the ramble dump
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Things Going Down In Ol' Jesnailstown...
So ever since we conceived the timetraveling Jesnails project back in April 2006, we've had a lot of problems getting much of it out there, and (in my case) being unsatisfied with it even when some tortured piece of something or other is finally ground out. Despite attempts to shift the format from overinvolved related episodes to a more spontaneous montage last year, things still haven't been working out on the inspiration front.
There have been numerous times, pretty much every time I consider it, in fact, where I think about packing it in and leaving Jesnails to gather dust in the memory of her better, albeit shortlived, days; thinking, despite a few flashes of inspiration, that Jesnails has been stretched past her limit as a concept; thinking that the work of dragging this thing out solo, as has been the case for a while now, is without much point. And I'm well aware that I'm here again making yet another post about it.
As a result, one thing has become clear to me. I realise that I can no longer consider myself deserving of official authorship where Jesnails is concerned. Therefore, in an astounding manouevre that rivals, almost, the moves of Jesnails herself, the Jesnailsy stuff on this site will be receiving a new, exciting designation. That designation is to be FANFICTION.
Why but why? you ask, taken aback by this shocking, ingenious decision. Well, there are several reasons for choosing to go along this particular route.
I will be producing an uneven mix of miniseries, one-shots and fragments. And I can promise, saving extreme circumstances, that there will be something fairly big appearing before the year is out, with a little something else before that.
Stay tunizzled.
There have been numerous times, pretty much every time I consider it, in fact, where I think about packing it in and leaving Jesnails to gather dust in the memory of her better, albeit shortlived, days; thinking, despite a few flashes of inspiration, that Jesnails has been stretched past her limit as a concept; thinking that the work of dragging this thing out solo, as has been the case for a while now, is without much point. And I'm well aware that I'm here again making yet another post about it.
As a result, one thing has become clear to me. I realise that I can no longer consider myself deserving of official authorship where Jesnails is concerned. Therefore, in an astounding manouevre that rivals, almost, the moves of Jesnails herself, the Jesnailsy stuff on this site will be receiving a new, exciting designation. That designation is to be FANFICTION.
Why but why? you ask, taken aback by this shocking, ingenious decision. Well, there are several reasons for choosing to go along this particular route.
- I will be free. Free of the crushing responsibility of good quality writing, and free of the need for character consistency. Free of the bounds of continuity. Free of the nagging, gnawing guilt of continuing it all without my absent (and possibly indifferent) co-author of instalments past, for between such a combined entity of authorship and my own lonely self there is the same difference as that between time and spacetime.
- It's one way, I guess, of getting unstuck from the timetravel premise. That bastard really did not want to work.
- Jesnails deserves fanfiction. Many other, far less groovy messianic figures already have it. It's a very prestigious art form.
I will be producing an uneven mix of miniseries, one-shots and fragments. And I can promise, saving extreme circumstances, that there will be something fairly big appearing before the year is out, with a little something else before that.
Stay tunizzled.
Labels: jesnails
Sunday, December 14, 2008
She Is Returned
It's been nearly two and a half years, excepting revisions, since we last saw Jesnails, strutting around the American West in 1875--back when we first decided to send her travelling through time to cause all the inadvertent chaos she's proved to be so good at. It occurred to us then as an appropriate next step for some Jesnailsian antics, following her life-fulfilling appearances as a scourge of zombies and, before that, her debut as a messianic figure intent on bringing some funk back to a dystopian, horrifyingly bean-motifed future world.
But Jesnails' trip to Little Pigaloo, USA, didn't work out quite as well as we'd hoped. We had planned it to be the first of a long series of episodic adventures as we followed Jesnails through time and space and watched as, space-time after space-time, the disco-fiend unthinkingly changed the course of history, precipitating in increasingly surreal situations as her story progressed.
We met with a problem, however. Jesnails, we found, does not work as a protagonist. She is a very dynamic character--so dynamic, in fact, that her mere presence is usually enough to have some huge effect. Her mysterious purpose, apparently self-prescribed, is essentially to spread the image of herself. She does this by creating an impression achieved through various modes of performance, often disco-related, and most of the time aided by some far-fetched contraption derived from her seemingly unlimited skills as an inventor. This leads to results that we can never clearly gauge the intention of, thanks to some catastrophic flaw or other that unfailingly manifests in her creations. So as far as the narrative goes, she's like a volatile chemical: once she's introduced, we sit back and watch the fireworks.
Explicitly giving Jesnails her own complete story puts us, as its writers, in the slightly tedious position of having to follow her around and describe the process by which she achieves her influence, rather than simply being able to have fun with each performance as it happens. So rather than just being able to play around with the hundreds of Jesnailsian moments we'd come up with, we had to fill each episode with a lot of uninteresting scenes to tie all these moments together and make a coherent story. Having her as the protagonist also constantly threatened to encroach on the idea of her as a rather vague, enigmatic entity because we ended up focusing on a character that by definition defies such focus. We continually had to check ourselves to make sure we weren't over-vocalising on her behalf, something that was often necessary just to move the story along in a sensical way--for example, getting Jesnails onto the Sheriff's whiskey-laden train required giving her a somewhat forced reputation as a fan of drink based on a single incident at the bar, and then we compelled her to walk into Bigbad's trap by having it stated that she was thirsty and wanted to avoid confrontation, thus leaving the train as her only option.
All of this also led to several moments where Jesnails' actions became hideously intentional in a way that didn't really fit her character. In a bit that I wrote, I had her deliberately shooting Bigbad, twice, when he was down. Here Jesnails had too much of a sense of what was going on, while one of the defining points of her character is supposed to be that she wanders the earth dealing much damage through sheer obliviousness. She'll react when she's cornered, like in the Santa battle in Jesnails Returns, but that's about as far as it goes.
Anyway, the endeavour was all so tedious that we never got past the first full episode. So, despite sporadic attempts to resuscitate, the project died. It was nearly a year ago that I had the idea of scrapping the convoluted story and presenting her time-travelling manifestations in the form of a more ambiguous montage. This way, Jesnails is cut free from the stifling necessities of a narrative while we are still able to showcase all those Jesnailsian moments we thought were worth presenting in the first place. And in some cases, Jesnails will never even appear in person. It makes the whole process a lot freer, a lot easier and a lot more fun, and hopefully the end product will also be much more effective.
Live In Rome, for your information, is the climax of the planned second episode severed from all the crap that was supposed to lead up to it, so you can enjoy just the tasty bits.
Partner in funk Ella Turnbull was informed of the plan and agreed to it all those months ago, but I haven't spoken to her in ages, sadly, so I don't know if she'll still be interested. I've only gone ahead with the project under the condition that Ella is free to add to it whenever she wants, but I figured I'd better just start the thing or it would never happen.
So basically, updates will appear when either of us feels like it.
Witness!
Experience Jesnails: Live In Rome.
But Jesnails' trip to Little Pigaloo, USA, didn't work out quite as well as we'd hoped. We had planned it to be the first of a long series of episodic adventures as we followed Jesnails through time and space and watched as, space-time after space-time, the disco-fiend unthinkingly changed the course of history, precipitating in increasingly surreal situations as her story progressed.
We met with a problem, however. Jesnails, we found, does not work as a protagonist. She is a very dynamic character--so dynamic, in fact, that her mere presence is usually enough to have some huge effect. Her mysterious purpose, apparently self-prescribed, is essentially to spread the image of herself. She does this by creating an impression achieved through various modes of performance, often disco-related, and most of the time aided by some far-fetched contraption derived from her seemingly unlimited skills as an inventor. This leads to results that we can never clearly gauge the intention of, thanks to some catastrophic flaw or other that unfailingly manifests in her creations. So as far as the narrative goes, she's like a volatile chemical: once she's introduced, we sit back and watch the fireworks.
Explicitly giving Jesnails her own complete story puts us, as its writers, in the slightly tedious position of having to follow her around and describe the process by which she achieves her influence, rather than simply being able to have fun with each performance as it happens. So rather than just being able to play around with the hundreds of Jesnailsian moments we'd come up with, we had to fill each episode with a lot of uninteresting scenes to tie all these moments together and make a coherent story. Having her as the protagonist also constantly threatened to encroach on the idea of her as a rather vague, enigmatic entity because we ended up focusing on a character that by definition defies such focus. We continually had to check ourselves to make sure we weren't over-vocalising on her behalf, something that was often necessary just to move the story along in a sensical way--for example, getting Jesnails onto the Sheriff's whiskey-laden train required giving her a somewhat forced reputation as a fan of drink based on a single incident at the bar, and then we compelled her to walk into Bigbad's trap by having it stated that she was thirsty and wanted to avoid confrontation, thus leaving the train as her only option.
All of this also led to several moments where Jesnails' actions became hideously intentional in a way that didn't really fit her character. In a bit that I wrote, I had her deliberately shooting Bigbad, twice, when he was down. Here Jesnails had too much of a sense of what was going on, while one of the defining points of her character is supposed to be that she wanders the earth dealing much damage through sheer obliviousness. She'll react when she's cornered, like in the Santa battle in Jesnails Returns, but that's about as far as it goes.
Anyway, the endeavour was all so tedious that we never got past the first full episode. So, despite sporadic attempts to resuscitate, the project died. It was nearly a year ago that I had the idea of scrapping the convoluted story and presenting her time-travelling manifestations in the form of a more ambiguous montage. This way, Jesnails is cut free from the stifling necessities of a narrative while we are still able to showcase all those Jesnailsian moments we thought were worth presenting in the first place. And in some cases, Jesnails will never even appear in person. It makes the whole process a lot freer, a lot easier and a lot more fun, and hopefully the end product will also be much more effective.
Live In Rome, for your information, is the climax of the planned second episode severed from all the crap that was supposed to lead up to it, so you can enjoy just the tasty bits.
Partner in funk Ella Turnbull was informed of the plan and agreed to it all those months ago, but I haven't spoken to her in ages, sadly, so I don't know if she'll still be interested. I've only gone ahead with the project under the condition that Ella is free to add to it whenever she wants, but I figured I'd better just start the thing or it would never happen.
So basically, updates will appear when either of us feels like it.
Witness!
Experience Jesnails: Live In Rome.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
The Wobble Behind the Paint: A Dialogue
It began, on a popular social networking utility, thus:
Responded Ella '(Je)Snails' Turngroove, rising to the challenge:
Two days later, Ella's comeback appeared:
And she elaborated thus:
I was moved, touched, emotionally violated in a variety of subtle ways, and prompted to express such feelings that I had:
In her reponse, Turngroove touched aptly upon the very essence of all our endeavour, artistically, as artists, amidst a gushing affirmation:
And finally, in conclusive summation, Turngroove ended by invoking a well-known and very relevant mantra:
Responded Ella '(Je)Snails' Turngroove, rising to the challenge:
'such a work of awesomeness requires a comeback in picture form. and this will be delivered tomorrow, because we were supposed to be elsewhere at 7pm, and it's now 7.34pm and I'm still in a dressing gown. I was supposed to be banking, but I blame [bank name]. If they made their online banking service as fun as [social networking utility], MAYBE less people would be late!
consider it, [bank name]!
picture: tomorrow. unless too hungover to control mouse.'
Two days later, Ella's comeback appeared:
And she elaborated thus:
'yes, funk has no body. it's just a funky head, unimpeded by the unfunkiness of having to lug around a body. there's nothing unfunky about funk! ears and sunglasses are all you need! and a knowledge of funky head-dancing.'
I was moved, touched, emotionally violated in a variety of subtle ways, and prompted to express such feelings that I had:
'If you will: a critique.
Yes, there is a certain clinch of the groovy awesome, undeniable, vivid, apocalyptical. To walk and talk like a treble cleft; indeed, to suffer back problems in name of a curvey spine groove. Superfly, but somehow cautious; self-assured, but not so sure, perhaps, in step. Wobbly. It resonates: TAP. Each echo propounded in the speed-lines of two equals symbols. Equality? No, indeed not. Superiority.
Less fortunate, it would seem, the fatty. Or so an outsider would perceive, but the fatty clearly does not care. Fat beats have taken over. The shaka clap is all that matters, and the fatty is engrossed. Rounded hair or spiky, or both? The medallion, the chain, symbolising scissors. Like dough, but sharp. Sensical? A paradox. A secret. Only the fatty truly knows.
But, bada, and boom, there is triumph above all in the third. BLARING RHYTHMS EMIT, it claims, on the face of it so simple, yet in reality so deep - so profound a statement. A mouth, a snout, a strange birth-mark? Planted are two speakers in what can barely be called the style of an afro, yet what else could it be? Simply nothing. Wanted by all, achieved by none. The next stage of evolution for the disco messiah.'
In her reponse, Turngroove touched aptly upon the very essence of all our endeavour, artistically, as artists, amidst a gushing affirmation:
'how astute of you to notice the wit inherent in fat beats' self-deprecatory pink stylings. I did wonder whether it was too obscure a reference for the average art aficionado, but I tip my hat to you - art clearly flows in the veins! and to question the step of the Groove, while the same appears so assured; to see the wobble behind the paint is to see into the eye of inspiration itself.'
And finally, in conclusive summation, Turngroove ended by invoking a well-known and very relevant mantra:
'Je suis pope lol, indeed! oh yes, indeed.'
Labels: i am the ramblemaster, jesnails
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Beans
CoA Chapter 6
I wonder if anyone remembers Beans from last year's trailer. Probably not.
In the dark and grim history of all things FMIT, beans have a somewhat ominous presence, having worked their way into the depths of my very consciousness and my every MSN conversation, etc, etc, and through their mischief caused incredible trouble and wonderful things also.
For example: did you know that a text message with the single word 'beans' triggered a set of events that would provide the basis for Jesnails Returns? Just ask Holly. She was so happy about it.
Mind you, everything to do with Jesnails and Chrisbot has such ridiculous origins that it could make you cry. But this is all Ella's fault. For she is Ella, and crazy. Crazier than me (she'll try to deny it, but that's just because she's crazy).
CoA Chapter 6 is full of nods to various things and people. Sometimes I can't help it. But, whateverbeans.
I wonder if anyone remembers Beans from last year's trailer. Probably not.
In the dark and grim history of all things FMIT, beans have a somewhat ominous presence, having worked their way into the depths of my very consciousness and my every MSN conversation, etc, etc, and through their mischief caused incredible trouble and wonderful things also.
For example: did you know that a text message with the single word 'beans' triggered a set of events that would provide the basis for Jesnails Returns? Just ask Holly. She was so happy about it.
Mind you, everything to do with Jesnails and Chrisbot has such ridiculous origins that it could make you cry. But this is all Ella's fault. For she is Ella, and crazy. Crazier than me (she'll try to deny it, but that's just because she's crazy).
CoA Chapter 6 is full of nods to various things and people. Sometimes I can't help it. But, whateverbeans.
Labels: boardfic, city of anarchy, jesnails, starcustard
Friday, October 13, 2006
Some Good, Old Fashioned Silliness
Back all those many years ago in 2003 when I decided 'I want to write humour', it quickly developed into a marathon of ridiculousness, which escalated millionfold. Funny equalled absurd. Overarching plot was not a main concern.
These days, it's no longer a case of 'I want to write humour'. It's back to, 'I want to write a good story', in which, when I can manage it, humour in whatever form (be it through parody, satire, irony, surreality or whatever) is just another layer in the whole thing. Sure, the end product could have any one of those things (and that whole period of seeking to write in that way definitely made a lasting impression on my whole writing style), but they're not ends I specifically aim for.
Some of my older online stuff (i.e. pre-FMIT) really was just me being as weird, surreal or downright silly as I could get it. The best example of this is most definitely the collaborative effort Agaffa, which had a minimal plot that was really quite hard to follow, and chronicled the exploits of two pretty horrific characters with other things happening mostly as vague background noise. Although Cholesterol the fat, talking monkey will forever have a place in my heart. And then there's The Manifesting Surreal, the previous incarnation of the current Aberration, the premise of which was quite simply as the name suggests: things got weirder and weirder until everything started to fall apart.
These days, as I said before, it's a little bit different. A greater focus on story (or at least on more tangible ideas rather than just a load of random stuff thrown together) has also meant that, in an unintentional sort of way, the stories are slightly more... grounded. Probably just as surreal and odd, but in a less overtly and forcefully outrageous way.
Over the years, The Aberration has changed. Starcustard started out with a tongue-in-cheek feel to it that is still evident, but turned out quite different to anything we would have expected. City of Anarchy is still weird, but the focus is now what has grown into a fairly complex plot.
But, see, now there's Jesnails. Which will be parody, satire, surreality, irony, absurdity and, quite frankly, as much crazy stuff as the concept allows while still being coherent enough not to fall apart. We would be lying if we said we weren't, at this point, here to present the profoundly silly, freakish and bizarre in the most flamboyant and shameless way possible.
So it's all very well for me to say that I've moved on from all that silliness, and I can talk about big concepts, ideas, themes and thoughts until the cows return from their trip to the moon, but really I haven't moved away from it at all. Jesnails is a refreshing reminder of that. And it is something still present in everything I do, reminding me never to take things too seriously, because some things just aren't worth taking seriously.
Jesnails 1875, Part I.
These days, it's no longer a case of 'I want to write humour'. It's back to, 'I want to write a good story', in which, when I can manage it, humour in whatever form (be it through parody, satire, irony, surreality or whatever) is just another layer in the whole thing. Sure, the end product could have any one of those things (and that whole period of seeking to write in that way definitely made a lasting impression on my whole writing style), but they're not ends I specifically aim for.
Some of my older online stuff (i.e. pre-FMIT) really was just me being as weird, surreal or downright silly as I could get it. The best example of this is most definitely the collaborative effort Agaffa, which had a minimal plot that was really quite hard to follow, and chronicled the exploits of two pretty horrific characters with other things happening mostly as vague background noise. Although Cholesterol the fat, talking monkey will forever have a place in my heart. And then there's The Manifesting Surreal, the previous incarnation of the current Aberration, the premise of which was quite simply as the name suggests: things got weirder and weirder until everything started to fall apart.
These days, as I said before, it's a little bit different. A greater focus on story (or at least on more tangible ideas rather than just a load of random stuff thrown together) has also meant that, in an unintentional sort of way, the stories are slightly more... grounded. Probably just as surreal and odd, but in a less overtly and forcefully outrageous way.
Over the years, The Aberration has changed. Starcustard started out with a tongue-in-cheek feel to it that is still evident, but turned out quite different to anything we would have expected. City of Anarchy is still weird, but the focus is now what has grown into a fairly complex plot.
But, see, now there's Jesnails. Which will be parody, satire, surreality, irony, absurdity and, quite frankly, as much crazy stuff as the concept allows while still being coherent enough not to fall apart. We would be lying if we said we weren't, at this point, here to present the profoundly silly, freakish and bizarre in the most flamboyant and shameless way possible.
So it's all very well for me to say that I've moved on from all that silliness, and I can talk about big concepts, ideas, themes and thoughts until the cows return from their trip to the moon, but really I haven't moved away from it at all. Jesnails is a refreshing reminder of that. And it is something still present in everything I do, reminding me never to take things too seriously, because some things just aren't worth taking seriously.
Jesnails 1875, Part I.
Labels: agaffa, city of anarchy, i am the ramblemaster, jesnails, starcustard, the aberration
Thursday, September 28, 2006
The Truth Unmasked
Yes, Jesnails 1875 was supposed to be here already. It's Ella's fault, and she's being distracted by otherstuff. I was going to wait until it went online before I posted this, but...meh.
I mentioned in the last post (oh so long ago) the Glom Your Balls On This riddle that was posted on the site back in May. I thought just for the sake of archiving it that I'd provide the solution. A grand total of two people, with assistance, reached the hidden message, not including Ella who got linked straight to it. These two were Detective Aliengirl and Mr Blambourne.
It's not hard to get the basic meaning of this. Somewhere on the site, some dates were wrong. The target was also in a pretty obvious place. The main problems were that Detective Aliengirl and Mr Blambourne were looking too hard (Detective Aliengirl, for example, went so far as to compare the dates of site updates to their related blog posts), or that they were looking in the wrong obvious place - the archive links for the news and updates rather than the archive links for the blog, where the chronology error actually was. And the chronology error, despite being in one of the first places you'd look for 'unchronology', was easy to miss.
Sneaky little bastard, really. But heads were smacked in disbelief that such an obvious place had not been so forthcoming to the brains encased within.
Of course, the whole thing is completely unsolvable when, as was the case with Mad Old Holly, you insist that it is not a riddle at all. Mad Old Holly claimed that, as it was not in question form, it was not legitimate. On occasions where one should find that such problems arise, it may be useful to consult a dictionary.
Clicking on the chronological error led you to the cryptic teaser, the content of which alludes to Jesnails and time travel. Mr Blambourne guessed at Jesnails from having read previous Jesnails stories, and Detective Aliengirl later got the name by cracking the 'message ID' code.
Neither got the hints at time travel from the teaser, but it's worth mentioning an offhand, jokey guess that Mr Blambourne made when he was still only on the riddle:
'Does it mean that you've invented a time machine?'
Anyway, that's that. And although I've removed the chronology error since Jesnails was revealed, you can still get to the now not-so-cryptic teaser to glean anything else now that the context is known.
Rest assured that the first proper installments will be here sometime this century.
I mentioned in the last post (oh so long ago) the Glom Your Balls On This riddle that was posted on the site back in May. I thought just for the sake of archiving it that I'd provide the solution. A grand total of two people, with assistance, reached the hidden message, not including Ella who got linked straight to it. These two were Detective Aliengirl and Mr Blambourne.
Unchronology lies conspicuously hereabouts.
It's not hard to get the basic meaning of this. Somewhere on the site, some dates were wrong. The target was also in a pretty obvious place. The main problems were that Detective Aliengirl and Mr Blambourne were looking too hard (Detective Aliengirl, for example, went so far as to compare the dates of site updates to their related blog posts), or that they were looking in the wrong obvious place - the archive links for the news and updates rather than the archive links for the blog, where the chronology error actually was. And the chronology error, despite being in one of the first places you'd look for 'unchronology', was easy to miss.
Sneaky little bastard, really. But heads were smacked in disbelief that such an obvious place had not been so forthcoming to the brains encased within.
Of course, the whole thing is completely unsolvable when, as was the case with Mad Old Holly, you insist that it is not a riddle at all. Mad Old Holly claimed that, as it was not in question form, it was not legitimate. On occasions where one should find that such problems arise, it may be useful to consult a dictionary.
Clicking on the chronological error led you to the cryptic teaser, the content of which alludes to Jesnails and time travel. Mr Blambourne guessed at Jesnails from having read previous Jesnails stories, and Detective Aliengirl later got the name by cracking the 'message ID' code.
10=J; 5=E; 19=S; 14=N; 1=A; 9=I; 12=L; 19=S.
Neither got the hints at time travel from the teaser, but it's worth mentioning an offhand, jokey guess that Mr Blambourne made when he was still only on the riddle:
'Does it mean that you've invented a time machine?'
Anyway, that's that. And although I've removed the chronology error since Jesnails was revealed, you can still get to the now not-so-cryptic teaser to glean anything else now that the context is known.
Rest assured that the first proper installments will be here sometime this century.
Labels: jesnails
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Press Release
So here am I, the shameless showman of the Fat Man In Tweed circus, announcing that the approximate third of 2006 remaining will be the most spectacular, most epic and most shocking yet witnessed by the two or three people who visit this website.
I'm excited. But then, it's a great excuse not to do any work.
But seriously. Dudes. Dudes. Get some loud and dramatic music of your choice playing, because lots of pretty major stuff is going to be happening. And at the end of December, 2006 will end like 2006 has never ended before. Just you wait.
So we should really kick things off. And to do so: a shiny new story.
On May 20th, a strange message appeared on the Fat Man In Tweed mainpage. Those with great astuteness and several nudgings in the right direction stumbled across this, a curious, ambiguous entry filled with clues to... something.
A month later a poster appeared, which was met with universal dumbfoundment.
Now let ye riddles be solved.
May I reintroduce to you: Jesnails.
Brought to you in a stylishly last-minute sort of way. Unfortunately, due to an unaccountable malfunction in time, only the prologue is going up tonight, but the first proper installment will be online very shortly (in two parts, because it's quite a bit bigger than we anticipated). We still met our deadline!
For those interested in a little bit of background, Jesnails first appeared at the end of 2005 as the result of some of the many bizarre conversations I have with friend Ella Turnbull. These led to Jesnails Returns, a Christmas story in which a strange, pseudomessianic figure appears, an individual with big hair and a passion for disco who is seen as a threat to the uncomfortable and rather inert dictatorship that currently has the somewhat indifferent population of the world in its grasp. Chaos ensues, with mercenary fake Santas, televangelists, drunken babies, psychotic judges, shotguns in teapots and lots and lots of beans all heading full-force into an explosive finale.
Jesnails made a surprise reappearance in April, in the last boardfic I did, SciBoard Resurrection, called on by the ultimately treacherous Mayor Electric to deal with the city's zombie infestation. A good portion of the city is destroyed towards the end when a giant stage and huge loudspeakers rise up from the ground and demolish the surrounding area, as Jesnails attempts to purge the city of its undead through the power of disco. She later inadvertently discovers the zombie's lair, in which her afrolights provide light for the others, and helps defeat the archzombie Zomborr by throwing a crucifix at him and knocking him off his high platform. Shortly after, she disappears.
And now she's back again, this time having earned the prestigious honour of being a main Fat Man In Tweed feature. This should probably be considered independant of her previous appearances, as her previous appearances were of each other, mostly for the sake of your own sanity.
But just what would happen if Jesnails was in possession of a time machine? We shall show you! Oh verily yes, we shall.
P.S. City of Anarchy will return in 2007.
I'm excited. But then, it's a great excuse not to do any work.
But seriously. Dudes. Dudes. Get some loud and dramatic music of your choice playing, because lots of pretty major stuff is going to be happening. And at the end of December, 2006 will end like 2006 has never ended before. Just you wait.
So we should really kick things off. And to do so: a shiny new story.
On May 20th, a strange message appeared on the Fat Man In Tweed mainpage. Those with great astuteness and several nudgings in the right direction stumbled across this, a curious, ambiguous entry filled with clues to... something.
A month later a poster appeared, which was met with universal dumbfoundment.
Now let ye riddles be solved.
May I reintroduce to you: Jesnails.
Brought to you in a stylishly last-minute sort of way. Unfortunately, due to an unaccountable malfunction in time, only the prologue is going up tonight, but the first proper installment will be online very shortly (in two parts, because it's quite a bit bigger than we anticipated). We still met our deadline!
For those interested in a little bit of background, Jesnails first appeared at the end of 2005 as the result of some of the many bizarre conversations I have with friend Ella Turnbull. These led to Jesnails Returns, a Christmas story in which a strange, pseudomessianic figure appears, an individual with big hair and a passion for disco who is seen as a threat to the uncomfortable and rather inert dictatorship that currently has the somewhat indifferent population of the world in its grasp. Chaos ensues, with mercenary fake Santas, televangelists, drunken babies, psychotic judges, shotguns in teapots and lots and lots of beans all heading full-force into an explosive finale.
Jesnails made a surprise reappearance in April, in the last boardfic I did, SciBoard Resurrection, called on by the ultimately treacherous Mayor Electric to deal with the city's zombie infestation. A good portion of the city is destroyed towards the end when a giant stage and huge loudspeakers rise up from the ground and demolish the surrounding area, as Jesnails attempts to purge the city of its undead through the power of disco. She later inadvertently discovers the zombie's lair, in which her afrolights provide light for the others, and helps defeat the archzombie Zomborr by throwing a crucifix at him and knocking him off his high platform. Shortly after, she disappears.
And now she's back again, this time having earned the prestigious honour of being a main Fat Man In Tweed feature. This should probably be considered independant of her previous appearances, as her previous appearances were of each other, mostly for the sake of your own sanity.
But just what would happen if Jesnails was in possession of a time machine? We shall show you! Oh verily yes, we shall.
P.S. City of Anarchy will return in 2007.
Labels: boardfic, city of anarchy, jesnails
Friday, July 28, 2006
Rattling On
City of Anarchy Chapter 4.
In which Snails tackles a classic Hollywood sequence.
And that's it for a while. Well, an even longer while than usual. I'm going to put CoA on the backburner now, for several reasons; the main being that I have a lot of figuring out to do with it. There's a bit of a mental block regarding how everything's going to come together. I wanted to get another chapter out this summer, and did, but now I've really pushed as far as I can go without getting completely stuck, and it requires some long and careful thinking.
Anyway, next up: this.
In which Snails tackles a classic Hollywood sequence.
And that's it for a while. Well, an even longer while than usual. I'm going to put CoA on the backburner now, for several reasons; the main being that I have a lot of figuring out to do with it. There's a bit of a mental block regarding how everything's going to come together. I wanted to get another chapter out this summer, and did, but now I've really pushed as far as I can go without getting completely stuck, and it requires some long and careful thinking.
Anyway, next up: this.
Labels: city of anarchy, jesnails
Saturday, June 24, 2006
About Time
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Status Report!
The stalled traffic allowed Sofia and the Agents to run across with ease, one or two of them even taking the opportunity to throw up their legs and slide stylishly across car bonnets.
'And once again the Agents proceed with their task with startling appreciation for aesthetics!' Sofia said, already some way ahead.
So, I started City of Anarchy Chapter 4. Two weeks ago. I haven't written any more since, but I have plenty of valid academic excuses for that.
Amelia's been doing bits and pieces of the next Starcustard chapter. I haven't done any yet, but: fear not! I will.
Before any of that, however, I will be working on The Aberration. For the next chapter, I'll be introducing some stuff that I've had in my head for so long I'll have to blow the dust off before putting it to use. Be excited. Lots will be happening.
Unfortunately, exams are a priority at the moment, and I probably won't be doing much else until they're over with.
One final note: no, the strange message on the front page isn't just me being weird again. Apply your brains to it, dudes. See what happens.
Labels: city of anarchy, excerpts, jesnails, starcustard, the aberration
Monday, May 01, 2006
Mayday
So, after two weeks of intense writing, then a week of nothing as school hit, yesterday the belated SciBoard Resurrection finale was posted. There are some characters I didn't manage to get in when I would have liked to because of changes I made, but overall I'm happy with it.
It was fun returning to some of the old characters, like the Plaid One and the drag queens, as well as thinking up new ones, like Ambassador Hsing and Cyn. Of course, so many people who featured in the old one have moved on since it ended, so there were a lot of characters who were simply cut out for Resurrection, and this made it quite different to the original in many ways. The entire Underworld was removed, for example, and their function replaced by a small special ops team.
But I think it was still very much SciBoard, even if it's impossible to call it a direct sequel and even though there were both major and minor differences, and once again the world has been faced with its end and a group of oddball characters with strange quirks and unusual motives have found themselves having to sort it out.
As my final boardfic, I think I've ended the whole thing on a good note.
It was fun returning to some of the old characters, like the Plaid One and the drag queens, as well as thinking up new ones, like Ambassador Hsing and Cyn. Of course, so many people who featured in the old one have moved on since it ended, so there were a lot of characters who were simply cut out for Resurrection, and this made it quite different to the original in many ways. The entire Underworld was removed, for example, and their function replaced by a small special ops team.
But I think it was still very much SciBoard, even if it's impossible to call it a direct sequel and even though there were both major and minor differences, and once again the world has been faced with its end and a group of oddball characters with strange quirks and unusual motives have found themselves having to sort it out.
As my final boardfic, I think I've ended the whole thing on a good note.
Labels: boardfic, jesnails, zombies
Monday, April 10, 2006
Boardfic
So.
In the past few years, most writing I've done for online viewing has been for the various websites I've worked on, ultimately leading up to FMIT. But for almost as long, there's been another side to the whole thing. Namely, boardfic.
'Boardfic' was the name given by a small online community to fictional stories, usually humorous ones, about the members. I like writing them because they don't have the same demand as the stuff I put up on FMIT (they're usually consciously bad quality, a bit like Bananas and Laxatives was), because I get to make even less sense than I do in other writing, and because, selfishly, I get a kick out of the response, which is generally bemused but positive (I think). It's partly boardfic's fault that the progress of other projects has been so slow.
The community itself started out as the weird outcome of an unmoderated message board for the works of Terry Pratchett, based on the publisher's site (it moved about a year ago after disruptive troll activity). Whereas most message boards aimed at fans of something will have endless amounts of discussion and jokes about whatever it is the message board was actually intended for, the members of this one, probably due to the lack of moderators, didn't really talk about Pratchett all that much. The off-topic section, misleadingly titled 'Discworld Novels', was the biggest forum, and the others were pretty much inactive.
A funny kind of unserious microsociety had sprouted based on copious in-jokes that had nothing to do with Pratchett, and boardfics were a result of that. It probably deflected a lot of people visiting to the site, but apparently it wasn't a bad place for people like me who were casual fans (and I've met quite a few good friends there, who I still talk to even if they've moved on). To all intents and purposes, it was (and still is) pretty...well, pointless. A community for people who liked Pratchett but didn't really want to keep talking about him. I know I wouldn't have stuck around for more than a week if it was what it was supposed to be, having come across it by idly looking around at Pratchett-related stuff one day. After moving to a new place to escape the trolls, it's still advertised as a Terry Pratchett message board, but we couldn't really have made it anything else ('Sort Of Terry Pratchett But Not Really' somehow wouldn't have worked).
I've written a few boardfics. The first, Festive Destruction, was a short Christmas one in 2003 with practically no plot at all; the second one, The April Fools was a slightly longer Easter-themed sequel with slightly more plot (posted towards the end of a period of a few months where half the front page was occupied by boardfics, mostly direct, board-based parodies of books and other stuff). The most recent was Jesnails Returns, written with Ella Turnbull at the end of last year. City of Anarchy also started out as a boardfic, until I decided I had bigger plans for it.
But the biggest boardfic I've done, started only a week after The April Fools, and the longest running (April 2004 to February 2005), was SciBoard Fiction. SBF contained anything and everything.
The first 'episode' was about a man auditioning for a musical (of someone else's boardfic) at the Big Theatre and ending up as the third member of a group of cannibalistic drag queen henchmen.
The second episode followed the story of the Plaid One, a superhero whose very existence is challenged by the arrival of another superhero who is slightly better at the job and an evil goat she foolishly saved from the slopes of a volcano just before it errupted (completely missing the small village at its base).
The third episode was the SBF version of how two members of the board became a couple (although it never actually got that far), one an unsuccessful mime artist and the other a grammar obsessive, who ended up meeting each other through trying to destroy a tapestry that could tell the future, which had been set up in an extension of space-time on the stage of the Big Theatre (it was called the 'Tripod Tapestry', named after a board-based webcomic that had been started).
The fourth chronicled the events leading up to and following an alien invasion, with the shady Underworld and the 'World Above' having to team up to fight them off. It culminated in an insane Christmas Day finale with the protagonist Chimaera and several other characters (including the Plaid One, who had just woken up from a coma she fell into at the end of Episode 2) trying to destroy the impregnated 'mother' alien who was firing her offspring out like ammunition whilst sat in the Queen of the Underworld's throne. The Big Theatre was even blown up at the end.
The fifth and final episode followed the desperate conquest of a mix-and-match of surviving characters from previous episodes trying to stop the world from ending, which was happening because so much weird shit had gone on with the superheros and the tapestry and the aliens and stuff. The climax was with the characters interacting with Ba, a supernatural, 'god'-like presence, through a giant, ethereal BaMessenger™ window (an instant messaging service that had appeared throughout SBF, from the mysterious opening scene in the first episode to acting as means of aid and information to characters from others during the course of their adventures).
It was filled with references to the most obscure things as well as numerous board in-jokes and any strange and spare idea I had. And now, for a short, one-off episode, it's back. Some old SBF themes are continued, but it's a standalone story, not a proper sequel, and also less heavy on the in-jokes, so you should be able to follow it without getting too confused. Hopefully.
So...
Just for Easter, here's one final tip of the hat to this strange and unusual genre. SciBoard Resurrection. Enjoy.
Edit: link updated.
In the past few years, most writing I've done for online viewing has been for the various websites I've worked on, ultimately leading up to FMIT. But for almost as long, there's been another side to the whole thing. Namely, boardfic.
'Boardfic' was the name given by a small online community to fictional stories, usually humorous ones, about the members. I like writing them because they don't have the same demand as the stuff I put up on FMIT (they're usually consciously bad quality, a bit like Bananas and Laxatives was), because I get to make even less sense than I do in other writing, and because, selfishly, I get a kick out of the response, which is generally bemused but positive (I think). It's partly boardfic's fault that the progress of other projects has been so slow.
The community itself started out as the weird outcome of an unmoderated message board for the works of Terry Pratchett, based on the publisher's site (it moved about a year ago after disruptive troll activity). Whereas most message boards aimed at fans of something will have endless amounts of discussion and jokes about whatever it is the message board was actually intended for, the members of this one, probably due to the lack of moderators, didn't really talk about Pratchett all that much. The off-topic section, misleadingly titled 'Discworld Novels', was the biggest forum, and the others were pretty much inactive.
A funny kind of unserious microsociety had sprouted based on copious in-jokes that had nothing to do with Pratchett, and boardfics were a result of that. It probably deflected a lot of people visiting to the site, but apparently it wasn't a bad place for people like me who were casual fans (and I've met quite a few good friends there, who I still talk to even if they've moved on). To all intents and purposes, it was (and still is) pretty...well, pointless. A community for people who liked Pratchett but didn't really want to keep talking about him. I know I wouldn't have stuck around for more than a week if it was what it was supposed to be, having come across it by idly looking around at Pratchett-related stuff one day. After moving to a new place to escape the trolls, it's still advertised as a Terry Pratchett message board, but we couldn't really have made it anything else ('Sort Of Terry Pratchett But Not Really' somehow wouldn't have worked).
I've written a few boardfics. The first, Festive Destruction, was a short Christmas one in 2003 with practically no plot at all; the second one, The April Fools was a slightly longer Easter-themed sequel with slightly more plot (posted towards the end of a period of a few months where half the front page was occupied by boardfics, mostly direct, board-based parodies of books and other stuff). The most recent was Jesnails Returns, written with Ella Turnbull at the end of last year. City of Anarchy also started out as a boardfic, until I decided I had bigger plans for it.
But the biggest boardfic I've done, started only a week after The April Fools, and the longest running (April 2004 to February 2005), was SciBoard Fiction. SBF contained anything and everything.
The first 'episode' was about a man auditioning for a musical (of someone else's boardfic) at the Big Theatre and ending up as the third member of a group of cannibalistic drag queen henchmen.
The second episode followed the story of the Plaid One, a superhero whose very existence is challenged by the arrival of another superhero who is slightly better at the job and an evil goat she foolishly saved from the slopes of a volcano just before it errupted (completely missing the small village at its base).
The third episode was the SBF version of how two members of the board became a couple (although it never actually got that far), one an unsuccessful mime artist and the other a grammar obsessive, who ended up meeting each other through trying to destroy a tapestry that could tell the future, which had been set up in an extension of space-time on the stage of the Big Theatre (it was called the 'Tripod Tapestry', named after a board-based webcomic that had been started).
The fourth chronicled the events leading up to and following an alien invasion, with the shady Underworld and the 'World Above' having to team up to fight them off. It culminated in an insane Christmas Day finale with the protagonist Chimaera and several other characters (including the Plaid One, who had just woken up from a coma she fell into at the end of Episode 2) trying to destroy the impregnated 'mother' alien who was firing her offspring out like ammunition whilst sat in the Queen of the Underworld's throne. The Big Theatre was even blown up at the end.
The fifth and final episode followed the desperate conquest of a mix-and-match of surviving characters from previous episodes trying to stop the world from ending, which was happening because so much weird shit had gone on with the superheros and the tapestry and the aliens and stuff. The climax was with the characters interacting with Ba, a supernatural, 'god'-like presence, through a giant, ethereal BaMessenger™ window (an instant messaging service that had appeared throughout SBF, from the mysterious opening scene in the first episode to acting as means of aid and information to characters from others during the course of their adventures).
It was filled with references to the most obscure things as well as numerous board in-jokes and any strange and spare idea I had. And now, for a short, one-off episode, it's back. Some old SBF themes are continued, but it's a standalone story, not a proper sequel, and also less heavy on the in-jokes, so you should be able to follow it without getting too confused. Hopefully.
So...
Just for Easter, here's one final tip of the hat to this strange and unusual genre. SciBoard Resurrection. Enjoy.
Edit: link updated.
Labels: boardfic, i am the ramblemaster, jesnails, zombies
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Welcome...to the Year of the Happening
An optimistic title maybe, but a good way to start things.
Almost a year in the making, it's about time Fat Man In Tweed got online. I know what I have to do, and now it's just a case of doing it.
The Aberration, City of Anarchy, Starcustard. That's it, now. That's the launchlist. No more changing it. No zombie games. Just those three things to work on. As well as any half-decent drawings I churn out along the way, although that's not going to be much.
I hope you all enjoyed Jesnails Returns, by the way. For about three weeks, since finishing my part of Starcustard Chapter 5, this project has received pretty much all my attention (apart from doing birthday art). It was something that was just going to be a quick, really short story that we could rattle off really easily, but then it grew and grew with all the insane ideas we had, and in this last week we've had to work pretty hard to get it done. I think it turned out good, though.
But after working on nothing else for weeks, it's such a feeling of accomplishment now that we've finished it. I'm wondering whether to do the same with the other things I now need to work on, instead of kind of flitting from one to the other. I think I get more done this way, and if you're working on this one thing non-stop, you can really get emersed in it.
But which to work on first?
Happy New Year, by the way.
Almost a year in the making, it's about time Fat Man In Tweed got online. I know what I have to do, and now it's just a case of doing it.
The Aberration, City of Anarchy, Starcustard. That's it, now. That's the launchlist. No more changing it. No zombie games. Just those three things to work on. As well as any half-decent drawings I churn out along the way, although that's not going to be much.
I hope you all enjoyed Jesnails Returns, by the way. For about three weeks, since finishing my part of Starcustard Chapter 5, this project has received pretty much all my attention (apart from doing birthday art). It was something that was just going to be a quick, really short story that we could rattle off really easily, but then it grew and grew with all the insane ideas we had, and in this last week we've had to work pretty hard to get it done. I think it turned out good, though.
But after working on nothing else for weeks, it's such a feeling of accomplishment now that we've finished it. I'm wondering whether to do the same with the other things I now need to work on, instead of kind of flitting from one to the other. I think I get more done this way, and if you're working on this one thing non-stop, you can really get emersed in it.
But which to work on first?
Happy New Year, by the way.
Labels: jesnails, starcustard, the aberration, zombies
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Jesnailsmastime
I have one last thing to offer before 2006 arrives. A joint effort with Ella 'Snails' Turnbull, and heavily featuring both of us (not that we're egotistic or anything...), we bring you a story that was originally intended to be a brief two-part collaboration posted on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but that we ended up having too many ideas for, so we've had to extend it a little.
There's now going to be several installments, starting today and taking you right up to the new year. It's slightly in-jokey, but not too muchly so.
Jesnails Returns.
We hope you enjoy. :) Happy holidays.
Edit: link updated.
There's now going to be several installments, starting today and taking you right up to the new year. It's slightly in-jokey, but not too muchly so.
Jesnails Returns.
We hope you enjoy. :) Happy holidays.
Edit: link updated.
Labels: jesnails
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