So! Where’d I go?

Where: on an excursion to the wilds of Distraction, USA. Pictures were taken, souvenirs were collected. See this picture of the weird squirrel-people I thought up for my NaNoWriMo story? And see this one of my muse, Ae, cleaning my pet hippopotamus’s teeth with nothing but a brush and some floss as punishment for leaving me alone in the wild?

When: from whenever you last saw me to whenever I returned.

What: NaNoWriMo, poetry, LiveJournal, loss of internet connection whatsoever, music, video-gamery, sketching and concepting, authordom.

Which: the pale blue one.

Etc.: an abbreviation for ‘et cetera,’ commonly meaning “and so on.”

The Today Show takes me out on tangents.

So I somehow caught a re-run of the Today Show online a couple days ago, and I saw this video and searched it online. I couldn’t figure out how to embed it, so a link it is.

Note: I’m taking no opinions here. I don’t agree or disagree with what Obama’s doing. I just thought it was worth seeing.

And now, see Obama feed pirates… to sharks… and cut the debt in half… and stuff.

Eris vs. Pluto and the Aztec Calendar

Discordianism: a belief and reverence for chaos versus order; embracing the chaos that is life.

The dwarf planet most well known is Pluto, named for the god of death, but it is not the only one in our solar system. Another is Eris, named for the goddess of chaos. The goddess Eris is revered by Discordians, as a sort of patroness deity. (Eris is the one who threw the apple labeled ‘for the prettiest’ [kallisti] into the party of Greek/Roman gods, causing a stir between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite.)

According to this discussion on Wikipedia, Eris will be closer to the Sun than Pluto in approximately 800 years. What will that mean, philosophically? Will everyone stop aging and dying in favor of chaos, or even age in the opposite direction as in the Curious Case of Benjamin Button? That seems like the kind of thing Eris would do. Being, you know, embodied Chaos.

And moreover, will this ever even get a chance to happen? Or will we all die on Sunday, December 20, 2012? That day is, of course, the day the Mayan calendar ends. Have you thought about that recently?

No, really. If you were going to die on December 20th, 2012.

Depressing thought, isn’t it.

And here I am, putting more stock in an ancient Mayan calendar than the Catholic church, who says the world will end every ten years or something.

Grasping at strings.

First: here’s my 101 in 1001 list.

Second: I know I haven’t posted in forever. Between class beginning again, rewriting The Indigo City…. again, and several social-relations type things, I’ve been rather busy. And unfortunately, my life is not all that interesting, and I don’t seek to bore you, so I have nothing to write (type?) about.

I’ve been rereading City of Glass (by Cassandra Clare) again because it’s the only Mortal Instruments book I actually own. And I’ve been on a Tamora Pierce kick as of late; I now own both trickster books, both released Beka Cooper books, and next I’m going to go out and get the wildmage quartet. I’m such a fantasy geek. Speaking of which, I’m also looking around for Beige by Cecil Castellucci and Luna by Julie Anne Peters.

What was the point of this post? Mmm.

Currently listening to My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas… of all things.

Simple Addition

So. My 70 Things to Do is a bust.

Everyone loved the list. I had it all organized and ready to go, the members all recruited, the pages all made, links functioning and administrators and contributors and such set up. But, as it turns out, no one cares enough about it to dedicate that much time to a list that won’t contribute to their social lives, grades, or sleep times.

Math time!

Let’s add 31 more items, not counting changes to the original list. This comes out to 101 items, which I’ll be doing in 1001 days. Sound familiar? Try here and here.

101 in 1001

Rules:

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

And once more, this will be added to or edited… perhaps as a new post, since, you know, it’s 101 things.

A Writer’s Rambles on Ren’s Story

The poor forgotten thing now has an official new name. As of yesterday afternoon, it’s called The Indigo City. I was just fooling around with names when I came up with that. It’s based off of the “evil organization,” quote-unquote. (Spoilers!) The name also helped me fix my dead-end ideas. Traditionally the cyrei in South Dakota lived in a sort of network of gravity-defying tree-houses, but the primitive-living-in-a-forest thing’s been done too many times, I believe, and travel times were difficult, as well as human and other species relations since they live nowhere near. They were living in Custer State Park, which isn’t exactly conducive to an urban fantasy setting. This is, after all, in modern times.

So, coming up with this title helped me modernize the whole deal. You know I’m going to rewrite the whole thing anyway (for the, what, third time?), so I might as well.

The central setting is now in, well, the Indigo City, a several-districts, no-government market-based network of tightly placed buildings with intricate architecture. It’s all sharp angles, street art and graffiti, and fantasy. Different species (i.e., cyrei, vampires, lamias, werewolves, centaurs, whatever) tend to form their own neighborhoods with a handful of exceptions. The entire city is crammed with characters from myths, with a very low human population. Only magically gifted ones, “stolen” ones (think changelings from fey mythology), and those with other rare abilities are allowed to ever see the city, as it is under a glamour that fits it between real space. Most humans can walk right through the city, its size no larger than a pin to them, but when a fantasy-type creature approaches it it “opens”, like a flower, for them and they may enter. Humans who somehow happen upon it who don’t fit into any of the aforementioned categories are generally considered stolen, as they are kept there permanently.

Maps and new character sketches to be drawn and perhaps scanned in and shown here.

As for the actual plot, I eliminated a side plot and am not quite sure of what I’m replacing it with. I’m trying to focus more on the actual kidnappings and experimentation rather than going off on tangents and having the cyrei attend human school and such. Overdone, that whole school setting. I had no idea what I was going to do with it anyway… something on a shape-shifting sighting, I believe, and a vampire-human love affair. But I forget now. In any case, why would a thousand-year-old mystical otherworld winged fox being attend human school? Exactly. I don’t really think she would.

I’m going to try to focus more on Renata’s and Avalesq’s relationship this time around. No being shy about it. None of those evasive-maneuver-type “ehhhh, they’ll get together when they get together” excuses, nope, no sir. They are going to kiss and marry and have a little winged-fox-cyrei baby (sometime in the future, probably not in the book).

I’m also going to try to remove Archara’s preppiness, since it’s sort of ruining the mood, and not focus on clothing so much, except for Alice (previously Alyce, but I got fed up with that), who, you know, being all cupcake-gothy, and me knowing a heap of a lot of that style, I should probably emphasize more, since if I don’t that completely ruins the point. But not to the point of absurdity this time, hopefully.

Also (I spent days doing character designs and adding notations to my chalkboard wall) – Alice and Rafe (Ravenfire… I’m sorry, but I can’t just go outright changing his name) are now technically married, but I’ve maneuvered the marriage system a bit, to better explain why practically everyone in their community is single. The theory is that if you can virtually last forever, if you spend that much time with a person you will tire of them, so many people take on-again, off-again breaks. So you can still be romance-y, but you don’t combine paychecks or live in the same house or whatever you like.

I have a picture (on lined paper, but I was just doodling at first and it came out well) to scan in a paste here.

And also, here’s the new Renata theme list.

Featuring –

Miss Murder (With 12/21 Prelude) by AFI
99 Red Balloons (English) by Nena
Hand in my Pocket by Alanis Morissette
Summer in the City by The Lovin’ Spoonful
Wish I Had An Angel by Nightwish
Bruises by Chairlift
Pump It by the Black Eyed Peas

And probably due to additions, in time.

Old-School Gamers

In the past few months I have realized a many-sided truth.

I either: a) am very easily amused, b) have an exceptionally bright outlook on life, or c) simply have more appreciation for things that others take advantage of.

Now, A is a given, and B is pretty unlikely; if not a pessimist, I am a realist, neither of which are particularly sunny. But what I am debating about here is C.

I am going to give an example. I have only one close friend who is a video gamer at all. A little less than a month ago I invited her (Fae) and Sami over to my house for birthday festivities, a baked potato bar with cheese and chives and green peppers and various goofings-off, followed up with a firework show that all of the neighbors came to our back patio to see (my father loves rigging these kinds of things) and going on playlist.com and doing square dances in the kitchen, rounded off nicely with a short gift-giving session, from which spawned my violet iPod, Victoria. Yes, s/he is actually named that. (Its gender is debatable.)

But I digress. After getting a massive headache from Rock Band, thoroughly knocking each other out on Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and finishing it up with a short, awkward, and physically demeaning session on the Dance Dance Revolution mat, Fae and I decided to educate Sami in the ways of the ultimate pre-modern RPG gaming experience: the Legend(s) of Zelda. I was also using this as a mechanism to prove to Fae that yes, I really did have a collector’s edition disk with all the old versions on it, so I tossed in the CD and chose Ocarina of Time from the menu.

To understand where I’m coming from, you must understand how I grew up. Which was at my grandparents’, where my grandfather, the Zelda king of the century (though it’s in the next millennium now, I may have succeeded him), had a Nintendo 64. A 64, yes. If I could have any gaming system (besides a Game Boy Advance, but that’s handheld), the 64 would be it. In any case, that is about one solid eighth of the culture I grew up on. (The rest was books and The Lion King.)

Ocarina was my game. The graphics were amazing for that time, the gameplay itself innovative; the plot old, but refurnished and polished up, with interesting characters and mechanisms, and complicated, but rewarding dungeons and, best of all, bosses. It was my game. You know, the one you sit on your bed and play for hours without getting bored.

So I was properly insulted (didn’t say anything about it, though) when Fae, after a bit, declared:

“The graphics sort of suck.”

Well, no duh. You’re looking at old-style video game-age, honey. And then, after a while:

“And this is sort of boring.”

Well, probably to you, yes; but I know exactly how to get through this first dungeon and you don’t, and you’re not playing, now, are you?

“Let’s go do something else.”

And there is where I (mentally) draw my line. Obviously we just will not go there in video games, because you’ve grown up on Spyro 3 and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Okami and Guitar Hero: World Tour. Of course, I don’t literally mean grown up, as in being raised, but rather maturing as a gamer. Surely it is sad that I can have better gaming conversations with my grandpa than with my best friend?

I know the plot is boring, at first, and that the graphics are terrible for today. But that is part of its charm, its getting-back-down-to-earth feel. This is like when she told me that eighties music was nothing compared to the nineties. No. No no no no no no NO IT IS NOT. It’s just something you DON’T SAY in my vicinity.

I need a gamer friend.

Zombies.

If you read this article simply because I said “zombies,” I applaud you most generously, good sir/ma’am, and invite you to come join us for zombie tea on Saturday at five o’ clock.

But seriously. Zombies.

“i am a dead end.”

and that’s when
i looked you
in the eye
and told you
that i am
a dead end.

i am
the girl they hold
in the middle of
the night,
i am
the blindkisses
and desperatetouches.
i am
the oh-honey-you-taste-so-good, the
shh-be-quiet-i-didn’t-come-to-hear-you-talk.

i am
lost and falling,
i am
looking at the pieces
without seeing the whole
because the
whole picture scars.

and i am
living without skin,
living without skin
so even the air burns.

– Corina90.

From here.

Picture by me.

“Beneathe the Ice…”

“Poison Star hath carried thee
a Blessed Breath of Reckoning.
O’ Daughter of Neptis cries!
Hers chained Beneathe the Ice…”

– Daecaunt

From Here.