Spring.

Today, Mudslinger and I watched as a bunch of Spanish speaking new residents peacefully gathered in the ABC Island sandbox and learned how to build. I'm not absolutely sure who the teacher was or if there even was one, as we didn't want to disrupt them by asking, but the scene definitely had a strange classroom-like serenity.

It's odd...

I can't remember the last time I'd felt so warm inside. Personally, I'm not big on babies or their first anythings, but the feeling I got can only be described as the same inner joy people feel when they watch children taking their first steps.

SL has slowly become more jaded and troll riddled to me over the last two years. Seeing this gave me an almost alien feeling.

I think the word is hope...

I'm giving myself a little over a week...

So, I'm giving myself a little over a week to decide whether or not I am going to actually compete in the tournament of secrets. As I'd said before, the last minute censorship has really got me bent. I feel like I've been had by a bait and switch. The fact that the examples I was given weren't under the same creative constraints was A MAJOR factor in my decision to enter in the first place.

I face a very uncomfortable dilemma.

If I lose, depending on who it's to, I might harbor resentment and point to the censorship even if I don't say so. It will eat at me and make me bitter.

If I don't try, I'll have wasted a great deal of time conceptualizing. Literally, I've written 41 pages of warm up material.

Strike that. I suppose I should be thankful that I was inspired to write the character I did in the first place. If nothing else, it will have given me a bit of focus I had been looking for.

I suppose I have nothing to lose but time and sanity.

Mas Tequilla!

Val.

Vulgar condescension...

A foreword: This may turn into something I may privately message someone, as I felt wounded by their insensitivity towards a situation. It's petty, to say the least. VERY petty, but I write what I feel and that's all I can say. Well that and thank you to an anonymous wise person for a little insight given this past month.

This week, I entered the Tournament of Secrets. It's a writing competition in The Secret World forums. For two weeks I honed the character I intended to enter. I've managed to write 40+ pages as a warm up exercise, to develop that character.

Only after the sign-ups had begun, did the contest head decide to mention that the entries would require censorship, so that the admins could point attention to the competition.

The reasoning was good. I accepted it, provided a compromise of being able to write f*** in place of the word fuck. I was annoyed, but placated, as this condition wasn't mentioned until well after I had worked myself into a frenzy of enthusiasm. Disappointments like this are why I generally subdue any and all expectations. I aim low because the ceiling is almost always lowered by outside forces.

Anyway, as I was saying, I had privately messaged the head and reached what I felt was an acceptable compromise.

And then someone made light of it by saying that people could be crass without swearing.

...

I personally feel that the comment was not only condescending, but ignorant.

When I write, I do so with a palette that covers all colors. Saying that the phrase "It's a frigging piece of crap!" conveys the same feelings as "It's a fucking piece of shit!" is retarded. The former doesn't hold the same amount of rancor and acrimony as the latter, and creative writing is about conveying the full weight of a situation. To express something without dilution. Declaring vulgarity as being artless is the height of myopia. There are situations where vulgarity is not only warranted, but appropriate, and saying otherwise shows a lack of insight into the art of writing on the whole. You use the right word to suit the situation, vulgar or no.

In short, just because you "paint in pastels" doesn't mean that someone who "paints tenebristically" can do so with your color scheme. It's not simply about being crass, it's about expressing the full weight of frustrastion or outrage, and censoring that effectively pulls the punch and detracts from the work.

The fact that you had the gaul to try to invalidate my personal style was insulting, and I would appreciate an appology.

And before you try to justify your stance, I challenge you to dull your own palette to see how it feels.

I dare you to write your entire story without using the word beautiful. Instead you may use words like pretty or cute, as they convey that something is aesthetically pleasing, but in a more diluted manner.

It's the same damned thing.

The question isn't whether or not the word beautiful is offensive. The question is whether or not making light of someone else having their writing style handicapped is in good taste.

TSW Writing competition

So I recently dipped back into The Secret World forums and found that they will be holding the 3rd installation of what they refer to as The Tournament of Secrets. Basically it's a writing competition based off of The Secret World, an MMO still in closed Beta that is set in modern day. 

The idea behind it is that all the old legends and myths are true, as are most of the conspiracy theories. Your character is a member of one of three secret societies; The Templars, The Illuminati, and The Dragon. Each secret society uses the others as it sees fit in attaining it's own ultimate goals. The Templars(Europe) are about tradition and "defeating the unholy", The Illuminati (America) are about attaining power, and The Dragon(Asia) are about maintaining greater balance through chaos (mainly by keeping the other two at eachother's throats). The continents mentioned aren't exclusive when it comes to membership. There are members of all 3 factions from around the globe, but they definately hold power on their own respective continents. However, recent events have unfolded and ancient evils have begun to surface that are a large enough threat to make all 3 factions form a sort of uncomfortable alliance of sorts. They still play their machiavellian games at each others expense, but they do cooperate a bit more on the surface atleast.

Having done a little reading on the structure of the 2nd competition, I decided to do a retroactive entry of sorts to stretch my creative muscle. Since I had tested as a dragon, I decided to stick with it for my story character. So over the past few days I've been coming up with the personality of Kelly Green, a call boy from Southern California. Part of the competition involved writing up a sort of Bio for the character so that they could be written into the other contestants stories (which I've included most of at the bottom of the introductory story). As the competition progressed, characters would be picked off(non-lethally) and storylines would begin to take dominance, so that remaining contestants would have to follow another writers previous line, at least that's what I think was go

P.L.U.R.

So I was surfing YouTube and I came across this...

DJ Tiesto - Olympic Flame

and I thought to myself, wow that's beautiful.

I make no qualms, I'm an old Trance monkey.

For those who don't know, P.L.U.R. stands for Peace, Love, Unity and Respect. I'm pretty sure it was part of the whole Trance genre back in the 90's, and I know I still see it occasionally used even today. I dunno, maybe it was just a Cali thing.

Anyway, I don't know why, but I decided to read the comments and this grabbed my attention:

"You say Lady Gaga, I say Dash Berlin
You say Hannah Montana, I say Ferry Corsten
You say Owl City, I say Above & Beyond
You say Jonas Brothers I say Markus Schulz
You say Justin Bieber, I say TIESTO
You say Taylor Swift, I say Aly & Fila
95% of teens these days listen to the same formulaic,crappy pop over and over again. If you're one of the 5% who still listens to real music, thumb this up, then copy and paste it to at least 5 videos. Don't let the spirit of Trance die"


That was the top comment. Thumbed up by 13 people.

I think I heard the spirit of trance die a little more.

Why is it that fans, and sometimes artists, feel the need to validate their own art/likes by bashing on the art/likes of others? Why do we let our own insecurities voice themselves like this? I'm pretty sure I do it myself on occasion, though over the past 10 years I've made a point of trying not to.

Of course I made a comment on the comment... couldn't resist. >.>

Does that invalidate everything I just said? 

Oh look! A distraction! O.O

Oh! The humanity!

So Bryn Oh pulled a fast one on me and had me checking her entry about the Fetid Inner Core list for my name.

Quoth the Valentine, "Heehaw."

I  go overdose on nutmeg and left-over V-day candy nao. >.>

On a positive note I managed a few leaps and bounds in scripting today. Toady usually says "reads like english" when she takes a look at a script that's well written. What I managed this week would probably read more like the cover of a David Sedaris book ("Me talk pretty someday!"). But I'm happy with it nonetheless. I do have to say that Aftershok has been a fantastic muse. The little projects she gives me provide me with enough structure to have a visible goal without stifling me. The fact that we both have mildly warped senses of humor definately helps.

Happy day!

I just felt like posting something I found today that kind of uplifted me.

Firework

It's something I wish alot more people could understand. It's such a simple song/concept, but it's something everyone needs to grasp at some point.
And it's something that people should probably grasp around this time of year. Valentine's day has the potential to pick off some of the suicidal stragglers that survived the holiday season. Romance and relationships are so heavily emphasized today that those who are alone are bound to feel it all the more.

Yea, I know. I'm basically posting the blog equivalent of that "Hang in there, baby!" poster. But a little trite well wishing can be good every now and then.

Something else I just thought I'd mention is that a friend of mine sent me the most beautiful sculpted rose I'd ever seen, and even though it was just a friendly gesture, I'm pretty sure it was the first time anyone has EVER sent me a flower on Valentine's day.

With that said,
Happy Valentine's Day.

<3 Valentine