Broken Vamp: The Chronicles of Cami Cupid

New this week!

Hungry Panther Publishing is proud to announce the release of Broken Vamp just in time for Halloween! This collection containing 3 full novels and 2 novellas encompasses the entire Cupid Project to this point and saves the reader more than 30% off retail price. A 1,200 page paranormal / urban fantasy collection filled with bisexual vampires, lesbian witches, queer identified demons, and an Undead United Nations of beautiful gay men!

Broken Vamp: The Chronicles of Cami Cupid

Alex Potvin and Rebecca Murphy

Books included in the collection:
Plucking Cupid's Bow
Blood, Bart, and Beyond
Half-Pipe to Hell
The Ghosts of Coyote Ridge
Cupid's Broken Wings

Genres: Paranormal Romance / Humorous / Horror and Supernatural / Urban Fantasy

  Price $9.99 on ebook only

Available on Kindle and Kobo

Contact Rebecca and Alex at PluckingCupidsBow@Gmail.com 

follow them on Twitter @Alex_and_Becky

and check out their web comic Cupid's Chaos

Praise for the books of Broken Vamp:

"Half-Pipe to Hell is a creepy avalanche of accelerating horror and suspense." --James P. Blaylock, author and winner of the Philip K. Dick Award and World Fantasy Award

"This has to be one of the most unique vampire books I have ever read, and I have read a lot...It isn't often you read a vampire book that makes you laugh out loud. You get more than your money’s worth in this book." --Linda Tonis reviewer for Paranormal Romance Guild

"If you're ever in the mood for something completely different that twists (but never betrays) the genre conventions, get yourself a comfy couch, grab a glass of wine (or two) and settle in for a fun read." --Sally Bend founder of Bending the Bookshelf

Synopsis:

The ultimate urban fantasy collection from the mad literary scientists of Alex Potvin and Rebecca Murphy includes the entire Cupid Project to this point. Three full-length novels and two novellas take the reader from Cami’s early days of discovering her vampirism, through Jameson Ryan’s epic battles with the undead, and into the coming apocalypse with all the romance and demon shenanigans between!

This collection follows the chronological order of the series, starting with the novel Plucking Cupid’s Bow, followed by the novella Blood, Bart, and Beyond, into the zombie adventure book Half-Pipe to Hell, then the novella The Ghosts of Coyote Ridge, finally concluding with Cami’s latest novel: Cupid’s Broken Wings.

The rich, vibrant urban fantasy world created by Potvin and Murphy teems with vampires, zombies, ghosts, demons, witches, evil spirits, necromancers, and werewolves aplenty! Do you dare step into the darkest nights of a vampire’s life with this 1,200 page collection?

Plucking Cupid's Bow:
Cami has spent the last 80 years trying to kill herself. She might even have succeeded if she weren’t a vampire. Aside from being undead, Cami has a little problem with being schizophrenic, which allows her to catch glimpses of the future, but also complicates the little things in life like talking (or knowing she is a vampire). Every night, she walks the streets of Washington D.C. while Barry and Melvin, her two inept demon companions, try to convince her to wreak as much havoc on the city as possible. The night she is hit by a car, driven by the last pure hearted priest in the city, her un-life is changed in ways she never thought possible. When her world is thrown into upheaval with people trying to kill her, hearts being broken, kidnappings, torture, and Shakespearian plays, Cami’s desire to kill herself fades to an afterthought as more important aspects of life, love, and vampire politics take over.

Caught in the middle of an undead power struggle, Cami is coming of age...a century after her death.

Blood, Bart, and Beyond:
Love is in the air and Brianna’s uncle is in the ground…but only temporarily.

Cami and Brianna’s romantic beach getaway hits a snag when Brianna’s wayward Uncle Pazito dies. Cami, the schizophrenic vampire extraordinaire, must brave the familial awkwardness of cleaning out a relative’s house, the strangely difficult task of ordering a pizza, and avert a zombie apocalypse brought about by undead gangsters.

Cami and Brianna’s six month anniversary must survive an undead motorcycle with an ulterior motive, an obstructive demon sidekick that shouldn’t even be there, and a thoroughly disapproving mother or their relationship (and a lot of other people) will join Uncle Pazito six feet under.

Half-Pipe to Hell:
Deep in the Rocky Mountains, an ancient evil has awoken. The town of New Pandora, a ski mecca for the ultra wealthy created atop the ruins of a crumbling mining town, recently received a new center piece. In the middle of the roundabout, a replica of an Assyrian death cult obelisk was just delivered. The town paid little attention to the macabre artwork when the new extreme winter sports competition arrived, setting up at the base of Hunter’s Peak. The coming competition is even distraction enough for the local Sheriff to cover up a few werewolf attacks, but when the dead begin rising from their graves, the half-pipe runs are postponed. The local used bookstore owner / powerful techno-pagan, and a mysterious stranger to town seem to be the only ones who know the true threat of the obelisk.

Marcus the fearless snowboarder, Jaimia the Polynesian werewolf, and Jameson the Australian soldier of fortune must unravel the mystery of how a six-thousand year old Assyrian artifact found its way into the Colorado Rockies or be consumed by the horde of living dead drawn to it.

The Ghosts of Coyote Ridge:
Powerful necromancers, practitioners of dead magic who draw their magic from the space between life and death, walk among the living and the dead, carrying out nefarious plans. Jameson Ryan, soldier of misfortune, famed vampire hunter, and slayer of all things supernatural is blighted by a necromancer whose primary goal seems be to making him miserable. All his strength and cunning are worth nothing when it comes to Anna, the second most powerful necromancer in the world, since he is and likely always will be, completely in love with her.

Deep in the New Mexico desert, Anna is playing with powerful magic to set right years of injustice and murder in hopes of laying to rest hundreds of wandering spirits. Jameson is called into the wilds to protect the woman he loves, but soon he discovers he’ll be protecting her as much from herself as the evil undead rising to stop her.

Cupid's Broken Wings:
Cami’s life was going great! She had a lovely girlfriend, a beautiful mansion, was about to graduate from community college with an associates degree in general studies, and her demon companions hadn’t tried to convince her to kill herself in months…which was why she probably should have seen the apocalypse coming.

In the months following her graduation, Cami suffers the first great death of a loved one, followed shortly by the death of a not-so-loved one, her house burns down, she keeps waking up during the day, strange visions haunt her formerly dreamless sleep, a psychotic gang leader befriends her, she discovers exactly how difficult it is to fit in in Los Angeles without a boob job, and then she accidentally helps an ancient evil bring about Armageddon.

With all the sex, drugs, and drop-ins by distant relatives, Cami begins to regret her decision to go away to college…especially after discovering vampire college doesn’t even exist!

Sexism and Sexuality in Video Games

Show me on the doll where the dialog option wheel touched you.

There's a cool video floating around the deep internet of a talk given by the lead writer at Bioware called Sexism and Sexuality in the Gaming Industry. You can find it here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/194571/Video_Sexism_and_sexuality_in_games.php

It's long. Like an episode of Breaking Bad long. But it covers a whole lot more than just sexuality and sexism and it branches outside the gaming industry to cover a few societal points of importance. It also has one of the best definitions of privilege I've ever heard. I encourage everyone to set aside 45 minutes or so and watch the whole thing, especially if you're a Bioware fan.

In Dragon Age 2, the option to have a romance storyline with any character was opened up to any gender. People freaked out more about the apparent "bisexuality" of the characters more than the insanely retreaded dungeon maps. First off, it wasn't bisexuality because the NPCs only respond to the protagonist, so if the protagonist was female and romanced the males, Fenris and Anders were straight or if you made your character male and romanced them, they were gay. And if you didn't romance a character, their sexuality wasn't even noted. There are two exceptions to this: Isabela who was defined as probably pansexual more than bisexual, and Anders having a single conversation point of initiating a flirtation with the protagonist. Isabela is an overly sexualized pirate porn star, so it was no surprise the straight male gaming population didn't have any problems with her being into everyone aside from some strange, prudish comments about her being too slutty, which struck me as an ironic and hilarious complaint coming from straight male gamers.

The Anders initiation of flirtation apparently scared the living shit out of a small portion of the straight male population who couldn't believe some guy in a game might make a really vague pass at them! For one thing, I've played through the game several times now, and the comment is so innocuous, I actually missed it until my most recent play through, and when I did finally notice it I was more irritated that there wasn't a "let him down easy" option. I mentioned this whole thing to Becky, who doesn't like the Dragon Age games because they talk too much. She prefers the Dead Island games where you spend most of your time smashing skulls with flaming shovels and all the conversations are short and lead to more smashing of skulls.

Her reaction:
"Aww, poor babies. That's just called life for women."

We had fun talking about the craziness of people being offended by a seriously unobtrusive (I didn't even notice it until play through #4) in a game with slavery, murder, blood splatters everywhere, and an elf child rape/murder serial killer. But her point here was something I hadn't even thought about. Getting hit on by people you aren't interested in is pretty much a normal state of being for women from the age of 12 or 13 until...well...death. In one video game, straight male gamers had to deal with one conversation in which they were very lightly hit on by someone they weren't interested in, and they flipped the fuck out.

Dragon Age 2 wasn't a very good video game and it's a little on the old side now, but the way it exposed straight male privilege was fairly amazing. The option to go through life and not be approached sexually by people you don't want to be approached by is something entirely unique to straight males. It's such an inborn privilege that straight males apparently cannot fathom a world in which they would have to deal with unwanted sexual advances. Losing this privilege even for a second, even to a per-programmed video game character, was so horrible they wanted an option to turn this feature off. Seriously, they asked for a toggle in the option menu to prevent that one line from Anders from occurring. Ironically, I imagine most of the women straight male gamers harass, especially online/xbox live/playstation network, would love a toggle to shut off the unwanted sexual advances perpetrated by straight male gamers.

It's one of those things where I didn't feel one shred of sympathy for the whining, possibly sexually confused young men who felt emotionally violated by a video game character making a benign pass at them. And I couldn't put my finger on exactly why I didn't give a shit about their pathetic plight until Becky pointed out how hypocritical their complaints were.

I, for one, am glad Bioware took the time to violate the privilege of straight male gamers. I wish they'd spent as much time on unique dungeon maps and timeline continuity as they did tweaking the noses of people who have never had their noses tweaked.

Anaxilea: Amazon Princess

New this week!

Hungry Panther Publishing is proud to announce the release of Anaxilea: Amazon Princess! This novel marks the launch of a GLBT oriented young adult series. Whether you're young or just young at heart, Anaxilea offers a young adult reading experience for the GLBT community. Anaxilea is the lesbian sister and gay BFF The Hunger Games never knew it had!

Anaxilea: Amazon Princess

Alex Potvin and Rebecca Murphy

Book 1 of 4 in the Amazon Gladiator series

Genres: Young Adult / Alternative History / Greek, Roman Mythology

  Price $2.99 ebook / $11.99 paperback

Available on Amazon, Nook, Kobo

Extras: map drawn by the authors and glossary of gladiator terms 

Contact Rebecca and Alex at PluckingCupidsBow@Gmail.com 

follow them on Twitter @Alex_and_Becky

and check out their web comic Cupid's Chaos

Praise for Anaxilea:

"Sharp, sharp, sharp, funny and new. Has the potential to breathe some fresh air into a saturated market.  I hope people love this as much as I did." ~Adam Sass author of Stay on Fountain: A Look at the Great Gay Tipping Point and Stay On Fountain Online Magazine

"Enjoyed it immensely--hurry up on the sequel!" ~Jean Lamb author of Dead Man's Hand

Synopsis:

The Amazons of the steppes have conquered since a time before recorded history. The kingdom of the proud women warriors is threatened by a vast invading force of men in metal armor who invade out of the western mountains at the edge of the Amazon domain. Anaxilea, the youngest daughter of War Queen Lysippe, is taken hostage by the invading force and sold into slavery.

Anaxilea finds herself in a bizarre new world where women are beneath men, cows are valued more than horses, and everyone desires the worthless metal gold. A shepherd boy, from a tribe long ago subjugated by the Amazons, is her only guide to the new world, but his motives are suspicious and his loyalties are constantly changing.

After she is sold to the ancient Ludus Dacicus, a gladiator training school founded by the first Caesar, she must learn to fight within the arena to prove her worth or suffer a fate worse than death. Romance blossoms within the walls of the ludus, and Anaxilea finds herself within a love triangle, caught between a pure-hearted slave girl and a charming Olympic champion. The games at Neapolis will determine if she survives to claim her birthright as an Amazon Princess or fall to betrayal.

**Disclaimer: substantial violence, mild sexuality, little language--recommended age 14 and above**

Sample Chapter 1:

Chapter 1

Cool spring winds swept down off the craggy mountains ringing in the northern edge of the steppe grass sea. The exposed, rocky peaks of the mountains were still crowned in the white snows of winter even as the sky behind them was vibrant blue, portending of warmer seasons to come. The flat grasslands of the steppes washed over in the wind, waving like a great ocean of green and tan water. Only the distant sound of the wind through the valleys along the edges of the mountains covered the silence.

From her perch atop the Lonely Rock Mother, a strange island of boulders in the midst of the plains, Anaxilea believed she could smell the mountain snow on the wind and hear the hoof-beats of a thousand horses riding into the west. She was the youngest of three daughters and thus third in the line of succession for the Antiope Crown. The wind could not touch her within her furs of winter. She wore a warm hide jerkin over her torso while her arms were covered in the gray fuzzy pelts of raccoons harvested after their winter coats were grown.

As the old Amazon proverb went: the vastness of the steppes swallows up most things. The sounds of battle would be so far away that even a trained and familiar ear like Anaxilea’s wouldn’t be able to hear her mother and sisters destroying the men who wore metal. Her mother, Queen Lysippe, was mighty in battle, wise in her rule, and had expanded the borders of the Amazon people from the eastern edge of the steppes north to the saltwater and as far west into the empty grasses as anyone cared to ride. The men who wore metal that came out of the western mountains were weak in their strategies as they needed metal armor to fight and were foolish in their use of horses, hooking them to tiny, two-wheel wagons rather than riding them. Queen Lysippe and her mounted archers would drive them from the steppes as she had in the past, as she had with the Thracian tribes who made claims to the grazing and hunting lands that rightfully belonged to the Amazons. When the men who wore metal were defeated, the Amazons would take their horses, melt their armor into thousands of arrowheads, and use both to finish the conquest of the grasslands all the way to the western mountains. The vastness of the steppes would then swallow up even the memory of the defeated men.

Anaxilea could hear the thundering of Scyleia’s horse coming out of the south. Even as she heard her best friend, her moon sister, and she hoped one day her betrothed, she could feel Scyleia in her heart. Breeding only took place among the Amazons at specific times of the year when a crop of captured men had proven themselves worthy of passing their life on. Only the tallest, strongest, and smartest men were kept from the knife when the Amazons raided the many tribes throughout the steppes. It took months to determine the best of the stock. The men were tested in combat, horsemanship, endurance, and ability to learn the Amazon language and customs. Those who failed died in their trials or were gelded and traded to the men who crossed the saltwater seeking slaves. Those who survived were used in thrice yearly breeding rituals by the Amazon women who had earned the right to carry children. The daughters born to the tribes three times a year were known as moon sisters, bound to one another by their generation and the blessings of the shared rituals that marked their conception. Anaxilea and Scyleia were moon sisters of one of the most promising summer generations born in years. At fifteen cycles old, they were nearly to the point of womanhood where they would be allowed to fight in raids, hunt the great cats of the steppes, earn the right to breed if they so chose, and take a life mate. Anaxilea already had her heart set on Scyleia for the bonding ritual.

Anaxilea slipped down from the peak of the rocks, descending quickly in practiced hops that even mountain goats would envy. She was a superb climber without fear of heights or falls from them. It was an unusual skill for an Amazon to display, although they celebrated strength in any form, and gave her the nickname of “Sure-Foot.”

Scyleia’s massive, tan mare rumbled across the flat grasslands toward the rocky outcropping. Scyleia sat tall, riding bareback with her bow slung across her back and her sky-blessed blond hair trailing behind her. She was beautiful in the leathers of the spring season, abandoning the warmer furs still worn by most Amazons as winter’s hold on the steppes hadn’t entirely receded. Scyleia’s long limbs were protected by light deerskin bracers bound to her with crisscross lacing and a thicker protective girdle of horse hide with a loin cloth. The clothing of spring and summer guarded only what might be harmed by the brush while riding and thus left much of Scyleia’s skin defiantly exposed to the elements.

Increasingly, her friend was also exposed to Anaxilea’s gaze. The Princess had begun to notice the blossoming of womanhood in her friend and looked upon it with an appreciative eye. The girl she had loved as a friend her entire life was becoming something more, and Anaxilea could feel the shifting of her feelings in response to Scyleia’s maturation. Bonded pairs did not always share a physical relationship. A third of Amazons did not enter into a coupling with another Amazon at all, and of the two thirds that did, only about half shared intimate relations as part of the arrangement. Anaxilea had not known what she wished for from her bonding with Scyleia until very recently, and she was not sure how her friend might react to the request. It was a terrible feeling to yearn for something as she did and yet be just as frightened of not getting it.

Scyleia leapt from the back of her horse and up onto the lowest rocks, never letting her sandaled feet touch the waist-deep grass of the steppes. She embraced Anaxilea with their right arms locked hand to forearm, and then they kissed one another on the forehead in turn.

“I brought paint,” Scyleia said.

“Red?” Anaxilea asked.

Scyleia shook her head. “Black.”

“We can wash it off before we go back in the morning,” Anaxilea said.

Scyleia nodded and they scaled the Lonely Rock Mother to where a natural spring bubbled up between the enormous stones. Scyleia mixed the powdered elements of the paint in a worn groove on one of the rocks, dipping her hand into the tiny trickle of water to drop just enough of the spring to mix the paint. They were un-bloodied in battle yet, and thus not worthy of any but the red paint of the rust-colored clay dug from the eastern river banks. Black paint was meant only for warriors who had killed a human enemy in combat or a huntress who had killed a plains cat armed only with spear and knife. Scyleia and Anaxilea had done neither. Painting one another with the marks of a warrior beneath the full moon was a game they’d shared since childhood. It was playing at what they one day hoped to become, and, with any luck, it would be the last year they would simply play at it.

Anaxilea sat cross-legged while Scyleia chose a reed to paint the figures and patterns on the Princess’s skin. The daylight was fading above the western mountains that were so far away as to only be visible at the end of the day. Anaxilea removed her hide jerkin with her back to her friend. For a moment she wondered if Scyleia looked upon her body and felt the same growing hunger that Anaxilea felt when she saw her friend.

“Would you ride to the western mountains for me?” Anaxilea asked.

“If my princess asked, I would ride without stopping until I reached the stones, claim a rock from the bed of the swiftest river, and return with it held high above my head,” Scyleia replied. She began applying the cool, gritty paint along Anaxilea’s exposed arms and shoulders.

“Would you kill a plains cat for me?” Anaxilea asked.

“If my princess asked, I would track the greatest pride lord to his lair and brave his pit of bones to bring back the striped mane pelt my princess deserves.” Scyleia brushed aside Anaxilea’s long, sandy braid to paint the space between her shoulders with the looping vines she favored. It tickled, but Anaxilea only let herself grin as she didn’t want to spoil the artwork that she wouldn’t even be able to see.

“Would you scale the Stormy Peak to tell me what you saw beyond the grass sea?” Anaxilea asked.

“If my princess asked, I would likely fall and break my neck in the attempt,” Scyleia teased. “I should ask you if you would climb the mountains for me since you are the only Amazon in memory who would survive.”

“If my moon sister asked, I would climb the mountain and bring her back a handful of the snow from the highest point to taste the top of the mountain,” Anaxilea said.

“How would you keep it from melting?”

“I would blow on it.”

“That would not work.”

“Do you want the snow or not?”

“I do.”

“Then do not question your princess.”

“As she commands.” Scyleia tickled Anaxilea’s ribs with her free hand.

They changed places, and Anaxilea took the offered reed to paint Scyleia’s skin. Her moon sister was a little taller, a little stronger, and a little darker of skin. Anaxilea envied Scyleia’s prowess as a rider and archer. There would be no crown for Anaxilea, both her elder sisters were capable and healthy, and so she felt she had little to offer Scyleia in return for their future bonding. It was often said among those who knew such things that Scyleia would become a celebrated huntress or a great warrior cloaked in glory, whichever path she chose. A huntress needed to be tall enough to spot the plains cats within the grasses at a distance and a warrior needed to have the strength to grip a horse with her legs and draw a bow with a heavy enough pull to fire an arrow capable of killing a man; Anaxilea had neither of these things, at least, not in the vast quantities that Scyleia did. The Princess painted well and knew plants—she thought she might make a decent shaman, which would mean the position of their future family would have to come from Scyleia. A shaman simply didn’t command enough respect for a decent selection from the male herds.

Anaxilea traced large swaths of darkness across Scyleia’s skin and then plucked out small points from the blackness to create a starry night across her moon sister’s shoulders and arms. Beneath a crescent moon drawn from the dark paint, Anaxilea drew a small herd of wild horses.

“Do you think there will be any worthy males found in the ranks of the men who wore metal?” Anaxilea asked. Admiring of male herds was something young Amazon girls did on occasion. Anaxilea seldom saw anything to catch her eye within the Thracian tribesmen they took. She’d seen Scyleia send approving glances to certain types of men in the past, although her friend was just as likely to hurl scorn at the men.

Scyleia snorted. “They know nothing. They speak no language worth knowing, cannot ride a horse, and know to fight only when they are told to. What Amazon with the right to breed would select such pathetic stock?”

“What male would you select?” Anaxilea asked.

“Tall, of course,” Scyleia said. “Large hands like stone hammers. Perhaps one who had a history of fathering daughters.”

Anaxilea scoffed. “Any tribesman caught knows to lie about the number of daughters they’ve fathered and no one beneath the height of a hut beam is allowed to be considered. Large hands was all you told me.”

“This is why I would cut out their lying tongue first.”

Anaxilea laughed and shook her head. “What would you have us do with them after?” She could tell from the tense muscles along the back of Scyleia’s neck that the question, which wasn’t one they’d discussed before, made her friend nervous.

“If they provided daughters and knew horses well enough to be of value, they could work our herd, which I am certain will be large enough to require many attendants,” Scyleia said.

The demand of daughters was another avoidance of answering the question. Four out of every five children born to an Amazon was female. If an Amazon had two sons in a row, they lost their right to breed. The real answer Anaxilea was after was whether or not Scyleia expected a male consort to join their bed permanently once they were bonded. It was a difficult question to give voice to though, so Anaxilea asked a different one.

“What would you do with them if they provided sons?”

“Geld the father and give both of them to whatever supplicant tribe would take them,” Scyleia said.

It was the answer Anaxilea expected. Her friend was a true follower of the old ways in that regard: whatever was not valuable to the Amazonian people should be cast off to the conquered peoples of the steppes. More spiritually zealous Amazons would offer the father and son to the gods of the sky and mountains upon great bonfires in hopes of purifying the mistake. Anaxilea was glad Scyleia did not hold this extreme view.

Before Anaxilea could ask another secondary question to further avoid the weightier question, Scyleia asked her first. “If a man should provide daughters and not be offensive to the eyes, nose, or ears, would you wish him to remain in our hut?”

Anaxilea set aside her painting reed as the black paint was already dried too much to continue. It was easier to answer the back of Scyleia’s head than look her in the face and say the potentially embarrassing words. “No,” Anaxilea said. “I would share our home only with you and our daughters if we should be so fortunate.”

It was a far more interesting question passing from Scyleia to Anaxilea. The Queen, Anaxilea’s mother, kept a male consort for her bed, called him by his name, and rarely struck him for his insolence. Anaxilea knew the man was not the same who had sired her—that man had died while defending their village when Anaxilea was still a small child. She couldn’t remember much of the man who had sired her. Only that his eyes were green like hers and he had a joyous humor to him. Scyleia’s mothers were bonded from a very young age and raised a household of only daughters, refusing to let any male energy on their property. They made their selections for breeding partners at the sacred stones, did their breeding there as well, and then left the sires to whatever fates the tribe decided for the remaining male stock. Scyleia’s sire was unknown and unimportant while people still remembered the name of Anaxilea’s. As far as Anaxilea knew, Scyleia’s mothers did not share in carnal pleasures with one another, but she hoped that tradition wasn’t something Scyleia would emulate.

“That is what I would have as well,” Scyleia finally said.

Subterfuge was not Scyleia’s way, but appeasing Anaxilea was. Still, Anaxilea got what she wanted from the conversation whether or not Scyleia meant what she said. “Then it is decided.”

With their war paint dry, they laid upon the rocks in the sheltered crux of the Lonely Stone Mother. The wind calmed and a faint trickle of clouds passed in front of the moon on an otherwise clear night. Anaxilea shared her furs with Scyleia and they fell asleep holding one another close as they had thousands of times over the years.

Battle of the Sexes: Archery

From time to time, Becky and I revive our time honored tradition of donut-shop discussions where we sat around in Puck's Donuts and debated the trivialities of the universe during dead week of college. The topic for this particular donut-shop discussion is whether or not bow and arrows are a predominantly female or male weapon. As we've written two book series together that feature a female protagonist archer (Cami in Plucking Cupid's Bow and Anaxilea in Anaxilea: Amazon Princess) we've agreed we will not use our own creative processes as part of the debate. I, Alex, will choose green to mark my half of the discussion because I got to pick first and I know how much Becky likes green. Becky will get to go first and she  chose pink because it compliments green.

Amazons.

You can't have a one word opening argument.

Okay, fine, Amazons and Athena.

Apollo was just as known for archery as Athena, and ancient Greek mythology is hardly the gold standard anymore. J.R.R. Tolkien said the bow was a male weapon and nobody made it sing like Legolas, but even if you're going to stick to the oldest of old schools, there's also Paris who killed Achilles with a bow.

Is there anyone else Orlando Bloom played that you'd like to list?

Maybe, but I can't think of any other movies he was in. Behold the incredible badassery that is Legolas killing an Oliphant!

He had a bunch of friends watching his back and crazy elf skills. Plus, I think Legolas was a thousand years old or something. His awesomness is qualified by extreme amounts of time to become amazing and the fact that he was played by such a mediocre actor. Katniss Everdeen was only 15 when she had to pick up the bow to save her sister, feed her family, and fight to the death all alone.

She wasn't alone. She had that baker guy throwing himself on every other landmine she walked past. Even you aren't Team Peeta.

Gale was hotter.

And Gale hunted using...?

He wasn't as good as Katniss with a bow. The questions isn't whether or not archery or baking made a guy hotter. It is whether or not the bow and arrow is a male or female weapon, and Katniss was better.

You know what, even though Katniss killed maybe four people with her bow, I'll give you that she was better than Gale, because I"m about to win this thing.

Artemis was Apollo's sister and she used a bow too.

Deep background mythology won't save you now, Murphy. We've got Hawkeye, even you liked The Avengers, and Rambo.

Okay, Hawkeye was the least Avengery guy in that entire movie. Most people probably thought it was actually the character from the Hurt Locker. And didn't Rambo help the Taliban in one of his movies? I think he did and I think you even linked the poster to that movie as your example.

I think one of the guys in the movie was actually named Osama.

I've got two for you though. Princess Merida and Lady Sylvanas.

Invoking Pixar and World of Warcraft? Fine, have bows, but we're keeping crossbows.

What about Buffy? She used a crossbow all the time.

Yeah, but she missed half the time. I've got two words for you: Daryl Dixon.

Just wait until we talk about swords.

To continue the battle of the sexes or add to it, there's a comment section.