Feidlimid MacSwinith, Immortal Entertainer

Hijacking my own blog to post a quickly-devised character for the Katanas & Trenchcoats system, which is currently in the last few days of a successful Kickstarter campaign. What? You haven't backed it yet? Go check it out now! Both myself and Corey Reid are going to be writing for it, along with a host of others. 

Anyway, here's my verrrrrrry long intro story. Notes at the bottom if you don't have the time.

Even back here in her dressing room she could hear the crowd chanting her name, calling for her with a hunger they weren’t even aware of. Different monikers, different stages, different eras – it didn’t matter. Many sought the spotlight. Some were able to cast a brief shadow. A lucky few remained long enough to bask in the glow, to feel the kiss of adoration, even for just a moment in the grand scheme of things.

Feidlimid MacSwinith was the damn spotlight. She always had been and damn well planned to continue to be so, although that was becoming . . . tricky. Right now all was well, as evidenced by those screaming her name. Faith . . . Faith . . . Faith. Not as catchy as some of her previous identities, but far less likely to get her burned at the stake again. Sure, faking religious visions and leading the French against the English at Orleans may have seemed to be the role of a lifetime, but she’d only agreed to do it because (XX) had insisted. While she preferred to follow her own path one did not refuse a direct order from the head of House Orphis without fear of retribution. Being burned alive had hurt, though, and her relationship with her house - her former House – had become strained, to put it mildly. Nothing that having (XX)’s head on a platter wouldn’t mend, though. Not that she hadn’t tried. Staying in the public eye appealed to her for many reasons, not the least of which was that her continued existence was undoubtedly sticking in (XX)’s craw. Sooner or later it would be too much to ignore and scores would be settled, once and for all. In the meantime – spotlight.

Faith Eternal examined herself in the massive mirror before her, the harsh lights failing to uncover much in the way of flaws. She looked good for someone born in the ‘70s – 874 B.C., to be exact. Dabbing on rouge always reminded her of war paint instead. Blood, too. A brief chuckle surfaced at the thought of herself as a ‘Milesian,’ the ignorant fiction of those determined to insert their god into her narrative. Aye, but there’s a grain of or two of truth sprinkled in among the dung, is there not?

She bit her lip and took a deep breath, willing back the tears that threatened to make an appearance. She would not think about them. She would not dwell on her, on the lilt of her laugh, on the mischief in her eyes, on the ballad she closes every show with that’s an homage, an invitation. She will not brood on him, on his scent in the morning, on his grace and agility, on his betrayal, on his expression, the final one, the look of incredulity he bore as she separated his head from his neck. A twitch of her hand brought the weapon guilty of the deed to her hand. Not a pretty blade, in no way elegant, dinted and scarred yet bearing edges so sharp they could make the very air bleed. Hers since the day she woke up at the bottom of a cliff with a ringing headache and a hunger for vengeance. His first husband had thought the rough side of her tongue was the most cutting thing about her. Learned the hard way, that one did.

They always underestimated her. It was something she had learned to depend on, to use to her advantage. The banshee who didn’t think Faith could sing her down, couldn’t show her what real keening was? Her power still flowed through Faith’s veins, the prize from a combat Faith hadn’t really understood but had won anyway. A battle so epic it required a recuperative nap spanning the better part of a decade – but what was time to her? A construct that didn’t matter, an abstract without meaning. These brief mortals, so eager to sip from the glory of experiencing her. Had she not given some of the greatest performances in history? Trod the boards of the Globe – that fool who wrote Shakespeare in Love may have benefitted by stumbling over one of her lost journals but at least had the common sense – or raving ego – to claim the idea as one of his own creation. Those within her House were aware that another Orphite had been behind the whole Jesus Christ thing, but it would have been her role if there wasn’t going to be so many topless moments. Bloody Romans and their crucifixions. She’d been there as an apostle, though, her disguise solid to the end. 

She paused while drawing in laugh lines, the rare entertainer trying to add years, to take out a tattered remnant of a blanket, the fabric all but a ghost by now. The wool was coarse and crude, yet softened by time and memory. Made in a simpler time, part of a dowry for a bed that needed no extra warming in the beginning. After a moment she tucked it away again, making sure there was nobody else around to see it. All these damn cameras, at first a blessing and now a plague. The speed and accuracy with which information was gathered and shared these days was a major concern, especially since her test had confirmed what she feared – face-altering plastic surgery was ineffective, her body ‘healing’ the changes much as it would any other damage. How long would she be able to be in the world’s eye before someone noticed that Faith Eternal didn’t age? Even if she went away and managed to stay out of the public eye for ten years, twenty years, even a hundred, no matter how much she changed her look, dyed her hair, sang opera instead of pop – it wouldn’t matter. They’d know her and there would be questions. Besides, she could no sooner dampen her artistic flame than pull the very Sun from the sky. No, this was a problem, a serious problem . . .

Faith . . . Faith . . . Faith . . .

A problem for another day. Banishing her weapon, Feidlimid MacSwinith rose from her chair and headed off to meet her adoring masses. The spotlight was waiting for her, as is always had, as it always would.

Teel Deer version:

Rebirth: 870 BC

House: Orphis, currently estranged. It’s complicated. No, wait, it isn’t. She wants to kill the head of the House for what he did, but she can’t find him.

Personal Tragedy: A long, long history of Bad Relationships. Her first husband pushed her off a cliff. Her former best friend and her lover conspired to try to permakill her. She’s not quite self-aware enough yet to consider that maybe, just maybe, it’s her.

Badass Rep: She outsang/outwailed a banshee and stole its power for herself. She hacked the head off a lover who crossed her. Her sword looks like a fencepost pounded straight yet it cuts through steel like butter. Men and women crawl at her feet in hopes of having her gaze at them. She’s pure charisma in Immortal form.

Inner Deal: She needs to be in front of others, being admired, being worshipped. She craves the attention like a flower needs sunlight and without it she fears she’ll wither and fade. Also she’s not the easiest person to be involved with, you know?

Historical Influence: Adept at hiding in plain sight. Joan of Arc. A performer for Shakespeare in a time when women weren’t allowed to act. One of the apostles (she’s not saying which). Currently one of the biggest pop stars/actors in the world.

Throne of Comfort: The threadbare remains of her first marriage blanket, now just a handspan in size

Unyielding Yearning: To be immortal artistically as well, to pay back those who have wronged her, to find a lover that is the right one. And who doesn’t try to kill her, because that keeps happening

You Just Keep on Trying 'Til You Run Out of Cake

Whoa. Look at all the dust. Place looks like a haunted house. SPOOOOOOKY. Let's do some spring cleaning, shall we?

Writing/Editing: Staying busy here. Still dragging my feet on finding an agent for Boneyard Gods, but mainly because I'm busy elsewhere. I want to (I know, I know) tweak the opening chapter a bit to give it more teeth. In the meantime the goofy lark I was going to write a chapter of as a joke is now beyond 40k words with my goal being 50k, so that's uhm, almost done. What is it? Out of my comfort zone to be sure, but it seems not so horrible so who knows. I've been chosen to be one of the (many) writers for the Katanas and Trenchcoats RPG, although I don't yet know how large of small my role will be. In any case it felt good to pass the audition and get my foot in the gaming world, so to speak. I have a character coming out affiliated with TimeWatch but that was a patron perk as opposed to being hired to to something. Editing-wise I've been doing some work for an SAT prep company and will hopefully be able to finish up the book I'd been working on for two friends that hit a hiatus, albeit for a very good reason.
Short stories have been a little frustrating lately, although Stupefying Stories looks like they've started publishing again and so hopefully we'll see the story of mine they've been sitting on for a while soon. One of my other ones has been heartbreaking - first it was kept by a mag for 6 months before they told me more-or-less that it was the final story cut from the anthology, and now it was just rejected by MZB's Sword and Sorceress book with the personal note, "This is a perfectly good story, but it doesn't quite have the feel I want for Sword and Sorceress. Try this on another market." I mean, yay, I know it's good, but was hoping for a win in a major market. Semipros, here I come. I also have an idea for a different novel and something for a graphic novel howling to get out as well. Moar tyme pleeze.

Life in general: Is bonkers, really. My Google calendar looks like a rainbow barfed on it. The Boy gave up on karate and it didn't take much prodding from Lola for me to slip back into my gi. In addition to hockey and gaming I'm coaching both baseball and softball, and Zack's doing dance, Becky's skating and just finished her play . . . there's a lot going on. Too much, at times, and too many things I can't do because of demands. Basically my weekends are shot until . . . July, maybe? Plus I have another night of hockey starting up in June. BECAUSE I WASN'T BUSY ENOUGH YET. Plus I have to cook for an upcoming con, and prep a game for said con, and write some adventures for a friend's LARP, and do a million things around the house, and win Hamilton lottery tickets, and . . . busy times, my friends, busy times.

What's With The Corner?

Updates of stuff. Let's start with hockey because why not? Specific efforts have been made to improve my goaltending. First, as an Xmas present from my long-suffering wife I took a semi-private lesson with a coach who wasn't a YouTube video. His name was Jim and the rink we were in was about twice the size of the room you're in - go ahead, look around and soak that in and if you're in a library just forget you read that - and to say it was helpful would win an award for understatement of the year.

Basically I, as can be expected, was doing pretty much everything wrong. He changed the way I moved, the way I stood, the way I dropped, the way I filled my water bottle . . . okay, not the last one.I was excited to take what I'd learned and try it out before my next game filling in at goalie for the Scurvy Dogs.

Didn't happen.

In addition, our regular goalie found a pad upgrade for me on some sort of goalie network while at the same time suggesting that the ancient, well-traveled pads I was using now might just be holding me back a bit. So for a ridiculously small amount of money a set of gently used pads/glove/blocker were shipped in from Canada THE HOME OF HOCKEY. They're huge, big puffy white slabs of goodness that make me feel like my previous pads had been railroad ties I'd been strapping to my legs. I looked forward to getting to try them before my next game filling in at goalie for the Scurvy Dogs.

Didn't happen.

No, via a combination of free tickets, kids things, and a blizzard I went into my game having never even had the pads on before, having not tested out my new bounty of knowledge. Which Kit was going to show up? The one who had those glorious two nights in the fall or the one who coughed up 13 during the Mustangs' slow slog as league whipping boys?

Meh. Somewhere in the middle. I did okay, I guess. We lost 3-1, which isn't too bad, and I didn't get beat by any dead-on shots. The first goal was a shot I didn't see that caught me wandering off the post when the shooter came out of the corner in traffic. The second was a rebound after the guy drove out of the corner and then dove or was knocked down. Either way he scored while on his stomach, flicking it in as I dove to cover it with 7.2 seconds left in the 2nd period. DAMMIT. That made it 2-1, and the goal they got in the 3rd was a pass from the corner (again! Ye gods, what the hell was going on with the corner?) that went to someone uncovered coming down the slot. Never had a chance on that one. I don't know how many saves I made, but it was a few. There was still a lot of scrambling and being out of position and not recovering quickly enough because I'm freaking old and lack flexibility but the combination of better equipment and actual training seemed to help. We gave a pretty good team a challenging game and it was fun. I get to be goalie against another top team this week, but at least they kicked their mini-Gretzky out of the league for being too good.

Staying busy otherwise. Still plodding along on my website, but as soon as I get it launched I'll announce availability as a freelance editor/writer. Not that I'm not available now, but it'll seem more professional to have a site to point to. Writing every morning on a possibly silly project that turning out to be both challenging and fun to create, and I can only hope it fits the bill of what they're looking for. The inclement weather has caused work to pick up, which is a good thing. Getting ready to sign the kids up for softball/baseball and will be coaching as well. Looking forward to Rabbitcon. Irked at numerous scheduling conflicts in the future. STILL waiting on an Xmas present for Lola, but sure it'll be worth it. Either a great idea or a total flop. Nursing along a sprained wrist after being slewfooted in the previous week's game. Chalked off all of Friday night for XCom 2 playing. Priorities, gang. Priorities.

Okay. Have to go move things to allow for the delivery of a new washing machine. TRY TO CONTAIN YOUR ENVY

It's In the Playbook. Really. Also the State of the Month

It all went according to plan.

Last night our intrepid Scurvy Dogs were locked in mortal battle against the Blue Devils. With about 3 minutes left we were down 1-0, having hit at least 3 posts and missing about a bazillion should-have-been goals. We were pressing, trying to get the equalizing goal, and suddenly I found myself scrambling back to defend against a two on one (did I mention I was playing defense instead of goalie? Probably not. I played defense last night. Rusty as a screen door at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, but whatchagonnado). I got to my blue line and spun, in good position to force the puck-carrier wide while cutting off his passing lane.

Then I caught an edge and wiped out.

How long, do you figure, does it take a body to go from upright to prone? A second or so, right? Pretty quick. Yet that tumble to the ice took an eternity for me, long enough for the following to flash through my head:
-Shit. This isn't good.
-Losing 2-0 is the same as losing 1-0 in the standings.
- Shit. I was even for the game.
-Are the people of Manitowoc all that blind and clueless? Really?
-Oh hey there's the ice ow

I had an advantage, though - I wasn't playing goalie. Instead it was our much, much better goalie Chaz, who stopped the guy who breezed past my sprawling form. I would like to take a moment to note that Chaz had played a game in goal about 3 hours earlier for one of his 346 other teams. Ah, to be young again. Anyway, one of our forwards picked the puck up on the backcheck, skated the length of the ice, and finally got one past their goalie to tie the game up.

JUST LIKE I PLANNED IT. Some Wile E. Coyote-level sooooopah genius stuff there, my friend. And did we win the ensuing shootout? Of course. Chaz doesn't lose shootouts. So now we find ourselves at 4-5, already with more wins than last year's 3-14 campaign. Is this a contract year for me?

(I better mention that Jeff G. played in the earlier game as well, otherwise he might invert my L6 lumbar or some other spinal thingie)
 In other news, goalies be goalie-ing. I've started my program of hitting clinic for reps and was rewarded by being pelted by eager skaters who hadn't had a puck sponge show up for a month. By the time we got to scrimmaging at the end of clinic I was so exhausted I could barely stand up.Old goalie is old. And because I'm not enough of a glutton for punishment I have a semi-private lesson with a goaltending coach on Saturday. Hopefully I'll be taught how to play, uhm, goal. Seriously. I'm just winging this thing right now.

Other things since I update on a lunar cycle:

The Boy got his blue belt Saturday, but I'm still waiting for the love of karate switch to flick on in his head. He likes it, he has fun, but he's not excited about practicing on his own or pumped up for sparring or whatever. I sat there DYING watching the kids spar for their tests, wanted to be out there SO MUCH. Well, not against the kids. The temptation is huge to start taking classes and thoroughly encouraged by my wife (SILENCE FOUL TEMPTRESS) but I just can't make that sort of time commitment right now. I have hockey 2 nights a week and gaming one night a week. Lola has derby at least one night, sometimes two a week. The kids still enjoy me reading to them, and if I started taking class two nights a week that would almost vanish. Plus if I'm serious about adding more clients on for editing/writing I need to have time to do the work (the websites and cajoling for work will come soon, I promise). So, I think for now I'll have to (regretfully) hold off. I need to take care of far too many things, PLUS I need start actively trying to find a gorram agent for the damn book I wrote, and get more stories out into the world, and keep working on this ridiculously silly writing thing I'm trying to do, and do construction for the play Becky's doing, and coach softball and baseball, and . . . I'm pretty busy.

Plus XCom2 comes out February 5th. I gotta keep my priorities STRAIGHT.

I Thought Elpis Didn't Get Out! - A Season In Goal

My first season* as a hockey goaltender ended this past Tuesday night, and it's not difficult to pinpoint the spot where things went awry. During the last week of October I had my regular gig for the Mustangs on a Tuesday and a fill-in game in goal the following night with the Scurvy Dogs, the team I usually play defense for. Two game in two nights was a recipe for disaster, but instead I lost the Mustangs game in a shootout, 5-4, and then somehow won the next game 3-1. Both sets of teammates were amazed (although none more so than me) but my exploits did a terrible thing - it allowed them to hope.

See, I went in knowing I was going to be terrible. I'm 47 and learning how to play a high-skill position with a marked lack of agility, lousy equipment, and zero formal training. My goal (ha!) was to keep the score against me under double digits each game, which is not as easy as it sounds. So when my goals given up went in successive games from 9 to 7 to 4 to 1 I got a false sense of confidence. Even worse, my teammates on the Mustangs got it too (the Scurvy Dogs were familiar enough with me to know I'd gotten lucky). Their expectations went up even as the law of averages began to exert itself. I had a couple of pretty lousy games in a row before somewhat straightening myself out this week - giving up 7 doesn't sound sexy, I know, but I faced at least 40 shots and the last two goals came at the end when we were shuffling guys around. I had a guy playing D in front of me who had no idea what he was doing and screened me so that I never saw the sixth goal, only felt it as it clanged off my cup on the way in (hurrah for the double cup. Hur-effing-rah). I ended up with a GAA of 8.22, which is  . . . nah, there's no way to spin that. It sucks, even if a few of my teammates have been gracious enough to suggest that our forwards were not exactly obsessed with fulfilling their defensive responsibilities. All I can do is try to make it better next season.

As for when I'll get that shot, I'm not sure. The Mustangs are on hiatus as the captain takes a season (or more) off and the others move to different teams. I was offered a skating spot with some of my teammates but am choosing instead to go to the adult hockey clinic once a week, where I'll be pelted with pucks by skilled players for the better part of an hour with nobody keeping score. It's the kind of no-pressure reps that I need, combined with a couple of semi-private lessons that Santa is rumored to be bringing me. Maybe that'll make me better. Not likely to make me worse.

* speaking of seasons, if you haven't been watching the just-concluded second season of Fargo you should probably do so when it becomes available again in February. Fantastic stuff.

Bells Will Be Ringing . . .

The chill from the ice felt good, even though the bars of my goalie mask kept me from actually touching it with my face. I was sweaty, repulsively so, with the absorbing band against my forehead losing a slow battle of attrition. It would have been nice to stay there for a while to cool off, to just relax for a bit and take a break from the barrage of pucks I'd been pelted with. But there was a game to finish, another ten minutes to play, so I needed to end my brief respite and somehow manage to release from the tight ball I was curled into. There had been a momentous collision between the puck and, well, my junk. My wedding tackle. My doo-dads. My, for fans of Jennifer Roberson, gehittes. Whatever you want to call it, I'd taken one in the chops.

Of course, it couldn't have been anything like a wrist or snap shot. No, this was a full-on slap shot, which for those unfamiliar with hockey is when a player about thirty feet away or so winds up like a spring and shoots the puck as hard as they can. The primary intent is to blast it into the net, but I'm of the opinion that most figure that creaming the goalie is a decent consolation prize. According to Guinness (the record people, not the beer) the fastest/hardest slap shot on record was clocked at 110mph (by Denis Kulyash of Avangard Omsk during the Russian All-Star game in 2011, in case you were curious and you probably were) and while it's safe to say the one that picked my ticket was nowhere near that zippy, it still packed a punch. I didn't drop to my knees. Not because I'm so manly but rather because I was already dropping to my knees to make the save due to being screened (people between me and the shooter - the offensive team does this on purpose) and not knowing exactly where it was coming from. So yes, part of a goalie's job is to just place themselves in a likely position and hope they get hit. There's enough padding to keep you safe - hell, my chest armor is like +2 splint mail - as long as you don't get hit where it ain't. Now I do have a cup - a Shock Doctor rig that fits right into compression shorts - but it still felt like someone had put a telephone book next to my stuff and hit it with a baseball bat. Kids, a telephone book was a big thick thing people used to use to find phone numbers. The hitting-a-phone-book-with-a-baseball-bat analogy was one that was used to describe the force with which Mike Tyson used to punch people. Kids, Mike Tyson is the guy with the mansion in the first Hangover movie. He used to be a frighteningly scary boxer until the crazy took over. Was I actually hit that hard? No. Maybe? I don't know. It hurt.

My wife Lola was at the game to witness all my goaltending grandeur, watching from the warmth of the upstairs viewing gallery. In the rink below her were four or five women who were wearing 'Slot Rocket Hockey Wives' shirts (Slot Rockets being the unfortunate name of the team we were playing) who were filming the game in addition to cheering and, uhm, howling. This is what Lola told me. I lack rabbit ears. Anyway, according to Lola while I was curled up on the ice they started cheering. Now if I'd given up a goal I could understand that but ladies, my giblets made the save. Hold your huzzahs for positive things.

Since there's no such thing as a back-up goalie in beer league hockey I had to soldier on, and unfortunately said giblets couldn't stop a couple of goals over the next few minutes. I should have made the saves but for some reason the whole 'feeling like I had rusty daggers plunged into my lower stomach' cut down on my mobility. I'd already given up a bunch before, although I could argue that none of those were what you'd call bad goals. Evidently the lunatics I have for teammates agree because they actually cheered me when I lumbered into the locker room after the game, saying it would have been 20-5 instead of 9-5 as a final if I hadn't done so well, and one of those nine was an empty-netter. Clearly they were all either already drunk (a possibility, as again there were a number of beers present on the bench during the game) or are just delusional. Either way works for me, as being a goalie with zero pressure other than to show up and, well, be willing to get up off the ice after taking a puck to the boys, is a wonderful opportunity and a great time.

Except for the whole getting hit in the package thing. I'll have to work on that.

Humble Pie a la Mode, Please

Most of my experiences playing goal are able to be sorted into neat little categories. For example, most of my games go into the 'We're outclassed talent-wise and I'm facing a bajillion shots so just use it as a learning experience' bin, wherein I do my best to ignore how many got past me and focus of why they did and how to stop them next time. Then there's 'Well that went better than expected' which is a variant of the previous one but with fewer goals against. Last week debuted two new slots: "Screwed up some but kept it close enough for us to have a shot' and 'Holy crap I didn't screw it up and we won OMG OMG OMG WTF', both of which are welcome additions.

This week? 'Wow, that was ugly and I basically destroyed any chance my team had in a winnable game'. Not as awesome, that one. I'll spare you the (boring and) gory details, but we lost 9-6 and I should have stopped at least 5 of those. I suppose I should have been surprised given my relative successes last week, but there was some sort of weird vibe going on. Not with my team - the Mustangs are so laid back that not only do they drink beers pregame, one of the players brought three cans to the bench for between shifts. Usually I'm filled with giddy excitement to go play, like a can of Coke someone shook up. I never had that this week, although I have no idea why. The stress of shuffling kids around pre-game? Anxiety over deadlines on a freelance job? Impostor's syndrome being a jerkweed? A million other things going on right now causing me to fret? Maybe, but normally when I hit the ice all that stuff gets left behind the boards. Not so much this time, though, and it showed. We should have won. I should have been better.

Still, I try not to beat myself up too much. First, it's a freaking game. Two, I'm a forty-seven year old doofus with zero flexibility trying to play goal with no training beyond watching a few YouTube videos. I've been doing this for like four months with leg pads that cause other goalies to shake their heads with pity at the sight of them. While I hate disappointing my teammates, I have to be realistic - I'm an old, clueless rookie. A noob. A neophyte. First level goalie with zero feats. It's supposed to be a learning experience and dammit, most of all, it's supposed to be fun. And it's going to be, especially if I can ever remember to bring some GF beer so I can drink too.

Post game only, though. Don't drink and goalie.