In Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan books, there is a naming system for the nobility that is rooted in Tradition, or at least the tradition of the planet in question. (Barrayar, which has vague Russian overtones, and which apparently has roots in the Klingon homeworld, but that's another matter.)

The firstborn son will take on the the first names of his grandfathers on either side, with the paternal grandfather's name as his first name, and the maternal grandfather's as his middle name. Therefore, if the child's grandfathers are Piotr Pierre Vorkosigan and Miles Mark Naismith, and Piotr Pierre Vorkosigan is his paternal grandfather, then the child's name will be Piotr Miles Vorkosigan.

(Yes, I know plot doesn't make it so, but this is just an example.)

The secondborn son will take on the names of the second (middle) names of his grandfathers on either side, but reversed: the maternal grandfather's middle name is his first name, and the paternal grandfather's is his middle name. So the secondborn grandson of the above Piotr Pierre Vorkosigan and Miles Mark Naismith would be Mark Pierre Vorkosigan.

So. How many generations would it take for there to be a Piotr Pierre after the first one? As in, the shortest number of generations, and a curious drive to see this result as efficiently as possible?

I was trying to work this out in my head, but realised that I don't actually know enough about the setting. I was assuming no marriages closer than second cousins (which darkly fits both the "backwards planet" and the "inbred nobility" stereotypes), and no more than two sons per set of parents. There isn't much about naming conventions for female offspring, which kind of makes in-setting sense considering the patriarchal system, which does get called out many many times in-universe as being backwards and stupid.

Tags: geekery, ramblings

How distinct is art from its medium? As in, when does "art" begin, and the medium on which that art is expressed end? Or are they intertwined?

I was just thinking about this when considering Games As Art. Would a game with great story, presentation, music, graphics, so on and so forth still be considered "art" if it were crippled by technical flaws? Could a game ever be art because of its technical flaws? Or, to put it less negatively, its technical limitations?

I would assume that it makes a difference whether a drawing is done on watercolour or crayons, or a sculpture on marble or ice. Would the art-game be different if it was on a PS3 versus a XBox360? How about a PS2 versus a PS3? A XBox360 versus a NES?

This thought was sparked by yet another debate on whether Games can be Art. The primary objections I can see are that firstly games are often tied to the system they are developed for not through artistic merit, but by commercial considerations: even is a game on a PS2 is Art, it cannot be played on a XBox360 if it's a Sony-exclusive, and if there is no commercial interest for emulation. (Non-commercial interest tends to run either towards charity or bootlegging.) I've heard Planescape: Torment cited as "good game-as-art", but I've never been able to play it because it seems to be out of print.

Secondly, something can be one part Art, but the rest not as much. Taking the Planescape: Torment example, the story and presentation and whatnot may be Art, but is the combat system Art? Or is it just an inconvenience that has nothing to do with Art value, like having to book a ticket to France to travel to the Louvre?

Thirdly, the skills used to appraise Art do not often have much to do with the skills used to play a game. Art-appreciators are not required to have twitch-reflexes. If the Art bits are gated based on gaming skill, then the Art can only be witnessed by proxy: someone posting the stuff on Youtube, or transcribing the script, or whatnot. Is this different from seeing a picture of the Mona Lisa on Wikipedia instead of seeing it for yourself?

Fourthly, a game that is Art may not end up being a very good game at all. Which ties in to all that comes before: if a game is intended to be Art but has sucky gameplay, is full of bugs, and is unnecessarily difficult or pointless, then can it be Art?

Tags: ramblings

So I may be turning into the sort of person who quite literally follows his dreams. Not in the Look To Inspiration sort of way, but more like a Wannabe Oracle of Delphi.

Last night's dream was predictably geeky/nerdy/dorky: two things happened, both in no way life-changing or serious, but more of the sort of "oh hey, that's interesting" kind of way. The first was that City of Heroes Issue 16 had entered Open Beta, and this gave me a little start when I woke up and it turned out to be true.

Which means that I'm seriously considering the second dream occurrence: for some reason, in that nocturnal world, I got back into World of Warcraft.

Now, this doesn't mean that I'm tired of City of Heroes or anything: indeed, with I16 closer to Live release, even now I am considering the possibilities of colour. But since I've been tempted by Champions Online anyway, the mental barrier for paying for two MMOGs has been lowered.

I'm well aware that the last two times I tried WoW, I quit in disgust. It would not be fair, however, if I did not admit that my disgust may have been due to subconscious bias: a sort of "why isn't it more like this", where this is some other game or feature.

If I remember correctly, there were three things I could do to improve my experience in WoW:

- Get a UI add-on
A number of complaints I had were due to UI problems, broadly speaking. For example, when a quest giver tells me to "go to that ruined tower to the southwest", I have no idea where I'm supposed to go, other than vaguely southwest. Is it directly southwest? Is it more south than west? Are they talking about this tower which looks kind of ruined, but that may just be the art style? Or this collection of ruins which may have been a tower, once?

Installing some kind of UI helper may solve this sort of thing.

- Remove all chat from windows
Both times I played WoW, broadcast chat had nothing but flamewars, trolling, and "hey let's go pwn some low-levels" calls. (Also "help me make some item, my materials" stuff, which invariably led to flamewars.) Private chat had nothing but RMT requests. Removing them entirely will likely save me a lot of aggravation, and lose nothing of value.

- Play in windowed mode if possible
My biggest complaint was that the gameplay was slow. I found that I was basically paying for a game where I had to find some other way to entertain myself while my character strolled very slowly from point A to point B.

I'm going to see if I can spend that time watching anime or something, thus making more efficient use of my free time. This is dependent on my computer being able to handle it.

Overall, I am of the sneaking suspicion that all this is because what I really plan to do is play Champions Online as a "side game" to City of Heroes, but I'm hesitant about the whole "brand new game" aspect of it (ie bugs, launch issues, gameplay immaturity). After all, City of Heroes itself is more user-friendly now than before, so it could pay to wait.

So I might go play World of Warcraft (again, with City of Heroes as my "main" MMOG) until Champions Online shakes out most of its problems, and then drop WoW and switch.

Tags: coh, ramblings, wow

Occasionally something odd happens and I get this fully-formed plotbunny in my mind, along with complete representations of the characters involved.

Well, some of the characters involved. The others just kind of show up as vague blurs, devoid of anything other than presence. They're more or less interactive props. Since it's a waste to ignore the plotbunny for this, though, I take substantial time and effort trying to polish up the characters and the setting.

This happened a few weeks ago, which is why I have the faint beginnings of a story. However, I need to start learning how to think in prose again, rather than manga panels, which probably means that I need to start reading more books or some such. (Like I'm not already out of shelf space.) Since I am incapable of writing anything other than comedy, this is especially important: good humour needs good timing.

So far I have one character more or less done (as in I don't need to worry about her character type or personality or backstory anymore), two more main-ish characters who need their details ironed out a little more, and a host of other archetypes I need to assign names and personalities to.

The story itself is clearly wish-fulfilment. No doubt there's a whole treasure-trove of psychiatric problems evident in the premise, much less the details, but like all other plotbunnies, It Must Be Written. Still, my brain scares me with how fully-formed the one "complete" character turned up; insert the usual Athena-from-Zeus's-head analogy here if you wish.

Trying to talk about the process of writing without sounding utterly weird to non-writers is pretty difficult. It always alternates between sounding pretentious and sounding really, really creepy.

Tags: ramblings, writing

I'm not sure if I want to upgrade to Firefox 3.5, entirely because apparently two of my current addons won't work with it: namely DragDropUpload and Deepest Sender. (Too lazy to link, sorry. DragDropUpload lets me drag-and-drop files from Windows Explorer to the "browse for file here" field in forms, while Deepest Sender posts to Livejournal.) Of all my addons, I think those two are among the top five I use, after FireGestures and Twitterfox.

I've been feeling a little like Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh lately. Specifically, the bit about not wanting to be so Big and Intimidating. I'm pretty tall and relatively broad of shoulder (especially for an Asian), although I try not to take up too much space. I've been told that I don't smile enough, except sarcastically or sardonically. Which is a little depressing, because I've been trying not to be like that.

And I'd like to be able to be all Happy Happy WaiWai FunFun in terms of enthusiasm, since that's usually what I feel like inside when I see something I like. Except that I don't really know how to express that correctly, with my build and height.

Which is like Sakaki's lament: I like cute things, but I'd also like to be... well, maybe not "cuter" literally, but certainly less LOOM-worthy. Being intimidating is not any sort of asset when I can't keep it up for more than a couple of seconds before looking merely stupid and wimpy. Broad of shoulder, but not particularly strong of arm.

Occasionally, especially when I'm not thinking too clearly, I also wish I were female. It'll solve a lot of problems, but then when my brain starts working again, I can recognize that it'll introduce a whole host of problems of its own. It has very little to do with sexual preference or orientation, but mostly gender roles and stereotypes in modern society.

Maybe this is why I prefer writing female protagonists. All the New and Different gender viewpoints, with none of the actual drawbacks, like the monthly physiological one.

Tags: ramblings, sad excuse for a life

Contrary to what it may look like, I'm not disappointed that nobody's played my Mission Architect story arc yet. It's been less than a week.

I'm actually seeing how long it'll take before someone takes notice of it, in much the same way when I posted my Card Captor Sakura fanfic to Fanfiction.net. That one took three months before anyone else (other than myself) read it, much less reviewed it.

The emotional progression is mostly "I'm so excited, I wonder what everyone will think!" to "Nobody's biting. Well, it's still early" to "Still nobody. Maybe I need to advertise better" to "Still nobody. I wonder what's up" to "Wow, it's been a while, and still nobody. I wonder how long this can last?" to "This is awesome, I think I'm setting some kind of record!"

I am a strange person.

Tags: coh, ramblings

For someone who professes to dislike most Western superhero comics and has only nibbled at the edges of the entire genre, I apparently have obtained a reputation for being better-informed in them than most.

I think it's due to the osmotic acquisition of trivia derived from hanging around comics fans ever since the Subreality days, and now with City of Heroes. About the only "series" I can truly be said to follow in the Western superhero genre is Astro City, since it doesn't have decades of backstory weighing it down. There's nothing inherently wrong with backstory, but when the backstory is assumed to be understood by all comers, and it's a patchwork of retcons anyway, then learning all of it becomes a lot more trouble than it's worth for what is supposed to be entertainment. The price of admission is too high, so to speak.

And then there's the usual lament about tastes, particularly mine shading towards the Happy and Cheerful. Idealistic, perhaps.

So it goes.

Tags: ramblings

For some utterly bizarre and inexplicable reason, reading up on various pen-and-paper role-playing game systems makes me want to write fanfic.

It's not even fanfic about the settings or such. I'm just reading about, say, the new D&D 4E and Magic Missile becoming at-will (yay), and suddenly I get the craving to hammer out a few paragraphs of, say, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha fanfic. And I don't know why.

The only link I can conceive of is that I have a tendency to balance my original characters by building them in a game system or other, and while I generally only do this once and then tweak their abilities to fit the story rather than the point values, perhaps I'm getting an echo of character creation past. This seems mildly plausible, as I don't get the same urge with fanfics that don't involve fantastical powers. In short, I suddenly want to write about force-field wielding Rancer LaSalle, not normal ten-year old boy Ichiro Onosaka.

Mind you, I end up wanting to work on it, not that I actually have any ideas for it.

Tags: ramblings

While picking up Blue Man Group's The Complex (after waiting two months for what was supposed to arrive in two weeks), I took the opportunity to visit Kinokuniya and grabbed two volumes of Astro City by Kurt Busiek. To be precise, Life in the Big City and Local Heroes, since those were the only two I could find.

Now, people familiar with me might remember that I have what is probably a low opinion of a lot of superhero comics out today, largely because they are too angsty, or too silly. It's as though there's no real middle ground: either the character is navel-gazing about What It Means To Be A Superhero and ending up with the conclusion that Everything Sucks and suchlike, or they're bouncing off and breaking the fourth wall and generally making it very difficult to concentrate on the story rather than the style.

I've heard good things about Astro City, however, so I'm hoping that this won't be a wasted purchase. I'm not sure why it doesn't seem possible for the major superheroes to go through life without their writers dumping on them. Maybe I'm not part of the market; I dunno.

(Also, why do hero vs hero fights always seem like they're actually between very dangerous eight-year olds? Have these people not heard of negotiation and compromise?)

Tags: books, ramblings, sad excuse for a life

One of my current "I wonder if I can do this" projects is to write out the script for a dating sim.

Don't look at me like that, it'll be clean and worksafe. Also, I can't draw well enough to provide graphics anyway. The primary appeal of such works, namely the cute girls, will exist only in your imaginations.

I don't actually have anything planned out for this, since I am still locked in indecision about setting, from whence pretty much everything will stem. Character types are very much paint-by-numbers, broadly speaking, and I've played enough generic eroges to recognize that there's really not much variation from one to the other. (I'm also the sort to skip through all the dirty scenes because they Have No Story, which probably explains my viewpoint.) There will be three or five "gettable" girls, and a cast of other side characters who may or may not be more popular than the main cast (see: Jun from Happiness), but will almost certainly contain a Male Best Friend/Confidant and a Teacher/Mentor figure.

As for the main heroines (term used for convenience, since they're not always actually heroic, but merely Very Significant Female Characters), they also share some fairly well-documented character traits which have become an expected part of the whole experience. Not all of these traits will be included (there is a point where stuffing enough of them into a single character becomes absurd), but one can generally identify an individual character based on their assigned roles and traits: here is the tsundere, here is the cool-dere, here is the weird one, the quiet one, the sporty one, the shy one, the meganekko, the childhood friend.

Now, not every dating sim will be as generic as these, and they break out of the More Of The Same trap by either having great writing, or by having an interesting setting or situation. (Some of them have both.) Just having a fantastical setting does not automatically propel the game into greatness; yet, it constitutes a change of pace from the Usual High School Hijinks, much like how some of the appeal of City of Heroes is that it is not like the many other fantasy-setting MMOGs out there.

Which is what I'm trying to decide on right now. I could have a setting, fantasy or sci-fi, which allows me greater reign over the story and lets me come up with plot hooks easily, or I could just keep it in the typical high school, which allows for greater emphasis on the character interactions and provides a challenge for me to keep it interesting. (Another upside of the fantasy setting is that I can come up with non-Japanese names and still keep in the flavour.)

Note that I'm not trying to deconstruct the genre or to create something amazing or awesome. It's a script for a dating sim; respectability was thrown out the window when I decided long ago that I would try to bring out the appeal of the cute girls via text rather than tell a story. And it will be, above all else, cheerful, without the crushing angst which I've seen in several of the Original English Freeware renai games.

Tags: mbhc, notes to self, ramblings

Yes, I know I can probably find this on Wikipedia, but I'm trying to work this out myself.

The actual items being given are arbitrary and not really that important; besides, I doubt the average person would remember every one of them without some specific reason to (having rehearsed the song many times or some mnemonic or whatnot). Most people would probably remember the items from five downwards (golden rings, calling/collie birds, French hens, turtledoves, partridge in a pear tree), due to repetition.

We shall also assume that the list of items being given are given each day; in other words, on the first day we have the partridge in the pear tree, on the second day we have two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree in addition to the first partridge in a pear tree from the first day, so on and so forth. Possibly the number of partridges in pear trees (where the partridge and the pear tree is considered one unit item as opposed to two separate gifts) can be used as an integer counter.

Therefore, on the Nth day of Christmas, one would receive N number of one item, N-1 number of another item, N-2 number of yet another item, so on and so forth until one reaches that tree-borne partridge, of which there will be only one per day. Looking from the other angle, we have 1 partridge, plus 2 calling/collie birds, plus 3 French hens, plus so on until N whatever: 1+2+3+4... making a number of gifts (which we'll call Gn) equal to the sum of all integers from 1 to N... which is basically an arithmetic series for which I already know the formulae of, making this whole exercise suddenly useless.

>_<

If you're wondering, Gn = N(N + 1)/2, and the total number of presents after all twelve days (say, Tn) is N(N +1)(N + 2)/6. Plugging in the values, Tn = 364, or (12 x 13 x 14 )/ 6.

Incidentally, for why it's N(N + 1)/2, I can't give you a mathematically robust proof (since I'm not that smart; I learned this one by rote), but I did come up with a handy mental note:

Gn = 1 + 2 + 3 + ... + (N - 2) + (N -1) + N

Add the first and last terms of the series, and we'll end up with N + 1. Add the second and second-last terms of the series, and we'll end up with N + 1 again. You can do this all the way to the middle, and you'll be getting (N + 1) all the way; since there are N terms in the list, we should end up with N/2 instances of (N + 1) in our collection (since we're cutting the line in half and folding it over to do all this adding up of terms), or N/2 times (N + 1), which makes N(N + 1)/2.

You can prove this further by induction (check to see if it applies where N = 1, N = Blah, and N = Blah+1; in other words, the first case, an arbitrary case, and the next term of the arbitrary case), but that's going a bit afield.

I have yet to come up with an easy-to-remember method for N(N + 1)(N + 2)/6, which I also learned entirely by rote. Help?

There's also something about Pascal's Triangle, which is pretty cool in the same way the Fibonacci sequence is cool, but I generally can't construct one on my own via some pithy formula, and instead I have to do it all manually.

Tags: geekery, ramblings

One of the things which is often repeated around amateur writing groups - and I mean no offense of any sort by the word "amateur", using it to mean someone who is not professionally paid on a regular basis, regardless of actual talent or ability - is that we tend to write the things which we know and understand the best.

There's some truth in this, although saying that there is some truth in something is a misleading statement at times. There is some truth in the statement that there are seven colours in a rainbow, which doesn't really account for the actual gradual shading between these colours and the lack of any real clear delineations. But I digress.

We write what we're most comfortable with writing, at least when writing for leisure rather than for a goal or because one is told to. We're also most comfortable with what we know, and probably what we know how to write. Someone who's developed a writing style full of terse dialogue would probably feel a bit out of place if suddenly asked to write purple prose about the environs. He (pronoun used for convenience) may be able to do it, and develop another writing style, but left to his own devices, he'll most likely stick with terseness.

And all this is just a way to poke, from various angles to see if it bites, the realization that I'm more or less stuck with writing a certain sort of protagonist.

( Cut for length.Collapse )

Tags: ramblings, writing
Apparently now I am: pessimistic

There is this thing that sometimes comes up in a particularly rousing story, that can only be described as the Moment of Awesome.

It is almost always a purely fanservice point of plot. All the various subthreads of a certain plot, or perhaps a significant subplot, will come together to culminate in a single instant which, in the grand scheme of things, may not really be that important, but will inevitably cause the audience, or at least the specific demographic to whom this instant was created at aimed at, to leap out of their seats with a shout of ecstasy and pure anticipatory joy.

Sometimes this MoA is hyped up. For example, in FF7: Advent Children, there is the clear Moment of Awesome when a certain long-haired swordsman appears, and another one just before said long-haired swordsman disappears. This has been advertised, despite its obvious spoiler status, because it is a Moment of Awesome for those who have been waiting for it, and knowing that this MoA is there will help sales.

Or perhaps the MoA may not be expected at all, even if it makes sense plot-wise, or at least makes a remote amount of something that may be in the general vicinity of sense with regards to some basic semblance of the thing possibly known as a plot. Witness the end of Return of the Jedi, which has what I believe is named the Vader Syndrome in the Dresden Files books: there is no ally more comforting, or at least more badass, than the one who used to be your greatest enemy. This MoA is usually accomplished by the converging of plot threads, resulting in one memorable action or memorable line. Another example from Babylon 5: "Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else."

Not all Moments of Awesome are, in fact, awesome. Sometimes they fall fairly flat. What may be Awesome for one may be painfully UnAwesome for another. A possible rule of thumb is that if something is clearly supposed to be a Moment of Awesome but is not, in fact, Awesome, then you may not be the demographic in mind... or perhaps the whole thing is simply badly-done. And whether good or bad, invariably, the actual resolution of the MoA is a letdown by comparison.

But upon a Moment of Awesome, that, in itself, is a moment that should be preserved in a sort of emotional album of memories, so that one can take it out and remember once again how one felt when all worries about having a deep story or an intelligent plot are stripped away for one single, glorious instant, and one can just bask in the single, unadulterated enjoyment of this Moment of Awesome.

No, I don't really have much of a point to this. I was just rewatching Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's and was wishing that the final battle vs. the Book of Darkness's berserk program wasn't so, well, static.

Tags: ramblings

It is like some sort of rite of passage that one remembers all the old, old cartoons from one's childhood, checks them out on Wikipedia, and realize that it is apparently an amalgamation of two completely different anime. It's probably not surprising, considering Robotech, but it's only now that I know the name of Sengoku Majin GoShogun even though one of my childhood memories is watching its Americanized version Macron-1.

Considering that they could staple two different anime together and not have many people notice until it's pointed out probably says something about either the editing skills of Saban, or how amazingly generic the character designs are.

Tags: anime, ramblings

( Sub dub.Collapse )

The above rambling is actually not as long as it could have been. For some reason, I haven't been able to really rant in a while, possibly because I've not yet found anything that annoys me just enough for my full vocabulary to be unleashed, and yet not enough for me to be too angry to post.

Tags: haruhi, pic, ramblings
Apparently now I am: pensive

Since Issue 8 is out Live, I figure this is a good a time as any to post about this. Non-CoH players can feel free to skip, since it's full of CoH references.

One of the most enduring memories I have of playing City of Heroes is way back when Carmina was on her way to level 50. I was teamed with her then-Supergroup the Dauntless, and we were cruising through a Freakshow mission set in a Boomtown instanced map. Portal Corp mission; I think it was either Dreck or Bile.

We encountered a group of Freakshow, and charged at them. Obviously we were going to crunch right through them, especially with Fulcrum Shift capping our damage.

One Freak decided to randomly (while wandering around; NPC pathfinding kind of sucks in CoH) drop off the edge of the high road, and onto the low road below, just as the rest of the team attacked. I chased him down, and put Golden Dragonfly on queue. The timing was such that I slammed down on that Freak, one-shotting him, just as I landed.

The mental image I had of that moment is the sort that would make me wish I knew how to draw well. A Freakshow minion, unaware of the situation, with the perspective looking up at him... and behind his shoulder, about to land on him, was Carmina. Carmina, who's the happy-go-lucky not-very-smart sort, quiet and cheerful, with weird ways of logic and thinking, the sort you'd think to be harmless... until she gets serious. Carmina, about to land on that Freak minion, katana held Sephiroth-style, her face in shadow, except for the eerie glow from her eyes through her glasses.

I don't think I've ever had another event happen in the game which struck me as much as that time and mental image. That is the main reason why I continue playing CoH.

Tags: coh, ramblings

Is an uninformed vote better than no vote at all?

Is "tactical voting" (eg voting against someone rather than for their opponent, or voting for someone who has a chance to win rather than voting for someone who truly represents one's interests) a valid use of the election process, or a perversion?

I'm (obviously) not voting in this American election, but after my experiences in the SaiMoe tournament, and how eerily similar some of the rhetoric I've heard is between that and this election, I'm curious.

Also, I should probably learn to interrupt other people. I felt kind of sorry for the several campaigners who called me at all hours and asked me to vote, only to be stunned and struck near-speechless when I pointed out that I'm not allowed to.

UNRELATED EDIT: I would probably be more thrilled about Veteran Rewards hitting the Test Server for CoH/V if I didn't keep getting kicked off the server due to too many people having the same idea I had and trying out the new costumes.

ALSO UNRELATED EDIT: Further proof that CoH/V does not operate on any physical laws known to man: rolling a 7 on a d6.

Tags: question, ramblings

One recurring dream I have had in recent nights is that some omnipotent being of possible religious leanings appeared unto me and gave me a great gift, which was the gift to use the full extent of my vocabulary, always knowing the exact right words to use at the exact right time.

Now, this may not seem to be much of a superpower, but it's far more appealing to me than, say, turning myself invisible, or into slightly stale spinach, or whatever. Apart from the obvious application as a writer and a blogger (inasmuch as those words are defined respectively as "one who, occasionally, is capable of writing a complete sentence" and "one who has what is technically a blog in the broad sense of the term and has been known to post various paragraphs of musings on it"), this would also help in social situations by making me seem smarter than I really am. No longer will I be hampered by the foul curse of treppenwitz, the art of knowing precisely the thing to say to cause much merriment or insight after the moment has passed (sometimes several years later), coupled with the knowledge that I could have done it if my brain worked any faster.

And yet, oddly enough, I seem to be less burdened by such when I am tired and cranky, which would seem to be the reverse of what I would expect. The less clearly I am thinking, the snarkier I get, and the more my unintended audience seems to be impressed. It seems I must suffer for my art.

Looking into this trend, one possibility would be that being cranky would reduce my tolerance for the inane and the illogical. This means that I would have very little patience left, considering that the default state of the universe is inane and illogical, at least to puny human intellects. And human intellects can vary so greatly, such that I rail and weep for the species when reading badly-composed threads on various boards, fandom or otherwise, as well as all the apparently asinine opinions that come from faulty logic and underhanded debating techniques that occur in the realm of Real Life.

I rely on as much clear thinking as I can muster to prevent myself from using unnecessarily complicated words and references on these opiions. Not because I have any low views of the person behind those opinions, but rather I am afraid of waking in the clear cold light of late afternoon the next day and wincing at how my own rantings are ill-thought and certainly ill-timed. I will have intellectually browbeat someone whose own verbal skills may not be up to the onslaught of twenty-dollar words where ten cents might have sufficed. I will have displayed a false superiority over another's arguments simply by using language as a weapon, especially if my opponent has learned English as a second language (or even worse, is a native English speaker). I will have been unkind, and I will have been impolite.

And so I fall back on the safe, cautious ways, of letting a nasty comment go unsaid, rather than put it out in the open and then having to retract it later. I try not to offend, because I would not like to be offended, and I should certainly do unto others and all that. I try to ground all my more outspoken opinions in facts and logic, and will reserve the right to revise my statements if new information comes to light. I try, as much as I can, not to let my words be ruled by emotion.

I think that knowing what to say, and why it must be said, is not as important as how it is said, and when to say it. May I be granted the wisdom to know that.

Tags: ramblings
Hear ye, hear ye: Aya Hirano (Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) - Lost My Music

( Despite my wanting to so very much.Collapse )

Tags: coh, fanfic, ramblings

Next time Harold's going to get the Dragonsbane moniker. Just wait.

So I just finished going through the Hex Coda module for NWN, using the closest thing I could get to my Swashbuckler character: a Rogue at level 10 (starting level for the module).

( Mindless ramblings. Braaaiins.Collapse )

Next couple of choices are a Bard and a Paladin. I wonder if I'll be gimping myself. (Besides, I have no clue what the non-spell-point rules are for spellcasting in D&D.)

Also, given that concept is NOT A CRITERIA, and there aren't a lot of saving throws needed, is there any reason at all to pick a Monk? (As opposed to another class, I mean.)

Tags: d&d, gaming, nwn, ramblings

( Random angsting about ficwriting inside.Collapse )

Tags: ccs, fic, ramblings

Occasionally I get the strangest urge to talk to someone, but there's nobody I know who can understand all that I say.

( So I'll just talk to myself.Collapse )

And I've got a lot more to say on the subject, but I realize how, well, pointless it is. (My LJ and all, I know. Still.) Class this under "wouldn't it be nice" fantasies.

Tags: ramblings

A few more (rather shorter) thoughts on moe, mostly as a reminder to myself:

( Tsundere, Su-Cool, and Osananajimi.Collapse )

The usual thoughts apply: nobody really knows what moe should be described as. Either you grok moe or you don't (although it's very possible, and in fact not so hard, to grok it). Of course, like pr0n, this nebulousness of definition does not prevent producers from being able to market specifically for that interest.

Tags: anime, ramblings

Well, since CoH appears to be down right now, I may as well go into a few musings on moe.

( Moe nano? Moe desu!Collapse )

I realized just how irritating it is to keep italicizing "moe" in this essay, so I stopped.

Tags: anime, ramblings
Hear ye, hear ye: Minky Momo - Suki Yori Daisuki Minky Smile

Now, nobody's actually asked me about these yet. However, I have nothing better to post about at the moment, so I thought I would list out how I personally view various fannish things.

( I like to hear the sound of my own keyboard.Collapse )

One day I will actually write my thoughts on moe.

One day.

Tags: fandom, ramblings

BITCHCAKES.

(If you're still wondering why, it all comes from officialgaiman, and The Skippy Show.)

Wondering what to do for my current fanfic idea. On the one hand, the ideas that I have for it fit so well, and it's about Clow Reed (and all that entails).

On the other hand, the protagonist is necessarily a woman, in order for a major plot point later to work. (Before you ask, Clow Reed will not fall in love... at least, not with her.) The other choice is a ten-year old girl, which is even more unlikely.

The setting has to be sometime during the creation of the Clow Cards (for that is what the fic will deal with), which would mean the late 19th century at latest, and that's stretching it. Now, quite apart from the fact that anything researched about this era and before will be suspect (due to the disconnect between the Real World and the Romantic one), I'm really not up to researching anything that deeply right now.

This is the path that leads to Mary Sue.

I'm sorely tempted to just throw caution to the wind and completely ignore the improbability of a woman practicing magic without the populace chanting for her ashes. Which may well turn into the ficreader contingent playing the part of the Righteous Christian Mob screaming to Burn the Sue, or at least make a bridge out of her.

Tags: fic, ramblings

As promised, thoughts on ReBoot.

( Cut for maudlin rambling.Collapse )
-
( Cut for spoilers up to season 4.Collapse )

And this is where I take a break. Further thoughts (somewhat shorter) later.

Tags: geekery, ramblings

The unit of currency in Japan is the yen. Not the dollar.

It's the little things that matter.

Tags: fanfic, ramblings
Apparently now I am: now how did they miss that one?

It appears I am not fated for CoH or CoV this aye night. The pre-download of 1.6GB for Issue 6 has stressed the CoH servers into insensibility, and I mapserver every time I zone in CoV.

Not to mention some sort of severe memory leak issue from either City game that slows my system to a crawl until I reboot. The world will end ere that damned leak is fixed.

For want of anything that would spark my interest at the moment, I've decided to rant.

( I'm being emo again.Collapse )

Tags: ramblings
Apparently now I am: gloomy

The Clow Cards can be seen as self-contained lessons in magic for Sakura. (Concept from AmazingMOO on the CoH forums.)

The Clow Cards can be seen as independent subroutines of magic, or a test thereof. Instead of having to learn everything from scratch like most "classical" mages (machine code), someone using a Clow Card would be able to use the wand (compiler) to execute these functions (an extremely high-level and fuzzy-logic language), assuming enough magical power (processing ability). The Clow Cards themselves would probably have to be regarded as a black box program, or at least very dark grey, to the end-user.

Clow Reed was trying to allow someone (whether Sakura in specific or just Any User) to perform magic without having to go through the years and decades of training. Possibly the Clow Cards were a training tool like Pascal with the end functionality of C (and variants).

UPDATE: jarodrussell pointed out that the Clow Cards are independent programs that can be combined as reusable tools, rather than subroutines. That was actually what I meant, but more correctly. ^^

One aspect of training is to give someone a sense of discipline and responsibility to accompany their power. Would Clow Reed have taken that into account? Clow Reed was the son of two very powerful magicians (from Eastern and Western spheres), so it is implied that he had a great amount of innate talent and ability. Perhaps he could not see the need for such intense discipline, never needing any himself.

Maybe, at the end, Clow Reed was insane. This explains many things without explaining them, since the answer is always "well, he's crazy, he doesn't need a reason".

A popular notion is that the most powerful mages tend to go insane. This is echoed by the stereotype of geniuses being more than a bit eccentric. Related?

Where there is a potential food source, predators have evolved. Might there be a predator of the mind that feeds on sanity? Attracted to power and creativity and imagination?

Yes, I'm probably spoiling the entire story by writing this down (in a public post, since I get twitchy over non-public posts), but at least this will remind me. Also, this will allow others to give me a sanity check on these ideas.

Tags: ccs, fic, notes to self, ramblings
Apparently now I am: thoughtful