Grump Grump Grump...

[chibi_trillian]

I shipped off my tsunami relief submissions Saturday evening.  Woo!  Finally!  I wound up using a different MK one than I wanted to, because my frazzled self stalled out on the fic I was working on for the CD.  I think I'm going to cut what I've got now in half and turn it into two different stories.  It just makes more sense, ne?  

I got to see Ong-Bak and Constantine this weekend.  Constantine was phenominal for a Keanu Reaves movie, made my supernatural horror chibi go squee, and was, to quote Plotbunny_Tiff, "the longest Truth ad I've ever seen."  When you piss off the Devil enough that he'd rather save your life than let you go to Heaven, that's badass.  Ong-Bak was just...wow.  The lead actor rivals Jackie Chan when he was young.  The movie was phenomenal.  The audience was not so cool.  Listening to the unhappy mumbles in the theater when people figure out that the movie's subtitled was annoying.  Listening to people who are so ethnocentric that they can't recognise a Buddha when they see one bitch that they don't understand the plot was irritating.  Listening to the guy behind you calling someone on his cell phone during the movie was just I'm-going-to-beat-you-to-death-for-your-rudeness twitch-inducing.  Rawr.

Random gaming quote for the day:
Sima:  "Shame?  That's that stuff Yue's always shouting at me about and saying I don't have.  I tell him to pick me up some at the store, but he never does..."

Whoa!  Random fiction time, because I haven't posted any in forever.  This one is about a whale...no, it's about being happy!  It's the happy happy joy joy story!

*slaps self*  You used that joke already.

Anyway, this is a story about a character of mine called Ethan Asheim.  He's an alchemist for hire.  He occasionally shakes his fist at the Heavens and screams, "Damn you Deegan!  You get the chick and phenomenal cosmic powers without the itty bitty living space!"  He is best described as an angry, bitter little man who seems to get kicked in the balls by life a lot.  I love him anyway.  Even if he curses at his customers, gets mugged on regular basis because he's a skinny little dork with glasses, lives in the really bad part of town, can't keep a girlfriend, and if he's lucky manages to break even with money coming in from his shop and money going out for bills, food, and alchemical components.  He has a friend named Kansas.  Kansas is played by Plotbunny_Tiff, and has tendency of blowing into Ethan's life and rearranging things whenever he gets too grumpy.  She also gets away with more shit with him than anybody else, mostly because when Ethan grouches at her it just bounces right off.  Ths particular blah-de-blah is rated R for language, because Ethan likes his profanity way too much.

 

Ethan is a Grouch, Part the First

Hi.  Ethan Asheim, Alchemist for hire.  What can I brew up for you today?

Huh.  Don’t get much call for that.  That’s going to run expensive.  Take a while too.

How much?  Depends, you want that price in souls or firstborn children?

Oh, fuck you too.  I’m actually losing money on any price short of a king’s ransom with what you want me to make you. 

Why?  Come here, idiot.  Behind the counter.

No, I’m not going to molest you.  Damn, what DO people say about me?

Oh.  Figures.

Anyway.  You see this stuff?  Here, in the smallest jar.  Take a whiff of that.

Stinks, don’t it?  One of the smelliest plants in the world.  And you know what?  This teeny jar is all I have of it, and it’s a main component of the potion you want.  One of the rarest plants in the world, too.  And making you one dram of future-viewing potion is going to take all of this, and I don’t have a source for more in St. Jude’s City.  Or within a fifty-mile radius.  Hundred-mile, actually.  Hell, I’d have to talk to my mentor, he’d have to talk to his mentor, and then all three of us working together might manage to scrape up the cash and hunt down a merchant to half-fill this little jar.  You understand my predicament.

I say again, fuck you too.  I’m not a fucking oracle; God didn’t elect to bless me with second sight and I can’t see the future.  I wish I could, I’d have left the store when I saw you coming.  Oracles don’t need expensive components, don’t have narcotics officers knocking on their doors on an irregular basis, and don’t have to pay ten times what normal people do for renter’s insurance.  Oracles can avoid car accidents, muggings, and holdups, whereas alchemists tend to have all three happen to them, sometimes all at once.  Oracles can actually maintain steady relationships, instead of having their girlfriends break up with them the first time they come over to your place.  Fucking whore. 

What?  Oh.  No, I’m over her, I swear.  I’m not bitter.  Fucking bitch.

Anyway, back to me telling you why what you want isn’t going to happen.  Since God apparently doesn’t like normal people getting a look at the future, especially the distant future, a potion for future-viewing of the extent you specified is a pain in the ass to make.  As in, last I checked, it required the entire contents of this smelly little jar, the blood of a virgin from a family known to possess second sight (preferably possessing second sight him- or herself), and the ashes of a child who died before age three for the main components, plus umpteen-jillion annoying minor ingredients.  I don’t like going grave robbing, fucktard, and I don’t molest virgins for their blood on a regular basis (no matter what people say about me behind my back), so I don’t have the ashes or the blood.  After breaking the law seven ways from Sunday to get all the components, I, lacking an apprentice or the money to hire any sort of help, get to stay up for a week and a half straight making just barely enough liquid to fill up the smallest of the vials on the shelf.  One-time-use-only, and you’d best drink it fresh, as it tends to age funny.  Ha.  Not that that’s a shock. 

Yes, you have to drink it.  With the plant in it. 

Actually, it smells worse.

Why the hell did you want a potion like that anyway?

Oh.  Well, I’ve got stuff for that already fixed up over there.  Fifteen gold.

Yes, it’s been there the whole time, idiot.  Every jackass and his mom wants more money, so I tend to mix up a big batch of it at a time.  After love potions, money-attraction is my best seller, because humans are shallow, self-involved creatures.  From what people say, it works pretty good too.

Because stuff like that doesn’t work on its maker, fucktard.  It confuses the sympathetic principles all to hell if the person who made a potion with a nebulous target like that tries to use it on themselves.  Elphram’s Second Principle of Sympathetic Relationships says that in the process of making anything, the maker invariably contaminates it with his resonance, so…I see your eyes glazing over.  Fine, don’t learn any of the wisdom of the ages from someone who’s been studying it since they could pick up a goddamn pestle.  Give me your money and get out.

Fuck you too.  Come again.

Comments

Yay fics

[alucardblue.livejournal.com]

I wish to see part the second. WHERE IS PART THE SECOND. GIVE ME FIC. :: raises shaking fist into the air. :: Anyway good work chibi. now i demand more.