Tense.

you’re not here
you’re not there
you’re not anywhere in between
you’re the arrival
and the leaving
you are the gross miscalculation
the careful punctuation
the kingdom of lepers cradling the cure

beware the carrion swarm
they come for your heart
they have no schedule
they don’t wait for trains
they’ve tried to catch you before
and failed, future perfect indicative

I couldn’t begin to teach you
all the things I’ve failed
on principle of consistency
I don’t play with dice
I hold no hands
I am screaming for someone
anyone
anyone
to fix everything
I don’t think you’re worthy
and I don’t think he can handle it

and he’s been coming, past predicated
with impressive speed
he’s a flyer of spectacularly bad aim
and he aims to win
and he keeps on keeping on
no matter what I say
no matter what you fuck up
he will keep on keeping our secrets
he will keep on smashing down walls
and the occasional fruit cart

we could have started sooner
but that would necessarily skew
everything, present encompassing authoritative
we just can’t help ourselves
it’s our nature to take them head on
safety goggles be damned
we are the ultimate power play
with all the honesty of a laugh track
we will destroy the world
and make it over in our image
stand back, adjust
and try again
there’s always, always
always
more time.

More character theory.

I call this one my "Inertia" theory.

Personality is the emergent effect of "raw personality" in the presence of an environment, which by nature is constantly in flux, rendering the resulting human being as complex and also in flux.

A "raw personality" is a set of dominant traits of varying intensities. each trait counts as a strength and a weakness. Because of the nature of humans and their environments - the constant flux - there is no way to have a pure strength or a pure weakness. There will always be two sides to any coin regarding personality traits. Therefore there is no such thing as a "bad" trait. Any perceived "badness" will always have a "goodness" attached. Perception of the "goodness" or "badness" of traits is subject to the flux of society and individuals.

Because under this system "perfection" is impossible, this ensures that no one can ever be truly boring.

Perfection as a goal has meaning and is interesting. Perfection as attained is boring. Lack of variation renders it so.

This is why the smarter religions promise perfection after death. It guarantees lifelong struggle. Which isn't a problem, since that's what people do anyway.


Inertia theory:
People in motion stay in motion.
People at rest are boring and don't get video games made about them.

Force characters and demise.

I was thinking the other day about developing Force characters with their deaths in mind.

(A Force is a character with an extremely plain life arc, existing to represent an idea. I talk more about this concept - and Jack - in my Pirates post.)

I took six powerful Force characters from other stories and examined what they represented, whether they died or not, and why. Three are villains, three are heroes.

Jack Sparrow - Pirates trilogy
Hero/lives
Represents quirky, brilliant pirate-rogue stereotype - the total freedom of the open sea. The message of the trilogy is that pirates never die, so Jack, as their core embodiment, can't either.

Tyler Durden - Fight Club
Villain/dies
Represents the rage and chaotic anarchy caged inside young professionals. Message is that Tyler's identity must be merged with the main and it's unhealthy to let it run rampant - so it's necessary for him to be destroyed. (I go into more detail on Tyler in my Fight Club analysis.)

Ra's Al Ghul - Batman Begins
Villain/dies
Represents extreme vigilante-ism, with no compassion or allowance for repentance. By defeating him the hero proves his rejection of this philosophy.

The Joker - The Dark Knight
Villain/lives
Represents pure, unbridled chaos - so pure it could be compared to a god like Loki. Because the hero is the advocate of order, it stands to reason that without chaos - without the Joker - the hero would not exist - and the other way around. Therefore both survive their encounter.

Julia - Cowboy Bebop
Heroine/dies
Represents Spike's capacity to love - and all that he is capable of loving. She is therefore what makes him arguably immortal (arguable in light of the extreme odds against him). Her passing signals the end of his immunity to death.

V - V for Vendetta
Hero/dies
Represents pure revolution, against injustice. Recognizes that he, as Revolution, is incapable of existing in the world of freedom he strives to create, and so must pass away. The self-knowledge only adds to his heroism.

Looking at these characters, I'm left with the impression that whether a Force lives or dies - when done well like these six are - hugely impacts the plot. Rather, the plot dictates the necessity of them living or dying, based on what they represent, and that idea's relation to the story you're trying to write. They are just as meaningful - if not more so - than fully-rounded character deaths. Because they represent a concept that is of massive importance to the overall theme of the story, Force characters' actions are the base chords of harmony that the melody of the rest dances to. Without these kinds of characters, clear direction of meaning is difficult to achieve. On the other end of the spectrum, a story made exclusively of Force characters is very shallow (i.e. parables and fables).

The beauty, once again, is in the balance. Idea-driven Forces carefully weighted by well-rounded, heavily complex main characters. When they put aside their differences and work together, awesome stuff happens. Ass gets kicked. The day gets saved. Little kids get muffins.

Muffin...*drool*

I will not apologize.

Things I'm fairly nuts about right now:

• Buffy
• Big Bang Theory
• Egypt
• getting Umi's mining Outlands-ready
• Doctors and Byzantines
• Coheed & Cambria
• old playlists (esp. Kate's)
  
• tuna sashimi
• Ren's bio (I wrote) and Leda's story (I did not)
  
• breakfast
• The Venture Bros.
• Pallas and Su-Yong
  

Melty.

Gehhh! Aine has been melting down her brain to make fake land and unhappy people. This is working well, but as a result I am no good for anything except reading stupid girly manga and playing more IX. I mean really. I don't even have the brain power for WoW. That's saying something.

The soundtrack for Amelie is amazing. I am ashamed to admit I've never seen the movie.

Watchmen melteth what smidgeon of brain I have leftover. I am supremely pleased with their casting choices for Rorschach, Dan, and Adrian. (Adrian wasn't even all that interesting to me until I saw the movie...) I personally felt they could have made better choices for the Comedian and Laurie, but I'm 100% satisfied with how they were written - in fact, I'm completely satisfied with every aspect of the writing. Have you any idea how rare that is for an adapted material? Wait...I don't think that's ever happened...

That's the punchline.

Rarr.

Rarr: (n, v, adj, particle) a primordial sound of flexible meaning, used to garner attention and occasionally cause confusion to the speaker's audience.

Hello March.

I've been having far too much fun at work. I'm once again in no-holds-barred mode where I get to populate whatever the hell I want ad infinitum. I've got 55 pages of brand new character bios and zone descriptions at the moment, expanding daily. Wikipedia, my favorite source of truthiness, would like me to stop pestering it but I don't see that happening anytime soon. My royalty fetish shows itself rather strongly...I'm trying to make sure that I balance the angst and intrigue (rarr) amongst all the assorted peoples.

Playing: FF IX (again [I'm on a WoW hiatus])

Watching: the 10th Kingdom (again)

Cooking: Bruschetta

Listening to:

• Urbs - Toujours le même film
  
• Bruno Coulais - Coraline soundtrack
• my Mona Lisa Radio station on Pandora

I really need new clothes. And by clothes I mean pants. The destruction of my corduroys was a serious blow to my wardrobe. Luckily, Kait and I have plans to hit Nashville on spring break. Rarr.

Also Into Cats

I forgot how awesome this was...Fall Out Boy doesn't do pronunciation well...

Helloooo I love Final Fantasy IX. Vivi is my homeboy. Their battle/levelling system is still not cool, and the villains are impossibly lame, but I continue to play this game because it has the best dialogue of all the Final Fantasies I've played. Plus my favorite love story ending. Also did I mention Vivi? Ok.

My brain hurts. >.<

Happy...?

25...ouch.

Well at least people still give me stuff. :)

Gaeta's Extra Crispy Bucket.

Ash has inspired me to put a little more effort back into my blogmonster. So. Hello, I am Chef Ren du Hyperion et Ravenholdt...yes, I'm a total nerd, is this somehow a problem...?

Lost continues to melt my face. Oh, how I love that show. While Battlestar continues to be meaningless talking heads. /sigh What happened to you guys? Where went the characters whose lives I actually cared about? I know it's not the actors faults...I actually feel sorry for them...

The juxtaposition of one-legged Gaeta with constant KFC commercials is diabolically amusing, however. Who approved that ad placement...? Gawrsh...

If I had a nickel for every time I used ellipses... I'd have about 35 cents. Can I raise the rate on that?

I've been watching clips of Monty Python's Flying Circus on youtube, and now I've got a hankering to buy the series. Those guys are the masters of the "Huh?" School of Comedy. ATHF, eat your heart out.

A couple of really cool games you can play online:

Auditorium - this is a minimalistic but highly challenging audio-visual type of puzzle game that must be seen (and heard) to be believed. You can play the first three acts for free - the full 15 acts are available for a nominal $10.99. Also, it has a nifty feature where it remembers where you left off without you having to "save" anywhere. Aine gives two glowy thumbs up.

Closure - a platforming game that plays with various properties of light - some imagined. It's totally free - you just need Flash 9 (also free) for it to work properly. Aine has not beaten this yet. >.<

I was thinking about Lost the other day - about how the actual concept of the show is nothing special - survivors of a plane crash on a mysterious island.  What sets this show apart is its characters. So, I thought to myself, how do you reverse engineer that? Like, if I were handed that premise, what  would I have done that would have led me to their facemelting result?

Well. I probably would have asked two questions: Who would be the last people you would want to be stuck on an island with? Now - how do you make them absolutely indispensable?

I think this is a excellent theory of character design I just stumbled upon.

WoW update.

The Priest is rocking her Scarlet Monastery gear, and now looks like a proper smiter of the living. She makes that chapeau look good. I'm planning to hit 40 tonight. In my head she has the title of "the Abyss." I named her skeleton horse Gwyneth Paltrow.

Ren is just 2 recipes away from the Chef title - provided I get 21 points in cooking as well. At the moment she has precisely 4k ranged attack and 29% crit chance, which I am very proud of. I'm happy that my LW has really come in handy for my guild in this expansion. I've been able to make a lot of gear and leg armor to help my guildies through their grind to 80.

I started my 4th re-rolled Death Knight. I've had a hard time finding one that felt right. This one's a troll, and she's kinda growing on me. I've never felt attached to a troll before. Hopefully she's a keeper.

There's a shirt I really want from cafepress. I'm leaning towards the spaghetti strap one.