Still Going...

...and I intend to keep going until somebody's teeth rots. Does not have to be mine.

I'm still writing my story, temporarily titled Sanctuary, though that is subject to change at anyg given moment, to any number if seemingly appropriate things. I've decided to take out any and all non-contemporary elements from the plot, save for the hints that the Asahina family's girls are not "normal" and that the possibly-but-not-exactly supernatural nature of the student in the Black Room. Since I've got a free day tomorrow, I'll likely upload the first segment of it in deviantART and FictionPress, as well as update LHFBW: Vae Victis on Tuxedo Jack's forum. I'll probably put up Sanctuary here, as well. Since I'm actually focusing on those two, I think it has helped me focus my creative energies on them.

Vae Victis is a refreshing activity for me since, in all my works and ideas, the LHFBW world is one of two where I feel I can play around to an insane degree, allowing me to execute some very strange concepts and ideas. The nature of the LHFBW setting makes it so that I can pretty much throw anything in and toss in a half-assed explanation and it'll still make perfect sense. The only other setting I've created that allows me that much freedom in tossing in ideas and concepts is my old H2GH (Hitchhiker's Guide To Hell) concept, which is a little something I use in private. It performs the same function, though none of the text of the H2GH file will ever see the light of Internet day, though some of the concepts (Vae Victis' Dimensional Barrens, Yuki's Diary's sociopathic Kanako Tohya) have been modified to suit my other works.

I've been doing a little research on Japanese mythological creatures, like the yuki-onna and the yurei. I don't think I'll be using that knowledge soon, though I find it comforting to know that they'll be somewhere in the Incomprehensibly Convoluted Data Sector that is my laptop HD when I decide to use it.

I think my technical writing skills are improving, though only slightly. Certainly, my ability to write articles is getting better but some of the conventions of writing articles and essays don't apply when writing fiction, particularly first-person fiction. I've always opposed adhering strictly to grammatical rules when writing first-person and character's lines. That's because I feel that by adhering to every rule of grammar there is in such situations, I take away a sense of natural-ness and huamnity from it. When people think, it isn't grammatically correct in every way. Thoughts are lucid and free-from, contrained only by enough grammar rules to make it easy for others to understand. Same concept applies to conversations. Is it any wonder, then, that I like first-person so much? Not only does it free me from a number of constraints, it also let me babble on incoherently, provided it falls within the character's personality and nature to do so.

Still, I do recognize the limitations of first-person, as well as the variety of pitfalls that a writer can fall into when using it. One aspect of third-person I've always had difficulty separating from when I write first-person is omniscience, or partial omniscience, in my case. It makes my narrator sound like a mind-reader when I do, though I have a tendency to do it without my even noticing.

Now that I think about it, consistency in POV might be a problem for me as well. I tend to jump between first and second-person whenever I am writing a story with first-person as the POV. That mainly happens when I feel like making the narrator conversational (to a degree) with the reader. Now, in Sanctuary and in Yuki's Diary, I'd immediately added bits and pieces to the early parts that signify that the narrators are aware that, at some point, someone else is going to end up reading what's been written down, giving me a sort-of-excuse.

Finally, I admit I have difficulty with tenses. When in third-person, I have a tendency to jump from past tense (which is the standard I use) to present tense, particularly when a character is doing something. While it is a forgivable and understandable error, considering the complex weave and nature of my fiction, I have difficulty tolerating it afterwards. When in first-person (which also uses the past tense, due to the diary format I utilize), a variant of this problem crops up. I have difficulty describing people and surroundings in the present tense. Actions are no problem when I write in first-person but descriptions? I always have to remind myself to write in present tense when describing something since, again due to the nature of my diary format preference, appearances are current, the "now," if you will. Yes, I know the last sentence did not make much sense. Deal with it.


Well, in any case, I haven't become delusional enough to believe I'll get any work of mine published anyway, so I guess I can relax my own personal standards a bit. Just a bit. Still, I feel like I owe it to myself to make them as close to perfection as possible, even though it'll hurt like Hell while I do.

***insert abrupt change of topic sign here***

My brother has become addicted to Front Mission 3. Finally, I managed to get him interested in a video game that isn't a fighting or adventure game. Nothing's wrong with fighting or adventure games but I do want him to get a feel for other, deeper genres. I'm convinced that his one-time addiction to Final Fantasy VIII was a fluke, as he went right back to the various Castlevania games (Aria of Sorrow, Harmony of Dissonance, Symphony of the Night, Circle of the Moon) I have after I uninstalled FF8. He showed an affinity for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance one and seems interested in Final Fantasy Tactics as well, not to mention playing an evil PC in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn but, by and large, he's preferred games like Halo and Threads of Fate over anything else. Oh well, at least I convinced him to give Metroid: Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission shots.

As for me, I'm going to play fighting games for a bit, just to relax, before I go back to Final Fantasy VI. A little King of Fighters '98 (my favorite of the series so far) and Guilty Gear XX does a mind good. Not to mention a systematic destruction of my Final Fantasy VII CDs, which I can't believe I actually bought. The game is garbage.

WORST. FINAL. FANTASY. EVER.

For parting notes, I've finally re-watched the following movies:
1. Eko Eko Azarak
2. Battle Royale
3. Ring 0: Birthday

Much fun. And I introduced my brother to the phrase "bring on the ultra-violence!" Hehe. After having him watch BR with me, he's come to like Girl#11, Souma Mitsuko, too.

P.S. Pardon the ads. Couldn't help myself. Wanted to try them out.

Tick-Tock

I am really...

BORED.

I've managed to drain my brain for all the things I want pictures of and managed to drain deviantART of any pictures of said things that I like. I'm really picky when it comes to my collection, you see. I have lost any and all inclination to enjoy the topics I'm being thrown at work. Mainly because they're the same thing over and over again, just with mildly different keywords (example: "RV motor" home one day, "motor home RV" the next). Even when I'm occupying my mind by concocting scenes for my current fiction project, I still feel a touch of emptiness and boredom. About the only thing right now that gets my juices flowing is Douglas Adams' The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, where I am currently in So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish. Possibly the ideas running through my head about my project are keeping me from snapping as well, though only minimally.

Actually, now that I think about it, a lot of things about one of the characters in that piece, Kotone, is a poorly designed tribute to Adams' most famous work. She always carries a towel and a copy of the first book around in her bag. She has used the word "floopy" at least twice in the text so far. She also keeps her small notebook of poetry locked away, comparing it to Vogon poetry. Finally, she has an emotional fixation on Trillian and Random (Frequent Flyer Dent, that is). Interpret that statement as you will. Very strange, that. No other book or series of books has ever had such a prominent presence in my work.

Anyway, I've decided to fill my head (and, consequently, this post) with random thoughts:

1. Namco really needs to bring Jun Kazama back. Asuka is nice and all but she doesn't feel the same.

2. I am hoping that Final Fantasy XIII will bring the series back to the glory days it had before Final Fantasy VII dropped the ball.

3. I miss Battle Arena Toshinden. Especially Ellis.

4. I hope J.K. Rowling dies before she completes her Harry Potter books.

5. There should be a Predator 3 movie.

6. I hate cars.

7. God hates me.

8. Mister Siniser. Best. Comic book. Villain. Ever.

I Just Figured Out Something

At the risk of sounding like some pompous fool, I seem to have developed a very Douglas Adams-ish writing and narration style. Take note, narration and not narrative. Very different things, since if I said narrative, it would imply that my work reflects the general high-quality humor, wit, satirical idiosyncrasies, and quality of Douglas Adams' work. No, as much as I'd love to delude myself, that is not the case.

Having no actual grasp of the rules of English grammar, my work tends to violate little rules like tense consistency, regulations on the use of pronouns, and assorted other little tidbits. Funny thing is, I don't give a damn if I do. For as long as I judge the work as readable and understandable, I could care less that I've got a sentence that has as many words as Paris Hilton has had men between her legs, or somesuch. Granted, my written grammar is passable enough but frankly, it buckles under close scrutiny. Yet, when examined, Adams makes many of the same mistakes I, and several other aspiring damned...err, novelists, make. Besides, grammar hardly seems to be the main concern when writing fiction, for crying out loud. Part of a trait (I refuse to call it a flaw!) that my writing shares with Adams is the fact that, at times, we can be damn convoluted and write in a manner that is almost, but not entirely, unlike mad scribbles. And yet, in context, they make perfect sense.

Of course, that doesn't do much comfort for me when I'm writing non-fiction, apparently. My new job entails something a little more formal, less Adams-ish. Sad, really. Anyway, my style is starting to really grate on the higher-up's satisfaction with my work output. Naturally, they ask for revisions without realizing the pseudo-allusion to one of the writing style of one of the greatest writers of all time. Naturally, the mere idea of revisions repulses me. Well, not quite exactly. You see, I don't mind revising little spelling slips and errors in grammar but to ask me to re-write an entire paragraph because it lacks "parallelism" or somesuch nonsense is irking for me. They conceded it was still readable and even a little entertaining but I still needed to re-write it. From scratch. Stupid, really. Quite stupid. Annoying too. Especially if, like me, every revision you make (regardless of how, what, why, and anything else) will inevitably make the document come out worse with every revision. Theory of Entropy in practice, folks. I don't mind being asked to revise something because there were problems and weaknesses in the text but, for the love of the Almigthy Bob, can you at least point out exactly what went wrong and not have me guessing where I broke this rule or that?

Still, you do what you are told because it is your job.

I actually rather enjoy my job, apart from the dismal pay, the shoddy equipment, the requests for revision on perfectly acceptable articles, and the general but constant dullness of having to write about the same thing over and over again in a thousand and one different ways from the first (none of which actually exist). There are only so many ways you can spin the words "RV motor home" without feeling as if you're Marvin, the Paranoid Android.

Or worse.

In any case, I take comfort in the fact that I can surf the Internet from work with no restrictions. Which means unlimited time to raid Photobucket and deviantART for new pictures to add to my ever expanding, constantly being streamlined collection. This includes artwork of things or characters I hadn't even considered compiling into my PC until recently, including some of the cutest renditions of Tricia "Trillian" McMillan, from H2G2 or pictures of a dominatrix, oddly. It also lets me update from work and, amidst the sounds of hammering away at keyboards, doing so hardly attracts any undue attention. The question of whether or not this privilege is actually making the job (and all attached frustrations) worthwhile is...questionable.

Moving on...

I still haven't gotten far with my new story, though details are popping into my head nicely. I'm considering taking a cue from the movie Heavenly Creatures and give the narrators (3 of them now) a little fantasy world for them to play around in. If not implemented, the elements of that fantasy world could be adapted into another story, though I would rather not do fantasy since I no longer enjoy literature in the genre, stagnating as it is.

My opinion on fantasy literature has gone down because the genre itself is inbreeding. High fantasy always contains the same repetition of Tolkien-inspired (or Tolkien-ripped) races of high elves, dark elves, humans, etc. Fantasy still relies too much on the "find itme X to stop villain B/catastrophe C" concepts and it is dull as Hell. There is hardly any variation, hardly any imagination anymore. Most fantasy books nowadays are disappointing, which is not the case with the genre's cousin, sci-fi. At the very least, sci-fi is still coming up with interesting books, though most are, like fantasy, fast becoming formulaic in execution and concept.

Think about it.

The last truly, truly good fantasy book I've ever seen is Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings series, though the Wheel of Time series is also a good one, as are The Song of Fire and Ice series and the Discworld books. However, take a look at rest. Garbage. The Magic: The Gathering novels would be nice if they had better plots but right now, they only represent great potential.

Now, the science fiction end of the spectrum.

Take Star Wars and Star Trek out of your head. There are some truly excellent sci-fi books out there, not least among them are Frank Herbert's Dune books. Even the prequel books and the sequel books (which I consider both inferior and non-canon) are excellent works. There's also Snow Crash (I think that's the title) or Ender's Game. Several of the Bablyon 5 novels are also good. I also find The Fortunate Fall to be a good read, though it isn't a particularly memorable one.

Besides, sci-fi doesn't have garbage like Rowling's Harry Potter books to drive home the degeneracy of the genre...

Anyway, back to work. More or less.

A Thousand And One Inconveniences!!!

Okay, maybe not that many, but still..

First off, I can never seem to find a perfect, working mouse. My optical mouse at home double clicks by itself. Yes, I am looking to have that fixed or checked or something. My mouse at work is the old school mouse, the one with the damn ball. Unfortunately, no matter how much I clean the inside, the 5 years' worth of abuse and grime has taken its toll. Unless I find some way of moving the mouse that almost constitutes as physical assault, it won't move past the halfway point of the damn screen. Stupid rat.

Speaking of work-related inconveniences, let me explain about the "keyword" garbage I have to deal with. Well, not so much the need for keywords to be inserted into the text but more...the frequency of it. I can understand having to slip it in once or twice but...let me put it this way, you know those Internet ads? The ones that get a lot of search engine results because they've got good grammar and repeat a certain set of words a lot? That's what I have to make on a daily basis. What annoys me is that we're generally required to slip in the keyword in a specific pattern. Even when we're writing news. Without going into details because that would be bad for my contract, let me just say that there are only so many ways you can sneak the words "global trade deals" into a news story, especially if the source never even mentions those words. Not even once. Don't even get me started on the keywords that have atrocious grammar.

I am annoyed at the lack of fanart for several of the Castlevania monsters. That series has some of the best monster designs I've ever seen and it is a shame that they don't show up in fanart circles more often. There's the Venus Weed (or the Alura Une variant in Aria of Sorrow). Or the Frozen Shade. Hell, I'll even take fanart of the Diplocephalus or the Valkyrie. As long as it isn't the Succubus. I have seen enough of those to last me a long time, believe me. Death. We need more Death fanart.

Has anyone ever noticed how time seems to flow...differently at certain jobs? Back in my Circuit City and Dell Customer Care days, time seemed to flow inexplicably slow. I swear, a week felt more like 2 weeks back then. Now, however, a week...feels less than that. I know it doesn't feel as long as it did when I was working call centers, nor do they drag on (in my mind) as they did when I was still in college. Funny, that. I'll have to come up with some sort of bad logic theory to explain that away.

Writing wise, I'm a slug but I'm still at it. Re-worked the concept for YD, threw away the old cast in favor of a new one, and I think I'm all set. Thinking of having 2 narrators and adding a whole box of weird fantasy and sci-fi themed knick-knacks into the mix, just for kicks. Like girls popping out of giant roses, or a girl with purple eyes and purple hair who is genetically superior to everyone else in the damn story. Or maybe I'll stick with a mundane, somewhat realistic setting and just include the oddities for the weird imagination of one of the characters? Or to make people think I'm high as a kite while I write it. Whichever seems more fun for me.

And I have got to start sketching again.

Random...No, Not Arthur Dent's Kid

Judging from the title, you have probably guessed that I have finally gotten myself to go through my copy of The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, by Douglas Adams. Good set of books. Funny as Hell.

Also, I found this:
I am worth $1,918,332 on HumanForSale.com

Funny, that.

Anyway, I had plans to write something over the weekend and, for a bit, I did. It isn't long, but it is a start. After re-reading Yuki's Diary, I think I finally caught on to just what made me write it for so long in the first place. It was fun, chief. With that in mind, I decided to try and take another crack at the concept. Granted, YD was too gratuitously lesbian-ized (hehe) for my current tastes and frankly, I don't think I tried hard enough to make it feel like I wasn't some sort of perverted chauvinist. I'm sure at least one female reader of the story got that feeling while she was going through...the first paragraph?

I've played around with the thought of re-writing it but I already converted it into a PDF, which means that it stays as-is. So, in retaliation, I decided to re-tool the concept and give the core idea another go, minus the excessive lesbian sex. I haven' even decided on the main character's name yet, so that may or may not be a good sign. While I don't plan on having a murderous, sociopath as a love interest for the narrator, in keeping with YD tradition, she will have a female love interest. That girl's name is decided. Now, the cast will be solely female and I will attempt to draw diversity (personality-wise) into them. I think I'll go for a "less sex, more tension" feel to this, though I won't make any promises. And the actual time it takes place in is also a question for me. So far, what I've written ahs not gone into anything terribly specific but I'm considering making in somewhat futuristic, with one of the characters being genetically superior. She's supposed to be faster, stronger, and prettier than the others and genetic alteration seems like the easiest explanation. Not sure if I'll use it though, since that brings up the question of why the others aren't modified. Also, the use of cosmetic modifications (like hair color) came into my mind, if only to allow me more flexibility in hair and eye colors than the stereotypical Asian colors of black and various shades of brown. Or I could just say they came from a bottle/genetic abnormality, but that only works on the hair and only if I use naturally occuring eye colors. Hmm...

Well, I'll just have to keep hammering at it. Maybe I'll find some sort of compromise to it. Radiation-caused mutations, maybe?

Oddly, despite everything, I feel...sad. Melancholic. Depressed. It all seems...pointless now. I love writing and I love what I'm writing outside of work (inside work is a different matter) but in the end, I'm starting to doubt if I'm going to enjoy them once they're done. And I don't know why but, oddly, that bottle of vodka and those sleeping pills are beginning to look mighty friendly...

P.S.

I hate this whole "keywords" bull-crap that I have to deal with in my new job. And my hatred for cars and motorcycles and RVs now has expanded to cover the thousand-and-one ways to babble endlessly about the pointless, stupid ways to finance a purchase of one.

Another Post From Work

Well, here I am again. Posting from work. Not much to say, save the fact that I opened up a deviantART account. Those of you who know me know that I cannot draw a face to save my life and my sketching ability is...well...sketchy at best. That, and I don't have a scanner. Still, one of these days, maybe I'll sketch something worth putting up there. For now, I've managed to only upload 2 "deviations." First is Angel of Temptation, a piece I wrote back in college that still hasn't managed to die down. I'd considered expanding it into a full-blown novel but I can't decide what approach to take. Second piece up there is Celia Morgan, which was supposed to have been part of a collection of similarly themed fantasy stories that would have been the background for a fantasy setting I was working on. Needless to say, neither the collection nor the setting ever really got past the initial planning stages.

I'd complain about certain aspects of work but not now. I'll do that when I have more time to consolidate my constant whining into a more...cohesive narrative.

*sigh*

Not much here. I miss Exploitation Now. Jordan Kennedy was cute.

Update 1.1.1

Well, work isn't too bad. Sure, I'm stuck with a lousy keyboard and a braindead mouse but I'm not really minding it. The PCs suck big time (my first desktop was faster to be honest) and th OS feels both alien and unfriendly. I actually enjoy the work most of the time and the free internet connection while at work is really nice too. People aren't that bad, though I still don't know the names of most of them. And, since I have some degree of control over how long I stay in this place, I have more time to create, write, and play.

Speaking of games, I just finished Threads of Fate, for both characters. While I would reluctantly agree that Rue is the more "protagonist-like" character and has the more serious storyline, I actually prefer Mint's scenario over his. For one thing, Mint is more likable than Rue is (or most Squaresoft/Square-Enix characters made around and after her time). She's dominating, persistent, cocky, greedy, and damn interesting. She makes for a much more entertaining character than ever-brooding Rue. Funny, though. The dynamic and differences between the 2 characters vaguely reminds me of the differences between Angel (Rue) and Spike (sort of like Mint) from the Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel TV shows. Although, to be honest, the dynamic between Mint and her sister Maya is far more entertaining than any character relationship I've seen in any Squaresoft/Square-Enix title so far. Sad that there was never any sequel to this and that there aren't enough fans of the game. I actually found it to be more appealing than FFVIII once I beat the game, although it could use more save points. And, though I am likely alone in all this, I think there's potential for Mint/Maya shojo-ai...

You know how sometimes you plan something and then, through some insane machinations, it falls apart? Something like that happened to me. I was intent on constructing a cosmology that was rather expansive, to say the least. The idea was that every fictional world was, in of itself, a universe. Some of these universes are related or connected on some level, be it critical or superficial. Sort of like how CLAMP has turned all their creations into a single multiverse, so it was to be with my creation. Only, there isn't just one multiverse. There's a lot of them and each one is connected to the other only through a remnant fabric from before they came to exist: The Void. Any being with sufficient power could, theoiretically, open a portal to The Void and escape the confines of their multiverse. However, to accomplish that requires both the ability to travel within one's own multiverse as well as the nature of one's power being independent of their universe.

Powers that work in one won't work in another. So, let's say you're a Malakite of Creation with all the Attunements and Distinctions. You somehow end up in the D&D world. You'll find that there is no Symphony in that world and as such, your powers don't work. The source of your power has to be independent of your world. Of course, I left in ways to do that.

Once you've been to The Void, however, it becomes apparent that there is a place that holds it all together. At the very center of the collection of multiverses, known as Existence, is a place that is known as The City That Cannot Exist. Simply put, it takes the role of Sigil from D&D: Planescape but expands it so it has doors to multiverses, not realms or planes.

It all seemed like a good idea and it allowed me, in the event that Hell becomes a prime vacation spot, a chance to consolidate any and all fictional worlds together without much hassle. Essentially, the nature of it was contrived to make impossible crossovers more plausible. After all, Kenshin Himura (Rurouni Kenshin) teaming up with Squall Leonhart (Final Fantasy VIII) to take on Sarevok (Baldur's Gate), Doll Master (Threads of Fate), and Victoria Ash (Vampire: The Masquerade) doesn't seem at all plausible when one looks at their individual worlds. However, the idea fell apart. Granted, I'm using it in the LHFBW and intend to create some sort of document to flesh it out in detail for no good reason, but that isn't what it was intended for.

The real plan behind it was to create a story using beings from The City That Cannot Exist, to show how their lives are and how they see the multiverses that they alone have completely free access to. I even had the five races lined out: the shapeshifting Lilim, the magically-inclined Baali, the master psionics known as the Hellions, the mentally unstable and magic-devouring Wraiths, and the not-too-bright but magically-immune Aeons. The cosmology has found use but what about the creatures? Well, they're not going to waste either. I'm reviving my old Charity city idea for them, adapting them to suit a setting more confined to the world as we know it. Of course, I had to make concessions. The Lilim I cut down from hundreds to just 9, for one thing.

Still, it isn't all bad. If I can't have Mint/Maya in Threads of Fate, I'll have some semblance of it in Charity.

That's it for today, I guess. I better get back to doing what I do best: being lazy.

Well

Again, not much to say. I think I've adjusted to my new job quite well. Playing Threads of Fate and Darkstalkers 3 rather obsessively.

Oh, just re-watched the first season of Desperate Housewives too.