The Story Eater
Everyone can skip this post. Unless you are masochistic and want to read my painful stumblings into a new story. Otherwise, have a nice day, everyone!
I've been playing around with an idea for Air and Dor again. *sigh* Like I don't have enough finishing to do with the rest of my stories. Regardless, I've come up with some sort of semi-idea involving demons and liberries and the Story Eater.
Really, this is in order for me to work it out and play with it more than anyone to actually read it. :P
This is naturally very much in progress as a) I don't really have permission to take Air and run with him and b) I've not fleshed out all the middle bits. I might just use other characters eventually, but I'd really be happy to use these little guys.
So I was thinking about that old saying- "write what you know." Well, I know libraries. Unfortunately I don't really know cataloging, but hopefully in the fall they'll offer that cataloging class so I can understand what I'm talking about. Anyway.
Dorje is either a) a rich kid whose parents won't support him or b) a poor kid. Either way, he's fresh out of library school so he's basically taking whatever job someone will give him. He's hired to work a cataloging job for a small library/archive. The job is kind of lonely and crappy because it's at night and he'll be alone in the building. But it pays fairly well and the head librarian seems to really want him.
So he goes in the first night and is thinking, "Well, at least I can catalog out in the stacks instead of having to sit in the back.." whatever. And he meets Aramith on the way in-- Air is working as a security guard.
So he's got a bunch of books in front of him, and the first one he opens, this naked girl with cow horns appears on the desk.
So here's where I first start running into troubles. Either Air's going to have been working there during the day and just gotten transferred to the night shift (in which case, he'd be a little surprised as well) or he's going to have been working at night for a while (in which case, he'd be like, "hey, how's it going" to the chick).
So blah blah blah, I'm not really sure how they get her back into the book, but it turns out that most of the books there either are demons or contain demons. By demons, I mean like spirits. But spirit has a weird connotation. Ugh, words. Anyway, Air sort of expects Dor to have quit, but instead the next night Dor shows up with a ton of religious artifacts and wards and crosses and holy water and all that... and says, "Just try to stop me from cataloging now, bitch!!" Or something totally dorky like that.
So either the next day or a few days in, the head librarian says, "Oh my, I'm terribly sorry. I meant to give this to you earlier. It should help you in getting your work done faster." And he hands Dor a book.
When Dorje opens this book, he finds the Story Eater.
The Story Eater is a very very ancient demon who sucks out stories from people's heads. Stories you've forgotten, stories you've wanted to write but never finished-- these were all eaten by her. I want to name her either Mola or Noli. I think Nola is some kind of organization or that would be a candidate, too.
Anyway, so the Story Eater starts by trying to devour all the stories in the library. Dor and Air have to stop her. Blah blah. It turns out that just reading stories can feed her a little, so they start giving her books and manga and movies and radio shows and etc. to feed her so she doesn't erase everything. I haven't worked out all the details here, but I think the internet will have something to do with helping to feed her desire.
And then there's a bunch of middle stuff to fill in. I'd like to bring in Toshi and Fern and Meg as sort of resident demons who just hang out with the boys occasionally.
So at the end. The Story Eater is going crazy for some reason or another, and Dor and Air have to kill her, despite having become her friend. In the end, Dor slices off her head and Air looks at his hands and says something lame like, "That's not blood, that's ink." So they go back to her, and find that she's just the book that she started out as. And on the pages is a story. This is a draft of that:
~ + ~
A long time ago, when man was just beginning to use words, a father was plagued by his daughter. As they squatted around a fire, she asked him, in the manner of all children, "Father, where did words come from?"
He replied to her, "Man came up with words in order to communicate with each other."
And she said to him, "But the birds warn each other when danger is coming. Even ants will follow each other along to a drop of honey. Why are words necessary?"
Because he did not know, the father told his child the first story. "Once upon a time, a woman was being attacked by a bear. She was not a normal woman, because she had legs like a great woolly beast and wings like a great feathered bird. Her breasts were swollen with milk and her stomach was swollen with child. And this woman cried out to the wolf-- 'Help me! Help me!'
"But the wolf did not understand, and he ran away with his pack. So she called to the deer. 'Help me! Help me!'
"But the deer did not understand. Finally, she called to man. 'Help me! Help me!' And man heard her words and he came to her rescue. When he threw his spear, the bear died, and the woman was saved.
"'You have saved me,' she said. 'In all the world, the only creature to hear me was man. I will now give you the power to speak words to each other.' And she lay down in the dirt and gave birth to the voice of man." The father felt pleased with himself until he saw the look in his daughter's face.
It may have been the firelight, but her eyes shone gold. When she spoke, she said only one word. "More."
~ + ~
Obviously a BIG work in progress. But basically, I want the Story Eater to have been the first human in the world to be told a story. Not just any story-- a fully made-up story. And when she heard that, the demon was born, and wanted nothing but more stories.
I was thinking of having whatever story I use at the start of everything as sort of a prologue. But I want to leave it somewhat indistinct so there can be some sort of impact at the end.
So yeah. All that to say... I drew something.
In light of making stuff up, I wanted to try drawing stuff in a sort of new way. I tried a whole bunch of new things with this.... and though it's not perfect, I had a lot of fun. Plus Air and Dor are so cute together that they might be able to save even my severely flawed arts.
Changed Dor's hair a bit. He doesn't have pierced ears any more, either. Can't quite get the hang of drawing them older than that-- although they don't look fourteen any more. YAY. I want to keep Dor looking youngish, but I think I have to age Air up a bit.
By the way, y'all. Aramith belongs to Lady, not me.
I've been playing around with an idea for Air and Dor again. *sigh* Like I don't have enough finishing to do with the rest of my stories. Regardless, I've come up with some sort of semi-idea involving demons and liberries and the Story Eater.
Really, this is in order for me to work it out and play with it more than anyone to actually read it. :P
This is naturally very much in progress as a) I don't really have permission to take Air and run with him and b) I've not fleshed out all the middle bits. I might just use other characters eventually, but I'd really be happy to use these little guys.
So I was thinking about that old saying- "write what you know." Well, I know libraries. Unfortunately I don't really know cataloging, but hopefully in the fall they'll offer that cataloging class so I can understand what I'm talking about. Anyway.
Dorje is either a) a rich kid whose parents won't support him or b) a poor kid. Either way, he's fresh out of library school so he's basically taking whatever job someone will give him. He's hired to work a cataloging job for a small library/archive. The job is kind of lonely and crappy because it's at night and he'll be alone in the building. But it pays fairly well and the head librarian seems to really want him.
So he goes in the first night and is thinking, "Well, at least I can catalog out in the stacks instead of having to sit in the back.." whatever. And he meets Aramith on the way in-- Air is working as a security guard.
So he's got a bunch of books in front of him, and the first one he opens, this naked girl with cow horns appears on the desk.
So here's where I first start running into troubles. Either Air's going to have been working there during the day and just gotten transferred to the night shift (in which case, he'd be a little surprised as well) or he's going to have been working at night for a while (in which case, he'd be like, "hey, how's it going" to the chick).
So blah blah blah, I'm not really sure how they get her back into the book, but it turns out that most of the books there either are demons or contain demons. By demons, I mean like spirits. But spirit has a weird connotation. Ugh, words. Anyway, Air sort of expects Dor to have quit, but instead the next night Dor shows up with a ton of religious artifacts and wards and crosses and holy water and all that... and says, "Just try to stop me from cataloging now, bitch!!" Or something totally dorky like that.
So either the next day or a few days in, the head librarian says, "Oh my, I'm terribly sorry. I meant to give this to you earlier. It should help you in getting your work done faster." And he hands Dor a book.
When Dorje opens this book, he finds the Story Eater.
The Story Eater is a very very ancient demon who sucks out stories from people's heads. Stories you've forgotten, stories you've wanted to write but never finished-- these were all eaten by her. I want to name her either Mola or Noli. I think Nola is some kind of organization or that would be a candidate, too.
Anyway, so the Story Eater starts by trying to devour all the stories in the library. Dor and Air have to stop her. Blah blah. It turns out that just reading stories can feed her a little, so they start giving her books and manga and movies and radio shows and etc. to feed her so she doesn't erase everything. I haven't worked out all the details here, but I think the internet will have something to do with helping to feed her desire.
And then there's a bunch of middle stuff to fill in. I'd like to bring in Toshi and Fern and Meg as sort of resident demons who just hang out with the boys occasionally.
So at the end. The Story Eater is going crazy for some reason or another, and Dor and Air have to kill her, despite having become her friend. In the end, Dor slices off her head and Air looks at his hands and says something lame like, "That's not blood, that's ink." So they go back to her, and find that she's just the book that she started out as. And on the pages is a story. This is a draft of that:
~ + ~
A long time ago, when man was just beginning to use words, a father was plagued by his daughter. As they squatted around a fire, she asked him, in the manner of all children, "Father, where did words come from?"
He replied to her, "Man came up with words in order to communicate with each other."
And she said to him, "But the birds warn each other when danger is coming. Even ants will follow each other along to a drop of honey. Why are words necessary?"
Because he did not know, the father told his child the first story. "Once upon a time, a woman was being attacked by a bear. She was not a normal woman, because she had legs like a great woolly beast and wings like a great feathered bird. Her breasts were swollen with milk and her stomach was swollen with child. And this woman cried out to the wolf-- 'Help me! Help me!'
"But the wolf did not understand, and he ran away with his pack. So she called to the deer. 'Help me! Help me!'
"But the deer did not understand. Finally, she called to man. 'Help me! Help me!' And man heard her words and he came to her rescue. When he threw his spear, the bear died, and the woman was saved.
"'You have saved me,' she said. 'In all the world, the only creature to hear me was man. I will now give you the power to speak words to each other.' And she lay down in the dirt and gave birth to the voice of man." The father felt pleased with himself until he saw the look in his daughter's face.
It may have been the firelight, but her eyes shone gold. When she spoke, she said only one word. "More."
~ + ~
Obviously a BIG work in progress. But basically, I want the Story Eater to have been the first human in the world to be told a story. Not just any story-- a fully made-up story. And when she heard that, the demon was born, and wanted nothing but more stories.
I was thinking of having whatever story I use at the start of everything as sort of a prologue. But I want to leave it somewhat indistinct so there can be some sort of impact at the end.
So yeah. All that to say... I drew something.
In light of making stuff up, I wanted to try drawing stuff in a sort of new way. I tried a whole bunch of new things with this.... and though it's not perfect, I had a lot of fun. Plus Air and Dor are so cute together that they might be able to save even my severely flawed arts.
Changed Dor's hair a bit. He doesn't have pierced ears any more, either. Can't quite get the hang of drawing them older than that-- although they don't look fourteen any more. YAY. I want to keep Dor looking youngish, but I think I have to age Air up a bit.
By the way, y'all. Aramith belongs to Lady, not me.