I should like to thank trickster_loki for his gift of mistletoe. As I am not in the habit of being included in quaint Yuletide traditions, this made for a pleasant, if entirely unprecedented surprise. And while it is perhaps less than wise to be grateful at receiving mistletoe from Baldr's betrayer, I am grateful nonetheless.

I only hope I am not expected to choose between a kiss and a dart through the heart.

ooc: We got a present! =D You totally made my morning. Thank you!!!

Considering that my latest quietus has been far too quiet for comfort, I suppose this result is not at all surprising.

( My Tarot Card )

Certainly there are those who would agree I am due for a transformation -- most likely into crocodilian bowel juices. A humbling passage indeed!

Because I feel I must reciprocate...

1. Reply with a comment and I'll tell you which one I want, either a truth or a dare. Dares should pretty much stay within my LJ or LJ-verse, and not be anything that will get us reported to LJ Abuse.

Also, try to keep it to something I can do within one day, absolute tops.

2. I either answer the truth/perform the dare.

Having been tagged by diedalittle, I must oblige.

Instructions: List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your Livejournal along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

( My seven )

Tagging: Anyone who still wishes to participate.

( What type of evil being are you inside? )

How reassuring.

James Hook is not an old man. So boasts his reflection, and most convincingly.

The mirror shows someone who did not simply chance upon the prime of life, stumbling into his heyday after a leisurely stroll through his middling years. No, this image belongs to someone who schemed, clawed, ravished and slaughtered his way into a state of physical supremacy that most men can never hope to attain.

And he shows not the slightest sign of descending from that pinnacle. There is no stoop to the breadth of his shoulders, no slouch in the steel of his spine. His black curls remain untainted by a single thread of grey, and his face--somewhat shadowed and rather too pale, perhaps, but surely that can be attributed to his schedule--bears no unsightly lines or wrinkles. None but the most determined of simpletons could deem him elderly, much less infirm.

Yet he knows that in Neverland, it does not matter that he still possesses the fullness of his strength, that he is almost as spry now as he was at Eton. Here vigor and vitality have but one face, and that face grins cockily through all its first teeth. Anything else is adult, unequivocally beyond salvation; eighteen or eighty, you are grown up, and therefore knocking on death's door. He feels this truth in his bones, though his reflection protests mightily.

When Hook looks into the mirror, he does not think he is old. But he thinks he will never again be young.

I'd like to take a moment to point out that my most distinguished alma mater has been accepted into the Schools Directory, having naturally been submitted for consideration by yours truly. Thus far I am the only former student on the list, but I suppose that is to be expected. My education was anything but a dime a dozen.

( Heinous Bastard )

This isn't exactly a stunning revelation. But what is a telemarketer, I wonder?

I wanted to give the folks on Hook's friends list a heads-up... I've changed his username to bad_form (his last words in Peter Pan before going content to the crocodile. Damn crocodile.) Just in case you're wondering where the heck hooked_on_pan went. I realize this is rather silly of me, but I was sick of the old name, and the fact that when I made the journal I couldn't think of anything else! Hooked on Phonics, anyone? And besides, the Captain never liked it much. ;)

EDIT: Psst... though I feel I have no business putting out a request like this, I know there are some icon gurus on my f-list, and... well... if somebody was really, really bored, and wanted to make me a Hook icon with the text "bad form" somewhere on there? I would be ridiculously grateful!

Write a ficlet inspired by the word blue.

Blue is the color of the Neverland sky. Not just your average run-of-the-mill blue, a banal blue that bores even at its brightest, but a bluer-than-blue blue, an untamed and rather offensive shade one would expect to see in one's childhood coloring book, but never in everyday life. It's a blue that stays in your eyes long after you shut them tight in exultation or terror. It splashes across your lids like globs of sticky paint, stinging your sight and rendering you half-blind with blue -- until the smirking sun sinks below Neverland's horizon, casting the whole world in an aura as rosy-red as the cheek of a young girl, flushed and flawless.

Blue is the color of a mermaid in a moonstruck lagoon. A sullen, silvery, secretive blue, like that of old bones gleaming under midnight water. Blue are her fins and flesh, the scales knife-sharp and cool to the touch, but not cold as the skin with its starlit sheen and swimming veins. Even her lips are blue, blue as the lips of the starved and the drowned; they part like dead petals for her salty kiss. The mermaid's blue is broken only by the red of her hair -- and later, by the red of his blood as she bites, and the red of her blood as his hook bites back.

Blue is the color of the Captain's eyes. Forget-me-not blue, a blue that is by turns melancholic and frenetic, but always dramatic, always too blue for comfort, like Neverland's sky. This blue changes to red when he kills, so that his eyes literally glow with bloodlust. It's a feature that annoys him somewhat, as he feels one might find it in any commonplace bogeyman; but he needn't worry that it reduces his overall effectiveness as a terrifying villain. Because when you see Hook's eyes, you know you're no longer safe at home with your comforter and coloring books. Here the blue sky holds real adventure, the dark waters team with real horrors, and the sword-blades draw real blood.

( OOC )

Having been granted the honor of hosting the Count of Monte Cristo’s bachelor party, Captain Hook has spared no expense to ensure that his friend’s last hurrah is a splendid evening of toasting, feasting and general debauchery, though not necessarily in that order.

The Jolly Roger has been made fit to receive a king -- specifically, the Sun King, as Hook has taken his guest-of-honor’s nationality into consideration. He’s had the ship furnished in the style of Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles, with the crews’ quarters serving as salon and billiard rooms, the fore and aft decks as banquet hall and royal gardens, and (quite naturally) his own cabin as throne room. The French flag is flying in place of the pirate’s banner, the sails are decorated with golden fleur-de-lis, and in the center of the deck stands a shrine to the Sun King’s beloved Apollo, attended by numerous scantily clad nymphs. These wenches-in-disguise have been ordered to wait on Edmond’s every whim; and just so they have no trouble recognizing him, Hook has a robe, a royal scepter and a crown for the Count to wear.

Every gentleman will be given a box of premium cigars upon his arrival at the party. An eight-course feast is being served on the Roger’s main deck, and for drink there is a marble fountain which actually flows with red wine -- but rum, port, beer and almost every other type of alcoholic beverage is available.

Captain Hook welcomes and even encourages his guests to help themselves to a wench--in private or public--but as this is a gentleman’s party, brawling of any sort will not be tolerated.

ooc - The party is open now, but as I have to work tonight (and am always the slowest person to rep in any case!) I'll ask that pups don't wait for Hook to play host, just come aboard and have some fun with the Count. Also, since we don't want Edmond in any danger of getting trashed on the eve of his wedding, the party will be backdated a few days. *g*

Having been prodded by the good doctor, I feel obliged to answer the following survey.

1. Total number of books I own: Far too many to list here. Unlike Dr. Maturin, I have the good fortune to carry much of my own personal library with me at sea.

2. Last book I bought: The Monk by Matthew Lewis. I purchased this one for an acquaintance, as I am already in possession of a first-edition copy.

3. Last book I read: A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus by Richard Payne Knight. In comparison to other works I’ve studied, Knight’s essays on phallic worship seem positively prudish. But they naturally scandalized all of English society, and I look forward to referencing the material when I take tea with the Duchess of York.

4. Five books that mean a lot to me: Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince; The Marquis de Sade’s Philosophy in the Bedroom; Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels; John Milton’s Paradise Lost; and last, but certainly not least, an edition of eight Greek tragedies, including Prometheus Bound and Oedipus the King, which was given to me by a classmate at Eton.

5. Tag five people to take up the meme and answer in their own journals: w_darling, jon_r_meyers, dancing_salome, lt_wes_janson, aricamuse

What is your most treasured possession and why?

I would have to say that my most treasured possession is my harpsichord, though not because it is the one of greatest material worth. I have, after all, enough gold and jewels at my disposal to purchase a hundred harpsichords of finest make. But none of these instruments could possibly equal the originality of my own, nor—if you will humour this uncharacteristic lack of cynicism—its considerable sentimental value. There is no shortage of plunder in the world, but my harpsichord is truly one-of-a-kind, as inimitable as it is irreplaceable.

My lady was crafted for me personally by a direct descendant of Andreas Ruckers, who did for harpsichord strings what Botticelli did for Venus’s curls. Being an instrument of Flemish style, she has not the range of the more recent French models. But the proper touch can coax from her a sweeter treble than you will ever hear off some shrill-voiced Gallic hussy. She has a fuller tone and a longer decay time to the note, which indeed makes her a reluctant muse in the hands of any but a master performer. Her lid and soundboard are painted with fiery scenes from Dante’s Inferno, for which Heer Ruckers and I shared a fondness that went beyond literary appreciation. You see, I once gave a particularly well-received reading of Canto XXXIV at an exclusive club in Brussels … ah, but that account is perhaps better saved for another topic.

Cross-posted to theatrical_muse.

( What obsolete skill are you? )

These articles seem consistently inclined to deride my character.