Sidekick 1

I'm making a webcomic! Don't worry,you won't have to go anywhere else, I'll put it up here on Sundays. It's about Maryn McDonnell, aka Amethyst Shift, the long suffering Sidekick of world's most self obsessed super hero. Enjoy!

The Other Travelers

So, after I published my post last night, I realized something. I actually have two more Travelers, who arguably have the coolest, most outlandish names I've come up with. They never  got there stories anywhere near finished, and I didn't even really start writing one of them. But these girls didn't travel through worlds- these two are my Travelers Through Time.

Pompeii Smith-Johnson was a character whose parents (unbeknownst to her and her brother) were time travelers. She's adopted from Italy, but what she doesn't know is that she was a baby lying in the streets of Pompeii on volcano day, that her parents took back to their time.
Later on, a girl named Dylancé Spinner (another weird name I'm superproud of) and her band of time traveling orphans comes back from the future to take Pompeii on a rescue mission.

Infinite Obscurity Parker also had a time traveling parent. In fact, her father was the Keeper of Time, and she lived in a mansion filled with doors to different times and places. She's my youngest Traveler, at age 11, but since she's a time traveler, she can ort of get around the age requirement. She ends up breaking her dad's reasonable rule of "Don't go through the doors without me, because you don't have the key to get back," and getting stuck in New York during the Victorian era with a little boy named Jasper.

Travelers Through Worlds

So, I've recently noticed a recurring theme throughout my more recent stories, and I find the differences and similarities fascinating. I kind of wonder what it says about me, but all of these stories involve a relatively average teenaged girl, travelling to a different world, and discovering something.

Some of you will (hopefully) recognize The Old House, and it's every-girl protagonist Sara Kelly, so I figured we may as well start there and work in reverse chronological order.
I'll give you some stuff about the character, a brief description of the other world, and a paragraph or two about the character's experience there.

*

The Old House 

The Character: Sara Elissabeth Kelly, age 15

The Other World: A totally different steampunk world where some people have clocks for faces, and crime is rampant.

Interesting Fact: Sara is the only one of my "travelers" without a love interest. ALthough, throughout the whole story, she is helping to rescue Lydia's fiance.

My favorite excerpt:

She gestured at Sara’s beat up lime green high tops which her best friends had all signed at the end of year nine instead of her year book. Katy’s signature was the biggest. She had written it with a big black sharpie, covering half of Sara’s left shoe. She wished that she had tucked her phone into Katy’s clothes before they left, but it was still in the pockets of Sara’s carefully ripped jeans at Katy’s house. 

It probably wouldn’t work anyway, she thought.  She still had no freakin’ idea where she even was, beyond room 17 at Rennal’s Inn and Tavern. She was being dressed like a doll by criminals, in a strange inn filled with clock-people and murderers behind a magical door. That’s it! She thought angrily, I’m going home, grumpy old lady or not!

Searching For Solace

The Character: Solace Estragón, age 16

The Other World: Several different chemical induced "lucid dreams" created by the character herself in a sci-fi hospital.

Interesting Fact: Originally, I had imagined Solace as Indian (as you can kind of see on the cover I made), although as I was writing, she sort of became Hispanic, and a scene about her mom's Mexican hot chocolate is one of my favorites in this travesty of a NaNoWriMo. I guess sometimes characters write themselves.

My favorite excerpt:

“That’s the most elegant Architect Haze I’ve ever seen,” whispered Coles, full of awe. “She’s made herself God.”

And she was, swirling and turning, gliding along, making her own world. Every movement, mirrored by new life springing up behind her, in a dance of creation.

Suddenly, she stopped moving, she stood still with her arms reached over her head. Noah and Coles thought the screen had frozen. After a few seconds, a low buzzing noise started up, and a slow smile crept onto Solace’s face. 

The buzzing grew louder, and they saw that it was coming from a fleet of approaching helicopters. Solace sat down, still smiling, and the helicopters opened fire.

The helicopters fired relentlessly, it looked like chaos, but Solace knew better.

They shot down the first tree Solace had made, until it was a flaming pile of timber, and then moved onto to the one directly next to it.

The bombs rained down, copying Solace’s dance exactly, horribly following every twist and turn she had made. 

Her garden was a beautiful maze, of swirls and bends, and the helicopters set every blade of grass on fire in the exact order they had been created. 

It wasn’t chaos. It was order at it’s finest.

The Boy With Violet Eyes

The Character: Adelie Rennal, age 14

The Other World: A mirror image of her own world, although the people who inhabit it are very different than in her world.

Interesting Fact: You may recognize Adelie from The Old House (although Sara's excerpt up there doesn't have her in it, she is a main character there as well. I created her for my first NaNo, in which she is a boring, meek, mary sue with pretty much no redeeming value except her faith. when I started The Old House, I "recycled" her, so she could have some redemption for the utter mouse she is here.

My favorite excerpt:

I sigh and look out the window to the place where I saw the boy two days ago, and at the setting sun, and he appears.

He doesn't walk to the spot, he literally materializes before my eyes.

I shakily add to my diary:

The Boy with the violet eyes stands in the alley. I watch him through my bedroom window, and he is eternal. He looks my age, but his amaranthine eyes tell another story all together. He looks a thousand times wiser than Aunt Luelle and her verses from the Book of Creation, and I, Adelie Rennal of Ceruli City, Ceruli will meet him tonight.

I shut my book and stuff it in the waistband of my bloomers under my nightgown. I run to the window. He’s still there.

I throw open the window and climb out onto the apple tree, and promptly fall out trying to climb down.

Pictures of Sisters

First of all, I dyed my hair again! Now my bangs have blue stripes. It's pretty awesome.

Secondly, gel pens are epic. First I drew this picture of me and Jayne with a greenish gel pen, and it was so good, I showed it to her. Then I drew another on of us as the Doctor and Sarah Jane (David Tennant, and older Sarah Jane. Mainly because she had awful fashion sense in the eighties.) This is also fantastic.
And Jayne asked for a pen and paper, so she's drawing us as well, and I drew us all steampunk. Jayne hates steampunk, therefore, she drew as just punk. Expect these pictures to be epic.

Me and Jayne by Moi.

Me and Jayne by Jayne. 

Me as the Doctor and Jayne as Sarah Jane. Sarah Jayne?

Me as a steampunk Lady, and Jayne as a total badass.

Me and Jayne looking super awesome in punk clothes. Note the piercing and chokers. 

PDS, Lady E

This post involves cats and math.

Ok, I haven't written in (checking calendar) nine days. I'm a bit of a flake. BUT- I am working on it. head on over to The Starlit Castle if you want to see me write on a (gasp) regularish basis.

Speaking of Starlit Castle, I was thinking about making a compilation in book form, like with illustrations and stuff. Unfortunately, it would cost money, but only the money it would take me to you know, make them through a website.

I don't know, it's just a thought.

On a completely unrelated note, today I got back my test scores....
At first I was like this

"NO! Don't tell me!"

 Then my mom started reading and I was all like

"Post high school level English, Science, and Social Studies? Again?"

And then it was math time.

"seventh grade level is better than last year, right?*"

Then it was decided that I need a tutor.

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAH???!!!!!!!!"

I couldn't have said it better internet cat.

PDS, Lady E.

*Unfortunately, this is true. I believe the level it gave me for last year's math computation was "below fourth grade level." Gee, I feel so good about myself.

My Weird Hobby

I've been browsing around Appellation Mountain recently, because it's the single greatest naming site ever, because I was coming up with the name for a villain (I finally settled on Anaïs Moro), and have fallen into my bizarre pastime:

I like to come up with first and middle names for my possible future children. There's a lot more names than I want to have children. I don't think I could handle 16 kids.

But anyway, here's some of my favorite/most bizarre names, along with short descriptions of why I like them or possible nicknames:

Amelia Infinite. Isn't that gorgeous? We'd call her Fin for short. I'm not giving you a reason with it because it would be long, nerdy, and involve time travel.


Emrys Arthur. Arthurian legend. Emrys was Merlin's name before he was Merlin, and Arthur is obvious. Also, I don't like the sound of Merlin Arthur or Arthur Merlin. That's just to much.

Allana Willow. After my grandpas, Will and Allan. Yes, Allan with two Ls and an a.

Owen David. I've always liked the name Owen, and my daddy's name is David.

Vanessa Marceline. I'm not explaining this. You'll laugh at me.

Lincoln Sherlock. I'm not making Sherlock his first name, because he would inevitably be teased, but I think you can do crazy stuff with middles. Lincoln is just a badass name.

Anaïs Jayne. (I just realized that like half of these half family middle names. I guess I'm more traditional than I thought) Anaïs is a gorgeous French name (it's said ah-ny-EES) and Jayne is my little sis.

Jason James. Again, not explaining.

Rosemarie Ever. I love the name Rose, but it's impossible to find a middle name for. And yes I do know she could be Rose Marie, I don't care.

Aleksander Isaiah. I have no clue where this came from, but I like it. And I can call him Alek and he'll have a Leviathan name. Squeeeee!

I'm going to stop there
A) so I don't sound any weirder
And
B) because I'm out of boys names.

But just know- I have way more girl's names, and if you ask nicely I might share them, because they're pretty interesting choices.


Lady E

A rambley post about everything.

Hi there. So I realized that there was a whole bunch of stuff I meant to tell you about last week and forgot, as well as the disaster that is my April fools.

So this post will probably be long and meaningless, with no discernible segues, but bear with me.

So last weekend I had the almost imponderable joy of watching Jayne dance in her ballet school's spring showcase.

But I also got to help out, because I'm a helpful volunteer. And also the only volunteer who isn't a parent, but I don't like to brag.

So I was promptly put to work at watching the younger kids and making sure they don't wander off.

I helped with three different age groups:

4-6, "the tinies." these are the hardest to watch, because they're really little. The plus side is that as a fifteen year old, I'm the most exciting thing ever.

10-12, "the easies," are exactly that. They simply read their books, and occasionally ask to go outside. The only problem is that they can be kind of boring, because you're pretty much ceremonial.
Although one of my easies gave me a friendship bracelet. Thank you Isabelle. I hope that's the proper spelling of your name.

And finally,

8-11, "the goldens" my favorite to watch because they're old enough that you aren't herding cats, but they're young enough to find you interesting.

That was a really final and super exhausting weekend, and I wasn't even the one dancing.

Ok, now let's fast forward a bit to the Hunger Games, because I totally forgot to review it.

I liked it in general. I was right that Jennifer Lawrence was a good Katniss, although she's waaaaaay taller than Josh Hutchinson which was hilarious.

They cut to Gale a couple times, which I found kind of cheesy. Plus it incited the people behind me to say "omg, Jacob!" This made me almost throw my straw at them. Fun fact about Liam Hemsworth: his brother plays Thor. Also he's dating Miley Cyrus, but I really don't give a crap about that.

I really liked Amandla Steinberg as Rue. She was excellent. I just wish she'd had more screen time.

The wolves angered me. In the book I imagined them sleek and and graceful, with human eyes. In the movie they were mangy cats with human ears.
No.

Peeta was perfectly captured, although he had one slightly creepy "Cullen-esque" line, where he said that he watched Katniss walk home from school everyday.
Potato's little sister and Jayne agree that that's creepy, even though they aren't allowed to read/watch.

I think that's the best film review I've ever written. Maybe if I show my film teacher it'll make up for the really crappy ones I've given him all year...

You may know that it's April fools day. I had this great piece planned that involved me handing out festively wrapped lemons to random people.

If I have learned one thing today, it is that nobody trusts a really polite teenager giving out gifts.

WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL?
You're all good with telling your children that a fat man watches them sleep, and rewards them for being good, but you're not at all cool with a friendly stranger giving you a gift???

Why?

Do you think I'm a terrorist? (This is America so I wouldn't put it past you...)

Do you think I want money? Because people who want money TOTALLY give stuff away!

Sigh. I'm going to go make some lemonade. Yay irony.