The plural of Mongoose is Polygeese

18 min read

Deviation Actions

squanpie's avatar
By
Published:
2.1K Views



It’s not April Yet!

Alright, you got me. This is my April journal, based off my aim to submit one journal a month for this year (barring a rather shaky start in Jan/Feb…), and to build on that irregular schedule, I’m submitting this in March.

Well I’ve got two excuses here. One is the obvious one – my core membership runs out in only a few days, and I wanted to make sure I got at least one more journal posted with pretty CSS.
:wow:Strike that, everybody go shower some love on the ever awesome Zara-Arletis since she just topped up my core membership for another few months. Thank you so much! Guess you'll have to put up with my rambling journals a little while longer! :evillaugh:

The other, equally important reason, is because April is going to be a Very Busy Month! You can read more at the ‘what’s on’ section at the bottom of this very journal, but for now let me just leave you this.



Artist Feature: DamonWakes

So last month I featured a bunch of cool art I’d found over the last few months. This time, I’m throwing things like variety and diversity out of the window; this feature is all about one person.

Last weekend, I attended a very small comic con in Winchester; WinCon, the first of its name. Alongside stalls selling the usual sort of stuff (I was mostly good and only bought one board game!), a talk about robots, and a demonstration of the video game to be, Eagle Island, a trio of writers lurked.

One of these writers, was none other than DeviantArt’s very own DamonWakes, an internet mongoose of great renown (and talent)!

Now a lot of you may already be familiar with DamonWakes’s hilarious flash fiction, spouted each year during the month of July. If you aren’t then here’s a few samples to get you hooked.

Beyond the Ken of Man“Kneel before me!” boomed the wizard, atop his throne. “Kneel, for it is within my power to smite thee with forces beyond the ken of man, and deal unto thee a fate that would make thee envy the dead and long for oblivion!”
     “Don't believe you,” grunted the barbarian, folding his arms.
    The wizard laughed. “Thou thinkst thine scepticism makes thee wise? This is the greatest folly of all. My powers are my own, whether or not thou chooseth to believe their truth.”
    “Well, yeah.” The barbarian shrugged. “If you actually do the whole smiting thing, I'll believe you're capable of doing the whole smiting thing. I may be a barbarian, but I'm capable of adapting my worldview in response to observable evidence.”
    “Thou art loquacious for a barbarian.”
    “Thou art loquacious full stop.”
Robocopout“We can rebuild him. We have the technology!”
     “Aaand right off the bat, that's a reference to the wrong thing.”
    “What do you mean? It makes perfect sense!”
    “We're turning the guy into a robo-cop, and you just quoted The Six Million Dollar Man.”
    “Yeah, but they've given us exactly six million dollars to do it.”
    There was a brief pause.
    “Do you ever get the feeling that the guys upstairs have a sense of humour? It never feels like it in person but then they pull something like this.”
    Arnold K. Marty was finding it harder and harder to pretend that this was all a dream. He twitched and stretched, preparing to get up, and wasn't too surprised to discover that his arms and legs made robot noises as he did so.
    “
Rebranding the Black Throne    “Thank you...erm...very much for coming here.” The Dungeon Lord wasn’t accustomed to being polite. “I realise this place is...some would say it’s a little out of the way.”
    “Well,” said the interior designer, “I suppose it helps to keep undesirables out.”
    “Ah.” The Dungeon Lord raised a begauntleted finger. “Funny you should mention that. You see, while obviously any normal person would consider the rusty iron spikes, booby traps, whips, shackles and torture devices to be a deterrent, I’ve recently had a slew of visitors who mistook my little setup here for something...” he leaned down and cupped a hand to the interior designer’s ear, “...erotic.”
    “Oh.” The designer raised his eyebrows. “I see.”
    “Now, I don’t want to do anythin


Hey, come back a minute! I know, I know gave you some things to read, but hold it a moment, will you? There’s more. More in the shape of a recent tutorial on writing interactive fiction. And did I mention the chainmail?

Twine for Beginners: Get Started in Four ClicksI’ve been writing interactive fiction using Twine for a few years now, but one thing that’s stuck with me is just how simple it was to get started and just how quickly that simple start led to bigger, more impressive things. In fact, starting out with Twine is actually easier now than it was when I first gave it a go, and in my opinion there’s quite a bit more you can do with it than there used to be. The software has changed a lot in the time I’ve been using it. Take a look!

On the left, My Name Algernon, written using Twine 1.4.2 and current
Picture Jasper Ring Bracelet by DamonWakes Ten Little Astronauts: Section One
Eleven
Even before the alarm began to sound, Blore knew in his gut that something was wrong. It was only when he pushed open the hatch of the suspension tank, and a few drops of thick cryonic fluid drifted out into the pitch-black hallway, that he realised what it was: there was no gravity. That was why his stomach churned. The world, the tiny pool of light spilling from his tank, seemed to swirl.
“Owen, lights.”
The computer gave no response.
“Owen, turn on the lights.”
Nothing.
“Owen...” But there was something else now, beyond the cold tank and the dark hallway. Something that no crewman wanted to encounter anywhere, let alone ten trillion kilometres beyond Earth orbit.
It was the smell of burning plastic.
Blore hauled himself out of the tank and clawed for the rack of emergency supplies. Even the smallest fire could render the air unbreathable very quickly. Finally managing to find a torch, he tore it from its bracket and pumped the dynamo. A fee


What’s that third link there, you ask? Could it possibly be the opening of a book? A book which requires your help to reach the shelves?

That’s right; it’s time to direct you to DamonWakes’s latest endeavour. Click below for what is, in my opinion, one of the coolest campaign videos I’ve seen. Which is probably why I’m embedding it here in my journal!



Now, if you’re still here, I’m just going to assume you’ve been away and pledged already, or bookmarked those pages for later. If not, get to it!

Mongooses – or Polygeese?

Well, for those of you who have jumped directly to this point, desperate to know if I’m telling the truth or just making up big fat porky-pies; you don’t know what you’re missing in skipping the previous section. Go back and read it right now!

I’m serious. You don’t get the answer to your burning question until you have.

Oh, who am I kidding? You’re still just scrolling, aren’t you? Fine then, this is the moment you’ve been waiting for. The plural of ‘mongoose’ is in fact…
…Mongooses.


Anti-climactic? Sorry, but now you can at least go back and read the feature, free from all that tantalising suspense. In fact, according to Wikipedia, the name ‘mongoose’ shares no common roots at all with those web footed watchdogs we like to invite to Christmas dinner. It’s actually a corruption of what was presumably their native name at the point we meddling Brits first came across the species.


Yellow Mongoose by WillemSvdMerwe Funny Face by ZaraaLeanne :thumb596700408:



Mongooses come in around 38 varieties, of which the two most well-known are probably the Indian grey mongoose, famed for their snake fighting tendencies – as demonstrated famously by Rudyard Kipling’s Rikki-Tikki-Tavi – and the meerkat, made highly popular by their ability to sell insurance. Yes, meerkats are a part of the mongoose family!

Interesting to note about here, that Microsoft Word spellcheck doesn’t seem to recognise the word ‘meerkat’ – and that the first spelling suggestion it offers me is, in fact, market!



Given that there’s so many varied and different varieties of mongoose, it’s quite tough to find some good interesting facts for you guys. I could tell you that apparently Banded Mongooses are superb team players, and even help out other animals; they like to hang out with baboons, or even ride warthogs (here’s a reference if you don’t believe me!).

Or I could tell you that Dwarf Mongooses full grown, can be as small as 7 inches or so, and live in packs led by a female kind of like a queen bee. That – as with most mongoose species – the babies are brought up by the whole family, uncles and aunts alike. But you know all that now, so there’s no point mentioning any of it!

That’s all for this month. Keep reading to find out what you can do with your time once you’ve gone back and pledged a small portion of your soul to Ten Little Astronauts!

Things To Do in April

Did I mention that April is a Very Busy Month? Here’s why:



April is the first Camp NaNoWriMo of the year. Doesn’t mean anything to you? The short description, is that NaNoWriMo is the challenge to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in the month of November. Camp NaNoWriMo, is the November challenge’s little brother, and happens in April (and again in July). Unlike the full NaNoWriMo, Camp allows you to set your own word count goal. It allows you write a series of short stories, poems, or even scripts if you prefer, setting your target in words, lines or even pages.

In short, if you’re writing in April at all, you’ve no excuse not to take part!

Head on over to NaNoWriMo-Group, or find us in our chat at #NaNoWriMo to find out more. There’s still plenty of time left to sign up!





Did I mention that Camp NaNoWriMo accepts short stories? Well if you’re short of a prompt, FlashFictionMonth has got you covered here with the eighth monthly prompt! You’ve got until 15th April to enter this challenge.



March CVil War: The Hero's JourneyJust a reminder to get your entries for this month's CVil War in before deadline! You've got until April 9th!
The CVil war returns in full force this month with a new prompt, and the winners from January's CVil War!  Every month, the literature Community Volunteers post individual prompts that pits the literature community against each other—for the sake of literature!  While the monthly battle wages on, you're tasked with responding to one of our prompts (and only one! You must pick a side.) in the hopes of becoming the sole champion, and winner of that month's prizes.  Read on to find out what March's prompt entails!
March's Prompt
This month is about Monomyth. Write me either a story or a poem of any genre or form that utilizes literally or figuratively the track of the Hero's Journey. (To read more on Monomyth and the Hero
Vs :thumb669208015:


Then there’s the Literature CVil war, March-April edition. You’ve got until 9th April to get going with this one, but hey – it still counts towards Camp NaNoWriMo if you start after Friday!



:thumb669713544:

And finally for now, for the more poetically inclined among you. April is also the month of NaPoWriMo. If you caught my description of NaNoWriMo, I’m sure you can guess what that means. If not, or if that sounds like something you’re interested in, head on over to that journal, or check out their group here to find out more. NaPoWriMo

That's all for now, see you next month!



© 2017 - 2024 squanpie
Comments19
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
DamonWakes's avatar
Massive, massive thanks for such a lovely feature! :love: Great to see such a range of mongoose-related artwork, too!