Hero Wars

Things are heating up on Twitter, with the heroes of Entangled Publishing duking it out next week using the hashtag #HeroWars. I've convinced Belphagor to play along, even though he isn't quite sure what's expected of him. Here's a sneak peak at his stats:

Name: Belphagor, an airspirit demon of Raqia in the Third Heaven

Build: Wiry but muscular

Height: 5’8”

Weight: 160lbs

Eye color: Ebony

Hair: Dark, short, spiked on top

Body art: Numerous Russian prison tats, including on hands and fingers; pierced eyebrow; pierced nipples

Strengths: Fiercely loyal; able to manipulate the element of air, including influencing the mind; as a BDSM top, he makes people feel cherished and protected with an almost paternal sensibility

Weaknesses: Has difficulty trusting others and keeps things to himself to his own detriment, resulting in getting himself into trouble he might otherwise have avoided

Leading Man: Vasily, a firespirit demon

Favorites: The game of wingcasting (a kind of celestial poker); cigars; spanking naughty “boys”; a good Russian tea

Occupation: Gambler and thief

Nickname: Prince of Tricks

Quote: "I can't imagine why you think I'd have sex with a girl."

Tormented by My Tortured Hero

Stop by Coffee and Porn in the Morning where I'm blogging about Belphagor today, in the middle of Butt Week. (Where else would you want to be??) Below are some images that say "Belphagor" to me, to get you in the mood:

Saturday evening post: Recalcitrant demons and tattooed males

So I've gotten to that point in my latest work in progress where all the pieces have fallen into place, and I know exactly what's going to happen from here to the end...except for One. Little. Thing. It's a fairly crucial thing. My demon character Belphagor is supposed to have a plan that he unveils at the last minute to save the day in a certain situation. And now it's time for me to write that scene. But he won't tell me what it is. And people wonder why writers drink.

In lieu of actual writing getting done, I will now post some random tattooed males. This first one definitely has something young-Belphagorian going on:

Is this a cute boy or a hot dyke? Oh, who cares!

This one's just plain easy on the eyes:

And you may thank me for this one later:

Bashful

Friday flesh: Also fantasy

Just because...

Yeah, baby...Thor.

There was not enough of this in this movie and there is not enough of it on the Internet:

And Sif's wearing way too many clothes, but still hot:

And there was a distinct lack of this:

Now for some random hotness:

Friday flesh: Androgyny

Searching for an image of my Hades, I came across this insanely androgynous beauty, model Andrej Pejic:

His androgynous look is so perfect, he almost doesn't look human. Instead he calls to mind Storm Constantine's Wraeththu.

Like Danila Polyakov and Bartek Borowiec, he's frequently photographed in deliberately feminine attire, makeup, and poses.

I am loving this trend in male modeling. :D

Saturday evening post: Young Belphagor

Ooh. I just found my young Belphagor:

Isn't he sweet? Of course, he should have dark brown eyes, and young Belphagor had no tattoos, until...oh, right. You have to read the second trilogy to find that out. Sorry for the horrible tease. (notsorry)

To make up for it, here's a brief excerpt from young Belphagor's introduction to the world of Man:

“His skin is as smooth as a girl’s.” The angel watched him from the low light through the sheer-curtained window.

So that was how it was. On Earth as it is in Heaven. He had paid for his supper in Raqia in much the same way on more than one occasion. Belphagor gave them a winsome smile. He was not above playing whatever part was required to the hilt.

Bonus post: Friday flesh

And because I just happened to have some spare nekkid tattooed people "lying about," I thought I'd post a few bits of candy for everyone:

Personally, I don't think he's nearly as hot as Mateo, but...OMG...I'm typing right under his groin!

Seriously, though, I prefer this one:

And in keeping with the theme of my ume tattoo, this one's not too hard on the eyes either:

But this one is my favorite:

Sigh. Tattooed girls in love.

You may thank me now.

Throwing Chora

So an interesting thing developed while I was writing the Queen of Heaven series. The beginning of The House of Arkhangel'sk opens on a card game. It was one of the first images I had of this world: a den of "iniquity" in heaven, where an angel of the ruling House of Arkhangel'sk, disguised as a local in heaven's ghetto, played cards with a demon. I thought my demons should have a deck of cards more suited to heaven than earth, so I invented one that used the angelic orders in four suits for the cardinal elements, and called the game "wingcasting." (Don't ask me where the name came from. It's lost in the primordial soup of the book's beginnings. All I remember is that I was looking for Victorian card games, and something put this combination of words into my head, and it stuck.)

The game is played much like poker, but to make it more complicated, I added a twelve-sided die with a different animal representing one of the four cardinal elements on each face. The play of each hand is preceded by a cast of the die, giving one's opponent the opportunity to call out a symbol before it lands. If that symbol appears on the face, the casting player must surrender a card. If it doesn't, the opponent must increase his bet to continue to play.

This was all well and good, and deliciously impossible to win. My naughty demon Belphagor became a master player—through both skill and tricks—and beat the pants off my little angel. (Or rather, beat the pants onto her...well, you'll have to read it.)

Little did I know, there were other demons hanging around the slums of Raqia who used the cards for something else entirely. One demon in particular likes to keep things from me until she springs them on me at the last minute out of the blue, and she was busy turning this harmless little deck of cards into a much more useful tool. Thus the divination system called the Chora (for the choirs of angels depicted on the cards) was born. More than just a device for fortune-telling, it became a means of communicating between the spheres, when such practicalities as the Internet and cell phones could not be had in my late-Victorian Heaven.

Why am I telling you all this? Heavens, I don't know. You're the one who came to the blog; don't blame it on me. What do you want, pictures of half-naked tattooed men every day? Well...okay, then!

Oh, and I'll be blogging over at Here Be Magic tomorrow about plotting with the tarot.

Looking for Belphagor

Belphagor turns out to be much harder to find than Vasily...and I never thought I'd find Vasily. Sigh. But here's a model who has a certain Belphagorian look to him:

Is that a gun in his pocket, or...?

And here's another one; no tattoos, unfortunately, but he has a little something of Belphagor in the eyes. Interestingly, both of these models are Brazilian. Is Belphagor Brazilian? Who knew?

But if I could find a 30something, tattooed, cigar-smoking, pierced Robert Downey, Jr., he'd be perfect.

Whaddya think? Can you see any of these guys spanking Vasily? Ah, well. The search continues.

I want candy (now SFW)

Everybody else has candy. Why can't I have candy? A lot of my writer friends are known for posting "man candy"—which I love; don't get me wrong. I just figured turnabout's fair play, so I thought I'd post a little candy of my own.

This reminds me of Ola Vasilyevna, my little Russian angel-demon. I don't know who that is behind her; certainly not Thiel. Maybe it's Hades.

Love this one, too.

Update: I've linked to the photos I'm referring to after finding the photographer's website: Olga Guzhevnikova. She has several more of this gorgeous model, whose name I don't know.