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

[8:16:29 AM] Friend on skype: alright enough about rent and shit
[8:16:35 AM] Friend on skype: the other important question
[8:16:55 AM] Friend on skype: what should i get (Partner's name here) for you day?
[8:17:17 AM] Friend on skype: as in your name is Valentine, hint hint
[8:17:39 AM] Friend on skype: and no Valentines Day is not a day about you
[8:17:45 AM] Friend on skype: ;P
[8:17:49 AM] Valentine Easterwood: D=
[8:17:53 AM] Friend on skype: it could be
[8:17:58 AM] Valentine Easterwood: Hmmm...
[8:18:02 AM] Valentine Easterwood: Thinking....
[8:18:03 AM] Friend on skype: if someone was your partner
[8:18:05 AM] Friend on skype: and loved you
[8:18:48 AM] Valentine Easterwood: I am my own Valentine. ^^
[8:19:13 AM] Friend on skype: was wanting to get her something in RL
[8:19:20 AM] Friend on skype: like a heart pendant or something
[8:19:23 AM] Valentine Easterwood: Therefore, I never have to think about anyone else for said day and so IT IS all about me.
[8:19:25 AM] Friend on skype: but
[8:19:35 AM] Friend on skype: i dunno
[8:44:25 AM] Valentine Easterwood: Have you ever met in real life?
[8:44:47 AM] Friend on skype: i wish
[8:45:15 AM] Valentine Easterwood: Find a florist near where she lives and have flowers delivered.
[8:45:28 AM] Valentine Easterwood: Assuming you have her address.
[8:46:15 AM] Friend on skype: Kalith pushes his digits together.
[8:46:50 AM] Valentine Easterwood: ?
[8:47:25 AM] Friend on skype: isn't that going a little overboard?
[8:47:28 AM] Friend on skype: i mean
[8:47:29 AM] Friend on skype: i dunno
[8:47:33 AM] Friend on skype: i want to do it
[8:47:42 AM] Friend on skype: don't know how she'll react
[8:48:04 AM] Valentine Easterwood: Well you were talking about sending her a pendant.
[8:48:40 AM] Valentine Easterwood: What were you going to do? Wrap it in rice, feed it to a pigeon and pray she'd find it on a statue at the park?

(update: He sent her flowers. ^^
  And I bought myself chocolate... ALOT of chocolate. >.>)

The good, the bad, and the amaretto...

The Good:
So, Torley gave the OK to use his music on a stream. Katisha actually put it into a hud people can wear since there's no way to get ahold of Abbi for a week or two to change the stream in ABC. I'm going to try to get a stream going for Versage at some point, but for now I'm placing that project on the secondary priority list.

The Bad:
Update: Having reread this part, I think I may need an attitude adjustment as this really isn't who I want to be. I'll leave what I wrote (with 2 sentence tweaks for mitigation) so that I will remember, AND because I try to be honest with myself and others as best I know how.

The ABC hunt isn't getting much attention, so I'll likely have to do a little friend fishing. I really hate doing that for projects that aren't entirely my own simply because I'm often unsure about other peoples work. Sounds snobby, I know, but I just don't like the thought of my cred with friends going down because of the mixed bag that comes with sharing projects. I prefer to hold out for things that I KNOW will impress them, to avoid just becoming a "Hey come here and check out this thing I helped make" spammer. I only bug my friends to see either projects that I myself am VERY proud of, or things that other people have made that WOW me. Prime examples include sims like Blue Galaxy, Drowsy*, Avaria, Immersiva, Pteron and a handful of others.

*This sim gets SUPER WOW points. FUCKING CHECK OUT DROWSY!

The Amaretto:
Ann has turned Versage 1 into a ranch.
Horses, horses everywhere and not a OH GOD IT'S TRYING TO EAT ME! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!.

Ok, so they aren't the mares of Diomedes, but damnit those things are dangerous. They multiply and multiply and before you know it your sim is overwhelmed by the damned things. They're sort of like tribbles, but less cute and more prone to lagging down sims with collision and scripts. 10-20 of them, not so bad. Their script time is good in and of itself as far as I've seen. But when their owners start pairing them and adding some 70s bass to the mix, oy.

...

I think I'll make a can of dogfood based on them.

(scurries away to put his diabolical plan into action).

Getting loaded...

For the past few days SL has only been loading a little less than half my inventory. As you can imagine, this can really put the kabosh on my ability to get things done. First and foremost, I don't have access to my water effect for the tunnel, and the megaprim that was there is gone. In addition to inventory disappearing, fully rezzed objects have been disappearing.
 Another thing that went tits to heaven was the full perm commision that Ayanna had made for me. The men's suit disappeared. Fortunately she had another copy, which she has sent me and I was able to get a copy of the script from another build of mine. So far the crisis is averted.

The Lion, The witch, and the sofa.

Ok, so I've tightened the tunnel of love a bit and have put some trees and lily-pads in the portion of the tunnel with the lion and Maji-Tembo in it.

Now I just need to find a way to gently ask Kit to remove the seat he placed in the tunnel of love. There are a few problems with it being there, the largest of which is that it creates a stationary place for people to sit around and cuddle in. What happens if another couple comes along and the couple in there doesn't want to leave? Kinda kills the mood, neh?

That said, we've decided that since Kit joined the admin after the planning had been put into effect we will give him a project. A little seating area. I think a nice little picnic spot would be ideal.  We could set it up on the ground so that it'd be a spot for public leisure and light cuddlosity. I'll happily toss a few trees his way and let him put them where he likes, maybe provide some picnicky type stuff, and help him hunt for poses, etc. The only thing is, it has to be somewhere where it can be lightly monitored to prevent people from going all "Bow-chica-wow-wow".

Can't sleep... trees too beautiful. @_@

I'm too excited about the new trees I bought. They're beautiful. I'm all full of "Eeeeeeeeee!" type energy at the moment. I'm exhausted, but can't sleep... oh god. Note to self: Don't buy cool shit before needing sleep. @_@

Now, to get the grass changed to something I can work with... >.>

Sashe-chalet!

Ann has decided to try to make ALSHELH into a rental sim with chalets. Hopefully that goes well. I don't know if it's all that great an idea. Alshelh is arabic for "the group", and it seems that anytime a group of people rent it, they wind-up becoming a group of morons that turn on her. I was really hoping we could do something involving the Vetox Simball game in there, but I don't foresee it now. I'm trying to take a positive stance toward this project, but to be honest my heart isn't in it. I get the feeling this will not end well, but all I can really do is be there for her if it doesn't.

Ok, enough doom and gloom.

1)Think positively! It might work out...
2)A little something by OneyG for your distraction and amusement.
3)Profit!

Hindsight is 20/20

So I finally get the second part of the tunnel of love how I want it. Rather than do pillowgriffs or anything quite like that I took the avarian deer avatar and made it into a statue of a white hart. I wound up making 4 of them in there, each slightly different from the others. I still need to finish the first half, but I'm not sure how. I may have painted myself into a corner with regards to that, so it may come down to starting over in there. In the meantime, here is a preview of things to come.

The Tunnel of Love: Use lube before entering please.

So yea, it's actually coming along nicely. I found some beautiful trees at Alirium. The iced trees have a wonderful pastel aesthetic and, while I would love to buy the normal colored versions, the creator is asking ALOT so those I'm holding off on for now. The second half of the tunnel I gave a sort of rhapsody in blue feel. All in all I'm very pleased. I have to fill in the space a little, but I'm not sure what with yet... something innocent looking. At this point I'm considering something like pillowgriffs, but I'm not sure I really want to go there. That might be a little too innocent. Not to mention those are very decidedly a Flea/Toadyism. Perhaps... something like what Toady and Flea had in their ice garden. They had an ungal with a bird in it's hands and several more perched on it's antlers. Not that exactly, just something as serene looking.

I still have to purchase pianoverse and contact Torley regarding whether or not I may use it on a stream. So much to get done, so little sanity.

A basket of stones. A basket of shells.

Ann was on her medication and a bit out of it. Sometimes I worry about what she takes and the dosages. I often find it reassuring that Hechmet is there with her. Still I worry...
I also found out that another friend has lost their job because they made multiple bully complaints (I pressume against a supervisor).
My plans regarding Nassar and Simball have been waylaid since he logged and hasn't come back on.

A few more stones picked up along the road, but not exactly a burden unmanageable.

On a positive note, I received a personal confirmation that my theory about the finite nature of the harvest supplies in Avaria was correct.So I harvested another 20-30 bags of sand.
I also received a compliment on my lanterns.
I noticed that someone who had "left" SL more than a year ago now has a display name... which is a recently created option.

Hmmmmm....

Life's a beach, so gather a few shells as keepsakes to remember there's more to it than the sand that gets in your ass-crack.

Day 1

A harsh winter is in the process of idling it's way to completion. With a little pre-emptive spring cleaning behind me, now is the time to get things in order.

Tonight I'm going to try to get some work done on the Tunnel of Love for ABC island. I'm not displeased with what I've managed so far. The center consists of one of my wisp-lanterns next to a New Trails Spring-feast tree. I'm told it's a very beautiful effect. I really need to get some sculpting done to reduce the prim count on those lanterns though.

But first on my to do list is get Nassar aquainted with Simball. Hopefully if I can really get him worked up, we'll be able to set up an arena in the sims. I really foresee great things for this game. It's just what SL needs to give it the breath of life. An interactive sport that people can get into.

The rules are quite simple. Grab the ball from one of the 3 random ball spawners and race to the goal without getting touched by the opponents or running into one of the pegs along the course.

Now, to get things rolling...