Richard Roberts's Blog, page 3
November 14, 2018
Exploring The Cyberpunk Writing Tone
This guy really wanted you to know how tough and experienced he was. Everything he wore was scratched and frayed at the ends from use, but still intact and completely functional. His dull orange pants were just loose enough to tuck into the tops of his combat boots, and dusted with sand despite the pouring rain outside. Metal armor plates protected his thighs, letting you know he was the kind of guy never completely comfortable without armor, and I guess also that he really valued his thighs.
His faded maroon shirt didn't match his pants, because hardened, cynical soldiers don't worry if their clothes clash. Don't worry, you couldn't see much of it beneath the empty bandoliers and the leather jacket. Thick leather, of course. A man with his past might face a knife in the back or being thrown against a car at any moment. Same with the black gloves. You never know when you'll have to settle things with your fists.
Shoulder guards attached to the jacket? Of course. The ancient scarf around his neck was a good touch, no doubt hiding ugly scars from a dramatic combat while reminding him of a woman who died in his arms. Mysterious pouches on his belt and bulges in his jacket assured you he was armed, and you could take it for granted he had a knife in his boot. Streaks of grey at his temples marked not-quite-black hair. You know, because he was old enough to have seen decades of combat but young enough to be strong. Finally, a couple of patches on his jacket had faded into unidentified landscapes and illegible logos, letting you cleverly figure out that he'd been everywhere and seen everything, which always resulted in shooting people.
The first words out of his mouth would include a reference to his days as a mech pilot, so you'd know he had the skills to battle against the teenage girls with direct nervous interfaces who normally piloted mechs.
His faded maroon shirt didn't match his pants, because hardened, cynical soldiers don't worry if their clothes clash. Don't worry, you couldn't see much of it beneath the empty bandoliers and the leather jacket. Thick leather, of course. A man with his past might face a knife in the back or being thrown against a car at any moment. Same with the black gloves. You never know when you'll have to settle things with your fists.
Shoulder guards attached to the jacket? Of course. The ancient scarf around his neck was a good touch, no doubt hiding ugly scars from a dramatic combat while reminding him of a woman who died in his arms. Mysterious pouches on his belt and bulges in his jacket assured you he was armed, and you could take it for granted he had a knife in his boot. Streaks of grey at his temples marked not-quite-black hair. You know, because he was old enough to have seen decades of combat but young enough to be strong. Finally, a couple of patches on his jacket had faded into unidentified landscapes and illegible logos, letting you cleverly figure out that he'd been everywhere and seen everything, which always resulted in shooting people.
The first words out of his mouth would include a reference to his days as a mech pilot, so you'd know he had the skills to battle against the teenage girls with direct nervous interfaces who normally piloted mechs.
November 11, 2018
You Knew I Was Writing, Right?
I have just finished writing what I am tentatively calling A Rag Doll's Guide To Enchantment And Murder. I'm going to be badly frazzled for the next few days, but one of the many things I need to do as soon as I'm coherent is send it out to beta readers. I lost the email address I used last time to collect addresses to mail to, but basically it's time to start volunteering and I'll work out a system very soon.
November 5, 2018
Teaser And Exploration
Cyberpunk is winning in my head because there's so much fun goofy stuff to mine. Here is potentially the first two paragraphs of such a book:
“Get up. Shower. Brush teeth. Spike my hair with oil and lean it over to one side. Dust below my eyes for the ‘punched in the face’ look. Apply a very small amount of green lipstick, one shade darker than my hair. Begin putting on spiked leather bands. Continue putting on spiked leather bands. Add some pre-torn clothing somewhere during that process. Check mirror to confirm I look like death. It takes a lot of time and effort to not be pretty
No piercings. Too retro. I couldn’t afford a cybernetic arm, even with trade-in on the original. I found a metal skin-web once, but Mimi stole it from my trunk and Cosmos stole it from her mattress and Ajax beat Cosmos up and took it and Chaos blew up Ajax’s trunk to give the web back to me because he’s sweet and Liriel put a glamour on him and took it and buried it in the yard so it wouldn’t corrupt our auras or whatever and Fidget watched her do it, dug the web up, and sold it for an AR Monster before anyone else could steal it. Death Rooster is wicked cool and I can’t be mad.”
“Get up. Shower. Brush teeth. Spike my hair with oil and lean it over to one side. Dust below my eyes for the ‘punched in the face’ look. Apply a very small amount of green lipstick, one shade darker than my hair. Begin putting on spiked leather bands. Continue putting on spiked leather bands. Add some pre-torn clothing somewhere during that process. Check mirror to confirm I look like death. It takes a lot of time and effort to not be pretty
No piercings. Too retro. I couldn’t afford a cybernetic arm, even with trade-in on the original. I found a metal skin-web once, but Mimi stole it from my trunk and Cosmos stole it from her mattress and Ajax beat Cosmos up and took it and Chaos blew up Ajax’s trunk to give the web back to me because he’s sweet and Liriel put a glamour on him and took it and buried it in the yard so it wouldn’t corrupt our auras or whatever and Fidget watched her do it, dug the web up, and sold it for an AR Monster before anyone else could steal it. Death Rooster is wicked cool and I can’t be mad.”
October 24, 2018
Whence Forth?
And now, the positive side!
If not Supervillain, then what?????
I ain't short on ideas. I ain't ever short on ideas, kids.
The biggest problem is that my ideas are so often weird. 'Metal, Candy, Flesh' weird. I mean, even A Rag Doll's Guide To Here And There is pretty weird. I have been informed, and I agree, that human protagonists that a teen can empathize with are important for a popular series. I hate Everymans, but like Penny, that just means I give the main character a lot of personality.
It will be a girl between 12 and 15 with a tendency to be the bad guy. Sorry, I just love that kind of thing. I just hate the implication it will replace the Supervillain world.
Okay, so, I have two ideas and this is where you guys come in. I could use your opinions on which is better.
First idea: Space Western. I actually even have an experimental title for the first book, 'You Must Be This Tall To Steal A Spaceship.' The main character is Pixie, or as she puts it “With a name like Pixie, most people assume I’m an annoyingly hyperactive optimist with a compulsive attraction to trouble, and they are correct.” I have rigged up a physics explanation that means the galaxy is very frontier, with all FTL travel and communications centering around small ships. Piracy, scavenging, exotic ports of call, treasure planets, sarcastic teammates, weird aliens, and spaceships crewed by cowboys, ninjas, pirates, clowns, and any other cliche I can think of. Pixie and her crew are already well defined to me, and stealing spaceships and scavenging precursor technology sounds like a hoot.
Problem: I don't think a space setting is very relatable. Pixie has almost no regular kid problems.
Second idea: Cyberpunk. I don't think anybody has done early teen cyberpunk. There is a whole lot of potential there. A giant, endless city under a smoke-choked sky. I get to use my "All We Wanted Was To Make You Happy" crazy robot idea. Weird people, weird crimes, and most importantly, goofy 80s and 90s futurism weird, which is hilarious and fun. Cyberspace. Fake magic. You know the saying 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?' The Embraced have taken advantage of that to make themselves feel like wizards and witches and elves and all that. I get to put Emma Dark in an orphanage, which while not the standard child experience should give her enough connection points. While Pixie craves adventure, Emma is driven by curiosity and rebellion.
Problem: The world itself is literally fairly dark, even if Emma's adventures will mostly be fun, and it's a damn shame wasting Pixie and her well-developed characters that friends are telling me they like.
So. Your thoughts and preferences?
If not Supervillain, then what?????
I ain't short on ideas. I ain't ever short on ideas, kids.
The biggest problem is that my ideas are so often weird. 'Metal, Candy, Flesh' weird. I mean, even A Rag Doll's Guide To Here And There is pretty weird. I have been informed, and I agree, that human protagonists that a teen can empathize with are important for a popular series. I hate Everymans, but like Penny, that just means I give the main character a lot of personality.
It will be a girl between 12 and 15 with a tendency to be the bad guy. Sorry, I just love that kind of thing. I just hate the implication it will replace the Supervillain world.
Okay, so, I have two ideas and this is where you guys come in. I could use your opinions on which is better.
First idea: Space Western. I actually even have an experimental title for the first book, 'You Must Be This Tall To Steal A Spaceship.' The main character is Pixie, or as she puts it “With a name like Pixie, most people assume I’m an annoyingly hyperactive optimist with a compulsive attraction to trouble, and they are correct.” I have rigged up a physics explanation that means the galaxy is very frontier, with all FTL travel and communications centering around small ships. Piracy, scavenging, exotic ports of call, treasure planets, sarcastic teammates, weird aliens, and spaceships crewed by cowboys, ninjas, pirates, clowns, and any other cliche I can think of. Pixie and her crew are already well defined to me, and stealing spaceships and scavenging precursor technology sounds like a hoot.
Problem: I don't think a space setting is very relatable. Pixie has almost no regular kid problems.
Second idea: Cyberpunk. I don't think anybody has done early teen cyberpunk. There is a whole lot of potential there. A giant, endless city under a smoke-choked sky. I get to use my "All We Wanted Was To Make You Happy" crazy robot idea. Weird people, weird crimes, and most importantly, goofy 80s and 90s futurism weird, which is hilarious and fun. Cyberspace. Fake magic. You know the saying 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?' The Embraced have taken advantage of that to make themselves feel like wizards and witches and elves and all that. I get to put Emma Dark in an orphanage, which while not the standard child experience should give her enough connection points. While Pixie craves adventure, Emma is driven by curiosity and rebellion.
Problem: The world itself is literally fairly dark, even if Emma's adventures will mostly be fun, and it's a damn shame wasting Pixie and her well-developed characters that friends are telling me they like.
So. Your thoughts and preferences?
The Reason Why
Alright.
I guess there's not much point in keeping this a secret anymore.
The odds of there being another Supervillain book any time soon are low. I am learning more and more what a miracle it is that the series got to finish.
It's not my willingness to write, and it's not the fan reception. You people are beautiful, and you buy every book with gluttonous fervor as if you understand me for the writing god I truly am. I love that world, and there are plenty of characters to write in it, even if I'd like to space things out with the kind of exotic weirdness that is my first love.
My publisher is a mess. 'Stealing my money' a mess. I cannot be sure they're going to ever pay me again, I'm going to be consulting a lawyer when I get Heartfelt's book finished and have that emotional room, and I'm never going to send them another book. The problem is, I've talked to agents and no publisher is going to touch a book that Curiosity Quills can make even the most laughable legal claim on. That is any book in the Supervillain world. Until my publisher closes down, and hoo boy are they obviously on their deathbed, I can't write more of those.
Has this year and a half process of my publisher disintegrating, getting no support for them and having to fight again and again for my royalties been stressful, depressing, and interfered with writing and my whole author schtick? Why, yes. Yes, it has. I resisted telling the public because I felt at first that it was unprofessional to air my publisher's dirty laundry, and then because it would interfere with getting the thousands of dollars they still owe me. I've run out of patience on both of those.
I don't know who my next publisher will be. I've been told there's no point in shopping for an agent until I have a new book ready to go. I'm writing the second to last chapter of A Rag Doll's Guide To Here And There, so that will be soon. Celestia only knows where things go from there.
So, that's what's been happening. I was going to ask a very important question of you folks, but I think I'll put that in a separate post so we can put this behind us and focus on the positive!
PS - Yes, I'll need beta readers in a few weeks, but wait for it. A cross country trip is going to slow things down a bit.
I guess there's not much point in keeping this a secret anymore.
The odds of there being another Supervillain book any time soon are low. I am learning more and more what a miracle it is that the series got to finish.
It's not my willingness to write, and it's not the fan reception. You people are beautiful, and you buy every book with gluttonous fervor as if you understand me for the writing god I truly am. I love that world, and there are plenty of characters to write in it, even if I'd like to space things out with the kind of exotic weirdness that is my first love.
My publisher is a mess. 'Stealing my money' a mess. I cannot be sure they're going to ever pay me again, I'm going to be consulting a lawyer when I get Heartfelt's book finished and have that emotional room, and I'm never going to send them another book. The problem is, I've talked to agents and no publisher is going to touch a book that Curiosity Quills can make even the most laughable legal claim on. That is any book in the Supervillain world. Until my publisher closes down, and hoo boy are they obviously on their deathbed, I can't write more of those.
Has this year and a half process of my publisher disintegrating, getting no support for them and having to fight again and again for my royalties been stressful, depressing, and interfered with writing and my whole author schtick? Why, yes. Yes, it has. I resisted telling the public because I felt at first that it was unprofessional to air my publisher's dirty laundry, and then because it would interfere with getting the thousands of dollars they still owe me. I've run out of patience on both of those.
I don't know who my next publisher will be. I've been told there's no point in shopping for an agent until I have a new book ready to go. I'm writing the second to last chapter of A Rag Doll's Guide To Here And There, so that will be soon. Celestia only knows where things go from there.
So, that's what's been happening. I was going to ask a very important question of you folks, but I think I'll put that in a separate post so we can put this behind us and focus on the positive!
PS - Yes, I'll need beta readers in a few weeks, but wait for it. A cross country trip is going to slow things down a bit.
April 28, 2018
Just Say No To Hans Christian Andersen
The release looked like it went well, and I'm back to writing A Rag Doll's Guide To Here And There. Unfortunately, I already shared like the first third here the first time I was writing it, so I can't really give WIP chapters.
But I ought to do something with this blog, so today I will share a warning! Hans Christian Andersen sucks and is not what you have been told to expect.
I love fairy tales. No surprise to my readers, I'm sure. I make an effort to go back and read source material of things I love on a regular basis. So, since I'd already dug up the festival of insanity that is the first edition Brother's Grimm fairy tale collection, a little while back I picked up the other major, famous source of Western fairy tales, the stories of Hans Christian Andersen.
GAAH.
They are SO BAD. In fact, I must issue a disclaimer: I got about 25% through and gave up out of stultified boredom.
Very, very few of Andersen's stories are fairy tales in any recognizable sense. A couple are. I highly recommend Snow Queen (which I would have to strain to find any resemblance to the movie Frozen) and the Tinder-Box isn't bad.
The rest... well, Hans Christian Andersen was religious. Really, really religious. Oddly, he was religious in a very pure and specific way. It's hard to find moral lessons of any kind in his stories, other than 'Believe in God and pray a lot.' The Little Mermaid suggests he values kindness, and there are several stories with the moral that pride is bad... but only because you might become so proud you think you're better than God.
About half of his work by volume are not stories in any recognizable sense. He likes to lavishly describe a scene he thinks is beautiful, and that's it. He admits at the start of one of these collections that he's just hoping someone will paint fan art. These not-really-stories are huge. They go on and on and on. I guess if you like florid descriptions they're great, but they bored me to tears.
Of what's recognizable as a story... whew. The typical HCA story is The Little Match Girl. I use it specifically for reference because most people are roughly familiar with it, and the version they're familiar with is mostly correct to the original. Little poor girl is selling matches in the snowy streets on New Year's Eve. No one will buy them, and eventually she lights her own matches one by one in an ineffectual attempt to stay warm. As she freezes to death, she hallucinates the great times people in nearby buildings are having. When she does die, her grandmother comes down to take her to heaven. In the morning, passersby find her corpse, which is described in detail.
Sound pointless and depressing? Yeah. There's a lot of that in HCA's work. A LOT of that. Life sucks, you die, but that's awesome because Heaven. Most of the rest of the actual stories are something like the Little Mermaid, where any narrative you'd expect veers aside into religion. In The Little Mermaid's case, once she finds her prince... the story basically stops. He keeps her as a pet, declares he thinks of her as a child and also would marry her if he wasn't pining for an even more beautiful woman, eventually marries that beautiful woman, but because she sacrificed herself for him the Little Mermaid is given a chance at an immortal soul and it turns out that's what she really wanted all along.
When it's not religion, HCA is merely creepy in a 'People leave their children alone with this guy?' way. There's the one about the beautiful (HCA is obsessed with telling you who and what is or isn't beautiful) naked boy who shows up in the home of HCA's transparent self-insert character, and makes him fall in love. Or the story about the boy who loves his sister and as soon as she turns 14 he marries her. There isn't as much WTF as in Brothers Grimm, but... yeah.
So, in summary, do not read Hans Christian Andersen. Maybe chase down Snow Queen because that story is pretty great. But overall, he is not what you were told to expect.
But I ought to do something with this blog, so today I will share a warning! Hans Christian Andersen sucks and is not what you have been told to expect.
I love fairy tales. No surprise to my readers, I'm sure. I make an effort to go back and read source material of things I love on a regular basis. So, since I'd already dug up the festival of insanity that is the first edition Brother's Grimm fairy tale collection, a little while back I picked up the other major, famous source of Western fairy tales, the stories of Hans Christian Andersen.
GAAH.
They are SO BAD. In fact, I must issue a disclaimer: I got about 25% through and gave up out of stultified boredom.
Very, very few of Andersen's stories are fairy tales in any recognizable sense. A couple are. I highly recommend Snow Queen (which I would have to strain to find any resemblance to the movie Frozen) and the Tinder-Box isn't bad.
The rest... well, Hans Christian Andersen was religious. Really, really religious. Oddly, he was religious in a very pure and specific way. It's hard to find moral lessons of any kind in his stories, other than 'Believe in God and pray a lot.' The Little Mermaid suggests he values kindness, and there are several stories with the moral that pride is bad... but only because you might become so proud you think you're better than God.
About half of his work by volume are not stories in any recognizable sense. He likes to lavishly describe a scene he thinks is beautiful, and that's it. He admits at the start of one of these collections that he's just hoping someone will paint fan art. These not-really-stories are huge. They go on and on and on. I guess if you like florid descriptions they're great, but they bored me to tears.
Of what's recognizable as a story... whew. The typical HCA story is The Little Match Girl. I use it specifically for reference because most people are roughly familiar with it, and the version they're familiar with is mostly correct to the original. Little poor girl is selling matches in the snowy streets on New Year's Eve. No one will buy them, and eventually she lights her own matches one by one in an ineffectual attempt to stay warm. As she freezes to death, she hallucinates the great times people in nearby buildings are having. When she does die, her grandmother comes down to take her to heaven. In the morning, passersby find her corpse, which is described in detail.
Sound pointless and depressing? Yeah. There's a lot of that in HCA's work. A LOT of that. Life sucks, you die, but that's awesome because Heaven. Most of the rest of the actual stories are something like the Little Mermaid, where any narrative you'd expect veers aside into religion. In The Little Mermaid's case, once she finds her prince... the story basically stops. He keeps her as a pet, declares he thinks of her as a child and also would marry her if he wasn't pining for an even more beautiful woman, eventually marries that beautiful woman, but because she sacrificed herself for him the Little Mermaid is given a chance at an immortal soul and it turns out that's what she really wanted all along.
When it's not religion, HCA is merely creepy in a 'People leave their children alone with this guy?' way. There's the one about the beautiful (HCA is obsessed with telling you who and what is or isn't beautiful) naked boy who shows up in the home of HCA's transparent self-insert character, and makes him fall in love. Or the story about the boy who loves his sister and as soon as she turns 14 he marries her. There isn't as much WTF as in Brothers Grimm, but... yeah.
So, in summary, do not read Hans Christian Andersen. Maybe chase down Snow Queen because that story is pretty great. But overall, he is not what you were told to expect.
April 10, 2018
CRIMINY, IT'S RELEASE DAY
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, buyin' time's here. Most of you got to be beta readers, but for those who have been incredibly patient as my publisher derped around in a circle for five months, you can finally throw yourself off the edge of that cliffhanger and buy the final Penny Akk book!
Here is your Amazon link!
I expect paper and audio versions to be very late, but I don't actually know for sure. I will be checking up on it, that I can tell you for sure!
Oh! Anybody who has already read the book, LEAVE A REVIEW, please! Pretty please! Those don't just encourage other readers. Amazon gives nice advertising bennies to authors with a lot of reviews.
Here is your Amazon link!
I expect paper and audio versions to be very late, but I don't actually know for sure. I will be checking up on it, that I can tell you for sure!
Oh! Anybody who has already read the book, LEAVE A REVIEW, please! Pretty please! Those don't just encourage other readers. Amazon gives nice advertising bennies to authors with a lot of reviews.
April 5, 2018
Finger Crossing Update
My publisher is aiming for an april 10th update. That's a goal, not a set date. At this point, I think the only thing left to do is the cover art, but cover art is a huge bottleneck issue. I'll let you know if/when I learn more!
March 29, 2018
The Kale- WE INTERRUPT FOR AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
I was going to post some reviews of classic literature nobody reads, but something else happened.
I GOT THE EDITING NOTES FOR PLEASE DON'T TELL MY PARENTS YOU BELIEVE HER.
The book will probably be actually published! Plus, I'm digging the notes. Very smart, pleasant tone, and I'm almost done with them.
Further bulletins as events warrant. I'm pretty sure there will be events to warrant bulletins, now!
I GOT THE EDITING NOTES FOR PLEASE DON'T TELL MY PARENTS YOU BELIEVE HER.
The book will probably be actually published! Plus, I'm digging the notes. Very smart, pleasant tone, and I'm almost done with them.
Further bulletins as events warrant. I'm pretty sure there will be events to warrant bulletins, now!
March 17, 2018
While We're Waiting
At this point, I don't even know if the book will be published or what I can do about it. I'm going to have to start using this blog for other stuff besides author news again.
Right now, a couple of friends of mine expressed interest in peeks into Penny's parents' lives, and called Brian a 'precious cinnamon bun.' So, I wrote his superhero origin story for them. It is very short. I'll put it here, rough and unedited!
The Nearly Mad Science building shivered as the metal bench gouged a hole in the off-white stone exterior. A couple of freshly reinstalled bolts came loose, causing the sign over the entrance to lean at an angle.A young man stuck his head out of the second floor window. “Criminy. Please tell me you're not here to steal the latest shipment. We've barely gotten time to study them. The protein agglutination alone will be useful in a hundred sciences once we map the amino acids.”Without ever taking her eyes off her opponent, a cream and yellow amazon in glaring pink and purple midriff sweater and shorts shouted, “Criminal plans aborted. This dimwit needs a lesson for insulting me.”“Me insulting you?! I have an IQ of one hundred sixty seven, you musclebound sugary slattern, and I've had enough of your constantly calling me stupid!” screamed a man in sinister red and black robes with a long beard, a metal-banded staff topped by an unusually large mouse skull painted in yellow and black stripes, and a leatherbound book that floated by his side in its own purple aura.The man in the window adjusted his glasses. “The young lady's name is Delicious, but I don't know yours, sir? I assume you are also a supervillain?”Drawing himself up to his full height, fluffy-bearded chin raised in pride, and even floating a couple of inches off the ground, the man in robes pointed an accusing staff at Delicious. “Get used to the name Ethelbert the Eldritch, academic peon. My fame swells every day. And that is not a young anything. She's over fifty years old!”Smirking, the yellow woman tilted her hips to one side, cupped her hands under her chest, and lifted. “These laugh at your bunk. What student in this college can match Delicious?” They didn't raise, for the same reason she didn't look even half her real age. A candy shell harder than steel does not sag.The man in the window held his fist to his mouth and coughed, blushing slightly. “Yes. Well.”“She's a crone! A shriveled, ignorant hag!” screeched Ethelbert. In response, Delicious pulled a tree out of the ground with one hand, lunged forward, and swung it at him. His book swerved between them, and with a deep purple flash he vanished and reappeared on the other side of the cobbled university path.The tree hit the wall of the building instead, scraping off branches and gouging the surface.“Please take this somewhere else. Please?” asked the man in the window.Delicious growled, twirling the tree over her head. Its eighteen inch trunk cut the air with an audible hum. “Here is his offense. Here he came without invite. Here he gave insult.”“I showed up without invitation?! You sat on that roof eating popcorn and casting aspersions on my intellect during my whole fight with Fantabulosa! I would have won if you weren't so distracting!” Furious, the bearded wizard pointed his staff. A painfully bright flash of yellow flew from the skull at the end, striking Delicious's tree. She twitched sharply, and the tree itself burst into flame.Twisting the lenses on his glasses, the man in the window leaned out more, revealing his striped tie and white lab coat. “Automatic teleportation and an energy beam. Superb technology. I can see the collateral damage is about to get out of hand. One moment.”Disappearing into the building, he appeared as promised a second later with a large, cylindrical plastic cooler. Tilting it over, he poured out a glob of white liquid that splashed all over the flaming tree, and Delicious standing below him.Caught by surprise, the supervillainess scowled up at him as only someone with hair made of candy spikes can. “You have done it now. Your school was irrelevant. Now I level it.”With that she took a step forward, pulling the tree trunk back, and stumbled, falling onto her back. The thud of her heavy body hitting the dirt resounded around the campus, causing spectating students to retreat a little farther.The man in the window took the opportunity to pour another cooler of white goo over her.Sputtering, the supervillainess responded by pulled the tree back and threw it at him.Tried to throw it at him. Instead of leaving her hand, the top end ripped off, stuck to a column in front of the building's entrance. The rest swung around and smacked into her leg. She shook it, and the trunk snapped in two, one half stuck in her grip and the other to her leg.Disbelieving, she asked, “Glue? You employ glue? No glue is as strong as me. Hear Delicious scoff.” As predicted, she easily pulled the tree free of one hand with the other, leaving a chunk of torn free wood that she scraped off against her chest. It crumbled, but instead of coming loose tore her shirt apart. Not that it mattered, since the layer of white goop underneath concealed at least as much.He didn't answer, so she climbed to her feet, to the sound of sod ripping up and sticking to her back. The two halves of trunk touched each other again, ripped into more pieces, and at the momentary jerk she keeled forward onto the path.Peeling up bricks, one stuck to her face, Delicious rolled over and sat up. She gave the man in the window an amused look. “Inconvenient. Stopping me with a trifle. What is your name, boy?”“Brian Akk. I'm sorry, but I just don't want the college broken. Can we call a truce, and I'll set you free? You can continue your fight somewhere else. Please, Miss Delicious?”The candy shelled supervillainess laughed, long and enthusiastic, before settling back into a mere grin. “You delight me so. Delicious shall grant-”And with that, Ethelbert the Eldritch blasted her with his staff again. And again. And again. Neither the glue nor her impervious surface even turned black, but each shot sent her body twisting and jumping with the shock. Reflexively, she threw a brick at him, but it would not leave her glue covered hand.Brian gasped. “What are you doing? I thought there was some kind of sportsmanship rule! Misty talks about it all the time!”“Not for this, Brian-” Delicious managed, before another yellow bolt cut her words off in a strangled yelp.“That's right! I have the advantage, and I will make this impudent hussy pay for the way she keeps calling me stupid!” shouted Ethelbert.From the window, Brian pleaded, “Before you do, at least let me examine your technology. It's not like she's going anywhere, and I am in awe. What you're wielding right there puts anything in our collection to shame.”“Do you think me a fool? I'm not going to surrender my staff.”Brian shook his head hurriedly. “Oh, no. I just want to take some readings. Those devices are amazing. Beyond amazing. Did you make them yourself?”Nonplussed, the robed villain stroked his beard. “I certainly did. Are they really that great? And they're not devices, I enchanted them.”“I don't believe in magic, but you just might convince me!” Brian called back, ducking inside. Seconds later, he burst out the front door, arms full of equipment. Passing by the wheezing Delicious, he trotted in a hurry over to Ethelbert, and dumped it all on the ground. Still bemused, the villain watched until Brian held up a tube made of loosely connected white bands, connected by wires to a chunky but hand portable computer.“Just fire one of your energy blasts through this? I might be able to base my thesis paper on you,” said Brian Akk, positioning the tube so Ethelbert could point through it.“Oh. I thought you were a professor,” said Ethelbert, lifting his staff to point down the tube.“Not yet, but I might be one a lot sooner, thanks to you,” said the brown-haired, bespectacled young man in the lab coat.“Let your feeble science wonder at the power of my lightning staff, then!” declared the smirking villain. A yellow blast shot through the tube, across campus, and left a smear of black on the far end of the Nearly Mad Science building.Blinking away the flash, Brian peered at the readout on his computer. “Lightning doesn't look or act like that, but... criminy, you're right. It is lightning. That's fascinating.”Now Ethelbert really smirked, drawing himself up smugly again. “You scientists think you know everything. True magic defies you.”Shaking his head, Brian kept peering at the screen, poking buttons with his thumb. “I promise, we only wish we knew everything. An ionized tube to keep the lightning from wandering. What a system. I can't even guess how the staff projects it, or where it gets the electricity. I hate to say, but that may always be beyond my grasp. May I do one more test, sir? If you don't mind?”“One more, if you're quick. I am watching you, and that oversized hussy you're on good terms with.” Turning, Ethelbert pointed his staff at the groaning Delicious, who groggily experimented with crumbling the bricks stuck to her hands.Placing the scanning tube on the ground, Brian cupped his hand to his mouth and shouted, “Misty! A gas canister, please? Helium would be best, if you can find it.”A woman's rich voice echoed out of the second store window. “Like there's anything in your lab I don't know how to get my hands on.”“Misty, please,” Brian repeated, sounding a bit strained.A small metal bottle sailed out of the window, arcing perfectly down into Brian's waiting hand. Adjusting the nozzle until it started to hiss, he suggested, “I can do this while you shock Delicious. A few seconds and I'll be out of your way.”“Feeble minded mechanists,” Ethelbert muttered, aiming past Brian's helium can, and released a blast of yellow light. This time, yellow turned immediately to blue, and with a screech, the bearded evildoer collapsed.“That does tend to happen when you can't aim electricity that strong,” commented Brian to the unconscious man. Crouching down, he used his sleeve to pat the smoking embers cold in the man's beard, then checked Ethelbert's neck. “Pulse still steady. Thank goodness. He'll need burn treatment.” Raising his voice, he shouted, “Misty! Call an ambulance, please?”“Already done, Brian. I know you. In the biblical sense,” said the young woman with the smooth voice, stepping into the Nearly Mad Science building's doorway. Like Delicious, she wore a bare midriff sweater and shorts. Hers hugged curves as dramatic as the villainess's like paint, but with a full compliment of sway and bounce with every step in her high heels. Every inch of fabric gleamed white, not quite blending into her milky skin and luxuriously wavy platinum blonde hair, whose pale color right down to the scalp screamed that she had super powers of her own.“Misty, please,” said Brian, his cheeks red and his voice rasping.On the path, the glue-covered villainess turned her grin from her unconscious opponent to the students. “Joyous Delicious, who will honor our bargain if you unstick her.”Bending down, Brian scooped up the skull-topped staff, and hurried past Delicious into the building. “Remarkably, as sticky as that substance is, it's soluble in water. Can you believe that? We'll have you free in no time. Misty, do you have any change on you?”“You could search my pockets again,” said his friend, following him inside.“Are you always like this when there are supervillains around?” the young man asked plaintively.Her voice echoed out, amused, emphatic, and a little exasperated. “Yes. And give me that. Honestly, Brian, you just saved the school thousands of dollars. Maybe tens of thousands. They won't resent one vending machine.”Yellow flashed through the door, accompanied by pops, clanks, and a series of thunks. A few seconds later, Brian and Misty walked out the door and down the steps with their arms loaded down with bottles of water.Delicious extended her arms, turning them over to watch as the glue and everything attached to it melted off when the students poured water over her. “Magnificent brain. This fight was my great pleasure. You have a future.”“I'm a grad student, Miss Delicious, not a hero,” Brian assured her.Delicious stood up. Her statuesque, lean muscled, seven foot tall body loomed over him. Her torn clothing remained on the ground with the slowly clumping white goo, and water ran in thin streams down bare curves now less than a foot from Brian's face.The villainess's arm slipped around his waist, pulling him up off the ground against her. He let out a squeak, eyes wide behind his already magnifying spectacles. “We... ah... our truce?”Smiling wickedly, her yellow face lowered to his, its wet surface smelling of lemons and cream. “Oh, do not worry. Delicious will not hurt you. My place. This weekend.”Strident, Misty planted a hand on her hip, and shook an index finger up at the villainess. “What do you think you're doing?”“Taking him back home. He will thank me afterwards. Big brains are sexy,” she answered, licking her lips.“Please tell me she's kidding,” begged Brain.“No, I meant can you at least wait until I get my camera?” complained Misty.“Please tell me you're kidding,” begged Brian.Delicious laughed, and touched her nose to the young man's. “Do I seem too stiff? Do not worry-”And with that, he slipped a little device that was all handle out of his pocket, and jabbed it against Delicious's bare hip. Her hard surface rang like a giant bell, vibrating until she let go of her captive and collapsed onto the path again.Dusting off his wet coat, he sighed. “Thank goodness we still have that amplified tuning fork. Not much except sonic attacks were going to work against that impervious shell.”Eyes fluttering, still smiling, Delicious mumbled in a drowsy hush, “Brainy.”Misty laughed, and handed Brian the skull staff. “Your prize, Brainy.”“I swear you were going to let her carry me off,” he groused. Holding up the staff, he smiled again, eyes roaming over it in hungry anticipation. “Let me put this in the magnetic pod, and then we can bring my equipment back up.”Hooking her arm into his, Misty leaned her head on his shoulder, pulling him towards the Nearly Mad Science building's front door. Twirling a pair of brown leather and shiny brass goggles with her other hand, the blonde gave him a wicked grin. “Priorities, Brainy Akk. First, you're going to need a pair of these.”
Right now, a couple of friends of mine expressed interest in peeks into Penny's parents' lives, and called Brian a 'precious cinnamon bun.' So, I wrote his superhero origin story for them. It is very short. I'll put it here, rough and unedited!
The Nearly Mad Science building shivered as the metal bench gouged a hole in the off-white stone exterior. A couple of freshly reinstalled bolts came loose, causing the sign over the entrance to lean at an angle.A young man stuck his head out of the second floor window. “Criminy. Please tell me you're not here to steal the latest shipment. We've barely gotten time to study them. The protein agglutination alone will be useful in a hundred sciences once we map the amino acids.”Without ever taking her eyes off her opponent, a cream and yellow amazon in glaring pink and purple midriff sweater and shorts shouted, “Criminal plans aborted. This dimwit needs a lesson for insulting me.”“Me insulting you?! I have an IQ of one hundred sixty seven, you musclebound sugary slattern, and I've had enough of your constantly calling me stupid!” screamed a man in sinister red and black robes with a long beard, a metal-banded staff topped by an unusually large mouse skull painted in yellow and black stripes, and a leatherbound book that floated by his side in its own purple aura.The man in the window adjusted his glasses. “The young lady's name is Delicious, but I don't know yours, sir? I assume you are also a supervillain?”Drawing himself up to his full height, fluffy-bearded chin raised in pride, and even floating a couple of inches off the ground, the man in robes pointed an accusing staff at Delicious. “Get used to the name Ethelbert the Eldritch, academic peon. My fame swells every day. And that is not a young anything. She's over fifty years old!”Smirking, the yellow woman tilted her hips to one side, cupped her hands under her chest, and lifted. “These laugh at your bunk. What student in this college can match Delicious?” They didn't raise, for the same reason she didn't look even half her real age. A candy shell harder than steel does not sag.The man in the window held his fist to his mouth and coughed, blushing slightly. “Yes. Well.”“She's a crone! A shriveled, ignorant hag!” screeched Ethelbert. In response, Delicious pulled a tree out of the ground with one hand, lunged forward, and swung it at him. His book swerved between them, and with a deep purple flash he vanished and reappeared on the other side of the cobbled university path.The tree hit the wall of the building instead, scraping off branches and gouging the surface.“Please take this somewhere else. Please?” asked the man in the window.Delicious growled, twirling the tree over her head. Its eighteen inch trunk cut the air with an audible hum. “Here is his offense. Here he came without invite. Here he gave insult.”“I showed up without invitation?! You sat on that roof eating popcorn and casting aspersions on my intellect during my whole fight with Fantabulosa! I would have won if you weren't so distracting!” Furious, the bearded wizard pointed his staff. A painfully bright flash of yellow flew from the skull at the end, striking Delicious's tree. She twitched sharply, and the tree itself burst into flame.Twisting the lenses on his glasses, the man in the window leaned out more, revealing his striped tie and white lab coat. “Automatic teleportation and an energy beam. Superb technology. I can see the collateral damage is about to get out of hand. One moment.”Disappearing into the building, he appeared as promised a second later with a large, cylindrical plastic cooler. Tilting it over, he poured out a glob of white liquid that splashed all over the flaming tree, and Delicious standing below him.Caught by surprise, the supervillainess scowled up at him as only someone with hair made of candy spikes can. “You have done it now. Your school was irrelevant. Now I level it.”With that she took a step forward, pulling the tree trunk back, and stumbled, falling onto her back. The thud of her heavy body hitting the dirt resounded around the campus, causing spectating students to retreat a little farther.The man in the window took the opportunity to pour another cooler of white goo over her.Sputtering, the supervillainess responded by pulled the tree back and threw it at him.Tried to throw it at him. Instead of leaving her hand, the top end ripped off, stuck to a column in front of the building's entrance. The rest swung around and smacked into her leg. She shook it, and the trunk snapped in two, one half stuck in her grip and the other to her leg.Disbelieving, she asked, “Glue? You employ glue? No glue is as strong as me. Hear Delicious scoff.” As predicted, she easily pulled the tree free of one hand with the other, leaving a chunk of torn free wood that she scraped off against her chest. It crumbled, but instead of coming loose tore her shirt apart. Not that it mattered, since the layer of white goop underneath concealed at least as much.He didn't answer, so she climbed to her feet, to the sound of sod ripping up and sticking to her back. The two halves of trunk touched each other again, ripped into more pieces, and at the momentary jerk she keeled forward onto the path.Peeling up bricks, one stuck to her face, Delicious rolled over and sat up. She gave the man in the window an amused look. “Inconvenient. Stopping me with a trifle. What is your name, boy?”“Brian Akk. I'm sorry, but I just don't want the college broken. Can we call a truce, and I'll set you free? You can continue your fight somewhere else. Please, Miss Delicious?”The candy shelled supervillainess laughed, long and enthusiastic, before settling back into a mere grin. “You delight me so. Delicious shall grant-”And with that, Ethelbert the Eldritch blasted her with his staff again. And again. And again. Neither the glue nor her impervious surface even turned black, but each shot sent her body twisting and jumping with the shock. Reflexively, she threw a brick at him, but it would not leave her glue covered hand.Brian gasped. “What are you doing? I thought there was some kind of sportsmanship rule! Misty talks about it all the time!”“Not for this, Brian-” Delicious managed, before another yellow bolt cut her words off in a strangled yelp.“That's right! I have the advantage, and I will make this impudent hussy pay for the way she keeps calling me stupid!” shouted Ethelbert.From the window, Brian pleaded, “Before you do, at least let me examine your technology. It's not like she's going anywhere, and I am in awe. What you're wielding right there puts anything in our collection to shame.”“Do you think me a fool? I'm not going to surrender my staff.”Brian shook his head hurriedly. “Oh, no. I just want to take some readings. Those devices are amazing. Beyond amazing. Did you make them yourself?”Nonplussed, the robed villain stroked his beard. “I certainly did. Are they really that great? And they're not devices, I enchanted them.”“I don't believe in magic, but you just might convince me!” Brian called back, ducking inside. Seconds later, he burst out the front door, arms full of equipment. Passing by the wheezing Delicious, he trotted in a hurry over to Ethelbert, and dumped it all on the ground. Still bemused, the villain watched until Brian held up a tube made of loosely connected white bands, connected by wires to a chunky but hand portable computer.“Just fire one of your energy blasts through this? I might be able to base my thesis paper on you,” said Brian Akk, positioning the tube so Ethelbert could point through it.“Oh. I thought you were a professor,” said Ethelbert, lifting his staff to point down the tube.“Not yet, but I might be one a lot sooner, thanks to you,” said the brown-haired, bespectacled young man in the lab coat.“Let your feeble science wonder at the power of my lightning staff, then!” declared the smirking villain. A yellow blast shot through the tube, across campus, and left a smear of black on the far end of the Nearly Mad Science building.Blinking away the flash, Brian peered at the readout on his computer. “Lightning doesn't look or act like that, but... criminy, you're right. It is lightning. That's fascinating.”Now Ethelbert really smirked, drawing himself up smugly again. “You scientists think you know everything. True magic defies you.”Shaking his head, Brian kept peering at the screen, poking buttons with his thumb. “I promise, we only wish we knew everything. An ionized tube to keep the lightning from wandering. What a system. I can't even guess how the staff projects it, or where it gets the electricity. I hate to say, but that may always be beyond my grasp. May I do one more test, sir? If you don't mind?”“One more, if you're quick. I am watching you, and that oversized hussy you're on good terms with.” Turning, Ethelbert pointed his staff at the groaning Delicious, who groggily experimented with crumbling the bricks stuck to her hands.Placing the scanning tube on the ground, Brian cupped his hand to his mouth and shouted, “Misty! A gas canister, please? Helium would be best, if you can find it.”A woman's rich voice echoed out of the second store window. “Like there's anything in your lab I don't know how to get my hands on.”“Misty, please,” Brian repeated, sounding a bit strained.A small metal bottle sailed out of the window, arcing perfectly down into Brian's waiting hand. Adjusting the nozzle until it started to hiss, he suggested, “I can do this while you shock Delicious. A few seconds and I'll be out of your way.”“Feeble minded mechanists,” Ethelbert muttered, aiming past Brian's helium can, and released a blast of yellow light. This time, yellow turned immediately to blue, and with a screech, the bearded evildoer collapsed.“That does tend to happen when you can't aim electricity that strong,” commented Brian to the unconscious man. Crouching down, he used his sleeve to pat the smoking embers cold in the man's beard, then checked Ethelbert's neck. “Pulse still steady. Thank goodness. He'll need burn treatment.” Raising his voice, he shouted, “Misty! Call an ambulance, please?”“Already done, Brian. I know you. In the biblical sense,” said the young woman with the smooth voice, stepping into the Nearly Mad Science building's doorway. Like Delicious, she wore a bare midriff sweater and shorts. Hers hugged curves as dramatic as the villainess's like paint, but with a full compliment of sway and bounce with every step in her high heels. Every inch of fabric gleamed white, not quite blending into her milky skin and luxuriously wavy platinum blonde hair, whose pale color right down to the scalp screamed that she had super powers of her own.“Misty, please,” said Brian, his cheeks red and his voice rasping.On the path, the glue-covered villainess turned her grin from her unconscious opponent to the students. “Joyous Delicious, who will honor our bargain if you unstick her.”Bending down, Brian scooped up the skull-topped staff, and hurried past Delicious into the building. “Remarkably, as sticky as that substance is, it's soluble in water. Can you believe that? We'll have you free in no time. Misty, do you have any change on you?”“You could search my pockets again,” said his friend, following him inside.“Are you always like this when there are supervillains around?” the young man asked plaintively.Her voice echoed out, amused, emphatic, and a little exasperated. “Yes. And give me that. Honestly, Brian, you just saved the school thousands of dollars. Maybe tens of thousands. They won't resent one vending machine.”Yellow flashed through the door, accompanied by pops, clanks, and a series of thunks. A few seconds later, Brian and Misty walked out the door and down the steps with their arms loaded down with bottles of water.Delicious extended her arms, turning them over to watch as the glue and everything attached to it melted off when the students poured water over her. “Magnificent brain. This fight was my great pleasure. You have a future.”“I'm a grad student, Miss Delicious, not a hero,” Brian assured her.Delicious stood up. Her statuesque, lean muscled, seven foot tall body loomed over him. Her torn clothing remained on the ground with the slowly clumping white goo, and water ran in thin streams down bare curves now less than a foot from Brian's face.The villainess's arm slipped around his waist, pulling him up off the ground against her. He let out a squeak, eyes wide behind his already magnifying spectacles. “We... ah... our truce?”Smiling wickedly, her yellow face lowered to his, its wet surface smelling of lemons and cream. “Oh, do not worry. Delicious will not hurt you. My place. This weekend.”Strident, Misty planted a hand on her hip, and shook an index finger up at the villainess. “What do you think you're doing?”“Taking him back home. He will thank me afterwards. Big brains are sexy,” she answered, licking her lips.“Please tell me she's kidding,” begged Brain.“No, I meant can you at least wait until I get my camera?” complained Misty.“Please tell me you're kidding,” begged Brian.Delicious laughed, and touched her nose to the young man's. “Do I seem too stiff? Do not worry-”And with that, he slipped a little device that was all handle out of his pocket, and jabbed it against Delicious's bare hip. Her hard surface rang like a giant bell, vibrating until she let go of her captive and collapsed onto the path again.Dusting off his wet coat, he sighed. “Thank goodness we still have that amplified tuning fork. Not much except sonic attacks were going to work against that impervious shell.”Eyes fluttering, still smiling, Delicious mumbled in a drowsy hush, “Brainy.”Misty laughed, and handed Brian the skull staff. “Your prize, Brainy.”“I swear you were going to let her carry me off,” he groused. Holding up the staff, he smiled again, eyes roaming over it in hungry anticipation. “Let me put this in the magnetic pod, and then we can bring my equipment back up.”Hooking her arm into his, Misty leaned her head on his shoulder, pulling him towards the Nearly Mad Science building's front door. Twirling a pair of brown leather and shiny brass goggles with her other hand, the blonde gave him a wicked grin. “Priorities, Brainy Akk. First, you're going to need a pair of these.”
