Meep

[stillsostrange]

When I came into work today one of the guys at Interlibrary Loan was wearing an elder sign shirt. I love my job.


I have actually been doing things besides revising, I think. Maybe. I bought the new Harry Potter (how could I resist Hastings' 40% special?), but the boy grabbed it before I could. I've built up a set of issues over the course of the series, and he says that most of them have been at least addressed so far in this book, if not actually resolved to my satisfaction. So I'm ignoring everyone's spoilery comments and waiting to read it. The thing about HP that I find interesting is that the overarcing theme of the series appears to be Adults will let you down. They treat you poorly, they don't believe you, they lie, they try to decide what's best for you and fail, they die, they mean well but are ultimately impotent.

We saw Willy Wonka. It was more more watchable than I expected, but in no way raced my motor. Except for that red velvet coat. I hope Hot Topic starts to carry a version of that soon.

I sent out all my BPAL swaps except for the_numinous_1's. (Still looking for decant vials, sorry.)

Okay, so maybe I don't do much besides revise. I need to crit some novels, and really need to finish a short story.


I need a cute term for the servants of vampires. Ghoul is out, because I have Lovecraftian ghouls, and I'm slowly trying to de-White Wolf my brain. I avoid Renfield because Nancy Collins is lawsuit-happy. Human Servant is boring as all get out. I do like familiar, and I haven't seen it outside the Blade movies. Any thoughts?

Comments

[kendwoods.livejournal.com]

How about "ward"? It's a nice applicable double-meaning word.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I like that. Thanks.

[space-parasite.livejournal.com]

"Thrall"? Actually, do you need two terms? One used by vampires and their slaves, the other used by everyone else? From Renfield's diet, I suggest "toady" for the latter.

[ultharkitty.livejournal.com]

My vampires have had familiars since way before Blade, it's a common enough term to be nowhere near copyright. Thrall is, although a decent term, a bit too Brian Lumley. Acolytes or something. I suppose it depends on what kind of relationship your vampires have with their servants.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I like ward, since you have the connotation of guardian and guardee, and there's the Babylonian wardu, which means slave.

But I have a lot of magical wards lying around my stories, and I'm not sure it it'd get confusing.

[ultharkitty.livejournal.com]

You should go with ward, I've not heard/read that used as a term in relation to vampires before.

If you used ward most of the time then it wouldn't get confusing, and you could throw in that it comes from wardu at some poine to make you readers go "oooh".

[hangedwoman.livejournal.com]

I'm quite partial to "minion" myself.

[slithytove.livejournal.com]

Roadies?

Kidding.

As far as minions go, this seems like good opportunity to repeat one of my favorite passages from Usenet, on the difference between minions, lackeys, and flunkies:

Flunkies are totaly incapable of independt thought or unspuervised
actions. They cannot be left alone for more than a few minutes, for
fear ofhurting themselves or others.

Lackeys are capable of following rudimentary instructions and marginal
self-supervision for up to a day or so. The better lackeys are also
capable of supervising a squad of flunkies while they break rocks into
gravel, but again, only for a day or so.

Minions are capable of a far greater range of authority,
self-determination, and responsibility. They can act unsupervised for
days, weeks, even months at a time, largely because they are generally
clever enough to call you on their cellular phone if they think
they're in a situation that is over their heads. They can be trusted
with several squadrons of flunkies and the appropriate support staff
of lackeys.

Another suggestion: use the Reverse Dictionary on words like 'servant'. For example. (http://www.onelook.com/?w=*&loc=revfp2&clue=servant)