Sunday, February 05, 2012



I'm a real sucker for art nouveau.  I like it even more when I find it tastefully done, because there *is* such a thing as too much.  So when I happened upon this website, the artwork caught my eye.



I bookmarked it and read a few pages, but the story didn't seem totally compelling.  The other day, I was scanning my bookmarks and ran across this one, so I sat down to read it.  I'll let the author/artist tell you about it in her own words.


The story started out kinda like most Harlequin Romances.  I've nothing against those books, but they often have a tendency to be formulaic.  Tami Wicanas has deviated from the path, however, with the introduction of a forest king/being/fairy .. something who woos one of the sisters down the garden path.  Tami also doesn't mind shedding a bit of blood in a good cause, so this story holds promise.

Now, about that artwork .. I've cropped down to content here rather than gift you with all that nouveau frippery that I love.  But enlarge it and look at the embroidery on the first piece and the tree golem in the second.  I hope you'll agree the comic is worth a look-see.  At 119 pages, it's an easy sit down to read .. no backlog of yeaaars, Kami.



Enjoy!

Saturday, February 04, 2012






Ok ok ok ... yes, I am late, but  better late than never!!!

And here we have the latest and GREATEST application of ducttape. A dual purpose:

  1. holding those huge bottles of beer. and 
  2. as a way of congrats for a new level gain! 
 All hail to the Queen of the Dungeons, the Lilypad and our own beloved gnome Assassin .. Aaylia!!

How to Tie a Monkey's Fist



One of the hardest or most tedious knots to make properly is the Monkey's Fist. This was originally made by sailors to help weight a rope to throw a greater distance (easier to capture and board a ship, if one was a pirate!)

In Girl Scouts, the knot is made and given to a person that you feel is a mentor, that emulates the meaning of the program. I personally have received four knots in my facilitating career from girls and adults.

I see this knot being helpful for the Scum as we go to pillage castles, throwing the weighted line to the turrets, to climb and breach the mighty walls. I see us able to take to the seas, to pillage and raze all the weaker ships! And of course, It makes a great toy to bonk one another in the bar -- got to do something more than dwarf tossing!

Friday, February 03, 2012


Gather 'round my friends, as this week's Soundcheck is now live on Scumbase!

Today, we are departing in the same years we left Iola in two weeks ago. Again, we are blessed to look at the music life of an officer. He has the enormous responsibility to attack other guilds on our behalf. Every 24 hours, he represents The Severed Tongue by the choice he makes. In other words, he clicks the attack button, and therefore is indirectly responsible for Ghetto's anger over people not checking in. Never saw it that way, huh? Me neither, I just came up with it, but I plugged the 'Check in' message, mission accomplished!

Back to business.
Everyone, please applaud this week's contestant, Redwood18!

It is your turn, Redwood,
Songs are actually good.
I know you would
Brag if you could,
But not in our hood!
Yes? No? I don't know, that sound was hard...

And so, not too long ago, two adults in love were talking philosophy*. Among all the very intelligent and thoughtful stuff they said, came what I like to call the 'philosophical annoyances'. Those are catch phrases that adults like to bombard you with when you're a kid. 'Don't do others what you don't want them to do to you', 'All big things are made of small things', 'Be smart in your idiocy', 'The height and strength of a person is measured from the scalp to the top of their eyebrows', 'Don't put all your eggs in the same basket', and more. As a kid, you understand the words and can even sometimes tell when to use them, but you don't actually understand the deep meaning of it until later in life.

One philosophical annoyance that came out was 'Don't judge a book by its cover'. Discussing the subject, they asked different questions. Can you judge a food by its taste? Can you judge a coin's value by the metal in which its made? Can you judge a man's queerness by his voice? Luckily, they could answer that last one with the song that played as #1 on the radio that night.




I can't even understand the words they're yelping. I know fashion and styles and all that changed since those years, but wow! Girls, input? Let's do this: to all girls willing to, in the comments, answer the following: you have to marry one, spend one hot night with another, and hit the third one in the face with a baseball bat. Who goes with which?

What a start for our friend Redwood, that one is going to be hard to top!

Our little friend grew up and was soon 14. He might be clicking the little sword on Shakes&Fidget, but deep down, he grew up to be a romantic. That's right people, Redwood is a romantic, and he is with style. No cheesy crap, just true feelings. He might have been influenced by the actually very beautiful and meaningful song that was playing on his birthday.



I would love to say something funny or put down that song and video, but I can't. That video is actually very well done. Who are those people, actors? The stuff they do and how they look, they look truly happy. Doesn't feel acted. The words are beautiful. I personally think that song rocked and I'm not blasting it. I could demolish the Bee Gee one for weeks though!

Our romantic teenager reached adulthood. He was 21, and he knew how to party. Romantic doesn't mean weak and absolutely not boring. Year-wise, winter is coming, but in Redwood's mind, it's summer, the air is sticky, the temperature is burning; the girls are hot and we're having a good time!



He's no where near Quilp on this, but our little Reddy is smooth, too. And slightly wild; all music videos happen outside, in the street. He's a romantic bum, you definitely can't judge him by his cover. My, my, ladies, doesn't he seem ideal?

That's it for this week people! I hope you enjoyed.
Next week, we were supposed to have Koshka, but sadly he is not with us anymore. It would have been different though, as our little friend wasn't even 21 yet. ZOMG, the stuff we said in guild chat! Shame on us! His poor virgin ears!

So we skip our departed and go to the next on the list, which is our favorite Queen of Duct Tape; Revliss! You think you can tape us around and put us in embarrassing situations, take a picture, and post it on Scumbase without anyone saying anything about it? Well, you're right! It just happens it's your turn next week.

Cheers!

* This column is the work of fiction. I am not sure that's what Redwood's parents were actually doing before, you know, ....

Thursday, February 02, 2012

FreshScumFlash: Ustarach

Sadly we lost Bloodshadow to an overdose of overtime and  an ancient non kingdom in space. We hope he’ll make it back to us in the future as he was scummy as they come…

But do we have a treat for you? To fill the gap we managed to get Schnebbs! Yes yes, he does poetry on this blog. And yes yes, he is famous all around the web for things I shall not even dare to name. But most importantly HE IS A GNOME!!! And we were seriously running out of those… Ofcourse he is too famous to run around in his normal Server 3 body, so he changed incognito to Server 1 Ustarach.

So welcome to Ustarach a level 223 dragonriding Warrior  (haha, I did it again! In your face Darstard!) with a tasty 95%+ scrapbook. Ofcourse the total body and class makeover left some damage (probably the reason for that eyepatch) and he is still getting used to himself. So let’s not all jump on him at the same time.

Did I say yet we had a new gnome!