One Bad Day

Currently Listening To: "Aria de Mezzo Carattere," from Final Fantasy VI. The last true Final Fantasy game.

Currently Watching: my hand move. Because I damn well can.

Currently Plotting: the bloody murder of two particular individuals who have recently made life just that touch bit more annoying and unbearable.

For no particular reason, I feel thoroughly displeased this particular Friday. I don't know the reasons for this, just that I am. It isn't the work, which I've finally talked myself into accepting as some sort of advanced taste of what Hell must be like for folks like me. It isn't that I seem to be able to find less and less time to write Cecilia & Mint during the weekdays, though I'm practically crapping out ideas for The Ramblings of Naga, which is a fantasy-styled piece I'm currently outlining. No, I suspect this particularly bad day is caused by something else, though I can't put my finger on what.

It isn't in the playlist on my MP3 player, seeing as how I updated it last night with some of my favorite anime and video game tracks. It can't be my lack of anime to watch at home, though I am sorely in need of watching Sister Princess right now. I'm pretty sure it isn't my abject inability to rip and tear and rend and mutilate the "management" of my office for this ridiculous additional work they're having me (and the rest of the writers) put up with without any additional pay. No, that's not it either. This is highly unusual for me, particularly because I tend to know why I have bad days.

Even "Hare Hare Yukai" (bless that song) isn't helping much.

In any case, I suppose my mood will lift when I get home and start working on Cecilia & Mint again. Yes, I'm still stuck on Chapter 8, and I doubt that I'll finish that any time soon. I've already made preparations to momentarily halt my brief return to fanfiction writing, if only to focus on the more important project. Despite the lack of comments on my work, I'm confident I can finish this piece, if only because this one has a cast of characters that are very, very dear to me.

As for my other original fiction project, The Ramblings of Naga, that's a different story. It has always bothered me that tales of sword-and-sorcery have a tendency to make the main character either a noble swordsman or a crafty mage of some sort. Sure, there are those rare exceptions, but that appears to be the general rule of things. Also, I've found the portrayal of magic to be a little too convenient and plain, even if it comes off as a strict discipline. I've always liked the portrayal of magic as shown by the Tremere Clan of White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade games.

In other words, magic is a slow, arduous, long task that produces potent results. The art is hardly one that is to be taken so lightly that one only needs make an incantation. So I've decided that for the "Naga" world, I'm going to use the pattern that the Tremere Clan established. In other words, the spells will be performed through long rituals and with deadly consequences for mistakes made during the casting. It'll be useless in the thick of combat, unless prepared beforehand. Or if you're calling upon the power of a superior being. You'll get it when I start writing how things work, but that might be a while from now. I have no intention of starting this piece until I reach Chapter 10 of Cecilia & Mint.

I'm eagerly awaiting the second season of Suzumiya Haruhi, which I hear is based on volume 4 of the novels, The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi. This should be entertaining, as I think that novel (out of all of them) really explored Kyon's true feelings for the eccentricities and oddities that surround him, as well as provided the largest proof of a romantic connection between him and Haruhi since "The Kiss That Saved The World. Maybe." from volume 1. I have difficulty imagining how they'll pull off having a show where the main character doesn't appear until much later, however. Though I guess they can pull in incidents from the other books to fill in the gaps, much like they did for the first season. Naturally, episodes aired in non-chronological order is a must if they take that approach.

On a random thought, I doubt this is a bad enough day to drive me crazy and turn into the Joker. If you didn't get that reference, you clearly aren't a fan of the Batman graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke. Oh, that was a good one. And I firmly believe in the Joker's theory that one really bad day is all someone needs to snap, become insane, and do things that they'd not have done under normal circumstances. While I'm not ready to fully accept the idea that society and sanity are fundamentally flawed concepts and should be discarded for mass insanity, I'm dangerously close to accepting his theory. After all, in the end, we're all nuts.

To quote:
"Madness is the emergency exit — you can just walk out on all the horrible things that happened and lock them away forever!"

Oh yes, I'm having a bad day. Just not that bad. Yet.

Well, rotten days are a dime a dozen in this office, anyway. I really should be used to it by now.