the ramble dump
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
A Nice, Refreshing Pot of Tea
Winnie Brum likes her tea. And she's not the only one. There are few things better than a brew to start, sustain or end your day. There's something about tea, you see--something about how it can be so bland and unassuming, yet so refined in taste. It's something hot yet refreshing; something comforting and familiar; something that unfailingly hits the spot. Whatever you need it for--as a drink, as a break, as a friend--your cup of tea is there for you.
And, of course, I speak of tea with milk, and sugar if you really need it. Milky yet strong. That's when tea works best, in my personal tea-drinking opinion.
Many people resort to the teapot in stressful situations.
The practice of drinking tea has an interesting history in this country. The Brits began importing it in the seventeenth century for medicinal use, and by the end of the eighteenth century it had a foothold in British culture when the aristocracy displayed the endless gullibility of humankind and were tricked into it as something fashionable. It was a fashion that ended up costing the British Empire a lot of money because we had nothing else that the Chinese wanted in return, but that was all sorted out once we won a few wars and twisted China's arm into accepting opium, to which over a quarter of China's adult population subsequently got addicted. Tea then managed to stick around in Britain long after the Empire collapsed, infusing itself irreplaceably into the everyday lives of the British population.
I have three or four cups a day, minimum.
It makes me need to piss often, but you should not let that discourage you if you haven't yet tried it. In 99% of all situations, tea will put you right.
And, of course, I speak of tea with milk, and sugar if you really need it. Milky yet strong. That's when tea works best, in my personal tea-drinking opinion.
Many people resort to the teapot in stressful situations.
The practice of drinking tea has an interesting history in this country. The Brits began importing it in the seventeenth century for medicinal use, and by the end of the eighteenth century it had a foothold in British culture when the aristocracy displayed the endless gullibility of humankind and were tricked into it as something fashionable. It was a fashion that ended up costing the British Empire a lot of money because we had nothing else that the Chinese wanted in return, but that was all sorted out once we won a few wars and twisted China's arm into accepting opium, to which over a quarter of China's adult population subsequently got addicted. Tea then managed to stick around in Britain long after the Empire collapsed, infusing itself irreplaceably into the everyday lives of the British population.
I have three or four cups a day, minimum.
It makes me need to piss often, but you should not let that discourage you if you haven't yet tried it. In 99% of all situations, tea will put you right.
Labels: halo, tea, the aberration
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Just Finished Halo 3...
...in a day.
Courtesy of brother, who got an Xbox 360.
Observations:
(1) That was immense.
(2) It was also way too short.
(3) Where is my life.
Courtesy of brother, who got an Xbox 360.
Observations:
(1) That was immense.
(2) It was also way too short.
(3) Where is my life.
Labels: halo, videogames
Friday, September 28, 2007
The Fight Unfinished
I'm not getting Halo 3. Not any time soon, at least. The reason is simple: I don't have an Xbox 360. The problem with following video game franchises is that they are so ridiculously expensive. If you're lucky, you'll get one or two games out of one console. Then the industry will have advanced enough to require the next generation of consoles, and sometimes franchises will switch which series of consoles they play on to make it even more complicated. This latter point is not the case with the Halo series, but it was with another favourite of mine, Oddworld. Either way, however, that's £30-40 dished out for each game these days, on top of the cost of whatever mercilessly progressing technology is required to play it. This may be a reasonable price for what you're getting, but that issue aside, the endeavour remains gorgingly uncheap.
I wish I was getting Halo 3. I want to splatter higher-definition aliens. I want to experience that familiar and solid gameplay at the next level, as well as enjoying all the exciting new stuff. I want to see how the story ends. In many ways, a post about Halo 3 is pointless, because I haven't played it and therefore can't praise or bewail things all that much. But I thought I'd share my reasons for why I liked the first two games, which I hope have made it through to the third.
Originally, I couldn't have cared less about Halo. I would happily have chosen a PS2 to get my hands on the next Tekken game, but my brother persuaded me that we should go for an Xbox because that had the next Oddworld instalment. On Christmas Day, I waited impatiently to play it, and was unimpressed with Halo and the Star Trek aesthetic of the people behind bland control panels in the Pillar of Autumn opening sequence. Captain Keyes placed his blocky fingers thoughtfully at the chin of his barely moving face in utmost seriousness, and I laughed.
But when I gave it a chance, it was a lot of fun to play. Halo succeeds as a solid game because it's not overly complicated - it essentially provides you with lots of aliens to eliminate - but what it does, it does extremely well. It feels well-rounded and the campaign battles feel well-matched and satisfying, with very few encounters that will spike your irritation too much. Depending on the level of difficulty, it's often challenging but almost always enjoyable.
The aesthetic of the game also contributes to this feeling of a happy balance. The universe of Halo is a clunky, colourful one; slightly cartoonish, but perfectly capable of introducing darker themes and creepy places. The best example of this is probably how the walls end up smeared in copious amounts of brightly coloured alien blood. It's a bit like the Harry Potter of the video game world (in more than just popularity and hype, although perhaps for the same reasons): it never ventures too far in any direction and is arguably not all that innovative in terms of its medium1 nor of the story itself, but while critics have accused both franchises of a certain mediocrity in this respect, as I already said about Potter, I think this criticism sort misses the point: in what they're trying to do - creating an entertaining and immersive experience - they succeed. And, in Halo's case, I think it exceeds. Halo hasn't marched forward in innovation, but it has expertly refined its medium, striking a successful balance with all the things it deals with.
Given that many elements of the story are pretty generic, there must something else that gives the story itself some interest. Like a Potter book, the plot is immersive enough. The story in the games themselves is really a bare minimum, but in the franchise as a whole they have a pretty good mythology going. Without knowing the ending, I don't know if it all leads to a satisfying conclusion, but so far it's been intriguing. What I find most appealing about the story, however, is exactly how they go about it.
Amidst all the generic sci-fi stuff, coupled with its unusual aesthetic, the series' story does have a few of its own unique quirks that, if nothing else, serve to give it character. I'd highlight characters like 343 Guilty Spark and the mysterious Forerunners with the novelly cryptic nature of everything about them; and then the thematic use of religious symbology and imagery in everything about the Covenant. If the Halo series attempts to make a point, the most interesting one for me is how the Covenant, in their religious conquest, wrap everything they say and do in terms of poetic, religious language. The series may or may not have anything against the religions of our world per se, but they bring this aspect of religion - and general language use - to stark, transparent ridiculousness. It's not subtle (none of the thematic devices in Halo are) and it's an almost cartoon-like dimension of the Covenant, but it's still an effective view, if perhaps oversimplified (those Elites must be extremely gullible by nature), of how these things can work.
Just to address the portrayal of religion in general: it's not clear to me if any other point against it is being made. With the story drenched in so many references and symbolic allusions, especially with the Covenant, you'd think maybe there might be, but if this is so, really everything is too morally black and white (aliens vs. humans) to be an accurate representation or allegory of any one religion or of religion as a whole. The Covenant is categorically and blatantly evil - even when the Arbiter is introduced in the second game, that's really only to chronicle his escape from the Covenant's illusions and mental clutches rather than to balance their portrayal. Thematically, at least following this particular line of thought, while it offers some simple, effective illustrations, you can't go very deep with Halo before you hit that cartoon factor again.
I think the structure of both the narrative and the gameplay was better in Halo than it was in Halo 2. The first game has garnered many accusations of being repetitive, and a good portion of the levels are done backwards later on in the game. Gameplaywise, this didn't bother me much, because I thought the rearrangement made it fresh enough. Storywise, it gave the narrative a nice symmetrical structure. It begins with the escape from the exploding Pillar of Autumn, and the game ends with a return trip to the ship's creepy ruin, made all the more creepy because we'd seen it before in better conditions (then, of course, followed by an amazing countdown finale). The unexpected appearance of the Flood in the middle of the game really adds to it in this way, transforming both the story and the gameplay despite the level repetition.
Halo 2 was a bit messier. The introduction of the Arbiter's storyline was interesting, but I don't think it quite worked in some ways. For one thing, I always found the Elites more menacing when they weren't speaking English, and while this might be narratively important for showing some sympathy towards Elite-kind, they seemed like more of a threat during gameplay, somehow, in the previous game. I felt there was generally a slight increase in the cartooniness of the proceedings, especially with the appearance of the Prophets and Gravemind. Halo 2 also lacked the narrative structure: the ending wasn't half as interesting and was, of course, notoriously abrupt. The opening attack and the appearance of the Flood had been done before, and though I did like the civil war stuff, and it was generally a solid game, it didn't achieve quite the same balance as its predecessor.
Despite some slight shortcomings, however, the sequel shared many of the original's positive attributes, and both games are excellent. In gameplay, they're good--extremely good--at what they do. Combine this with Halo's quirky (albeit slightly cartoony) character, and it makes for an appealing series of games. Probably some of my fondness for the series comes from the familiarity I gained when I chose to explore it for that certain parody, but weird sentimentality aside, Halo has a lot going for it. If anyone wants to buy me a copy of Halo 3 along with an Xbox 360, feel free.
See also: Master Beef vs. Master Chief 2007.
1 Halo is a pretty straightforward shoot-'em-up; Rowling's writing is technically nothing amazing in any artistic or linguistic sense, but as an entertaining and absorbing read, it's very successful.
I wish I was getting Halo 3. I want to splatter higher-definition aliens. I want to experience that familiar and solid gameplay at the next level, as well as enjoying all the exciting new stuff. I want to see how the story ends. In many ways, a post about Halo 3 is pointless, because I haven't played it and therefore can't praise or bewail things all that much. But I thought I'd share my reasons for why I liked the first two games, which I hope have made it through to the third.
Originally, I couldn't have cared less about Halo. I would happily have chosen a PS2 to get my hands on the next Tekken game, but my brother persuaded me that we should go for an Xbox because that had the next Oddworld instalment. On Christmas Day, I waited impatiently to play it, and was unimpressed with Halo and the Star Trek aesthetic of the people behind bland control panels in the Pillar of Autumn opening sequence. Captain Keyes placed his blocky fingers thoughtfully at the chin of his barely moving face in utmost seriousness, and I laughed.
But when I gave it a chance, it was a lot of fun to play. Halo succeeds as a solid game because it's not overly complicated - it essentially provides you with lots of aliens to eliminate - but what it does, it does extremely well. It feels well-rounded and the campaign battles feel well-matched and satisfying, with very few encounters that will spike your irritation too much. Depending on the level of difficulty, it's often challenging but almost always enjoyable.
The aesthetic of the game also contributes to this feeling of a happy balance. The universe of Halo is a clunky, colourful one; slightly cartoonish, but perfectly capable of introducing darker themes and creepy places. The best example of this is probably how the walls end up smeared in copious amounts of brightly coloured alien blood. It's a bit like the Harry Potter of the video game world (in more than just popularity and hype, although perhaps for the same reasons): it never ventures too far in any direction and is arguably not all that innovative in terms of its medium1 nor of the story itself, but while critics have accused both franchises of a certain mediocrity in this respect, as I already said about Potter, I think this criticism sort misses the point: in what they're trying to do - creating an entertaining and immersive experience - they succeed. And, in Halo's case, I think it exceeds. Halo hasn't marched forward in innovation, but it has expertly refined its medium, striking a successful balance with all the things it deals with.
Given that many elements of the story are pretty generic, there must something else that gives the story itself some interest. Like a Potter book, the plot is immersive enough. The story in the games themselves is really a bare minimum, but in the franchise as a whole they have a pretty good mythology going. Without knowing the ending, I don't know if it all leads to a satisfying conclusion, but so far it's been intriguing. What I find most appealing about the story, however, is exactly how they go about it.
Amidst all the generic sci-fi stuff, coupled with its unusual aesthetic, the series' story does have a few of its own unique quirks that, if nothing else, serve to give it character. I'd highlight characters like 343 Guilty Spark and the mysterious Forerunners with the novelly cryptic nature of everything about them; and then the thematic use of religious symbology and imagery in everything about the Covenant. If the Halo series attempts to make a point, the most interesting one for me is how the Covenant, in their religious conquest, wrap everything they say and do in terms of poetic, religious language. The series may or may not have anything against the religions of our world per se, but they bring this aspect of religion - and general language use - to stark, transparent ridiculousness. It's not subtle (none of the thematic devices in Halo are) and it's an almost cartoon-like dimension of the Covenant, but it's still an effective view, if perhaps oversimplified (those Elites must be extremely gullible by nature), of how these things can work.
Just to address the portrayal of religion in general: it's not clear to me if any other point against it is being made. With the story drenched in so many references and symbolic allusions, especially with the Covenant, you'd think maybe there might be, but if this is so, really everything is too morally black and white (aliens vs. humans) to be an accurate representation or allegory of any one religion or of religion as a whole. The Covenant is categorically and blatantly evil - even when the Arbiter is introduced in the second game, that's really only to chronicle his escape from the Covenant's illusions and mental clutches rather than to balance their portrayal. Thematically, at least following this particular line of thought, while it offers some simple, effective illustrations, you can't go very deep with Halo before you hit that cartoon factor again.
I think the structure of both the narrative and the gameplay was better in Halo than it was in Halo 2. The first game has garnered many accusations of being repetitive, and a good portion of the levels are done backwards later on in the game. Gameplaywise, this didn't bother me much, because I thought the rearrangement made it fresh enough. Storywise, it gave the narrative a nice symmetrical structure. It begins with the escape from the exploding Pillar of Autumn, and the game ends with a return trip to the ship's creepy ruin, made all the more creepy because we'd seen it before in better conditions (then, of course, followed by an amazing countdown finale). The unexpected appearance of the Flood in the middle of the game really adds to it in this way, transforming both the story and the gameplay despite the level repetition.
Halo 2 was a bit messier. The introduction of the Arbiter's storyline was interesting, but I don't think it quite worked in some ways. For one thing, I always found the Elites more menacing when they weren't speaking English, and while this might be narratively important for showing some sympathy towards Elite-kind, they seemed like more of a threat during gameplay, somehow, in the previous game. I felt there was generally a slight increase in the cartooniness of the proceedings, especially with the appearance of the Prophets and Gravemind. Halo 2 also lacked the narrative structure: the ending wasn't half as interesting and was, of course, notoriously abrupt. The opening attack and the appearance of the Flood had been done before, and though I did like the civil war stuff, and it was generally a solid game, it didn't achieve quite the same balance as its predecessor.
Despite some slight shortcomings, however, the sequel shared many of the original's positive attributes, and both games are excellent. In gameplay, they're good--extremely good--at what they do. Combine this with Halo's quirky (albeit slightly cartoony) character, and it makes for an appealing series of games. Probably some of my fondness for the series comes from the familiarity I gained when I chose to explore it for that certain parody, but weird sentimentality aside, Halo has a lot going for it. If anyone wants to buy me a copy of Halo 3 along with an Xbox 360, feel free.
See also: Master Beef vs. Master Chief 2007.
1 Halo is a pretty straightforward shoot-'em-up; Rowling's writing is technically nothing amazing in any artistic or linguistic sense, but as an entertaining and absorbing read, it's very successful.
Labels: halo, harry potter, i am the ramblemaster, language, morality, oddworld, tekken, the aberration, videogames
Friday, July 20, 2007
Amelia's Notebooks
The Aberration Chapter 7.
Amelia really does have that many notebooks. I've never seen them myself, but she has mentioned them more than once. She has lots for all different kinds of things and thoughts and ideas. I wonder if you could assemble all the contents of her brain with those notebooks, like a sort of psychological biography with a split personality. I know that the black one is for Starcustard. I am sure at least one of them contains a list of the children she has yet to eat.
She is not here right now, so I can get away with saying these things for at least another eighteen months.
Underneath that Sherlock Holmes reference is a considerable amount of truth. I lack the notebooks of both fictional and factual Amelias, but the same sort of process goes on in my brain when I'm trying to write a story. Things like sciencing and philosophising and most probably detectiving too all require very analytical approaches to be of much use. Storytelling, however, is the opposite. You can get ideas from all over the place, and while they might all share the same theme or have something in common, you're still left with the task of making something coherent out of what is essentially arbitrary. Whatever reason you might have for including something, whether as a plot device or to represent something or just because you thought it'd be cool to throw in, they're still only there because you put them there.1 There is therefore a great deal of Detective Muse's making stuff up as you go along.
As I've mentioned before, The Aberration has been a continuous struggle to try and achieve this. I started off with a couple of Halo parody characters, included a few more things just because I thought they were interesting enough, and then over the years the story has repeatedly run out of steam as I've tried to figure out where to go next or what relation any of it has to anything else. Its current form is very different from its earlier iterations, in which the aim was basically just to fill it with weird things, because I've got stuck and had to go back and change things constantly.
I've finally mapped out something that's a bit more coherent than it used to be, by mentally rearranging and adding to and editing the thing until it's formed something I can actually go somewhere with. But does all this arbitrariness, the fact that everything included is ultimately an arbitrary decision, mean that stories are empty? Well, as tA has shown, there's actually a limit to how arbitrary everything can be before it falls apart. It has to have some coherence, and even if the story works by its own internal logic or requires some suspension of disbelief, the logic still has to be there, and any kind of sustainable logic has to be based at least in part on reality.
Fictional stories are, for the most part, contrived. And creating the illusion that these things aren't arbitrary is all part of the craft. But reality plays its part, and the further a story drifts from it, the less believable it will be. This doesn't mean you can't include fantastical elements in your world's internal logic, and as Holmes points out and Detective Muse echoes in this chapter, improbability is not the same thing as impossibility. But that internal logic needs to be solid.
So where does this leave the meaningfulness of a story, beyond its entertainment value or simple emotional engagement? That internal logic, however sustainable or believable it might be, could still be considered arbitrary. Can you use a story to analyse or demonstrate something? Can you show, say, the personal, social or political consequences of certain circumstances being brought about? Or present a moral lesson or a warning? You can't scientifically analyse a work of fiction any more than you can analyse a dream (albeit a slightly more focused dream). But if the logic behind the story is reasonable enough, you can suggest. You, as the author, can throw light on an alternative interpretation; your interpretation. Conclusions drawn from a writer's own fictional world -- by the writer and reader -- can never be truly objective, but they can offer some balance of thoughts and ideas. In the end, you can't really conclude anything with a story. They can only offer questions. They can offer a new perspective, one that will always be open to criticism but is not necessarily without its worth. That, to me, is part of what it's all about.
And, as in the case of tA, things like fat men in tweed or talking microwaves or a man dressed in a mutated sort of rabbit costume, even if they were included out of complete arbitrariness to start with, can still become something suggestive or figurative in the context of their function in the story. And who knows, maybe there was already some subconscious significance to them.
So Detective Muse has a point, even if Mr Holmes might disagree that it applies in entirely the same way to his profession. Don't diss the improbable, don't diss the ridiculous, and don't be too quick to diss the arbitrary.
1 Which is why allegory can seem so manipulative.
Amelia really does have that many notebooks. I've never seen them myself, but she has mentioned them more than once. She has lots for all different kinds of things and thoughts and ideas. I wonder if you could assemble all the contents of her brain with those notebooks, like a sort of psychological biography with a split personality. I know that the black one is for Starcustard. I am sure at least one of them contains a list of the children she has yet to eat.
She is not here right now, so I can get away with saying these things for at least another eighteen months.
Underneath that Sherlock Holmes reference is a considerable amount of truth. I lack the notebooks of both fictional and factual Amelias, but the same sort of process goes on in my brain when I'm trying to write a story. Things like sciencing and philosophising and most probably detectiving too all require very analytical approaches to be of much use. Storytelling, however, is the opposite. You can get ideas from all over the place, and while they might all share the same theme or have something in common, you're still left with the task of making something coherent out of what is essentially arbitrary. Whatever reason you might have for including something, whether as a plot device or to represent something or just because you thought it'd be cool to throw in, they're still only there because you put them there.1 There is therefore a great deal of Detective Muse's making stuff up as you go along.
As I've mentioned before, The Aberration has been a continuous struggle to try and achieve this. I started off with a couple of Halo parody characters, included a few more things just because I thought they were interesting enough, and then over the years the story has repeatedly run out of steam as I've tried to figure out where to go next or what relation any of it has to anything else. Its current form is very different from its earlier iterations, in which the aim was basically just to fill it with weird things, because I've got stuck and had to go back and change things constantly.
I've finally mapped out something that's a bit more coherent than it used to be, by mentally rearranging and adding to and editing the thing until it's formed something I can actually go somewhere with. But does all this arbitrariness, the fact that everything included is ultimately an arbitrary decision, mean that stories are empty? Well, as tA has shown, there's actually a limit to how arbitrary everything can be before it falls apart. It has to have some coherence, and even if the story works by its own internal logic or requires some suspension of disbelief, the logic still has to be there, and any kind of sustainable logic has to be based at least in part on reality.
Fictional stories are, for the most part, contrived. And creating the illusion that these things aren't arbitrary is all part of the craft. But reality plays its part, and the further a story drifts from it, the less believable it will be. This doesn't mean you can't include fantastical elements in your world's internal logic, and as Holmes points out and Detective Muse echoes in this chapter, improbability is not the same thing as impossibility. But that internal logic needs to be solid.
So where does this leave the meaningfulness of a story, beyond its entertainment value or simple emotional engagement? That internal logic, however sustainable or believable it might be, could still be considered arbitrary. Can you use a story to analyse or demonstrate something? Can you show, say, the personal, social or political consequences of certain circumstances being brought about? Or present a moral lesson or a warning? You can't scientifically analyse a work of fiction any more than you can analyse a dream (albeit a slightly more focused dream). But if the logic behind the story is reasonable enough, you can suggest. You, as the author, can throw light on an alternative interpretation; your interpretation. Conclusions drawn from a writer's own fictional world -- by the writer and reader -- can never be truly objective, but they can offer some balance of thoughts and ideas. In the end, you can't really conclude anything with a story. They can only offer questions. They can offer a new perspective, one that will always be open to criticism but is not necessarily without its worth. That, to me, is part of what it's all about.
And, as in the case of tA, things like fat men in tweed or talking microwaves or a man dressed in a mutated sort of rabbit costume, even if they were included out of complete arbitrariness to start with, can still become something suggestive or figurative in the context of their function in the story. And who knows, maybe there was already some subconscious significance to them.
So Detective Muse has a point, even if Mr Holmes might disagree that it applies in entirely the same way to his profession. Don't diss the improbable, don't diss the ridiculous, and don't be too quick to diss the arbitrary.
1 Which is why allegory can seem so manipulative.
Labels: allegory, fat men in tweed, halo, i am the ramblemaster, science, starcustard, the aberration
Saturday, November 18, 2006
A Foreword In Hindsight
When you begin a story, you don't really know in which direction it's going to go. Well, I don't. And it can take a while for things to start to come together and for ideas to solidify, and sometimes I'm left changing something over and over and over because every single time there is something I'm not satisfied with. Every time I'll say, 'This is it! This is the absolute final version!', more recently prefixed with the word 'hopefully' with as much emphasis through italics, bolding, underlining or capitalising as I feel my desperation warrants, but then a week or a month later I'll want to go back and change it.
This has been a chronic issue with one story in particular. But then, that's what I get for deciding that I want a story revolving around a character called Master Beef. Why have I been so intent on writing a story about Master Beef? It's been causing me to tear my hair out at various points for the last three years, and with each revision there's been something that I'm just not happy with; something not quite right with how I've written it.
I think...I may be mad. How it's even got to this stage, I do not know.
But now I can honestly say things are finally starting to come together. As I have discussed at intolerable length before, the various components of The Aberration have come from all over the place, but now everything feels relevant, coherent and properly part of the whole, although it has taken a long time for it to be this way.
It is still a story about Master Beef. It has always been a story about Master Beef, and it always will be. There are still one or two characters shamelessly based on people I know that I just thought it would be cool to include. There are also still gratuitous references to a certain video game. There are still these ideas from all over the place, but everything finally feels as though it's starting to properly come together, and although I most definitely do not have it all completely figured out yet (where would be the fun in that?), I think I'm ready to present this story more or less as I want it to be.
I'm not going to lie and say that I won't go back and make some more changes if I see the need to, but whereas with previous revisions there have been feelings of, 'Gngh. It's not great, but it'll do,' thus leading to further revisions later on, this time...I'm just about happy with it. So go read it again!
And here's Chapter 6. It's odd that for so long I've been striving to get Beef just right, basing it on some perception of the character that never was in any previous version of him. But I think I've finally nailed it.
This has been a chronic issue with one story in particular. But then, that's what I get for deciding that I want a story revolving around a character called Master Beef. Why have I been so intent on writing a story about Master Beef? It's been causing me to tear my hair out at various points for the last three years, and with each revision there's been something that I'm just not happy with; something not quite right with how I've written it.
I think...I may be mad. How it's even got to this stage, I do not know.
But now I can honestly say things are finally starting to come together. As I have discussed at intolerable length before, the various components of The Aberration have come from all over the place, but now everything feels relevant, coherent and properly part of the whole, although it has taken a long time for it to be this way.
It is still a story about Master Beef. It has always been a story about Master Beef, and it always will be. There are still one or two characters shamelessly based on people I know that I just thought it would be cool to include. There are also still gratuitous references to a certain video game. There are still these ideas from all over the place, but everything finally feels as though it's starting to properly come together, and although I most definitely do not have it all completely figured out yet (where would be the fun in that?), I think I'm ready to present this story more or less as I want it to be.
I'm not going to lie and say that I won't go back and make some more changes if I see the need to, but whereas with previous revisions there have been feelings of, 'Gngh. It's not great, but it'll do,' thus leading to further revisions later on, this time...I'm just about happy with it. So go read it again!
And here's Chapter 6. It's odd that for so long I've been striving to get Beef just right, basing it on some perception of the character that never was in any previous version of him. But I think I've finally nailed it.
Labels: halo, i am the ramblemaster, the aberration, videogames
Sunday, May 07, 2006
The Transadventural Romp (A History of Development: Part 3)
Some more old stuff relating to that Beef character. Once again, you may find it interesting, you probably won't.
Part 3: The Transadventural Romp
There was some overlapping with Bananas and Laxatives and the numerous short-lived and ill-fated stories begun in the second half of 2003 that I tried to put him in.
In the summer of '03, he featured alongside characters from various older stories in a pretty awful sequel to the original Agaffa called JunkJargon, but the less said about that the better, especially as it has no bearing on The Aberration whatsoever anyway.
The first story I began with Master Beef as the central character after B&L, and which could probably be counted as the real roots of The Aberration despite how different it is, was I Am The Superlativest! The original premise of the story was simply, a new story with Master Beef, and the same was true of most of the Beef stories leading up to TA. I had no clear plot in mind, but I wanted to have Master Beef in a new story where the quality was significantly improved from B&L.
Another B&L character was also in it, now a real person.
This isn't the same Mike, though. TA's Mike came from elsewhere, as I'll get on to later, and this is just pure coincidence. He was renamed Matt more or less straight after that was written, and was going to be part of a double-act with his pug dog, Glossy. They were crap characters, and I didn't use them again. But anyway...digression! My bane...
And then began the build-up to this strange scene I'd had this idea for when I'd been writing down poem ideas...
And thus did the fat men in tweed enter Beef's world.
And then, apparently (according to the Big Orange File), I went in a completely different direction, and wrote a new opening scene.
Beef has rarely been creepier than he was here, the irresponsible and immature side to the B&L character blown up to new and scarily child-like proportions. There's quite a huge contrast between the enthusiastic, eager-to-please character here and the Master Beef of TA who is almost indifferent to the feelings of other characters (aside from Winnie). Fortunately, this horrific progression in Beef's character, which although did reappear later on, was soon stamped upon.
The next Beef-related thing that the BOF offers up is Beef the Artist. Now, this was something completely different again. What's written is a scene in which Beef stands in a white room and flings lots of paint at the walls, getting increasingly insane and violent with the paint all in the name of creation.
I have no idea what possessed me to introduce Beef to the world of art. The only other thing I had in mind for it was the single image of Beef standing on a high-up platform skirting the edge of either a gallery or some kind of big warehouse, clutching the work of art he was in the process of stealing: a porcelain woman.
Target: Gerber was the next story, never intended to be anything more than a short, but which featured Beef nevertheless.
This was where the character of Mike came from. The whole background story and how the character of Mike developed can be found here, so unusual that it deserved its own blogpost.
There is a third and final I Am The Superlativest! draft in the BOF, written shortly after the two seemingly random departures from it. It continues the theme of Beef's Beatles fandom that was put in place by Bananas and Laxatives 2 and Target: Gerber, and features another old B&L character.
...Don't ask me about that last paragraph. I really have no idea, except maybe a hazarded guess at it being the walrus himself whom they were talking to, or the return of the Crud from B&L. I honestly can't remember. Maybe it's best that way.
The last of this series of short-lived stories featuring Master Beef was Tales of Utter Normality: The Fat Men In Tweed. It was to be a story written for Kommingle, posted as a short prequel to a novel that was set in the same city, Galday Cringe (a name for a place I invented that has had many different incarnations itself), involving a character called Noreen.
The idea behind The Fat Men In Tweed was that the city had become infested with anthropomorphised rodents, and as a result the city was falling apart. A company called LoveTech had dispatched the fat men in tweed to destroy every rodent on sight. Of course, Master Beef's existence is now threatened because of his unusual attire...
After that, I went back and wrote a final chapter for the original Bananas and Laxatives in what I'd hoped was improved quality for a message board. Then, in December 2003, I began another story...
The final part, Part 4, coming soon.
Part 3: The Transadventural Romp
There was some overlapping with Bananas and Laxatives and the numerous short-lived and ill-fated stories begun in the second half of 2003 that I tried to put him in.
In the summer of '03, he featured alongside characters from various older stories in a pretty awful sequel to the original Agaffa called JunkJargon, but the less said about that the better, especially as it has no bearing on The Aberration whatsoever anyway.
The first story I began with Master Beef as the central character after B&L, and which could probably be counted as the real roots of The Aberration despite how different it is, was I Am The Superlativest! The original premise of the story was simply, a new story with Master Beef, and the same was true of most of the Beef stories leading up to TA. I had no clear plot in mind, but I wanted to have Master Beef in a new story where the quality was significantly improved from B&L.
Important trumpet tunes played in his head. As he stood proudly, hands on hips, on top of the hill, and his long ears flapping vigorously in the wind, he contemplated how great he was.
He was, in fact, Master Beef.
Another B&L character was also in it, now a real person.
'And he still thinks it's funny to make fart noises with a zip!' complained Tana. 'He's just hopeless!'
'Yeah,' said Mike, who wasn't really listening.
This isn't the same Mike, though. TA's Mike came from elsewhere, as I'll get on to later, and this is just pure coincidence. He was renamed Matt more or less straight after that was written, and was going to be part of a double-act with his pug dog, Glossy. They were crap characters, and I didn't use them again. But anyway...digression! My bane...
Still, he stood tall in his pink rabbit suit, the face cut out and replaced with a reflective visor. Admittedly, there was lots of lemon gum stuck in various places to add a decorative touch to his tatty pink coat, but he was still proud.
Much too proud.
The sun glinted off his visor, melting a nearby sheep.
And then began the build-up to this strange scene I'd had this idea for when I'd been writing down poem ideas...
'I mean, you can't even make fart noises with zips!' shrieked B'Tana.
'Mmm,' said Matt.
* * *
In the distance, several more sheep were tossed into the air. Beef ignored them.
* * *
'He's just so... so... infuriating!'
'Ah-hum.'
* * *
The ground underfoot started to shake violently.
And thus did the fat men in tweed enter Beef's world.
And then, apparently (according to the Big Orange File), I went in a completely different direction, and wrote a new opening scene.
'B?' called Beef. 'B?'
'What?' snapped B'Tana.
'Soup's ready!' Master Beef was immensly proud of his golden vegetable soup. Sure, it had odd, unidentifiable white bits floating around in it that were reminiscent of polystyrene, and it tasted, to put it mildly, like shit, but B'Tana always drank it all.
Beef made sure of that.
B sat down.
'D'you like it?' asked Beef.
'I haven't tried it yet!' said B'Tana, who had a million times before. She hated the stuff but it kept Beef happy, and Beef needed to be kept happy.
She lifted her spoon.
'Drink up!'
'Beef. I am doing!'
'Okie dokie.'
As she was watched closely, the spoon with the watery, green-golden liquid met her lips. Her facial features were suddenly horribly distorted. She spat it out.
'Too hot?'
'Something like that.'
'Blow on it.' Master Beef was always extremely eager to please. However, if he didn't he would have one of his 'tantrums', which were always best avoided.
Beef has rarely been creepier than he was here, the irresponsible and immature side to the B&L character blown up to new and scarily child-like proportions. There's quite a huge contrast between the enthusiastic, eager-to-please character here and the Master Beef of TA who is almost indifferent to the feelings of other characters (aside from Winnie). Fortunately, this horrific progression in Beef's character, which although did reappear later on, was soon stamped upon.
The next Beef-related thing that the BOF offers up is Beef the Artist. Now, this was something completely different again. What's written is a scene in which Beef stands in a white room and flings lots of paint at the walls, getting increasingly insane and violent with the paint all in the name of creation.
I have no idea what possessed me to introduce Beef to the world of art. The only other thing I had in mind for it was the single image of Beef standing on a high-up platform skirting the edge of either a gallery or some kind of big warehouse, clutching the work of art he was in the process of stealing: a porcelain woman.
Target: Gerber was the next story, never intended to be anything more than a short, but which featured Beef nevertheless.
Of course, where else would you find a fluorescent-coloured psychopath with a big, big gun? At a UK bookstore of course, always avoiding the tribes of Potter fans that prowled the isles.
Beef was idly browsing the music and biographies shelves in search for anything to do with the Beatles (he was a great fan), when he came across a small, green, hardback book. He was so disgusted that it was so small, green and hardback that he grabbed it from the shelf to see what it was looking so arrogant about. 'What are you looking so small, green and hardback about?' he demanded.
Barry Trotter and the Unnecessary Sequel
it replied.
This was where the character of Mike came from. The whole background story and how the character of Mike developed can be found here, so unusual that it deserved its own blogpost.
There is a third and final I Am The Superlativest! draft in the BOF, written shortly after the two seemingly random departures from it. It continues the theme of Beef's Beatles fandom that was put in place by Bananas and Laxatives 2 and Target: Gerber, and features another old B&L character.
Playing... 'The Beatles - I Am The Walrus.'
'Goo goo g'joob,' said Master Beef, accordingly.
'Juba juba!' insisted his eternally floating microwave, Salty Mark.
* * *
The fat men in tweed gathered around the one who was talking in a language of limited vocabulary which included the words 'blob', 'bloblob', and 'blobby', with the occasional 'blooby'.
...Don't ask me about that last paragraph. I really have no idea, except maybe a hazarded guess at it being the walrus himself whom they were talking to, or the return of the Crud from B&L. I honestly can't remember. Maybe it's best that way.
The last of this series of short-lived stories featuring Master Beef was Tales of Utter Normality: The Fat Men In Tweed. It was to be a story written for Kommingle, posted as a short prequel to a novel that was set in the same city, Galday Cringe (a name for a place I invented that has had many different incarnations itself), involving a character called Noreen.
The idea behind The Fat Men In Tweed was that the city had become infested with anthropomorphised rodents, and as a result the city was falling apart. A company called LoveTech had dispatched the fat men in tweed to destroy every rodent on sight. Of course, Master Beef's existence is now threatened because of his unusual attire...
The fat men in tweed, the Clean Sweepers™, had been given very vague orders. 'Eliminate anything under the description of a rodent, no exception.' LoveTech had fed them all the information they needed; all the statistics and descriptions. When they classified something a as a rodent, it was because what they had seen matched the descriptive data uploaded into them.
Just off the corner of Quitelong Street, after eliminating a squirrel problem on Djo Street, three tweedsters were looking keenly for their next victim. And before long, they'd found it...
* * *
Master Beef breathed in the foul-smelling air through his fur and sighed. It had been quite a quiet afternoon so far. In fact, it was too quiet. Disturbingly quiet. It wasn't the fact that the birds had stopped singing that worried him, oh no. They had all dropped silently to the ground years ago when the distinct stench of Galday Cringe finally got to them. It was something else.
Beef sighed, accurately guessing what it was. It was the absence of the screaming old ladies, the bunny bitch-fights, the exploding hamsters, the plod-plod of foot-apparel bearing Galdmonkeys, which he found oddly comforting. He sighed again. He was good at sighing, he decided.
* * *
The tweedsters analysed their prey, silently so as not to give it chance to escape.
Exessively long ears...check.
Hind feet larger than forefeet...check.
Intolerably fluffy...check.
Suspicious sniffing actions...ish.
...Locked onto target...
After that, I went back and wrote a final chapter for the original Bananas and Laxatives in what I'd hoped was improved quality for a message board. Then, in December 2003, I began another story...
The final part, Part 4, coming soon.
Labels: a history of development, excerpts, fat men in tweed, halo, i am the ramblemaster, the aberration
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Bananas and Laxatives (A History of Development: Part 1)
My Big Orange File, or BOF, is something of a personal artefact. It spans roughly a year's worth of writing, starting from the end of 2002 to the fruitful backside of 2003, and contains the beginnings of such, er, well-loved creations as Agaffa, Master Beef, and the G'raffe Song. This, along with a mostly-empty Tesco Value notepad containing only a list of strange poem titles and the single one that actually got written, is my starting point, as I attempt to answer... a question.
In almost every interview with an author I've read, the author gets asked, 'Where do you get your ideas from?', which has always struck me as a rather stupid thing to ask. But, whereas most authors will answer vaguely, 'Oh, from all over the place, really...', and while I make no claim to being a 'proper', published author, I'm going to attempt to answer it properly. And I'm going to do it through The Aberration, because doing stuff through examples is the best way, dudes.
Alright, yes, this is just a bad excuse to waffle at length about a lot of my old stuff, and probably the only person it's remotely interesting to is myself, but I'd rather procrastinate on a grand scale than do any kind of proper work, and as this is my blog, I can do what I like. And anyway, there are some answers to such vitally important questions as, 'Why "Master Beef"?', 'What made you pick Fat Man In Tweed as your website name?', and 'Why does Amelia call you "muffinkid"?' in there somewhere. And also: pretty pictures.
Note: this won't be in much of a coherent order, as ideas don't have a habit of forming coherently. Be warned: random tangents abound.
Part 1: Bananas and Laxatives
(From the Fod conception scripts. Olli went over the green writing to make it more legible, using an illegible font.)
Fod, started in February 2003, was another attempt, after a long line of them, at a collaborative website with friend Olli Smith. My first idea for it was a spoof of the video game Halo. I named it Bananas and Laxatives, and it was the first time I'd really put any of my writing online. It was consciously bad quality, containing gratuitous swearing and all the character mutilations and twisted ways to mess up the Halo universe that my fourteen-year-old mind could think of. The Covenant, the main enemy, became the Convent: an alliance of nuns, prostitutes, politicians and pro-wrestlers.
(Random aside: on page 299 of The Fall of Reach, one of the official Halo novels, 'Covenant' is actually typo'd as 'Convent'. Well, I laughed.)
Most chapters were accompanied by a screenshot from the game, beautifully transformed in Microsoft Paint. (Ironically, Cortana ended up with long hair in Halo 2 anyway. They obviously modelled her on her B&L equivalent, Bore-Tana.)
The line of thought when I wrote this was 'What rhymes with "Master Chief" that would be hilarious?' Of course, 'Master Beef' was the spectacular end result. His pink rabbit costume was just another result of the mounting ridiculousness...
And so it continued...
(I later used the muffin on the right of the image above as an avatar on a message board. Eyebrows were raised, questions were asked, and, well, the muffin became an integral part of my dazzling persona. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why Amelia calls me 'muffinkid'.)
343 Salty Mark, also known as The Microwave, was the result of a conversation with my brother as I was playing the final level of Halo, jumping around and throwing grenades into things. He commented on how he thought it was all very unfair on Guilty Spark and the Sentinels, because they were just trying to protect themselves. I asked how the machines had formed, not really knowing the background to the game in much detail. He replied, 'I don't know, they evolved from microwaves or something.'
We laughed.
Bananas and Laxatives was never properly completed, although I did start writing the sequel, Bananas and Laxatives 2: Fragmentation Memories, supposedly the 'third person' diaries of Master Beef chronicling the events that took place after Beef returned home. It was to feature the return of such characters as the Convent, Sam and Salty Mark, along with new characters such as Lara Schmoft, Captain Knees, a talking walrus taking residence at WarrenWorld themepark, and Master Cheese. Most of the ideas I had for the sequel were jotted down on several post-it notes that I still have. A third story was also considered, a Matrix parody in which Beef wasn't even the main protagonist, but was to die spectacularly at the end.
But...it wasn't to be, and Bananas and Laxatives was abandoned after a rather nonsensical final chapter for the original story was posted on a message board and completely ignored, revealing Halo and the events surrounding it as a huge conspiracy staged by a massive laxatives company.
And, well, I quite liked writing about the character of the hilariously named Master Beef. And so I continued to do so.
In almost every interview with an author I've read, the author gets asked, 'Where do you get your ideas from?', which has always struck me as a rather stupid thing to ask. But, whereas most authors will answer vaguely, 'Oh, from all over the place, really...', and while I make no claim to being a 'proper', published author, I'm going to attempt to answer it properly. And I'm going to do it through The Aberration, because doing stuff through examples is the best way, dudes.
Alright, yes, this is just a bad excuse to waffle at length about a lot of my old stuff, and probably the only person it's remotely interesting to is myself, but I'd rather procrastinate on a grand scale than do any kind of proper work, and as this is my blog, I can do what I like. And anyway, there are some answers to such vitally important questions as, 'Why "Master Beef"?', 'What made you pick Fat Man In Tweed as your website name?', and 'Why does Amelia call you "muffinkid"?' in there somewhere. And also: pretty pictures.
Note: this won't be in much of a coherent order, as ideas don't have a habit of forming coherently. Be warned: random tangents abound.
Part 1: Bananas and Laxatives
(From the Fod conception scripts. Olli went over the green writing to make it more legible, using an illegible font.)
Fod, started in February 2003, was another attempt, after a long line of them, at a collaborative website with friend Olli Smith. My first idea for it was a spoof of the video game Halo. I named it Bananas and Laxatives, and it was the first time I'd really put any of my writing online. It was consciously bad quality, containing gratuitous swearing and all the character mutilations and twisted ways to mess up the Halo universe that my fourteen-year-old mind could think of. The Covenant, the main enemy, became the Convent: an alliance of nuns, prostitutes, politicians and pro-wrestlers.
(Random aside: on page 299 of The Fall of Reach, one of the official Halo novels, 'Covenant' is actually typo'd as 'Convent'. Well, I laughed.)
Most chapters were accompanied by a screenshot from the game, beautifully transformed in Microsoft Paint. (Ironically, Cortana ended up with long hair in Halo 2 anyway. They obviously modelled her on her B&L equivalent, Bore-Tana.)
A violin tune that sounded like a strangled cat (if they make any noise) played as Captain PLEEEAAASE gave Bore-Tana the bad news the Convent was rapidly approaching. Bore-Tana had a tantrum. 'But I don't wanna be a nun!' she wailed.
Reveille It Up!
Meanwhile, in the cry-o-tube place thingy, Master Beef awoke. He started crying as he got out and a small man rushed to him. It was Pitri.
'It's OK, sir,' he said. 'We'll have you warmed up in no time!' He handed Beef a hot cocoa with marshmallows as he sniffled. He slurped at it.
'Why's he crying?' asked Sam, calling and leaning on the very big fragile glass window on the wall.
'It's a cry-o-tube, Sam, you dumbass!'
'Sorry Pitri. I'll just bring his health online then.'
'I suppose you should.' said Pitri.
'He needs his shield, Pitri. Give him that, if you can manage.'
'Dumbass!' Pitri handed Beef a silver tea tray. 'It will come in very handy, sir!'
'Thank you, Pitri.' said Beef. 'Thank you, Dumbass!' he called up to Sam.
'Sir, my name isn't Dumbass!'
The line of thought when I wrote this was 'What rhymes with "Master Chief" that would be hilarious?' Of course, 'Master Beef' was the spectacular end result. His pink rabbit costume was just another result of the mounting ridiculousness...
There was a knocking at the automatic door (is that bloody possible?). Dumbass...er...I mean Sam...opened it. Then they flooded in; ghostly figures in black that glided across the room and surrounded him. 'We come in the peace and the harmony of the Universe,' one sang in a high voice. 'Stay calm as we melt your...BRAIN!!!' The last word was particularly high and screechy and the huge glass panel smashed, causing Sam to fall to his doom. What a dumbass...
Luckily, the few nuns that fell through with him ended their lives with a sticky splat, but Pitri and Beef were running out of time. 'Quick sir!' said Pitri. 'This way!' The two of them ran through an automatic door (which apparently you can knock) and Beef knelt down to tie his bootlace. Pitri ran on ahead, but the nuns' echoing voices made his head explode.
'Bugger!' exclaimed Beef. Now he had no weapons and, because Pitri was gone, no shield either. The nuns had probably engulfed his tea tray. He looked back through the door window. NO!! They were using it to have a tea party! They had those cursed china toy cups and saucers too!
'Would you like some tea, Maggie?' one sang. 'Yes please!' chirruped another.
This whole thing was a disaster! Maybe if he looked into his new costume he would find help. NOOOOOOOOOOOO! It was a fluffy pink bunny costume rented from WarrenWorld Theme Park! The best thing he could do was to take a sharp turn left and go through the girls' bathroom.
And so it continued...
'Beeeeeef!' came a deep, irritated voice from one of the other cubicles. Beef plodded through the cubicles following the voice until he opened the final cubicle door and there was a head sticking out of the toilet. 'Beeeeeef! You made it!'
'What the fuck are you doing in there?'
'It's a long story,' said the captain. 'But I'll bore you with it anyway!'
After some confusion, Bore-Tana and Master Beef found themselves stuck in Gecko 4-19 with Poo Whammer and five mindless Marines. One, called Billy, had a perpetual smile and wouldn't take his eyes off Beef. 'I have new socks on!' he grinned, revealing red socks with some balloons on.
'Right, you motherfuckers, get off my Pelican! I have work to do!' The metallic ship suddenly went on a slant and the seven of them slid out of the cargo bay and hit the sandy ground hard. As Gecko 4-19 flew off, another Pelican landed and dropped off five more Marines.
'Wahoo! All right! Let's party!' The ten of them started doing the conga as Master Beef and Bore-Tana watched in dismay.
Beef armed himself with his assault rifle and followed them, keeping his distance.
He rubbed his hands together. 'Oohoohoo, this'll be fun!' He climbed in and made doubly sure that he found the turret switch while Sam got in beside him. 'Here comes Master Beef, protector of the universe that's not even worth saving!' He laughed loudly. 'Ooooooooh, it has machine guns, too!'
The tank, in all its half glory, rolled over and crushed the landscape, proudly and merrily. The three comrades sang true patriotic songs ('The wheels on the tank go round and round...') as they aimed for nowhere in particular.
'Brghgeehfghe!'
'What was that?'
'What?'
'Brhghefhghe!'
'The door, it's...opening!'
'God, no! How can this possibly be?'
'Shut up, Jenkins!'
'Brhghegfhdgfdgehghe!'
'Argh! It's on my face! It's small and brown and tasty and it's attacking me! Argh!'
'Haha!'
'Shut up Jenkins and fire your weapon! No, Jenkins, don't pick your nose again. What the--argh!'
'Hello, Mr Small Round Person! Wha? Get away from me! I don't like you! Argh!'
>>>UNEXPECTED HALT X. BLOCKBUSTER NOTICE: DAMAGED TAPE FINE $10. PLEASE VISIT US AGAIN SOON.
The Crud
Beef took his helmet off. 'That was odd.'
'Brhhghgefhehhghe!'
'What the--'
'Brghghghfhfhghfhfgmmmmmmmmm!'
'Uh oh...'
Suddenly, small, round, brown creatures came oozing through the doors.
'M...M...' Beef stuttered.
They crawled and bounced closer towards him; he armed himself with his assault rifle.
'Muffins!'
One of them lunged at his mouth and exploded in his fur.
'Oh my fuck, they're double chocolate!' He fired rapidly at them; dozens of chocolate explosions alerted more of them, and soon all six doors became muffin entrances.
He turned to the door he had originally come through. There, stood the Sarge of the previous gang, but he wasn't the old Sarge. He was...one of them. There was a strenuous fart, a constipated sounding wheeze and the mutated Crud-form Sarge lunged himself at Beef.
The shotgun was always the answer to everything.
Beef escaped while he could, running through the continuous waves of Crud, who had conveniently starting appearing since they were introduced to the storyline. Beef encountered countless muffins, Crud-Marines and even Crud Nuns. The most horrific of all, though, were the huge muffin-headed ones that stupidly fell over and exploded, scattering dozens of new muffins.
(I later used the muffin on the right of the image above as an avatar on a message board. Eyebrows were raised, questions were asked, and, well, the muffin became an integral part of my dazzling persona. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why Amelia calls me 'muffinkid'.)
Suddenly, a microwave started to hover over his head. 'Greetings!' it said in an accent that was supposed to be English but you could tell it was American. It pinged, its door flung open and a pie went flying into a huddle of nearby muffins. 'I am 343 Salty Mark. This has got out of hand. I ask you to come with me, but in the end you haven't really got a choice, because I'll just teleport you anyway. Come.'
There was some yellow ambience and the two of them disappeared.
'Beef?' came the voice of Poo Whammer on the radio. 'Beef, I've lost your signal! Beef? Beef! Haha, sucker.'
343 Salty Mark, also known as The Microwave, was the result of a conversation with my brother as I was playing the final level of Halo, jumping around and throwing grenades into things. He commented on how he thought it was all very unfair on Guilty Spark and the Sentinels, because they were just trying to protect themselves. I asked how the machines had formed, not really knowing the background to the game in much detail. He replied, 'I don't know, they evolved from microwaves or something.'
We laughed.
Then Salty Mark remembered that the Crud were lurking closely. 'We must avoid the you-know-what,' he said. 'I am not a public cafeteria and do not have enough pies for all of them!'
Beef took a book off one of the shelves.Salty Mark Snacks
The Definitive
Salt Snack Guide
'You're an author?' Beef asked.
'I prefer to think of myself as a chef, but yes, if that's what you want me to be.'
'Actually, I couldn't care less.' said Beef. 'I'm just trying to make small conversation for the hell of it.'
'Debt Reclaimer?'
'Yeah?'
'You are an ass.'
''K.'
Bananas and Laxatives was never properly completed, although I did start writing the sequel, Bananas and Laxatives 2: Fragmentation Memories, supposedly the 'third person' diaries of Master Beef chronicling the events that took place after Beef returned home. It was to feature the return of such characters as the Convent, Sam and Salty Mark, along with new characters such as Lara Schmoft, Captain Knees, a talking walrus taking residence at WarrenWorld themepark, and Master Cheese. Most of the ideas I had for the sequel were jotted down on several post-it notes that I still have. A third story was also considered, a Matrix parody in which Beef wasn't even the main protagonist, but was to die spectacularly at the end.
But...it wasn't to be, and Bananas and Laxatives was abandoned after a rather nonsensical final chapter for the original story was posted on a message board and completely ignored, revealing Halo and the events surrounding it as a huge conspiracy staged by a massive laxatives company.
And, well, I quite liked writing about the character of the hilariously named Master Beef. And so I continued to do so.
Labels: a history of development, agaffa, bananas and laxatives, excerpts, halo, i am the ramblemaster, the aberration, videogames
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Aftermath
TA Chapter 5 now ends how I originally intended it to. I ended up leaving it at a bit of a stupid point because I was running out of time, but wanted to get it online anyway. 'I've come this far...' sort of thing.
Yesterday was a good day. A very good day. Probably the most productive day I've had since FMIT was conceived. I was writing from 11AM to 7PM with only a few short breaks! And then we went out for a meal, something which I didn't find out about until about four o'clock, so the time I had left was unexpectedly shortened. Then, when we got back, I got straight to work again before getting on the computer to type up and package everything. And, even though Chapter 5 was cut short, I managed to get everything besides the blog post done before midnight (I had to make a placeholder for that).
I was considering a Day 4 on Thursday night, just to extend my deadline. I'd only done about a page of Chapter 3 when I gave up on it and played some Halo 2. Which, may I add, did wonders, and by the time I went to bed I was feeling confident I could get it all done. I HAD THE STAMINA!!
So... today I keep feeling like I should be doing something, and have to keep reminding myself that I don't have to. There are still some minor loose ends to sort out, but they can be done at a nice, leisurely pace; and yeah, I have homework, but who ever does homework these days?
And now: a short hiatus. Not for too long, because, as Melia pointed out, the site is in a constant state of launch, but just enough to let off some steam. I'm really tired. And I might do some other stuff before I go back to writing. I have lots of ideas for drawings, and the sketchbook is looking pretty miserable.
Anyway, as all the different characters reach precarious points in their various adventures, I hope that you're interested enough to want to check back every now and then, to see what happens next.
My desk is covered with piles of paper. I'll probably need to sort that out at some point. Things keep sliding off.
Yesterday was a good day. A very good day. Probably the most productive day I've had since FMIT was conceived. I was writing from 11AM to 7PM with only a few short breaks! And then we went out for a meal, something which I didn't find out about until about four o'clock, so the time I had left was unexpectedly shortened. Then, when we got back, I got straight to work again before getting on the computer to type up and package everything. And, even though Chapter 5 was cut short, I managed to get everything besides the blog post done before midnight (I had to make a placeholder for that).
I was considering a Day 4 on Thursday night, just to extend my deadline. I'd only done about a page of Chapter 3 when I gave up on it and played some Halo 2. Which, may I add, did wonders, and by the time I went to bed I was feeling confident I could get it all done. I HAD THE STAMINA!!
So... today I keep feeling like I should be doing something, and have to keep reminding myself that I don't have to. There are still some minor loose ends to sort out, but they can be done at a nice, leisurely pace; and yeah, I have homework, but who ever does homework these days?
And now: a short hiatus. Not for too long, because, as Melia pointed out, the site is in a constant state of launch, but just enough to let off some steam. I'm really tired. And I might do some other stuff before I go back to writing. I have lots of ideas for drawings, and the sketchbook is looking pretty miserable.
Anyway, as all the different characters reach precarious points in their various adventures, I hope that you're interested enough to want to check back every now and then, to see what happens next.
My desk is covered with piles of paper. I'll probably need to sort that out at some point. Things keep sliding off.
Labels: halo, the aberration, the launch
Friday, February 24, 2006
The Launch: Day 3
Three years ago I started posting stories online for all the world to see. The protagonist of that first story, the Halo parody, was Master Beef.
Master Beef now resides in The Aberration, the story that has always been and will always be the flagship of Fat Man In Tweed. It's been through so many different drafts and ideas while I've tried to figure out what I want it to be. There's been Beatles tribute concerts, daytime TV shows, surreal court cases, Bible kissing, art gallery thefts, giant sandcastles, mutant old ladies and a massive mob of enraged biddies invading a huge football match.
But I think I've finally decided on something I'm happy with. And it's not really any less insane.
Today, as the third and final part of the initial launch, I bring you chapters three, four and five of The Aberration. Chapter 3, which I wrote only this week, has completely lost the aforementioned court case as Mike's story becomes more relevant to everyone else's. Chapter 4 is more or less the same as it has been since I finished it last year, with a few minor tweaks here and there, and remains my favourite chapter so far. Chapter 5, most of which I wrote today, finally departs from the terrace-lined streets the story has been lingering at for so long for the wonders that I've had planned for a good while.
And now you've been well and truly acquainted with the fat men in tweed, a concept that I've had in my brain for years and used repeatedly, and that has now ended up as the name of this website.
Also, something extra.
Fat Man In Tweed. I gave myself deadlines, and I got it all done, if only just. My last-minute habits have threatened to destroy me this past week, but still... I did it.
[lengthy sob]
I did it.
Thank you, and good night.
Master Beef now resides in The Aberration, the story that has always been and will always be the flagship of Fat Man In Tweed. It's been through so many different drafts and ideas while I've tried to figure out what I want it to be. There's been Beatles tribute concerts, daytime TV shows, surreal court cases, Bible kissing, art gallery thefts, giant sandcastles, mutant old ladies and a massive mob of enraged biddies invading a huge football match.
But I think I've finally decided on something I'm happy with. And it's not really any less insane.
Today, as the third and final part of the initial launch, I bring you chapters three, four and five of The Aberration. Chapter 3, which I wrote only this week, has completely lost the aforementioned court case as Mike's story becomes more relevant to everyone else's. Chapter 4 is more or less the same as it has been since I finished it last year, with a few minor tweaks here and there, and remains my favourite chapter so far. Chapter 5, most of which I wrote today, finally departs from the terrace-lined streets the story has been lingering at for so long for the wonders that I've had planned for a good while.
And now you've been well and truly acquainted with the fat men in tweed, a concept that I've had in my brain for years and used repeatedly, and that has now ended up as the name of this website.
Also, something extra.
Fat Man In Tweed. I gave myself deadlines, and I got it all done, if only just. My last-minute habits have threatened to destroy me this past week, but still... I did it.
[lengthy sob]
I did it.
Thank you, and good night.
Labels: halo, the aberration, the launch
Saturday, October 08, 2005
117 Words
A couple of months ago, a competition was started at HBO where the challenge was to come up with something (anything) Halo-related with the length of 117 words. Apparently there were about 175 entries in all. Today they posted the top 117. Contrary to what I initially thought, that list is not in the order of competition ranking. I'm guessing it's the order in which they were submitted, but I don't know. They picked the best 117, and then shortlisted 14 of them, and then picked the three winners from that.
I submitted two entries. I am now in a happy mood because they both made it into the top 117. The first, In Character (which is about the story and characters), is number 21 on that list, and the second, Handshake (which is more about the technical aspect of the game), is number 94. I'm surprised my second entry made it into the top 117 considering it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I can't help wondering how they would have fared if they had been posted in rank order, but meh. I be content. :)
P.S. Please ignore any horrific grammatical errors.
I submitted two entries. I am now in a happy mood because they both made it into the top 117. The first, In Character (which is about the story and characters), is number 21 on that list, and the second, Handshake (which is more about the technical aspect of the game), is number 94. I'm surprised my second entry made it into the top 117 considering it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I can't help wondering how they would have fared if they had been posted in rank order, but meh. I be content. :)
P.S. Please ignore any horrific grammatical errors.
Labels: halo, videogames
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Hilarious Hair, the Fab Four, and Confessions of an Obsessive Fandom
Now that I've turned my attention to the second chapter of The Aberration, I've been thinking about the character Mike, and how he'll be changing. Then I started thinking about how he came about in the first place, and how he's 'evolved' so far to become what he is now.
August, year 2003. I was reading the blog of a Mr Michael Gerber (the guy who wrote the Barry Trotter books), and on this blog he had provided an email address. So I emailed him. Oh yes, email him I verily did.
I asked him if he would answer some questions for a certain website called Kommingle, which didn't actually exist yet. There were twelve questions in all, only two of which were what would be considered conventional in an interview of this kind (although 'Have you ever been attacked by an old lady? If so, how did you cope?' was one I was particularly proud of). To my astonishment, he actually replied, answering every single one of them. Which was probably a mistake on his part, because I then went into Creepy Fan Overdrive and the consequent emails didn't stop. He was always really nice and friendly about it, but I must have annoyed the hell out of him.
In October, as an act of both creepiness and boredom, I wrote a short and very pointless story, which featured him, his recently released book (The Unnecessary Sequel), and a certain rabbity individual who'd been in several equally pointless short stories since I'd stopped writing the Halo spoof, Bananas and Laxatives. To summarise: Master Beef browses the shelves of the music and biography section of a bookshop looking for books on the Beatles*, and comes across The Unnecessary Sequel. He appears to take offence at its very existence, and then exits the shop, avoiding the roaming Potter fans as they cast spells on various things. He tracks down the location of the author: the Atlantic Ocean.
Michael Gerber is sailing across the Atlantic Ocean on a sofa, attempting to sell a drug called the Essence of Whoot to a pair of pug dogs. The sale is successful, and the pugs sail away in a large boot. Then Beef arrives, having got there by being fired out of a cannon. Beef's infuriation gives way as he then asks if he can be in Mike's next book. Then it ends.
The character Mike in The Aberration borrows from MG his general friendly demeanor, and over time this morphed into a non-confrontational, very polite character who'd really prefer it if everything that was happening to him wasn't doing so (a bit like MG remaining friendly even though I kept sending him emails). I made him a stand-up comedian based on an idea that he had been exiled from his home country for writing controvertial material (toilet-humour filled parodies, like MG), and his stand-up name, Mr Mike, is how I occasionally addressed MG when sending him my latest exciting message. I discovered a few months ago that the name Mr Mike has already been used by comedian Michael O'Donoghue, so that's not going to be reappearing in the rewrite. (In a second 'interview' I did with MG last year, I asked him if he would ever consider doing stand-up. He replied, 'God, no. I am much too shy.')
It was in this short story that the whole idea of Mike having crazy hair originated. I gave him long, purple hair as a joke because, as I stated in a footnote, I had no idea what the author actually looked like. In the court case in the Kommingle version of Chapter 3, Judge Tubby addresses him by his full name, Michael Jerblarg, which is just a hasty mutation of MG's name because I needed to give him a surname and couldn't think of anything else (I haven't decided yet whether or not to keep this surname for the new Fat Man version).
So anyway... Mike in The Aberration isn't a fictional version of Michael Gerber, although that's sort of how the character started out. Less so now more than ever, as his character continues to 'evolve' as time goes by, and, as I may have mentioned once or twice, there are going to be quite a few changes made in the near future too (least of all his nationality change, from American to British). But it just goes to show, characters and their various quirks can come about in so many different ways. This is probably one of the more unusual.
* Beef's supposed Beatles fandom came about when I was planning the sequel to Bananas and Laxatives. I'd recently heard the song I Am The Walrus, and wanted to include a talking walrus (that introduced itself with that very song name) in it. Making Beef a big Beatles fan just followed naturally. It just so happens, by complete coincidence, that Mike Gerber is a huge Beatles fan.
One of the early ideas I had for The Aberration was Mike and Beef staging a huge Beatles tribute concert as a massive diversion, allowing the others to sneak into the bad guys' headquarters and cause lots of trouble. I don't know how that would have really worked, but it seemed a good idea at the time. Agaffa's Miss Darley, having made a cameo appearance in the Kommingle version of Chapter 2 as an unpopular stand-up comedian, was going to return as the hilariously dreadful performer occupying the stage until Mike and Beef arrived and took over. Why so many people would have come to see her in the first place is something I hadn't quite figured out.
I didn't continue with the two characters' Beatles fandom in the end, mostly just out of forgetfulness. I think the song I've Just Seen A Face would fit perfectly at the end of the first chapter, though.
August, year 2003. I was reading the blog of a Mr Michael Gerber (the guy who wrote the Barry Trotter books), and on this blog he had provided an email address. So I emailed him. Oh yes, email him I verily did.
I asked him if he would answer some questions for a certain website called Kommingle, which didn't actually exist yet. There were twelve questions in all, only two of which were what would be considered conventional in an interview of this kind (although 'Have you ever been attacked by an old lady? If so, how did you cope?' was one I was particularly proud of). To my astonishment, he actually replied, answering every single one of them. Which was probably a mistake on his part, because I then went into Creepy Fan Overdrive and the consequent emails didn't stop. He was always really nice and friendly about it, but I must have annoyed the hell out of him.
In October, as an act of both creepiness and boredom, I wrote a short and very pointless story, which featured him, his recently released book (The Unnecessary Sequel), and a certain rabbity individual who'd been in several equally pointless short stories since I'd stopped writing the Halo spoof, Bananas and Laxatives. To summarise: Master Beef browses the shelves of the music and biography section of a bookshop looking for books on the Beatles*, and comes across The Unnecessary Sequel. He appears to take offence at its very existence, and then exits the shop, avoiding the roaming Potter fans as they cast spells on various things. He tracks down the location of the author: the Atlantic Ocean.
Michael Gerber is sailing across the Atlantic Ocean on a sofa, attempting to sell a drug called the Essence of Whoot to a pair of pug dogs. The sale is successful, and the pugs sail away in a large boot. Then Beef arrives, having got there by being fired out of a cannon. Beef's infuriation gives way as he then asks if he can be in Mike's next book. Then it ends.
The character Mike in The Aberration borrows from MG his general friendly demeanor, and over time this morphed into a non-confrontational, very polite character who'd really prefer it if everything that was happening to him wasn't doing so (a bit like MG remaining friendly even though I kept sending him emails). I made him a stand-up comedian based on an idea that he had been exiled from his home country for writing controvertial material (toilet-humour filled parodies, like MG), and his stand-up name, Mr Mike, is how I occasionally addressed MG when sending him my latest exciting message. I discovered a few months ago that the name Mr Mike has already been used by comedian Michael O'Donoghue, so that's not going to be reappearing in the rewrite. (In a second 'interview' I did with MG last year, I asked him if he would ever consider doing stand-up. He replied, 'God, no. I am much too shy.')
It was in this short story that the whole idea of Mike having crazy hair originated. I gave him long, purple hair as a joke because, as I stated in a footnote, I had no idea what the author actually looked like. In the court case in the Kommingle version of Chapter 3, Judge Tubby addresses him by his full name, Michael Jerblarg, which is just a hasty mutation of MG's name because I needed to give him a surname and couldn't think of anything else (I haven't decided yet whether or not to keep this surname for the new Fat Man version).
So anyway... Mike in The Aberration isn't a fictional version of Michael Gerber, although that's sort of how the character started out. Less so now more than ever, as his character continues to 'evolve' as time goes by, and, as I may have mentioned once or twice, there are going to be quite a few changes made in the near future too (least of all his nationality change, from American to British). But it just goes to show, characters and their various quirks can come about in so many different ways. This is probably one of the more unusual.
* Beef's supposed Beatles fandom came about when I was planning the sequel to Bananas and Laxatives. I'd recently heard the song I Am The Walrus, and wanted to include a talking walrus (that introduced itself with that very song name) in it. Making Beef a big Beatles fan just followed naturally. It just so happens, by complete coincidence, that Mike Gerber is a huge Beatles fan.
One of the early ideas I had for The Aberration was Mike and Beef staging a huge Beatles tribute concert as a massive diversion, allowing the others to sneak into the bad guys' headquarters and cause lots of trouble. I don't know how that would have really worked, but it seemed a good idea at the time. Agaffa's Miss Darley, having made a cameo appearance in the Kommingle version of Chapter 2 as an unpopular stand-up comedian, was going to return as the hilariously dreadful performer occupying the stage until Mike and Beef arrived and took over. Why so many people would have come to see her in the first place is something I hadn't quite figured out.
I didn't continue with the two characters' Beatles fandom in the end, mostly just out of forgetfulness. I think the song I've Just Seen A Face would fit perfectly at the end of the first chapter, though.
Labels: agaffa, halo, the aberration
# posted by
Chris @ 10:25 PM 
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Halo There
Now that the Easter holidays have started, I can start getting things done. And who knows? Maybe I even will. I have exam revision to be doing, but I'll still have quite a lot of free time.
The Aberration, Starcustard, Agaffa, A Room Full Of Zombies...and fatmanintweed.com. It's odd, I never really considered Kommingle as a 'project' as such...at least, not in the same way I consider all these other things to be...but with Fat Man In Tweed, it's different. It's a much bigger challenge now that I don't have anybody to rely on for the financial side of things, or for the webdesign.
Anyway.
Something completely unrelated: Master Beef, the protagonist of The Aberration, was originally created as the main character of a spoof of the first Halo game. The spoof was called Bananas and Laxatives. I intend to bring back some of the characters from the spoof. This will mean some nice Halo references for fans of the game(s), but it won't ruin it for those who don't really know anything about it.
You could always go and look up some information on the Halo games if you want to try and guess which characters' spoof versions are going to be used. :P
Or, alternatively, you could just not bother. Up to you, really.
The Aberration, Starcustard, Agaffa, A Room Full Of Zombies...and fatmanintweed.com. It's odd, I never really considered Kommingle as a 'project' as such...at least, not in the same way I consider all these other things to be...but with Fat Man In Tweed, it's different. It's a much bigger challenge now that I don't have anybody to rely on for the financial side of things, or for the webdesign.
Anyway.
Something completely unrelated: Master Beef, the protagonist of The Aberration, was originally created as the main character of a spoof of the first Halo game. The spoof was called Bananas and Laxatives. I intend to bring back some of the characters from the spoof. This will mean some nice Halo references for fans of the game(s), but it won't ruin it for those who don't really know anything about it.
You could always go and look up some information on the Halo games if you want to try and guess which characters' spoof versions are going to be used. :P
Or, alternatively, you could just not bother. Up to you, really.
Labels: agaffa, bananas and laxatives, halo, starcustard, the aberration, videogames, zombies
archives
03.0504.05
05.05
06.05
07.05
08.05
09.05
10.05
11.05
12.05
01.06
02.06
03.06
04.06
05.06
06.06
07.06
08.06
09.06
10.06
11.06
12.06
01.07
02.07
03.07
04.07
05.07
06.07
07.07
08.07
09.07
10.07
11.07
12.07
01.08
02.08
03.08
04.08
05.08
06.08
07.08
10.08
11.08
12.08
01.09
02.09
04.09
05.09
06.09
07.09
08.09
09.09
10.09
11.09
12.09
01.10
02.10
03.10
04.10
