More LJ Tweaking

[miss_yt]

I finally got my LiveJournal looking the way I want it to. I worked on my fic, as I said, but I wasted a lot of time fooling around on the Nation States website. A lot of the people on the message boards there aren't so sharp, but there are occasionally some pretty bright people who can argue a position eloquently and logically. Though why I actually got involved in some political debates there is beyond me. It always leads to frustration.

Today my friend silverknight16 from the SamSite boards turned up on AIM after a long absence. Turns out that she started using a different handle for AIM. I block people who aren't on my buddy list (since a few strangers thought they could come out of the blue and talk to me just like that), so she wasn't able to see that I was online. Fortunately she logged on with her old name by accident.

Anyway, she likes comic books and she's a really good fanartist, so I told her about Ruse and convinced her to read the first issue on Comics On the Web (I'm putting in lots of links and stuff, I know, but I'm still fascinated with how easy it is on Semagic). I convinced her by saying that the protagonist of the series makes Bruce Wayne look friendly by comparison - she's also a huge Batman and Batman Beyond fan. I confessed that I hoped she'd draw fanart for Ruse someday - if she actually gets addicted to it, I might be able to get her to draw some illustrations for the fanfic I'm writing. She did it once before for one of my Samurai Jack fanfics. That's my evil plan, mwahaha!

silverknight16 also told me that she used to read lots of Sherlock Holmes mysteries (I never did), so she was able to draw a lot of parallels between Simon Archard and Sherlock Holmes. Still, she doesn't consider him a Holmes knockoff, and finds the story interesting. She also told me that while not all of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries are good, there are some pretty good ones, Hound of the Baskervilles being the best. She couldn't tell me all of them by title, though. Maybe when I'm done with The Moonstone (which I recommended to her, though she doesn't read lots of books these days), I'll check out Holmes. I'd better finish The Moonstone soon, since I'll be going back home in a week.

I also hit a wall with my fanfic. I have decided that, for his current case, Simon Archard is going to consult Adeline (the psychic child) and Fenton Crombie, an expert on gargoyles who is related to Simon's rival Iain Crombie. I haven't decided whether Fenton should be Iain's father or brother, though I'm leaning towards father. Since Simon will find it relatively easy to talk to Adeline, literary convention dictates that he should find it difficult to talk to Fenton - originally I'd thought to write that Fenton and Iain had had some kind of falling out, and Fenton did not take Iain's very negative view of Simon. But to make things interesting, he really should dislike Simon, I guess.

So I want to have Simon cook up a plan to consult Fenton about gargoyles, even though Fenton doesn't like him. He'd have to ask if gargoyles are sensitive to magic (or other forces), how intelligent they are, and whether or not there is a way to control them. I've asked for suggestions on the CrossGen forums for Ruse, but the only answer I have gotten so far is that Simon should set Fenton up on a date with Emma. I don't think the person who suggested it was serious, and even if he was, I'm pretty sure Emma wouldn't stand for it.

I'd appreciate suggestions from anyone who reads this, too, even if you don't know Ruse. Just keep in mind that it's Sherlock Holmes-style mystery, so whatever it is has to fit in with some approximation of Victorian England.