Thursday 3 June 2004

Pic of the day: You can actually play a booster girl of sorts in City of Heroes. Some defenders and controllers, like Mirumiru-chan here, may empower allies to run with superspeed or leap over reasonably tall buildings, or make them stronger for a short while. It's nothing like the "buffbots" that abound in Dark Age of Camelot though. Behind each successful DAoC character stands a buffbot, or that's the impression you get sometimes.

Fiction again

Sorry about the delay. Poor you, suffering withdrawal from lack of my daily wisdom. (You are aware, I hope, that you can always find great truths over at Ozy & Millie?) Anyway, I've been writing fiction again.

It is not very creative, it is not very deep, it is rather fluffy and barely decent. In short, it is kinda anime-inspired. However, the names and places are not Japanese, and only the rabid otaku will spout Japanese phrases like "Ja ne!" (see ya) or "Oyasumi nasai!" (Have a good night.) Like most of my "magic realism" it is set here in Norway around the turn of the millennium ... actually, this is probably set in 2005, but still pretty close. By "magic realism" I mean that limited supernatural events take place in an otherwise mundane world. Unlike "high fantasy" where sorcerers, elves and dwarves abound.

***

The story has the working title "booster girl" and seems to have the makings of a novelette rather than a more manageable short story. The main characters are the ordinary boy and the extraordinary girl. The girl accidentally comes to the mundane world from a parallel reality where magic is dominant. However, her magic consists entirely of boosting the abilities of another. Actually, temporarily boosting one of the abilities of another. In the past she was training to assist her brother, a student of higher magic. Not a very successful student of higher magic, evidently, since he accidentally booted her from their home universe while preparing for his final exams.

The booster girl arrives unexpectedly in the bedroom of our male protagonist, a certified loser. Unlike most of my main characters, he is not particularly intelligent. Rather he is kinda below average in all things except that he looks kinda pretty. (I don't think anyone will accuse this one of being autobiographical...) Imagine your local junior McDonalds employee except he blushes and looks down when taking your order ... this guy is terminally shy in addition to his other shortcomings. So he spends most of his free time in his room, watching anime and reading manga, daydreaming and using up his single mother's supply of Kleenex and hand lotion. Not the archetypal hero.

The supporting cast is first and foremost said mother, who became that by accident and never has tried to hide it. In fact, one is left to wonder how much of his loser attitude comes from the father's loser genes and how much comes from being raised as a firm believer in his own inferiority. That said, his mother is overall a good person and quite tolerant. She is a career woman and a moderate but firm feminist, with a very 68'er attitude to the boy & girl thing. Or girl & girl for that matter. Of course her principles are put to test when she discovers a barely legal teen girl in her son's bedroom. I can't wait to get to that part. ^_^

So you see I've been busy even if I haven't written the journal.