Actress/Model/Whatever…

Been going through and looking for people who were appropriate to model the look of characters after. Its kind of a hobby of mine, I mean no other way to describe it, I kind of like the idea of going through all of the pictures of well known and not-so-well-known people and just think “they look like X from my story” or “they look like what I would imagine X to look like from this”.

Its kind of like when I first saw Bonnie Gruesen and I thought she looked more like what I pictured Hermione to be than what I’d seen most places. Its kind of the same for my own story. Sometimes I see people who embody the character more than my own imagination.

Sadly I have lost some pictures, like the one of Lewis. But I do have two to show. One of Holly and the other of one of my D&D characters, Cissinei.

Kind of a lame blog, I know huh? Anyway, let’s get started with Miss Cissinei Saint-John

These are, of course, pictures of a girl in modern clothing. But Cissinei is actually from a world closer to 14-16th century Europe. The girl in the photo’s is Nicole Weaver, an actress.

The other person I was talking about, Holly Prescott, from the novel (the one I should be working on right now) basically looks like this.

This is actress Louise Brealey of Sherlock fame. Though the shows only like three episodes and they need to make more because I’m running out of things to watch.

Well that’s all for now.

They Can’t All Be Homosexual

Before there’s any trouble at all, I want to make it clear that this isn’t a slight at homosexuals or anything like that in the least bit. This is strictly a thing that has to do with a trend that seems to have gotten worse and worse over my years on the internet, which is basically every since it got to be the popular thing to do.

I remember with some fondness when the Fan Fiction.net site initially launched and it was probably the most glorious collection of fiction I had ever seen. Everything I liked to watch and read and play had stories on that site and possibilities seemed endless. I wasn’t there when Deviant Art launched but I joined in mid 2005 and have been going back every since. But you don’t have to have seen those sites to notice the trend I’m going to talk about although it will help.

What I mean to make mention of is how there is this very apparent trend of turning every set of characters into homosexuals. Characters that have little more to prove there’s any attraction than the fact they hang around each other. Not sure if there’s any numbers, but when it comes down to it I feel like the men on men stories are much more common than women on women, and while there’s nothing overtly wrong with these stories even, the obsession seems unnatural and it even seems to think that there’s some chance that there couple will see fulfillment on screen.

Now I really won’t go into talking about anime because they often add in little gay bits and little bits for every set of possible couples to boost their readership, it’s a bit of a sad trick and a cheap way to get readers, but its what’s going on in things like Naruto where no matter what the writer might do, there will more than likely be no real couples at the end of the story.

When I talk about this I mean shows like Doctor Who and people thinking the Doctor belongs with the Master. Or those people out there who love the Draco Harry pairing, which usually has some kind of abuse attached to it, there are Sonic and Shadow pairings out there and really just about any pair of male characters, good or bad, has a following for their pairing.

Despite most of them having no hint at all of being gay. I can’t get there the idea for this comes from but a lot of the time it seems to say something sort of bad about gays even though the girls who love the stuff (mostly its girls it seems) will swear its positive about gays.

Tell me how is it positive to portray gays as abusive, sex crazed monsters, much of the time the gay relationship is set off by someone evil, the Master, Shadow, Draco or Doctor Moriarty from Sherlock (The BBC show). Granted there were some parts that suggested and joked about Sherlock being gay, but the show creators meant them as a joke. But the internet seems to be filled with art of Watson and Sherlock and Moriarty having threesomes and the like.

The Wikipedia article on Sherlock has this to say:

Some dialogue in the first episode suggested that in this version the character Sherlock Holmes is homosexual. For instance, Holmes responds to Watson's query about his relationship status with "Girlfriend? No, not really my area". Their landlady apparently believes they are a couple, informing them "There's another bedroom upstairs ... that is if you'll be needing one". Steven Moffat denied any sexual relationship is implied between the two, while Cumberbatch says that they "do allude to the idea that there may be a 'misunderstanding' from other people who think we're a couple". Moffat continued, "It's just that thing of two blokes hanging around together living together – in this nice modern world it leads to people saying, 'Oh, are they a couple?' And that's nice. I thought how the world has changed, there is no disapproval. How much more civilized the world has become".

Now I know that its not just a new interpretation thing. In the past people have expressed thoughts that Iago from Othello might be homosexual and there were people who pointed out homosexual tendencies and allusions in the in Victor Frankenstein and his Monster. It seems that in classic literature that there is usually more to go on than there just being two men and in these cases often the character seem as the one with the longing isn’t in a relationship or ever shown to have one that really goes anywhere.

In many of the examples above the characters are shown to be straight and there’s usually not the same kind of duality between them as there is between someone like Othello and Iago.

And more importantly, when you look at the modern examples it seems that the biggest part of the relationship is the sexual aspects. The deepness and spirituality of things rarely makes it into all of these stories and pieces and a lot of the time being gay is treated as all cakes and rainbows and no one in these fictional worlds seems to question how this came about or why there was no sign of it before when it does happen.

Maybe somewhere out there people have really researched this trend and typed up some kind of distinct report about what’s going on and why and where it came from. It would be nice to know that this isn’t something I’ve just imagined, though I’m sure its not. It would also be nice to know I didn’t notice it alone.

Does anyone else think its just some silly trend that will pass or at least come with better writing as and reasons as it goes on? Or will it become more prevalent and totally without reason IE: characters that have never interacted are suddenly commonly gay for each other and recognized as such across the fandom?

The Midnight Disease

I don’t really like this notion that there’s not a good reason to be up after a certain time or that anything going on after 12 AM is sinister. I went through this argument with my parents and pretty much every older person I know. They have this old world idea that top be a good, productive member of society that you need to be up by eight in the morning for some reason.

Even though anyone who lives in a modern country should know that’s rubbish.

There are twenty-four hour pharmacists and other businesses where someone has to be manning the store or working the place. Emergency rooms are open all night, where would we be with out round the clock Police, Fire and other workers like that?

And as I’ve said it before, I write better a night. When its two in the morning I feel like I’ve hit a real stride and I’m on the way to penning something better than I would at two in the afternoon. Writing has been called The Midnight Disease and rightfully so. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with someone for wanting to be up at night, I don’t think it makes their intent more sinister.

Hell, if we’re going to talk about sinister, all of the bankers and the like that helped to profit from the failures of others were probably working nine to fives like society says they should, how sweet of them.

I’ll continue to live by the schedule I keep now until some change in my life that actually makes sense dictates otherwise. I will make sure that there’s nothing from outside influencing something as simple as the hours I keep and when I choose to work and eat and sleep.

Its Been A Long Time

Its been a long time since I really got on this thing and wrote, there’s not much to say right now really. One would assume if I haven’t found time to come on here and talk about my life or anything else, then life must be really good or really bad. Well it’s the former.

But that’s not the reason why I haven’t been around.

Life has been busy, lots of talking on the phone now with the new girlfriend. A lot of working and not enough time at night for me to come in and really write like I want to. I really have a lot to do but I don’t know when life will calm back down to the point that I can do something about it. Especially when it comes to my writing.

I’ve been taking baby steps though, writing a little bit at a time and working my way back up from the beginning. I’ve decided to go back through and rewrite the vital parts and rework some of the rest. I am working on what I want to change and I still want to finish it on the same time scale I have been saying for a while but the difference is I need to work faster now and step my game up to make sure that I meet my own deadline.

Though I’ve never had issue with it before.

A Waste of Time

I’ve decided that I pretty much want out of the online discussions about most shows I watch. I can’t handle the total abundance of stupidity people have for the material they’re watching and the fact that their opinions don’t drive the show.

You can ask someone for a fact about a show or book or movie and get something that never happened and is completely embellished by their need for X. I could sit here and give examples and break down the difference between what you think and want to happen and what actually has happened. I could talk about how the motivations given in the source material are more than likely right when they are given at all and just because it makes something you want look more likely, doesn’t mean anyone else is going to buy what you’re selling.

But really the issue isn’t all of that, it isn’t even that I think only my opinion is right or that I care so little for the opinions of most people on most things. Its just that half of the discussions amount to arguments about feelings and I don’t want to argue with someone about how I feel over something so asinine.

League of Legends Skins

I just wanted to stop in and say that I found out that Katie De Soua whom I’ve known about on Deviant Art for some time has been working for Riot games and drawing the art splashes for League of Legends.

You can see the work here.

Holly Commission by Green Desire

I had Green Desire draw me a commissioned piece of Holly Prescott from the novel. As most of you know I’m always excited to have someone do a commission for me of one of my characters and in the past I’ve posted some of their work, with the link to their pages of course. Well I wanted to post this one and I wanted to say that she is just awesome, the detail that she’s got in these pieces, especially in the fast is nothing short of amazing. Here’s a small version of the Holly picture.

Of course, click her to make it bigger. But that’s still not the full size of what she did really. Here are some detail shots.

Those are full sized detailed images of the face and hands there, I just love her work. Thanks again Green Desire!

Phases

I am starting to see that the more I have to do and the more I have on my plate the easier it becomes to sort out what I like doing and what’s important. I have limited time during the week when I’m off work so I don’t typically want to bullshit around anymore. And while I love my job it doesn’t leave me much time for the things I have to do such as writing because my ability to write seems to be based on the time of day lately. I can’t do anything worthwhile before nine PM.

I’ve been missing some of my friends though, some of the online ones and some of the ones who have moved away. What’s more shocking is the people I don’t miss, the people I might not see again and it seems I don’t care all that much about it. I guess that could be seen as cruel but many of them were more trouble than its worth.

I got a new phone this week and the first thing I did with it was send a few emails and try some skype calling out, the next thing I did was delete some old contacts. The funny thing is that even though one of my contacts has been dead for over a year and one has changed her number recently I don’t want to delete them for some reason. Both of them are still important to me and one them I still talk to.

Some others I talk to regularly just got the boot, I didn’t care to keep them around because what was there was so superficial and right now I’m just not looking for that.

One thing I want to shoot out there before I go is that my life is entering a new phase, or so I would like to think. I hope things keep looking up because its been years since I could last say they did before this.

Fear Makes For A Delicious News Day

With the recent Earthquake in Japan and the unrest over seas the one thing that is constantly surprising is how the news tries to make everything about us. Not that these things don’t effect us, they do and they should. But they don’t effect us in the selfish way that many news outlets would have you believe. It used to be that you could watch something like Glenn Beck and get his looniness spread out over the course of an hour but then other shows would be more grounded. Now he’s gotten worse and all other news here seems to be following that trend.

Everything is world ending panic. Everything is going to get us, radiation, terrorists, storms, the economy. Sometimes there’s a conspiracy between groups to get us and other times they’re all just working individually.

Here in Houston they’ve debuted this anchor free news cast that’s little more than the daily news with a voice over from some creepy guy while scary music plays and they fear-monger it up about all of the ways you or your family could die.

And before I wrap this up, on the subject of Glenn Beck. I watched about a ten minute portion of his show the other day. Oddly enough he mentioned France and England but didn’t bad mouth them. Instead he claimed the Germans are plotting to rile up the Middle East with some pictures of dead Muslims from the war zone, like eleven years of that stuff never happened and this is the first time anyone over there has ever been killed, and he’s claiming it’s a German plot to put the world against the US, UK and France.

This man is a stark raving lunatic. He should be doing that show from a padded cell and I think given time, the inevitable conclusion we can come to is that we’re going to turn on the television one night to see Glenn Beck talking to and playing with his dick and he’s going to do that for an entire hour and then say. “Alright Shepard Smith! Back to you!” and that will be it. I don’t know how anyone can listen to and believe this man and his Da Vinci Code-esque rants (they’re about as badly plotted out as the book was too).

News like him is the problem with America.

First Real Day

My first real day of work wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, it really went by fast too. Right now I’m gearing up for my second go at it.

Writing Again

I woke up this morning at 7 AM with a renewed need to edit and tear into this thing, I just needed to make it the best I could and hope that I ironed out all of the mistakes before I let anyone else see it. The notes left there by Tacia really help because they’re pretty much the only feedback of a specific nature I’ve received.

When I was talking with her last night I mentioned how it was odd, I had never been protective of writing before and I usually was more willing to let others see it but with this its not like that at all. She just said, “Well its your baby,” and I guess in a way she’s right. The story has gotten more work put into it than the previous ones and it shows in the details and things I’ve included and the notes I continue to make between calls at work and the little scenarios I dream up in the hopes I will be able to use them in future installments.

When I left off I was nearing the end of the tale with this first round of edits but I don’t know, I became too distracted and disheartened. With this renewed goal of pressing on through to the end, I figure I can clear some ground and have the story in a readable, respectable form in a matter of weeks before I go back and do some MAJOR edits.

Circumstances

I think we all hit those moments in time when we realize we’re sliding into territory we’ve been in before. We have to strive not to base our current predicaments on the past, because circumstances aren’t ever really the same. But at the same time we’re going to always look back at the last time and what happened, wondering what went wrong—if it did indeed go wrong. And if it went right, we might be trying to replicate that.

There really isn’t much in the way of “right” examples that I have to base things on and we really don’t get many second chances with the same situations or people. So I’m looking hard and evaluating everything right now, meticulously picking over the subtle nuances of the things that are going on right now and trying to understand what I can do to put things in my favor.

Work is hard, especially because I have realized more and more that a lot of the things working against you are based on the customers perception of you and sometimes you really can’t help that.

Honestly I like the work most of the time but I worry about the security of a job like that and it makes me want to fight to advance to a position where I’m not at risk for that so easily. Then there’s this other thing, probably something I really shouldn’t have on my mind at all and I’m trying my best to think of a reason not to act on it or even think about it (admittedly it will be better when I’m out of training) but there’s this girl who works with me and I just think she’s really cute.

Oddly enough she makes me really nervous, but I don’t even know how to act on something like that in a workplace setting so I am pretty afraid to even progress that. And if I did do anything with it, it seems like the kind of place where some sophomoric bullshit could ruin your relationship if not careful.

Tomorrow is the last day of my training, so that fixes one small part of one problem, but the overwhelming majority of the stuff is still going to be of issue.

What Are We Coming To?

It’s worrying to me the state of people. When I consider the kinds of things that people say and think are okay. For instance I went on an anime forum I used to frequent and was just reading the section meant for real world news. Never mind the fact that all too often the things in there pertaining video games and other BS like that get more rage and attention than news about people being murdered or brutally raped.

But when someone’s first reaction to the Earthquake in Japan is to say “I hope this won’t effect my manga this week” all I can think is I wish someone would kick them in the throat. Hard.

That kind of asinine attitude is just the kind of thing that shows the deplorable selfishness that seems to be everywhere. To add onto that, a friend of mine seems to have killed herself, I’ve been absent from the internet a lot lately and she left the suicide note on her Deviant Art. We weren’t really close, but I’m made madder by the fact that people were egging her on to kill herself and talking about how she didn’t matter…how it didn’t matter that her father was basically evil to her and her mother and all the pain he had caused in her life. They teased her about her feelings toward herself and her feeling of self worthlessness.

And to them this was a joke and it was funny and they didn’t have remorse for it, I’d doubt they had remorse for her being dead if they knew. I hope that the note was a fake, or she didn’t do it or at the very least someone found her and stopped her before it was too late. I know we weren’t the closest but I don’t think that means she deserves to die.

But what I find sadder is that people believe that ANYONE deserves to suffer and die like that. 

It’s hard to feel like you deserve anything, when you don’t feel like you even deserve to get up in the morning.

…

I thought having a job and something I was good at and doing for more than just the money would make me not hate myself. But I was pretty much wrong. No matter what its always there and I just don’t think this is going to pass like everyone says it will.

And with that realization and the recent events going on around me I’ve lost the last bit of faith I had in others.

Just Two More Days

My work week ends after just two more days. I’m so excited I’m noting it down here.

Bad Luck

If I ever had luck, it wasn’t the good kind. I guess it depends on if you believe in that sort of thing. If you think that there’s any merit to how many good and bad things happen to a person on a cosmic scale of some kind. I don’t.

But if I did I would believe I’m ill fated.

The other day, after driving my car for weeks without incident. I was driving out to get some food and I suddenly get a dinging and my dash board is all lit up. Apparently the car was over heating—something its done before and was fixed for recently. Now an entirely new coolant system is acting up and water’s not being pulled from the reservoir into the car.

I looked into it online and it appears that my car has an issue with coolant system troubles.

Right now I can’t afford to fix it, I mean it could be well over 700 dollars so it would take most of my next two checks to do something about it. And I’m hoping its just a hose or thermostat or something simple, but like I said—if I had any luck it would be the bad kind.

So I’m going to give putting water in the car one more try and if that fails I guess I need to explore the thermostat option.

There’s so much else going on, a lot I don’t really want to talk about with anyone and its all internal, I wouldn’t vocalize it. But I hate myself for having these problems and not being able to work them out to any kind of satisfaction.

Regret

When there’s more turmoil around me I seem to use this place that much more. I just wanted to say that first.

Normally I would have responded to the comments from the last entry in the comment tree itself, but I figured why not just do it here.

The thing is, that I’ve been talked into trusting people again before and giving them another chance and just generally letting all of that back in and every time it ends up the same way. If insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting a new result then why am I doing just that when it comes to trust. I don’t understand the benefit of it, when things are okay, sure it feels fine.

But when it goes bad its not worth it and all you can do is regret what you let happen.

Trust

I’ve started a new job, which I guess is the big news for me this week but there’s not much to say about it. I hate having to wake up at four AM just to make it there on time but what can I do about it right now?

But writing about work seems to be a waste of my time, no one would be all that interested in it.

The thing that’s been on my mind for some time now is that how I think I’ve been losing the ability to trust people anymore. Be it either because they refuse to trust me no matter how much I show them its okay—its not reactionary, not like I’m trying to get them back—but when someone doesn’t trust you it can be guessed that they might not stick by you when things get rough.

Or it could be that of all the people I have put trust in, the thing that seems to most consistently come from it is harm. I don’t think in any friendship, relationship or anything I’ve ever come out as the person who didn’t get hurt. Its not that I want someone’s feelings to get hurt, but its kind of telling that its always me.

I guess I have no one to blame but myself, if I’m choosing the people I trust I seem to make bad choices or I could just choose to believe that this is just what people do and I’m being naïve and these constant mistakes and the times I get hurt are a lesson…I should be learning to listen and not make the same mistake. Which seems to be trusting others.

Still I’m trying to hang onto it for some people, but I just don’t see that happening at this point.

Tradition

Not much to say, I am just pretty sure I’ve said things before on this day. I’m about to hit the hay and wanted to say first day on the job complete.