'Hulk-Ku', the Ultimate Collection

Stretchy man suggest Hulk release anger with words
Hulk call it Hulk-Ku

Stark send Hulk to Space
BUT HULK COME BACK VERY MAD
MOON NOT MADE OF CHEESE!

Hulk likes Wolverine
Logan fix self when broken
Hulk need friends like that

World have mysteries
Like why sky blue?
Answers Hard
Smashing Easier

Falling Leaf
Days End
Things Break
Life stop
Time go on
NOT ALWAYS HULK’S FAULT!

Breaking can be good
Vending machine want quarter
So Hulk break twenty

Hulk break lots of things
Everything makes noise when broke
Hank wrong about mimes

Eating hard for Hulk
So many things fit in mouth
How to know what’s food?

HULK AM SO ANGRY!

Winter Go and Spring Come
Who play snow fort now?

Doc Samson tell Hulk
When Hulk angry count twenty
Hulk out of fingers

Hulk join awesome club
And first rule is you don’t talk…
Oops, Hulk break first rule.

Hulk Smash, Smash more Smash!
Hulk Smash WHOLE WORLD!
Act is called
the Aristocrats

Hulk Smash wide load sign
Not appreciate insult
Hurt Hulk self image

Hulk strongest there is
Him not listen to dumb frog
IT EASY BEING GREEN!

Hulk think Hulk nice guy
But Hulk not very photogenic
Online Dating Hard.

Hulk want hug kitties,
But they so easy to squish!
Hulk live in Cruel World.

'Where Babies Come From' by James Tate

WHERE BABIES COME FROM

by James Tate

Many are from the Maldives,

southwest of India, and must begin

collecting shells almost immediately.

The larger ones may prefer coconuts.

Survivors move from island to island

hopping over one another and never

looking back. After the typhoons

have had their pick, and the birds of prey

have finished with theirs, the remaining few

must build boats, and in this, of course,

they can have no experience, they build

their boats of palm leaves and vines.

Once the work is completed, they lie down,

thoroughly exhausted and confused,

and a huge wave washes them out to sea.

And that is the last they see of one another.

In their dreams Mama and Papa

are standing on the shore

for what seems like an eternity,

and it is almost always the wrong shore.

Beautiful Webcomics

There's some truly captivating stuff out there, and some webcomics can be really, truly breathtaking, sometimes in style, sometimes in substance, sometimes both.

I'd rather not spoil the surprise with a description. Just click here and start scrolling down. The author generally shows a gentle, curious sensitivity that I'm really enjoying.

Another similar concept from xkcd, a comic that explores existential and/or nerdy questions with subtle, tongue-in-cheek, dorky-yet-pertinent humour, and a certain aesthetic. If you had to click only one of these links, I'd suggest this one.

Then there's the sweet sorrow and macabre hilarity of Romantically Apocalyptic.

This is one of my favourites; Lackadaisy, a rural mob tale of the prohibition era, while it doesn't dwell on poetic contemplation much, the art is striking enough that I thought it merited an honorary mention; the characters' expressions convey its statements powerfully enough.

Homestuck is an immense story drawn, written, coded, composed and interpreted by one guy. It can be very beautiful. It is also extremely strange. You can start here.

And finally, this little piece of perfection, for your viewing and listening pleasure. Watch it in HD if you can.

As for what to do about it, I refer you to the comic on top of the post!

Poem: "If you could, I believe you would", by Kate Hawk

Last evening Katie offered us a powerful piece, which she asked me to share with you this morning.

If you could, I believe you would

If you could fit both of your hands into my chest
and wrap your tight possessive fingers around my heart
and squeeze every drop of blood out of it
with your eyes closed
I believe you would
And, if you could take the blood and drink it with your claws
and place large grey rocks in the vacant cavity where
there once was a beating force of life
I believe you would
If when you were finished you could slyly
hide in a silver cape and iridescent knee socks and like
a rocket, jet yourself into the cloudy sky, and enter
the heavens through a crack of light between
two heavy rain clouds,
I believe you would,with a belly full of my blood, and pieces of my
flesh stuck underneath your nails.

Possessiveness is such a fundamental sin, a child's sin, a fool's sin; the inability to let go, the craving to control, the loathing of loss, to the point of destroying, with our own greedy hands, that which made our heart's desire desirable in the first place.

Cameraman and Flower by Banksy

What Teachers Make

A great slam poem, in Webcomic and Video form, for your pleasure:

Click here to read the rest...

Zen Pencils is a website that published poems, speeches and short stories, adapted into comic form, and the results are often quite powerful. The author is especially good at pacing; you can tell he masters the language and rhythm of sequential art.

Of course, not all their pieces are works of extreme profoundity. Sometimes they're just fun; behold the War of Artists vs. Trolls.

Glass Cain

The Man In The Glass - written by Peter Dale Wimbrow Sr. 1934

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.

For it isn’t your father, or mother, or wife 
Whose judgment upon you must pass
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.

He’s the fellow to please – never mind all the rest
For he’s with you, clear to the end
And you’ve passed your most difficult, dangerous test
If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.

Cain, by Henri Vidal, Jardin des Tuileries, Paris
The First Murderer

I thought both things combined well, so there you are; consciousness is possibly the greatest danger of immorality.

Grand Corps Malade: Big Sick Body: WORKSHOP

Well, today I'm attempting to translate a Grand Corps Malade poem, and all help is welcome to straighten it up.

En fait, ça fait un moment que se croisent dans ma tête
Des mots et des douceurs qui pourraient faire un texte
Un truc un peu différent, je crois que ça parlerait d'elle
Faut avouer que dans mon quotidien, elle a mis un beau bordel

To tell the truth, there've been a while, criss-corring my mind,
Some words and sweetnesses that might make up a piece,
A bit of an odd thing, I think it'd be about her,
I've got a confess, she's got all my routines ablur.

Mais j'ai un gros souci, j'ai peur que mes potes se marrent
Qu'ils me disent que je m'affiche, qu'ils me traitent de canard
C'est cette pudeur misogyne, croire que la fierté part en fumée
Quand t'ouvres un peu ton coeur, mais moi cette fois je veux assumer

But I've a big trouble, I'm afraid my pals will laugh,
They'll say I'm advertising, they'd call me a rag,
It's this chauvinistic modesty, to think pride crumbles down,
When you open up your heart, but today I wanna stand proud

J'ai un autre problème, il est peut-être encore plus lourd
C'est que t'as pas droit à l'erreur quand t'écris un texte d'amour
Moi, les trois prochains couplets, je voudraient que ça soit des bombes
Si j'écris un texte sur elle, je voudrais que ça soit le plus beau du monde

I've got another problem, that's weighs on even more,
There's no room for mistakes, when you write on love,
The next three verses, they just gotta be a blast,
If I write a piece on her, I's gotta be the world's best.

Elle mérite pas un texte moyen, j'ai la pression, ça craint
Fini de faire l'intéressant, avec mes voyages en train
Là c'est loin d'être évident, moi je sais pas comment on fait
Pour décrire ses sentiments, quand on vit avec une fée

An average piece just won't do, so much pressure,
I'm done playing it cool, with my journeys in train.
It just ain't obvious; I don't know how to you go about
describing what it feels like, to live with a fae

Il faut avouer qu'elle a des yeux, ils sont même pas homologués
Des fois ils sont verts, des fois jaunes, je crois même que la nuit ils sont violets
Quand je m'enfonce dans son regard, je perds le "la" je touche plus le sol
Je me perds profondément, et j'oublie exprès ma boussole

See, she's got these eyes, I don't think they're even legal,
Sometimes they're green, sometimes yellow, at night I think they might be purple,
When I sink into her gaze, I lose the G, I'm lost at C,
I lose myself deeply, and forget my compass on purpose

Depuis que je la connais, je ressens des trucs hallucinants
Je me dis souvent que j'ai eu de la chance de lui avoir plu, sinon
J'aurais jamais su qu'un rire pouvait arrêter la Terre tourner
J'aurais jamais su qu'un regard pouvait habiller mes journées

Ever since I met her, I get such trippy, feels-wise,
And I say to myself I'm lucky she liked me,  otherwise,
I'd have never known a laugh could stop the Earth from turning,
I'd have never known that a gaze could clothe my whole day.

Je comprends pas tout ce qui se passe, y a pleins de trucs incohérents
Depuis qu'elle est là rien n'a changé, mais tout est différent
Elle m'apporte trop de désordre, et tellement de stabilité
Ce que je préfère c'est sa force, mais le mieux c'est sa fragilité

I don't know what's going on, there's a bunch of crazy stuff,

Ce n'est pas un texte de plus, ce n'est pas juste un poème
Parfois elle aime mes mots, mais cette fois c'est elle que mes mots aiment
Je l'ai dans la tête comme une mélodie, alors mes envies dansent
Dans notre histoire rien n'est écrit, mais tout sonne comme une évidence

J'ai redécouvert comme ça réchauffe d'avoir des sentiments
Mais si tu me dis que c'est beaucoup mieux de vivre sans, tu mens
Alors je les met en mots et tant pis si mes potes me chambrent
Moi je m'en fous, chez moi y a une sirène qui dort dans ma chambre

J'avais une vie de chat sauvage, elle l'a réduite en cendres
J'ai découvert un bonheur tout simple, c'est juste qu'on aime être ensemble
On ne calcul pas les démons du passé, on n'a pas peur d'eux
Moi si un jour j'suis un couple, je voudrais être nous deux

Y a des sourires et des soupires, y a des fou rires à en mourir
On peut s'ouvrir et s'en rougir, déjà se nourrir de nos souvenirs
Les pièges de l'avenir nous attendent, mais on n'a pas peur d'eux
Moi si un jour j'suis un couple, je voudrais être nous deux

Et si c'est vrai que les mots sont la voix de l'émotion
Les miens prennent la parole pour nous montrer sa direction
J'ai quitté le quai pour un train spécial, un TGV palace
On roule à 1000km heure, au dessus de la mer, en première classe

And if it's true that the words are, the voice of emotion,
Mine take the stage to show us its direction,
I've left the station for a special train, a high-speed caravan,
We roll at 1000 miles an hour, above the sea, first class

Et si c'est vrai que les mots sont la voix de l'émotion
Les miens prennent la parole pour nous montrer sa direction
J'ai quitté le quai pour un train spécial, un TGV palace
On roule à 1000km/heure, au dessus de la mer, en première classe

Exotic Crush

So this week's theme at the Barcelona Poetry Workshop is Exotism, a topic that's close to my heart. But what does the word mean?

exotic (adj.) 

1590s, "belonging to another country," from Middle French exotique (16c.) and directly from Latin exoticus, from Greek exotikos "foreign," literally "from the outside," from exo "outside" (see exo-). Sense of "unusual, strange" first recorded in English 1620s, from notion of "alien, outlandish." In reference to strip-teasers and dancing girls, it is first attested by 1942, American English.

Exotic dancer in the nightclub trade means a girl who goes through a few motions while wearing as few clothes as the cops will allow in the city where she is working ... ["Life," May 5, 1947]

As a noun from 1640s.

A controversial notion, isn't it? You like what is foreign for being foreign, alien, strange, outlandish... but the unfortunate implications it carries are several;

Moderation and Adaptation:

To qualify as "exotic", it must not be so alien as to be alienating, no so strange as to be weird. Things presented (marketed) to us as exotic are often very lite versions of the original, redesigned specifically for our comfort. 

Typically, foreign food will be markedly different in host countries from how it normally is in its native land. Beauty standards are also quite area-dependent, and exotic women being beautiful by their own standards might not appeal so much to foreign audiences:

I can't believe I'm unable to find a collection of National Geographic photos to illustrate my point. Still, have a classic example:

Oh, the humanity!

This also applies to fictional, extraterrestrial life, and is the entire reason why Kirk keeps snogging Green Skinned Space Babes

[Insert Kirk Pick-up Line Here]

rather than really, inhumanly alien aliens

Here's lookin' at you, kid!

On the other hand, pictures from Delacroix and other Orientalist authors are readily and massively available. Which leads me to my next point:

Fetishization and Objectification:

The Indian snake charmer is being objectified by the Moor audience, and we objectify the whole scene in turn: recursion! 

Wait, you're missing a sexophone!

I think this point has been driven home in the last few decades, but do have a look at this classic book on the topic if you have the time. If you're short on it, though, let me share with you this poignant excerpt from Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks;

“Look, a Negro!” It was an external stimulus that flicked over me as I passed by. I made a tight smile.

“Look, a Negro!” It was true. It amused me.

“Look, a Negro!” The circle was a drawing a bit tighter. I made no secret of my amusement.

“Mama, see the Negro! I’m frightened!” Frightened! Frightened! Now they were beginning to be afraid of me. I made up my mind to laugh myself to tears, but laughter had become impossible.

I could no longer laugh, because I already knew there were legends, stories, history, and above all historicity, which I had learned about from Jaspers. Then, assailed at various points, the corporeal schema crumbled, its place taken by a racial epidermal schema. In the train it was no longer a question of being aware of my body in the third person but in a triple person. In the train I was given not one but two, three places. I had already stopped being amused. It was not that I was finding febrile coordinates in the world. I existed triply: I occupied space. I moved toward the other … and the evanescent other, hostile but not opaque, transparent, not there, disappeared. Nausea. …

I was responsible at the same time for my body, for my race, for my ancestors. I subjected myself to an objective examination, I discovered my blackness, my ethnic characteristics; and I was battered down by tom-toms, cannibalism, intellectual deficiency, fetishism, racial defects, slave-ships, and above all else, above all: “Sho’ good eatin’.”

France's first powdered chocolate brand, Banania
featuring a Senegalese colonial infantryman,
praising it in pidgin Frech: "sho' good eatin'"

“Look at the nigger! … Mama, a Negro! … Hell, he’s getting mad. … Take no notice, sir, he does not know that you are as civilized as we. …”

My body was given back to me sprawled out, distorted, re-colored, clad in mourning in that white winter day. The Negro is an animal, the Negro is bad, the Negro is mean, the Negro is ugly; look, a nigger, it’s cold, the nigger is shivering, the nigger is shivering because he is cold, the little boy is trembling because he is afraid of the nigger, the nigger is shivering with cold, that cold goes through your bones, the handsome little boy is trembling because he thinks that the nigger is quivering with rage, the little white boy throws himself into his mother’s arms: Mama, the nigger’s going to eat me up.

All round me the white man, above the sky tears at its navel, the earth rasps under my feet, and there is a white song, a white song. All this whiteness that burns me. …

I sit down at the fire and I become aware of my uniform. I had not seen it. It is indeed ugly. I stop there, for who can tell me what beauty is?

Where shall I find shelter from now on? I felt an easily identifiable flood mounting out of the countless facets of my being. I was about to be angry. The fire was long since out, and once more the nigger was trembling.

“Look how handsome that Negro is! …

“The Palace Guard,” painted in 1900 by Ludwig Deutsch (1855–1935). Head aloft, shoulders thrust back, a Nubian soldier stands fearsome sentry in front of a towering carved-wood entrance, his vein-laced forearms gripping a lustrous spear. “It has intricate detail, great light,” Gabr muses, pointing to the guard’s imperious gaze. “That’s pride.”

“Kiss the handsome Negro’s ass, madame!”

Shame flooded her face. At last I was set free from my rumination. At the same time I accomplished two things: I identified my enemies and I made a scene. A grand slam. Now one would be able to laugh.

Desensitization and Disinterest:

Is there a more crushing fate than that of being a fad, a passing fancy, a has-been? As a certain singer who made a fair bit of coin on exoticist sensibilities, "it's what they call, the rise and fall..."

It's sort of the culture-wide equivalent of fading beauty, when you know that something superficial, something that is in the eye of the beholder, is all you have going for you:

Beyond Infatuation: True Love

The feverish excitement of meeting a new and enticing person, when settling down, can sometimes make place for a much more reliable and deep affection, one based on a deeper knowledge of the person's inner being and becoming, of their hopes and fears, their drives and demons, their principles and contradictions, their identity and difference. The same can be said of getting to know a new culture. The outer exotic, Them, becomes the inner familiar, Us. The fatuous, violent appetite becomes keen, powerful cordiality. The once mere lovers, are now true companions... and still lovers, hopefully...

It's a sound full of smiles in a tense atmosphere

which are hoping and breathing in this twisted time

It's the sound that offers twists and travels,

clamors, and faces,

It's the sound of marriages

Chorus:

If we sang in every colour

We'll make them dance, the bodies and hearts

If we're all together, it will be enough

If we gather our voices we will be heard

It's the sound that enlightens, shares and gathers

The beautiful districts dancing with the large ensembles

Those who wish for a friendly country, believe in a different national identity

It's the sound that dreams in reality, changes mentalities, sunders melancholy

It invents, it creates and overthrows established clichés and forgets all their funk

All the codes are banned and revised, we will put baggy trousers up the Elysée

No more quotas in football; no matter what we'll just keep the best

Weasels and fascists are just the same;

It is when there's too many that problems are raised

We see Yacine marry Delphine and not just pour la rime

(Chorus)

It is the sound that rewrites history

Everyone, on the streets, let us sing of hope!

The hope that, to change this world

we'll inevitably meet since the earth is round

Hope that things can move forward

that we love all the accents when we're speaking in French

The hope that one day it will be normal to see

a big bloc party at the National Assembly

The képis, the police, the kippas, the chador,

the bacwards-worn caps all fight the same fight,

The bohos, the proles, the bourgeois, the well-off, the street rats,

You are all invited on the track

It is the dance of a future that's slightly utopic

But this time needs hope

We must let ourselves be a little dreamy and believe it to see it

A Slice Of Life IN HELL

Plot Bunny; In a World where God is not a Reasonable Authority Figure (by modern, post-WWII standards) and sends non-believers and pagans to Hell, including otherwise perfectly decent people, as well as other transgressors for Values Dissonance rules (people who've had abortions, who don't ever pray or fast, who use profane language, who have same-sex relations, and so on). Hell not being a Fire and Brimstone environment, but a Crapsack World where causality itself is out to get you and Finnagles Law is turned Up to Eleven; it's basically Real Life on Super Hard Mode. And you can't die (though I've yet to decide whether it's a resuscitative immortality, where you die over and over, or a regenerative one, where you keep healing).

While having its fair share of horrible or even just mediocre people (following those rules won't save you if you aren't also a good person at heart), the more proactive among the good in that world seek to resist their fates as much as their will can bear, by being extremely cautious, taking a methodical, rational, thoughtful approach to everything they do, and taking great care of each other. Given that this is a Crapsack World out to get them, there's a lot of Yank the Dog's Chain and Bait the Dog involved, and the usual Cruel Twist Ending, but they do have eternity to acquire experience and wisdom, and get to really know each other. Thus we have a perpetual source of conflict, and Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy is avoided by making the Hell-dwellers very, very sympathetic.

Probably better as an anthology than as a single story. Literally a post-apocalyptic scenario, so comparisons to works taking place in such, like The Road, or Fist of the North Star, might be in order. May qualify as Religious Horror. Comparisons to Crapsack World such as Berserk or Warhammer 40K might also be useful. Hell being infinite, the technology and economy levels could have a great degree of variation; see Punk Punk, and especially Cyber Punk.

Now that I think of it, Italian author Dino Buzzati made a speciality of such stories in terms of tone, but had pretty much exactly one such setting for a series of short stories: Viaggio agli inferni del secolo. Hell doesn't need to invent suffering, when it can copy that of modern life and turn it Up to Eleven.

Te original idea was to use Islam's characterization of Hell as blueprint. Satan is just Hell-dweller being punished, and most certainly has no authority over the people he tempted into his nightmare..So, none of that "better to reign in Hell" or "hierachy of Demons". Humans go to Hell for a bunch of reasons, mostly for disbelieving and getting in the way of the propagation of Islam. 

Various groups of people described as being in Jahannam include: disbelievers, [35] hypocrites, [36] polytheists, [37] the People of the Book who reject the truth, [38] arrogant rejectors of truth, [39] sinners and criminals, [40] tyrants, [41] the unjust, [42] transgressors, [43] concealers of God's revelations, [44] persecutors of believers, [45] people who commit suicide, and murderers.[46]

The punishments are crude, brutal, and very, VERY fiery; no mind games, just plain pain. No mind games, no Dantesque Ironic/Poetic/Karmic, tailor-made punishments.  It's all at God's discretion, though, in all his "wisdom and knowledge", which means you might not spend an eternity in there, or any time at all. This is no Constitutional Monarchy; God is not bound by his own rules, and whatever he decides, goes.

After some thought, I decided to soften canon up a little bit. The work intends to be satiric ("What are these decent folk suffering so much for?"), but if they go through seething, burning, gruesome Cold-Blooded Torture, then there's just no way of taking it in that direction; either you're pants-out terrified and immediately prostrate yourself before the LORD, or Willing Suspension Of Dibelief is completely broken and you find yourself either laughing at the grotesqueness of it all, or tossing the whole thing down the toilet in disgust and contempt. Plus, that kind of torture negates all opportunities for storytelling; even Torture Porn tales like And I Must Scream and The Passion and Cupcakes give the characters pauses to stop and reflect on the horror they're going through, or playing mind games, or, you know, storiable things besides screaming silently, vocal chords long torn apart. 

Additionally, God's absolute power to do as He sees fit is a bit of a narrative impasse; it renders the whole "these rules are unfair and these are decent people getting a disproportionate retribution" premise moot. Or perhaps not. Perhaps one could successfully invoke the feeling of beaten young children who are lashed and screaming in pain for disobeying rules that they don't quite understand, set by an all-powerful, all-knowing, inescapable authority figure who claims to love them, and who punishes or forgives or even cajoles in patterns that don't seem to make sense. 

... To be continued.

Man, this is a disturbing topic to examine.

One Thousand And One

This is the first tale that I will begin to put together on this site.

In this post, I'll be referencing a wealth of works from all sorts of media, as well as tropes, i.e. recurrent patterns in fiction that you've probably seen a million times. . They aren't necessary to understand what I'm talking about, I think, but they help me ground it into pre-existing tradition; there is nothing new under the Sun. I also hope that you'll find the TVTropes articles entertaining. Well then, let's get down to business.



My very first attempt at writing, waaay back in 2007, was a story about a guy who was thrust into a Narrativium-based world, which was kind of like an immense, live Let's Play for the entertainment a bunch of True Fae children (about three centuries old). Gran't Morrison's Action Comics come to mind.


He'd be thrust into different genres as different roles, and he'd have to start thinking vey meta, very fast, if he wanted to survive each story. He also wanted to get the damned show cancelled without giving a bad performance that would give the Showrunner a reason to fire him (literally), leading to many Springtime For Hitler moments, much to his frustration (sort of like the protagonist of Stephen King's Misery, Hideo Kojima and Metal Gear, Hideaki Anno and Evangelion, Sir Arthur Conan Dyle and Sherlock Holmes ... but he also starts to take pride in his work (think Walter White and his blue meth)...


At some point, he'd become aware that the way things made "storytelling sense" rather than "logical sense" also extended to the world outside the game. And then, instead of the usual "nested realities", "am I still in the simulation",Inception kinda thing,








we'd have an Animal Man meets Grant Morrison type of meeting where he gets to complain to ME, personally. That would be the climax. It's only slightly less cliché :P Also, he would notice the readers.








(I swear, back when I read that first time, I spilled my drink all over the desk. If only I could pull off the same kind of mind-blowiness and audience confuzzlement...)


Most of the references I'm making here are retroactive; I had the idea much before I came in contact with them, but they're handy for condensing. Another work I'd compare this to would be GAINAX's Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai; a story where a kid and his "not my girlfriend" fall into one fantasy world after another, each representing a genre of fiction, with them and their immediate neighbors falling into new roles as befits the story-off-the-day, until they figure out the metaphysics of what's going on at the same time as their personal issues. I suppose I could give the main character a recurring supporting cast. Fellow "gladiators"? Or game personnel? Or both? In fact, now that I think of it, it might be better to start the story as an Ontological Mystery, where our hero spends the first arc progressively figuring out where he is and why, instead of having his slavery revealed to him right away as I initially thought.

Anyway, my point here is to say that, almost as soon as I wrote the first chapter, I went on hiatus, because I was keenly aware that I was biting much, much more than I could chew. Even now, I don't think I have remotely what it takes to plan out and pull off such a project. Designing machines is such easy work in comparison; all you need is patience and method.


But, still, some patience and method might be useful here. So, how should one go about planning out a project like this? It's all fun and interesting to play with meta-fiction, but what overall point do I want to drive home? What would be the central theme, the overarching storyline, that informs the entire story from beginning to end, and upon which I can build sub-plots and genre stories? Those are answers I must find on my own, but any pointers would be quite welcome.