I'll admit, I've always had a fascination with vampires, quite possibly ever since I saw that probably horrible movie about a kid turned into a vampire or something when I was, like, ten. Vampires are cool, like bow ties. Well, vampires done properly are cool, anyway. So, really, it's no surprise that they would make an appearance in my novel, and by 'make an appearance,' I mean, 'have one of their individuals being a main character.'
It's not uncommon to have a vampire in the cast. I don't often see them grouped together with faeries, elves, and trolls (among other things) but I'm sure it's happened before, because they're everywhere. It's like American culture, at least, has some kind of creepy vampire fetish. Actually, it's not just like, I'm pretty sure that a creepy fetish is exactly what it is. Thanks, Bram Stoker; you may not have been the original source of 'sexy' vampires, but you certainly contributed to them.
So, lets posit that vampires really do exist, for a second, and that they're living in plain sight and we just don't know about them. Now, assume they, as a whole, decide that it's a-okay for us, the humans, to know about them, so a few thousand vampires across the nation come out of the vampirism closet. How would we, as a nation, react?
To start with, I can tell you right away that there will be more people who will hate the vampires for being, well, vampires, than there will be people who are willing to accept them for it. Your neighbor Steve? Yeah, he's a great guy, with a good job, and he takes care of his family, volunteers around the community, and regularly attends mass at St. Jude's United Methodist Catholic Church of Episcopalianism and Jesus and the Latter Day Saints*. All in all, he's probably a much, much better person than you'll ever be. Oh, and he's a vampire. Suddenly, Steve isn't getting voted Mr. Springfield every year, he's getting hazed until he's forced to uproot his family and leave, and that's if we don't try to kill him first. It wouldn't matter if they were the fucking pope, we would hate them. Why? Because they are an abomination unto Nuggan. Because drinking blood is unnatural, despite the fact that it's natural for them.
Another thing I can tell you is that teenage girls would date vampires specifically to piss their dads off, every time. And those that aren't trying to rebel against their father would be genuinely and naively attracted to dangerous and forbidden act of sleeping with someone who's probably at least a century older than you and thinks of you as boxed wine. There'd also be a number who would fit into the vampire-hating category described above. That goes for teenaged boys as well, only I'm guessing they'd make a game of trying to nail the hottest piece of centuries-old ass. Hey, these women have had several centuries to perfect their technique, and they're not all saggy or fake like Stacy's mom.
But let's say we, as a race, move beyond our initial— Who am I kidding? Homosexuality, in all likelihood, has been around as long as we have. Atheists have existed as long as theism has (not everyone believes the first person to come along and say, "Dude, I didn't sleep with Mary, I swear. It must have been some giant invisible man from the sky."). After all this time, we're still bickering over morality like vultures fighting over that possum you ran over last week.
Okay, so maybe we do something completely uncharacteristic and respond with vampires by holding out our hands in welcome (like we did with the aliens.. oh, wait). Frankly, such a peace would be tenuous at best. As Lucas puts it in my novel, "[It] only
works out for [them] until some asshat from the eighteenth century gets it in his
head to take advantage of some naïve thirteen-year-old. Trust me, it will happen." So, if there's anything you learned today, let it be that vampires shouldn't come into the open, because the last thing I need is to have Vampire marriage rights propaganda shoved down my throat. Oh god, Worse yet Human/Vampire marriage propaganda. Because nothing says, "I don't want to live in this world anymore," like a pamphlet detailing why vampires and humans should be getting it on.
*If I haven't offended you with that statement, kindly add your religion to Steve's church in your mind, so that it can be equally insulting to all.
An Analysis and Decoding of Facebook Posts...
I was going to write something about how I was a hipster before Fall Out Boy because as mainstream as they come, and how I avoided Facebook like the plague until a few years back, all in honor of Google+, which I am impatiently waiting to join, because I've already accepted that Google will rule the world at some point, so I might as well stay on their good side (also, if Gmail is any indication of their ability to do everything better than everyone else, G+ ought to be amazing). But I didn't know where to go with that, really, and, besides, where's the humor in it?
So, instead, I will be an asshole, and gather a number of poorly written comments, posts, etc, from Facebook, and attempt to decode them. Because nothing says, "I love you," like, "I find you worthy of my company, but you'd be worthier if you wrote in English." So, without further ado...
1. "na i was just there. i think hes in the future trying to steal futuristic weapons to bring back to this time so he can be a gun ho bad ass lol haha"
Initially, this comment seems pretty straightforward. Someone is in the future stealing guns to bring back to our time. But let's take a step further and look at it both more literally and on a deeper level of understanding. Just below the surface is an ingeniously written, tragic story, really.
Thomas 'Hes' A. Bastard was a pirate serving on one of the many ships that frequented Port Royal in 16951, until he fell through a temporal distortion and was transported to the distant future. After wandering the deserted wastelands of Neo America, he discovered a settlement of people, if they could be called that after hundreds of years of oppression, working under the trigger happy supervision of the Xenons, a race of cyborgs.
After seeing the future of mankind, Hes awakens to his duty. Everything in his life has been leading up to this event. It's his destiny to prevent the Xenons from coming into power - from existing, if possible. So, with the help of Marta, a hot, busty girl with a rebellious streak, and an innocent Xenon orphan named Choppah, he comes up with a plan to steal the Xenon's secret weapon, The Captomatros, and go back in time.
While gathering the materials and information needed to infiltrate the Xenon fortress, Hes falls irreversibly in love with Marta and happily cooperates when she tries to seduce him, though the experience is soured when it turns out that she was secretly a Xenon the whole time and was only seducing him to get information about his origins. After that, she leaves him, returning to her life as a Xenon. It pains him, but he channels that pain into unbridled rage.
Forced to come up with a new plan, Hes undergoes a number of dangerous surgeries, performed by Doc, a shady Xenon with questionable motives, to become a Xenon. Once he's healed up, he sneaks into the Xenon stronghold, making it most of the way to where they were keeping the weapon before someone realizes he's not supposed to be there and sets off the alarm. He fights the rest of the way, only to come face to face with Marta in the hall outside the Captomatros's storage room.
Though it's been nearly a year, his feelings for her are still tender, and he nearly loses his life because he's unwilling to hurt her. Eventually he subdues her, only to be told that he has a son. In this moment of distraction, he's shot. With only minutes left to live, he busts into the storage room and activates the weapon.
After a flash of bright white light, Hes wakes up in his hammock on the ship. He remembers every detail of the future vividly, but there's no evidence that he was ever gone. Deciding to keep his dream, because that's what it must have been, to himself, he goes about his life as usual. However, while on shore leave in Port Royal, he runs into a woman on the street. It's Marta. She's human now, but she remembers everything as vividly as he does.
And then the credits roll, leaving you to wonder, "What the fuck just happened? Was it a dream the whole time? Or was the Captomatros some kind of thing like the Matrix? And what the hell happened to Choppah? Sonofabitch! I want answers."
1 As evidenced by the previous comment, which postulated that the man in question was in Port Royal in 1695.
Unfortunately, I was unable to locate any further comments exhibiting the qualities that would make it perfect for this exercise in analysis. I can't tell if I'm happy or angry about it. On one hand, that means my wall has a minimum of stupid on it... on the other hand, it has a minimum of stupid on it. What the hell do I friend these people for, then?
So, instead, I will be an asshole, and gather a number of poorly written comments, posts, etc, from Facebook, and attempt to decode them. Because nothing says, "I love you," like, "I find you worthy of my company, but you'd be worthier if you wrote in English." So, without further ado...
1. "na i was just there. i think hes in the future trying to steal futuristic weapons to bring back to this time so he can be a gun ho bad ass lol haha"
Initially, this comment seems pretty straightforward. Someone is in the future stealing guns to bring back to our time. But let's take a step further and look at it both more literally and on a deeper level of understanding. Just below the surface is an ingeniously written, tragic story, really.
Thomas 'Hes' A. Bastard was a pirate serving on one of the many ships that frequented Port Royal in 16951, until he fell through a temporal distortion and was transported to the distant future. After wandering the deserted wastelands of Neo America, he discovered a settlement of people, if they could be called that after hundreds of years of oppression, working under the trigger happy supervision of the Xenons, a race of cyborgs.
After seeing the future of mankind, Hes awakens to his duty. Everything in his life has been leading up to this event. It's his destiny to prevent the Xenons from coming into power - from existing, if possible. So, with the help of Marta, a hot, busty girl with a rebellious streak, and an innocent Xenon orphan named Choppah, he comes up with a plan to steal the Xenon's secret weapon, The Captomatros, and go back in time.
While gathering the materials and information needed to infiltrate the Xenon fortress, Hes falls irreversibly in love with Marta and happily cooperates when she tries to seduce him, though the experience is soured when it turns out that she was secretly a Xenon the whole time and was only seducing him to get information about his origins. After that, she leaves him, returning to her life as a Xenon. It pains him, but he channels that pain into unbridled rage.
Forced to come up with a new plan, Hes undergoes a number of dangerous surgeries, performed by Doc, a shady Xenon with questionable motives, to become a Xenon. Once he's healed up, he sneaks into the Xenon stronghold, making it most of the way to where they were keeping the weapon before someone realizes he's not supposed to be there and sets off the alarm. He fights the rest of the way, only to come face to face with Marta in the hall outside the Captomatros's storage room.
Though it's been nearly a year, his feelings for her are still tender, and he nearly loses his life because he's unwilling to hurt her. Eventually he subdues her, only to be told that he has a son. In this moment of distraction, he's shot. With only minutes left to live, he busts into the storage room and activates the weapon.
After a flash of bright white light, Hes wakes up in his hammock on the ship. He remembers every detail of the future vividly, but there's no evidence that he was ever gone. Deciding to keep his dream, because that's what it must have been, to himself, he goes about his life as usual. However, while on shore leave in Port Royal, he runs into a woman on the street. It's Marta. She's human now, but she remembers everything as vividly as he does.
And then the credits roll, leaving you to wonder, "What the fuck just happened? Was it a dream the whole time? Or was the Captomatros some kind of thing like the Matrix? And what the hell happened to Choppah? Sonofabitch! I want answers."
1 As evidenced by the previous comment, which postulated that the man in question was in Port Royal in 1695.
Unfortunately, I was unable to locate any further comments exhibiting the qualities that would make it perfect for this exercise in analysis. I can't tell if I'm happy or angry about it. On one hand, that means my wall has a minimum of stupid on it... on the other hand, it has a minimum of stupid on it. What the hell do I friend these people for, then?
Very Superstitious...Er, Suspicious
If you're me, you're a single lady, and you put your goddamn hands up with unbridled enthusiasm every time. You revel in the fact that you have one fewer obligation than most of the seven people you talk to on a regular basis. You disappear off the map for a whole week and get away with it. It's great, really, it is.
Heck, if you're like me, you even get the joy of not being solicited for dates all the time. Some girls might lament that no one likes them and they're worthless; I'm not one of them. I know for a fact that if I actually wanted to, I could probably get a boyfriend. He wouldn't be the cream of the crop, but he'd exist. Maybe I'd get lucky and he'd have a sexy (English/Irish/Scottish) accent, too, and be exactly the right height with perfect hair and a love for wordsmithing. The biggest reason that I am perpetually single is that I choose to be.
Unfortunately, this has problems of its own. Aside from having to deal with the rare occasion when part of you insists that one of your guy friends has exactly the sense of humor you want to date, there's also the fact that you suffer from an extreme lack of experience. That's bad enough on its own; combine it with being socially awkward and slightly paranoid, and you get one thing: someone who freaks out the moment someone shows even the remotest interest in them romantically. In other words, you get me.
I could cite several points in my life where I've reacted badly to being asked out - one being when I shot a guy down without a seconds' thought in sophomore year (admittedly, he was a jerk and used to pick on me for liking Pokemon, so my reaction was not unwarranted). But I think I'll stick with the most recent example of why I'm perpetually single.
Yesterday afternoon, I get a message on facebook from a guy who's friends with a few of my friends. I'm immediately suspicious of him, because I don't even know the guy, and here he is talking at me, but I push that aside long enough to see what he wants. It seems innocent enough to start with. Heck, I'm even flattered, because he calls me pretty.
But then I get the horrible feeling that he's beating around the bush about what he wants. He asks questions that can only point to one thing: this jerkoff wants to ask me out or something ridiculous like that. Admittedly, asking me if I'm single (it's right there on me profile, why ask?) wasn't very subtle. My answer, "Single and loving every minute of it," was a not-so-subtle hint that, obviously, I am not interested. It wasn't that I wasn't interested in him (not entirely, at least,), it was that I am currently so very opposed to the idea of pairing up, even in the event that I get a chance at a guy I'm already interested in (except David Tennant. I would tap that without a second thought, given the chance). But, apparently, he didn't actually believe me, or something, because he kept inching toward making a point.
What's important is not how I proceeded, so much as what was happening on my end of the internet. I was freaking the fuck out. Panicking, even. I was a rabbit being chased by a cougar, and god dammit I couldn't remember where I'd buried my ak-47. I was consulting a few of my guy friends, because they were there and I can talk to them about this stuff. I just didn't know what to do with myself.
The obvious remedy for this problem, of course, is to do one of the following: (a) create a fake boyfriend so that, in the future, I can use him as a repellent, (b) Move to a remote location where I am literally the only person for ten miles and buy everything I need off the internet and adopt forty cats to fill the gap in my heart where intelligent conversation used to be, or (c) stab anysingle man that comes within a a yard of me. Oh, and there's also these insane options: get a real boyfriend, or learn to fucking deal with it. Those last two are just too outlandish for me, though. I mean, really? Who does that? Serial killers, that's who.
On a purely coincidentally related note, Books of Adam put a post up earlier this week that I find entirely too easy to relate to after yesterday. Lucky him. He gets free, unsolicited publicity as a result. If you like laughing, you'll like Books of Adam, trust me, I'm a Doctor (Who fan).
Heck, if you're like me, you even get the joy of not being solicited for dates all the time. Some girls might lament that no one likes them and they're worthless; I'm not one of them. I know for a fact that if I actually wanted to, I could probably get a boyfriend. He wouldn't be the cream of the crop, but he'd exist. Maybe I'd get lucky and he'd have a sexy (English/Irish/Scottish) accent, too, and be exactly the right height with perfect hair and a love for wordsmithing. The biggest reason that I am perpetually single is that I choose to be.
Unfortunately, this has problems of its own. Aside from having to deal with the rare occasion when part of you insists that one of your guy friends has exactly the sense of humor you want to date, there's also the fact that you suffer from an extreme lack of experience. That's bad enough on its own; combine it with being socially awkward and slightly paranoid, and you get one thing: someone who freaks out the moment someone shows even the remotest interest in them romantically. In other words, you get me.
I could cite several points in my life where I've reacted badly to being asked out - one being when I shot a guy down without a seconds' thought in sophomore year (admittedly, he was a jerk and used to pick on me for liking Pokemon, so my reaction was not unwarranted). But I think I'll stick with the most recent example of why I'm perpetually single.
Yesterday afternoon, I get a message on facebook from a guy who's friends with a few of my friends. I'm immediately suspicious of him, because I don't even know the guy, and here he is talking at me, but I push that aside long enough to see what he wants. It seems innocent enough to start with. Heck, I'm even flattered, because he calls me pretty.
But then I get the horrible feeling that he's beating around the bush about what he wants. He asks questions that can only point to one thing: this jerkoff wants to ask me out or something ridiculous like that. Admittedly, asking me if I'm single (it's right there on me profile, why ask?) wasn't very subtle. My answer, "Single and loving every minute of it," was a not-so-subtle hint that, obviously, I am not interested. It wasn't that I wasn't interested in him (not entirely, at least,), it was that I am currently so very opposed to the idea of pairing up, even in the event that I get a chance at a guy I'm already interested in (except David Tennant. I would tap that without a second thought, given the chance). But, apparently, he didn't actually believe me, or something, because he kept inching toward making a point.
What's important is not how I proceeded, so much as what was happening on my end of the internet. I was freaking the fuck out. Panicking, even. I was a rabbit being chased by a cougar, and god dammit I couldn't remember where I'd buried my ak-47. I was consulting a few of my guy friends, because they were there and I can talk to them about this stuff. I just didn't know what to do with myself.
The obvious remedy for this problem, of course, is to do one of the following: (a) create a fake boyfriend so that, in the future, I can use him as a repellent, (b) Move to a remote location where I am literally the only person for ten miles and buy everything I need off the internet and adopt forty cats to fill the gap in my heart where intelligent conversation used to be, or (c) stab any
On a purely coincidentally related note, Books of Adam put a post up earlier this week that I find entirely too easy to relate to after yesterday. Lucky him. He gets free, unsolicited publicity as a result. If you like laughing, you'll like Books of Adam, trust me, I'm a Doctor (Who fan).
Mortifying Mom
Statistically speaking, you have a mom. Moms are interesting creatures. Not only are they capable of not strangling you during the years when you're at your most obnoxious, i.e. most of the years before age twenty, but they are capable of evoking in their offspring, evoking in you, horror that filmmakers cannot hope to ever achieve, and they do it without goring a hot cheerleader five minutes into the movie that is your life1. The worst part is, they don't have to try, and often don't realize what manner of life-scarring words are tumbling out of their mouths. They really don't try to horrify us2, it just happens when they do just about anything as soon as we become aware of what 'cool' means. Actually, that goes for dads, too (especially mine).
Realistically speaking, I think my mom's, like, the coolest mom ever. She's one of my best friends, and I love her to bits. But, at the end of the day, she's still my mom and I'm still at that awkward phase where I can talk about sex in jest with my peers and even write about it, but, God forbid my mother ever says anything even remotely related to sex. For a number of years, my brain would explode any time she even mentioned in passing that an admittedly attractive actor was attractive. Doubly so if she actually said anything about sex. I've only just gotten to the point where my brain doesn't crack in half when she makes a point to tell me that she thinks one of the blogs she reads (most of which, excluding this one, are about the Paleo lifestyle) is written by a really hot guy.
So, there I was, sitting at the table with my laptop in front of me. Normally I would have been in my room listening to loud music and trying to ignore the internet long enough to do something constructive, but Mom decided I wasn't allowed to retreat back to my 'cave,' as she calls it, after lunch that day. So, in keeping with her wishes and because we have a relative visiting, I moved my operation to the living room for the day, because, whatever, maybe a change of scenery would let me get over the fact that I don't want to write the next scene in my novel.
It didn't work, but I did do some world building (because watching Supernatural while they're trying to talk to me is bad form). About twenty minutes before being forced to come out and be less of a hermit, I'd started working on the form for a city-state in Valeris (formerly known as Hell) called Damascus. Normally when doing this there's no problem because filling out these forms is about as interesting as watching grass grow in slow motion. Heck, I don't even usually go into a lot of detail because things change, anyway.
Now, for those of you (i.e. all of you) who don't know, Damascus is a fictional city-state in Valeris that the Cubi3, the incubi and succubi of the world, call home. That's really all you need to know to realize that doing this with my mom right next to me is not the best idea. Truth be told, it went perfectly fine until I started in on the religion portion of the form.
See, I make crap up all over the place for my stories, but I like to base bits and pieces of them off real things and beliefs. So, while making up the religion for Damascus, I decide to look up Lilith on wikipedia (reliable or not, it is where I get information, because screw research, that's why), which leads to me reading about several other figures connected to her. Mom, of course, sees me switching between Word and Wikipedia as I outline the Damascan religion with deities loosely based on what I found and make up stuff about them. "What are you researching?" "Oh, you know, stuff for my novel." "See? My daughter does research while she's writing," she says to my aunt across the table.
I ignore the impulse to close my laptop as she watches me work. "So, is that real?" Of course she means to ask if I'm using real-world deities, and I reply with a smirk and a no. I continue working, because it's better than sitting there awkwardly, trying (and failing) to participate in whatever conversation they're having. I'm out here, she should be fine with it. And then it happened.
"Most Cubi practice Harlotism. The Church of The Harlot is built around five deities, Lilith, Agraht, Nahm, Ishet, and Samil." She starts reading off my document, out loud. "The first four deities (Lilith, Agraht, Nahm, Ishet) are sisters, the first four succubi in existence, and the mothers of all cubi (some sects also believe them to have created the rest of the world’s creatures out of boredom). Samil is the father of all cubi, the first incubus, and husband to the other four. Some people believe Samil is also the brother of the other four deities, while others believe he’s their father." At this point, I start feeling rather awkward, because she just read about incest, so I get up to leave. "And still others believe he’s unrelated; the holy scriptures do little to clear this up, as they refer to him as all three at different points (usually by different ‘prophets’). It’s common for individuals to choose to pray to a single, favored deity," I hear as I walk away under the guise of simply wanting a cup of coffee.
And then she gets to the horrible part. She's reading loudly enough that I can hear her from the coffee maker. "Also known as ‘The Whore,’ Lilith is associated with fire, passion, and all things related to sex. Her cardinal direction is south." The emphasis is mine, of course. She laughs as she finishes reading it, which is just about the same time that I sit back down with my over-sized cup of black coffee. "Is this, like, an outline of your characters or something?"
"Ah, no," I say. "It's worldbuilding stuff. I'm organizing my thoughts on the places in my world, and that's the religion of Damascus." And, of course, I feel the probably unnecessary need to explain why one of the deities is called "The Whore." "They're Cubi, incubi and succubi," I explain, having no idea if either of them know what either of those creatures are. "So, it only makes sense that they'd have a goddess for sex. I mean, I have 'The Hag,' 'The Maiden,' and 'The Mother,' too. Sooo..."
This was followed by some sort of silence. For me, it was awkward, and I spent my time trying to find something to say to remedy the situation. I never did.
Of course, given my luck, I will stroll out of my room tomorrow and stumble upon her reading this post out loud. So, in closing, I ask, 'If Sephiroth can destroy universes, do space eggs have salmonella?'4
1 If your mother did this, she's not doing motherhood right, and you should buy her a manual on how to properly raise children like a non-serial killer. There's probably an Idiot's Guide for it.
2 Except the ones that do try. But they're dicks.
3 Cubi: An adrogynous term used to refer to incubi and succubi as a species. I stole if from DMFA, though I'm sure Amber's not the first person to use the term. Either way, DMFA is a great comic.
4 This most ridiculous question, courtesy of Shelby.
Realistically speaking, I think my mom's, like, the coolest mom ever. She's one of my best friends, and I love her to bits. But, at the end of the day, she's still my mom and I'm still at that awkward phase where I can talk about sex in jest with my peers and even write about it, but, God forbid my mother ever says anything even remotely related to sex. For a number of years, my brain would explode any time she even mentioned in passing that an admittedly attractive actor was attractive. Doubly so if she actually said anything about sex. I've only just gotten to the point where my brain doesn't crack in half when she makes a point to tell me that she thinks one of the blogs she reads (most of which, excluding this one, are about the Paleo lifestyle) is written by a really hot guy.
So, there I was, sitting at the table with my laptop in front of me. Normally I would have been in my room listening to loud music and trying to ignore the internet long enough to do something constructive, but Mom decided I wasn't allowed to retreat back to my 'cave,' as she calls it, after lunch that day. So, in keeping with her wishes and because we have a relative visiting, I moved my operation to the living room for the day, because, whatever, maybe a change of scenery would let me get over the fact that I don't want to write the next scene in my novel.
It didn't work, but I did do some world building (because watching Supernatural while they're trying to talk to me is bad form). About twenty minutes before being forced to come out and be less of a hermit, I'd started working on the form for a city-state in Valeris (formerly known as Hell) called Damascus. Normally when doing this there's no problem because filling out these forms is about as interesting as watching grass grow in slow motion. Heck, I don't even usually go into a lot of detail because things change, anyway.
Now, for those of you (i.e. all of you) who don't know, Damascus is a fictional city-state in Valeris that the Cubi3, the incubi and succubi of the world, call home. That's really all you need to know to realize that doing this with my mom right next to me is not the best idea. Truth be told, it went perfectly fine until I started in on the religion portion of the form.
See, I make crap up all over the place for my stories, but I like to base bits and pieces of them off real things and beliefs. So, while making up the religion for Damascus, I decide to look up Lilith on wikipedia (reliable or not, it is where I get information, because screw research, that's why), which leads to me reading about several other figures connected to her. Mom, of course, sees me switching between Word and Wikipedia as I outline the Damascan religion with deities loosely based on what I found and make up stuff about them. "What are you researching?" "Oh, you know, stuff for my novel." "See? My daughter does research while she's writing," she says to my aunt across the table.
I ignore the impulse to close my laptop as she watches me work. "So, is that real?" Of course she means to ask if I'm using real-world deities, and I reply with a smirk and a no. I continue working, because it's better than sitting there awkwardly, trying (and failing) to participate in whatever conversation they're having. I'm out here, she should be fine with it. And then it happened.
"Most Cubi practice Harlotism. The Church of The Harlot is built around five deities, Lilith, Agraht, Nahm, Ishet, and Samil." She starts reading off my document, out loud. "The first four deities (Lilith, Agraht, Nahm, Ishet) are sisters, the first four succubi in existence, and the mothers of all cubi (some sects also believe them to have created the rest of the world’s creatures out of boredom). Samil is the father of all cubi, the first incubus, and husband to the other four. Some people believe Samil is also the brother of the other four deities, while others believe he’s their father." At this point, I start feeling rather awkward, because she just read about incest, so I get up to leave. "And still others believe he’s unrelated; the holy scriptures do little to clear this up, as they refer to him as all three at different points (usually by different ‘prophets’). It’s common for individuals to choose to pray to a single, favored deity," I hear as I walk away under the guise of simply wanting a cup of coffee.
And then she gets to the horrible part. She's reading loudly enough that I can hear her from the coffee maker. "Also known as ‘The Whore,’ Lilith is associated with fire, passion, and all things related to sex. Her cardinal direction is south." The emphasis is mine, of course. She laughs as she finishes reading it, which is just about the same time that I sit back down with my over-sized cup of black coffee. "Is this, like, an outline of your characters or something?"
"Ah, no," I say. "It's worldbuilding stuff. I'm organizing my thoughts on the places in my world, and that's the religion of Damascus." And, of course, I feel the probably unnecessary need to explain why one of the deities is called "The Whore." "They're Cubi, incubi and succubi," I explain, having no idea if either of them know what either of those creatures are. "So, it only makes sense that they'd have a goddess for sex. I mean, I have 'The Hag,' 'The Maiden,' and 'The Mother,' too. Sooo..."
This was followed by some sort of silence. For me, it was awkward, and I spent my time trying to find something to say to remedy the situation. I never did.
Of course, given my luck, I will stroll out of my room tomorrow and stumble upon her reading this post out loud. So, in closing, I ask, 'If Sephiroth can destroy universes, do space eggs have salmonella?'4
1 If your mother did this, she's not doing motherhood right, and you should buy her a manual on how to properly raise children like a non-serial killer. There's probably an Idiot's Guide for it.
2 Except the ones that do try. But they're dicks.
3 Cubi: An adrogynous term used to refer to incubi and succubi as a species. I stole if from DMFA, though I'm sure Amber's not the first person to use the term. Either way, DMFA is a great comic.
4 This most ridiculous question, courtesy of Shelby.
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