0 comments on "2020-03-27: Thoughts on Things; Allies & Enemies"

So, because of “Allies & Enemies” on Smashwords, they sent a bunch of my old stuff for a Premium Catalogue check, which was like a reminder that “Oh, these things exist.”

I think I’m going to rewrite my Of Blood-universe stuff. I know I was super obsessed with the vampires and were-things for a while there, but I haven’t even looked at that stuff in forever.

It’s all teenaged wangst, and “We have to save the world, but we’re probably going to die”-stuff.

Like, even my Buffy-stuff is newer than that old stuff.

I have like three other novels packed away from that time. A teleporter-time travel bit of nonsense; a vampire lord origin story; and my immortal mage first-person POV ego project.

I might have to break those guys out of cold storage for a rewrite and posting. I want those character backstories already set before I throw them into the middle of a story.

Plus, I left Talon stranded on an alien planet. Stefan is in a dimension trap left by a witch; and those trapped with him don’t realize they’re his emergency food supply. I started an intergalactic war in Blood Wine–which more and more is a bridging novel between Reality, and when everything later gets rewritten(1). Rue is on the way to prove his brother’s (lack of) innocence. And Prince Onyx is going out of his mind.

I’ll post some for free, but I’m poor. Patreon patrons’ll get a bunch to enjoy (along with my downloadable coloring pages!) as will some PayPal people and “Thanks for helping me! Have some free stuff”-people (M!) but I can’t generous myself out of the money by giving it all away.

I gotta hold the facts in my mind:

Enough patrons(*) = Free stuff for everyone = I can afford webhosting, food, clothes, multiple paperback proofing copies of my books to make them look good (sorry), a comfortable home life = Be able to offer print coloring books because I could pay someone to figure the bleed formatting for me because ugh, wtf? Right.

Current situation = I owe Dreamhost money = Looking at WordPress domain hosting but it would be a while = Didn’t list my websites in my coloring book because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the future is uncertain.

I got a lot on my mind. I think pretty much everyone does at this moment.

So Imma post some cool (and maybe not-so cool) stuff for you to enjoy.

If you’ve got some spare money you want to send my way, I’ll post some stuff for you and all our Internet friends to enjoy. Quarantainment at its best. Or if you’re gonna shop on Amazon or Smashwords, please consider clicking through my referral link so I can nectar collect the spare change they’ll toss my way.

If you’re poor like me (Hi, class-friend!) but you still wanna help me out, please consider sharing my book links and letting people know I exist. In fact, if everyone could do that, that would be great.

Imma edit and republish some older novels. Imma transfer and publish some other novels. And Imma be finishing some stories that need writing.

Oh yeah, ParaShift2 is gonna be posting here (if it’s still here) and on Patreon (unlocked, public accessible). The first stuff is still on LJ, but sorry, I don’t post there no more because Russia.

I am so sad how everything we love gets ruined once it’s sold away from its purpose.

*. Patrons? Yeah. You don’t gotta get a Patreon account to be a patron of my (so-called) arts. Buying my book helps me out. So does using my affiliate links to buy stuff you’d already be buying anyway.

Paypal.me: HarperKingsley

Patreon: HarperKingsley

Gumroad: HarperKingsley

Amazon: Harper Kingsley

Amazon: Sol Crafter

Smashwords: Harper Kingsley

Smashwords: Sol Crafter

1. Vampires and Others reveal themselves to fight the aliens, only to have a member of the Vampire Council rewrite the attacking species out of existence, thus rewriting Earth history.

The attacking species have their entire history rewritten, resulting in them being “friendly” telepathic aliens when a human passenger liner gets lost in their space.

They have the same language as the attackers. (I wish I still had the translation dictionary I made 🙁 But I used an old program to make it that no longer exists. Boo. Tho, thinking about it… The Ilemani may have spoken Demoncarne, my demon language, because they have historical ties.) They have some physical similarities. But in all, they’re a humanoid, hermaphroditic people that classify their place in society by the strength of their psionic abilities.

Excerpt: I wrote this in a notebook based on some super cute stickers. Sorry there’s no pictures. =>

HOLLAN BAINES

Hollandaise assumed she’d had a normal childhood. She’d been happy at least. She’d loved her family and they’d loved her.

She’d been an adorable toddler. Cute enough that her parents hadn’t hesitated to get her into modeling and eventually commercials.

The two of them had met in college and there was an instant connection between them. She’d heard the story her whole life and accepted it as fact: her parents were soulmates.

She’d never seen their Marks, but she was sure it was true. They belonged together.

Someday she hoped to find a love as pure as theirs. Because even though it had taken them months to meet, eventually it had happened. It was inevitable that they meet.

Papa never used the word “soulmate” after the once when she was a girl. He took her to the wildflower fields and let her play for hours before sitting her down for “an important discussion.” All she’d known was that he seemed sad.

That was the day she began wondering if there was a soulmate out there for her. His careful phrasing on the subject made it seem she was a Mateless. She could see his doubt about her and it hurt her.

That small ache grew as she did. Some days it felt like she was in the deep end of the pool and her whole body was getting tired and she couldn’t keep herself up. Those were the days she spent in her room with books and music. Papa had given her an old radio and she had a plastic tub full of chapter books and picture books.

Her favorite books were those featuring soulmates. It became her obsession. One that she hid from her parents.

Papa thought she was a Mateless, she knew it. And Mama… she was strange. She would listen to Hollandaise’s babble about soulmates and there would be a misty smile on her face. It was Mama’s boundless life joy and ever expanding serenity that made Hollandaise think that being in love was the greatest experience of all time.

She could survive Mateless and live without love–but she didn’t want to.

Mama believed in soulmates and she told Hollandaise that it would be a happy day when she found her other half. But there were also days when she would snap at Hollandaise to “Shut up with that trash!” and those were the bad days.

Mama went away during one of her bad days. Hollandaise was 19 at the time. She’d never believed that Papa would have Mama committed; she was wrong.

***

As a teenager, Hollandaise bloomed into charming beauty. Adults would see her sweet girlhood and wish that she was their child. It created job opportunities and she appeared in hundreds of magazines and commercials.

Without knowing it she became a celebrity. People liked the way she looked and spoke. They wanted to see more of her.

Hollandaise had a brief appearance in a drama show as a girl that dies in a car accident. It was her first television appearance and the beginning of her new life as a STAR.

Over the course of five years she played innumerable orphans and adorable daughters. She received awards for her role as a kidnapped girl rescued by a neighbor with a hidden violent past.

It was then that she began learning aikido and gun training.

Her next few roles could only be described as “fluff,” but the public loved her movies. And she got to play with the cutest, friendliest baby deer she’d ever heard of. She’d loved White Tail nearly as much as she’d come to love Moko the Penguin.

Though her love for White Tail was pure, her love for Moko was also a love by association.

Moko was well-trained as well as being a genuinely friendly penguin. He knew how to play several games and loved to eat. He was adorable and he’d made a perfect co-star for their movie.

Their movie.

Hollandaise would always love Moko for the simple fact that he brought her together with her soulmate. Her co-star and movie sibling Reynard Baines.

/EXCREPT

Hogfather at Amazon
Fortress in the Eye of Time at Amazon
0 comments on "DoM: March 1, 2020"

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GARDENING

I started a mini-greenhouse full of seeds on February 27th, 2020–three days ago–and the mustard greens are showing a lot of little sprout tops. I’m having second thoughts about the turnips and how many I planted. Maybe I can snip the extras off as microgreens? I mean, I’ll have to thin them anyway.

WRITING: Thoughts on Fiery Francine (Did You Know Denatured Alcohol is Flammable?)

Despite knowing it’s a problematic show that is part of a more systemic problem, and that it might actively be conditioning young watchers to be cynical and misanthropic, I still have a fondness for “American Dad.” There are parts so shockingly distasteful that I sometimes have to change the channel, but on the whole it’s populated by likable characters and headed by a patriarch that definitely deserves his comeuppance.

There are life lessons to be learned in most every episode. The fact that Stan can’t seem to manage to understand those lessons or that he misinterprets them, that’s a callback to the way he was raised. He was a very gullible child with a negligent mother and a somewhat abusive father that abandoned them when Stan was young. In the “I Ain’t No Holodeck Boy” episode (Season 9, Episode 13) it is shown that Stan looks at the world–and the memory of his childhood most especially–through rose colored glasses.

His childhood was shown to be one of deprivation and horror. He lives in a rundown house with a dad parked in front of the TV drinking beer and offering disparaging comments. The street on which young-Stan lives could have come from a post-apocalyptic nightmare, and was terrible enough that Stan was able to see and poke at his first dead body.

After his father Jack abandons them, Stan and his mother Betty move to an apartment that doesn’t accept pets. Betty spins Stan a story about dog cancer and suffering, culminating in Stan “mercy killing” his beloved dog, Freddy; instilling in him a lifelong aversion to dog ownership (with Steve mentioning the dog the family had in the first season, but Stan glossing over it).

Stan has a lot of problems. I don’t think he’s sanely dealt with any of them, choosing instead to abuse his CIA rank and contacts to make problems disappear. Or in the case of his wife Francine, he has his science buddies tamper with her memory multiple times and has, himself, entered her subconscious and destroyed large sections of her psyche.

Throughout the course of the show, Francine has gone from a cheerfully ditzy yet somewhat responsible mom to something of a wreck. I don’t know if it’s because of the memory erasures or the many times Stan has scrambled the timeline, but Francine has definitely received the bulk of his ineptitude.

Beautiful, intelligent when she focuses, possessing of a powerful ability to survive, and anchored to the cement block that is her enduring love for Stan, Francine Smith nee Ling (born Francine Dawson) is a very interesting character to me.

She was abandoned as a toddler by her rich parents, Nicholas and Cassandra Dawson, when they discovered children weren’t allowed in the First Class section of the plane. Unwilling to give up their vacation, they give up Francine instead. Handing her to the ticket agent, they happily get on the plane and never look back. Francine ended up being raised by nuns in an orphanage until her parents Ma Ma and Bah Bah Ling could save up enough money to adopt her when she was seven.

Born left-handed, the nuns taught Francine that “left-handers are the Devil” and would beat her with a piece of beef, or mackerel on Fridays, whenever she used her left hand. As a result, Francine shows an aversion toward left-handed people in the “Office Spaceman” episode (Season 3, Episode 14) that her children Hayley and Steve misinterpret as racism toward Black people. With their help, she faces her psychological trauma and the episode ends with her sloppily writing with her left hand, happy to be herself.

Francine has a history of drug use and promiscuity, likely because of her youthful days as a band groupie. She had relations with several famous people, and would have had a song written about her by Dexys Midnight Runners if the lyricist had remembered her name correctly (he thought it might have been Eileen). She revealed in the “When a Stan Loves a Woman” episode (Season 2, Episode 16) that she’d planted a rose bush for every man she’d ever slept with, which was later revealed to be the biggest sex garden in North America.

When she was in high school, Francine was trying to be cool and stole one of her sister’s cigarettes, resulting in her accidentally starting a fire in the science lab and burning the building down. Being kind to Francine for perhaps the first and only time ever, Gwen says that she started the fire, thus starting her life of crime, with Francine always covering for Gwen and providing her with money and anything she needs.

Francine has experienced a lot of misplaced guilt in her life. She was shown as a young child having fallen down a well and catching the nation’s attention as “Baby Francine.” She’d lived for decades with the horror of a fireman dying to get her out of that well (he turned out to have been surviving down there for decades and after so long doesn’t want to leave) and feels desperately ashamed that she hasn’t accomplished anything. It’s only when the presumed-dead fireman absolves her of her guilt that she lets go of that burden.

I’m not sure if the Well Incident is from before or after she was adopted, but I think that the guilt from the well and from Gwen taking the blame left an indelible mark on Francine. It both drove her and held her back. She had a great deal of potential but no belief in herself, and has a subconscious need to self-sabotage her every success as she doesn’t think she deserves it.

A loving mother to Hayley and Steve, she is by turns clingy and desperate for a taste of LIFE. She was a real wild woman, but settled for being a housewife and the codependent partner to a madman.

She fascinates me.

Witch King at Amazon
0 comments on "Family Guy: Meg"

I think the true tragedy of “Family Guy” isn’t that Peter Griffin adversely effects every life he comes into contact with, but that Meg is going to have a powerful effect on the future world.

She is a fucking wrecking ball.

The underlying message behind “Family Guy”–to my always “seeking a reason why” brain–is that the Griffin children are doomed to be figures of tragedy.

Stewart Gilligan “Stewie” Griffin — A genius baby that acts out on the blatant hostility in his household, he grows up to be a mediocre man-child until he actively changes the course of his life. If his baby-self never time traveled to the future, he would have wasted all of his potential due to a crippling fear of death. With the time change, there’s a possibility at this point that he could go either way with his inventions: saint or sinner. Unless he falls in love and decides to live a normal everyday life.

Christopher Cross “Chris” Griffin — By turns receives praise and recriminations from his father. “My one beautiful child”-type stuff to needle at the other kids, interspersed with derisive commentary and physical violence. Seemingly actively reviled by the bulk of his schoolmates for his bad haircut and unwashed state, there have been several attractive characters that have shown interest in him, proving that he has the potential to find a true happiness if he overrides his attraction to overbearing women and refuses to follow ANY advice his father gives him about the treatment of a relationship partner or a friend.

Megan/Megatron “Meg” Griffin — At the beginning of the series, she is a sweet and malleable girl that gradually sours into the Meg we know today. Constantly ridiculed by her parents and used as the whipping boy of her family, she is by turns self-conscious of her looks and aggressively sexual with her approach toward partners of interest. If she doesn’t end up returning to prison for sexual or physical assault, she is an intelligent girl that lacks educational support from her family. Which is why we’ll be coming back to her.

Lois Patrice (Pewterschmidt) Griffin — Born into a family of wealth, she was given every material thing she wanted, but was denied the love of her parents. From my view, it looks like her mother is a distant socialite and her father is a cruel and heartless Republican businessman. As a result, Lois glomped onto Peter as the first truly open person she’s come across–he is what he is, warts and all–while her sister Carol bounced around from marriage to marriage, always looking and not quite finding love. Lois is both an enabler and an aggressor, her character having progressed from a stern mother keeping her family in some semblance of order to yet another source of chaos for her children.

Peter Griffin — A simple-minded man with a streak of cruelty and an odd, literal cunning. Classified as mentally disabled in the 4th season, he takes his diagnosis as an excuse to do every depraved thing he wants with the expectation of being forgiven due to his condition. After the episode, things basically go back to the way they were, though his diagnosis is mentioned in several later episodes.

Peter is the main character of the show as he is the guiding force of the family. He is, quite literally, “the Family Guy.” Without him, his children would not have been born, Brian would not have been taken into the Griffin household, and the future of Peter’s fictional world might have been completely different.

Because from where I’m sitting? Meg is going to destroy them all.

Allow me to explain:

In the course of the show, Meg has:

  • joined a suicidal cult
  • physically assaulted numerous characters
  • kidnapped and attempted to sexually assault Brian
  • attempted to have a boy rape an unconscious Chris
  • planted a gun on Bonnie Swanson so she’s arrested at the airport
  • possibly killed her aunt in a wrestling show with a folding chair
  • trained to be an Olympic biathelete (skiing and rifle shooting)
  • been sexually predatory toward house robbers
  • beaten up a man that crashed into the car she was driving
  • mentioned strangling cats
  • taught Chris how to poison squirrels
  • made out with Chris
  • expressed homophobia
  • expressed white nationalist sentiments
  • received mail as part of a group that yearly “fucks up” the Anne Frank house
  • shown incredible talent playing the saxophone, drums, and cello
  • displayed an amazing ability to whistle
  • pretended to be a rich heiress and left Brian and Stewie with $18 million dollars worth of debt
  • said she likes to pull carp out of the pond to suffocate them

Constantly bullied by her family, Meg has incredible physical capability. She has shown raw talent in numerous fields and can speak in multiple languages and play multiple musical instruments.

Leaving aside the whole “being a Russian sleeper agent” thing, on her own Meg has the greatest potential for destruction than anyone else in her family. Because while Stewie could wipe out all life on Earth, Meg has it in her to warp society.

She has been shown to have a way with words–to the point that Chris used her words to win an essay contest–and while she doesn’t have a personable nature of her own, I could see her as the take no prisoners personal assistant of a horrible politician. If they had her loyalty, I don’t think there’s a limit to what she would do.

She went super hardcore Christian, and immediately people were following her example, which resulted in book burning and Brian having to burst her religious fervor with one of his speeches.

The only thing that saved the world from Evangelical Meg was a dog.

Treated badly by not just her family but nearly everyone in her life, Meg has the potential for both great and terrible things. She has an indomitable will, that when shoved down strikes back at everything standing in her way, even those simply trying to live their everyday lives. With a bit of aim, she could destroy everything in her path.

And that’s kind of terrifying.

Though the show is called “Family Guy,” I think it’s the story of Meg. What makes and shapes her into who she is and what she becomes. Because if someone gives her a bit of love and attention, she’s willing to do anything to keep that favor. Even kill.

She has the same gift as Peter to get what she wants. And as the series progresses, she seems to only lose more and more of that original sweetness.

It feels like “Family Guy” is the decades long origin story of Meg.

I’m both terrified and excited to see what she will become. I have always loved fictional drama. If she were real, I’d run the other way.