You may or may not have noticed by now, but my story has no plot. (*coughcough* yet *cough*)
I wrote this too close to deadline. Something will actually happen in the next one, I promise. (Also, I'll promise a post that requires scrolling. Those are better, honestly.)
Prompt: --
Vocab: fallacy (n), fabricate (v), forum (n), fastidious (adj), frivolous (adj)
Grammar Focus: use parallel structure to organize a list of verbs, who's/whose
Isaac Bade-
And there I was, once doodling, now fabricating. The page was quickly covered in rough, seemingly frivolous outlines. I didn't really know what I was drawing, but...it was something. I guess.
I'd never been very fastidious when I drew. Usually it was in pen, and when I made a mistake, I just hatched and scribbled and drew over it. I'd only ever been to one art show, and in their forum, all the art had been...well...perfect. And for some reason...it felt flimsy. Like there was some sort of hidden fallacy, concealed in its perceived flawlessness. Whose are these? I'd wondered. And who's buying? The pieces didn't seem...real.
November 25, 2013
November 23, 2013
The Origins of Anthony Rousseaux (Part One?)
I realized last night at about 11:50 that I had a blog post due in nine minutes.
Needless to say, I did not make the deadline.
So anyways!
In my very first post, I promised to explain to you all what a Shadow Mark is (and probably Anthony, too). That was back in September. Welp, here we go.
A little more than a year ago, four of my friends started this collaborative story thing on a Google Doc. I'm not gonna go into detail about all of it because it's really long and most isn't mine (maybe I'll talk about it later), but I will explain my part of the story.
So this story, "the RolePlay," was kind of insane, and really just awful in the beginning, but most things are, no? There were four high school girls of varying ages who lived "in the city of Townsville!" (Nobody was very inspired that day.) They had a slumber party and they went out in the woods and it was suddenly revealed that one girl was a werewolf (Lizzie), one an animal shape-shifter (Shade), another was a waterbender (Skyler), and the last girl (Bea) had a slight variation on Geass (I've never actually watched "Code Geass," but basically it's a form of mind control).
Then another of our friends joined in and a ninja girl, Shizuka, came out of the trees. Then I joined and brought in my character, who...actually, was not Anthony. Her name was Raven Black, she had no powers, she was sixteen, and she was on the run. Actually, they were all secretly on the run.
 |
| Raven Black (image source: nobody knows.) |
From an evil magical secret society called the Shadows! The Shadows hated people with magical powers even though they also all had magical powers, so they went around finding everybody who was magic and either recruited or killed them.
This is roughly where Anthony comes in.
So there were a lot of other over-complicated and under-polished things, but basically Anthony was Dakota's (Raven's older brother's) best friend when they were fourteen. They were both Shadows together, but then Dakota realized the Shadows were evil and tried to leave. Anthony was one of the recruit-or-kill people, and the Shadow leader ordered him to kill Dakota.
Anthony was practically a part of their family, so nobody knew or suspected what had happened to Dakota until Raven found out a few years later. Anthony had since climbed to the top of the Shadow ranks, but when Raven learned what had happened, she freaked out and ran away from home. Because it was Anthony's responsibility to make sure no one learned about Dakota (and to keep track of his family), when Raven ran away, Anthony lost everything. He'd had a reputation to uphold, but when she disappeared, his house of cards collapsed. (Eh? Eh?)
So Raven came barreling into the back-forests of Townsville, but with really horrible timing so everybody started trying to kill her all of a sudden. (They were really irritable that day. Especially Lizzie and Shade.) THEN Anthony came in, and was a bad guy Shadow recruiter person.
So...um...yeah. This is getting pretty long, so I'll probably continue on in other posts, later. I did, however, promise to explain the Shadow mark to you all. The Shadow mark is basically a magical brand burned onto someone when they join the Shadows. Anthony has one on his left wrist. It's inky black, a picture of a snake holding a sword between its fangs. On the blade, there is the Shadow motto, "Show no Kindness, Show no Mercy, Show no Weakness."
UPDATE: Here's a picture I drew of the Shadow mark a few weeks ago. The snake should actually be more S-like and its fangs...should look like fangs...but you get the gist of it. (There has been some debate as to whether it's supposed to be coiled or not, but I think coiled is cooler.)
Thanks for reading!
-Allie
November 18, 2013
Vital Vocab 11
Hello all.
Should I switch back to Eliza soon? A day in the life of Isaac is not all that inspiring yet.
Honestly, Eliza is sort of daunting to me. I feel like, since I have a better hold on Isaac's character, his posts are better. But I'll have to deal with that girl at some point, no?
Prompt: --
Vocab: epitome (n), eloquent (adj), emulate (v), eclectic (adj), etymology (n)
Grammar Focus: loose/lose; use a dash to connect two independent adjectives
Eliza Ben
Isaac Bade- [is more fun and less thought, and let's face it, I am on a deadline here.]
After breakfast, I paid my aunt a kiss on the cheek ((A/N: is that a thing people do? people do that...right?)), grabbed my backpack (with notebook), took one glance at my aunt's car, then grabbed my bike.
I was not exactly the epitome of a good driver.
Clearly it had rained the night before, as the rainwater tried to emulate a small river in the gutter, bringing with it an eclectic mass of sticks, leaves, and mud. I biked slowly, watching it flow, looking for cars out of the corner of my eye. Eventually I reached the edge of the neighborhood, and from there I biked aimlessly until I reached the town library. I locked my bike loosely on the rack outside (wouldn't want to lose it), and in moments I was wandering through the shelves, just scanning titles.
Pretty soon, I found myself in the kid's section, looking at one book in particular that was colorfully alliterative. The elephant eloquently explains etymology to the emu. The illustration featured a ton of other stuff starting with E; Easter eggs, eagles, a man we could assume was an earl (who happened to have exceptionally large ears and eyes), earthworms, et cetera. After a minute I put the book back, finding myself wishing I could be a little kid again.
I went and settled into a cushy chair in the young-adult section and started to doodle in my notebook, fully intending to waste the day away.
Should I switch back to Eliza soon? A day in the life of Isaac is not all that inspiring yet.
Honestly, Eliza is sort of daunting to me. I feel like, since I have a better hold on Isaac's character, his posts are better. But I'll have to deal with that girl at some point, no?
Prompt: --
Vocab: epitome (n), eloquent (adj), emulate (v), eclectic (adj), etymology (n)
Grammar Focus: loose/lose; use a dash to connect two independent adjectives
Isaac Bade- [is more fun and less thought, and let's face it, I am on a deadline here.]
After breakfast, I paid my aunt a kiss on the cheek ((A/N: is that a thing people do? people do that...right?)), grabbed my backpack (with notebook), took one glance at my aunt's car, then grabbed my bike.
I was not exactly the epitome of a good driver.
Clearly it had rained the night before, as the rainwater tried to emulate a small river in the gutter, bringing with it an eclectic mass of sticks, leaves, and mud. I biked slowly, watching it flow, looking for cars out of the corner of my eye. Eventually I reached the edge of the neighborhood, and from there I biked aimlessly until I reached the town library. I locked my bike loosely on the rack outside (wouldn't want to lose it), and in moments I was wandering through the shelves, just scanning titles.
Pretty soon, I found myself in the kid's section, looking at one book in particular that was colorfully alliterative. The elephant eloquently explains etymology to the emu. The illustration featured a ton of other stuff starting with E; Easter eggs, eagles, a man we could assume was an earl (who happened to have exceptionally large ears and eyes), earthworms, et cetera. After a minute I put the book back, finding myself wishing I could be a little kid again.
I went and settled into a cushy chair in the young-adult section and started to doodle in my notebook, fully intending to waste the day away.
November 11, 2013
Vital Vocab 10
Hullo.
Prompt: --
Vocab: deft (adj), discretion (n), dynamic (adj), discern (v), dubious (adj)
Grammar Focus: lose/loose; use a hyphen to connect two dependent adjectives
Isaac Bade-
Hallway, stairs, banister, kitchen. I smiled a good-morning at Aunt Gaile.
"Quite the bedhead, dear."
She was cooking pancakes, and a plate full of bacon sat on the countertop next to her. There was too much food for only two people, but that didn't matter. What we didn't eat would go into the fridge. This was what we did every Saturday. (Note that it was Aunt Gaile's idea, and was done with complete discretion. I think she thought it would be good to have one thing that wasn't so dynamic at that point. Regardless, I appreciated it more than she could know.)
I stepped around her, snatching a piece of bacon as she deftly flipped a pancake. Opening the fridge, I took some milk and poured it out into a small soup bowl, then stepped around to the back door.
"You know Isaac," she said, "keep feeding that cat and it'll keep coming back." I smirked; we both knew that that was absolutely the point.
Sure enough, as soon as I set the milk on the back step, an old black cat slunk out from under the porch, took one seemingly dubious sniff at the dish, then began lapping it up. It was easy to discern that this was one cliché neither of us wanted to lose. I sat on the rickety boards of the porch, against the back wall of the house, and looked out at my forest-y backyard. When the cat finished, it came and curled up next to me, loose fur coming off in the breeze as it began its winter coat. It pressed itself against my leg and I scratched it behind the ears. The cat immediately started purring. I grinned. Wuss-Puss.
Wuss-Puss was the nickname I gave the cat a few years ago, just before the Disaster. I'd just seen the movie "Coraline" (which was beautiful, by the way) and couldn't resist making the reference.
After a few minutes, I collected the bowl and left Wuss-Puss outside. (He sat and meowed at the door, clearly smelling the bacon.)
"Sixteen-year-old cat, sixteen-year-old kid," Aunt Gaile said. "You two are a perfect match."
Prompt: --
Vocab: deft (adj), discretion (n), dynamic (adj), discern (v), dubious (adj)
Grammar Focus: lose/loose; use a hyphen to connect two dependent adjectives
Isaac Bade-
Hallway, stairs, banister, kitchen. I smiled a good-morning at Aunt Gaile.
"Quite the bedhead, dear."
She was cooking pancakes, and a plate full of bacon sat on the countertop next to her. There was too much food for only two people, but that didn't matter. What we didn't eat would go into the fridge. This was what we did every Saturday. (Note that it was Aunt Gaile's idea, and was done with complete discretion. I think she thought it would be good to have one thing that wasn't so dynamic at that point. Regardless, I appreciated it more than she could know.)
I stepped around her, snatching a piece of bacon as she deftly flipped a pancake. Opening the fridge, I took some milk and poured it out into a small soup bowl, then stepped around to the back door.
"You know Isaac," she said, "keep feeding that cat and it'll keep coming back." I smirked; we both knew that that was absolutely the point.
Sure enough, as soon as I set the milk on the back step, an old black cat slunk out from under the porch, took one seemingly dubious sniff at the dish, then began lapping it up. It was easy to discern that this was one cliché neither of us wanted to lose. I sat on the rickety boards of the porch, against the back wall of the house, and looked out at my forest-y backyard. When the cat finished, it came and curled up next to me, loose fur coming off in the breeze as it began its winter coat. It pressed itself against my leg and I scratched it behind the ears. The cat immediately started purring. I grinned. Wuss-Puss.
Wuss-Puss was the nickname I gave the cat a few years ago, just before the Disaster. I'd just seen the movie "Coraline" (which was beautiful, by the way) and couldn't resist making the reference.
After a few minutes, I collected the bowl and left Wuss-Puss outside. (He sat and meowed at the door, clearly smelling the bacon.)
"Sixteen-year-old cat, sixteen-year-old kid," Aunt Gaile said. "You two are a perfect match."
November 8, 2013
How Toys Become Real
"...once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
Hi, guys! Lately this has been pretty much just a writing blog, but according to my tagline, I'm obliged to post multimedia stuff, too. So, something I do other than writing and art is reading aloud. It's fun, 'cause to me it's kinda like singing, but less tone-deaf. For this post, I read The Velveteen Rabbit.
There aren't many readings I feel comfortable posting due to copyright stuff, but since The Velveteen Rabbit's copyright ran out ages ago, it's public domain. (By the way, I recently made a Wix site about copyright in Comp Tech, so if ya want, you can find it here.) If you'd like an online copy of The Velveteen Rabbit, I found one here.
That said, here is a video of me reading! Enjoy! (Er, enjoy if you have time; it's 25 minutes long. The story doesn't even start for three.)
And since Blogger won't let me post videos directly (or I would have posted this ages ago), you can find the youtube video here.
One last thing: though I may sound British, I feel I should point out that I'm not actually British. I read this in an accent because, well, the story just seemed to call for it. That's all.
Until next post!
-Allie
--
"The Velveteen Rabbit." The Velveteen Rabbit. Ed. John M. Ockerbloom and Mary M. Ockerbloom. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Nov. 2013. <http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/williams/rabbit/rabbit.html>.
Hi, guys! Lately this has been pretty much just a writing blog, but according to my tagline, I'm obliged to post multimedia stuff, too. So, something I do other than writing and art is reading aloud. It's fun, 'cause to me it's kinda like singing, but less tone-deaf. For this post, I read The Velveteen Rabbit.
There aren't many readings I feel comfortable posting due to copyright stuff, but since The Velveteen Rabbit's copyright ran out ages ago, it's public domain. (By the way, I recently made a Wix site about copyright in Comp Tech, so if ya want, you can find it here.) If you'd like an online copy of The Velveteen Rabbit, I found one here.
That said, here is a video of me reading! Enjoy! (Er, enjoy if you have time; it's 25 minutes long. The story doesn't even start for three.)
And since Blogger won't let me post videos directly (or I would have posted this ages ago), you can find the youtube video here.
One last thing: though I may sound British, I feel I should point out that I'm not actually British. I read this in an accent because, well, the story just seemed to call for it. That's all.
Until next post!
-Allie
--
"The Velveteen Rabbit." The Velveteen Rabbit. Ed. John M. Ockerbloom and Mary M. Ockerbloom. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Nov. 2013. <http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/williams/rabbit/rabbit.html>.
November 4, 2013
Vital Vocab 9 - I Owe You A Post
Hi all.
It's probably safe to assume that my posting dates will get messed up at the end of each quarter. Every post the past couple weeks has been late, and a couple didn't even make it up. My reasoning for the most part was due dates; since I didn't have a Vital Vocab post due last week (we just had the Q1 vocab test), I wouldn't have to post one, and I wasn't otherwise obligated to post because I'd just posted a seven page short story for you guys. However, it doesn't take an extra week to read seven pages, so in retrospect, I think my logic was a little bit flawed. Sorry 'bout that.
Fortunately, I took my short interlude to consider things I've been meaning to explore with Isaac, and I think my mind really needed the rest (I realize I only write Vital Vocabs once every Monday, but after a few weeks of writer's block, it starts to seem much more frequent than that). So, let's hope something good has come of this. Here we go!
P.S: sorry if my writing style's slightly altered. I've been dedicating all my free time today to finishing The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Charlie doesn't sound just like Isaac....
Prompt: --
Vocab (underlined): disclose (v), derivative (adj), dearth (n), defer (v), denounce (v)
Grammar Focus: use a colon to introduce a list; its/it's
Isaac Bade-
I woke up to the sun shining in my eyes. Bleh. Rolling over to face the wall, my first instinct was to go back to sleep (I often tried to defer waking up fully). Sleep sounded nice. Sleep and its repose. But then my mind began swimming in what I'd dreamed of.
No. Sleep was clearly not an option.
I sighed and rolled back over, picking up my phone from the bedside table to check the time. The small, digital clock disclosed that it was only 7:35 on a Saturday morning. I closed my eyes for a minute, slightly irritated. Then, I sat up.
What did I have to do today? Something? Anything? Everything? Math homework?
Ahh, maybe later.
I looked out the window, watching oak leaves brush the panes. My bedroom really had the classic sneaking out setup: rooftop, oak tree, backyard. Clearly, it was derivative of old family movies. It had occurred to me several times in the past that it's good there was no dearth of hugs when Aunt Gaile first came to stay with me, or I'd probably have left through this window and never come back. But then, she'd been close with my family even before, and in the months after, when slowly everyone began to denounce me, she was one of the few who never did.
I rubbed the back of my neck. Anyway.... I sighed and straightened my t-shirt, smelling breakfast downstairs.
It's probably safe to assume that my posting dates will get messed up at the end of each quarter. Every post the past couple weeks has been late, and a couple didn't even make it up. My reasoning for the most part was due dates; since I didn't have a Vital Vocab post due last week (we just had the Q1 vocab test), I wouldn't have to post one, and I wasn't otherwise obligated to post because I'd just posted a seven page short story for you guys. However, it doesn't take an extra week to read seven pages, so in retrospect, I think my logic was a little bit flawed. Sorry 'bout that.
Fortunately, I took my short interlude to consider things I've been meaning to explore with Isaac, and I think my mind really needed the rest (I realize I only write Vital Vocabs once every Monday, but after a few weeks of writer's block, it starts to seem much more frequent than that). So, let's hope something good has come of this. Here we go!
P.S: sorry if my writing style's slightly altered. I've been dedicating all my free time today to finishing The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Charlie doesn't sound just like Isaac....
Prompt: --
Vocab (underlined): disclose (v), derivative (adj), dearth (n), defer (v), denounce (v)
Grammar Focus: use a colon to introduce a list; its/it's
Isaac Bade-
I woke up to the sun shining in my eyes. Bleh. Rolling over to face the wall, my first instinct was to go back to sleep (I often tried to defer waking up fully). Sleep sounded nice. Sleep and its repose. But then my mind began swimming in what I'd dreamed of.
No. Sleep was clearly not an option.
I sighed and rolled back over, picking up my phone from the bedside table to check the time. The small, digital clock disclosed that it was only 7:35 on a Saturday morning. I closed my eyes for a minute, slightly irritated. Then, I sat up.
What did I have to do today? Something? Anything? Everything? Math homework?
Ahh, maybe later.
I looked out the window, watching oak leaves brush the panes. My bedroom really had the classic sneaking out setup: rooftop, oak tree, backyard. Clearly, it was derivative of old family movies. It had occurred to me several times in the past that it's good there was no dearth of hugs when Aunt Gaile first came to stay with me, or I'd probably have left through this window and never come back. But then, she'd been close with my family even before, and in the months after, when slowly everyone began to denounce me, she was one of the few who never did.
I rubbed the back of my neck. Anyway.... I sighed and straightened my t-shirt, smelling breakfast downstairs.
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