New Story for SS_B!
Story is here.
Firstly I know the "happy ending" rule was relaxed for this issue, but for the record Tam and Altair live happily ever after and have thousands of babies and it's disgustingly cute. :D
This was a surprisingly easy story to write. I love monsters and mythological creatures and demons, and I love writing about them doing mundane things and having awkward romantic entanglements, so I just started on that subject and kept going and eventually it turned into this. It's also a lot longer than originally intended, and I still couldn't fit in everything I wanted to. Having said that, I'm very fond of it and hopefully so are YOU, THE READER.
A couple extra notes on stuff:
I did some basic research (and by basic I mean pretty much just Wikipedia) for the monsters/spirits ect. in this story, as well as using many favourites that I knew about previously, but I also just made some stuff up. For instance, in the world of this story "demons" have nothing to do with Satan or hell, which meant discarding a lot of incubus/succubus folklore. So now they hatch from bird eggs.
Jade's girlfriend Yadira was originally slated to have a much bigger role in the story, but sadly, ended up not fitting in anywhere I wanted to put her. She's a Ciguapa and her personality is much like Jade's, but classier, femmier and more sarcastic. She works at a fancy shoe store in Kitsilano.
Kal is short for Kalkalilh, a giant woman who kidnaps children in a giant basket, takes them home, and eats them. Stories about her are common to many Coast Salish groups in the Pacific Northwest. Kalkalilh is her name in the language of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh or Squamish people, who traditionally live in the Vancouver area. How did she end up as the proprietor of a Karaoke bar? Eh, she needed a hobby (since she stopped kidnapping and eating children) and she likes karaoke.
I would have liked to talk more about the relations between indigenous and immigrant monsters/spirits/ect., but it would have been really tangential. Maybe another time.
Of course the most important unanswered question in this story is "what song did Alt sing at karaoke?" Choose whatever song you think would be most ridiculous. My guess is Melissa Ethridge, or maybe "Part of Your World."
A billion thank yous to carbonidiot , who did the beautiful art, and spacetart, who not only betaed the story but did some adorable and hilarious fanart which can be found here.
Firstly I know the "happy ending" rule was relaxed for this issue, but for the record Tam and Altair live happily ever after and have thousands of babies and it's disgustingly cute. :D
This was a surprisingly easy story to write. I love monsters and mythological creatures and demons, and I love writing about them doing mundane things and having awkward romantic entanglements, so I just started on that subject and kept going and eventually it turned into this. It's also a lot longer than originally intended, and I still couldn't fit in everything I wanted to. Having said that, I'm very fond of it and hopefully so are YOU, THE READER.
A couple extra notes on stuff:
I did some basic research (and by basic I mean pretty much just Wikipedia) for the monsters/spirits ect. in this story, as well as using many favourites that I knew about previously, but I also just made some stuff up. For instance, in the world of this story "demons" have nothing to do with Satan or hell, which meant discarding a lot of incubus/succubus folklore. So now they hatch from bird eggs.
Jade's girlfriend Yadira was originally slated to have a much bigger role in the story, but sadly, ended up not fitting in anywhere I wanted to put her. She's a Ciguapa and her personality is much like Jade's, but classier, femmier and more sarcastic. She works at a fancy shoe store in Kitsilano.
Kal is short for Kalkalilh, a giant woman who kidnaps children in a giant basket, takes them home, and eats them. Stories about her are common to many Coast Salish groups in the Pacific Northwest. Kalkalilh is her name in the language of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh or Squamish people, who traditionally live in the Vancouver area. How did she end up as the proprietor of a Karaoke bar? Eh, she needed a hobby (since she stopped kidnapping and eating children) and she likes karaoke.
I would have liked to talk more about the relations between indigenous and immigrant monsters/spirits/ect., but it would have been really tangential. Maybe another time.
Of course the most important unanswered question in this story is "what song did Alt sing at karaoke?" Choose whatever song you think would be most ridiculous. My guess is Melissa Ethridge, or maybe "Part of Your World."
A billion thank yous to carbonidiot , who did the beautiful art, and spacetart, who not only betaed the story but did some adorable and hilarious fanart which can be found here.