The Holly and the Ivy, Medieval Baebes
#commissionearned
Author: Moe_Lane
12/02/2024 Snippet, TIMMY AND THE BAD PLACE.
Not as much done as I’d like, but I’m still feeling my way in this story.
Timmy wasn’t surprised that Frostvale Pines was really clean, especially the parts that were supposed to be dirty. The worst parts of the town didn’t smell bad at all, and were one good sweeping from being pristine. The people were different, too. No bad breath, no skin problems, nobody skinny or too fat, and everybody’s teeth gleamed. They all looked like they were from what Timmy remembered of TV, but they would, wouldn’t they? Everybody sounded the same, too. Even the bums — who looked like everybody else, except for a couple of smudges on their faces — talked like they went to college.
He’d been warned about that ahead of time. It wasn’t a glamour, or anything like that. The rules were just different here. Things either didn’t break, or were really easy to fix.
What surprised Timmy was that he wasn’t resentful about how nice Frostvale Pines was. He was sort of expecting to be, since he’d grown up rough and everything, but the town just wasn’t real enough to be worth getting mad over. It’d be like getting mad at a play.
Pre-ordered: @exjon’s SINK THE RISING SUN.
Jon Gabriel, an old buddy of mine from the Before Times, has written a book! SINK THE RISING SUN, a World War II submarine novel. No supernatural or fantastical stuff in it, but I pre-ordered it anyway.
Also: Jon’s a brave man. I personally quail at the thought of writing a historical war novel. There are just too many people out there with opinions on the smaller details, and they look upon new historical fiction writers as fresh meat…
#commissionearned
Self-Tweet of the Day, This Is Apparently Real edition.
(H/T: @iowahawkblog) The thing is, I don’t know who should be more offended (and possibly contemplating a trademark suit): DC, or Mattel.
Spider-Man meets Thomas the Tank Engine!
I saw this a couple of days ago, but GeekTyrant reminded me of it. You’ll need to have watched both SPIDER-MAN 2 and THOMAS AND FRIENDS to get the full effect, but getting that combo is easier than it sounds. You just need to be a geek who has kids.
#commissionearned
12/02/2024 Snippet, CALL OF THE MOON-BEASTS.
Lack of art!
He looked around, blinking unconsciously at the strain of standing up suddenly. Grabinski kept a neat room, even by the standards of the increasingly resource-starved lunar colonies. He had a bed, a perfunctory shower/bathroom combination stripped down to the fixtures, and a desk. There were no personal touches. Not even a toothbrush.
There was also no art. “Check me, Asenath,” Tobias wheezed. He could feel his entire upper respiratory system loosening up under the sudden humidity, only it wasn’t actually pleasant. “No sign of Grabinski drawing on the walls themselves, right?”
Correct, Commander. Do you see the discolorations on the wall?
“Yeah. Grabinski must have been hoarding sticky tape.” He bit down on the sudden spike of white-hot, murderous rage the thought had triggered. “Or maybe he had something else. Anyway, either he didn’t do any painting here, or he took it with him when he left. When was the last time he was here?”
‘Adeste Fideles.’
The Shadowrun 4E MEGA Bundle of Holding.
I always wanted to play Shadowrun, but it never quite worked out, scheduling-wise. Ach, well. The Bundle of Holding looks tempting, at least.
Moe Lane
PS: I should finish those video games, though.
12/01/2024 Snippet, BANSHEE BEACH.
We continue.
“Alan Smithee? Never heard of him.”
Bananas Foster was one of those guys who it takes only five minutes to know all your life. At least, if you were in the habit of hanging around short, kinda rat-looking, jittery chain-smokers who was clued-in about all the hinky deals out there, but didn’t have the scratch to get a piece in any of them. Which describes what the Old Americans would call my ‘working environment,’ right down to the cheap cologne Bananas wore. Weirdly, it didn’t even smell like bananas. More like burnt wood, old tobacco, and booze so raw, it practically bubbled.
Yeah, yeah, I know: I need a better class of business acquaintances. Who are you, my mother?
I shook my head. “Bananas. Look, I know I’m new around here, but you really gotta try to sell me on the lie. I ain’t just some tourist down from the City. See the hat?”
He peered at it. “What about it?” He sounded genuinely confused, too.
Truly, I was a pilgrim in an unholy land. “It’s a Shamus hat,” I explained, trying to ignore Lucas’s manful attempts not to snicker. “Tell me you’ve heard of Shamuses, Banana.”
12/01/2024 Snippet, TIMMY AND THE BAD PLACE.
TIMMY!
“I am uncertain of this assignment, young Mister Timothy.”
That made Timmy jerk his head up. The Headmaster didn’t use that word a lot. As he liked to say, it was his job to know what was really going on.
The Headmaster didn’t mind being asked questions, as long as you understood that he didn’t care if you liked the answers or not. “Is it because of me, or the task?”
“Oh, the task, I assure you.” The Headmaster gave a smile that Timmy at least found reassuring, and not at all nightmarish. “If I thought you were incapable of handling an operation this simple, you wouldn’t be here in the first place.”
“It did seem pretty easy. There’s somebody where he shouldn’t be, we need to yank him out of the realm he’s in, and the people running the place don’t even want him there, so I can just go in.” Timmy frowned. “Oh. It’s too easy?”