recovering Helen

Tense.

2009-09-21T11:15:00.001-05:00

you’re not here
you’re not there
you’re not anywhere in between
you’re the arrival
and the leaving
you are the gross miscalculation
the careful punctuation
the kingdom of lepers cradling the cure

beware the carrion swarm
they come for your heart
they have no schedule
they don’t wait for trains
they’ve tried to catch you before
and failed, future perfect indicative

I couldn’t begin to teach you
all the things I’ve failed
on principle of consistency
I don’t play with dice
I hold no hands
I am screaming for someone
anyone
anyone
to fix everything
I don’t think you’re worthy
and I don’t think he can handle it

and he’s been coming, past predicated
with impressive speed
he’s a flyer of spectacularly bad aim
and he aims to win
and he keeps on keeping on
no matter what I say
no matter what you fuck up
he will keep on keeping our secrets
he will keep on smashing down walls
and the occasional fruit cart

we could have started sooner
but that would necessarily skew
everything, present encompassing authoritative
we just can’t help ourselves
it’s our nature to take them head on
safety goggles be damned
we are the ultimate power play
with all the honesty of a laugh track
we will destroy the world
and make it over in our image
stand back, adjust
and try again
there’s always, always
always
more time.

More character theory.

2009-09-15T16:16:00.004-05:00

I call this one my "Inertia" theory.

Personality is the emergent effect of "raw personality" in the presence of an environment, which by nature is constantly in flux, rendering the resulting human being as complex and also in flux.

A "raw personality" is a set of dominant traits of varying intensities. each trait counts as a strength and a weakness. Because of the nature of humans and their environments - the constant flux - there is no way to have a pure strength or a pure weakness. There will always be two sides to any coin regarding personality traits. Therefore there is no such thing as a "bad" trait. Any perceived "badness" will always have a "goodness" attached. Perception of the "goodness" or "badness" of traits is subject to the flux of society and individuals.

Because under this system "perfection" is impossible, this ensures that no one can ever be truly boring.

Perfection as a goal has meaning and is interesting. Perfection as attained is boring. Lack of variation renders it so.

This is why the smarter religions promise perfection after death. It guarantees lifelong struggle. Which isn't a problem, since that's what people do anyway.

Inertia theory:
People in motion stay in motion.
People at rest are boring and don't get video games made about them.

Force characters and demise.

2009-09-14T16:56:00.002-05:00

I was thinking the other day about developing Force characters with their deaths in mind.

(A Force is a character with an extremely plain life arc, existing to represent an idea. I talk more about this concept - and Jack - in my Pirates post.)

I took six powerful Force characters from other stories and examined what they represented, whether they died or not, and why. Three are villains, three are heroes.

Jack Sparrow - Pirates trilogy
Hero/lives
Represents quirky, brilliant pirate-rogue stereotype - the total freedom of the open sea. The message of the trilogy is that pirates never die, so Jack, as their core embodiment, can't either.

Tyler Durden - Fight Club
Villain/dies
Represents the rage and chaotic anarchy caged inside young professionals. Message is that Tyler's identity must be merged with the main and it's unhealthy to let it run rampant - so it's necessary for him to be destroyed. (I go into more detail on Tyler in my Fight Club analysis.)

Ra's Al Ghul - Batman Begins
Villain/dies
Represents extreme vigilante-ism, with no compassion or allowance for repentance. By defeating him the hero proves his rejection of this philosophy.

The Joker - The Dark Knight
Villain/lives
Represents pure, unbridled chaos - so pure it could be compared to a god like Loki. Because the hero is the advocate of order, it stands to reason that without chaos - without the Joker - the hero would not exist - and the other way around. Therefore both survive their encounter.

Julia - Cowboy Bebop
Heroine/dies
Represents Spike's capacity to love - and all that he is capable of loving. She is therefore what makes him arguably immortal (arguable in light of the extreme odds against him). Her passing signals the end of his immunity to death.

V - V for Vendetta
Hero/dies
Represents pure revolution, against injustice. Recognizes that he, as Revolution, is incapable of existing in the world of freedom he strives to create, and so must pass away. The self-knowledge only adds to his heroism.

Looking at these characters, I'm left with the impression that whether a Force lives or dies - when done well like these six are - hugely impacts the plot. Rather, the plot dictates the necessity of them living or dying, based on what they represent, and that idea's relation to the story you're trying to write. They are just as meaningful - if not more so - than fully-rounded character deaths. Because they represent a concept that is of massive importance to the overall theme of the story, Force characters' actions are the base chords of harmony that the melody of the rest dances to. Without these kinds of characters, clear direction of meaning is difficult to achieve. On the other end of the spectrum, a story made exclusively of Force characters is very shallow (i.e. parables and fables).

The beauty, once again, is in the balance. Idea-driven Forces carefully weighted by well-rounded, heavily complex main characters. When they put aside their differences and work together, awesome stuff happens. Ass gets kicked. The day gets saved. Little kids get muffins.

Muffin...*drool*

I will not apologize.

2009-07-23T10:47:00.004-05:00

Things I'm fairly nuts about right now:

Buffy
Big Bang Theory
Egypt
getting Umi's mining Outlands-ready
Doctors and Byzantines
Coheed & Cambria
old playlists (esp. Kate's)
tuna sashimi
Ren's bio (I wrote) and Leda's story (I did not)
breakfast
The Venture Bros.
Pallas and Su-Yong

Melty.

2009-03-10T17:34:00.005-05:00

Gehhh! Aine has been melting down her brain to make fake land and unhappy people. This is working well, but as a result I am no good for anything except reading stupid girly manga and playing more IX. I mean really. I don't even have the brain power for WoW. That's saying something.

The soundtrack for Amelie is amazing. I am ashamed to admit I've never seen the movie.

Watchmen melteth what smidgeon of brain I have leftover. I am supremely pleased with their casting choices for Rorschach, Dan, and Adrian. (Adrian wasn't even all that interesting to me until I saw the movie...) I personally felt they could have made better choices for the Comedian and Laurie, but I'm 100% satisfied with how they were written - in fact, I'm completely satisfied with every aspect of the writing. Have you any idea how rare that is for an adapted material? Wait...I don't think that's ever happened...

That's the punchline.

Rarr.

2009-03-04T09:41:00.005-06:00

Rarr: (n, v, adj, particle) a primordial sound of flexible meaning, used to garner attention and occasionally cause confusion to the speaker's audience.

Hello March.

I've been having far too much fun at work. I'm once again in no-holds-barred mode where I get to populate whatever the hell I want ad infinitum. I've got 55 pages of brand new character bios and zone descriptions at the moment, expanding daily. Wikipedia, my favorite source of truthiness, would like me to stop pestering it but I don't see that happening anytime soon. My royalty fetish shows itself rather strongly...I'm trying to make sure that I balance the angst and intrigue (rarr) amongst all the assorted peoples.

Playing: FF IX (again [I'm on a WoW hiatus])

Watching: the 10th Kingdom (again)

Cooking: Bruschetta

Listening to:

Urbs - Toujours le même film
Bruno Coulais - Coraline soundtrack
my Mona Lisa Radio station on Pandora

I really need new clothes. And by clothes I mean pants. The destruction of my corduroys was a serious blow to my wardrobe. Luckily, Kait and I have plans to hit Nashville on spring break. Rarr.

Also Into Cats

2009-02-25T17:30:00.003-06:00

I forgot how awesome this was...Fall Out Boy doesn't do pronunciation well...

Helloooo I love Final Fantasy IX. Vivi is my homeboy. Their battle/levelling system is still not cool, and the villains are impossibly lame, but I continue to play this game because it has the best dialogue of all the Final Fantasies I've played. Plus my favorite love story ending. Also did I mention Vivi? Ok.

My brain hurts. >.<

Happy...?

2009-02-12T09:30:00.000-06:00

25...ouch.

Well at least people still give me stuff. :)

Gaeta's Extra Crispy Bucket.

2009-02-05T09:57:00.010-06:00

Ash has inspired me to put a little more effort back into my blogmonster. So. Hello, I am Chef Ren du Hyperion et Ravenholdt...yes, I'm a total nerd, is this somehow a problem...?

Lost continues to melt my face. Oh, how I love that show. While Battlestar continues to be meaningless talking heads. /sigh What happened to you guys? Where went the characters whose lives I actually cared about? I know it's not the actors faults...I actually feel sorry for them...

The juxtaposition of one-legged Gaeta with constant KFC commercials is diabolically amusing, however. Who approved that ad placement...? Gawrsh...

If I had a nickel for every time I used ellipses... I'd have about 35 cents. Can I raise the rate on that?

I've been watching clips of Monty Python's Flying Circus on youtube, and now I've got a hankering to buy the series. Those guys are the masters of the "Huh?" School of Comedy. ATHF, eat your heart out.

A couple of really cool games you can play online:

Auditorium - this is a minimalistic but highly challenging audio-visual type of puzzle game that must be seen (and heard) to be believed. You can play the first three acts for free - the full 15 acts are available for a nominal $10.99. Also, it has a nifty feature where it remembers where you left off without you having to "save" anywhere. Aine gives two glowy thumbs up.

Closure - a platforming game that plays with various properties of light - some imagined. It's totally free - you just need Flash 9 (also free) for it to work properly. Aine has not beaten this yet. >.<

I was thinking about Lost the other day - about how the actual concept of the show is nothing special - survivors of a plane crash on a mysterious island. What sets this show apart is its characters. So, I thought to myself, how do you reverse engineer that? Like, if I were handed that premise, what would I have done that would have led me to their facemelting result?

Well. I probably would have asked two questions: Who would be the last people you would want to be stuck on an island with? Now - how do you make them absolutely indispensable?

I think this is a excellent theory of character design I just stumbled upon.

WoW update.

2009-01-29T09:26:00.003-06:00

The Priest is rocking her Scarlet Monastery gear, and now looks like a proper smiter of the living. She makes that chapeau look good. I'm planning to hit 40 tonight. In my head she has the title of "the Abyss." I named her skeleton horse Gwyneth Paltrow.

Ren is just 2 recipes away from the Chef title - provided I get 21 points in cooking as well. At the moment she has precisely 4k ranged attack and 29% crit chance, which I am very proud of. I'm happy that my LW has really come in handy for my guild in this expansion. I've been able to make a lot of gear and leg armor to help my guildies through their grind to 80.

I started my 4th re-rolled Death Knight. I've had a hard time finding one that felt right. This one's a troll, and she's kinda growing on me. I've never felt attached to a troll before. Hopefully she's a keeper.

There's a shirt I really want from cafepress. I'm leaning towards the spaghetti strap one.

Just remember - you could be here instead.

2009-01-23T10:44:00.003-06:00

On occasion, temperatures in Hell can reach -20 degrees C.

Slight bias.

2009-01-22T17:50:00.004-06:00

For all my claiming to love originality, I sure do favor royal drama in my own writing. But I like to let myself off the hook by saying, "Everything's been done before. The only thing that hasn't been done is your voice." I consider that to be a good cop-out masked as inspiration.

Researching: the family of Victoria and Albert, the family of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.

Reading: patch notes for 3.0.8 (ah, Volley, I knew thee well.... /sniff. But now the priest can cast Levitate on others...)

Watching: Robot Chicken season 3 (again)

Eating: lots and lots of soup. RARR!

Query.

2009-01-15T11:28:00.002-06:00

If a cup of coffee falls in a coffee shop, and no one's around to clean it up, do baristas exist...?

Two out of nine.

2009-01-07T09:38:00.005-06:00

You've been neglected, but so have I - so have they -

pocketing mouthfuls of air in lungs, now stale

economy of the hoard

granted

it may be needed

and that's been the point all along, hasn't it?

the prince stands on a shore, remembering a larger sea

he looks out and mourns the horizon, the birds he can barely remember now

closes his eyes

the smell is all that stayed - the birds of the air in his lungs, carrion birds fed on a diet of his resolve, affability has limits (MY KINGDOM FOR A BOAT)

robbed of eighth in line

he follows the shore to remain second

Alice, the queen of hearts and industry, is no Elizabeth, but she does a fine Victoria sans Albert

ruling from her crystal palace, she lacks the strength to grab a hammer

but she will hire someone else

father always said commerce was the backbone of empire

she is good at empire (WHO CARES

my kingdom for my brother)

Recipe for drama.

2008-12-09T17:17:00.002-06:00

Nothing but fish from here on out.

2008-12-05T16:18:00.004-06:00

I gave Sasha back to the Ark on Wednesday...it was somewhat traumatic but I really couldn't keep her in furniture and clothing to urinate on whenever she felt snarky....behavioral things like that you can't change in a cat.

So from now on it's nothing but fish. Fish don't pee on stuff, or claw/chew things, or try to escape and get run over, or eat food you forgot you left out, or get hairballs, or make loud noises in the middle of the night, or need to get fixed, or have to go to the vet, and no one gets really upset if they die, and the animal rights people don't really give you the evil eye much if you nix one....

/sigh

Rukia's a litte confused, but she'll be fine. She can have all kinds of tasty things she couldn't have before.

I AM:

2008-11-26T15:49:00.003-06:00

left handed.
the reluctant owner of an N'Sync album.
probably an alien of some kind, if not an evil fairy.
Whedonesque.
scared of horses, cockroaches, giant spiders, PDA, crowds, infants, and tentacles. Not necessarily in that order.
somehow incapable of singing melody, but I got your back on harmony.
emo, but so are you.
the proud owner of 425 volumes of manga.
a level 73 Blood Elf Hunter. Bite me.
probably going to have arthritis at some point. I have a very loud crackly neck.
the household Master of Final Fantasy XII.
an Aquarius/Rat with Leo rising, which explains everything if you buy into that stuff.
a complete sucker for guys named Spike, apparently.
interested in being "the cool aunt" but not a mother.
nuts about music boxes and pipe organs.
into my 4th moleskine. This one's name is Harbinger.

Bet you've never seen me do this:

2008-10-23T17:51:00.002-05:00

Blarg.

2008-10-21T10:31:00.002-05:00

My brain, she is hurts. I've been back at my dad's office scanning for going on three weeks now, and the plebian schhhhhhhedule disagrees with my constitution. Bill of rights. All the kings horses. I don't know.

I just simply wasn't meant to be awake before 11am. It's all so clear now.

Also, audit files were invented by your favorite underworld deity.

That's about all I has, this time of day.

word: glacial
mood: [drool]
song: Eisley - Marsh King's Daughter (Combinations)
"Even though you are royalty and I am not..."

Pale green crinkly mystery.

2008-10-17T01:09:00.004-05:00

I am currently going insane trying to discover what those crinkly pale green strips are that you get in the seaweed salad at Asian restaurants, and prepackaged sushi counters. Current hypothesis: they're not actually seaweed, at least not the straight-up kind. I seem to have exhausted the internet's capacity for help in this matter - because I've spent the last three hours clicking on links that invariably lead to dead ends. (I did end up finding a few interesting websites...) Looks like more research is needed.

I'm doing this, because I want to see if I can make the same salad at home. This calls for purchasing some at Fresh Market, and continuing the investigation from there.

Oh yes, what an exciting life I lead. A mystery is afoot! Tally ho!

XII XII again again.

2008-10-15T00:42:00.003-05:00

Yeah. So. I'm playing XII again. Again again. Quite possibly I'm repeating myself (me?), but: It amazes me how much the suggested strategies for hunts and boss fights are missing, in terms of what the boss throws at you. While this is one of the better strategy guides I've used, I'm still having to make a lot of notes. (The Vorpal Bunny is accompanied by a never-ending squad of freaking skeletons, Disable is really helpful with Atomos, etc. etc.) I'm putting myself in charge of any strategy guides when our little bundle of awesome goes into full production. I believe that if you're going to pay (pay!) for a book explaining every hidden nuance of a game, it should explain every hidden nuance of the game. [shrug] Just kinda, seems like, I don't know, maybe that would be good. Deliver what you promise, right? Yes! Pretend you agree! Do it now! Faulty guides are a personal pet peeve and I refuse to release something sub-facemelt. Facemelt is bare minimum here. Mrrgrrggrrrrrrrmmmgraaaa

I'm about to hit the road to Giruvegan. Gotsta level in there so I can take on Gilgamesh. I love fighting that guy. Penelo totally gets his gear and the sword reward (rhyyyyyyme) the Masamune. I've just always felt that equipment was destined for her. I treat her a lot better than anyone I know (see this post), and in appreciation of that fact, she kicks the asses of everything we come across. Kick it. Repeatedly. Her Quickenings look lame, but who cares? Penny lays down the law. With sharp objects. Eviscerating other once-living-or-undead objects. By the way, I don't know what people are talking about when they badmouth Larsa. That kid's awesome. I think Penelo and him should get married. Vaan's a loser. L-O-S-E-R. Listen, Pen - whiny penniless orphan, or super-hot (if a little young) determined orphan running a freaking EMPIRE. Hmm. I don't know. Tough one. I'll have to think about it.

Favorite nicknames for XII characters.
Baschanamie/Baschmonster
Ashelia B. Nargin
Penny
Vaanbaby/Pretty Magical Princess
Frantastic/Frantasmagoria
Love/Gorgeous (3 guesses, the first 2 don't count)

Team of Ashe+Basch+Penelo=Bashanelo

I really wish I could get my hands on a copy of VII that worked and didn't cost 100+ bucks. Really really. Or (better idea) Square needs to re-release it with new graphics. They're fully aware they'd make a gazillion dollars, so I have no idea why it hasn't happened yet. They don't need to change any of the mechanics, just re-render it pretty. That's it. Or fuck that, they can just re-release the old one. I don't care. They stand to make a fortune on recycling one of the most popular games in history (with little to no effort) and they're just sitting on it? WTF mate? Mrrgrrggrrrrrrrmmmgraaaa

Murloc noises courtesy Guild Hyperion. Who totally think I've abandoned them. But I'm just taking a break. Unofficially. Ish.

Hey, it's an old-fashioned rant, just like college used to make.

2008-10-15T00:14:00.005-05:00

Mostly what's driving me nuts right now is how you go interview places, or you fill out applications, whatever, but they get all frowny-face the moment you admit that you don't have any previous experience in their field. What I'd like to know is, how would I GET previous experience if no one will hire me first? I didn't warp here from an alternate dimension, or have a laundry list of past lives I can fall back on. "Oh yeah, I forgot I used to be Thomas Edison. Is that enough of a science background? Or do you need more references?"

We totally need to bring back the whole apprenticeship concept. Because college counts nil for job experience, which, oh, you need to actually get hired. That's one thing those crazy medieval guys had down.

"Hey, I want to be a blacksmith. Will you hire me Mr. Blacksmith sir?"
"Sure, kid, grab a hammer. You won't get paid as much while I'm teaching you the finer points of the art, but if that's cool then yeah you're hired, homes."
"Word."

RARR

word: word
mood: Dr. Horrible
song: Slipping - Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
"Go ahead, run away! Say it was horrible. Spread the word, tell a friend, tell them the tale..."

Joss Whedon is my master now.

2008-10-11T21:22:00.003-05:00

AINENEWSFLASH! Let's talk about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Yeahhhhhh mmmboy.

So I'm kind of (ridiculously) upset that I didn't find out about this when it was coming out in July, but the fact of the matter is: Joss Whedon did something amazing during the big ass fuck-all-of-you writer's strike earlier this year.

Completely frustrated by the total stoppage of all things entertainment caused by the strike, he gathered many friends and equally frustrated individuals and said, "Fuck you guys, we're making a supervillain musical and putting it on the internet for free." (This is an approximation, not a direct quote, sadly.) He probably followed this by a really convincing evil laugh, and vanished in a puff of smoke, striking fear into the hearts of all lesser beings.

He did this to prove that you can do awesome things without studios or a big budget - he funded this project personally. Why? Oh, only because Joss understands Fanpower. The Fanpower is strong with this one. Some days I think he invented it. Or at the very least, he knows its inner workings better than any man alive or dead. This is because he makes things like Dr. Horrible JUST because he loves us. Me <3 Joss. Am I rabid yet? Do I come across that way? I don't know, I'm really trying here, this whole event is just so spectacularly facemelting AND inspiring at the same time, I really can't stress this enough -

Oh wait yes I can. Here we go:

www.drhorrible.com

GO, BITCHES! WATCH AND BE AMAZED. THE POWER OF JOSS COMPELS YOU. DO IT! DO IT NOW!!

All 3 acts plus the soundtrack are available on iTunes as well, for a very reasonable price. I have the whole shebang already. I'm totally buying the DVD when it comes out. Word is it'll have some rocktastic bonus features. Need need need.

Yeahhhhhhhhhmmmboyyyyy

Moneyback guarantee.

2008-10-02T20:36:00.003-05:00

I promise to always be bizarre, no matter what.

You can count on me. When all the rest of the world gets unbearably boring, just come ask me what Mary Shelley did wrong with Frankenstein, or what could possibly have happened to Benjamin Linus's girlfriend, or why the chicken crossed the road.

(It was less of a crossing, and more of a frantic escape - with some screaming - away from Seth Green.)

I've pretended to be normal at times, but it's never been successful, so that's why I can make you this guarantee.

Yours truly: making people go "Huh?" since 1984.

Jak X memory card glitch.

2008-10-01T16:25:00.002-05:00

Excerpt from wikipedia's article on Jak X: Combat Racing

Early copies of Jak X contained a programming glitch that can potentially affect a PlayStation 2 Memory Card. The first symptom of the glitch occurs sometimes after a race, during which the Autosave feature will continue to blink for a much longer duration than usual. Sometimes the game will no longer load and must be reset, while at other times the game will continue to run as normal. This glitch can potentially corrupt the Jak X save data, causing the game to no longer recognize the data at all. In some extreme cases, the entire memory card can be completely corrupted, or be filled up with space that cannot be deleted or written to. The only solution is to delete the data in the PS2 System Browser and restart the game from scratch.
A workaround is to take out the memory card out after the game has successfully loaded and continue to play as usual, as the autosave cannot function without a memory card inserted into the system. When players need to save their game, they can return to the menu, replace the memory card, and save Jak X manually. The memory card should then be removed once the save process is complete if continued play is desired.

So it wasn't just me.

But I love this game!! Someone's out to get me... Damn you Sony Computer Entertainment America!!

word: chagrin
mood: Akira Toudou
song: Muse - Butterflies and Hurricanes (Absolution)

Master manga list 2008.

2008-09-21T01:32:00.003-05:00

It's that time of year again. Now that I've officially taken possession of David's share of the library, everything is so much more cohesive. As Jamie has pointed out, I'm on the verge of needing a fourth bookshelf to house the magnificence that is my manga library.

Without further ado:

(completed series have an asterisk)

Absolute Boyfriend 1-6*
Azumanga Daioh 1-4*
The Big O 1-6*
Bleach 1-23
Chrono Crusade 1-8*
Cowboy Bebop 1-3*
Cowboy Bebop Shooting Star 1 & 2*
Dazzle 1-8
Death Note 1-12*
DramaCon 1-3*
Escaflowne 1-8*
Fruits Basket 1-19
Fullmetal Alchemist 1-13
Fullmetal Panic 1-8*
Fushigi Yuugi 1-2
Genshiken 1-5
The Gentleman's Alliance 1-6
Ghost In The Shell*
Gothic Sports 1-2
GTO 1-25*
Gundam Wing - Episode Zero, Endless Waltz, Blind Target, Ground Zero*
Gundam Seed 1-4*
Gundam Seed Astray 1-3*
Gundam Seed Astray R 1-3*
.Hack//Legend of the Twilight 1-3*
Hellsing 1-8
InuYasha 1-27
Love Hina 1-14*
Lovely Complex 6-8
Lupin III 1-12, 14
Magic Knights Rayearth 1-3*
MeruPuri 1-4*
Nana 1-8
Naruto 1-26
Ouran High School Host Club 1-10
Peacemaker Kurogane 1-3
Ranma 1/2 1-36*
R.O.D. 1-4*
Rurouni Kenshin 1-22
S*A 1-4
Samurai Champloo 1 & 2*
Tactics 1-3
Trigun 1 & 2*
Trigun Maximum 1-12
Vampire Knight 1-4
xxxHolic 1-4
YuYu Hakusho 1-12
Zombie Powder 1-4*
In Japanese: Bleach 1&2, Fruits Basket 8&16, InuYasha 1, Nana 4, Naruto 1, Ouran 2&8, Ranma 1.

Total: 419 volumes.

Bow down before me!!

could have (the ocean)

2008-09-20T00:38:00.003-05:00

could have
probably
would maybe eventually
all in good time
soon
tomorrow
soon

flames lick the frame of the door behind you
the moisture rains down, floods your vision

I never liked dolls, the kind that were required to be a series of tasks
But everything else…

I spread a blanket on the floor (do you remember?)
and I made a series of quick decisions very
very
slowly

(time freezes twice: in crisis, and when you cannot remember where those lyrics came from)

not when I was small, no, not when I felt I was part of something
but later
in the room with the slanted ceilings I laid out a blanket I sat in the middle and forced myself to choose
which
who
when
(I did this more than once)
I wanted to be sure
I knew it would come eventually
they didn’t know when they built it but
that room was designed to melt into the ocean, leaving me kneeling on a quilt, floating on a blue horizon, clutching a book and one book only

word: storage
mood: Kaoru Hitachiin
song: Chiodos - Lexington (Bone Palace Ballet)
"Between the things that we see, and the things that we fear..."

R.I.P. Hatsuharu.

2008-09-10T17:58:00.005-05:00

June 2006 - August 2008
My love, my life...

Yes, it's true. Haru has been dead for a month. I have been suffering in silence. His life was short, but full of meaning, and he was ridiculously well-loved. I was almost feeling like I could potentially tear up at the Apple store today when I sent him on his way to the Big Dock In The Sky. Haru...my one true love...

Well.

Meet Sark! My new one true love. He's 120 gigs and white. (Apparently when Apple says "white" they mean silver.) He's busily syncing with Persephone right now so that we can get on to that sweet, sweet musical lovin'.

Life has meaning again...and now I'm craving some Alias for a dosage of flexible loyalties...

word: grandiose
mood: deep cover
song: The Mars Volta - Inertiatic ESP (Deloused at the Comatorium)

P.E.A. brains.

2008-08-27T22:26:00.003-05:00

Apparently some people at AMC got a little upset about folks on Twitter creating "fake" accounts chronicling the thoughts of some the characters in their hit show "Mad Men." QQ.

Gee golly expletive sir, the viewers of a television show (sometimes referred to as "fans" by the general public) should never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever
EVER
be allowed to involve themselves in the creation OR promotion of said show's content or properties. They are neither sanctioned nor monitored by the Proper Executive Authority, and could potentially falsely represent (or -shudder- profit from) the Proper Executive Authority's legally owned creative property.

Obviously, the problem is lack of further handou-I mean, involvement from an even higher power. Yes. That must be it.

The federal government isn't picking up the slack here! Where's the red tape? Where are the tall forbidding manly men in freshly starched suits and earpieces? Lord God Almighty, the God of Lucas, Bruckheimer, and J. Edgar Hoover, send down thine angels to defend our beloved creativity control measures, and strike down the demons of copyright infringement! Let the bloggers and vloggers and froggers and whatever the hell else the kids call them these days be cast into the pit! Pit of...pit of...eternal...You there! Writer! What would you call it?
...
...yeah...uh huh...no I don't think enough people will "get" that...something more general...no...no I don't like any of those...forget it, you're fired.

THE PIT OF ETERNAL DAMNATION! SEND THEM THERE! THEY WILL BURN...there...in it. For a long time.
AMEN.

Now that I think about it, a lot of people on facebook get "fake" accounts deleted all the time. Clearly we're doing something wrong, since we're being punished for it. I say "we" because I happen to be one of those despicable people with a fake facebook account...I should probably be a good little consumer and go delete it, since I didn't create the character nor do I have any rights to him whatsoever, other than I like him, I wanted to be fake facebook friends with him, and no one else had made one of him. But obviously I was in the wrong there. It was a moment of foolish college weakness and I repent. /slaphand Bad Aine.

Real fairy tales vs. the 4-tenet romantic comedy.

2008-08-07T16:53:00.009-05:00

I love fairy tales, probably more than any other kind of story. But we may not be on the same page on what I mean by that.

Typically, when someone says "fairy tales" the 4-tenet stereotype that brings up is, "boy meets girl, they fall in love, have a few difficulties, but eventually live happily ever after." That is not what I am talking about. I don't think it's accurate to call that kind of a story a fairy tale - REAL fairy tales rarely work like that. That story should probably be referred to as a Disney story, or a romantic comedy - a Shakespearean comedy, where wackiness happens, but it ends with a wedding.

That is not a fairy tale. That is a tiny fairy tale subgenre that is far more rare in the old canon than most people realize. Let me be clear - I enjoy those stories as much as anyone. Honestly, who doesn't like Cinderella, the flagship princess of fiction and cinema? I'd just like to dispel the notion that fairy tale = romantic comedy. Anyone who's read Grimm's enough times knows what I mean. Their relationship could be more accurately represented as: fairy tale - [ambiguity + realism] = romantic comedy.

Real fairy tales - my favorite stories - are not really about love, or even good vs. evil. They are about a protagonist (not necessarily a hero) overcoming incredible obstacles armed with nothing but wit, good luck, and sometimes kindness, who, because he/she has all these things, wins the day. Happily ever after is rarely in the equation - just a huge reward. Happily ever after, fairy tales say, is actually up to the protagonist at this point. "Happily ever after" was really only advertised more recently - Disney selectively made the handful of palatable fairy tales primarily about love that end in that way, fooling audiences into thinking that the entire genre worked like that.

Let me tell you something about Rapunzel. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair. While in a very strict sense this fairy tale follows the 4-tenet Disney mold, it has a few components that make it...ill-suited for a romantic comedy. This girl was born because her mother had an obsessive addiction to a green herb, causing her father to become a thief, and then sell off his unborn child in order to save his own life. After the famous "let down your hair" scene, which is all anyone really seems to remember about this story, Rapunzel's boyfriend's eyes were gouged out and he wandered blind in the desert for two years eating the odd root here and there before finally running into Rapunzel where she had been banished by the evil witch. She apparently had a set of twins to show for their brief tower encounter (premarital sex anyone?). Her tears miraculously cure his shredded eyeballs and they joyously skip back to the prince's castle, where they have an awkward conversation ahead of them with King Dad and Queen Mom.

There's quite a few a good reasons why Disney hasn't done Rapunzel (yet), as you can see. It's a bit harder to "clean up" (coughwaterdowncough) than Cinderella and Snow White. The only people who I know did Rapunzel accurately were Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Think on that.

You also never hear about Clever Grethel, a wealthy man's cook who had a taste for her own meals and her master's wine cellar. After consuming a casket of wine and two whole fowls her master had told her to cook for a guest who was coming to dinner, she managed to fool the guest into thinking the master had invited him there to slice off his ear ("Listen! He's sharpening his knife right now...") And then when the master saw the guest running away, she fooled the master into thinking the guest had run off with the pair of fowls.

All Grethel did throughout the tale was steal and lie, but somehow she's the protagonist, and through her opportunistic wit, she wins. She gets away with everything, and we like it. That's the power of an anti-hero at work.

Fairy tales, at their absolute core, are about the right person, in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing - and if the combination is right, the protagonist wins. Now whether or not the right person is "good," varies from tale to tale. (Cinderella is good. Rapunzel is mostly good. Grethel is not. They all win.) The "right thing" isn't always what is seems. And the "right place," well, is mostly pure chance, rather than the protagonist's will guiding anything. And the ending, while improving the protagonist's standard of living, does not promise perfection. The romantic comedy, however, promises happily ever after, 100% happiness forever; but it's laced with a subtle message of depression. It goes like this: 1) You enjoyed the story. 2) Those stories always end with marriage, symbolic or otherwise. 3) Ending a story implies that there is nothing else interesting to say. 1+2+3 equals: Shakespeare and Disney whispering, "Once you get married, the adventure is over." While happily ever after sounds nice, it's nothing but stasis, and stasis is eventually boring - which is NOT happiness. (The romantic comedy paradox.) Fairy tales preach Fate as an absolute gospel, and like all gospels it's mostly comforting, but a little disconcerting. If there's one thing fairy tales know about people, it's that they're incapable of being 100% happy. You can get pretty high up there, but we always need something to complain about, something else to strive for. A reason to keep going. Everyone who lives in the world of Grimm understands this. They look reality in the face and say, "Ok. I can deal with that. What do I have at my disposal to make me the protagonist?"

The Princess Bride knows exactly what it is to be a fairy tale, a REAL one. Westley says it best: "Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Why didn't I hear about this sooner??

2008-07-22T18:19:00.001-05:00

This week is Dr. Girlfriend. Hellz yes. You know I bought one.

In Tyler We Trusted.

2008-07-15T14:33:00.015-05:00

Warning: long-ass analysis of everything I could think of about Fight Club. If you haven't seen it, please stop whatever you are doing and watch the freaking movie. Right below here I pretty much give the entire plot away, and I refuse to spoil it for you.

...Did you watch it? You're back? Ok good. Let's get on with it.

Note: Though the narrator/main character of Fight Club remains nameless, in the script he is referred to as Jack so that’s what I’m using.

Fight Club act structure breakdown

Act 1 – I am Jack’s wasted life
• Intro with flash forward to near-final scene
• Fast-paced intro to Jack’s old life – office, apt, insomnia, self help clinics, Marla
• Tyler (midpoint)
• Nice neat little flaming shit/“Is there anyone you can call?”
• The first fight/Tyler’s night jobs
Act 2 – I am Jack’s raging bile duct
• The birth of Fight Club/chemical burn
• Tyler and Marla
• Lou/the first homework assignment
• Jack’s boss/corporate sponsorship (midpoint)
• Space monkeys and project mayhem
• Raymond K. Hessel
• Police commissioner/“I wanted to destroy something beautiful”
• “Let go.”
• Tyler leaves
Act 3 – I am Jack’s complete sense of rejection
• “His name is Robert Paulson.”
• One step behind Tyler
• “We’re the same person.”
• Jack and Marla (midpoint)
• Police station
• The van/Jack and Tyler fight
• “My eyes are open.”
• Conclusion/Jack and Marla reprise

Though some could argue it’s the “We’re the same person” scene, I named the Jack and Marla scene as the midpoint of Act 3. While the revelation of Jack and Tyler’s relationship is a major shock, it’s not Jack that changes, only what he knows. Jack changes when he admits that “I really do like you Marla. I care about you.” This realization is what drives his actions for the final scenes.

In Tyler We Trusted
a Fight Club gushfest by Aine

Fight Club falls into a small genre of what could be called “vigilante” films – along with the likes of V for Vendetta and Boondock Saints. These films focus mainly on a specific philosophy of life, and how the rest of the world would react to it, seen through the eyes of a few key characters. Fight Club started life as a short story, went through adolescence as a short novel, and it shows in the structure and coherence of the film.

It establishes very quickly its individuality from other vigilante films. The rocking opening credits, followed by greeting the main character tied up with a gun between his teeth, pops out and snatches you into the story. The subsequent “how we got here” cut, straight to “Bob had bitch tits,” is just nonsensical enough to be awesome; and the overlaying dialogue is stream of consciousness bleeding with wit (almost all of it directly quoting the novel). Blended with the precise techno soundtrack and clever cinematics, it plays like irreverent poetry.

Voiceover, in many films, is generally used to cover up (though it often accentuates) lack of exposition/plot development/acting. I’m usually in favor of cutting voiceover entirely, on the principle that if you need it, you must have done something wrong. This is what makes Fight Club’s voiceover work so unique. It’s not used in place of exposition or character expression. Instead, it’s used to accentuate what’s already onscreen, often wording Jack’s clear sentiments in an unexpected and quotable way. Other times, it shows the duality of the character, when on screen he’s trying to behave in a “normal” and socially acceptable fashion but the voiceover shows that in his head he could spit acid. It makes it easier to accept the twist when we already think he’s kind of crazy.

Why this is one of my favorite movies ever: One word. Duality.

Fight Club’s twist rocked my brain harder than possibly any movie ever has. There’s nothing I like better than being fooled by a movie, because I don’t get to experience that often. I continue to love it because the movie is littered with clues, but they hid them in all the right places. (Thus ensuring rewatchability.) Clues to the true nature of Jack and Tyler’s relationship are buried inside long lines of clever social commentary. They are so sandwiched and frapped in, they’re invisible on first watching. Small, seemingly innocuous lines early on pack a major payoff punch later in the film when they resurface in a new light. For example: when Jack details Tyler’s various night jobs, they talk about a projectionist’s sole responsibility. “It’s called a changeover – the movie goes on and the audience has no idea.” A small line, almost forgettable. But you definitely remember it when Jack repeats the line upon the realization that he and Tyler share a body. Granted, in order for these lines to work, they have to be written very delicately. Marla’s lines in particular have to be full of misdirection, because she is the only character that interacts with both Jack and Tyler, and has a problem with the duality. The solution to that problem is pretty much written into her personality, as Marla is a bit off herself. So it’s not too much trouble to make her confused when she has a stomach full of Xanax or the like. “Did I call you…?” gets taken as nonrecognition of Tyler on first viewing – but the second time you understand that she recognizes Jack and has momentarily forgotten that she called him.

This has a lot to do with why Fight Club’s twist is so effective: the audience was subtly fed bits of information along the way that didn’t point to the answer, but made it acceptable when it hit us upside the head. They set up immediately that Jack has some minor mental problems, most notably insomnia. They also set up visual standards that let you know that all is not right in this world: single frames of Tyler spliced into a shot occur as early as Jack’s first mention of his insomnia, and though we aren’t yet able to recognize it’s Tyler, we recognize subconsciously that something’s amiss, and that’s enough. When Jack talks about decorating his apartment, it’s shown visually. When he talks about wanting to confront Marla, the scene is played out visually. When he talks about praying for a plane crash, the imagined crash is shown visually with him experiencing it. On first watching, we think it’s just engaging eye candy, but deep down we are being conditioned to understand that Jack takes what’s inside him and projects it out where everyone can see it. The fact that it’s engaging eye candy really turns it into sleight of hand, distracting us from putting two and two together. (At least I think that’s how I was fooled.) When Jack takes a break to describe Tyler’s various night jobs, he is in the scene, like an on-site reporter, and even trades dialogue with Tyler, when he definitely wouldn’t be there observing him. The best twists are ones that almost all of the audience doesn’t see coming, but the instant the revelation arrives, the entire theatre says as one, “Of course! Now it all makes sense.”

Part of Fight Club’s appeal is the relatability of Jack’s issues. They’re all very large, nearly universal problems, especially in suburban America, and especially to guys. While Tyler is a kind of wish-fulfillment for Jack, who is mired down in consumerism and boss/father/God issues, he’s also the teacher that Jack needs to shock him out of his pit of despair. However, as a pure entity, Tyler is incapable of limitation or human compassion. Jack is required to destroy him to prove that he has learned Tyler’s lessons, taken control of his own life, and knows when to say when, even to Tyler. Because Jack works through his issues and changes over the course of the film, he is a fully rounded character. However, all other characters surrounding him are “force” characters – including Tyler and Marla – symbolizing various aspects of Jack’s life that he has to work through. Jack’s transformation starts to show early in Act 2 when Jack reacts to his boss’s disapproval of the club rules being left in the copier. He even points it out for us, to make sure we don’t miss it: “Tyler’s words coming out of my mouth.” But directly after that, he shows his innate compassion for those who really need it – helping Marla check for breast cancer, and a joyous reunion with Bob. Jack retains this duality throughout the course of the film, and while we do want Jack to “grow a pair” and show his jerk boss who’s…boss…we implicitly hope Tyler can’t beat that last bit of humanity out of him.

Tyler Durden represents the rage and chaotic anarchy caged within young professionals trapped inside a materialistic, increasingly-feminized world. Specifically, those feelings belonging to Jack. The “hole” in Jack that Tyler materializes to fill is stated very clearly in the introductory scenes to Jack’s life. The way Jack describes his possessions is a war-torn combo of longing and loathing. For example, when his apartment explodes, his face reads “distraught,” but the derogatory tone in his voice talking about the benefits of a foot of concrete when “your wordly possessions blast through your floor-to-ceiling windows and sail flaming into the night” belies a bizarre sense of satisfaction.

Jack displays his self-destructive, suicidal tendencies (prays for a crash) right before he meets Tyler. This is a much more subtle (read: better) way to intro him than the way the book did. There, Jack takes a vacation, falls asleep on the beach, wakes up and Tyler’s there naked, rearranging logs on the beach to make the shadow of a hand. I am convinced that if I read the book first I would have guessed the twist very early. Running into someone on a plane is a much more logical place to randomly meet someone, so it lessens suspicion. Tyler very quickly proves his mental superiority to Jack in that first scene. The (im)balance of power between the two is instantly established with the lines:
“You’re very clever.”
“Well, thank you.”
“How’s that working for you?”
“What?”
“Being clever.”
While Jack immediately buys Tyler hook line and sinker, the audience is fed subtle (and not-so-subtle) clues not to trust him. Though we are instantly charmed by him and his seemingly carefree ideals during his and Jack’s conversation in the bar, we can’t help but notice the irony of Tyler’s designer clothing, rockstar hair, and supermodel appearance considering his views on materialism. Also, Tyler cares about no one, only spreading his views, whereas Jack does care about people’s feelings and wellbeing when it really matters. The necessity of stopping Tyler becomes clear to the audience when it does to Jack – when Bob is killed during Operation Latte Thunder. Tyler’s disregard for human life is one bridge too far; this confirms our suspicions we had fostered since the movie opened with the hero tied up at gunpoint. The audience assumed immediately that there was something inherently wrong with Tyler for doing that to Jack, so despite how appealing he may be for most of the movie, we are waiting for the other shoe to drop. This way you ensure that no one mistakes Tyler for a hero, or even a full-fledged mentor. He can only ever be a partial mentor because some aspect of his philosophy is inherently flawed.

Tyler seems to have no weakness, feeding into the illusion that he has all the power in the relationship. Therefore we wonder: How could you possibly stop Tyler Durden? But Tyler finally reveals his kryptonite in the pen-penultimate scene– the only time he freaks out is when Jack endangers his own life shooting into the bomb-rigged van. On the rooftop, he then tries to convince Jack how much he needs Tyler. Tyler has never tried to persuade before. Up till here, he has only ever given orders and Jack has momentarily resisted, then given in. But here, at the end, by the simple act of persuasion, Tyler switches the balance of power to Jack, heralding his own destruction.

Marla symbolizes Jack’s capacity for compassion. As an unchanging character, she is as much a force as Tyler, though less assertive. Some have complained about the lack of character development in Marla, but the movie is not about Marla. It’s about Jack, and the forces at war inside of him, searching for some kind of balance. By leaving Marla as a force, it enhances that internal/external struggle of Marla and Tyler as rivals for Jack’s devotion. In the book Marla has more depth – you eventually find out she has cancer, and that transforms her into a tragic character; but including it in a 2-hour movie would almost overshadow Jack, who is only dying “in the Tibetan philosophy, Sylvia Plath sense of the word.” By omitting that bit of information, the focus remains on Jack and lends the film a purity of direction.

Love and destruction: two of the most basic primal forces humans are obsessed with. This is the triangle of psychosis that the main characters are stuck inside. Jack sums it up best in the novel: “I want Tyler. Tyler wants Marla. Marla wants me. …This isn’t about love as in caring. This is about property as in ownership.” Early on, images of Marla are often juxtaposed with images of violence. Jack claims to hate Marla, but his clear fixation on her suggests suppressed attraction. When his apartment exploded the first number he reached for was Marla’s. But when he hangs up on her and calls Tyler instead, Jack proves that he desires destruction over love at that point in his character progression. Or at the very least, that he considers violence safer than compassion. Over the course of the movie, he gradually becomes sated with the violence and realizes that his first impulse (which he was too weak to follow up on) was what he really truly wants after all. Tyler denies needing women at all, but he’s always sleeping with Marla. Jack denies wanting Marla, but clearly has stalkerish tendencies. By admitting to Marla at the midpoint of Act 3 that he really does care for her, Jack reaches a level of maturity that Tyler has not – enabling him to battle Tyler on an even field.

Fight Club utilizes a unique form of character exposition in addition to the normal varieties: exposition in costuming. Each of the three main characters have a very specific way of dressing that tells you loads about who they are. Jack’s plain, corporate outfits support the descriptions of his old life. He maintains the plain, “everyman” aspect in his costuming but as time moves on his clothes become dirty, ragged versions of their earlier selves, all the way down to the end of the film, where he loses his pants and Tyler tells him, “Man, you look like a crazy person!” His clothes match the ongoing erosion of his mind. Tyler himself opens looking like a rockstar, and manages to maintain that image even when wearing the ratty bathrobe with coffee cups on it. He devolves only a bit, suggesting he’s mostly static – halfway through he has chipped teeth, presumably from Fight Club, and when he shows up for the “We’re the same person” scene, he’s shaved his head like the space monkeys. This makes sense, and feels less like change and more like Tyler lifting the veil – that perhaps he had been hiding behind the glamour all this time. Marla also is mostly static in her costuming, while it’s very unique. She doesn’t have hardly any exposition, so her clothes and mannerisms have to explain her. The pretty face combined with the “to hell with it” hair and the disintegrating diva thrift store ensembles say “self-destruction” better than anything. If anything, her clothes gradually become softer over the course of the film, as Tyler gets harsher, creating and ever-greater contrast between the two.

While Fight Club doesn’t seem to have objects that are symbolic, it has recurring dialogue that works much in the same fashion. This is probably the biggest way they captured the aesthetic of the novel, as Palahniuk has mentioned the recurring lines were the idea that began the book in the first place. The two biggest recurring lines are the rules of Fight Club, and “I am Jack’s ____”. By reusing the rules over and over, it emphasizes how large Fight Club is; how it gradually becomes too much for any one person to contain, and how dogmatic the space monkeys are. Any list of rules repeated over and over sound cultish, and that appears to be the intention here; the first time you hear the rules, you think they’re clever. But when the space monkeys are continually chanting “the first rule of project mayhem is…” it makes you feel uneasy. This is an example of Tyler delivering something cool, and then taking it too far. The “I am Jack’s ___” in addition to being super-catchy and multi-purpose, is a way of suggesting that Jack is not his own person yet – only a part of a person, and incapable of taking over his own skin. Because Jack is the only one who uses these lines, they clearly apply to him and no one else.

The end of the movie varies starkly from the end of the book. In the novel, it’s not that Jack disarms the car bomb – as it turns out, the dynamite never worked because Jack could never get it to, so therefore Tyler couldn’t either. So in the novel, none of the buildings explode, but Jack ends up in the hospital, though it’s clear that Project Mayhem is still running smoothly without him, waiting for Tyler Durden’s triumphant return. While both endings exhibit the unstoppable reverberations of Tyler’s philosophy, claiming that Tyler never really knew how to make dynamite neuters him, considering he’s supposed to represent pure destruction.

The end. I hate summary paragraphs. Instead, you get this.

word: subtle
mood: Molotov
song: Hans Zimmer & John Powell - Tai Lung Escapes (Kung Fu Panda soundtrack)

Playlist for June.

2008-06-06T16:31:00.003-05:00

June-o
(Ho ho...so clever.)

Editors - An End Has A Start
Editors - The Back Room
No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom
Tokyo Police Club - Elephant Shell
Bond - Shine
Tricky - Maxinquaye
Radiohead - Amnesiac
Radiohead - Kid A
Portishead - Third
Alarm Will Sound - Acoustica: Alarm Will Sound Performs Aphex Twin
Brian Scary and the Shredding Tears - Flight of the Knife

I also have a 20-min miniature version I use to time my layouts so I don't get too crispy on one side:
Alarm Will Sound - C**k/Ver 10 (Acoustica)
Portishead - Machine Gun (Third)
Editors - French Disco (The Back Room)
Bond - Allegretto (Shine)
Tokyo Police Club - Juno (Elephant Shell)
Portishead - Deep Water (Third)

Again with the full albums, good on shuffle. Radiohead is finally in iTunes!!!! Girlish squeal of joy! I didn't realize how much I missed Spinning Plates...personal favorite track from Amnesiac.

2 am.

2008-05-27T02:06:00.004-05:00

This is called insomnia.

I think.

I can't do much of that at this point. Thinking. Though I can't turn off my brain either. It's more like watching randomly cycling channels broadcast on all four walls of a room I'm locked inside without any kind of remote or channel-changing interface. Full volume too.

What, you don't hear all that noise? ...

...So I keep staring at my computer, with the light on. Hoping that maybe I'll finally start to feel like I can drift off. But I know that once I turn out the light it's only going to get worse before it gets better. Or this could in fact be a case of over-thinking when thinking is impaired. If that's how it is, then
...um....
where was I going with that...

Occam's Razor. Simplest solution. Yes.

I should stop typing and turn out the light.

Ok.

Consumerism.

2008-05-22T16:03:00.003-05:00

Some days I wonder if maybe Amazon.com has a secret power over me. They certainly manage to con me into buying all kinds of things. At least they're things I want.

En route: Robot Chicken seasons 1 & 2, Venture Bros. season 2. And a whole lot of books for Amelia.

Question: If there are a gajillion volumes of Nana and Fruits Basket out in Japan right now, why are they releasing them so slowly here when all they have to do is translate them? It's very unfair. To me. GIMME NOW.

I saw the live action Death Note last night. Despite being somewhat cheesy, their L was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. It was worth it just to see the few miniscule scenes with him in it.

word: bureaucratic
mood: L
song: Bond - Allegretto (Shine)

Companion Cube FTW.

2008-05-19T14:58:00.004-05:00

Anna: Say "hello," Companion Cube. Meet Ragnarok and Chicago Typewriter!

Companion Cube: ...

GLaDOS: [ksshhhht] ...The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Weighted Companion Cube cannot speak. In the event that the Weighted Companion Cube does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice. [blip]

Anna: @.@

Companion Cube: T_T

Ragnarok: How rude...

Revenge.

2008-05-15T00:16:00.008-05:00

Rule #42
This world is made of poetry, truth, irony, and revenge. Most of all revenge.

Revenge is something I think all writers must learn to relish. I've heard people refer to it as "honesty" in their writing. It's also called "writing what you know." These, and many others like them, are all fancy terms for REVENGE. In order to have massively emotive characters that pop off the page/screen, you must eagerly and actively pursue retaliation against everyone you know. Do not tell them this. At the very least, do not tell them HOW you are taking revenge against them personally. Then you will begin to get bad advice.

Let me give you an example. Greenley is one of my favorite pet characters now. But he began life as a joke - as a way to make a friend feel better about someone who was bothering her. I told her, "The best way to get revenge is fictionally." I think I've heard a quote from another writer to that effect - I won't take credit for the concept. I know it's not new. But it needs to be reiterated. Because revenge in fiction last forever. Longer than you do. But better than that -

Because Greenley was built on someone I knew topically, it left a lot of room open to interpretation. It allowed me to fit him into a setting easily, and then choose for myself WHY he behaved the way he did. I knew his standard set of external reactions, which let me pick for myself what his internal ones were. It all led to a complex character that solved a lot of problems for me. What began as a caricature of a guy I never liked morphed into a character I love dearly.

Greenley made me understand that I write my best when I'm taking revenge.

Now I have to learn how to take revenge on people I like. I know that I can. It's all a matter of letting go of preconceptions, and accepting that I was subconsciously trying to do it anyway...

The side of me that is Morgan has been waiting for this.

word: gratifying
mood: Roslin
song: Linkin Park - Session (Meteora)

Mayday mark 1.

2008-05-14T23:46:00.004-05:00

I could extoll the glories of the new apt but you've probably already heard them all.

(MY OWN BATHROOM AND BEDROOM AGAIN!!! AMPLE CABINET SPACE!!! LARGE ROOMS!!! INTERNET AND TV!!!!)

Did you hear something...? Someone was yelling without my permission again...

Anyway Sasha thinks this is the coolest thing ever. As soon as our stuff showed up she was like, "Oh, this is my new kingdom...sweet. Feed me." Rukia was fairly traumatized by the whole experience and still hasn't gotten over it. She's like, "I can't believe you did this to me...feed me!" What a pansy. Princess Punkface is like one of those girls from the 1700s that faints when unpleasant things happen because her bodice was too tight. How did I end up with the idiot kitten? I should have taken Ganondorf like I'd originally planned.

I like wine. It is so mellow.

I like showers. I get my best ideas there.

It does kind of suck not having a washer and dryer right now though. Also I hate the stove here. And the light in my bathroom. It sounds like one of those outdoor bug zappers. But this place will be fine for now.

I still mourn Haru's tragedy, as I slowly try to reassemble what playlists I can. I feel like he's just got home from the hospital, and is hobbling around on crutches. I see him with a kind of head-bandage-turban on, drinking lots of Gatorade. ...what? You drink Gatorade when you're sick. And eat toast. Right? (Well, I generally don't eat anything, but I'm unhealthy...) It's a good thing I post playlists here somewhat regularly. I actually have a record of a few I lost.

Picked up a new manga - Vampire Knight. It's pretty good. I'm having a hard time thinking of the main girl as Yuki, though. I keep thinking Zero's name is Yuki, thanks to Furuba...

The Lettuce of Good Ideas has wilted and gotten gloopy all up in the Refrigerator of My Glorious Brain. Time to clean the fridge. Bleh.

word: few
mood: arctic
song: Bear McCreary - Deathbed and Maelstrom (BSG season 3 soundtrack)

Disaster.

2008-05-13T15:04:00.002-05:00

Well.

The worst thing that could possibly happen to me has happened.

I accidentally unplugged my iPod without ejecting it first. Everything on it got erased. Including my enormous collection of playlists and the last surviving copies of the videos that were deleted off Persephone and Aerith. (Robot Chicken, Sealab, Lost...)

So you see I'm really not exaggerating.

Saturday.

2008-04-19T17:39:00.002-05:00

Especially difficult for a lover of books is lack of them/space/time. Miracles are usually lost on those whose eyes are open, hence mourning over the loss of book-veil.
Spend the time between 12p and 5a trying to wake up, before giving into failure/slumber all over again.
Less is more, more is wanted, less is unacceptable. Medication/amazement is for the weak/foolish. I am not _______.
Careful progress is an improvement over stasis. Hair dominates, music smiles, conducting clumsily in silence balancing on stilts of the first age. Alter egos notwithstanding, hope for compilation at a later stage. Underworld scripting superceded by ghosts and ghouls.
Afterwards…?

word: shameless
mood: Shigure Sohma
song: Tokyo Police Club - Your English Is Good (Elephant Shell)
"Give us your vote, if you know what's good for you..."

Bebop in miniature.

2008-04-01T15:00:00.006-05:00

(from the Cavalry, the 3rd moleskine, pg. 153)

The crew of the Bebop is a family unit, no doubt about it. But I've heard it said that because he is the one that never leaves, that's always doing the waiting, that Jet is the immovable core. That he is the constant that Spike and Faye hover around. But I don't hold with that. It's BECAUSE he's always there that I don't think he's the glue keeping them together. Jet is there in the beginning, and he's still there when the series ends - so he can't be what's keeping Spike alive.

After Ed and Ein leave the Bebop, Spike evacuates soul.

My first thought was that it was Ed who's the ship's glue, but she doesn't sign on until episode 9 (Jamming With Edward). (Most people don't realize Ed shows up that late.) Then I realized that Ein joins the crew even before Faye, in episode 2 (Stray Dog Strut). So, if you allow that Spike and Jet have been hanging out on the Bebop for awhile without much incident -

Ein marks the beginning of the Bebop family. And because Ein is a completely static and non-human character, yet still has effect on the plot, Ein becomes a force, or a theme. The 24 episodes of Cowboy Bebop are (primarily) about the end of Spike Spiegel's life - so in a bizarre and subtle fashion Ein writes Spike's death sentence because
EIN
is the glue that holds the Bebop - Spike's last hurrah - together.

Chew on that biscuit awhile.

word: sluice
mood: Starbuck
song: Panic At The Disco - The Piano Knows Something I Don't (Pretty. Odd.)
"If I could build my house just like the Trojan horse, I'd put a statue of myself upon the shelf..."

Consumer's warning.

2008-03-27T15:55:00.003-05:00

We interrupt this (not so) serious blog for a special announcement:

DO NOT be fooled by the pictures of Arby's new southern chicken sandwich. It is not large, or even moderate-sized.

THEY ARE TEE-NINY. SMALLER THAN A BISCUIT SANDWICH. Hardly worth opening your mouth for. Tasty, but in no way worth what they're asking for them. (About $2.) They're worth maybe $1. MAYBE.

I hate fast food scams.

Playlist for March.

2008-03-18T17:38:00.006-05:00

mortar&pestle

Good on shuffle.

A Perfect Cirle - Hollow [Constantly Consuming Remix] (aMOTION)
AFI - Prelude 12/21 (DECEMBERUNDERGROUND)
She Wants Revenge - She Will Always Be a Broken Girl (This Is Forever)
Rob Dougan - Nothing At All (Furious Angels)
She Wants Revenge - It's Just Begun (This Is Forever)
Muse - Hate This & I'll Love You (Showbiz)
Breaking Benjamin - Simple Design (We Are Not Alone)
Matchbook Romance - You Can Run, But We'll Find You (Voices)
Rob Dougan - Prelude (Furious Angels)
Deftones - Beware (Saturday Night Wrist)
A Perfect Circle - Fiddle and the Drum (eMOTIVe)
She Wants Revenge - She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not (She Wants Revenge)
A Perfect Circle - Let's Have a War (eMOTIVe)
Breaking Benjamin - Had Enough (Phobia)
She Wants Revenge - Replacement (This Is Forever)
Muse - Space Dementia (Origin of Symmetry)
Chiodos - Life Is a Perception of Your Own Reality (Bone Palace Ballet)
A Perfect Circle - Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums (eMOTIVe)
Muse - Starlight (Black Holes and Revelations)
Cursive - The Ugly Organist (The Ugly Organ)
She Wants Revenge - True Romance (This Is Forever)
Deftones - When Girls Telephone Boys (Deftones)
Breaking Benjamin - So Cold (We Are Not Alone)
Cursive - Art Is Hard (The Ugly Organ)
She Wants Revenge - First, Love (This Is Forever)
She Wants Revenge - Pretend the World Has Ended (This Is Forever)
She Wants Revenge - Someone Must Get Hurt (She Wants Revenge)
AFI - Miss Murder (DECEMBERUNDERGROUND)
She Wants Revenge - All Those Moments (This Is Forever)
Rob Dougan - Speed Me Towards Death (Furious Angels)
Matchbook Romance - My Mannequin Can Dance (Voices)\
Chiodos - Lexington [Joey Pea-Pot With a Monkey Face] (Bone Palace Ballet)
Chiodos - Is It Progression If a Cannibal Uses a Fork? (Bone Palace Ballet)
Chiodos - I Didn't Say I Was Powerful, I Said I Was a Wizard (Bone Palace Ballet)
She Wants Revenge - Tear You Apart (She Wants Revenge)
Matchbook Romance - Goody, Like Two Shoes (Voices)
AFI - Jack the Ripper (DECEMBERUNDERGROUND)
Cursive - Some Red-Handed Sleight of Hand (The Ugly Organ)
She Wants Revenge - Written In Blood (This Is Forever)
Matchbook Romance - Surrender (Voices)
Chiodos - Bulls Make Money, Bears Make Money, Pigs Get Slaughtered (Bone Palace Ballet)
She Wants Revenge - Out of Control (She Wants Revenge)
She Wants Revenge - I Don't Want to Fall In Love (She Wants Revenge)
Matchbook Romance - Monsters (Voices)
Rob Dougan - Furious Angels (Furious Angels)
Deftones - Rapture (Saturday Night Wrist)
Rob Dougan - Left Me for Dead (Furious Angels)
Cursive - Rise Up! Rise Up! (Happy Hollow)
She Wants Revenge - What I Want (This Is Forever)
She Wants Revenge - Red Flags and Long Nights (She Wants Revenge)
She Wants Revenge - Rachael (This Is Forever)

Character fixations.

2008-03-18T16:00:00.008-05:00

I wonder if other people feel the same way about game characters that I do. There are 3 major ways that I'll get fixated on a character in a game.

1. Personality. I like the way this guy/gal is written. Usefulness has little to do with my affection for this kind of character - some are battle-awesome (+), some are balanced (=), some suck (-).

= Balthier (XII)

- Jansen (Lost Odyssey)
= Yuffie (VII)
= Riku (Kingdom Hearts)
+ Paine (X-2)
+ Elk (.HACK//)
= Mia (.HACK//)
- Irvine (VIII)
+ Vivi (IX)

2. Badassery. This has to do with sheer ass-kicking. These are the characters I love to play with, not because I like them, but because I like what they do for me in battle. Admittedly, sometimes I like their character. (+)

Basch (XII)

Seth (Lost Odyssey)
Cid (VII)
+ Paine (X-2)
+ Balmung (.HACK//)
Helba (.HACK//)
Zell (VIII)
Beatrix (IX)
+ Jak (any of the Jak and Daxter games)
- Sora (Kingdom Hearts)

Note: I actually despise Sora's personality, but still cheer him on while playing Kingdom Hearts because he's so freaking powerful. Do you feel similarly about a character in a game you play? I'm curious.

3. Pity. I feel sorry for these guys. Their base stats are teh suck and their personalities don't make up for anything so most people seem to keep them at the fringe of their party, just barely clinging to life...and out of this pity is borne love. <3 I spend time with them. I give them really good equipment, often at the expense of other "stronger" characters. But in the end, I get to be so proud, because I successfully transformed a zero into a hero. <3

Penelo (XII)
Tifa (VII)
Donald (Kingdom Hearts)
Selphie (VIII)
Quina (IX)
Piros III (.HACK//G.U.)

Yes, it is a shorter list, but no less valid a division. Penelo is my best example, because in XII no one has a set class type. It's all about equipment and attention. That's the first time I really noticed how I was building someone up out of pity.

I wonder if other people feel the same way about their party members, or if the third category is just a girl thing...?

Strangely, the "mortals" in Lost Odyssey are so pitiful I'm not even interested in trying to help them in their plight. So apparently there's a limit. At least to MY philanthropy. >:D

word: arcane
mood: Isshin Kurosaki
song: Ode to Joy (Bach)

Comics.

2008-02-22T14:58:00.001-06:00

So I'm having a really hard time deciding exactly what it is I want to do with my comics. I've got some random ones sketched out, featuring myself and various family and friends (i.e. my brothers, Jamie, and Kait) but the random ones don't give me the opportunity longer comics do. DJP was awesome cause I got to draw goofy and serious at the same time, tell a story, play with fun layout, and most importantly, not have to end every page on a punch line.

Another consideration is the characters. Do I use people I know? Do I use thinly veiled variations of people I know? Or do I stick to purely original characters? (Or, as pure as I can get.)

It would take forever to do a comic that was mostly serious. The artwork would take forever, I mean. Ideally I would do something mostly funny because it takes itself too seriously, like DJP. I liked the tone of that. Tongue-in-cheek epic.

At the moment I'm still doing everything by hand but ideally (there's that word again) I'd like to start trying to do the boxes and some color, maybe just in Paint to start off. A tablet would cost too much.

¡¡LIGHTNING!!

There's a short story I did way back when I was 13 that might translate to a comic very well...very well indeed...oh ho ho...

Thanks for your help, Helen. Nice to see you back on my side.

word: petunia
mood: Strong Bad
song: Yoko Kanno - 7minutes (Cowboy Bebop)

Mai Kaniki...?

2008-02-21T13:15:00.007-06:00

I've been working on a new blog for my comics. (Yes, there will be new ones. I've already got drafts. Hear that? Drafts!) I'm kind of annoyed with ye olde tripod because of the file limitations on their free sites, and I don't want to have to pay a monthly fee. Who the hell is still charging for these things? Web space is an inexhaustible commodity. Like fossil fuels, and the ozone. Maybe those are bad examples...ah. Like diamonds. Yes.

The annoying thing about blogger is that their images don't post as BIG as I'd like. Size matters. Especially in the case of broadswords, or handwritten text boxes... Pokémon are apparently exempt on this one. Pika pika, bitches. Anyway, at least you can click on the image to get the full-size version. Not ideal, but better than "that'll be $12.99 for breathing" tripod.

I was going to name my WoW character Yusei Thomei'to, but it was too long. Instead I picked a name that's even harder to spell. No one but me knows how to type the 'e' with the little accent over it... *sigh* I miss Rennie and Pacha. At least she'll be well-rested when I get back. My next char's totally going to be a little jewelcrafting gnome. ^.^ They're just so puntable. Or maybe an undead priest. I'm pretty intrigued by the idea of an undead that's able to resurrect people.

I've already spent all of my spare vacation money...at BAM. I go on vacation and I spend all my money at the store I spend the most time in at home. \m/ Tamaki made me do it. Oh sweet crackers I can't wait for Ouran to get translated into English. Not that I'll listen to it in English. But the packaging will be nice.

I had the most amazing garlic grilled crab legs last night. My hands were as filthy as a Chuck-E-Cheese ball pit when I got through, but I showed that food who was boss. You don't mess with someone who has "crab" in their name already. (In Japanese, my last name would be "Kaniki." Like Kuchiki, only less cool. So would my Rukia be Rukia Kaniki...? I don't think she cares.)

Speaking of Bleach's art goddess, Rukia's back in vol. 22 and I don't care what David thinks, Ichigo's totally in love with her, and Uryuu and Orihime totally belong together. Sunshine all in my internal organs. XD I identify most with Tatsuki and Karin. It's amazing how many characters in that series make my chest swell.

word: brash
mood: Keigo Asano
song: Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit (The Worst of Jefferson Airplane)
"Go ask Alice when she's ten feet tall..."

And the gods said SHAZAM!

2008-02-20T12:35:00.003-06:00

Turns out there is internet. You just have to sacrifice a couple of seagulls, twist your neck just the right way, and curl your toes. You cramp up after a while, but hey, what addiction isn't painful?

I like February. People give me stuff. Sometimes. My brothers are wimping out. (By which I mean Bill and David. Buy me stuff, losers!!)

I'm becoming increasingly alarmed by the fact that my shojo manga is growing faster than my shonen manga. Does this mean that I'm still secretly a girl and am only able to access it in a Japanese way? Scary...psychologists might label me repressed...

I saw a commercial for Lost Odyssey on Cartoon Network last night and I'm not even going to go into the kinds of biological chemicals that instantly flushed my system. (Alcohol was in there already...) There might have been some panting. I don't know. I bought a Jefferson Airplane CD straightaway this morning because I needed White Rabbit so bad. ADDICTIONS! ADDICTIONS!!

I've got my psycho-ness back, and I'm so happy. Yay beach. XD (I would buy a Scion xD just because it makes an emoticon.)

I need Fooly Cooly.

word: precocious
mood: Isshin Kurosaki
song: Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit (The Worst of Jefferson Airplane)
"Remember what the dormouse said..."

Hiatus.

2008-02-15T03:21:00.001-06:00

Not exactly like a hiatus, though, since I plan to be vastly creative in all kinds of ways. I'll be at the beach till the 23rd, and I don't know if the condo will have internet, so if I'm unavailable internet-wise, that's why.

(hahahahahaha)

In other news, I've finally

finally

FINALLY posted all of the pages of "Day of the Japanese Professor" to aine-comics. Not only that, I plan to make some fresh comics while at the beach. So there.

I can't sleep when it's dark outside.

word: closure
mood: insomniac (see Michael from Witch Hunter Robin. I need a 15-year-old to bring me donuts in the middle of the night. Wait...that's not what it sounded like...)
song: Chris Thile - The Wrong Idea (Deceiver)
"I guess I have to introduce you to my friends, but I know they'll get the wrong idea..."

Playlist for February.

2008-02-15T01:39:00.003-06:00

Banquo's ghost

The Bravery - Intro (The Sun and the Moon)
The Bravery - Believe (The Sun and the Moon)
Snow Patrol - Gleaming Auction (Final Straw)
Vertical Horizon - You're A God (Everything You Want)
AFI - Endlessly, She Said (DECEMBERUNDERGROUND)
Matt Pond PA - People Have A Way (Last Light)
James Blunt - I'll Take Everything (All The Lost Souls)
Muse - Map of the Problematique (Black Holes and Revelations)
Gorillaz - Feel Good, Inc. (Demon Days)
Jem - 24 (Finally Woken)
The Killers - Midnight Show (Hot Fuss)
Muse - Knights of Cydonia (Black Holes and Revelations)
Radiohead - 15 steps (In Rainbows)
Jars of Clay - Grace [first version] (The White Elephant Sessions)
The Decemberists - 16 Military Wives (Picaresque)
The Killers - Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf (Sawdust)
Arctic Monkeys - Old Yellow Bricks (Favourite Worst Nightmare)
Cowboy Mouth - Everybody Loves Jill (Easy)
Snow Patrol - It's Beginning To Get To Me (Eyes Open)
Matt Pond PA - Honestly (Last Light)
My Chemical Romance - Heaven Help Us (Heaven Help Us)
Muse - Apocalypse Please (Absolution)
Jars of Clay - Collide (If I Left The Zoo)
Augustana - Lonely People (All the Stars and Boulevards)
Jimmy Eat World - Kill (Futures)
Relient K - Which To Bury, Us Or The Hatchet (Mmhmm)
Muse - Space Dementia (Origin of Symmetry)
The Bravery - Angelina (The Sun and the Moon)
Matt Pond PA - Reading (Last Light)
My Chemical Romance - Kill All Your Friends (Kill All Your Friends)

For a nice ambient sound, try my Mona Lisa station on Pandora. Link's over to the left.

I just picked up Chris Thile's Deceiver, and it's amazing.

Sucking chest wound - a short vignette.

2008-01-30T17:53:00.001-06:00

Once upon a time there was a moron in a Miata who was still trying to cure depression with yuppie food despite countless experiences proving otherwise. She finally determined that she should give up this excessive lifestyle and become a monk(ette) in Tibet, forsaking all wordly possessions.

For about two seconds.

"This sucks," she said. "Can't I just go get a caramel apple spice from Starbucks?"

No. You did that yesterday.

"It might work this time."

You can't spend your rent money on drinks that aren't even caffeinated.

"But it costs less than a latte."

So?

"So have you tried one?"

...no.

[Scene moves to the local Airport Road Starbucks, finest in the region. A cheerful, spiky-headed girl works the cash drawer. A blonde guy makes macchiatos at warp speed.]

K-chan: Hi! What are you getting today?

Depressio: Two tall caramel apple spices.

K-chan: Two?

Depressio: Yeah. One for me, one for my disembodied conscience. [jerks thumb]

Conscience: Hi.

K-chan: [hysterical laugh] Oh. Hi.

Baristamonster: You have one of those?

Depressio: Had her surgically removed before I came so she could try one of your fine beverages, good sir.

Baristamonster: No kidding?

Depressio: Wanna see the sucking chest wound?

K-chan: [punches up the total] That'll be $5.70.

Conscience: For two drinks?

Depressio: I told you it was cheap.

Conscience: That's not cheap! Not cheap!

Baristamonster: Your drinks are up. [flicks hair]

Depressio: Really, I come here so I can see his hair do that 'whoosh' thing. And the apron. It's so cute.

Conscience: That's your brother.

Depressio: I'm so proud.

Conscience: Get your expensive drink before it gets cold.

Depressio: Here's yours.

Conscience: You know, it was really stupid of you to separate us just to get me to... Oh my god.

Depressio: [nods] Guaranteed to make your conscience take the lord's name in vain.

Conscience: Holy shit. Oh god. What did you say this was?

Depressio: Fresh orgasm.

[end scene]

And now it's time to go to Starbucks.

My humility lasts about as long as this post.

2008-01-25T12:49:00.000-06:00

Some days I get really tired of that whole "hey, check out my huge ego, it's bigger than Soviet Russia and way more prosperous" thing that I do.

For about five seconds.

The Library.

2008-01-14T16:15:00.001-06:00

David forfeited all his manga to me. I figured I ought to put it down for posterity in case he changed his mind. This jacks up my library count to over 350 volumes. At Kait's suggestion, I'm going to start keeping a little book for "check-outs." That's right. It's now officially a library.

Look out, Books A Million - I'll get you my pretty, and your little display case too. BWAHAHAHAHAAAA

Gee, I hope I get a bookshelf for my birthday...

Lost's flashbacks.

2008-01-14T14:48:00.000-06:00

Lost, as you very well should know, kicks off its 4th season at the end of this month. To prepare, and because it's just fun, we've been re-watching the first three seasons. We're a third into season 2 right now. Going through season 1 once with Jamie and again with Cote, I've started picking up some things they do structurally that I hadn't noticed before because I was too busy revelling in the sheer awesome.

Obviously one of Lost's biggest hallmarks is its flashbacks. A lot of their plot structure hinges around it. The character flashback in any given episode always has a parallel in the character's Island present. At the very least. Sometimes, when the writing's really good, it parallels other characters' present predicaments as well. This makes for an obvious, though notable, law that flashbacks must always be deeply relevant - no flashbacks just for the sake of flashing. It needs to illuminate the present in an unexpected way for the audience. After a flashback, the audience should not be saying "well, duh." Ideally, you want their reaction to follow the lines of, "No fucking way!" or "Why didn't I see that coming?" or just a simple, "Aha!"

But Lost takes it a step further than connecting flashbacks in-episode. There's always a plant in an earlier episode that rings in the audience's brain when they return to it for a flashback. Example: in "Hearts and Minds" Michael finds his own luggage and we see a shot of him pulling out a wooden box. He looks inside, but we don't find out what it is until the next episode, "Special," where we see him get it in the flashback; and we find out what's inside at the end of the episode when Michael gives it to Walt. In the pilot, we see Sawyer gazing sadly at a piece of paper. He pulls it out a few more times, but it's not till episode 8, "Confidence Man," that we find out the letter's contents, and what it means to Sawyer. The trick is to get the audience to ask a mental question, make them wait a little, and then answer it. (This is true at least in season 1 - I'm going to keep watching closely to see if this carries all the way to season 3.) The call-and-return nature of Lost's reveals is what earmarks the show as a mystery - the audience has been trained Pavlov's dog style to believe that all questions they have will be answered in time.

Ironically, though none of the characters seem to trust anybody, Lost's audience base is built entirely on trust - we trust them to not keep us in the dark forever.

word: electric
mood: ..?
song: Rob Dougan - Speed Me Towards Death

A Lengthy Discussion of Character Arcs with Examples from Pirates of the Caribbean. This Could Go On For Awhile.

2007-12-19T17:44:00.001-06:00

Warning. Huge post. Yarr.

This is the complication. The great big enormous beauty of it, but what make it so incomprehensibly difficult to assemble. When you're making a story as expansive as this one, with as many characters, spanning as many generations, covering this much time and space, you do not have one story.

You have as many stories as you have characters, and more. Some characters, due to their extended presence (anyone spanning the life of the product) are going to go through multiple arcs. I consider a single character arc to constitute a full story. But, as all badly handled trilogies have proven, in order to make a character work, you have to have one "life arc" per character (one main theme that covers the character from introduction to death/finale) and another (preferably related) arc per season/movie/(in our case) episode. You can also forgo this "seasonal arc" in favor of just a life arc, and it'll still work, though in a slightly different way. The one thing you cannot do is forgo the life arc - audiences intuitively understand this to be the most important thing. Unless all the seasonal arcs add up to a meaningful life arc, you get people coming out of the theatre going "boy, they really changed so-and-so's character, huh?" "Yeah, what was up with that?" Your audience doesn't have to be full of trained critics, or experts on the writing process. This is just a law of character creation that they know-without-knowing. Note that this law doesn't apply to stand-alone movies, because there the seasonal arc IS the life arc.

For purposes of illustration, I'll use the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. ***There are spoilers*** You may want to come back and read this later if you haven't seen all three movies. Or if you don't care, plow on ahead.

Example 1 - Seasonal arc with no life arc - Elizabeth Swann
More people have complained to me about the violent metamorphosis of Elizabeth Swann's character than just about any other movie character in the last five years. There are a lot of really solid reasons why it happened, and most of them become plainly obvious by watching the "making of" features on the Dead Man's Chest dvd (I highly recommend them - very instructive on how NOT to do all kinds of things). But that's not the focus of this post. I'm going to pretend that Ted and Terry (poor souls) had enough time to plan out this trilogy from the beginning, rather than just the first movie.

Elizabeth's arc in Curse of the Black Pearl can be symbolized by the corset, bookended by Will. Her meeting Will the first time marks her for adventure, and she chooses him in the end over Norrington. Curse of the Black Pearl is about Elizabeth choosing freedom from the choking variety of corsets, but not too much freedom. Jack is the one who saves her from drowning, rips off the corset literally and figuratively, and is therefore the first one to symbolically suggest freedom to her; but as evidenced in the rum-on-the-island scene, Elizabeth doesn't want Jack's idea of freedom - it's too absolute to her. It's too Bohemian and over-the-top. She wants a little bit of structure - the pirates' code, not rules, but a series of guidelines. Not corsets or an arranged marriage; what she wants is a happy medium, and that's embodied in Will. He's a pirate in blood but much more civilized. This is our payoff at the end: Elizabeth finally finds her happy medium. This seems good and right, and on that note her seasonal arc for Curse of the Black Pearl comes to an end.

In Dead Man's Chest, Elizabeth is almost immediately non-recognizable. She quickly trades in her dress and goes for cross-dressing, even though she wore dresses for almost the entirety of the first movie. (Blaring costume shifts startle the audience.) She is apparently an expert swordswoman, with the excuse that “Will taught her swordplay.” Elizabeth's story here seems to be about her eliminating everything feminine about herself except for her sexuality, and morphing into a pirate one rung below Jack - by developing a crush on Jack, it cheapens her relationship with Will (Jack may be lascivious, but he's not devoted to anybody), and by sacrificing Jack to the Kraken, she proves herself the more ruthless one. Jack may have given Will to Davy Jones, but we as the audience understand that it's because he trusts Will to save himself from that situation. (Jack says all of the above in one word: “Pirate.”) The audience is bewildered, but not in the good way because the Elizabeth they remember is the mediator between the two worlds of civilization and piratedom. That was what she was supposed to represent. The woman they see now is (abruptly, that’s the problem) further down the road to damnation than Jack Sparrow, who heretofore was established as the “good guy” with the loosest morals. We don’t understand, because Elizabeth so completely rejected Jack’s rationale before.

The movie, and Elizabeth’s second seasonal arc, ends with clumsily writing in guilt for this new alien Elizabeth, and if we weren’t already confused –
At World’s End brings us yet another blaring costume shift for Elizabeth (again, startles the audience) as she dons what seem to be Hong Kong-style pajamas. (Not that I have anything against Asian influence. Quite the contrary. It just doesn’t fit with the previous model, and that’s a no-no.) While presumably not much time has passed from DMC, Elizabeth has picked up even more swordplay and hand-to-hand skills. Her seasonal arc here is about her falling in love with Will again (and therefore receding from the edge of the moral abyss), and becoming pirate queen. The reasoning behind these moves are unclear. As far as I can tell, she gets back with Will because he turns “bad” for a little while and that’s sexy…? And Jack’s not hot enough…? Which is the opposite motive of her attraction to Will in the first movie, and in direct contradiction with the readout of Jack’s compass in the second. And as for becoming pirate queen, the motive here seems less about giving Elizabeth power (since she really doesn’t do anything with it other than give a really poor speech) and more about proving that Jack can still manipulate Elizabeth, reverting them to their original hierarchy from the first movie when he saved her from drowning. This is a subtle move to put Jack out of Elizabeth’s power (where he’s been since the needle of his compass pointed towards her [bwahaha]) and back at the top of the Ladder of Devious. We as the audience are intrigued by the idea of Jack and Elizabeth together, because she’s the only non-villain that can match him (first proved when she set fire to the rum). In order to make her ending up with Will not seem completely stupid (Will, unable the outwit Jack, is de facto inferior to Elizabeth) the writers had to find a way to shift the balance of power back to Jack. We don’t want to see Jack with a woman who can’t out-think him. So thanks to the scene in the Brethren Court, we’re better able to accept Elizabeth’s choice at the end of the movie, because she’s been removed from Jack’s sphere, placing her back in Will’s. Also because neither Jack nor Elizabeth seem to be able to get over the fact that she killed him. Conversely, we feel a little gypped because while Elizabeth and Will’s connection was strongest in the first movie (and therefore was best) the new pirate/alien Elizabeth in DMC and AWE connects a lot better with Jack, on basis of philosophy and moral code.

This has a lot to do with why the ending to At World’s End was so bittersweet. Based on CBP, Elizabeth can only end up with Will. No other option. But based on her radical character shift in DMC and AWE, Jack feels secretly more appropriate to the audience, even though we remember that the original Elizabeth can’t do that, and we understand intuitively that by the laws of Jack’s character he can’t end up with anybody or he would cease to be Captain Jack Sparrow.

Please notice that neither Dead Man’s Chest nor At World’s End offer the kind of elegantly simplistic symbol for Elizabeth’s arc the way Curse of the Black Pearl did with the corset.

So, to make a really really long story short, the incongruency in Elizabeth’s character springs from three disparate seasonal arcs with no life arc to tie them together. (Whew.)

Example 2 – Seasonal arcs with life arc – James Norrington
By a strange twist of fate, ex-Commodore Norrington is the only character in the Pirates trilogy who successfully employs seasonal arcs, and that’s because he’s the only one who has a life arc on top of it. Norrington plays through several simple but complementary motivations: he loves Elizabeth, he’s ambitious in his job, and he wants revenge on Will and Jack for respectively ruining both of those things. However, his innate goodness and love for Elizabeth redeem him twice, and the second time it kills him. Norrington, ironically, loves more deeply and steadfastly than either Elizabeth or Will.

Norrington’s life arc is a classic Greek tragedy: an essentially good guy with fatal flaws who sacrifices himself to gain redemption. His seasonal arcs are the three acts of that tragedy, and are therefore complementary.

In CBP, Norrington begins at the highest we’ll ever see him. Then, supernatural events beyond his control wrest him of his beloved – showing his good side, he lets Elizabeth go gracefully because he cares for her happiness above his own. But when his entire life is stripped away (between CBP and DMC) his tragic flaw, a deep sense of pride, rears its ugly head and he spends the entirety of DMC seeking revenge on Jack and Will for the things they stole from him, and he ends his second seasonal arc by deceitfully obtaining the heart of Davy Jones, and essentially selling his soul to the devil for a chance to get his old title back. (Fake redemption.) In AWE, he sees the terrible effects of his selfish choice, and because he is after all a good guy (proven in CBP) he takes responsibility for his bad decisions and sacrifices himself to save Elizabeth. (True redemption.)

All this progression feels natural and correct because it loosely follows a character development archetype (life arc) that the audience is familiar with. In a way, Norrington wins after all, because as a pure character he succeeds where Elizabeth and Will fail. (Take that, losers!)

Okay. Thumbs up. Last example.

Example 3 – Life arc with no seasonal arcs – Captain Jack Sparrow
When I describe Pirates’ character arcs in conversation, I use my hands. I swoop my hand gracefully up and down to illustrate Norrington. I zigzag it around erratically to show Elizabeth. But when I do Jack Sparrow, I hold my arm straight in front of me and wobble my hand a little bit. It’s one of the mysteries of human communication that people actually understand precisely what I mean.

The saving grace of the Pirates trilogy is that the writers understood that Jack is not actually a character – not in the fullest sense, because he can’t change. He’s more than a character. Jack is an idea – a symbol – and that’s what often happens when you forgo seasonal arcs and stick to a solid life arc for longer than a single product. (You can also have it in a single product – Jack was always an idea, even if you watch CBP by itself.) This type of character design can be extremely successful, as Jack has shown, but it’s also a very tricky thing to do, because it’s so easy to ruin. If Jack had fallen in love (with anything other than the Black Pearl), he would have been ruined. It’d kill his random lasciviousness. If Jack had ended the series with everything he wanted (the Black Pearl and lots of treasure) then Jack would have been ruined. It’d destroy his ever-grasping-ositude. If Jack was ever in charge of anything bigger than a boat, he would have been ruined (i.e., he couldn’t be pirate king). It would murder his spontaneity. If you stop and think about it, there are a lot of rules built into the Jack Sparrow character – while he is THE element that makes the series such a joy to partake of, there are a great many things, basic, traditional storytelling things, that you can never, ever do with his character or he will instantly cease to be that thing – that idea – that the audience loves so much. Jack’s purpose is this: move through the plot, connecting the heroes with the villains. He does this guided by motives of greed and a lust for total freedom. His “bad” impulses are tempered to charming effect by layering them with human decency (a villain minus villainy), a keen mind, and a whimsical persona.

Jack’s unpredictable genius serves as the audience’s benchmark for all the other characters. The only characters that get real respect from the audience are the ones that can outwit Jack on occasion: Elizabeth and Barbossa. Elizabeth, then, is Jack’s equal (based on DMC) and therefore superior to Will, making her ultimate pairing with Will in AWE a little awkward, as I’ve said. Barbossa, of course, is Jack’s greatest rival, having outwitted Jack before CBP even begins, but Jack wins that contest at the end of CBP, making Barbossa’s resurrection and reunion with Jack in AWE (while cathartically fun) also awkward. (Kind of feels like, didn’t we already do this…?) But these awkward bits are the result of faulty writing in the other characters, not Jack himself.

Interestingly, most of the characters in this trilogy follow this life-arc-only structure. The exceptions are the other three legs of the Pirates quadrangle – Will, Elizabeth, and Norrington. Barbossa, Davy Jones, Tia Dalma, and all the spare crew members easily qualify as “ideas.” I think this is what makes Pirates so classically appealing – it’s actually a fairy tale, where almost all the characters are caricatured stand-ins representing an idea, lifestyle, or emotion for the few characters that ARE fully rounded. By this model, everything is about Will, Elizabeth, and Norrington; and Jack becomes our touchstone Puck/Ariel/Fool in the Shakespearean tradition. I highly recommend rewatching the series with this in mind. It’s really illuminating, for the writer-brain.

So. There you have it. What not to do, and then two examples of how-to. One really big post that took me three days to write. But it’s good for me to sit down and reason things like this out on paper/in type.

Now you can see why writing papers in college was so easy for me. I do it for fun. (“Freak! Freak!”)

word: brash
mood: Tomoko (GTO)
song: The Killers - Don't Shoot Me Santa

Revengerie.

2007-12-19T15:07:00.000-06:00

there are, of course, the dreams of glory
the grim shadows of sacrifice underneath your eyelids when you wake in the morning and are expected to greet the world with a latte and a flash of teeth
flash of teeth
you’ve come to fear
you understand only the difference in warmth between your ankles and your wrists
friend/foes and foe-friends
ankles and wrists
are all you have at your disposal when it comes down to you in a B-flurry and you evade the speed of your own reaction by taking a window instead of the stairs from three stories
gravity is something your ankles/wrists can handle malevolence is something foe-friends can counteract
laws built into your system

Oh I’m doing fine, thank you for asking

You take the stairs, each step another regression and you are
weeping in the backseat of the car you fell into, held down by awareness of the man driving, the man whose wife and unborn child became the punch in your ticket to life because it’s more dramatic because trauma makes it strong strength in poetry, truth, irony and revenge
above all revenge (just don’t deceive me
and please believe me
when I say
I – )
Yes, I slept well, thank you for asking (I killed you in my sleep and
you were
ohhh,
mmmm,
ahhhhh,
beautiful…)
more proof of design
blood running from altars nearby faces you would pull close and make your own always so covetous pride goeth before the fall
shhhh
backlit and set to score
the breakdown is the best part REVERSAL! Aha!
the river of string pulling you along illusion’s contribution she has come to take you back, take everything she wants you back she was always faithful it was the circumstance, yes
the friend/foes that bound her until she mastered the string theory but now
come home
(I loved you best
always
I swear)
You swear…?
The obsidian door in the basement cracks open.

word: evangelical
mood: S
song: Rob Dougan - I'm Not Driving Anymore

Smack face, wake up.

2007-12-12T12:35:00.000-06:00

Okay, writer-face, you need to quit dicking around and stick your nose back in the grindstone. Just because no one's been screaming at you lately doesn't mean you have an excuse to play X-2 till your eyes burn from their sockets. Well, I mean, you could, but that's not moving anything forward, now is it?

I guess I'm a little depressed, from being reminded that I have the kind of brain that very few people can enthusiastically accept. At heart, I want everyone to love me. I think this is a universal thing. But as we get older we all gradually lower our expectations as we come to terms with reality: everyone is different. As awesome as that is, it also means that a very miniscule fraction of the population will be honestly attracted to the majority of your personality facets. The double-edged sword of variety. More things on the buffet. More things you won't want to eat. A few more things you will. It's a sad-but-truism.

You do get appropriately excited when you find one of those people who do think you're awesome. You then hope that you can return the favor.

It's all a big balancing mess.

Happy LOST season 3 coming out. Go buy it.

word: mogarandum
mood: Urumi Kanzaki (GTO)
song: Garbage - Push It (Version 2.0)
"Don't worry baby..."

Comic-ka...revisited?

2007-12-08T17:02:00.001-06:00

I've been thinking hard about picking comics back up. I'm starting to really miss them. There was something enormously satisfying about it - a creative exhibition, but in miniature proportions so I actually got to experience a feeling of completion. My writing projects are always too lengthy for me to have reached that point with them yet.

Case in point - Day of the Japanese Professor - a.k.a. the Jap Prof comic, or the Okuyama-sensei comic - an unusually lengthy series that I took a year-long break from in the middle. (Going to England jogged me back into production, strangely.) Looking back on it now, I'm actually glad that hiatus happened. If I'd completed it on schedule, the art quality of the second half would have suffered drastically. As it is, I learned a lot from making it. If you read it closely, you can see me learning lessons about proportion, shading and shadows, distance, angle, and especially structure - how to make an aesthetically pleasing page, beyond just the illustrations inside of it. One thing I didn't do, is know how I was ending when I began. That one thing hurts the overall cohesion of the comic. While I think I could do better on just about every level, that thought actually excites me because the Jap Prof comic makes me so happy.

Part of what made it so much fun was how many real people were involved with it. I mean yeah, I was the only one who did any of the drawing and almost all of the story (there was that memorable conversation in the Ferg where Christy, Hugh, and Niki were responsible for the resurrection of za Fukiko), but so many of my school friends were drawn into it, and so many other friends were enthusiastically supportive, always asking me when was I going to finish Day of the Japanese Professor...? For their sake, I had no choice.

It was the first time I really and truly felt a warm and melty feeling in my chest cavity, like my cardiovascular tissue was dribbling all over my liver. Other people call that sensation love. I call it a fanbase.

What I need is a good-quality scanner that would work with Persephone. Or a tablet. That would cut out several annoying steps, like inking, (oh how I hate inking) and using a ruler to make boxes that I can't get perfectly square anyway.

And before you mention it, yes, I do need to post the final pages to aine-comics. But that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Those of you who have hard copies of the completed comic should definitely hang onto them in a secure location. You have no idea what they might be worth in a few years.

word(s): orange soda
mood: Tyler Durden
song: Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nevermind)

Playlist for December.

2007-12-08T16:37:00.000-06:00

Selections from the assorted Cowboy Bebop soundtracks that evoke Spike in my brain.

Spiketastic

What planet is this ?!
Rain
Green Bird
Pushing the sky
7minutes
Gotta knock a little harder
GO GO CACTUS MAN
ROAD TO THE WEST
THE REAL FOLK BLUES
American Money
Forever Broke
Doggy Dog
Piano Bar|
SEE YOU SPACE COWBOYS NOT FINAL MIX MOUNTAIN ROOT
BLUE

I'm posting from Panera. Their coffee tastes a lot better in-house from a ceramic mug. Their free wifi is much faster than CRB's, which I take advantage of during the week in the office. How much of a bitch is that?? They also have more available outlets than Starbucks - which doesn't have free wifi. Panera's regular menu may be overpriced, but they have good pastries, not like Starbucks' dry, fat-free shit.

You do the math.

Month of chaos/thoughts on X-2.

2007-12-07T15:17:00.000-06:00

I always forget how busy December is. Your family keeps having get-togethers, your friends keep throwing parties and somehow you have to maintain a running mental list of who's doing what when and whether you need to bring something or not. You spend the vast majority of the month standing on the inside of your front door, keys in hand, wondering what you're forgetting.

The upside is, there's always leftovers in the fridge. You can't eat them all. Don't even try. Or do. Whatever.

This is why I don't know why December's considered a kind of holiday month. There's ZERO free time. Summer's way better for that.

I really need to buy the Ouran anime. Next month I should do that instead of buying manga.

I'm looking forward to seeing Kait as Belle in this year's Christmas Carol. I'm sad I missed her Ghost of Christmas Future last year, but hopefully there will be more creepy parts for her in years to come.

I'm playing through X-2 again. Almost to the end of Chapter 1. You know, if I'd thought ahead, I would have visited the Calmlands first in the chapter, so I could do the publicity and matchmaking campaigns as I went through the other areas...but it's been awhile since I played. I'm going to leave a note in the strategy guide for next time. While there's a lot about X-2 that annoys me for blaringly obvious reasons (Yuna, the Songstress dressphere, several ugly costume designs for The Girls, Yuna, Nooj's hair, Wakka, "Him", Yuna...) I like having a party of only three people who can switch mid-battle between any job class you so designate. I like the skill-learning system. X-2 also requires the least amount of extra levelling of all the Final Fantasies. Even I, who like to stay a few levels high, don't ever feel the need to do any extra-curricular running around. (Besides, I hate the way Yuna runs. I wish you could change the character who interacts with the field.) Just moving in a direct line through the areas on the path the strategy guide suggests is plenty. Only thing I've had trouble with so far is Amorphous Gels. And everybody always has problems with Amorphous Gels. They're just problematic. Taihen da ne? That's just how they're designed. The Macalania Woods are supposed to be a bitch.

This is also the only post-VII Final Fantasy where I feel black magic is appropriately powerful. With the others my physical attacks are vastly more powerful, and don't use up an expensive resource (MP). But in X-2, black magic is a little more powerful, and MP is a lot easier to regain. Ethers are in very short supply, but save points populate Spira pretty thickly, and they fully heal and recharge your party. Also the Black Mage's MP Absorb ability is pretty good. The Gun Mage's Absorb blue bullet ability is pretty good too. And you learn abilities fast, especially if you use the hell out of Focus. So overall it ends up being unusually beneficial to keep a Black Mage in your party. I like that. It's a nice change.

I don't think they played out Paine's backstory to the extent they could have. I like the idea, but the way they expressed it was like fingerpaints when it could have been some really nice Prismacolor pastels. To say nothing of the truly dreadful way they ended the story for Yuna. And poor Rikku got no attention at all. Zero. Rikku was treated as background color even though she's a party member, a playable character from the last game, and a major humor contributor. If you fulfill some very specific conditions in the Mi'ihen Mystery event, Rikku gets about two seconds of being significant. And they missed some major juiciness by not playing up her crush on Gippal. Le sigh.

I can't be the only person who's wondered if there's anything between Paine and Baralai. It would complete the set, you know? Then again that may be their only bit of realism. "Completing the set" hardly ever happens or works if you give it a shot.

Shuyin's theme is pretty awesome. Leblanc's syndicate is pretty funny. Paine and Yuna's Warrior dresspheres are pretty badass.

Instead of playing X-2 I ought to be getting back to II and finally finishing it, but there's no getting between me and my game moods.

word: pretty
mood: Cherry (RPG World)
song: Juno Reactor - Pistolero (Shango)

I Hate Tidus.

2007-12-03T13:12:00.000-06:00

A charming little poem penned almost four years ago, unearthed while I was searching through my old commonplace books for Chira. It's dated 4/25/04. Without further ado:

I Hate Tidus

Tidus
likes Yuna
but I hate Tidus
and Yuna.
If I could get Sephiroth
to help me kill them both
and maybe Rikku too
then
I could have Gippal
and Spira
all to myself
unless
David cuts in.
If so
I'll let Rikku live
if
they move to Kilika
or Besaid
and leave me and Gippal
Luca and Bevelle.
That's the deal.
We can fight
over Samus
later.

word: daemon
mood: Elle (Heroes)
song: Nature Boy/Ascension (Moulin Rouge)

Mood souffle.

2007-11-28T17:32:00.000-06:00

I like to pretend that I'm a very mellow human being. That I don't go through hormonal twists like my female friends, or mood swings like my guy friends. (Guys are just as moody as girls. I don't know how that stereotype got started.) I can't help noticing lately, though, that I'm pretty moody too. I just don't broadcast it, so it stews longer. (Hearts on sleeves are for victims.) Eventually, after stewing to let all the flavors permeate the pot, I blend the whole mess and funnel it into Microsoft Word, give it a catchy title, and put it to music. But regardless of the mode of expression, it's still me being moody. I want to blame it on sleep loss and caffeine, but I have this nasty suspicion that it's more built-in than that.

I'd hoped I was above the rest of humanity on this one thing. Oh well.

The Cavalry and I are keeping track of our actor wishlist for the game. It looks to be as eclectic as my range of characters themselves. (Duh.) One day, I dream of having dilemmas like trying to determine which of my creations would best show off Katee Sackhoff's talents...? (J.J.'s the current top pick.)

Kitty Klaus is going to be a hard one. I also have a sneaking suspicion that my darling L will be a completely unknown entity.

It amuses me, the kinds of nicknames I find myself calling my characters. Some of them will find their way into the game, but others just seem to be my personal little pet titles for them. I really do love them all, so much the more for all the terrible things I put them through. Is that sadistic, or what?

I think I need to go get some sushi and spend some quality time with the Ragnarok. I bet he's been feeling neglected lately.

word: obliterate
mood: ...?
song: John Powell - El Tango de los Assassinos (Mr. & Mrs. Smith soundtrack)

Happily Ever After.

2007-11-26T10:12:00.000-06:00

I

happily ever after
is the story They told themselves
long before god came into the picture
when wide-eyed adventurers sailed off the edge of Their universe
bringing back dreams far exceeding
a farm, a family, sunlight glinting from the honest sweat of Their brows
exceeding things that could not extend beyond the day –
whispers of winged creatures, of beings of light and monsters that fed on darkness
of love and betrayal
harps that played only for the just, swords lifted only by the chosen
of hatred and redemption –
when sunlight was not enough to chase back more than half the day
in the dark They heard it
lullabies from the pulsing arteries of the forest sung of warriors at peace
foes vanquished and pax humana
a castle, a kingdom, torchlight reflected from the facets of a crown
opportunity
They heard
is the right man, in the right place, at the right time
the Mark upon him
can never be stopped, stolen, or given away
by magic or man
the sword shall find its master
the wronged shall have his revenge
and all shall be well, for the chosen

II

Some were, as the forest told Them. Of those who listened in the torchlight, a few found Their place beyond the sun –
the lucky –
The rest demanded an explanation. Magic felt that was redundant, intrinsic within the formula, and in keeping with character did not deign to reply.
Not content with lullabies only, forsaking torchlight, They began to speak of happily ever after in Their waking hours, in Their fields and in Their homes, doing Their best to ignore the ancient lyrics echoing from world’s edge
filtering through the trees
whispered in Their ears
as the breathy proposition of a siren
lover
NO!
Happily ever after must be more certain, more absolute, more equal opportunity.
They began to piece together the perfect forever – the blanket statement. The new song that sang Them to sleep after sunlight faded daily. It drifted over Their hearts, quiltlike and patchwork:

If You Too Are Perfect and Good and Right and Just
but not lucky
Heaven Will Come for You While You Yet Live or Shortly Thereafter
Your Story Is Hardship
The End Will Be Bliss
(I swear)
Let Us Pray, Children; for Luck – The One Thing You Can’t Fake –
Doesn’t Matter to God

III

They believed in the economy of joy when magic and god made war on one another, arguing about the shape of the world – about whether hard work and restraint could win over luck and talent.
Shrieking at one another, even in front of the little ones, until god moved out and made Them choose. The unlucky had majority. They chose happily ever after
and found

Christmas-flavored soap
What’s in, what’s out, a more fabulous you for the holiday season
Hands-free video conferencing
Ten ways to find out if he’s cheating and tips for sex that’ll make him stay
Commemorative Lincoln Memorial chocolates
The car you’ve always dreamed of at monthly payments you can afford
and Happy Hour
always Happy Hour
happily ever after hours

IV

But They couldn’t admit to Us what They’d done. All They ever wanted to be
was lucky.
And so They sing Us to sleep with songs of torchlight: the men They never married, the diamonds They never wore –
the women serenading sailors in the receding dusk, lounging in tide pools
melodies on the wind filtering through the limbs of listless arbors
that remember, roots aching with memories of
love greater than the lives They live
chaos far surpassing the boundaries They have erected
friendship strong enough to resurrect the dead
cloaks of invisibility and fruit endowed with the power of animal speech
lamps that grant wishes
for the very, very lucky

Rather than admitting They abandoned it – not willing to say it died – We are told it never existed.
And yet They can’t stop themselves from talking about torchlight, in Their coldest, inebriated hours, before the dawn and the return of the sun.

V

somehow
We listen

VI

inexplicably
without instruction, yet
We know how to hear the ancient lullabies among the manicured boughs
outside Our insulated windows with Venetian blinds
in Our electric torchlight
after the sun’s possessions have faded as yet they daily do
despite Their reassurances
some of Us are lucky
forsaking Their patchwork happily ever after
some of Us will hear our kingdoms calling
some of Us will have greatness thrust upon Us whether We’re interested or not
We have a Mark upon Us
that neither magic nor man
nor god
can blanche out

amen

word: iconic
mood: zombie
song:David Arnold and Nicholas Dodd - Vesper (Casino Royale soundtrack)

"I won't do it, dahling, so convince me now before I change my mind..."

2007-11-19T16:38:00.000-06:00

So I gave the old bloggie a makeover. No longer the flat bathroom-tile blue with template-enforced blase border around blog title. (Can I use the letter 'b' any more...? Ever...?)

The image now surrounding the blog title is Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing - courtesy of Hellsing fanart goddess Yukari Toshimichi. She's my hero. Looking at her art simultaneously inspires me, and makes me wonder why I bother.

I'm wearing flip flops, the week of Thanksgiving, and I'm very angry about it.

On the upside, my friend behind the sushi counter at Fresh Market knows exactly what I want when I go in at lunch. That makes me feel like a special person. As if I needed more excuses.

word: charter
mood: Kaylee
song: Styx - Boat on the River (Come Sail Away: The Styx Anthology)

Playlist for November.

2007-11-16T15:46:00.000-06:00

This is a popular one. (Which must be why I don't listen to it often...) But whatever. Kait likes it. It's named after the romance novel Shigure wrote in Fruits Basket, and it consists of several whole albums, so I'm just going to list those, rather than individual songs, which would take forever. The shuffle button is your friend.

summer colored sigh

Aqualung - Memory Man
Aqualung - Strange & Beautiful
Coldplay - Parachutes
Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
Coldplay - X&Y
Death Cab for Cutie - Plans
Eisley - Room Noises
The Fray - How To Save A Life
The Fray - Reason EP
Keane - Hopes and Fears
Keane - Under the Iron Sea
Snow Patrol - Eyes Open
Snow Patrol - Final Straw
Tegan and Sara - The Con

The obvious is sometimes the hardest thing to remember.

2007-11-16T14:51:00.000-06:00

This might seem blaringly obvious, but occasionally I forget that the characters I come up with don't have to be completely new fabrications, or based on mash-ups of other fictional people. ("Kind of Rousseau, with a touch of Ana Lucia." Or, "kind of Shigure, with some extra Miroku.")

Starting with the base of a real person adds a startling touch of (gasp) reality to a character. Especially to me, the writer. Silly Anna, of course it's easier to get a handle on a character's personality and reactions when you kind of already know what to expect. Can't do this all the time, of course, and god knows very few people can accept that "this is how you look to me." But they don't have to know. ^_^

Only David and Bill are going to know who this is, but I've decided that Maurice and Raheem need to be immortalized. (They, of course, will agree.) I'm looking forward to finding the right place to put them.

XII!!! Pharos! Up stairs! Down stairs! Green bridges! Red bridges! Telekinesis! Fleeeeeeee...okay, now kill! Not that one!

Fleeeeeee....

Why can't Reddas just follow the party leader? He's so troublesome...taihen da ne...

Fran's going to win the contest to see who can finish their license board first. I'm halfway through the Pharos and she's got maybe 200 LP left to finish. I call that impressive.

Is it indicative of my playing style that she's the only character still wielding a long-range weapon now that I have Telekinesis...? And because of that, she spends the most time out of my party...? Maybe I should find her a nice greatsword...or give her the second Masamune when I get it in the Bazaar...

So much to consider...

word: orichalcum. (5 pieces. Two for the Stoneblade, 3 for the Masamune. Kill Deidars. Arrr.)
mood: kind of stable, with some schizo
song: Massive Attack - Black Melt (Collected - Special Edition)

Master Manga list 2007.

2007-11-14T13:01:00.000-06:00

I'm a couple months late on the posting of this list, to make it an accurate yearly thing - but whatever. I'm steadily sneaking up on my goal to one day out-stock BAM and B&N. Thanks to the one-two punch of BAM's one-day sale and Kait's mom (thanks again, Karen) I have finally finished collecting Ranma 1/2 in its entirety. This makes it my largest series by far at a whopping 36 volumes. I can't wait to read my new additions, and finally know the end of Takahashi-sensei's comic masterpiece.

David's list, sadly, has not changed at all since last September; but hey, there's always Christmas. ^.~
Completed series are in italics.

Anna (251 total)

Bleach vol. 1-21
Chrono Crusade vol. 1-8
Dazzle vol. 1-6
Death Note vol. 1-12
DramaCon vol. 1-2
The Vision of Escalowne vol. 1-8
Fruits Basket vol. 1-18
Fullmetal Alchemist vol. 1-13
Gothic Sports vol. 1
GTO vol. 1-8, 10, 22-23
Hellsing vol. 1-8
InuYasha vol. 1-27
Love Hina vol. 1-14
Lupin III vol. 1, 6-10, 12, 14
Nana vol. 1-7
Naruto vol. 1-18
Ouran High School Host Club vol. 1-9
Ranma ½ vol. 1-36
R.O.D. vol. 1-4
Tactics vol. 1-2
xxxHolic vol. 1-4
Zombie Powder vol. 1-4

In Japanese: Bleach 1&2, Fruits Basket 8&16, InuYasha 1, Nana 4, Naruto 1, Ouran 2&8, Ranma 1.

David (74 total)

The Big O vol. 1-6
Cowboy Bebop vol. 1-3
Cowboy Bebop – Shooting Star vol. 1 & 2
Ghost In The Shell
Gundam Wing – Episode Zero, Endless Waltz, Blind Target, Ground Zero
Gundam Seed vol. 1-4
Gundam Seed Astray vol. 1-3
Gundam Seed Astray R vol. 1-3
.Hack//Legend of the Twilight vol. 1-3
Peacemaker Kurogane vol. 1-3
Rurouni Kenshin vol. 1-16, 19-22
Samurai Champloo vol. 1 & 2
Trigun vol. 1 & 2
Trigun Maximum vol. 1-10
YuYu Hakusho 1-8

GRAND TOTAL: 325 VOLUMES.

We rock, dude.

word: extensive
mood: Icarus Oshida
song: Massive Attack - P is for Piano (Danny the Dog)

Forgot to title the gamn thing...

2007-11-12T17:32:00.000-06:00

I've been working a lot lately on making the scenes I write less literary and more audio-visual, as they'll eventually be translated into cutscenes. You really have to be in a completely different mindframe. It's not about how pretty your sentences sound - very rarely is cute phrasing helpful. Dialogue, too, can't be half as "polished." I've talked to enough verbally witty people (and I am one myself) and I know that the Perfect Line is ridiculously rare in conversation. They do happen, but you have to be sparing with them. I've kind of always understood that about dialogue instinctually (lucky for me). Even when I was younger I did my best to make my dialogue sound as close to natural speech as possible. (As close as I could get when writing about alternate worlds on foreign planets.) So I've mostly got that part down.

But the paragraphs around the dialogue - that's the tricky part. Trying to describe the whole scene in such a way that it really does read like a scene, rather than a chapter. Obviously the next step would be to write in actual script format, rather than prose, but I really don't want to go to that yet. It's a selfish, almost purely cosmetic thing, but I just don't like the way script format looks. It may be easier to scan, but it doesn't flow like prose. At this current stage, I think I can translate what I see in my head to another human being much better through the creative mastery of the paragraph.

Oh, and I've decided that the term "writer" just doesn't cover what I do well enough. I am the creation earth-mother goddess of an alternate universe. (They worship me by sacrificing the innocent, so that the wicked may flourish and prolong the dramatic tension, and ratings will stay up.) Apparently I can also shoot flame from my eyeballs. That's a handy trick.

The Ragnarok has been making wheezy noises the last couple of days. If he gives out on me, well.... @.@

B'nargin! Ba'Gamnit all...

XII is full of names that are shockingly easy to convert for use as expletives. Be creative and come up with some of your own. Remember, imagination is your friend, when it's not your worst enemy.

Oops, I hear Klaus screaming. Looks like I better go home, make a mini pizza, and see what he wants.

word: it starts with an 'e', but I can't remember it right now.
mood: huh?
song: The Girl From Ipanema (Death metal version. In my head. Too awesome to be real.)

The New Pornography.

2007-11-05T16:28:00.000-06:00

What I want is for you to open yourself
Fold out your paper cranes spill their confetti that I could never contain
Not all of it
But just enough to make it interesting
Throw me your dirty laundry I will accept everything
So long as you don’t care what I do with it
The clothesline would be nicely ironic
Spread yourself
To dry
So very domestic
Bland
Or maybe spliced into the moment when the snooty dog and courageous cat meet
For the first time
The new pornography
What you were and what I’m making you
Pressed between
Tug
Tease and fluff
I only want to know you better
You know I do
I only want to show you off
To everyone
I want you to rain on their hearts and make them bleed
And prove
That I have that power
That I can have them too
I want proof
I want to be sure
I want everything
And I will ride you
Until you can’t take any more
Because I can

word: sodden
mood: S
song: Rob Dougan - Clubbed to Death 2 (Furious Angels)

Blue is the loneliest color.

2007-11-02T15:41:00.000-05:00

It's possible that this could help. Blogging is sometimes all about getting words to come out of your fingers, when they're locked in your brain. When Haru can't help, there's always the blog.

There aren't any good names that represent the color blue. Damn it. It's driving me nuts. Here's what I have:

Beryl
Robin
River
Aoi (Japanese for blue)
Azul
Brooke
Brine
Oasis
Laguna
Denim

If you have any suggestions, throw them my way. But I won't tell you what it's for. Nope. Uh uh. Magical secrecy demons will rain from the sky and slice out your liver. I'd hate for that to happen. (But if it did, would you be terribly upset if I snickered a little?)

Just now I almost spelled "happen" with one "p". The gray matter is feeble right now.

word: jazz (It's like, blue, only really obscure.)
mood: I feel like a human error message.
song: Seatbelts - Yo Pumpkin Head (Cowboy Bebop)

K.A. Applegate.

2007-10-30T15:10:00.000-05:00

I had no idea. How could I have known?

I'd never seen her do a finale. I'd never finished Animorphs or Everworld. Of course I should have guessed. When you make a living perpetuating a series, your talent is usually perpetuation.

Not the End.

This I can't learn from her. I finished Everworld, after forever. It was less of an ending and more of an abrupt pause that nothing returned from. No; she doesn't have it. Not there. Rowling must suffice for finale master. The Lady Katherine will teach me beginnings. The woman's true talent is opening with a bang - the hook. She knows the hook. (And character, obviously. How else would she have stayed with me so long? Why else would she be on the List?)

Rowling, on the other hand, knows the plan. She knows that before setting out on a journey, one has to have one's destination in mind, whether or not you know precisely how to get there.

And most importantly, you must know why you're going there.

The Why is everything. The Lady Katherine cannot teach me this.

But I know.

word: agoraphobia
mood: Jordan (Real Genius)
song: Matt Pond PA - The Crush
"There is so much that never goes away, there is a crush from how our arms can weigh..."

Playlist for October.

2007-10-26T15:38:00.000-05:00

red x

Tyler Bates - To Victory [Philip Steir's Sacrifice for Sparta remix] (300 soundtrack)
Bear McCreary - Prelude to War (Battlestar Galactica season 2)
Yoko Kanno - Inner Universe (Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex)
System of a Down - She's Like Heroin (Hypnotize)
Radiohead - Sit Down, Stand Up [Snakes & Ladders] (Hail To The Thief)
Linkin Park - Session (Meteora)
The Dust Brothers - Stealing Fat (Fight Club soundtrack)
Aphex Twin - Orban Eq Trx4 (Drukqs)
Massive Attack - Angel (Mezzanine)
Amon Tobin - Esther's (Foley Room)
Amon Tobin - Keep Your Distance (Foley Room)
Amon Tobin - Big Furry Head (Foley Room)
Hans Zimmer - The Kraken (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest)

Once more, with less suck.

2007-10-26T15:05:00.000-05:00

So Persephone suffered an unexpected stroke, which resulted in the wiping of her hard drive. I finally have her back, a week later, and now I'm going through the frustrating process of getting her back up to speed. You forget how much you've customized on your computer until it boots up with a nasty swirly blue background, Safari has none of your bookmarks, and iTunes is empty.

Sigh.

Luckily we'd backed up all my documents so those are okay. It's iTunes that's the bitch. It'll only reverse-rip iTunes Store purchases off your iPod. Excluding your video purchases. (WTF???) Blogger autosaves drafts of the post you're typing. Why can't iTunes autosave your music library? Yeah, so that's a work in progress...at least Haru's still okay. He's the rock I stand on. Without him, I am adrift in this thankless world...

This is giving me a chance to organize my files better. That's something.

**pause for uncontrollable weeping**

I've been cooking a lot lately. It's a major self-esteem booster. If I can find somewhere that'll sell raw soybeans I'm going to try my hand at making edamame. (Steamed soybeans.) Totally awesome and looks really easy.

I've been playing through XII again. It's lovely playing a game the second time, because you have a really good idea what's going on. You don't have to look at the strategy guide as much. Especially when you spend extra time levelling and making money so you're rich, well-equipped, and about 3 levels too strong anywhere you go. I like it. After that, I have .HACK//Redemption waiting for me to finish. David and Bill were apparently disappointed with the ending. That's a bad sign.

Inventing a character with their death already in mind is like going to P.F. Chang's and ordering Dan Dan Noodles. You already know what it's like but it's still ridiculously awesome when it arrives.

word: greivous
mood: Shikamaru Nara (so troublesome...)
song: Linkin Park - Session

Sleep or post? Can't sleep, so....

2007-10-13T21:05:00.000-05:00

Right, so it's been forever since I posted. Shoot me. This post is on location in a Nashville hotel room. I'm on the traditional "yearly girls shopping trip" with the female members of my family - my mom, my two aunts, Samantha, and Malea. They're all asleep, or trying to be, and at 11:42pm I am nowhere close.

I really am a very materialistic person. Nothing like a weekend of shopping with a bunch of women in denial about their own materialism to really highlight that. So I have that vice. At least I can admit that. I'm not even sure it's a vice when channeled into positive production.

I'm excited to get back to the office now that we have new carpet. After almost a whole week of travelling, it's time to buckle down and destroy some lives. I've got too many people fighting for top voice in my head. Despite that, I really do love travelling. I think I could live out of a suitcase, if it were a big suitcase full of things I loved. But that would mean leaving my massive manga collection behind, so I don't know...

It's getting colder and that means: SCARVES. Yeahhhhhhh buddy.

I got this awesome Japanese cookbook at TJ Maxx for $4. Gotta try some of these recipes, dude. I spent way more money on kitchenware than clothes. Note my priorities.

But I definitely can't sleep on their time schedule. Errrrr....

word: emaciated
mood: not tired enough yet
song: She Wants Revenge - Tear You Apart
"You pray it all away but it continues to grow..."

Ziploc?

2007-08-31T16:19:00.000-05:00

We've been burning through Alias lately. I'd never seen any of it before, never really saw much in the way of previews, so this is all completely new to me. We're halfway into the 3rd season of 5 total. I'm starting to use words like "op," "extraction," and "intel" in everyday speech. This is how audio I am.

I really like the Rambaldi stuff. It's Lostian. The hand of J.J. Abrams leaves large fingerprints. Jack and Marshall are really great characters. But I suspect a large percentage of that is the actors, not the writers. (I could be wrong.)

Besides the obvious problems with logistical things that are almost impossible to get away from in a spy tv show (I maintain the audience's IQ jumps higher while watching spy things, just on principle), there's a really big problem underlying the entire show. How the hell does Syndey Bristow get away with being on every important mission like, ever? Aren't there other agents in the U.S. government? No one gets this kind of special treatment. In the first season, she's a double agent at SD-6, yet she's also going on a gajillion things for the CIA. Her father can only cover for her so many times before you're thinking, "would Sloane really let them get away with that??" The answer is no. That's too much suspension of disbelief. Where are the rest of the agents the CIA ought to have? (And don't say "deep cover.")

There's an easy way to fix that - and it simultaneously makes it look less like a 90s show. (even though it's millenial) Don't make it all about Sydney. Don't force every episode to be about your one single main character with other little satellite characters. You run out of material fast, and in a spy show, you run into a lot of logistical problems, as I said. Instead, it should be an ensemble cast, like Lost, Heroes, or Battlestar Galactica - sorry if I seem to be trying to make those shows look like the paragons of ultimate awesome - it's just that you can run much longer with an ensemble cast without resorting to weak dramatic devices. It's like keeping your show in a Ziploc bag. Stays fresher, longer.

That being said, I want Sark. Right now. Hand him over. I'd like to be the recipient of those flexible loyalties. ^_^ (Second from the left in above image.)

word: entourage
mood: A (used)
song: Massive Attack - Angel (Mezzanine)

It's official. (x2)

2007-08-23T12:10:00.000-05:00

1. It's official. Jamie's all moved in. For anyone who didn't get the memo, she's living with me now. We're working on getting her a car and a job. We have more books and DVDs than ought to be legal. We celebrated with sushi, alcohol, and a trip to BAM. (Not in that order.)

2. It's official. I broke the 200-mark. BAM is having this 5 for 4 deal going on right now and Bleach, Naruto, and Fullmetal Alchemist have the relevant stickers. Of course, I own every available volume of Bleach, but I was behind on Fullmetal and Naruto, so...

I'm not behind anymore. $67 for 10 volumes of manga is really reasonable...

I have problems...

But I love it.

word: psychotic
mood: Renge Hoshakuji ("And of course, I never miss a moment of truth...")
song: Fall Out Boy - Thnks Fr Th Mmrs
"I want these words to make things right but it's the wrongs that make the words come to life..."

Playlist for August.

2007-08-21T14:35:00.000-05:00

David complains that the titles of my playlists don't make any sense. Also that the stuff I put together is strange. It all makes perfect sense if you're psychically connected to my brain.

This playlist is good for sleeping to, on shuffle.

evangeline nocturne

Aphex Twin - Jynwythek Ylow (Drukqs)
Aphex Twin - Strotha Tynhe (Drukqs)
Aphex Twin - Gwely Mernans (Drukqs)
Aphex Twin - Kesson Daslef (Drukqs)
Aphex Twin - Penty Harmonium (Drukqs)
Aphex Twin - Prep Gwarlek 3b (Drukqs)
Aphex Twin - Father (Drukqs)
Aphex Twin - Petiatil Cx Htdui (Drukqs)
Aphex Twin - Ruglen Holon (Drukqs)
Aphex Twin - Beskhu3upnm (Drukqs)
Aqualung - Strange & Beautiful (Strange & Beautiful)
Aqualung - Extra Ordinary Thing (Strange & Beautiful)
Bear McCreary - Lords of Kobol (BSG season 2)
Bear McCreary - Roslin and Adama (BSG season 2)
Fiona Apple - Carrion (Tidal)
Gabriela Robin - Green Bird (Cowboy Bebop soundtrack)
Massive Attack - Angel (Mezzanine)
Massive Attack - Risingson (Mezzanine)
Massive Attack - Teardrop (Mezzanine)
Massive Attack - Inertia Creeps (Mezzanine)
Massive Attack - Dissolved Girl (Mezzanine)
Massive Attack - Black Milk (Mezzanine)
MAssive Attack - Mezzanine (Mezzanine)
Massive Attack - Group Four (Mezzanine)
Massive Attack - Future Proof (100th Window)
Massive Attack - What Your Soul Sings (100th Window)
Massive Attack - Everywhen (100th Window)
Massive Attack - A Prayer for England (100th Window)
Nickel Creek - Sabra Girl (This Side)
Nickel Creek - Eveline (Why Should the Fire Die)
Nickel Creek - First and Last Waltz (Why Should the Fire Die)
Niyaz - Dunya (Niyaz)
Portishead - Mysterons (Dummy)
Portishead - Sour Times (Dummy)
Portishead - Wandering Star (Dummy)
Portishead - Numb (Dummy)
Portishead - Biscuit (Dummy)
Radiohead - I Want None of This (Help: A Day In the Life)
Rufus Wainwright - Agnus Dei (Want Two)

A small vent in large letters.

2007-08-21T14:25:00.000-05:00

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(Life is just so hectic right now.)

This calls for the destruction of a city.

The most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational...

2007-08-15T12:51:00.000-05:00

It's really starting to annoy me having to sound nice and perky on the phone at CRB. There are so many more interesting ways to answer the phone. Ask Bill, aka Buddy the Elf.

Thanks to a fortuitous tipoff from Kait's mother, I now own The Muppet Show seasons one and two (after a small debacle of the warehouse chain variety).

Holy. Crap. I haven't had so many epiphanies in a single evening in...well God knows when.

Probably the reason it hit me all at once is simply that I haven't seen an episode of The Muppet Show since I was about twelve or so. Therefore I've only seen it through the eyes of a child (if a child with a large vocabulary). Now I'm capable of enjoying it on so many other levels - I had no idea it HAD so many levels - though I'm certainly not surprised about it.

You may have heard me say something on the subject of how much the Muppets have shaped my life, or how one of my greater tragedies is that Jim Henson's not around for me to ever tell him what he's done for me personally. (I dearly hope to meet Frank Oz.) I'm now hypothesizing that Jim Henson and his creations shaped a great deal more than that. I'm one person. My brothers are only three more. I think Jim Henson shaped American cartoons as we know them.

"But they're puppets," you say. "Not cartoons." Or you've already made the simple connection that both puppets and cartoons were once considered to be exclusively a children's medium - and are therefore virtually the same thing. In the 70s Jim Henson pioneered the destruction of the barrier with the frog, the pig, the bear, and the whatever. (In America. At the same time, Monty Python's Flying Circus was wreaking havoc in England. The Japanese never really had that barrier to begin with, but America wasn't paying attention to Japan culturally yet.)

Other people have probably thought of this, but let me have my fun: as far as I can tell, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim owes it existence to The Muppet Show. ADD did not begin with my generation. Stop pretending it did. Just because we started making drugs for it recently does NOT mean it's a new phenomenon. (By the way, when I was small, I thought the Muppet classic "Mahna Mahna" was "Phenomenon.") Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Aqua Teen Hunger Force did not invent their signature style - plotless show upheld by well-defined characters and utterly random shock humor. Like how things randomly explode on ATHF? Guess who was doing that in 1974. Adult humor in a cartoon? Guess who was doing that with puppets in 1974. Bizarre cameos. Running gags. Spontaneously bursting into song. Most of Adult Swim's original shows feature all of the above.

The Muppet Show did it all first - a quarter of a century earlier. And their songs are actually good. The biggest difference is that The Muppet Show is great entertainment for kids, too. I definitely wouldn't show ATHF to a five-year-old.

In conclusion - the Muppets are ripe for revival. All you need is the right people behind the wheel: people who understand their essence. Truly talented, funny people with ADD. I'm just saying, it could be done.

Alright, so secretly I'm just desperate to get my own chance to be on The Muppet Show. Why deny it?

Thank you, Jim Henson. Thank you for everything, from the bottom of my heart.

RULES OF THE PAD.

2007-08-09T12:32:00.000-05:00

1. HEAVY FIREARMS MUST BE LOCKED IN THE PAINT CLOSET.

2. DO NOT FEED THE FELINES HUMAN FOOD. THEY'RE ALREADY PSYCHOTIC. THE LAST THING WE NEED IS FOR THEM TO GO BANKAI OR SUPER SAIYAN.

3. NO SUICIDES. PERIOD. DOESN'T MATTER HOW POETIC IT SOUNDS.

4. PUT UP THE CORDS TO THE RAGNAROK WHEN YOU'RE NOT PLAYING ON IT, OR THE FELINES WILL EAT THEM.

5. NO COUNTRY MUSIC.

6. EXTERMINATE ALL ARACHNIDS. DO NOT WAIT FOR RUKIA TO DO IT. SHE'S INEPT.

7. USE MARKERS ON FURNITURE, NOT THE WALLS.

8. BOYFRIENDS MUST BRING LAVISH GIFTS. BY WHICH WE MEAN MINI PIZZAS, FRAPPUCCHINOS, OR NEW VOLUMES OF BLEACH.

9. IF YOU LET A FELINE ESCAPE, YOU MUST CATCH IT OR BE SMOTE.

10. YOU BREAK IT, YOU BUY IT.

11. IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING NICE TO SAY, THIS IS THE PERFECT PLACE TO BE.

Way of true gourmand is imagination, Quina.

2007-08-07T17:19:00.000-05:00

So I already replaced the TV. Now I'm trying to figure out, what do I do with the color-wonky one...? (I wish the old one hadn't got fried. I'd love to have used that money on new bookshelves for my overflowing manga collection...)

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I really love having a kitchen. I don't always have the time or the ingredients for things, but when I do, God I love cooking stuff. Pulling out the cookbook or making something on the fly. Fun stuff. I'm so glad my mother taught me how - really all the women in my family are good cooks (and the guys are grill masters) so I've had alot of good instruction. I mean, John comes up with some nifty marinades sometimes. And David makes some mean waffles. Samantha can light the stove on fire... XD haha. FLAMING OKRA!!!

My favorite aisle in the grocery store is the spice aisle. I would rather add to my spice collection than buy jewelry.

I've already told my mom I'd like a tiny little grill to go on my porch for Christmas. How cool would that be? Grill some sushi-grade tuna rare...or make shish-kabobs...oh, man, I'm drooling...this is worse than watching the 300...

Never write posts when you're hungry.

word: crayon
mood: Quina Quen (I so hungry!)
song: Thom Yorke - Analyse
"There's no spark, no light in the dark..."

The Cavalry is here.

2007-08-03T16:58:00.000-05:00

So as of last night I finished my second moleskine, EIKOU. The new one's called the Cavalry. I always seem to be astonished at how thin and clean the new ones are.

I drew a beautiful picture of Icarus last night and it's taking all my willpower not to drool all over it.

Bill and David are going to Florida this weekend. Kait's out, too. I think I'll play an obscene amount of IX, try to write something, and sunbathe with Samantha and/or Ashley. I'm saving up for a new tv because my old one got fried in the last electrical storm. TV works but the color's wonky. Which is ok if you're playing IX but not if you want to watch a movie. Teh suck.

Oh how I long for the day I can declaw Rukia Punkface. (Oh yeah - her full name is Princess Rukia Hermione Punkface.)

And by the way, "Eternal Temp Worker" does not mean I work for you eternally. The "Temp" part means it's temporary stints. Get it? Hire a real runner already!!! I already have a job! This is going on three weeks now, and it's getting old.

So of course I said, no, I can't work for you Monday. Sorry. No. We're having our first writers' meeting in like, two months, so forget it. Not doing your little piddly errands Monday.

RE4 still scares the crap out of me. Bill's playing through it for the first time and he's never seen a Regenerator before. *laugh of derision* He's going to be crying like a little baby.

I mean, 'cause I do. And I'm just watching. Come on, fhqwhgads.

word(s): ever and more
mood: K
song: Stealing Fat - Fight Club soundtrack

Pompous declarations.

2007-07-25T12:30:00.000-05:00

My new favorite drink is a vanilla latte with soy. It just goes really well.

Compiling this timeline is really highlighting all the holes in everyones' backstories. Simultaneously unhappy (I have to fix it?) and happy (I get to fix it!). You don't have to remind me I'm neurotic.

The biggest holes, of course, are in the characters born before 2060 or so. Large periods of their lives blank. And blank is completely unacceptable for the likes of Caiphen and Rebecca. That's like saying, "Eh, I don't know what Darth Vader's doing between episodes 3 and 4. It's not really important."

The worst part is, Lucas probably said that.

That's why we're going to make his empire look like a fifedom. (A what?)

word: humidity
mood: Seras Victoria (eehhh????!)
song: Lords of Kobol (Battlestar Galactica soundtrack)

Playlist for July.

2007-07-20T15:24:00.000-05:00

I've been hanging onto this one for awhile. I built it while I was in Japan, hence the title. It's really helped out the last few days. This one goes out to Hiro Nakamura. I like the way your cheeks wobble when you concentrate.

Tokyo Metro

Tyler Bates - To Victory [Philip Steir's Sacrifice for Sparta Remix] - 300 soundtrack
Seatbelts - Pushing the sky - Cowboy Bebop Future Blues
Seatbelts - 7minutes - Cowboy Bebop Future Blues
Yoko Shimomura - Passion ~after the battle~ - Kingdom Hearts II soundtrack
Hikari PLANITb Remix - Kingdom Hearts soundtrack
Yasushi Ishii - The World Without Logos - Hellsing: Raid
System of a Down - She's Like Heroin - Hypnotize
Aqualung - The Lake - Memory Man
Bolero (Closing Credits) - Moulin Rouge soundtrack
Snow Patrol - Make This Go On Forever - Eyes Open

Heroic articles sans order.

2007-07-20T12:19:00.001-05:00

For those of you reading on facebook, have you noticed I now have more notes than pictures of me...? That's actually been a goal of mine for awhile now...

I'm not going to talk about what's happening tonight. I'm not. I've probably geeked about it to your face already. I'm trying to avoid overkill.

Instead, I'll geek about something else: IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED HEROES YET, PUT IT AT THE TOP OF YOUR LIST. The first season is available for download on iTunes and the physical box set comes out on Aug. 28. I'm ready to say this is the best TV show I've ever seen. That's right, better than Lost. Better than Cowboy Bebop. (Wait, did Anna just say what I think she did?) Yes. Yes I did.

At least I've convinced you now.

Also I may have invented a new drink. Green tea spiked with whiskey. (I used a Japanese brand.) I'm calling it a Hiro. Please let me know if I've just reinvented something that already existed.

My current top contender for the name of the new moleskine is "the Cavalry." What do you think?

Only 16 pages to the end of EIKOU. Eikou, by the way, means "glory." Gloria Powell gifted me that particular moleskine. Appropriate, no?

word: apparate
mood: Tonks (Wotcher.)
song: Bolero (Closing credits) - Moulin Rouge soundtrack

Summer reading - The Westing Game.

2007-07-16T09:47:00.000-05:00

I took up re-reading some books from my middle school days yesterday and before I knew it I'd consumed five 200-page books. Never turn up your nose at children's literature. The fifth book I re-read was The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin - a Newbery Award winner that puts other Newbery Award winners to shame, and one of the only books I ever got my brother David to love. That's worth something. (David's other favorite non-manga pick is A Series of Unfortunate Events.)

In this post, I'm going to attempt to figure out how a book like The Westing Game could be written - THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE so if you haven't read it, GO READ IT NOW and come back to this post later. (I might even let you borrow it.) It's a fantastic puzzle mystery filled with great characters I wish were my own. You don't have to love mysteries to think it's the bomb.

In the words of Madame Hoo, "Boom!"

I'm serious, go read it. The next line has spoilers.

As far as I can tell, the only way Raskin could have done it was by beginning with the answer and working backwards from there. By which I mean, she had to have chosen the 16 "heirs" names and personalities after developing Sam Westing's many guises, and also determining that the clues would be the scattered lyrics of "America the Beautiful." This is the reverse of my instinctual strategy, concept and character first, everything else later. There are too many (what would you call them...) puns, word plays, red herrings spreading out of the characters' names, occupations, and hobbies that suggest Raskin built most if not all of her characters out of clue leads - started with whatever basis would make them look suspicious and then let the rest of their personalities come out of the ether (as characters do).

This definitely had to be the case for Crow. Since her name was lifted directly from song excerpts, I can only assume her personality came after arriving at the name Berthe Erica Crow.

Keep in mind these are only educated guesses. Ellen Raskin died the year I was born so I am by no means privy to her secrets. I just love this book and I'm trying to figure out what the writing process behind it might have been, so one day I could make use of it if I so chose. Mystery is a classic genre, and always in good taste.

Letting character come out of the answer...this is worth looking into.

word: garbanzo
mood: Turtle Wexler
song: Javier Navarrete - Three Trails (Pan's Labyrinth soundtrack)

The Battlestar Galactica Drinking Game.

2007-07-10T16:10:00.000-05:00

By the way, the beach was great but Maeby is definitely bad luck. Ashley and I did invent a fun new game:

The Battlestar Galactica Drinking Game
Take a shot/drink when any one of the following words is said onscreen:
--"Cylon"
--"Caprica" ("New Caprica" and "Caprica Six" count)
--Any derivative of "frak" (i.e. "frak," "frakking," "frakked up")

One episode is guaranteed to get you toasted. Not enough for you? Try adding some of the following:
--"Starbuck"
--"Apollo"
--"Chief"
--"dradis"
--Any time Baltar cries
--A couple starts kissing
--A character onscreen takes a drink

Please drink responsibly.

Rukia et al.

2007-07-10T15:35:00.000-05:00

I have a kitten. Her name is Rukia Hermione. And she's trying to kill me.

(Name chosen because: she looks like Rukia Kuchiki, and she's as talky and sensitive as Hermione Granger.)

Sasha hates her. Rukia's been in the apartment for two days and all Sasha does is hiss at her. I spend most of my time at home watching to make sure Sasha doesn't eat her. Rukia yowls at the top of her lungs (which is surprisingly loud for such a tiny kitten) whenever she's not ON me. Walking around me is not enough. She insists on sleeping on my face at night, which I might be able to get around if she didn't intend on crawling on my face the instant I fall asleep.

She's also the most adorable thing ever.

Thus sleep deprived and emotionally drained, I will be attending the 12:20 AM showing of Harry Potter 5 tonight with Bill, and then I will go cover phones at CRB at 8 AM.

I am a glutton for punishment. All because I can't say no to kittens, and I can't say no to Harry Potter opening night.

Call me a fool if you like. I can't deny I have a couple of self-destructive compulsions.

In other news, the Caravan is back up and running - not the Caravan of Midgar this time, it's only three of us so it's the Caravan of Tipa. Sable, Deo, and Ender are out to kick some Crystal Chronicles ass.

word: operatic
mood: Charlie
song: Muse - Starlight
"Our hopes and expectations are black holes and revelations..."

Sea under cloud.

2007-07-05T17:25:00.000-05:00

Beach with Ashley this weekend. Let's see if sun, surf, and alcohol can do anything for this random nameless depression that's settled in my chest.

This is one of those times I hate being female. Phantom mood swings. Gah. I like to think I'm too good for these. Apparently not.

word: serrated
mood: Rukia Kuchiki (resigned)
song: Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want
"All of it's rising in the back of your mind..."

Invisible post.

2007-07-02T13:52:00.000-05:00

Don't talk to your bathroom mirror too long. It starts talking back, and you'll be forced to admit it knows you better than anyone.

It might not be a thing or a person that we want. No, that's just the general conception - that we Americans, we want all we can get, and it's never enough. We shrug and say "what can you do, it's the culture."

Yes, it's the culture, but the culture isn't really about more stuff, more stuff, more people to love and lose. Not if we're completely, brutally honest with ourselves. I theorize it's not objects or people we're after at all. Those things are just the inevitable fallout of chasing that most fleeting and intoxicating of feelings: the euphoria right as you're on the brink of getting what you want, the high that's nestled right between uncertainty and assurance. Once it's yours, it's over. Once the main characters kiss, the mystique is gone.

There's a reason fairy tales end with a wedding, and never go beyond that. Something in our social consciousness is just terrified that the really interesting part is over, that wanting and fighting for something is actually the best part, since that's the only part we immortalize in story and song. We fear that the struggle is, counterintuitively, the happiest moment.

If this is true, then the best possible state is unrequited love.

But that's much too depressing for anyone to stomach, so please, by all means pretend this post is invisible.

word: rhythm
mood: Light Yagami
song: Deftones - Xerces
"No, I'll be waving goodbye..."

Understudy.

2007-06-28T13:21:00.000-05:00

Don't worry - I've got your back. Don't ever doubt that. It's just not in my nature to say "no" when I'm needed. Even when I'm not first pick - that doesn't matter to me. What matters is, there's a slight crisis, and I truly enjoy trying to help solve other people's crises. I'm very happy to have been born with this quality.

This is part of what I am - the understudy for the Knight in Shining Armor. Sometimes he doesn't exist. Sometimes he's incapable of being as knightly as he wants. That's where I come in. With a futon. And maybe sushi.

Somehow it still surprises people when a girl is heroic.

word: traffic
mood: Ichigo Kurosaki
song: Thom Yorke - Analyse
"The fences that you cannot climb, the sentences that do not rhyme..."

Playlist for June.

2007-06-26T13:05:00.000-05:00

Libertas

Cursive - Art Is Hard (The Ugly Organ)
Cursive - Rise Up! Rise Up! (Happy Hollow)
Cowboy Mouth - Jenny Says (Are You With Me?)
A.F.I. - Prelude 12/21 (DECEMBERUNDERGROUND)
Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc. (Demon Days)
Lovedrug - Pushing the Shine (Everything Starts Where It Ends)
Cake - It's Coming Down (Fashion Nugget)
Arctic Monkeys - 505 (Favourite Worst Nightmare)
JET - Lazy Gun (Get Born)
Eagles - Hotel California (Eagles Greatest Hits)
Queen - We Will Rock You (Queen Greatest Hits)
Queen - Innuendo (Queen Greatest Hits)
Flogging Molly - Selfish Man (Swagger)
Force Of Nature - Sneak Chamber (Samurai Champloo soundtrack)
Franz Ferdinand - Jacqueline (Franz Ferdinand)
Howard Shore - Colin (The Departed original score)
Gorillaz - Kids With Guns (Demon Days)
Herbert von Karajan - Domine Deus (Mozart: Requiem)
Juno Reactor and Don Davis - Burly Brawl (The Matrix Reloaded score)
Marilyn Manson - This Is The New Shit (The Matrix Reloaded soundtrack)
Our Lady Peace - All My Friends (Spiritual Machines)
Plumb - Late Great Planet Earth (Candycoatedwaterdrops)
Regina Spektor & Kill Kenada - Your Honor (Soviet Kitsch)
System of a Down - U-Fig (Hypnotize)
System of a Down - Kill Rock n' Roll (Hypnotize)
Tyler Bates - To Victory ]Philip Steir's Sacrifice for Sparta Remix] (300 soundtrack)

The first rule of the Deathnote is you do not talk about the Deathnote.

2007-06-20T14:25:00.000-05:00

Two days ago I bought the first three volumes of Deathnote. (Notice my collection list...nearing a mind-boggling 200 volumes...)

For the record, my favorite gift is a Books-A-Million gift card. (I don't have a card at B&N)

Anyway, Deathnote. This is a fascinating series that I'd been intending to check out ever since I went to Japan - it's wildly popular there, having spawned all kinds of merchandise and a live-action movie. As mentioned, I've only read three volumes as of now, but it's brilliantly written and beautifully drawn - full of mind games, as the main plot revolves around two 17 year old geniuses trying to outwit each other. I'm also thoroughly intrigued by the concept of having the main character be a slightly psychotic mass murderer - Light mass murders criminals, but all the same, it's slightly psychotic because he has no remorse and still manages to maintain his normal-but-brilliant student facade with ease.

L is definitely my favorite. I love his quirky emo genius self. His sitting habits remind me of myself.

The rules of the Deathnote have sparked an idea for a book in my head. I need to write something to generate some spare cash, and I think I might have found a decent idea, finally...more on that if it pans out.

word: aftereffect
mood: L
song: Arctic Monkeys - D is for Dangerous
"I think you should know you're his favorite worst nightmare..."

Thom Yorke - Analyse

2007-06-14T11:14:00.000-05:00

A self-fulfilling prophecy of endless possibilty
You roll in reams across the street
In algebra, in algebra

The fences that you cannot climb
The sentences that do not rhyme
In all that you can ever change
The one you're looking for

It gets you down
It gets you down

There's no spark
No light in the dark

It gets you down
It gets you down
You traveled far
What have you found
That there's no time
There's no time
To analyse
To think things through
To make sense

Like cows in the city, they never looked so pretty
By power carts and blackouts
Sleeping like babies

It gets you down
It gets you down
You're just playing a part
You're just playing a part

You're playing a part
Playing a part
And there's no time
There's no time
To analyse
Analyse
Analyse

On revenge.

2007-06-13T12:40:00.000-05:00

The very best way to get revenge is to do it fictionally. Then it's eternal, and non-prosecutable.

word: regulation
mood: evil
song: Lovedrug - Pushing the Shine

Beginning with nobody.

2007-06-08T14:24:00.000-05:00

Cassie could conceivably be considered the beginning - as much as the beginning can be pinned down. But I would rather say it began with her, because she's no one. It's far too easy to point fingers at the descendants of the great families - the men and women our story trails behind because they simply can't help their infamy. I prefer the random element. The foreign object that unknowingly changes the core dynamic forever. It's what Helena can't get over: "You're nobody. Nobody!"

She never intended to hurt anyone. But she certainly paid for it. That's the way of things: For every action (conscious or otherwise) there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The universal language is fisticuffs.

word: ordinary
mood: Smecker (There was a firefight!)
song: Thom Yorke - Analyse
"A self-fulfilling prophecy of endless possibility..."

Tuesday.

2007-06-06T15:28:00.000-05:00

Rise up! Rise up!
Come on band now don’t be shy
Come on sweetheart follow my lead
We’re going outside and we’re not coming back until it rains heartblood and chalk pastels
Show us your true colors by way of introduction
We are your sick (of routine) –
your tired (of waiting) –
we are your terminally distracted
Your drumbeat (focus, focus, focus – on what?) is nothing but wordless punctuation
Rise up! We have the organ, we have the questions, we have all the words you never taught us
and God! We’re using them
The future is marching and we’ve thrown away the dawn
No more percussion, no more structure, no more beginning and no more end
Rise up! Rise up!
Take the world hostage
and demand everything
March it right over the edge of the abyss and cross your fingers as we fall

word: archaic
mood: Alucard
song: Howard Shore - The Last Rites (The Departed original score)

Again III (Rache).

2007-06-05T13:58:00.000-05:00

Your roadblock is your mistake
That I could never, no, never could be an accessory
a simple appendage for your string of heroes
No
I have eaten them all and outlasted every single one
You claim to comprehend serpentine movements
You have a formula for everything and have the gall to call yourself a creator
my creator
Let me teach you how little you know
You have the gall to say I came from your core
I'll show you depths that will make you scream
Enough - !
then whisper
Again.
I'll make you wish you'd never been born then bless the day I came into this world
A day as ambiguous as I
Born from punishment, solitude, and one huge mistake of underestimation
I will have my revenge
And you'll like it

May's one-punch machine gun.

2007-05-21T14:19:00.000-05:00

So swinging along the borderline of here and tomorrow, balancing a smorgasbord of audio, script, and mundane household chores, you will find me, forgetting to blog.

This post is brought to you by the letter "caffeine," at whose approach ghosts, wandering here and there, troop home to churchyards.

...Don't ask.

I am forcefully reminded, halfway through Order of the Phoenix, as the twins fly off into the sunset, what a brilliant character writer J.K. Rowling is. Every single one of her creations, be they doers of good or pawns of the Dark Lord, has their own agenda and it glitters through every conversation she pens. Everyone is selfish, from Severus Snape all the way down to Molly Weasley. If I can get that kind of desperate force behind my banter I'll be doing quite well.

Puck wants the show to be over with. That's a terrible thing to say with a month still to go, but I had completely forgotten how getting a part in a play means signing a contract in blood and other bodily fluids. Mostly I just want to write, read some Potter, and sunbathe. Instead I have to call someone about fixing my washing machine.

I need a wife. Ergh.

word: divot
mood: Nana Osaki
song: Matchbook Romance - My Mannequin Can Dance
"You're just chasing shadows - show us some heart, and confess your sins..."

Alternate meanings.

2007-04-16T17:44:00.000-05:00

Interesting thing, this:

You may have been aware that Moira is the Irish version of Mary. Apparently it's also the Greek work for "fate" or "destiny." I should have picked up on that, since the Fates are sometimes called the Moirae.

Silly me. How marvelous.

word: hecatomb
mood: Luna Lovegood
song: The Killers - Sam's Town
"I've got this energy beneath my feet like something underground is going to come up and carry me..."

Art is Hard.

2007-04-09T14:20:00.000-05:00

[curtain up on a dim set. the chair again. the slump of defeat. staring at her own fingers, curling and uncurling.]
Is it unhappiness that makes it work? Is complacency the death of everything that’s immortal in me
What stays when I’m gone
Happiness and normalcy kill the voices and the voices are all that I really have
When I’m loved, am I dead? (i/they/it)
Routine becomes the padlock on the basement elevator and the subway is closed for repairs while I’m smiling and warm
I am full
And therefore broken
The bubble makes me worthless
I have to hurt and crave and howl and claw and most importantly I must be
Awkward
So awkward that I fear no one will ever comprehend. No one at all. That’s key
To make anything worthwhile I have to be Other
Here, but Other [look up]
I want to apologize to you.

To me? [now visible. a twist of lip]
…Let me think. [and moving] So I’m walking down the hallway trailing fingers along the peeling wallpaper – it’s striped, if you recall, but faintly so [hand outstretches]
Let’s not go so long between visits
Let’s not wait till the next family reunion
The important thing is to never find our way out. To stay entombed here
And try to catch the whispers underneath the doors edging through the cracks and trickling up from the vents
Ah, these old shafts
No telling what’s in there these days [now solid]

[a smile] I remember.
You've kept my monsters and magical entities and children and saints they didn't go anywhere I just packed them away without even realizing

Because you didn't need them.

Give it back. [takes outstretched hand] Give it all back.

word: grievous
mood: M
song: Regina Spektor - The Flowers
"Things I have loved I'm allowed to keep..."