Gripe#6 Thank You For Calling Circuit City Direct?

Ever have those days when everything just seems to fall into one dry, continuous stupor? When all logic, intelligence, talent and maybe even sanity seems to be caught in a vicious little downward spiral designed to drain any semblance of individuality and humanity out of you? Somehow, it just feels so needlessly singular. Quite simply, I loathe working at Circuit City Direct.

It isn't my co-workers that I dislike. It isn't the work environment. It isn't the laughable equipment. It isn't the odd fact that many of the on-floor superiors are from different accounts and have no idea of how things work in ours. It isn't the daunting nature of the work, a work that demands that we know everything – or damn near everything at least – of product and policy, even the most insignificantly stupid things like how much a wireless optical mouse weighs. It is the pointless, illogical idiocy of the people calling in that gets to me.

Let's take one of our most common calls: the iPod. With the exception of the Heaven-sent iPod Shuffle (the Shuffle possibly the only iPod that actually makes sense and is of any practicality in terms of memory size) both the 5^th generation iPod and the iPod Nano are out of stock in most stores, don't exist in our warehouses and are now on the status of in-store purchases only. The idiocy of it doesn't end there, of course. We still constantly get the store personnel referring customers who want the iPod to us even though the idiots in the stores know well and good that it's in-store only and the warehouses are out, so no shipping available.

And the customers aren't that much smarter either. They call in and ask – knowing full well that it's in-store only and not available for shipping – if we can ship it to them. Now, that wouldn't be so much of a problem if not for the universal reaction of the fact that it isn't in the stores, so their logic dictates that it's in the warehouses. We explain that the warehouses are different from the stores but they simply don't get it. Warehouses and stores are different, they're not the same, they're separate entities. Of course, that barely even discourages them and they simply just decide to try somewhere else. On some occasions, they ask us to keep trying to locate a store that would have it even though the system checks within 100 miles of their given zip codes. Okay, we keep going further and further out and when we finally find a spot and they say it's too far and ask us why we pulled up such an insanely illogical place for them to get it. Well, it's because you told us to, Nimrod. Honestly, it's ludicrous.

Then there are the 5-Hour Specials and the Weekly Ads that are even more trouble for our end. I can't blame the customers so much as the marketing and advertising people who make the ads and specials. Now, the main problem with the 5-Hour Specials are isn't the sudden volume of calls we get so much as the aftershocks. For hours afterwards – and in one instance, days – people called in demanding to avail of the price of an item during the special that we, obviously, can't go back to. It's a 5-Hour Special, genius. They seem to fail to understand the fact that once you let the offer pass, it's gone and just because you can call in and shout doesn't mean you're going to get that lost price back. Now, the ads are a totally different matter. They're, effectively, misleading. Take the fact that there are different laptops around that have the offer of a free printer and router with purchase, not openly stating that you have to buy the printer and router with the laptop and they're free after rebates. The ads clearly state that you can shop in the store, on-line and over the phone but they neglect to state that if the price on-line and over the phone if different in the ad, you have to buy it in the store. And naturally, we get to hear them complain and complain and demand and demand and threaten to sue and other such garbage, though most just decide to buy somewhere else. Go ahead. See if we care. That just makes you someone else's problem.

Then there's company restrictions on what we can say and what we can help them out on. Normally, I don't mind not being able to give my own personal recommendation on products but to maintain absolute objectivity when the customer wants a subjective answer is, to me, bad customer service (which is NOT Inbound Sales, people) and a sign of stupidity. The fact that it extends to something so innately subjective as selection of movies, music and video games is just one further sign of corporate lack of logic. There's the pressure of selling accessories and the good-for-nothing Circuit City Advantage Protection Plan. We're being pushed to ask for it twice but really, one denial should be enough for anyone. On times when I don't even bother asking, it's when I had a hard enough time selling the item to the customer as it were.

It just never ends. But it has to end. Yes, the end of my contract. And when my contract ends, I'll be free to delve into something more. Even if they asked me to, I wouldn't. Not for the money they're offering and not for double that amount. No way. I'd rather deal with endless monotony than the things I have to deal with on a daily basis working for Circuit City's Inbound Sales department.

***Gripe Ends Here***

Currently Playing: Nothing

Currently Reading: The Complete Works Of H.P. Lovecraft

On a slightly happy note, I just stepped one year closer to the grave and am slowly realizing that not only does the cost of living go up every year but the cost of dying does too. Not a terribly happy thought. That, the dismal state I have when I'm at work and my general demeanor are things I really try to push back through my writing. Yes, shockingly enough, I still try to write. Try being the key word here, folks.

Just Because I Feel Lazy

Gripe#5 Am I Jaded?

As an anime fan, I mean. Well, not so much jaded as I am a little disillusioned by things. I've only been watching since the Robotech days and even then, only sparsely but I never seem to catch on with what's popular.

Take Naruto, for example. I loathe it. I despise it. Why? Because it feels bland to me, low on entertainment value, uninteresting. It's a big hit to everyone but as far as I can tell, it's DBZ with pre-puberty ninja-wannabes. I don't see the appeal, especially with characters that are plain poorly done or rather dull. I don't see any depth to them, nor do I see any depth suddenly being added believably in their foreseeable future. I'd seriously rather watch paint dry of grass grow than watch Naruto.

A lot of anime fans in the Philippines have limited knowledge of the medium and it's, sadly, limited to mostly what's on TV or what's popular. Right now, it's stuff like Naruto, Bleach, Gundam Seed and their ilk. While I suppose it's to each person's own individual tastes, I've dropped out of the segment of anime's target audience that actually enjoys those sorts of shows. Not to say I don't go into the odd shounen-binge every so often, dabbling into shows like Mahou Sensei Negima or Midori No Hibi but by and large, I don't feel like watching much of the stuff at all.

I've sold my once extensive and expensive collection of anime VCDs, manga and DVDs not for the money (though that was a nice bonus) but because I lost interest in them. I tried to re-watch them but somehow, I just couldn't watch them anymore. I've hung on to stuff that while I don't really find too appealing anymore, I do have some sentimental attachment to. Love Hina (the manga) I keep because it's the first manga I actually bought and completed, taking close to a year to do so. Neon Genesis Evangelion (the anime) I keep because it's Eva and every so often, everyone needs to get a mind-warping; me especially. Ruruoni Kenshin I keep because it's an excellent show up until the end of the Shishio Arc. Midori No Hibi I keep because it's slightly different from the rest of the harem genre, albeit I found the end disappointing. Galaxy Angel I hang on to because, once in a while, it's good to see absurdity become commonplace, even if it isn't real. Among the full series I keep, only Robotech/Macross, the Vampire Princess Miyu OVA and Card Captor Sakura really still hold an interest for me. The rest...

It's not that I don't like the medium or that I've grown out of it. I still love the style, I still love the way it looks but a lot of the new stuff feels boring, uninspired and contrived in such a way as to be...rather uninteresting. I've come to want to see more than just big machines ripping each other apart, people being reduced to gooey messes by blasts of incredible power and fanservice. I don't expect anime/manga to become equivalent to the level of quality found in really, really good cinema or novels but at least something that won't become dull once the initial novelty of them wears off.

Right now, the one manga I've become truly interested in as if I was discovering it for the first time is Maria-sama Ga Miteru, and not even for the reasons that guys typically watch the show for. I see the lesbian subtext but I don't watch it with the back-of-the-mind hope that somehow they'll all come out of the closet. Satou Sei is a given lesbian, Rei and Yoshino practically are and Shimako strikes me as close to being there but the rest strike me as straight girls, not particularly interested in men. I enjoy the show because it reminds me of happier days spent observing the girls in high school and how their networks of friends, relationships and close ties work. I was as happy as an outside observer can be then and Marimite takes me back to those days.

I don't know. Maybe I'm starting to outgrow anime and manga. Maybe I'll eventually look back at Marimite and tell myself it was so silly of me to like that show. Who can say? I seriously hope not, as Marimite and the shows I still love are works of art to me. In a few years time, I can imagine myself thinking of anime as little more than some childish fascination of mine, though a mere year ago I would have called it a life-long hobby. Maybe I'll dabble into it bits and pieces here and there, nothing too extensive and nothing remotely similar to my current habits, just for old time's sake.

Or maybe I'm starting to evolve in my tastes. I admit to liking DBZ once upon a time but I quickly cast it away in favor of the superior Yuu Yuu Hakusho, which I am still a moderate fan of. I came to like stuff that delved into themes that make you think, like Evangelion or Metropolis. I've come to really sink into stuff that has engaging characters that, while not wholly realistic, are at least believable and aren't just 2-D figures or stereotypes, like Vash from TriGun or practically the whole cast of Love Hina.

Whichever the case, I guess the best thing to do is to look at the present and see what it has to offer. I'm taking this slowly waning interest in anime one step at a time for now. Though truth be told, a lot of the new stuff really isn't up to the standards I have now (standards set by much reading of books from both contemporary and classical authors). Anyways, that's my rant for the month (or something).

===End Rant===

Currently Reading:
Maria-sama Ga Miteru (manga and a translation of Vacation of the Lambs)
Pretty Face (just to finish the damn thing)
Hannibal by Thomas Harris
Belinda by Anne Rice

Currently Watching:
Star Wars (Episodes I to VI)
Interview With The Vampire
Shikoku

Currently Playing:
Nothing

Current Project:
Marimite-ish concept, setting is a girl's boarding school, main cast are a group of close friends. And, since I am the one writing it, the traditional absurdity-to-be-accepted-as-normal (several were in Shinjo No Aijo such as the existence of the AFs like Minako and Hodaka, as well as Kana the talking snake, the entirety of Yuki's Diary fit the bill as did the entirety of Kasumi Inn) for this story is that one of the students is Death herself. Shoujo-ai plans are, for the first time in a long time, non-existent, mild subtext is planned but nothing actual. They're all straight, except for one but she's not actively pursuing any of the others.

You Yet Live?

What can change the nature of a man?

I personally think it is quite a good question. But we are not going to attempt to answer that for now. That is way too complex an issue to get into right now. For now, I am going to rant and whine about my work and other little things that are quite insignificant to other people.

First things first. Work is not my thing, as I am rapidly finding out. I really am just not quite suited for this sales thing. I lack the “sales drive” needed to push (or nudge or bamboozle, whatever) people over the proverbial edge and hook a sale. Sure, there are easy sales out there and the pleasure of getting a caller that knows what he/she wants and isn’t going to beat around the bush is great but they’re a rare breed. Most of the time, the idiots tend to be price-shopping or (more often than not) are incapable of performing the menial task of actually making the purchase on their own!

A lot of callers are damn bloody fools. They are wholly incapable of understanding even the simplest lines of reasoning or contemplating just how idiotic they are when quoting a competitor’s price that isn’t just out-dated, it also tends to be erroneous as well. These people can’t seem to really see what’s right in front of them.

Of course, I’m not particularly leaning towards the sales side of things myself. I just don’t have it in me to push someone to buy something that they either don’t want or that even I wouldn’t buy given the circumstances. If they don’t want something, why push them? Even if we’re not doing any hard-selling, I get on my own nerves just making a single attempt at obtaining a sale.

Main complaint of mine, work-wise, is that I don’t particularly see the point of my work when they can do it themselves on-line. I also can’t really grasp the reasoning of why we’re using the client’s website as our main system. It poses such a huge risk in a worst-case scenario. What if the server crashes? That means that we are screwed. There appears to be no clear line of reasoning as to why we are limited to such a system.

Now, my co-workers are fine since most of them were not my co-trainees. The few co-trainees of mine that are on my team I get along quite well with. It is pleasant for me to be able to listen to those agents that have been there longer and pick up tips from them while they also pick up tips and trivia (on some tech stuff) from me. I won’t say that we’re at all close but we get along well enough and I feel I can befriend them over time.

Moving on then.

I’ve come to terms with some personal matters. I’ve decided to get back to writing again but unlike previous projects, I don’t plan on spreading this one out for anyone to read. This one is a strictly personal project, one that I’ve never actually thought of before, nor have I ever wanted to cook up something like it. I don’t have any hopes for it, nor do I have any delusions that it will be fit for public reading if and when it is completed. All I know is that there’s a chance that it might be something I can find some moderate degree of comfort and escapism in writing. Too much reality in all my recent attempts, too much of what’s really around me instead of what I want to have around me or some such.

For those of you who are interested to know, it’s supposed to have a heavy martial-arts feel to it. Inspired by Tekken 5 as it is, I actually don’t know enough about the countless variants of martial arts in the world to write them accurately or properly, so I’ll stick with the lies and fabrications that I know so well and create new styles as necessary and rely on wikipedia and other resources for those times when I do need to use a real martial art.

I’ve been reading a lot more lately. Recently finished some interesting books I found off the internet, along with Thomas Harris’ Hannibal and I also re-read Anne Rice’s Belinda. I’ve been looking to buy more of Murakami’s books, burning Rowling’s books and digging into some of the older pieces in my collection. Books and writing seem to be the only things that give me some level of satisfaction nowadays, aside from competing in Tekken 5 and Soul Calibur 2 games at the local arcade every so often. Aside from that, I only seem to find some semblance of solace and enjoyment in knowing that…no, actually, I don’t.

Not that such a state of mind is much of a change for me, mind you.

Blood Must Be Shed

Yes, I’m alive. Regardless of the lack of updates on my other site and in this blog, I’m not dead yet. I’m just a little busy and more than a little tired because of all the things on my table that are taking up my time. So, with the prerequisite excuse out of the way, let’s get to the meat and bones of this whole thing.

I just finished reading Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart, an interesting piece. I confess I’d never read any of his work before and I was originally just searching for Kafka on the Shore (another of Murakami’s novels that a friend of mine said would be a good read) but couldn’t find it when I stumbled on this little thing. It was…well, it was beyond my expectations. I’d hardly heard anything about Sputnik Sweetheart, in comparison to Kafka on the Shore and A Wild Sheep Chase. (Okay, I admit it. I was originally looking for The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica and The Mammoth Book of Erotica, okay?!) Of course, as is my habit, I cast away any and all preconceptions about a book as soon as I start reading through the first page. And, frankly, I am quite a happy camper after going through the narrative.

Sumire (the book’s lead but, strangely yet fittingly, not the narrator) is almost an exact reflection of me, when it comes down to personally and certain habits. I don’t like the daytime and find more comfort in the oddities and rampant, imagination-fuelling madness of nighttime, much like Sumire’s feeling of comfort and (I’m not sure about this) familiarity with the early morning hours. She’s a frustrated writer, something I haven’t quite gotten to yet but hope to at some point soon. Right now, I’m just aspiring, nowhere near the necessary point to be frustrated. Somehow, even though I can’t see things from her point of view (we see things through the experiences and memories of her best friend, K) I feel like she and I think very much alike on so many levels. Quite a rare experience for me, being able to relate to a character so much.

The book has reinvigorated my creative desire, added that little fuel needed to fan the fires of writing again and I got off my laziness to get some writing done, starting with this. Murakami is talented in making a plot element so out of place, so outrageous seem so ordinary, so surrealistically and perfectly in-place with the rational world that I’m in awe of it. And, unlike other novels with similar endings, Sputnik Sweetheart has an ending that, despite leaving me rather full of questions that could be easily answered if Murakami ever wrote a sequel/follow-up that used Sumire as narrator, I find no fault in it. Sometimes, you got to accept things the way they are and what happens at the end is something that you accept. You’ll likely have tons of questions about it but you’ll somehow accept it.

Moving on from Sumire and K and Miu’s little tale, time to move on with what’s going on with life.

I’m still at Vocativ. Frankly, the company’s not bad but I miss the people I met at TeleTech. I honestly don’t enjoy spending the whole day with most of my fellow trainees at Vocativ. I don’t seem to be in the same wavelength as they are, almost as if I grew up in a different country than they did. I find it difficult to really relate to most of them and the only ones I feel are even remotely close to my erratic, twisted thought-patterns are Fritzie and Rowan. Granted, it’s not like I dislike them or anything. It’s simply that what they are interested in, what they want, what they see is different from the way I see things. Twice I’ve turned down the chance to go drinking with them, my dislike of beer being the excuse I gave. Truth be told, I just wasn’t interested in it. I don’t like going out drinking and the company wasn’t really a group that I was too comfortable with the thought of getting drunk with. The gang at TeleTech is a different matter. Them I could be more myself with and be more comfortable with but here at Vocativ…I almost always feel isolated in some way. Nothing new. Almost feels like high school again, really.

High school. Not a pleasant experience for me. The cliques, the tight-knit groups that only sparsely let those outside their inner circles in. I shared none of the interests of the males in my batch, felt a little bit odd when relating to most of the girls and the girls that I did feel more comfortable with were part of the ‘N class’ and that meant that they were almost isolated from the bulk of the class population. Even among that group, I only found out too late just how much in common I shared with one of them as long as our interests were concerned. In short, I hated high school and I still do. Some moments were good but for the most part, I’d rather not have to live through all that a second time. No, my college buddies at DLS-CSB and the TeleTech Wave 3.3 were the people I fit in more. Too bad I didn’t get to spend nearly enough time with them as I did the groups I didn’t fit in with.

Maybe one of these days, I’ll write a story based on my experiences but that’d feel a little too…absurd to me. Writing characters that are like me, based on me, has never been a comfortable thing to do.

Moving on. In hopes of rekindling some semblance of the old works of mine that really got me going late into the night, defying my body clock and the required hours of sleep to preserve sanity, in writing out the chapters, I’m going back to the genre that I started with…romance. To be specific, romance that weaves in the absurd as if they were ordinary (though I can’t do it as well as others and likely won’t ever get to that level) and trying to blend in too many elements from countless other genres to create something that vaguely resembled a readable narrative. Here’s hoping I can get back to that!

Although I feel that with the combined inspirations of the Saerileth Romance Mod (for Baldur’s Gate 2), the beauty of Sputnik Sweetheart and my re-watching of Hand Maid May, I think it won’t be too hard. I just need to convince myself that a page a day is not a sign that I’m losing my delusion of being gifted with some insignificant measure of writing talent.

Game-wise, BG2 is back on my HD again. The usual stuff has been installed, including Baldurdash, Dungeon-Be-Gone, some parts of Ease-Of-Use, the mod that lets arcane spellcasters learn some divine spells (the name of which I cannot recall). However, unlike before, I decided to forego the famous Imoen Romance due to rumored incompatibilities with the Saerileth Romance Mod, which I’ve been wanting to get a crack at for a while now. So far, I think sacrificing the Imoen Romance is worth it. Saerileth is truly an incredible character and a better romance. Most entertaining stuff.

Currently Playing:

Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn (with Saerileth Romance Mod [highly recommended!] installed)

Still Life

Currently Listening To:

OST – Final Fantasy VIII

OST – Tekken 5

Currently Reading:

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Currently Watching:

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride

The Godfather (1 and 2 but not the crap that was 3)

A few recorded episodes of The Fairly Oddparents and Avatar

Minor Updates...

Well, I am once again officially enslaved, like the endless streams of others, in the unending existence of working for a living. Took me long enough. Not that I'm happy with the location of the company and, frankly, if the salary's going to take a big hit from the commute money, I'd rather stay unemployed.

Anyway, spending my free time playing Still Life, The White Chamber (available for free download at Studio Trophis) or a heavilly-modded Baldur's Gate II again. Quite fun.

I am suddenly reminded of the old days, back when I was still playing Magic: The Gathering. I do not claim to be very good at it but I had my moments. As I recall, my last 3 decks were a Goblin Deck, a Discarder Deck (which vanished inside my house) and...a Life-Gainer deck. The Discarder was definitely the most potent of the lot, though a lot of powerful cards were not in the deck mainly because I didn't have the money (or the patience) to find them. My Life-Gainer was so-so and rarely field tested, plus it lost the power of Serra Avatar, the main damage-dealer because someone stole it from me. My Goblin deck was the worst, weakest and also, oddly, my favorite to play. Fast, didn't need a lot of mana and could mass-produce creatures like no other, save a properly built token deck. And before that, I had a green weenie deck that utilized both creature power and the little-recognized Lure-Nature's Revolt-Elven Warhounds combo. So, why so suddenly remember this game? My brother is playing it like an addict. The main difference between me when I was playing and him playing now is that the players he's facing are significantly dumber and he has the money to get the cards he wants/needs.

Err...screw it.

Maybe life doesn't like me. Or maybe I'm just not the type for actual work. Don't know. All I know is I'm not feeling like I'm going to be drawn into the endless, drab system working and toiling for the Matron Mothers who lash my back with their biting flails in the name of the Spider Queen, Lloth. Yes, I do feel that corporate society and the Philippine job environment is similar to the way D&D's Drow society works.

Anyway, I was feeling generous today so I thought I'd pass on this little fantasy-style idea...maybe someone with more experience and inclination to write fantasy than I do can make it work or something...

Genre:
Fantasy

Point of View:
3rd person

Concept:
The tides of war have fallen upon the lands of Aelia and Bhaalim! The War Minister Gabriel Cross, in place of the ailing King Reinhardt, has began a massive build-up of Aelian forces along the borders with the territory of Bhaalim. Rumors are rampant that war is brewing. In the tension and fear, old hatreds and rivalries resurface as both sides mount up for war.

And caught in between are Lenneth, a Bhaalite rogue with psionic talents resulting from a dark taint in her soul, and Nicolette Aderre, an Aelian noblewoman and officer with a dark family lineage. Their fates intertwine with their homelands and in their hands laid the fate of all.

Major Characters:

Lenneth
Age: 19
Eyes: amethyst
Hair: black
Race: human (from all indications)
Bio: Lenneth had always lived a life of battle. An orphan, she was raised by a group of Bhaalite gang of thieves and spies that trained her in espionage, the art of fighting only with one's body as weapon and armor and also aided her in controlling her potent psionic talents. She quickly gained skill in both fields, learning how to master the many intricacies and dangers of a thief's life side by side with the focus and discipline needed to maintain the potency and effective power of her psionic arts. She'd endeared herself to the band and she came to accept them as the closest thing she had to family. However, throughout her life she had been haunted by a darker side, an urge to kill and destroy anyone or anything that even so much as looked at her in a strange manner. The thieves had been able to handle her sudden fits of berserk rage before but when she turned 17, she became too much to handle and fatally wounded all of her comrades. Most survived and forgave her but she would not have it. She left them and secluded herself as far as she could from those that might be hurt by her sudden rages. Lenneth was also haunted by the visions and dreams of a beautiful woman of great power that she somehow is certain was, or is, her mother but cannot understand how she knows or who the woman is.
Note: Lenneth is not completely human but is the vessel for part of the powerful, ancient demon lord Valefor and Xahadun's plans are but a means to awaken the demon within her. Her body is that of a teenager and she has only been human for 19 years, the centuries prior spent in the form of a sword sealed away by Freya until such time that the goddess felt appropriate to let Lenneth become human.

Xahadun
Age: 784
Eyes: red, no visible pupils
Hair: inapplicable
Race: demon
Bio: Xahadun was once the loyal general and retainer of Valefor, the great dark lord that nearly succeeded in conquering the realms. When Valefor was defeated by the then-sorceress Freya, Xahadun fled but was captured, his powers sealed and his armies decimated by the gods. He knew that Freya, being mortal at the time, didn't have the power to completely destroy Valefor and spent close to a decade searching for the vessel in which the majority of that power had been contained. He knew that the power within the vessel was great and that he need only awaken the bloodlust and the darkness within in order to stir the spirit of his fallen general to a resurrection, of sorts. Thus, he orchestrated a great war between the Bhaalim and the Aelians, exploited their old rivalries and time-forgotten hatreds, knowing it would force the vessel into the fray. It was his last act of loyalty to his fallen lord, a move he felt assured the return of the dreaded Valefor.
Note: Xahadun takes control of many people in both the Bhaalim and Aelian forces and government, most notably the Aelian War Minister, Gabriel Cross and the Bhaalim High Council member, Gerhardt.

Nicolette Aderre
Age: 23
Eyes: blue
Hair: brown
Race: human, secretly half-demon
Bio: The daughter of the demon Xahadun, in the guise of humble merchant Lukas Aderre, and his wife Elise. She knew of her father's nature but not of his plans. A skilled swordswoman since youth, she earned nobility and lands for her family when she led her small force of troops against the marauding undead hordes of the sorceress, her sister Celeste. She was responsible for defeating the sorceress, owing to the mysterious immunity to sorcery that Nicolette had. She developed no abilities expected from half-demons and none of their physical traits, save for her claw-like nails that she carefully concealed with gloves. Over time, she discovered that she was immune to 2 of the 3 forms of magic, sorcery and psionics. It was her immunity that prompted her enemies to arrange for her to be assigned far from the possible frontlines in order to prevent her from once again defeating her sister Celeste, who'd survived their battle and regained her powers and more through the intervention of their father, Xahadun.
Note: Nicolette's immunity to psionics and sorcery is not commonly known. Also, she has an aversion to the third form of magic, artifice, such that she cannot hold any weapon or wear any item crafted by an artificer. Her mere touch seemed to serve as a minor enchantment to any armor and weapons she holds however and is of the nature that only she can activate them.

Freya
Age: unknown
Eyes: green
Hair: blonde
Race: god
Bio: Once a powerful sorceress psionicist in Bhaalim, the woman known only as Freya had single-handedly defeated the demon lord Valefor when he marched upon the mortal world. Her power was such that she became elevated to the status of goddess almost immediately after defeating Valefor, who himself was once the mighty god of war and death. Though a god, she is among the weakest of them. Freya still carries a human soul and thus can become more powerful over time, something that only she has realized among her fellow gods. Inside her, she also carries part of the taint of Valefor for safe-keeping, knowing that only the union of the vessel with the taint that she possesses can resurrect Valefor.
Note: It has been close to 3 centuries since Freya ascended to divinity and she has enough power to contain all of Valefor's taint without being corrupted by it. She has switched places such that the small portion she had is in Lenneth, the vessel, and the majority of it in her. No one but Freya is aware of this act. Another fact that only Freya knows is that Lenneth is not only a vessel but also her daughter, thus making Lenneth immortal and a half-god.

Celeste Aderre
Age: 29
Eyes: blue
Hair: silver/white
Race: human, secretly half-demon
Bio: Unlike her younger sister Nicolette, Celeste embraced the dark origins she emerged from and found both power and madness delving into the forbidden arts of necromancy. Drawing from an unnatural proficiency in sorcery and bending the forces of death to her will, Celeste nearly destroyed the Aelian army in the Battle of Whitmoor Pass, had it not been for the leadership of her sister. Owing more to her poor planning and her lack of ability to anticipate the moves that her sister would use than anything else, Celeste was cornered in her stronghold, the Twilight Tower, and faced death. It was only the intervention of Xahadun that allowed Celeste to live and to cultivate her power even more in secret, confined within the Twilight Tower until such time that her father had need of her power and her assistance.
Note: Celeste has been allowed to leave the Twilight Tower but has opted to stay back in the relative safety of her personal domain to observe events. She has not hesitated to send aid to her father when he asks of it but will not place herself in any danger. She has mastered the sorcery that had locked her away and can easily close them such that Xahadun may not reach her when she feels the action is needed. Unlike her father, she is not interested in reviving Valefor and is far more interested in attaining the status of godhood or at least power to rival the gods.

Valefor
Age: unknown, undeterminable
Eyes: white, no visible pupils
Hair: inapplicable
Race: demon
Bio: Once the noble, respected but temperamental god of war and death, Valefor led a campaign into the depths of Pandemonium itself to prevent the demons from ascending and attacking the mortal realm and Heaven. He succeeded and stayed on to lead the occupation forces in subduing the demons. However, the longer he remained, the more he and his forces were corrupted by the evil and the darkness of Pandemonium such that, after 3,000 years, he himself had fallen and had become the most powerful demon in existence. All of his forces had fallen as well, save for Dominic, his chief lieutenant, who had managed to return to Heaven to warn the gods. He began a campaign against all creation in a rampant wave of destruction that began with attacking the mortal realm. Kingdom after kingdom fell to him until he encountered the allied forces of Bhaalim and Aelia. It was the psionicist-sorceress, the only one to have ever been born, Freya that faced him and single-handedly destroyed the former god in combat. As he fell, his army began to run in cowardice back to Pandemonium, threatened by the rallied forces of the gods, led by the newly anointed god of judgment and law, Dominic. Though dead, his power was still potent and Freya set about to containing the power in her sword, Endbringer, with a small portion to herself to prevent Valefor's resurrection.
Note: The sword Endbringer still exists and is hidden away in a dungeon-cavern in the mountains of southern Bhaalim. The last remnants of Valefor's mind dwell in the blade, in wait for a body to hold the blade so that he may transfer to it. Freya is unaware of this and though Valefor has tried, he has learned that he may not take control of a goddess in his state. Destruction and vengeance are the remnant Valefor's only thoughts. The only being that knows of the continued, though utterly destitute and deprived of any of the power he once held, existence is Dominic.

Gripe#4 Job Hunting

It’s that time of year again, kiddies. (feel free to insert maniacal cackling here)

[start gripe here]

After spending many weeks job hunting, my prospects now are in deeper crap than ever. I am now one of millions in an endless, endless cycle of job hunting. It goes a little something like this: pass your resume, wait for call, come in for initial interview, wait for test, wait for final. The final step varies from job offer to (more common) the classic line “We’ll call you by X date. If we don’t, you didn’t pass”. It’s funny.

They can at least have the decency to reject you on the spot! None of this silly pandering and planting of false hopes in an applicant’s head. Like thieves in the night, you don’t expect failure and rejection when they tell you that. The way they say it implies that we’ll consider you and in the end, we’ll hire you. Not that you’re not getting in this company, no way, no how. See you in X number of months, kid. Try again next time.

And of course, there are those that outright reject you because of your lack of experience. I take issue with that as well. To quote Michael J. Fox from the movie The Secret Of My Success: how am I supposed to get experience when none of you will damn well hire me? His words, though fictional, are true. We’re not going to get experience if we’re not being hired so that we can get it. Companies seem to fail to realize that if a company trains an employee, unless the management or HR is that bad, they’re likely to stick it out. After all, the certainty of work can often outweigh the risk of a better offer.

People Support seems like a nice enough company and the account I applied for is something in my field, so that’s a plus. The pay is decent, the area is near where a friend of mine lives so I can stay with him and the work is simple, really. Travel reservations. You listen to some idiot in the US make a booking, make his requests and do it for him. Easy as pie. (trivia: Pie is English, not American as most people think) I’d really, really like to get in this company but, as the result of a stupid mistake I’ve learned never to repeat again, I’m in a bit of a bind there. My former employer’s contract has them worried and, as far as I can tell, as much as they want to hire me, I am not getting in there.

Ambergris Solutions is a little stranger. I passed everything and am now pooled in the event that they have openings for…whatever. However, the nature of the questions I got thrown in the interview doesn’t sit well with me. The constant references to my applications in the airline industry seemed contrived. The fact that they asked me whether or not I’ll stay with the company if an airline ever called me up for an initial interview really said to me that they’re afraid of it. I get the impression that they’re thinking that they have no faith in their company’s ability to keep employees around. Come to think of it, so does the fact that they’re pooling. I find that highly suggestive of a high rate of resignations within a specific amount of time, like 1 year or 6 months. And there has to be a reason for that. Frankly, I’m not inclined to actually have to be employed to find out.

If you really think about it, finding work in this god-forsaken country is next to impossible. Most employees don’t bother leaving, believing it is wiser for them to stick it out in a certain company. Frankly, I don’t blame them. That way of thinking is starting to make sense to me. And with millions of applicants out there and so few opportunities and such poor support for the arts and the poor pay for skilled tradesmen like plumbers and electricians, many people are screwed. Add to that the illogical need for experience when they know well enough that most people can’t get experience, and you’ve got yourself a bit of a quagmire. Milton’s words ‘To rule in Hell is better to serve in Heaven’ takes on a whole new meaning from this light. Me? I’m sticking to the few applications I have left that haven’t called because I just applied yesterday or 2 days ago. In the mean time, I’m writing and reading up on things, as well as catching up to the books I’ve been meaning to read. In particular, War of the Worlds and 1984 I’ve been dying to finish.

[end gripe here]

Fiction Updates:

Charity: scrapped. I was never really that comfortable writing vampire fiction. Must be all the Anne Rice books I’ve read, along with my addiction to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, not to mention reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Le Fanu’s Carmilla. A pity, really. If nothing else, the city of Charity had jeepneys even though it’s an American city, mainly because I had jeepneys as the main and only mode of public transportation.

The Da Benjie Code: on the site somewhere. Don’t know when and I don’t know how I’m going to expand on it. It’s just there as it is for now.

Darkenholme: fantasy was never my thing to write. I love fantasy as a game, like Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn or Planescape: Torment or even the occasional session of D&D or L5R (if you prefer a more Oriental approach to fantasy). However, I don’t have the discipline in me to create worlds as lush and as filled with wonder and life as most fantasy novels do. At least, not without compromising plot and characters in favor of the details of such a world. The resulting mess was one where I had a character so detailed in the nature of their organization, their lack of ethics and morality and their observance of the mission but completely lacking in humanity, in actual personality. She rarely even spoke! It wasn’t pretty.

Requiem: the project that was about half-demons and their full-blooded relatives falls apart for the 5^th time since I first thought of it. What killed it this time? A lack of conflict when there should have been plenty. Oh well. I still have the notes for it, that’s a plus.

Project: Ghost: hosted currently on FPC, I honestly want to continue it but I can’t get a feel for it anymore. I dropped it long enough for me to actually…lose touch with the mood I tried so hard to get right. Still, I do plan on trying again. Starting with a complete re-write of the whole damn thing.

Anyway, working on something else now. Similar to Project: Ghost on some level but this time, I am steering clear of a lot of things.

Succubae

A taste of things to come? Maybe. I've been considering it heavilly lately, though succubae tend to strike me as more of a visual creature than one that comes across well in the written word. I can't draw (on a PC or anything that's not a pin-up) worth anything or to save my life but I can damn well try. As soon as I come up with a good enough name.

Gripe#3 Lack Of Support At Home

Another day, another failed application. Daksh this time. You’d think I’d be steering clear of the god-damned call center industry after what happened the first time around but no. I just had to stick it out and go for another one – and another. Doubtful that I’ll get anywhere though. Unlike most of my peers who’ve failed or have been rejected, I was demoralized long before I got fired. Home environment, you see.

About the only support structure I have is from my friends. My brother continually calls me an idiot, stupid and other such. I know better than to take him seriously but there are times when you hear something so often you begin to wonder if it’s right and you’re wrong. And of course, there’s my parents. Some support structure I’ve got there. It’s always been the same with them: they’re right, I’m wrong. Even when I’m right. Everything is my fault. Everything is my mistake. Everything is my screw-up. They pull me down faster than anything else I can imagine. I’ve been demoralized from an early age and frankly, no amount of rejections or failures can really get to me any more than the sheer amount of psychological trauma and demoralization I get from my parents.

Not once in my life did I get any acknowledgement for anything I’ve done. I graduate from high school. They say it’s because of the low standards of the school and that I should have gone to UST. I graduate college. They’re not proud of that fact, they’re disappointed because I had to move from one school to another and that my previous school had a better reputation. I write a short story that gets praise from some scriptwriter on ABS-CBN. They tell him it’s a fluke, that I have no talent. I write fiction. They tell me I’m wasting my time and that I’m never going to write anything worth reading or even worth all the effort I put to it. I show them test results on my I.Q. test that show I’ve got a (supposedly) superior intellect. They immediately react by saying something’s wrong with the test.

No support, no help, not even the slightest hint of encouragement. Not even once did I hear them say ‘I could do it’ or even lie about me being right and them being wrong. Just a single lie along those lines and I’ll be happy. But no. The cold reality is that they think I’m useless, worthless and if I manage to land a job it’ll be because I got lucky and not because I’m actually qualified for the job.

Tough thing, being a ‘dependent’ without anyone to depend on. Sure, materially speaking they provide but the lack of encouragement, the lack of any real, concrete faith in me and my skills isn’t there. It never will be there, not even when I do something that even they can’t find a way to dispute or put down or pin down to circumstance and luck. They’ll never stop nagging me about how it’s taking me a month or a month and a half to get a job, not factoring in that there are thousands of other applicants and so few openings that I’ll be lucky just to get called in for an interview, let alone make it to the final interview (which I’ve pulled off every single time I got called in). No way, it’s always something wrong with me because, to them, the circumstances are perfect. I’m just a big screw-up.

Can’t really live with them. Can’t live without them either. Sucks to be me.

[gripe ends here]

Moving on then, because I don’t want to linger on the negative even if everything in my life is pretty negative, save for a few rare bright spots.

Project Updates:

Charity, A Vampire’s City – going along nicely. Finishing up second section, moving on to third. Still lacking any over-all sense of the theme but it’s still early, still got time to work it in. Considering using third scene to expand on another character, rather than keep it to Regina, Constance and Trish.

The Da Benjie Code – first part completed. Working on second part now. That should be done a lot faster than the first, since the second is filled with things I’m good at. I have no plans of making it really long. Keep this one short, clean, precise.

Requiem – a still not fully developed idea. Hammering out the details of how it’s going to work is proving difficult but a few things I’m certain of are: 1) the lead is a succubus [for those of you who don’t know what a succubus is, it is a type of demon associated with taking on the form of a beautiful young woman, seducing men and stealing their souls, though older Christian myths claim that they also have sex with sleeping men to steal their sperm, then transform into a male form, known as an incubus, and use the stolen sperm to fertilize a woman and spawn a half-demon child] 2) there will be heavily implied but never graphically described sex, considering the nature of the lead 3) there’s going to be violence 4) the lead is most definitely going to be bisexual, though her main preference is for men and finally 5) she’s going to own a bookstore that specializes in finding translated copies of rare tomes on demons, the occult and sorcery that supposedly don’t exist. Bad thing is that I’m not sure what to make it about yet and I don’t even know what the lead’s name is going to be yet.

And finally, my mouse still insists on double-clicking by itself.

Late Edit: Maia Lee (from Singapore Idol) is really attractive, in that bad-but-good girl sort of way. Must find pictures of her. Or buy FHM Singapore's May 2005 issue and just take pictures of them. Yes.

Yes.

For No Good Reason, I Give You This:

Major Pain: Godzilla is rising up out of the ocean and you think they should do something besides evacuating the cities?
BBC: Of course. You must mobilize the army and get your ineffective armor units to the front. Once they have proved useless you advance your electro ray gun tanks which only piss Godzilla off. After that you send in the air force to allow the big guy to use his radioactive fire breath. Once Godzilla has made it past the final set of high tension electrical lines you start evacuating. Not one second before.

And now, I leave you with this quote:

"The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast appoaching." - Assyrian Tablet, c. 2800 BCE

Sound kinda familiar, folks?

Bad, Bad Habits

I’ve realized I got some bad, bad habits when it comes to my writing. Almost everyone I’ve talked to at length about my writing thinks writing is some sort of mystical process, that you have to write down on paper with a black ink pen while listening to Beethoven or Mozart or some other classical composer. They all seem to think of a lot of mystical, almost magical mumbo-jumbo and superstition has to be attached. To a degree, I can almost say they’re right. I, for one, know I’m highly superstitious about certain things as concerns my writing.

I admit that a lot of people think the best way to write is with a pen and paper. I won’t dispute that belief but I’ve never trusted the pen and paper medium. I don’t trust myself with a pen and paper, something about it doesn’t feel right to me. I use it when I have to but I’d much rather have it down on some digital format, pressing keys with my fingers through a desktop or laptop or with my thumbs on my cellular phone or Treo.

Most of the time, I write on a Compaq Presario M2000. Sure, there are better laptops out there but I think I got a good thing going with mine. It’s got enough storage for all the countless pictures and wallpapers I obsessively collect, a CD-Writer with a combo DVD drive for watching movies or making back-ups. I’m indebted to the USB drives that makes it so simple for me to make copies of my unfinished and finished stories on my old friend, a 256 MB flash drive that also incidentally contains the HTML back-ups of my site and my collection of books in various electronic formats. And, for the life of me, I can’t imagine using a laptop without a mouse, so I’m happy with the USB optical that I got for free with the Presario.

On the same table as the Presario, I’ve got a small platform that should serve as a place to put the printer on but instead, it’s used as a platform for a China Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft model, a defunct alarm clock and a telephone hooked up to the phone line tied around one of the table’s legs. Incidentally, I take that connection out whenever I need to plug my laptop in to connect to the internet, which is more often than I’d like. I’d rather have a DSL or wireless connection but I can’t afford the DSL payments and, frankly, I don’t trust wireless internet connections. I don’t have nearly enough software or hardware to protect my laptop from those sorts of things.

Beside the laptop table is another table, my defunct and hardly-ever used study table. Not that there’s anything there related to studying. Aside from a wooden cabinet I use to house PC CDs and a collection of VCDs and DVDs, the box for my Treo, a yellow and navy blue backpack, my wallet and a bunch of scattered wires and doo-dads, the space is nearly empty. However, I do have an increasing tendency to put glasses of water or some other beverage on it, right beside my Nokia 5210 and Treo 650.

And right beside the laptop? A TV that’s set normally on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel whenever my kid brother’s around, on HBO, Fox News or the Discovery Channel when I’m alone or simply turned off whenever I feel like listening to some music. I don’t have a particular genre of music I like, having a playlist that has Limp Bizkit, Evanescence, Aerosmith, Live On Release, the full soundtrack of Final Fantasy VIII, several tracks from the Legend of Dragoon OST, a bunch of old love songs, Sinatra, a little Elvis, most of the soundtrack of the Phantom of The Opera, several anime themes and video game tracks included. I have developed a preference for listening to instrumental tracks lately, particularly the FF8 OST and some choice picks from Soul Calibur.

I’ve been known to sit in front of my laptop and write for hours on end – close to twelve hours once. Then I’d edit half or more of it out the next day because I figured out it didn’t exactly fit in with the rest of the environment of the story. Painful thing, that. Completing the most riveting conversation I’ve ever written and then suddenly writing it out because the character that the protagonist was speaking to didn’t fit in with my plans and would likely end up as cannon fodder later on just for me to find a way to get rid of him.

Anyway, moving on to other things then. Contrary to my expectations after putting up the last update, I’m still working on the same two projects that I was last time. First, The Da Benjie Code is still in progress, now at roughly a little over 10 pages, being written out mostly on my Treo since its being worked on in short quips and it doesn’t require the same flow that my fiction does. As for A Vampire Named Constance, it’s still in progress but I’ve taken the liberty of re-naming it after the fictional city that it’s set in – Charity, A Vampire’s City. Constance is still the lead but I’ve decided to add more to it and I’m sure the conflict (aside from Gustav’s Catholic vampires and Nikki’s hedonist vampires) will pop up soon enough. I’m a little more inspired as of recent days, thanks to my buddies at Wave 3.3 surviving, none of them getting the ax last Friday.

Currently Playing:

Dino Crisis 2 (PC version)

Moving On With Life

“All hope renounce, ye lost, who enter here…”

I swear, a sign with those words should be placed on top of the door to That Place. Today be Judgment Day once more for those who survived the first elimination round. I dare say it’s going to get harder from here on end for them and while I’d like to say I can feel that they’ll all somehow make it through to the end, I can’t. Along the way, their numbers will be cut down and those found not good enough cast out into the biting cold. Nevertheless, the ones of Wave 3.3 that made it are nothing it not survivors. They’ll make it. Of the lot of them, I feel assured of four specific people who’ll stick it out to the end: Natski, Rami, Nestor and Thea. Of the others, I am in varying degrees of certainty and uncertainty. A risky thing I am doing, speaking out like this. Still, it’s a free country and I can saw (for the most part) what I like.

Good luck today to Wave 3.3! Even though I’d love to see all of you again, I hope not to see any of you at HR signing your clearances or getting your separation pay. That won’t be a good thing.

Anyway, on to more pleasant things.

Project updates first, then. Because, truth be told, my mind is about as fickle and as unpredictable as the weather on this matter. What I’m writing and determined to finish one moment is different from the next.

The Da Benjie Code – work in progress. Stuck at about 8 pages, cover page included. This little deranged guide to life is coming along nicely enough. Just enough good sense in it to make it a worthwhile read, just enough of the WTF factor to derive any level of seriousness from it. Add a touch of what I call Wonka-logic and you’ve got yourself the most complex in-joke Wave 3.3 will ever have and something outsiders likely won’t get.

A Vampire Named Constance – blame Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Requiem (the tabletop RPG versions) for this one. Still in the early stages, I haven’t fully finished creating the characters – not even the lead, Constance – nor am I satisfied with the fictional city of Charity I’ve set up as their stage. The idea has intrigued me enough to work on it for some foreseeable amount of time which, judging from projects past, is a good thing.

Angel of Temptation – a re-working, re-tooling and expanding of my old short story. It always did deserve a better treatment than I gave it. Still quite early on in the planning stages, I’m debating with myself whether to focus my attention on the choice made at the end by Marcus (which, coincidentally, I never really wrote nor decided upon) or at the traumatic existence lived by Nicolette. For the time being, this is lurking in my head. As soon as I finish either of the above projects (or abandon them, as the case may be) I’ll start drafting for this one.

Now, onto my work prospects.

Applied to BiometriX, Ambergris, Peoples Support and Lufthansa. That makes it 3 call centers, 1 airline. Someone referred me to Daksh as well and they’ve at least called for a phone interview. I think I stand a decent chance of making it in there, though I’d prefer Lufthansa or Ambergris. I don’t know why either, so don’t ask. If I’m desperate enough, I’ll apply to Convergys (again) despite my friend Thea’s counsel against it. I suppose I could try and pass off one of my finished works as a novel, try to get it published but there’s no money in that apart from the initial check. It’s a 5 year wait for most and I don’t have 5 years to wait. Theoretically, I could write for a newspaper or magazine or something but articles were never my forte. I need to find work and fast. Though my morale isn’t what it was before, I’m moving on now. I just want to get the money as soon as possible.

What’s next? My gaming?

That’s a rather empty scene at the moment. Re-finished Final Fantasy VIII for the PC. Halfway through Final Fantasy Tactics Advance on a GBA emulator. Considering starting another Baldur’s Gate II save, not quite sure what class to use though but I’m fairly certain I’ll be of the evil persuasion. Probably give myself another go-through in Vampire: The Masquerade, Bloodlines as a Tremere or Toreador. I didn’t feel as pleased as I thought I’d be playing a slightly psychotic Malkavian the first time around.

Still teaching myself Ren’Py to try and create a Visual Novel of my own even though I can’t draw to save my life. The ADRIFT engine is far simpler to use for a strictly text-based thing but the free version is too limited. I’d delve into Tsuruku but it’s in Japanese and I can’t understand a word of it.

And don’t even ask about my personal life because, frankly, it barely exists anymore.

Ah well. Until next time, kiddies. Remember…

Big Brother is watching you.

Gripe#2 Goodybe Wave 3.3

Being unemployed (again) sucks. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not the least bit bitter about my being fired for failing the ACE exam. I’m bitter about a little something else – the way the test was graded made me (and the others who failed) seem like idiots. We’re not. We’ve passed through tests and assessments far tougher than ACE, just not with the same insane standards and, now that I think about it, somewhat nonsensical goals.

We were supposed to be offering Technical Support. Over the phone. You know the drill. Help stupid people fix small, nonsensical ‘issues’ (as they prefer we call them) that, more often than not, require only common sense. Given that, does it really matter if we’re talking faster than 150 words per minute? Is it really all that important that we pronounce $29.95 as twenty-nine ninety-five and not properly (twenty nine dollars and ninety five cents)? Does it really matter if we are exchanging the ‘th’ sound with a ‘d’ or ‘t’ sound? I dare say it isn’t. It doesn’t matter, so long as we can get the point across and we can talk the customer into solving their tech problem.

If you consider it, emulating an accent isn’t important in that line of work at all. It’s just an accent, people! What one should be careful of and wary of is one’s knowledge of technical details and procedures. That is where the assessments should be so critical and so detail-oriented and having so many ridiculous strictures and regulations, not the accent training. But no! From the way things are, it feels like that’s what they think really matters. Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. If you want tech support people speaking near-perfect American English with the accent included, then don’t outsource!

However, for all it’s worth, I had a good time during those 2 weeks. I met some good people that I’ll consider friends for life. I’m happy for those who passed even though I didn’t. I’m pleased that so many of them managed to get through. I’m happy because we all had a great time together and I really think I made a close friend or two among the ranks of Wave 3.3. To Da Benjie, Rami, Thea and the others that made it through the eye of the needle, my congratulations to you. I hope to see you all again.

Pag-sweldo nyo, manglibre naman kayo!

[Gripe Ends Here]

Moving on to happier things…

My being fired has given me more time to write. My experience and my friends over at Wave 3.3 gave me two literary gifts. The first is an idea that started out as nothing more than an in-joke among the class. By the end of the first week however, it had grown into so much more. For those monitoring my website, you’ve probably already picked up on the video download. Beware for The Da Benjie Code is coming. U R Not E. The other is a long, long list of potential characters based off of my friends. They may not all be as easy to assimilate into fiction as the others are but a few…might recognize themselves in my work if I ever get it published or they somehow get a copy of it.

Having more time to write is a double-edged sword. I have the time but not the prerequisite fire and inspiration to do so. I find myself falling back to Vampires, an old favorite staple of mine in my imagination. I’m trying to go for a Modern Gothic style but I’m having difficulty with it – the Philippine Islands are not very good for Gothic work and thought. I’m delving deeper and deeper into the style of Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Requiem, as well as older references such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Le Fanu’s Carmilla, to try and get a feel of how I want it done, of how it should be done. It’s starting to become a slight obsession with me and I’m determined to slip in a little bit of Wave 3.3’s influence into it in some way, shape or form. Doing that would make it un-Gothic however, so I still need to ponder on how to re-shape it.

As for me personally, I’m caught in a bit of a sinkhole. Alone, deprived of income and rather disappointed at myself, bitter over things and drawing deeper and deeper into a state of mind I thought I’d never have to draw into, I feel…empty. I wanted to get to know this girl better but let the chance slip through my fingers. I have her digits on my phone but…spineless coward that I’ve become, I can’t even punch in a few keys and let her know I exist. Asking advice isn’t a healthy thing for me. Somehow I always listen and it somehow screws up. I’ll figure things out soon but for now, I’ll be busy trying to talk myself into just trying to get to know her better. Like I said, I’ve become spineless in regards to women I’m attracted to but not necessarily to ones I find attractive. There is a big difference on those two things for me.

Back to work now, I suppose.

Dust In The Wind

Yes, I'm still quite alive, much to the chagrin of many.

Work has been time-consuming but still rather enjoyable, especially the company. I'm particularly attracted to one girl in particular but, as always, I'm not really thinking of rushing headlong into it. Get to know her first, be her friend. Still in training, still have to pay for a few things (at home) but overall, I'm inclined to think that I'm not in that bad a place now. However, my writing is suffering more than the Jews did under the Nazis.

Anyway, I've got a couple of ideas I'm throwing around in my twisted little mind.

Firstly, there's the concept of a Gothic/Fantasy hybrid in the form of Darkenholme. Several influences from the D&D: Ravenloft books, as well as some odds and ends here and there. It is meant to be a collection of short stories and vignettes, much like The Midnight Carnival, only I hope it'd have a darker theme to it, less pleasantry.

Second, I've got one inspired by Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night. However, it takes a more sinister twist for me since I intend to add a darker flavor to it, as well as carry through the idea of having the 2 female leads actually falling for one another over the course of the events of the story.

And of course, there's also my long-overdue gripe on how the Japanese animation industry is shrinking or how hard it is to get a decent job in the Philippines.

Stupid PLDT...

There is nothing quite so frustrating as having no internet for over a week through no fault of your own. PLDT (the monolithic telephone service provider here in the Philippines) has so conveniently continued to ignore the fact that my home's phone line has been cut by the recent storms around these parts. Thus, I have been cut off from my dial-up internet connection. Stupid company. This is a temporary arrangement - a placeholder, if you will. I'll get the next gripe (on the shrinking Japanese animation industry) soon.

Has It Been That Long?

Seriously. Has it been so long since I last put something up on Fictionpress? Damn. I honestly don't understand why I didn't upload anything for so long and just let my profile stagnate. Well, time to get back into things with a story inspired heavilly by the Metal Gear Solid series and Perfect Dark.

Linky!

Gripe #1: On Philippine Politics

Opening Note: This is the first of a series of me griping about certain things that matter to me or I know have an effect on me and my lifestyle.

It pains me to watch Philippine politics nowadays – mainly because it seems more like an elaborate Hollywood scandal designed to promote a movie than political news. Of course I eventually realize that not even Hollywood or any other cinema industry in the world can create as big a debacle as Philippine politics.

First, let’s take a look at the basic tenets of Philippine politics. If you win an election, you must be prepared to take flak from the opposition. It is guaranteed that no matter what you do, you will be opposed even if the opposing party/parties agree that your plan is what’s best. Why? Because you’re running the show and they’re not. If you’re the opposing side (i.e. the losers in the election) you’re automatically assigned the task of accusing the winners of cheating – which is interesting since, on at least one occasion, the losers were actually right in their accusations. Mud-slinging – no matter how ridiculous since, as Lenin said ‘quantity is a quality all it’s own’ – is the order of the day once someone – Hell, anyone – is in office and during elections, sexy stars and hot singers are more likely to get someone to vote for you than a solid political plan or even election-time promises. Logic is thrown out the window, as is concern for national welfare. If Al Gore had lost a Philippine election, he would’ve been called a coward and a quitter if he asked that there not be a recount of the votes. If John Kerry had done what he did in a Philippine presidential election, he would have been scorned for life and his supporters – regardless of whether or not he wants them to – would have stormed the streets demanding that the winner step down and snap elections be called.

Now, on to the current situation: the short-stop president Arroyo is taking more flak than any president since…well, since just her predecessor Estrada. The opposition is calling for her to step down in light of all the accusations of corruption and dealing in the local illegal gambling game jueteng. They are also claiming that she stole the presidency by cheating in the elections – as supposedly evidenced by the so-called ‘Gloriagate’ tapes. Ridiculous since there really isn’t that much concrete evidence that she is talking about cheating on the tape and let’s face it, in the Philippines, candidates calling the phones of people working in the COMELEC (Commission On Elections) to get election returns ahead of time is commonplace. In her infinite [sarcasm]wisdom[/sarcasm] Arroyo admits to being on the tape and actually apologizes, thus giving the opposition even more flak. The idiocy of her move cannot be fathomed, nor can the reasoning behind it. Groups are now calling for her to step down but I’m inclined to think about whom’s going to take her place if she does. Let’s take a look, shall we?

There’s the vice-president, Noli de Castro. No good since he has no political background, has no public service background and is currently fighting a rather decently formed protest to his winning the election from opposition candidate Loren Legarda. He can’t take the position as he neither has the qualifications nor the experience required. Then again, that’s never stopped the Filipino people from putting similar (or even worse) in positions of power before.

Then there’s Susan Roces, widow of the deceased presidential candidate FPJ. With all due respect to her, she has no background, experience and her recent statements have made it clear that while she might have some level of political savvy, she is no leader. She is a follower, a sheep and letting her lead the country is a sure path to damnation and ruin. Even as the head of some sort of military, civilian or military-civilian junta, she cannot be relied upon to lead the country properly. She has no capability and even less political potential.

The Philippine army you ask? It might have morale but it doesn’t have the power or the capacity to really take over. It’s fighting the NPA communist rebels in central Luzon, chasing after the Abu Sayaff and fighting the Moro International Liberation Front and Moro National Liberation Front in Mindanao, preventing terrorist attacks in key cities and trying desperately to get a respectable hold on any of the Spratly Islands. In the simplest of terms, the Philippine piece-of-garbage army is spread too thin, too poorly armed and with leaders far too interested in personal power or too incompetent in anything outside finding a way to make money to effectively run a platoon, let alone a country. Besides, if a bunch of people with flowers can take out entire tank and infantry divisions by sheer psychological and emotional power, what does that say about the quality and motivation of the training the army gets? And did I mention that all the soldiers are using guns that are older than they are? Some of those guns date back to before the Vietnam War and some of the tanks are actually WW2 vintage.

The opposition party is too divided to take over as well. We’ve got Estrada’s supporters and Estrada himself, who really hasn’t been proven guilty or innocent of graft and corruption. Plus, he’s proven that he’s not capable of leading a country even though he can rally the masses like few others can. Ping Lacson? Most people don’t trust him, very few outside of the major cities even knew he was a candidate until Election Day and frankly, he can’t rally enough support to take over. Anyone from the opposition? Not likely as the opposition is divided like nobody’s business. And signs point to them staying that way for a long, long time.

So who’s left? No one. Right now, the only viable person to take the presidency is…well, being asked to step down from the presidency. What a predicament, no? All this political instability and chaos, plus the rising gas prices (which would be followed by the rise of prices of goods and services) and a constantly rising foreign debt to pay for another foreign debt, the Philippines is more screwed than the Soviet Union at the time of it’s collapse. Oh well. The Philippines and the Filipino people have been screwed ever since Magellan got killed on our beaches anyway. We’re genetically pre-disposed to it.

Funny how these things are…

Right now, I'd rather have Hitler (who managed to pull Germany out of it's post-WW2 depression) or Ferdinand Marcos (who, despite corruption and martial law, managed to keep the Philippine economy at an acceptable level and maintained a decent standard of living for most) running the Philippines.

Quotes

"There was never a genius without a tincture of madness." - Aristotle

"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?" - Jane Austen

"The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any." - Russel Baker

"Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse." - James Dean

"Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure." Lord Byron

"What is it that we should be fighting for? War makes that question very hard to answer." Lacus Clyne, Gundam Seed Destiny*

"The only difference between reality and fiction is fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." - T.S. Eliot

"The secret to writing is to write, not to think." - Sean Connery in Finding Forrester

"A good writer makes the mind imagine. A great author makes the mind believe." - from the movie A Letter From Death Row

"I'm not defined by my abilities alone!" - Kira Yamato, Gundam Seed Destiny

"Simple minds...simple pleasures..." - Fall-From-Grace, Plancescape: Torment

"If we could not laugh, we could not bear to cry. If we could not cry, we could not bare to live." - Japanese proverb

"Women are the reason I became a monk. And the reason I changed back." - Morte, Plancescape: Torment

"Perfection through suffering." - Vhailor, Planescape: Torment

"Death is merely the beginning." - from the game Akuji the Heartless

"Why flatter my enemy with imitation when I can satisfy myself with possession?" - Magic: The Gathering flavor text

"The fatal flaw in every plan is the assumption that you know more than your enemy." - Magic: The Gathering flavor text

"Grow food in dirt? Save time. Eat dirt." - Magic: The Gathering flavor text

"Forgiveness is always easier to earn than permission." - Legend of the Five Rings flavor text

"Watashi ga inakunattara, ippai kurushinde, kanashinde, watashi no omoide ni shibarate ite hoshiindesu."
Translation: I don't want you to forget about me... When I am gone, I want you to be in great pain and sadness being tied down by your memories with me. - Mint Blancmanche of Galaxy Angel, from the game Galaxy Angel: Moonlit Lovers

"Tears and insanity suit more a girl than anything else: they make her cuter and more desirable." - Kohaku, from Tsukihime (the game original, not the sucky anime version)

"A pure love should be eternal: killing the lovers at the peak of their love is the best way to insure it will last forever." - Kohaku, from Tsukihime

"Love is only interesting when it brings great unhappiness, unbelievable suffering, crucifying pain, unfathomable sorrow, endless despair and eternal damnation. When insanity and death become the only ways to escape from love, it means the love story has started to reach an interesting point." - not entirely sure where this is from but I believe it's from Kohaku of Tsukihime as well

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So, why, all of a sudden, do I put up quotes? No reason.

A Side Project

I honestly have no idea what's up with me lately. SNA2: Yuki on hold for now, an untitled project loosely inspired by a Love Hina fanfic I made, Babylon 5's Psi-Corp and the PS game Galerians. Anyway, lacking any decent updates or posts for this...

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01: Synapse

Two nights ago, the strangest night of my life occurred. It was my birthday, so I decided to go bar-hopping to celebrate, maybe make a friend – because I don’t have any. We all had a couple of drinks. I had mostly sake, a couple of glasses of scotch too. I was probably a little tipsy on my way home. I was walking alone when two guys came up to me with their knives. I don’t remember much but I remember they tried to corner me in an alley, ripped up my coat. I give them my purse, my phone, my stuff. I think I heard them talk about raping me too. I was afraid but in me, I felt a burning hatred as well. They kept moving forward and I kept moving back until I found my back was to a wall. When one of them tried to grab me, I put my hands over my head and tried to protect myself. A few moments later, I felt a searing heat nearby and I saw a wall of fire separating me from them. And as if by instinct, I knew that I was the one that made it.

They ran, saying something about my being a monster, a freak. I wasn’t paying much attention. I suddenly had a migraine and it was starting to weaken me. Once they were gone, the fire began to fade and so did my senses. My eyes began to blur, I felt weak, confused. I tried to walk out of the alley even though I could barely see two feet in front of me. I felt strangely warm even though they’d ripped apart my coat and it was a particularly chilly night. I stumbled, tripped a couple of times on my way out and into the street. When I finally managed to get out, I was too dizzy, too disoriented to get very far. I only saw one person, a girl that worked as a bartender in my favorite bar. I’d always had a bit of a fondness for her since she always seemed to be wearing the same charming smile. I remember opening my mouth, trying to say something to her, maybe ask for help but I don’t know if I ever said anything. I fell forward, collapsing into her arms.

I wake up a day after, no headache but still feeling comfortably warm even though the weather outside was rather cold. I was in an unfamiliar room. White ceiling, walls covered in light blue wallpaper with posters of bikini models, race girls and assorted sexy women. The bed was comfortable enough and I realized my body was under a layer of exceptionally smooth silk. I got up and realized I wasn’t wearing my clothes but I was wearing a nice silk robe. The door was locked and I noticed a note addressed with my name on it placed on the bedside table. It didn’t say much, just that there were some clothes my size in the closet in the room and there were some drinks in the mini-bar. It was signed Saki, the girl that I saw that night that I was attacked. I decided to get dressed, fix myself up a little, have some water and then, I stepped outside. When I did, I saw a girl not older than eighteen was sitting beside the door, as if waiting for me to wake up.

“So, sleeping beauty’s awake. Hi, my name’s Leonia.” She said with a soft smile. “Welcome to Synapse.”

Weird Stuff...

Honestly, some people do the craziest things.

Like marrying a horse.

Or these things.

Honestly, is it any wonder why our generation is leagues behind the previous one? It is true. We are a degenerate species, constantly devolving ourselves.

Chapter 4, Part 1

Chapter 4, Part 1

Aya at Agincourt

The Knight was Tsujimoto Motors’ latest car model, a hybrid of a luxury sports car and an armored carrier for military use. The monstrosity of a vehicle appeared more military vehicle with the two, wide treads at the front and four massive wheels at the back, hydraulic suspension systems meant to allow the vehicle to literally run over anything that gets in the way. The design was sleek, armor plating thick and slanted to be able to give the best protection against projectile weaponry and a roaring lion of an engine. Yet, despite all of the stresses and the unusual assortment of features and the deceptively aerodynamic design, the Knight handled like a dream. It handled corners with no trouble whatsoever, stopped almost instantaneously and it somehow managed to handle the tight streets and cramped junctures of Tokyo. The vehicle was smooth and was probably the safest vehicle on the streets but that thought was of little comfort to the young girl sitting at the passenger seat as it skidded at high speed into a parallel parking spot between a BMW and a Corvette inside the impressive Tsujimoto manor. As the Knight came to a full halt, Yuki’s heart was ready to pound out of her chest. Her stunned look awakened a laugh from the person driving the vehicle: Aya Tsujimoto.

“I sincerely hope that next time we go to your estate, I drive.” Yuki said before catching her breath, her hands gripping tightly, digging into the armrests.

“Oh come now! Where’s your sense of adventure, Yuki?” Aya asked flamboyantly, batting her eyelashes with a grin of mischief and allure on her face.

“I think I lost it the second time you almost ran us into a wall.” She answered.

“I’d thought you’d have realized to throw caution out the window when I almost ran over that girl in Akihabara. She seemed quite afraid, almost as if she’d seen a ghost when we suddenly appeared.”

“I can’t blame her. You almost ran her over in this…this thing!”

“Ah, this thing as you call it is the Knight. An experimental product my father’s company made as part of a contract with the Japanese military for use in overseas operations.” Aya smiled as she leaned back and took hold of the glass of iced chocolate drink – not a drop had spilled during the wild ride – and for a moment, she seemed to relax. “It’s hard to believe that up until just a few decades ago, Japan’s army was strictly a defensive one and that the constitution wouldn’t allow for a female on the Imperial throne.”

“Yes, yes, quite impressive but please tell me that we’re not going through a ride like that again.”

Aya gave a sigh. “I’d thought you one to appreciate how far we’d come. Oh well. Don’t worry; we won’t be driving like that for a few hours. I do have a shortcut back to school I want to try out though.”

“Do you have any sedatives?”

“I think my older brother Jubei has some. Why do you ask?”

“I’d advise you to inject me some before you drive me home.” Yuki said, only partially joking.

Aya chuckled and tapped Yuki’s hand mildly. “Oh fine. We’ll take the limo home then.”

“You won’t be driving?” Yuki asked. When Aya nodded, she breathed easier. “Thank you.”

Yuki had been invited by Aya, the youngest child among the three Tsujimoto children, to visit her at her home, the luxurious estate known as Agincourt. She’d seen very, very little of the grounds because of the radical manner which Aya drove. However, once the Knight had come to a full stop, she noticed that she was in some sort of underground parking facility. There were sports cars and luxury vehicles left and right, from a stretch limousine to a BMW to a Lamborghini Diablo. She also noticed the playing of music in the background, mostly of Western punk rock. She recognized none of them and found them unpleasant to listen to but knew better than to object. The area was rather dark and the shadowy nature of the place was strange. She realized that the entire area was spacious, incredibly open area but the dim light seemed to seep into the stage, making the place seem more cramped and claustrophobic than it actually was. It didn’t sit very well with her and she was thankful as Aya led her by hand to the elevator. As small as the elevator was, it was welcome in comparison to the claustrophobic darkness of the underground parking area.

Aya Tsujimoto was a statuesque, brusque young creature. Her hair was long, the color of red ochre. She reached back and tied the length of it into a traditional bun and letting the rest hang down her back. She had a toned, muscular frame that was slightly bulky. However, her body was structured such that her body was balanced with an hourglass figure. Her shapeliness drew away from the muscles on her arms, legs and thighs so that she appeared very feminine. She had a roughness about her, from the calloused hands to the many small, insignificant blemishes and flaws on her skin. Her athletic frame contrasted Yuki’s slender, seductive build but in her own way, Aya had an intense, sensuous tomboy appeal. Her hazel eyes looked riotous, lively and they lent her appearance a fire, an irrepressible but natural energy that Yuki felt a little contagious. She dressed in simple faded jeans and a loose cream-colored shirt. Even standing still, Yuki could almost taste the smoldering sensuality and passion coming from Aya, the intensity in her eyes all too clear even to a casual observer. There was also slyness in the curve of her fire red lips, something that was both alluring and alarming to Yuki. It took much effort for Yuki not to blush as Aya leaned into her.

“You know, you’re not exactly the first girl I’ve had come over to Agincourt.” Aya said as the ride ended and she stepped out, intentionally swaying her hips flirtatiously for Yuki to see. They were in a dark, narrow corridor. “I live having girls over here. Girls seem to love this place as well. Come, let’s go.”

“Is Agincourt composed mainly of dark corridors and strange underground areas?”

“A fair opinion but you’ve not seen what I’ve to show you.” Aya smiled as she took hold of a door knob and turned it slowly. She stepped aside as she pushed the door open, light suddenly flooding into the hallway and for a moment, Aya could see it was a little much for Yuki’s eyes. “Like what you see?”

Yuki adjusted her eyes to the sudden flood of light to realize the awe-inspiring sight before her. It was an impressive garden, the expanse of which stretched far into the horizon she could see and beyond. It wasn’t something she’d taken in before or imagined she’d be able to take in again. There were growths of vines crawling around the grand marble pillars, massive trees that at springtime would yield a seemingly endless bloom of sakura, an apple orchard and many more wonders of bountiful green. And there, lying in the center of it all was an intricately designed and placed collection of rosebushes. They were the sort that one might have found in the grand courts of Europe but there was something special about it, she could feel it. It took her a while to realize that there was a structure, a pattern that formed from what appeared to be a mere artistic work. There was a form, a shape made by the bushes and as she squinted to get a better look, it slowly came to form before her eyes. The hedges formed the image of two women, wrapped in an embrace.

Aya smiled, experience told her Yuki had seen the special design of the rosebushes. That was one of the many wonders she’d hidden when she designed Agincourt, she thought with a bemused smile. That was just one of the things she’d shown many a girl she’d brought to Agincourt but she was pondering showing Yuki something special. However, she wanted to know just what Yuki’s reactions would be to her multitude of things. Agincourt was designed to be a home for the Tsujimoto children but Aya, in a fit of creativity and wile, transformed it into her personal playground. Every corridor held a prize to behold, every corner possibly keeping from the world a secret. She wasn’t the architect of the main structure or the grounds of Agincourt but she was responsible for the outcome of it. She took pride in the accomplishment, even though she herself understood that she would never be able to surpass it. Not that Agincourt’s many treasures were considered art, Aya understood it just a menagerie of one girl’s wild fancies.

* * *

Ibuki Tsujimoto stood behind one of the many specially designed observation chambers within the grounds of Agincourt. She stood observing her sister Aya and the girl she’d brought with her as a guest. She locked her gaze mainly on the girl she didn’t know, assessing her with her eyes. For a brief moment, Ibuki regretted not having installed some audio equipment so she could hear what they were talking about but she brushed it aside. What mattered most to her was that she could keep an eye on her sister and on the new girl in Aya’s life. She’d watched Aya burned and scarred in the past by her indiscretions and her brash decisions regarding the women in her life and Ibuki found that displeasing. She had not passed judgment on the girl she didn’t know anything of however, keeping an opinion from forming until she could gather more pertinent data. She felt something was special about the girl though, an undefined quality. She resigned herself to watching from behind her secure position, confident that Aya had no idea she was watching.

Ibuki, the older of the two Tsujimoto sisters, had a striking, subtly intimidating presence. Her eyes were the palest possible shade of gray, sinking deep into their sockets and seemed eternally observant of even the smallest details. Her skin was dangerously, deathly pale and her body structure slender, bony. She wore her long, silver and black hair like a thin veil over her face for the most part, loose strands running along her shoulders and down her back. Her body, though it had a feminine shape, was mostly bony and it had a wraith-like quality about it that was all the more obvious whenever she moved. That, combined with her pure white, body-hugging leather dress made her seem not only out of place but also malignant in some strange, subtle manner. That was, perhaps, one of the reasons that many found her company uneasy.

“This girl seems different from the others. I’ll have to keep an especially close eye on this one.”

* * *

Aya decided to let Yuki relax for a while, taking her to a terrace that had an incredible view of the garden that awed so many guests to Agincourt. They sat above the beautiful vale of lotuses far to the east of the garden, servants having prepared refreshments and a light meal for the two of them. The two of them shared an expensive bottle of Italian red wine over some sashimi. Yuki sat in awe of the garden, watching as the lotuses – and the neighboring lilies – swayed in the gentle breeze. The garden seemed so quiet, as did the two young women on the terrace looking down on the assortment of flowers below. There was a sparkle in Aya’s eyes as she studied Yuki’s serenity and calm, the delicate enchantments of her beauty only adding to the appearance. Aya took a deep, long sip of the wine, letting the taste linger as smiled as she picked up a slice of maguro with her chopsticks. It was then that she noticed Yuki seemed to be looking at something.

“What are you looking at?” she asked before she took a sip of her wine.

“I just noticed that there’s an abstract design on the table’s surface.” Yuki answered.

“I know. It was something I had included. This is my private terrace, after all.” Aya answered. She moved a little closer to Yuki, leaning in. “The design is of two women in a passionate, loving kiss. Can you tell? Take a closer look.” Aya then stood up, placing herself behind Yuki. “Let me point it out to you.”

Yuki blushed profusely as she felt Aya’s breasts pressing on her back. Yuki found that the both of their bodies leaned slightly forward due to Aya’s gentle push. The Tsujimoto beauty took Yuki by the hand and held it tightly but gently, guiding it along the surface of the table to trace the figure of a woman. They could feel each other’s warmth, the sense of disruptive intimacy between them. Yuki trembled as she felt Aya brush her nose against her hair, the rich girl taking a whiff of the scent in the strands before she gently brushed them away. Yuki’s eyes closed as she felt Aya’s touch warm to her, their bodies moving closer to one another. They’d begun to invade each other’s personal space but neither of them seemed to mind. Aya then moved to hold Yuki’s other hand, guiding both hands as they traced the abstract figures on the table to the point where both bodies met. Both their hands met at that point as well, Aya slipping her hand between Yuki’s. It stayed there only for a moment as Yuki wriggled a little, as if she realized what was going on.

“You seem to have a passion for women being romantic…intimate with other women.”

“It’s a passion of mine, if I had to confess.” Aya said as she knelt down and embraced Yuki from behind, leaning her head on Yuki’s shoulder. “I have a feeling that…this is a passion of yours as well.”

End Chapter 4, Part 1

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Now, this might be the last SNA2: Yuki chapter for a while. I'm currently engaged into a larger project and a minor fanfic I've been suckered into by someone I know and is dear to me. Rest assured, I plan to finish this story. Just...not a priority right now, which is a bad sign. The original was, at the time, my biggest priority that resulted in it becoming what it became. I'm taking a break from the sequel both to focus on something else and also to let my mind wander a bit, develop ideas for this. So...there.