hard time fitting into clothes that are designed for the average woman. My arms are just too big and muscular (and so are my thighs, and my calves…)"

Human brains are 21% of our bodyweight.

"humans are actually very weak for animals their size, due to a difference in muscle protein structures. A typical adult chimpanzee could rip the arms off an Olympic weight lifter." "Chimps have a lot of dense quick-burst muscle, but they can't swim and they have very poor endurance." "Humans have great long-term endurance, though." "Yeah. We're built for chasing gazelles. For miles. Until the damn thing falls over from exhaustion and we beat its head in with whatever's handy. (See Niven's "Folk Tale.") Lions can't do that. They're sprinters." "The average office worker (ie, unfit sod who walks at most a mile a day) can train themselves up within a month to run 4-5 miles in one go, and then you have this thing called a 'marathon'. I don't think anyone even contemplates asking a horse to do that. That's not even counting how long someone can row or cycle for."

Human endurance running ability has been inadequately appreciated because of a failure to recognize that "high speed is not always important," Bramble says. "What is important is combining reasonable speed with exceptional endurance." Hairless, clawless, and largely weaponless, ancient humans used the unlikely combination of sweatiness and relentlessness to gain the upper hand over their faster, stronger, generally more dangerous animal prey, Harvard Anthropology Professor Daniel Lieberman said Thursday (April 12). “Humans are terrible athletes in terms of power and speed, but we’re phenomenal at slow and steady. We’re the tortoises of the animal kingdom,” Lieberman said. [1] While animals get rid of excess heat by panting, they can’t pant when they gallop, Lieberman said. That means that to run a prey animal into the ground, ancient humans didn’t have to run further than the animal could trot and didn’t have to run faster than the animal could gallop. All they had to do is to run faster, for longer periods of time, than the slowest speed at which the animal started to gallop. [2]

I love being human.

Everyone assumes that if you're trying to get into someplace you shouldn't be, the answer is to remain unseen. No one ever thinks to make it look like you belong there.

Put people in uniforms and they look pretty much the same. What is more remarkable is that they also behave similarly and direct their actions toward common goals.

This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life. My rifle, without me is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than any enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will… //My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit… //My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weakness, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will… //Before God I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but Peace.

"I’ll call you tomorrow. Everything will be finished by then. And everything will be ok. It’ll still be me."

"And, in conclusion, my uterus is not a ballot box. I'd thank politicians to keep their bills, laws, and suggestions out of it. They're starting to get a bit uncomfortable."

"Do not get hit by lightning, m'kay?"

"I LOLed forever, I'm crying and my nose is running. And I'm still giggling like I'm high. Oh god, I'm scared, I can't stop."

"way of seeing the world, one where he's been constantly abandoned, betrayed and let down while trying to do his level best and then some more but never getting so much as a thank you. She shows him as a competent officer who is genuinely loved by his men."

Somehow, my old self is coming back to me.

"I rode them and had horse stuff all over my room, but I'd also be the first little girl to tell the other girls that they were kind of dumb and a lot of work, and sometimes bit you for no reason with their giant horse teeth. I did, however, think they were pretty."

Why are we pretending to be cannibals? SALAD IS NOT FOOD! THE GRAPES ARE WARM! I HATE OLIVES! ...Don'tcha just love in-jokes?

"WE WILL COOPERATE WITH YOU. If you don't want us here just ask us. Thanks - Scott"

It sure is creepy having a friend whose eyes glow in the dark.

"We need more good crazy, it'd be nice to watch the news and think, "that's fucking insane", but feel a little jealous, instead of just alone."

"By believing passionately in something that does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired."

Klavier: If it had guns and... guitars... then maybe I'd play!

Klavier: Oh! And alien babes!

Klavier: With guns!

Klavier: Who play guitars!

Klavier: Then I'd play chess.

remember this: if you're hot, don't drink cold water too fast or it will make you sick.

I feel I must emphasize that there's nothing but spandex in that suit -- no cup, no support, no magic... and no boobs, really. That's all pectorals, baby! That's six months of blood, sweat and tears!

Features advertised on a shoe that sound fit for a cyborg foot. Abrasion-resistant, sculpted heel cup, midfoot shank and medially poised rearfoot help stabilize, integrated gel to center and cushion landing, shock-absorbing insert, Vibran 8 compound, venting and drainage, resist twisting forces of over-pronation, ventilation systems wick away heat.

6.20: mysterious dark robed figure flits through old farmhouse, mindful that there is a contingent for a handfasting arriving at 6.30. 6.21: dark robed figure catches sight of self in mirror. Thinks: Fuck! 6.23: drf wrestles ironing board out of closet, rips off robe, irons frantically, prays that no one will arrive and glimpse unmysterious half-naked ironing figure.

Energy chews, made of syrup and honey. Protein, fiber, carbohydrates. Lasting energy and a freakish taste.

Battalion

"Last month, I read an article about groups of people who spend inordinate amounts of time together. Platoons of soldiers, astronauts on shuttles, sports teams... Scientists at the National Institutes of Health did a study and discovered that sometimes... sometimes their dreams would start to spread, from one person to the others."

Ahh if there's anything I've learned from Ranma 1/2 its that there's no problem created by gender bending that can't be solved by MORE gender bending.

Engineers who design the drive mechanisms for walking vehicles usually have to solve three problems: how to translate the energy of the motor to the back and forth movement of the leg, how to achieve balance, and how to steer and change direction.

Fandom_Wank: "I'm a boy, by the way." "I thought you were a girl." "No, I'm a boy." "You're not a girl?" "No, because I'm a boy." "I see. That means you aren't in possession of girl parts?" "I'm in possession of boy parts." "Which would make you not a girl, right?" "I think so..."

• cellphone rings* (whispering): "Hello?" "Hey. Where are you?" (whispering): "Someplace I'm not supposed to be."

When Scott Van Den Plas noticed a wall fell over near his work, he and a friend quickly went to work on a poster to help apprehend the usual suspect: the Kool-Aid Man! [3]

Otakin/Otakukin are to Otherkin what Otherkin are to furries. Otakin believe they are other people's fictional characters. Hmm.

[The Dewback Project http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2008/07/21/celebration-japan-the-dewback-project/]

"You're not a soldier." "Damn right I'm not. I'm an army."

"…I don’t cosplay, I never have, but I will say that cosplay hits a point on the scale where it goes past creepy and attains a certain grandeur, and DragonCon is at that scale. I’ve seen full cosplay “troupes” who dressed up as the entire Legion of Super-Heroes, and done it with professional quality. I’ve seen movie-quality Blade costumes, full platoons of stormtroopers, Captain N, excellently-done Daleks…really, at the large cons, when you start getting the people who are very good at it, you see some amazing stuff."

"People dressed up in superhero costumes are inherently creepy… but dressing up as a superhero is one of the most fun activities known to man."

<img src= http/ >

I am a sucker for sentient suits of armor. (Glee!) Iron Man: Hypervelocity! It's not at the level of the storyline in which the armor gains sentience and proclaims its love for Tony and drags him to a deserted island and keeps him tied up and nearly naked while whining WHYYYYY, WHY CAN'T WE BE TOGETHERRR! and GET INSIDE ME NOW. Or the one where he was turned into an evil naked woman. But it's not far off. Damn, Tonyghost...

Bodily reactions to cold... Damn it, everyone knows about women's nipples, why did I have to read "Your Inner Fish" before I learned about scrotums rising and falling in the "Cold Shower Effect"?! DAMN YOU, MANDY'S LAW! ...I knew it. Women are better designed, despite the muscle:body fat ratios. Tougher, stronger abdominal wall, less likelihood of a hernia. Less conflict with the fish.

Best science has an optimism to it - the unknown shouldn't provoke fear, suspicion, superstition. Motivation to keep asking questions and finding answers.

Back of the throat has flexible walls that open and close. Speech is tongue, changes in mouth shape, and controlling rigidity of the wall. Throats relax in sleep; sleep apnea has the walls close.

Biological law of everything: every living thing on the planet had parents. And is a modified version of them.

Skin cells are constantly dividing, dying, and sloughing off. Nearly every cell you had seven years ago is dead and gone, replaced. Yet you are the same person. Like a river that remains the same despite changes in its course, water content, even size, we remain the same individuals despite the constant turnover of our parts.

Neuromasts - lateral line sensors, change in currents and direction. Cells are gel sacs with hairlike structures. Small pores in lines.

Manticore. A collection, maybe?

Four different muscles in the ball of your thumb. Eight or more small bones move against each other in your wrist. Bend it, you use numerous muscles that begin in your forearm. Tilt hand and move thumb - 10 different muscles, 6+ bones work together.

Common plan for limb skeleton - one bone, two bones, many tiny bones, digits.

Monitoring; piping in a real-time feed.

The muscles and cranial nerves that let us swallow and talk move the gills in sharks and fish. All land animal embryos have gill arches which become jaws, earbones, larynx, and hyoid.

My mind has changed my body's frame but god I like it my heart's aflame my body's strained but god I like it. - an unexplained icon. Hmmm.

Pay so much attention, it fills the mind. See, hear nothing else.

Ketamine(special K) is used in combination with other drugs to knock animals out safely.

"Once you get a look at X, it's hard to take your eyes off it."

"Ah, how are you? Good! I burn with a fiery passion, as always."

"Trouble with a capital trill". Aurebesh, y'know.

"Soon I will be Invincible" in its entirety. "This morning on planet Earth, there are one thousand, six hundred, and eighty-six enhanced, gifted, or otherwise-superpowered persons. Of these, one hundred and twenty-six are civilians leading normal lives. Thirty-eight are kept in research facilities funded by the Department of Defense, or foreign equivalents. Two hundred and twenty-six are aquatic, confined to the oceans. Twenty-nine are strictly localized—powerful trees and genii loci, the Great Sphinx, and the Pyramid of Giza. Twenty-five are microscopic (including the Infinitesimal Seven). Three are dogs; four are cats; one is a bird. Six are made of gas. One is a mobile electrical effect, more of a weather pattern than a person. Seventy-seven are alien visitors. Thirty-eight are missing. Forty-one are off-continuity, permanent émigrés to Earth's alternate realities and branching time streams."

"There was no turning back now. I wasn't just a missing person anymore, or an eccentric inventor. I was a supervillain. For heaven's sake, I'd just robbed a bank in broad daylight. I pulled over to the side of the road. I felt like I was going to be sick. What had I done? There was no way to hide this. Why had I thought this was going to work? These people could fly. They could see through objects. They would run me down like an animal."

"Supervillains tend to build from scratch, since their technology is way beyond what's commonly available. So everything's a little off - screw sizes, voltages - like when you go to Europe."

"I was a stranger in the world. I wanted to see something and know it, to say 'This is me.'"

"In street clothes I'd just be a criminal. Which I am, of course, but in the costume I'm something more. I wear the flag of a country that never existed and the uniform of its glorious army, spreading for the dominion of the invincible empire of me. Doctor Impossible."

"I watched myself becoming someone else. One day you wake up and realize the world can be conquered."

"When I think of the photograph of the girl I used to be, a stranger now, I think of how much I miss her, and how she was never really happy in the first place."

Does he even know how to not loom?!

voice like rough silk. I should stop reading slash. But I cannot.

"He hated X" "But we love them because they give us plot holes to stick dinosaurs in, yay!"

Halo-halo. Someday. Yes. Heavy on the coconut strings, light on the damned red beans.

"What did you do to me?? I'm a horrible bloodsucking monster!" "I know! Isn't it fantastic?" "YES!!!" Why am I still reading this? Ye gods! Satirical vampiric slash. How far I've fallen.

IN A CAVE! OUT OF SCRAPS! Master Inventor and Chief of Strategic Technology? Oh hells yes. Mmm... screen usable outdoors, 286-core processor, screen rolls out with a variable size, casing bends and folds, 300-pixel-per-inch OLED. No idea what that means, this is what I get from reading computery mags. Oooh! Deka Prosthetics!

Promotion's risky. Every step up the ladder is a step closer to that.

Failed me for the last time.

"If he doesn't want to talk to them, can't the man just say no like anybody else?"

Disposable. 100%

I Want Them Alive. "If not -- If not, I'll understand."

More or less an extension of the actual E. They won't complain.

Tip: I know you want your identity safe, but think "low profile", not "ringwraith".

Superhuman powers of denial.

'"Oh no, red alert! Quick, Tony, run Norton!" I just about killed myself laughing over that. Tony's morning routine: stumble out of bed, drink coffee to keep mind from crashing, run anti-virus software to keep body from crashing, go to work.'

Sooooo, The RSI. If you were a company with numerous genius inventors - of course! Ridiculously advanced laptops! Biotes! Cures to modern illness! Not a panacea, of course. Side effects. Resistant strains. No cold cure. Might as well introduce a few new ones, too.

The appeal - "they can fight crime, but they can also sit around and drink coffee, or watch movies, or pry into one another's personal lives."

[4]

"Masks also allow people to disassociate themselves. Many actors will tell you how putting on a costume makes it easier to be that person (and this ties into Zimbardo's research on roles too). Well, when someone is wearing a mask, it is easier for them to not be themselves. This may be why so many people have used war paint, why the Ku Klux Klan wore bed sheets. They weren't themselves when they did the things they did; they were a member of that group. (...) Not that everyone becomes an evil person when thrust into a large group or put into a mask. Just that many people are willing to take less personal responsibility for their actions when they are, and thus will do things they would not otherwise do. (...) I didn't feel I could discuss responsibility without a bit of a mention to the effects of being lost in a mob or wearing a costume, especially one that hides your identity." "Zimbardo hypothesized that people's actions are influenced by the role they see themselves taking. People don't just have a view of who they are, but also of what a certain type of person is. People have an idea of what a jailor is, what a teacher is, what a mother is, etc. When they find themselves in that role, they are likely to act the way they think a person in that role should act."

"I remember me."

DROP CEILINGS! Ahahahah, YES!

Herbivorous animals make good dietary use out of meat, you know... they're not obligate.

Blogs would just be so much more interesting...

Hydrobase is a floating island in the MU.

"On some level, I'm Tony. I've known his every thought; felt his every action. I know how Tony feels, Peter, and I know his feelings about you. However, unlike Tony, I'm not afraid to act on them..." (Can't. Stop. Laughing! There will never be anything as funny as the results of the Tony Stark+Sentient Armor OTP. Seriously. Unless it is a Nazi made of bees.)

Jezibel

Alone, but not lonely. Lonely, but not alone. Hmm. Sounds cerebral.

Mention a tenori-on. It's a musical instrument. That's all I know.

Let's say that the difference between a Palim and a Stranger isn't so much knowing friends/family, isn't so much being familiar with this world, and is being able to grasp that one is a fictional character. Strangers will "get" the costumes-became-real bit, but they won't really believe that they're fictional. So what if there's media indicating that they're a popular public domain character? They won't accept that they were created by writers or artists or whomever - they'll come up with increasingly elaborate explanations. Ways that they can be "real". Yeah.

Rex the Wonder Dog really lives up to his name. He's just a big dog who thinks in English, but he can drive boats and cars, knot and throw a lasso, and go fishing, even unhooking a fish to throw it back. Among other things. It's a "super-growth enzyme", apparently. I should remember that. Maybe for my next collection of too-short-for-real-stories.

Power Perversion Potential. I'm growing up. There was a time when the things speculated about on this page would have made me very uncomfortable. "I(man)'ll never have lesbian sex(with his wife) again!" makes me laugh. Okay, fine. Just one -

"Another member of the Gold Palpy Society was found dead this morning. Electrocution, like the others." "Gold Pal- oh. Yeah. The - those guys. The ones who always insisted that Palpatine wears a gold metal bikini like Leia's under his robes. I thought it dissolved after the Event. Guess not. Man, those people are weird." "Yyyyep. This means there's a Palpatine out there, at least one, and able to track anonymous people over the Internet. And he's vindictive enough to murder civilians in their beds. Not a good sign."

Seven sins, seven virtues, seven wonders, five senses, two hands. Keep your shirt on, damned if you do damned if you don't, old habits die hard, where there's smoke there's fire. Soar/sore. Brave new world, into thin air, all that glitters isn't gold, truth will out.

If a general idea bank becomes available, I'll put it there. "Generators", then "Other Generators", then "Mutation Generator." It gives us such gems as: The ray hits you and you realize that your arms are becoming more wolf-like. The next thing you know, you begin to shrink noticeably shorter. You realize that you are growing a set of tentacles and realize a pair of antlers. The ray hits you. You notice that your hair begins to rapidly grow really long. The next thing you know, you observe that you are growing a set of tusks and observe a set of tusks. Just when you think nothing is going to happen, you notice that fur grows from your skin. You swallow the bottle's contents and you observe that you have wolf-like abilities. You discover that you have parrot-like abilities and you realize that you slowly begin to glow and you realize that your limbs begin to shrink down to 3 inches tall.

So there's this Livejournal guy who is in the habit of posting incredibly intelligent, lengthy pieces about current events and politics. A lot of it goes over my head, but if there's one thing I've learned, it's that the feeling of getting something is incredible and thrilling. I love understanding things that I never understood before; it's practically a high. Hope is not Irrational. Stanislov Petrov. 20+ incidents that might have caused nuclear war.

"A palimpsest is a manuscript page, whether from scroll or book that has been written on, scraped off, and used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin from Greek παλιν + ψαω = ("again" + "I scrape"), and meant "scraped again." Romans wrote on wax-coated tablets that could be reused, and a passing use of the rather bookish term "palimpsest" by Cicero seems to refer to this practice." So! Strangers = totally unfamiliar. Palimpsests(Palims) = changed, but something yet remains. Some other term(Lenspain? Heh.) = basically untouched. Will come up for Five Years.

Here. She(DC character) calls a superhero a "costume." As in, "A costume, he shot up the place with arrows" "The costume guy. He looked kinda like Kevin Costner in that 'Robin Hood' movie." Interesting. It's actually pretty much perfect; terms like "capes" and "masks" are basically specific to super heroes/villains, but "costume" encompasses everyone. Except for secondaries, but I don't think they need a special name. Okay! In Joysweeper's personal canon, replace "victims of Xanadu" with "costumes"! As in, "It was a peaceful, quiet day in the town of Gaylord, Michigan. Then the costume showed up to rob the bank." Kind of awkward in the narrative. "'Hey,' the costume said." It might be better to keep it dialog only.

"Is there anything that arouses the senses so strongly as a feast of chocolate delights fresh from the oven? Thoughts of childhood joys, first love, and the divine fill the soul. A drifting aroma which begs appreciation. The sensual fingertips of desire wrap delicately, yet needily, at the center. Ingestion. A climax. The roaring winds. Drifting, consuming madness, beautiful in its inescapable passion. Open and fertile skies, waiting desperately to be explored. Elevation. Freedom. Bliss. A compelling call. Parasailing. Baked chocolate goods." Shortpacked blog.

There’s something unbelievably exhilarating about having a protector who’ll take anyone who picks on you and dangle him above the ground. Stick up for one another, and defend the lesser folk.

Villains act, heroes re-act. Ambition is for villains. The Five Hundred and First would by that definition be villains.

To cameo: Taskmaster.(Photographic reflexes, pseudo-villain) Gamecock.(Buh. What an awful villain.) Razorfist.(Replaced HANDS with KNIVES. WHY.) The Walrus.(Yep.) Spider-Girl is cool. I could have a line or two, nothing big. (RAZORFIST. WHY. WHY. I think I broke Joy's brain!)

Aggggh. I'm getting a serious lot of "hey you know what'd be cool? A STORY WITH SPIDER-PEOPLE. Call them alternates when two people were the same strain of the same character. YAY!1!!" But it wouldn't work! I can't do anything like that yet! My subconscious, as always, is INSANE. Aggggh. ... "Alternates" sounds good, though. "Alts." "Alt-me." "Alt-sister." Oooh.

And I found this quote on one of the 501st homepages. It is so perfect. "Some fans are content to collect action figures...other fans want to be action figures. Nothing professes your fandom quite like building your own detailed costume replica of a classic Star Wars villain, and there's nothing quite like the feeling that comes from bringing the characters of Star Wars into the real world and sharing the magic with others. A truly engaging Star Wars experience only occurs through a convincing appearance. To this end, the 501st constantly strives to improve the quality and accuracy of its member's costumes. Our goal is to appear as if our characters have just stepped off the big screen and into this world." I hope I can find some way to use this ironically.

Can I use this? “You know, with all the mind-wiping, mind tricks, mass hallucinations and super powerful telepaths in comic book universes, I'm starting to realize how terrifying it must be to be an average civilian in one of these universes. Take the Marvel universe - there's the grand illusion of House of M, then you have to live through a war, and now you can't remember anything about that Spider-Man fellow. There's probably tons of other mass mind-wipes before all that, too. How does the average person ever know what's real? How many people eventually have existential crises and end up in an asylum somewhere? Seriously. With all the incidents of time travel, mind-wiping, altering reality, hypnotic illusions, dimensional warping, and psychic manipulation in the world, how could you be sure anything you've done you actually did? And that you would even remember having done any of it tomorrow?”

Someone who is not narrator gets a phone call/text message, exclaims “Zombies!” or “Giant Ants!” or “Femtroopers!” or “Rockettes!” or something similarly left-field, then tears off at high speed. Narrator is perplexed but too busy.

Unfinished Story Ideas

Title: It's part of the Revan Saga. This part could easily be called "Five Years". Names: Revan. Elisa Freeman. Gist: Ask for character. Dark room, eyes very wide, ears very sharp, distracted, blindsided, no v/h, fighting, “Finish me now!”, doesn’t happen. Lingers, lasts. Walks away, Revan’s compensating and on edge(paranoid! Paranoid!), Elisa is d/b and scared, little communication – attempts. Throat vibration, monitoring tongue and lips, no idea w/out sound. Revan can’t read English. Elisa can’t read Aurebesh. War robes, war mask, bogan, intimidation factor up. Make it back to CC, one-sided conversation, healing trance. FIVE YEARS. FIVE YEARS, and Fake Rip Van Winkle it to twenty. No! More! AWESOMESAUCE.

On the Saga: Gwah. Maybe meld them all into one again. And get some things straight. Call her "Elisa Freeman", do this consistently. She's a potter, she is an art major at Midtral, her family is up in Wisconsin, she has a brother named Kris. Her father, Jack, works for American Airlines as a pilot. Yes, this is suspiciously self-insertiony, but I've already come this far.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. "At least 1,500 miles wide (give or take, could be much larger, no one's quite sure because it's a bit difficult to measure), 30 meters deep, 80 percent plastic, and 100 percent appalling." I wish I could get rid of it for real. Damn. Oooh. That island of plastic in the Pacific... I bet I could do something with that. Yeah... FMA is popular enough, and even if not, there's sure to be mages or something who could work it out. Why not? Displacement of seawater wouldn't be an issue, not like raising seamounts. Okay! It's settled! A new country, maybe? Hmm. Not just one mass, there would be several "islands", chained together. Propulsion systems. A hospital-type facility on one, for the long-term cases. Yes. Yes! It's good!

Title(tentative): Eh, why not? "Joysweeper". A little narcissism can be fun. Names: Let's use my real name, shall we? Gist: Self insertion for the win. Things that I have/could get: wings, ear thingies, contact lenses, Ace bandages, some kind of tail, possibly press-on canines. Forehead horn? I don't know. I could buy one, but... Anyway. Family is in Orlando why? Laborday Weekend, right. Maybe won a discount for Disneyland. I go to the Kublai Con on the second day, dropped off. I see Freeman in her Revan costume, don't have the nerve to go over and talk to her, berate myself about it. Describe the Ignore Her effect, if applicable. Get mopey. It happens in the handicapped stall. Everyone and anyone else leaves. Forehead horn, corner-of-jaw horns. Maybe backswept horns and spinal ridges, might be a bit much. Bone, smooth, sharp, maybe coated with enamel or something. Scales where appropriate, the foot thing, special wing-arm. Trapped in the bathroom, can't push door. Ceiling looks high. Make something rudimentary out of a bit of bandage, waits until door gets opened - it's Anj, but he doesn't notice - flee. Afraid to fly - the heights thing - get kicked, latch onto a leg. Wingclaws - maybe not normal venom. Maybe that agent I've been thinking of... hmm. It's a thought. Find some kind of ending, okay?

Title(tentative): "Everest". "Because It's There". Names: Hnn. Let's say - Daniel, Edward, Leah. Maybe don't bother with last names. But if needed - Batey, Alden, Piwarski. College student directories are useful, useful things.

Gist: Everest. VG, werewolf type A, snowtrooper. Probably need a few others. Guides, right? Timeframe, keep it vague. At least a year after, possibly more. First Xanadu people(need to find a name for that) to climb Everest; can say that supers have flown to the top before, but that doesn't count. Supplies get sabotaged. Freak out the guides, make them leave? Howling in the night. Antagonists? Climate is one. Yeti? Ferals? Terrorists, c'mon, you've thought about it. Should have some Xanadu connection. Oooh - Xanadu has caused right-and-left wing antiglobalists to band together, possible Islamic connection - they don't believe that it isn't the result of a secret gov't project. The costumes are thought to be entirely supportive of Jewish conspiracies. Refer to notes. But just because you hate and fear something doesn't mean you won't use it. Hmm. Send Dan down the mountain, hole up Ed and Leah for a while, food running out, power packs get sabotaged/stolen. Storms. Major storms. Drive them out into one. Confrontation. Rescue should come in the denoument, if then.

"8113. You are 8113. That is what you will respond to from this point on. 8113. We need you." Yeah. Leah wants an identity that's more than a designation, more than one of the few female troopers. Yeah. Edward is a secondary. Let's say... mmm... bioluminary tattoos are all the rage after Xanadu, he got bit by a were, couldn't be fully cured - reaction to the tattoo - ended up a type A, which isn't a bad thing. Why? Well, he's always wanted to do it. Were-ing out would make it easier. That's part of it, anyway. Daniel? Exploration. Listen to a lot of LoZ music.

Okay. Daniel... I want him to be mute, but avoid the obvious way to get around it. Hells. I've played versions of LoZ, I know the character never speaks, but everyone knows what he's getting at. Sure! He can say "Hey" and maybe "Whoa" or "C'mon" and one or two others, but is otherwise pretty much wordless. Same with writing and typing, perhaps a few words at most. Okay. No regular telepathy, that wordless form that came up you know where. Portrayed "Dan looked up, blinking, and told them that if they were going to fight they really should get to it already." Yeah, that could work. Get Leah to repeat things back - "No, I'm not cold" and not be aware of it. Happens all the time in Star Wars. Don't make a big deal of it.

Title(tentative): "Shell", perhaps. Names:… I'm actually thinking first-person for this. Hold off on the names for a while Gist: Powered armor. I love it, and I need to make this as obvious as possible. Maybe more. Iron Man was great in that regard(and in most others). Soo... We start with my protag waking up and finding that something is wrong. Let's say she(male originally, original character) was killed a week after the Event, body dissolved or something, and brought back in armor. But! The protag is in the armor itself, the character is wearing it. Refer to notes on AI ghosts. And that bit about the difference between a Stranger and a Palim. She could be my WBH.

"I was! I'm not anymore."

"After it happens, they all ask each other, 'why didn't somebody act? It could have been so different.' So many times, it's kept from happening. Somebody can't be everywhere, and they don't remember that. Somebody has a lot of hard and thankless work, but somebody has to do it. Guess what? You're somebody too."

"Don't take it so personally. They are what they were made to be. I'm sorry. I forgot. You are what you were made to be, too." - I love Nealan of Queenscove and Keladry!

...You know what? If for the self-insertion I'm really going to have... that ... happen, that still leaves my family. And my stuff. You know... could be a total blank who picks my ID up and wonders "Was this mine?" Or could be a Stranger. Could be... could be... NO NO NO NO! I won't! I don't even know where to start! It would be interesting. It would be so boss. But gaddammit, I can't. Yet. It's out there. I keep thinking about it! Because it makes sense. Even as a complete and total Stranger who looks at his own previous parents with nary a trace of recognition - the character I have in mind would visit anyway, stay over for a two day period or visit for the holidays(because naturally he would be... busy). The chara I have in mind would feel all guilty if he didn't do that at the minimum. It'd be interesting to speculate how they'd react on all sides. They'd be losing me, but I am a nerdy money-sink artsy loner who makes a really good sounding board - they'd think, maybe after some convincing, that I'd become the chara I have in mind. I don't think they even know that I like him! And he is - he is a leader, an inspirational archetypal good-guy chara. Who happens to be a soldier, a ridiculous athlete(A mile in just over a minute?!), a baseball fan, an artist, and a big pretty blond man. Wow. This is completely untapped territory! Completely!

...Am I actually considering this? Gaaah!

I'd need some reason why they'd think he was me, instead of just picking up my stuff at random. Oh, I know! On That Day, I'm wearing a Cap-related T-shirt("Cap Was Right", maybe), and there is actually a photo with me in the background or whatever to confirm this. Also, a button on my bag that has that design. Ooooh. I don't think I can actually do this yet... but damn if it's not interesting. Particularly if I waffle on actually having ... that ... happen and it gets cleared up a few weeks after the visit. And hey, it's not like I actually have to use my folks. It would just be mean if I vanished during the Event and they never got any closure.

DISSOLVED INTO A CLOUD OF BEES. Bees. My God. [/DC reference] I love it. Cloud of bees! Swarm, the Nazi-made-of-bees? [/Marvel reference] Nah. Hate Nazis. Inspired by, maybe. Human skeleton? Mmm. Maybe. Form a human skeleton made of beeswax? YES! YES! Not regular bees, tougher, something more like certain ants, can link up to pull on the bones like muscles. Utter nonsense! I love it! "As I watched, he stumbled, his skin bunching unnaturally, as if he was instantly being covered in boils - he fell, too fast for me to react, fell flat on his face. As he hit he dissolved, coming apart like a crumbling sandcastle into a swarm of hundreds, thousands of bees. They droned, coalescing into a cloud, and shot off in a stream. I saw his clothes, empty but for a few stragglers struggling out of the folds." Bees. Bees. I love it.

Y'know... okay, some kind of AIM. One-sided. "Shakennotstirred" for the Bond connection. Can maybe do it

 like this.  Yeah, this could work.  Looks kind of disruptive, but it could work.

"Take off your gloves". Hnn. Can cameo VvD(Hee!). Cargo crates at entrances, put a TR as guard. The schism. Maybe. I don't think they'd be the antagonists, though. Need someone else. Or something. Raise an army? Of what? I love how ridiculously obscure my notes are. If you-who-is-not-Joysweeper is getting any of this, I commend you.

Links

Has he lost his mind, dare he see or is he blind/ can he walk at all or if he moves will he fall/ Is he live or dead, has he thoughts within his head. We'll just pass him there, why should we even care?

[5] Isn't it beautiful what hands can do?

Cosplayers

["Tony Stark 2.0's Top 5 Positives about no longer possessing an organic human body." http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/5872615.html]

People are strange, when you're a stranger. [6]

Just listen to this again. Next time, though, wait for daybreak.

[7] Con costume-bingo card.

[8] The quotes I cut to save space.

X-Men Meets Wicked. Catchy.

Why Superman Will Always Suck.

Terry the Talking Raven. Interesting. Related are some bits with talking crows who are not nearly as coherent, but Victor the parakeet tops them all by having some degree of meaning in what he says. Talking birds all seem to have a "type".

[9]

Regender

Yuri the Only One For Me

Geeks in Love, Word Disassociation.

[10]Enthusiastic feline fitness FTW!

[11]Cellblock Tango

[12]. I love the world

Birth of Sandman

Free speech does not equal scientific theory! This is a good one. Have a little respect for the "scientific minority". Exactly what that has to do with inspiring me is unknown. But it gives me happy shivers, so it can't be all bad.

James Gurney's articles on how "character designers have developed clever ways to infuse animals with human personalities." [13] [14] [15] [16]

[17] DUDE! YES! AWESOME! FIVE YEARS!

Lots of motivational posters here. Verrry interesting. "Tribute to Gary Gygax". Hmm.

This was intended to be part of an epilogue for a story Bryan and I are working on. Then it got long. I had a lot of fun with it, though.

Motivational posters for supervillains.

Woo, episodes of Avatar. I feel all warm and squirmy inside!

"Little Brother"

The Nearness of You. Love and loss...

Fangirling.

"Dude, it's Captain America. He believes in freedom, justice, civil liberties, gay rights, gender equality and yeah, that means punching men and women without discriminating."

Swinging on a Star

[18]

[19]

"Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world - "No, you move."" --Captain America

[20] "That’s what Cap stands for. Righting wrongs and being righteous in your life."

"God damn! How'd he do that? I mean he's only a human mutated to the apex of physical perfection with a genius for tactics and battle strategy... oh." - Mightygodking's "I Don't Need Your Civil War"

"Also- Tony, you don't think an event of this magnitude is worth some attention, maybe you could start figuring out what's going on- or I guess you could dig through every cell-phone video, security camera footage, and satellite photo possible to find the most heroic and manly shots of Steve, set them up aesthetically above your worktop, and stare at them. I'm sure SHIELD will be able to handle things. That's probably about what they were expecting you to do anyway."

A trimmed-down conversation: "Steve did a whole bunch of advertising work in the '80's, and he illustrated the Captain America book for Marvel just after that. That's actually my favourite period of Cap. I should probably post some. Steve's private life was just as important as his professional hero life at that point, and they really got into it a lot." "..He illustrated his own book? I find that very funny, even though I'm sure you mean his in-the-MU book. Was he hired as Steve Rogers to do that?" "Yup, and he didn't just illustrate it. He told the writers and editors off for making it too violent and out of character. It was as Steve Rogers, with his lovely illustration portfolio, which doubled as a shield case at the time. [...] Like, he walked into work at the Marvel offices to hand in his pages, and reamed out the guys there. It was weird. It was a good job for him too, because eventually he went on one of his periodic "Rediscover America by traveling it all on motorcycle" phases, and he could just mail in his pages." That is so boss!. I love character-creator conflict. And the idea of a character having input on his own book?! "RAH RAH" walked out on this one!

Misc Thought Oh, wow, intelligent comments! "He's never been a personification of American nationalism -- he's a personification of American IDEALS." "At heart, 616's Captain America is, I think, still a dreamy artist in the body of a greek god."

"It's in Classic-verse #3, when the Avengers are arguing over what movies they need to make Steve watch. The awesome part is that Steve is canonically a Tolkien fan. There's panel somewhere in either volume 1 Cap or volume 1 Avengers where he's mentally listing the greatest cultural accomplishments of the 20th century, and Tolkien's on the list."

It has nothing to do with anything, but it made me laugh. I love scans_daily. ...And I, too, want Steve Rogers. Damn it, come back from the dead already!

"I'm not sure if I want Steve or just his stuff!" "This is very bad for me as a comic fan. Steve's a wonderful blend of manly and metero. I want all my men to have nice clean homes yet be manly! ;__;" "We only have one hope! Making comic book characters real and then (scratched out)fight for them!(/scratched out) clone them!" "Yes! But I get the feeling that I'd be lecture for my less than clean habits. *glances around her dorm room*" "And really we'd have to be careful because when you really thing about Batman or Superman wouldn't be the best of boyfriends." "This is why I go for the Marvel boys, they're less scary. But damn, Bats and Supes. Damn."

Get up so I can knock you down! “We start off with a would-be hero who fights purely enough, only to slowly hit a snare thanks to his beliefs. Then it gets worse as time goes by until he’s responsible for untold damage. Once things look their bleakest, we get the hero we weren’t even sure we were ever going to find. The build up steams and we return to our villain, who has reached almost complete insanity. Things come to a head and we get the coolest fight scene ever with some of my all-time favorite comic lines (“Get up so I can knock you down!!”). And just as the fight comes to an end with a true victor, it goes directly into a strong conclusion.”<- Ooh ooh! Maybe a robot/mecha character for the WBH? Heart beats strongly, pulsing in throat, temples, gums. Stops. "You can't feel yourself breathe. You can't feel your heartbeat. And you can't recognize the man in the mirror"

Joysweeper really likes Cap. Oh, responsibility!