Resolutions revisited

It's hard to believe I've been writing this blog for two years. It barely feels like I've bee writing it for one at this point - admittedly I'm very bad at feeling the passage of time, both on minor and major scales. Back when I had just barely started, I wrote about New Year's Resolutions, and why I don't really like them, and what I think would be a better way of going about it. I don't necessarily disagree with the things that I said, and I still think that the new year is a bad time to start something new. But, I also have a new appreciation for what resolving to do something in the new year is for.

In 2016, along with the people from Be a Game Character that I had come to know and love, I made a series of resolutions for the year. And I will say right here and now, I did not succeed in a single one of them. What I did do, however, was make a significant amount of progress on all of them, at least in part because I had made those resolutions and therefore had them constantly in the back of my mind. And most of the resolutions I made were based on things that I was already doing and working on, and I had wanted to do for a very long time.

I think that's the real reason that so many people fail on their resolutions and permanently give them up a week into the year. They try to make life changing choices, rather than set a goal in something that they're already working on. And I mean, I can understand that. The weight thing is huge for most people, and after the holidays, of course you want to get rid of that. But just saying that isn't going to do a whole lot. Nor is just jumping into a gym routine that you don't fully understand. As someone who has been losing weight over the last few months, I did enormous amounts of research into both exercise and dieting before I was able to make an actual difference. And I mean, it's not a complicated thing in reality, but it is a very easy thing to mess up and make worse. You can't go into a gym and pick up a hundred pounds of something and just start moving it and expect to not hurt yourself.

I think the point of a resolution is to give yourself something to work towards, not to say where you're going to start. You need to start today, or yesterday. You can't say in advance when you're going to start, because then if you miss the first day you're never going to hit the rest. It should be a rededication to what you already want to do. And so should be everyday after that.

Dice

Marin stood over the field, watching the battle as it unfolded before her. She could see the flow of the battle moving back and forth, as each side momentarily took the leading push before the other side was able to regroup and make a push back, themselves garnering the leading power for the moment. It was fairly apparent as the battle went on that neither side was ever going to be able to make any winning move without some kind of outside interference.

The hard part was deciding which side she wanted to help. She really had no connection to either side - she wasn't even sure who they were. The battle had already been raging when she had arrived, and so she had set up shop to watch and observe. The passage of time was a bit different for Marin - days passed as he battle continued onward, but it hardly felt like anything to her. All the same, she was beginning to grow bored of the never ending push and pull, and was ready to cast the dice.

And perhaps that was the way to decide. Her magic was a game of luck, decided by coin flips and rolls of the dice. She could roll two sets of dice, each directed at opposite sides of the field. A lower roll would be devastating, bringing about incredible destructive power, while a higher roll would accordingly be healing and empowering. Whichever side garnered the higher roll of the die would be the winner - even if they were both high or low.

With that decided, she pulled forth two pairs of dice, one painted blue and the other red, and separated them into her two hands. She had been facing the battle from the side, so she placed the red dice in her right hand to match the group on the right, and the blue with the left. She could feel the power running through her veins as she shook the dice loosely in her fists before tossing them both forward.

A red 7 flashed into the air for a brief moment before showering fire down on the battlefield, scattering the armies like paper in the wind, as they tried to escape the deadly flames. They were too afraid to notice the flames were only targeting certain people. Then a blue thirteen, and light shone on the other side of the field, and those who were not being burned to death were invigorated, and charged into the flames to finish the job.

Funny. Those numbers usually meant the opposite.

Meat

It was a quiet day as Marcus made his way back into the village, watching the smoke from the houses slowly drift into the sky and lazily be blown away by the breeze. He knew that in the long run his contribution wasn't going to be all that great, but it would be a large boon to the people for the moment, both in terms of safety and in food supplies. The meat of the cave monster was tough, but when prepared it made a decent meal, and it meant that any rebellious children who snuck out to see the forbidden cave would no longer run the risk of being eaten.

He carried the head on his shoulder as he entered the village, a bag of the chopped up rest of its body parts slung across his back. It was a heavy weight, but he was not unused to carrying heavier. He was a farmer, after all. He carried harvests, tools, and fertilizer on a near constant basis. He could hear the murmuring in the distance as he grew closer, knowing that the villagers were seeing his approach, but that they weren't quite sure of what he was bringing them. But as he drew closer, the confused murmuring grew into excited cheers and outbursts.

People gathered around him to see the fruits of his labor. There was a mixture of excitement at his clear victory and the slight disturbance at the vast amount of blood that had been spilled on him. It had bee a tough battle, and not one that he had escaped from unharmed. But he was the one who was still alive, and that was the part that counted.

He moved slowly and purposefully to the center of town, letting the villagers gather around him so that they could all see what he brought. He dropped the head onto the ground with a heavy thud, then drew the bag and dumped its contents on the ground beside it. They knew that the meat would be edible. He wouldn't have separated it from the bones and skin the way he had if it wasn't. They cheered loudly, not letting him get in any words, so he just smiled at them and motioned for them to move forward and take their share.

As they piled around the meat, he withdrew and made his way back to his own home, where his wife was waiting.

He desperately needed a bath, and a lot of bandaging.

Shame

Marcus and Liam were dragging the unconscious gladiator down the halls of the prison, each holding onto one of his arms and letting his feet scrape along the ground. He had actually done remarkably well in the arena, having taken down seven opponents before finally being knocked unconscious by one of the king's elite warriors. He had come, claiming to be the strongest man in the land, and requesting to be put to the test so that he might lay claim to the throne. The king had been amused and pleased to put him to that test. Ten victories, and the king himself would have faced the stranger.

"It's a shame," Marcus mused aloud. "He looked so intimidating as he came in with his flaming sword and everything. And he cut down the first few opponents so easily. But he had terrible endurance. Can't go running a kingdom when you can't keep pushing more than twenty minutes."

"He may very well have had the actual power to do it," Liam agreed, "but yeah. All it would take to win is to outlast him. Can you imagine a king like that trying to be a leader during a siege? He'd want to give up after not having as extravagant a meal for two days. We would be massacred."

Marcus nodded. "Do you remember what it was like when the current king took the throne? Were you there that day?"

Liam laughed. "Now that was a day. No one in their right mind would have expected a kid like that to actually win. He was so scrawny and fragile looking back then. I mean, he's put on some muscle since then, but he definitely doesn't look as intimidating as he really is. They threw some huge men at him, but he just moved so fast. He was flying around the arena, and the strikes he threw were deadly. Just destroying people's weaknesses and leaving them in the dirt."

"You don't get to see him doing stuff like that too often," Marcus reminisced. "Almost wish this guy had made it through just so we could see the king in action again."

"Well, maybe that's why he's getting imprisoned instead of executed. Remind people what he's capable of."

"That would be something."

Free Write 14

I started to get sick yesterday, so I've been pretty out of it. Been getting lots of words and numbers and such wrong - more than usual, I should say - and just other small stuff that shouldn't normally be a problem. It's not super bad or anything, but it is just enough to make me spacey. Yesterday with it was particularly rough because I was working, and the longer the day dragged on the, worse I felt. I had today off, and in comparison it's been a pretty crazy string of ups and downs, though it does seem to be calming down somewhat. We'll see how I feel in the morning, though.

I've been pretty excited about one Christmas gift I got in particular, which you may have been able to guess by some of the writing I've done. I got a kit for building my own folding knife, which may sound a little silly, but as a boy scout and a person who thoroughly loves to work with my hands, I find it really exciting. The initial construction was actually a lot easier than I anticipated, though it's been made up for by the fact that the shaping of the handle is much harder than I expected. Or, rather, much longer. It took me an hour today just to get one side of the micarta scales used to make the handles flush with the actual metal construction underneath - I still have the bottom and back to go. And then I have to actually shape it to make it comfortable in the hand. And then spend a significant amount of time sanding it with varying degrees of sandpaper to make it smooth and comfortable. It'll take me quite a while, but strangely I do enjoy the process, and I look forward to continuing the work.

It makes me miss the times I actually built a few of my own instruments. I forget how we got the idea in the first place, but we got a kit to build a ukulele. This was back when I was playing my guitar constantly, and had even started dipping my toes into the musical waters of the bass as well. A ukulele was a cheap instrument to add to my repertoire, and getting a kit for it was even cheaper. I'd never really built anything like that before, though. It was a slow going process, and I was constantly sure that I was going to mess it up. But other than some easily loosened strings, it actually came out pretty good.

Between these and baking, and my interest in things like blacksmithing and silversmithing, I guess I just really like making things with my own hands.

Board break

I was about 16 when I was testing for my black belt, which I think meant a lot more symbolically than it actually did about my strength, speed, or ability, as one might expect. It meant that I had spent a significant amount of time and energy trying to learn what I could about martial arts. And I loved it. I loved learning how to control my body, and get stronger, and find the weaknesses in my opponents. To learn how to be precise and deadly. And to have a way to focus all of the aggression that I had felt for so long.

Karate helped me to control my anger management issues - although I did continue to be a prick, and frequently hit people using the skills that I had learned. I won't pretend like it made me perfect in any sense of the word. But my anger management problem went down over time, and by the time I was earning my black belt, I had calmed down considerably from when I was a kid.

By the time I earned my black belt, I was one of the regulars of the classes - people knew me, and I knew them. I was nowhere near the strongest, or even the fastest, but I had garnered a reputation for the way that I thought about sparring in particular - if you weren't going to go all out, then what was the point? You were doing both yourself and your opponent a disservice. You were teaching yourself to hold back, and you were teaching them that in a fight, their opponent wouldn't pull everything in the book to win. I didn't play dirty. but I didn't hold back. There were a number of incidents because of it, though I never got any punishment from it. Even with the way I sparred, it was always an accident.

But it was during the testing for my black belt that I first felt like I had done something badass with my martial arts training. I was told to break two boards simultaneously with a single spinning hook kick, which challenged several skills at once. The kick itself, but also my ability to time the snap of my knee, remain accurate while spinning, and actually break the boards. The boards were separated a foot and a half, which was plenty of space to be able to break them both, but it still had to be properly timed.

I remember the nervousness I felt. I loved this kick, but I wasn't sure about actually doing it. I remember shifting back and forth on my feet, calming myself down. And then I remember the strange moment of clarity. The sweep of the room spinning around me. The sharp snap of my knee. And then the two shattered halves of board flying across the room and slamming into the far wall, over twenty feet away.

Knife

Hank sat back at his bench and rolled his shoulders, stretching his back after a long day of working. After so many years, he didn't find the work particularly hard - much of it was muscle memory by now - but it was a very long and slow going procedure. It took time to get the pieces fitted together, and to ensure that once assembled, the knife would lock properly in its separate positions. Though to be fair, that was the easiest and quickest part of the process.

The hard part was making it fit in the palm of your hand. The micarta scales that were attached on the outside were large and blocky. Far too large to fit comfortably in the hand, and even if it could, it blocked the pins on the blade itself from being able to slide into place. The blade itself couldn't fully close unless the micarta was filed down. And that kind of thing took a lot of work, just trying to get everything into shape and size. And that was ignoring any designing that either he wanted to do, or had been commissioned to do. And even once that was done, there was still the sanding to be done to smooth it all out.

It was hell on his back, being bent over his work for long hours at a time, but he loved it. He loved getting to use his hands, and using them to create something. He loved seeing the simple intricacies of the knife as he put it together, and he loved seeing the inner designs of the micarta as he filed away at them, and trying to make his shaping match those designs. Subtle curves in the handle that both brought out those designs, as well as gave it a fluid and natural feel in the palm.

He wiped the mostly finished knife off with a cloth, just trying to remove the dust remains of the filing and sanding. He still needed to laminate the handle and sharpen the blade itself, but he could look at his work and see it. It was a usable knife. It opened and closed smoothly, the pocket clip was well attached and not going to be going anywhere. The weight and balance was good. It could definitely benefit from a good polishing, and by the time that was done his back would definitely be out. But for the most part, he had done a very good job.

And in the morning, he'd start all over again with a new one.

Construction

Mack was sitting on the living room floor into the morning, working on building the presents that he had gotten for his son for Christmas. It had been a few hours since he'd started drinking as he worked on it - the work was just so tiring and monotonous. Sticking bits and pieces together, slowly screwing them together, trying his best to make as little noise as possible so as not to draw his son's attention. These were all to be presents from Santa. Even though he knew his son had stopped believing in Santa, it was a tradition in the family, and it meant that he could take the night to make the presents, so that they joy of opening wasn't spoiled by then having to build his own presents.

But Mack had sorely underestimated the length of time and the effort that would be necessary for it all this year.

There were just so many things that needed to be screwed into place. So many little moving parts, each needing to individually be connected. So many similar parts, and he had made mistakes so many times on which went where, so he'd had to redo parts time and time again. Admittedly, the alcohol was not helping with that, but it helped to keep him from raging about it. His wife had gone to bed early, so that she would be able to finish the wrapping of the presents in the morning. That would give him a little time to rest. He would still be tired, certainly, but at least he wouldn't be completely dead on his feet.

Or at least that had been the plan.

When Matilda came out in the early morning, she found her husband asleep on the floor, his head resting on the just short of being finished home gym. There were a few pieces still scattered on the floor, but she could easily see where they needed to go. Carefully she pulled Mack away from it, resting him against the couch so he'd at least have something soft against his face, and got to work. It would take about half an hour she guessed to finish, and another hour after that to wrap it up and make it look pretty.

But it would be worth it to see the look on her son's face just a short while after that.

Morning coffee

Marisa made her way into the kitchen, glad that she had set the heaters to turn on an hour before she had woken up - the warmth of the house as she could see the snow falling outside was simply magical. Her motions were almost mechanical as she prepared the coffee grounds, her eyes focused on the snow falling gently just on the other side of her glass panes. Water and grinds into the maker, a click, a pop, and the sound of the machine turning on and water beginning to boil.

She made her way over to her backdoor into the backyard and leaned against it, the glass icy cold to her skin. It sent shivers down her spine, and she could feel the goosebumps popping up all over her body, though it was a good way of finishing up waking up. The moment she pulled away she could feel the warmth wrapping around her again. The changing sensations were strangely enjoyable to her on her naked skin. She'd never get tired of it.

She wandered back and forth around the kitchen as she waited for the coffee to finish. There wasn't a whole lot to do or see, honestly. She had a nice table and attractive counters, but it wasn't like they were decorated or anything like that. She didn't even have that much food at the moment. Mostly, she just enjoyed the freedom of being able to walk around her own home in the nude, knowing that the windows were open but that no one could see her. That sense of freedom. Knowing that she was in nothing more than her own skin, her most private attire, and that there was nothing anyone could do about it.

There was a soft ting as the coffee finished, and she poured herself a cup. It was still steaming hot as she took it in her hands and walked once more to the backdoor, this time undoing the lock and letting it swing open. The cold air rushed into the house, wrapping around her body in an instant. She could feel her skin rising. She breathed the air in slowly, letting the icy frigidity fill her, before she closed the door and took a long drink of coffee, the heat shooting through her. She could feel it racing through her body, fighting to fend off the cold she had infested herself with.

It was a good morning.

Adaptation

I've written before about adapting movies out of books, and why as a writer it is something that I am both wary of and would enjoy to see happen to one of my pieces. However, books aren't the only thing that get adapted into movies - we just talk about that more because there's a better chance of it going well. Video games can also be made into movies, though they have a long standing history of being terrible, with extremely few exceptions. And more unfortunate than that, even as video games become more cinematic and story driven, turning them into movies still has not gone smoothly.

I mention this because I just got back from seeing the Assassin's Creed movie. I'm a fan of the games, though it's certainly not my favorite franchise and I will freely recognize that there are many things wrong with the games. However, as a whole, they are very good games, and I always look forward to trying out the new one when it releases - even if at times I have to put them down for extended periods of time before I can return and finish them. The fact that they are so story driven and grounded in history made me excited for the possibility of how the movie might go, though I was extremely wary going in. And while I wouldn't say the movie was bad, it certainly wasn't good either.

There are a number of reasons for this, though the one that stands out to me is the dialogue, and how they tried to force things from the games into it. The dialogue wasn't great to begin with, but there were times when it hard cut from actually interesting and entertaining action scenes to a character verbatim stating the name of a gameplay mechanic (one which, I feel I should mention, was never actually mentioned outside of tooltips in the games) before hard cutting back to the action. It didn't add anything. It didn't even make sense. The big one for me was when the character takes a leap of faith off of a bridge, and the scientist it hard cuts to literally just says "Leap of faith." They could have said "They did a leap of faith," or "They actually managed the leap of faith," both of which would have made contextual sense and been an actual sentence. But no. They just name the mechanic and hard cut back.

I get that when making movies like this you don't want to alienate the original audience. You want to make call backs to what made the games good. I get that, I really do. But this was absolutely not the way to do that. There's a reason "show don't tell" is a saying. Hell, even a casual viewer who had never played the games before would have called what he did a leap of faith. That's a concept that exists naturally. You don't have to call it out like it's some mystical, unheard of thing. Put some faith in your audience, or else you're just pandering and failing.

Powerleveling

Martin was sitting at a desk, patiently and quietly waiting as the man sitting across from him scribbled notes out on a clipboard. To be honest, he didn't much remember how he'd gotten there - his memory more or less started in the seat. But the air around them had a feeling of importance and formality to it, and so he had sat and waited to see what was going to happen.

"Bit of a powerleveler, weren't you?" the man asked abruptly, without looking up from the clipboard. Martin blinked - the sudden words had almost sounded foreign to him, and he had no idea what the man was talking about.

"Powerlever?" he asked, uncertain of using his own voice.

"Yeah," the man replied, tapping at his notes with the back of his pen. "You seemed to have had quite the life - traveled all over the world, held a couple dozen jobs in a variety of different professions. Dated a lot of people. Never really settled down in any way, romantically or financially. You were a bit all over the place. Would be hard to believe that was an accident."

"That what was an accident? I had a lot of trouble in my life finding what I wanted to do, so I spent a lot of time just really exploring my options. A lot of people have to do that."

"Yes, but few are so... persistent about it. Did you know that you were three countries short of having visited ever country on the planet? There are very few who can say that. You could have written a book - doesn't matter how good your writing was, a story like that would have sold, no problem."

It was only then that Martin noticed that the man was talking in the past tense. There was a dull throbbing in the back of his head - why didn't this seem right?

"You know, most people don't even make it to level 2 when they come here. They'd have to have gotten lucky and really pushed it. But you... Man, you. You're gonna be level 5."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your experience, Martin. We bank it when you die, see where you end up in the afterlife. And you are jumping straight to level 5."

Queen

Analise slowly sat on the gold leafed throne that had once been her father's. The red leather was old and worn, though so much was difficult to see from a distance, and it had been well cared for. She had been offered to have the leather replaced when she had taken the throne, but she had rejected as much - at least for the time being, she wanted to feel as though she were assuming her father's role, rather than usurping it and making her own. It was a subtle difference to some, but it was one that, in her mind, was important. One day she would make the throne her own. Now was not the time.

It was early in the morning as she sat down. She had only been queen for a matter of weeks, and she was still growing accustomed to the strict timetable. She felt like she was very quickly and precisely moved from one place to another so that she may sit in one place for hours on end with nothing to do. She listened to a great many people make a great number of speeches about a great many number of subjects, many of which she had no understanding of or care for. People making their pleas - or more accurately, hiring others to make their pleas - about why she should care about their endeavors and fund them. She knew it was a part of her duty, and she wasn't about to shirk that, but she honestly could not care about what most of them were talking about. She was thankful she had advisors who were more attentive than she.

For the time being, there was really only one matter of affairs which Analise truly paid any attention - that being those of foreign relationships. When her father had passed, he had been in the middle of negotiations with the northern kingdom on the matter of agriculture trade. It was a small thing as far as her people were concerned, but if a treaty could be made it would be the deciding factor between whether their future would be peaceful or full of strife. Many of the commoners were unaware of just how short the reserves of food had become - mostly because the nobility kept it a secret. If it were to get out, there was no telling how the people would react. More likely than not, they would revolt, not realizing that battle would only cut their food supply shorter.

As a people, they were on the brink of a civil war. Having people enter her audience to speak on the matter of whether or not they should be permitted to open a store in which to sell their hand crafted dolls in the monthly marketplace...

It was difficult to pay attention to.

Appeasement

"And so, in order to appease the snow gods and get them to bless us with a good season, we have presented this twinkie sacrifice."

There was no end to the humor that was in the air. I had no idea how it had started, but it had apparently been a tradition for some years to burn a collection of twinkies during the Christmas celebration so that the rest of the snow season would be good. Being surrounded by skiers and snowboarders, to say nothing of the fact that a good snow season would be good for the company, made it pretty obvious that the more snow there was, the better. No one took the sacrifice seriously - it was just a fun thing to do, and a good story to tell.

We had spent a good amount of time taping six boxes worth of twinkies to a mannequin torso, completely covering it as best as we could. Someone had even crafted a head for the mannequin out of foam and paper bags - though it's neck was far too long, which resulted in several jokes about it being ET, and having a twinkie instead of his finger as he talked about phoning home. We'd even gone to the effort of drilling holes into the mannequin - one so that we could attach the head, and a few others so that we could fill its interior with flammables. We didn't just want to set the outside on fire. Doing so would simply melt the tape, leading it to fall apart.

It was a couple hours before we actually made the sacrifice, though. There had been a lot of anticipation throughout the night for what was to come of the sacrifice, especially because many of us were new and had never seen this before. We had no idea what to expect.

They filled the mannequin partially with lighter fluid, letting it drip out of the bottom and onto the ground, where they had made a trail of the lighter fluid so that it could be lit like a wick. I don't think there wasn't anyone who wasn't terrified for what would happen as the lighter was put to the fluid - the fire traveled quickly, but the mannequin was placed on a stand, and the dripping of the lighter fluid wasn't enough for the flames to travel up and light the sacrifice. We laughed as one man grabbed another container of lighter fluid and head over.

We weren't ready.

When the fire caught, it shot up into the mannequin. The lighter fluid inside ignited instantaneously. The expansion of air as the fire exploded outwards tore apart the holds of the mannequin with ease, and a bang ripped through our eardrums as our sacrifice was torn asunder.

We couldn't have asked for a better result.

Snow field

Henrick approached the snowed in village, seeing from a distance just how tainted with blood it had become. The village had been supposedly overrun by werewolves a matter of days prior, and if the bloodstains were anything to go by, that was a reliable rumor indeed. By the time he had arrived, it was likely that there wasn't even anyone left to save - though it wasn't that particular village he as overly worried about. If the werewolves were allowed to continue and do as they wished, this wouldn't be the only village that ended up being wiped away. It was better that only one was lost than a dozen.

As he drew closer, he could see their hulking masses of fur prowling the buildings, looking for any scraps of human flesh that they may have left behind. He was fortunate that they were still there - another day or two and they would have moved on. They had certainly already finished wiping away everyone in the village, but they weren't overly intelligent creatures, so they weren't going to have finished their seep until they were absolutely certain. They smell of blood in the snow would have hampered their ability to hunt - that and the blood on their fur, which they hadn't cleaned off.

But they smelled him as he entered their midst. He was a different smell - an ancient smell. One that they knew well as being the forbearings of death for their kind. For he was part of a race of hunters that lived by their skin of their teeth, and by being brutal and malicious fighters that cared not for even others of their kind, but only for themselves, and would therefore slaughter and feast on the wealth of any who stood in their path.

He was human.

And as he drew the silver blade from his back, he knew that they could tell what kind of a human he was. For being a hunter rather than a civilian, he smelled of the blood of his own enemies, for it tainted him deep within. He watched as the werewolves swarmed in front of him, forming a pack, rather than choosing to fight him one on one. They were wise to concoct such a strategy.

But not wise enough.

Insanity

I beat Final Fantasy XV recently - which was good, not great, but that's not what I want to get into - and doing so has got me thinking about the older games again. I have played all of the mainline titles outside of the MMOs, though I have not beaten them all. There are some that I adore, and some that I can not stand, but even in the ones that I don't like as much, there are things that I can not pretend are not great.

One of those games is Final Fantasy 6 - one of the contenders by most standards for the best in the series, as well as best rpg of all time. I'm personally not a fan. I enjoyed the majority of the game, but there was one specific dungeon that I hated and that ruined the game for me. That being said, it is beyond my capacity to argue that the main villain, Kefka, is not one of the greatest villains of all time. You despise him almost from the moment you first see him. He looks pathetic and laughable, but he is truly evil, and with each encounter he becomes more intimidating.

But the thing that makes him so great is that he's not just evil. He's absolutely insane. He is more than willing to kill his own men in order to kill his enemies - and I don't mean letting them die in battle, I mean poisoning their water supply so that the water will travel down river to kill another village. He truly wants nothing more than to cause chaos and destruction, to attain power to control the world so that all will be broken and scattered while he is a god. And not a god among men, but a literal god. The more times you encounter him, the more you realize that it's not rhetoric or an impossible dream. And in the end, he actually succeeds. He destroys the world, becomes a god, and breaks the lives of you and all of your friends. The world literally becomes little more than ruins.

He is ruthless, psychotic, and loves to toy with you. But, of the many villains you face in video games, he is one of the few that does not go easy on you. The moment he gains more power, he turns on you and throws it in your face. He doesn't hesitate. He only toys when he already knows that he has won. In the final battle his final form isn't something that he has hidden away from you, but is something that he only acquired by becoming a god, at which point he no longer needed to play with you to get his kicks. He discarded you along with the rest of the world. You don't see him in person again until the end of the game.

Sometimes, when I'm trying to write villains, I try to tap into that insanity. You can have intentions behind evil, or you can have a pure drive of hatred and desire of power. But it's a lot harder to do both - so try and do one well.

Relaxing

Moriah leaned back against the wall, a pillow under the square of her back to make her comfortable, a light blanket thrown over her legs. She couldn't help the small smile on her face as she watched Brendan fiddling with his guitar, looking for the right notes to string together melodies and chords to the tune that he had stuck in his head. There were a few dozen sheets of paper with hastily written notes and chord forms scattered around the floor. He was in his own little world, barely even still aware of the fact she was there. It was kinda cute.

His dog was lying between them, happily resting, its tail wagging slowly and gently through the air. It had been more excitable when she had first arrived, but she wasn't the only one who was calmed by his music. Even when he was just trying to figure a song out, there was just something about the way he filled the emptiness of the space around him with quiet noise that made you feel calm. Even when the notes that he was stringing together were completely wrong. There was just something about the way he was focused on his task, the way he paused whenever something didn't sound right and the more he worked on it the better it sounded.

They had been dating for a couple years at this point, so she didn't feel like he was ignoring her when he went into his little world of music making. She had learned better. The fact that he was willing to go into it at all with her around showed how comfortable he was with her. Even his band didn't get to see him like this. He was very shy and quiet about it all, and he didn't want people to be around as he worked, because he found it distracting, even just thinking that they might be judging him. But he didn't look at Moriah that way. She was practically an extension of his own person by this point, and he felt like he didn't have to hold back when he was with her. It made her feel special. She got to see a part of him that no one else saw.

She ran a hand through his dog's fur, who looked up at her and gave her a toothy grin, his tail wagging more. He moved to lay his head against her, and she ruffled the fur on top of his head. She liked being able to just relax with Brendan. She liked going on dates, seeing movies, getting dinner. She liked going out and doing stuff. But she didn't feel like she needed to do that all of the time. Every once in a while, it was nice to just sit back and relax, enjoying the quiet with him, just knowing that they were together.

Cats

Ian closed his eyes for a moment and let the sunlight that was spilling in through the window wash over him. It was a hot summer day, and he was the only one who had elected to stay at home. It wasn't that he didn't like being outside or having fun with his friends. He wasn't a shut in recluse or anything like that. But from time to time, one needed to take a day to themselves and just relax at home, and this was definitely one of those days. 

He had hooked his computer up temporarily to hse the tv as a monitor, and he had been watching videos on youtube and playing a few games throughout the day. Though he had become more of a pc gamer than a console gamer in recent years, it was still nice to be able to have that full sit on the couch and see the game on the big screen experience - he just wished that he still had a usable controller he could connect to use. A keyboard in his lap and a mouse on the couch arm worked, but it didn't quite scratch that itch he was digging for. 

He hadn't been relaxing long when he heard the familiar pattering of feet walking down the hallway and out to the living room where he was lounging. The sound of pushing off followed quickly by a soft thud, and a black and white cat was standing on the couch beside him, casually glancing around before trying to cuddle up to him. He ran a hand along the cat's back, a smile on his face. "Hey there Jasper," he said fondly. "I was wondering where you'd gone off too."

The cat nuzzled into his hand, purring as it did so, content for the moment just to be loved by its owner. Jasper and his brother, Bill, had been with Ian since he was a child. They'd lived a remarkably long and healthy life, and while he knew in his mind that their years were running short, he'd miss them when they were gone. They were as much a part of his family as his parents and sister were. He wasn't sure if he'd want to get new ones when they were gone. He loved his cats, and cats in general, but he didn't want the new ones to feel like they were just replacements. But that would be a hard feeling to get over. 

More pattering and another thud, thiugh this one came from just behind him. Bill, Jasper's orange and white brother, was claiming his spot on the couch back, just behind Ian's head. It was the closest he ever got to what you'd see in pictures or movies, where the cat actually climbed on the person's shoulders. 

"Did you guys decide you wanted to come watch me play games?" he asked as he reached up to pet Bill as well. "I don't mind. Any preference?" Bill mewled in contentment. 

"Back to GTA it is, then."

Baking

I don't talk about this very often, either on here or in my normal daily life, but I actually thoroughly enjoy baking - specifically bread, if you didn't assume as much from the word "baking." It's not like I'm ashamed of enjoying it or something - I don't talk about it much because I don't think about it much. Every once in a while I'll go somewhere and see some bread, or play a game that has a cooking section in it, or something else along those lines, and I'll think to myself, "Oh yeah, I like baking." I enjoy the act of mixing the ingredients, kneading the dough. I enjoy being able to eat something that I made that will last for more than the ten minutes it takes me to eat a meal. Simple but enjoyable.

I'm not one for the bread machines, though. I don't even use a mixer. I do everything by hand because I enjoy the motions of it, the textures, the little bits of dough that I can nibble off of my fingers once the bread is set aside to rise because it got stuck there while I was kneading. Plus I'm just the kind of person who likes to do things on my own anyway. I like to know that I possess the ability required to get something done - I can pass things off to someone else who knows better, but I consistently don't feel good about it. So it may sound a little silly, but I'd really rather not have a machine do all of the mixing, kneading, and baking for me.

And it's nice, because there are so many different kinds of breads out there, so many different flavors and textures, but they more or less come down to the same ideas as far as making them goes. There's not too much precision in the order of operations like there is in regular cooking. You get your dry ingredients, you mix them together. You add your wet ingredients, you mix it together. You knead the crap out of that dough until it looks nice and isn't a sticky blob. Then you wait as it magically becomes bigger. You punch it. You wait for it to magically grow again. Then you heat the hell out of it until it's suddenly bread. It's simple. It's fun. It's delicious.

I'm not gonna pretend like I'm amazing at it. I don't know any of the logic behind what ingredients to use or how much of them. I just find recipes and follow directions. But it's fun. I enjoy it. And any kind of food making skill is a good one to have in life. Plus I think a lot of people underestimate how good straight bread can taste. Most people will only have white or wheat or something, just on a sandwich, and it's just a vehicle for them for other food. But bread in and of itself can be delicious.

And despite what some people may try to convince you, carbs aren't evil. You kind of need them for your body to run. Idiots.

Trial

Igni stood behind the defense's table, looking up at the judge, trying his best to look professional and formal. After several thousand years of life, he had found it difficult to sustain much of the daily going ons and rituals of normal life. He had seen laws change and evolve so many times throughout history that he had begun not to pay attention to them. Not to say that he had become above them or immune to them in any way - but what was the point of fully learning them if he knew they were merely going to change? He had enough trouble remembering everything that was going on as it was. Too many parallels and crossroads. History was a fickle thing.

He could hear the judge speaking, accusing him of some form of -cide, though he wasn't paying much attention. It wasn't the first time he had been accused of some massive crime. It probably wouldn't be the first time. And it wouldn't be the first time if he was found guilty and sent to prison for life. They wouldn't hold on to him for that long, of course - even if they could somehow find a way to imprison him until the end of time, it would only take a couple generations before they forgot why he was in there at all and let him go. He'd had that experience before. He found prison more boring than anything else. The same routine everyday. The same kinds of people trying to prove their dominance over him. And the same failures until he was left alone.

He kept his face facing forward as the judge droned on, though his mind and ears were elsewhere. He was listening to the silence in the audience behind him. Years of practice had helped him to learn to focus his hearing. He honed in on the silence, listening for any breaks in it. He found the conversations of normal people who were willing to break the silence of government affairs far more interesting than the government affairs themselves. There was too much formal language and forced perspective in the government. They wanted to push their own agendas by keeping others from understanding them. It was aggravating.

It took a while for someone to speak up in the audience. A quiet voice, speaking to themselves. "I swear he looks familiar," the voice muttered. "In one of grandpa's old pictures."

Now that was someone he'd have to look into later.

Pugilists

The boxers each stepped into the ring, rolling their shoulders as the loosened up, looking everywhere in the ring but at each other. Neither was afraid of the other - they merely wished to ensure that the first look they gave the other was an intimidating one that would attack the opponent's spirit, dampening their willingness to fight. It was the first blow to be delivered in the fight, before they were even permitted to throw a punch - perhaps the most important blow to be thrown in the entire fight. They faced their corners, garnering cheers from the audience, before finally turning to one another as the referee called for their attention.

They approached the center, staring each other down with an intenseness that the audience could barely register from their positions. The referee eyed them both, judging whether or not they were of sound mind to fight and if either of them was liable to strike out illegally. Satisfied with his fighters, he called for them to bump fists before sounding the bell and leaping back. In an instant the two closed the distance between them, striking hard at one another's faces simultaneously, the heavy thuds resounding through the boxing hall before the screaming cheers overpowered them.

There in the ring the two traded blows, one after another, their fists pummeling into each other unrelentingly, their legs bracing hard into the floor in order to remain standing as they pushed hard to topple the other. They hammered against each other's guards, the gloves they wore barely more than a thin layer of cloth between their knuckles and their opponent's flesh. They pounded endlessly against each other, feeling the blows landing, but also the ones they were being hit with, knowing that for the time it wouldn't do much, but in a matter of minutes every part of their beings would be aching and begging them to fall. The only thing keeping them standing would be their will. Their spirit.

But it was also a matter of technique. One threw a hook, aiming to slip behind the other's guard, but was surprised to feel his fist slice through the air. His eyes glanced down instinctively, his brain knowing that he couldn't move fast enough. His opponent was low, weaving in below his arm, fist shooting upwards into his rib cage. His air abandoned him instantly, forced out of his lungs, and he felt his knee buckling beneath him. And then the second fist was flying, directly at his face, and he stared at his own hands as they were dropping.

Whip

Aldrin sighed as he watched the stranger draw his sword, brandishing it in his direction threateningly as he staggered forward drunkenly. This man clearly had no idea what the hell he was getting himself into. He wondered which it had more to do with - the alcohol or the man's ego. Hard to say. Even if he had been sober, he barely would have stood a chance against Aldrin, but as the staggering drunk he currently was, He'd never even be able to land a blow.

"Wha'd you call me, you little punk?" the man asked loudly, flicking his sword back and forth as he spoke. Aldrin rolled his eyes - he'd never spoken to the man before, or even seen him before for that matter. "You think you can take me? Ain't even got a sword, boy. Gonna take me on wit your bare hands? You gonna die fightin' like that."

"You'd be best getting back to your drink," Aldrin said flatly. "I'd highly suggest picking your fights more wisely."

The blade flew forward in an arc, but it cut nothing but air, clanking against the ground and sending a shock up the man's arm as he tried not to trip over the blade now level with his feet. Aldrin was stepping back and around the man, reaching down to grip the whip the was looped and strapped to his hip. He wasn't much of a fighter, truth be told, but he was very good at controlling. As the man turned to face him again, he had his whip firmly in hand, and before the man could take another step there was a loud crack in the air.

The sword clattered to the ground as the man grabbed his hand, blood lightly beginning to breach the wound that was fresh on the back of his hand. Aldrin looped the whip back around his hand as the man looked wildly back and forth between him and his sword. He clearly couldn't even begin to comprehend what had just happened.

"You shouldn't mess with horse breeders," Aldrin muttered under his breath, "lest you face his whip."

Warp

Norn threw the dagger in his hand as hard as he could at the far wall, watching it spin through the air, its arc slowly dropping just before it hit the wall and...

It was back in his hand as he swung from its handle, gripping it as hard as he could to keep from dropping. He gasped as the air caught back up with his lungs - he had warped like this countless times before, but he would never get used to the feeling of the air in his lungs all being pushed against one side, like water in a box when it is moved without warning. As quick as he could, he turned his attention back to the fight that he had just withdrawn himself from.

What he and his friends were fighting was the equivalent of a god. A massive beast in the shape of a man, though it was anything but. Its footsteps were already enough to dent the earth, and it was swinging those feet down at the four of them with all the might it possessed. Its leg sunk into the ground as they evacuated with each blow it made. The only thing making it possible was the fact that its massive size meant that it was slow moving. Its body wasn't built for the physics of the world on which they were fighting. It was powerful to be certain, but it simply couldn't function the same way they could. And that was without their magic.

Norn dropped towards the ground as he pulled the dagger free from the stone wall, landing with an audible thud that sent a shock through his legs, but for the most part unharmed. He slipped it back into his belt, secured by a quick strap that he could undo to redraw the dagger in an instant. From his back he pulled the greatsword that he carried for this fight - he knew he couldn't swing it as fast, but it wasn't like this thing could move fast to dodge it. He needed the weight and the size of the blade to be able to make any kind of a dent.

"Norn!" one of his companions shouted out. "We can't just keep attacking its hands and feet whenever they come at us! We've gotta get up somewhere and do some damage it won't just find ticklish!"

He nodded in agreement. He knew what that meant, and even though he hated doing it, he really couldn't argue. He motioned towards the others, and they spread out, drawing the monster's attention, and as it moved its arms to attack them it left itself open in the face. He slipped the dagger loose again and gripped it in his offhand. This one would hurt.

Differences

I find the English language fascinating because of how easily two people can get confused while communicating the meaning of a single word. That's the kind of thing that people hate English for, but I find it incredibly fascinating, because two people can have such different meanings behind the same word, and they're both perfectly valid. And when we're having discussions about those words, we can have an internal understanding of what we think that word means, but it can be difficult to actually express that understanding. We have words, and yet at times we can't find the words to even explain those words. It's such a bizarre experience, but I think it's one that we've all experienced.

One of the places that this applies to the most is when we're talking about other people. I'm not talking stuff like if they're nice or if they're strong or what have you. Tiny things. The difference between someone being cute and beautiful. Sounds simple, right? But a person can be both cute and beautiful - what makes them each thing? What is the difference between a beautiful cute person, and a cute beautiful person? It sounds silly, but it makes a difference. Is it the actions they make that determines if they are one or the other? Their facial features? Body type? Personality?

One could argue that it's personal preference that determines how we view the different people, and that's a valid argument to make. But then why do we use the one word to describe it? After all, we find a person to be cute or beautiful, so there has to be a shared meaning behind cute and beautiful that we feel when we find them that way, right? Even if two people find two completely different people cute, there must be something about the situations that is the same that therefore makes the word still apply in both circumstances.

I'm not going to swing in and give some kind of universal definition, because I really don't have an answer. It is an interesting question, though, and as a writer, one that I will probably spend a lifetime considering. After all, if I want a character I write to appear cute in a person's mind, I should be able to tap into that shared meaning to make it possible. And obviously not everyone's going to find a character cute, no matter how hard I try to make that a thing. But the more people I can get to share that feeling, the better I will have done at accomplishing my goal. Because while I could just say that a character is cute and leave it up to the audience to visualize them in their head, that would be removing any creative freedom I myself have in actually creating the character. And if I'm not writing anything more than that they are cute, it requires the audience to blindly take my word for it. And that back and forth makes for a very bland experience.

Geography

I was looking at some game stuff today, cause that's what I do with my life, and I found this very well constructed map of the world of one of the series I'm in to, Monster Hunter. It was cool because Monster Hunter bases itself on a series of maps for different hunting areas, but aside from the occasional background image, those areas feel extremely disconnected from one another. But this map took all of those disconnected areas and was able to fit them together between years of games that have only been loosely tied together, creating one contingent world.

But while I was looking at that map, I realized how much thought was put into it, and how many small clues there were in the games that made that construction possible. All of these little details that were slowly and cumbersomely pieced together to make a world with any kind of structure and logistical rules. Things that I never really think about when I'm writing my stories, which makes it difficult to place events and places in any kind of logical system or map. While I'm busy building the characters of my world, I don't give a whole lot of thought to the world itself. And I mean, I love seeing the maps at the beginnings of books that shows the world and where things take place, even if I never actually remember the logistics of any of it. But the way I write, that wouldn't even be possible.

To be fair, that's probably something that you either plan way in advance, or you can correct and modify during editing. For me personally, it would probably work better in editing. Already knowing what kinds of events take place and what general kinds of areas I want them to take place in, I could figure out how that would make sense and change directions accordingly. Place different cities in the north or south, east or west. Build the world around the events, rather than the events around the world. That much planning would just... not work well for me.

But I'd like to have a consistent world like that. Something that has some kind of permanence. Make the world feel like it's alive, and make it a place that people would want to go. Man, if I ever heard something like that. "I want to live in that world." I don't think I could be happier as a writer.

Tournament

It was certainly a strange sensation, having the new arm be attached. Flesh connected with metal. New fingers to move. It wasn't a required surgery - it had been the prize that Moriar had won in the tournament. And he was hopeful that it would not be the last prize that he won, because he still had a long ways to go before he reached his goal. A whole new body... One with which he could create an entire new future for himself. New capabilities. New lifestyle. New possibilities.

He wasn't the only one trying to get that particular prize, of course. There were hundreds of competitors vying to get in and work their way towards that new body grand prize. The new body was created bit by bit as they made their way through the various stages of the tournament, which made each set of rounds more difficult than the last - having to adjust to the way your new body worked took time, but that was not a luxury that one had. If you were lucky it would be a week between receiving a new limb and entering the next fights. And it could take well over a month to fully adjust.

"You sure you want this model, buddy?" the doctor asked, watching Moriar flex his fingers. "I mean, it's a nice color and all, but you only have so much time to change your mind. By the time you can get the next one installed, it'll be too late to change your mind. And you sure as hell can't mix and match. Won't do you any good in their world like that."

Moriar nodded in agreement and understanding. "I'm sure," he assured the doctor. "I've been thinking about this for years. I decided what skin color I wanted a very long time ago."

"Well, I'm glad. It suits you anyway. You'll fit in well with the humans. Just be careful in the arena. The flesh on that arm is significantly weaker than the metal that you're used to. Your opponents will aim for it first, try and tear it to pieces. And you already have pain receptors hooked up to that, so it sure as hell isn't going to feel good. Still, better than doing the head first. You can lose that arm. You can't lose your head."

Free Write 13

Still feeling kinda drained after Nano. I actually don't have much work for the next couple of weeks, so that should give me plenty of time to rest and relax and really let my brain get moving again. Though at the same time I need to do some work on figuring out Christmas presents before, you know, Christmas. Never been too good at all of that stuff - even for looking for presents for myself. Though that's gotten even worse lately. If I see something I really want, I either get it or ignore it until I don't want it any more. Putting something off to tell someone to get me for the holiday season isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world.

Honestly, I don't have all that much that I want to say here. The whole point of a free write for me is to just get some words down about just about anything I have on my mind, but there really isn't much there today. I've been playing Final Fantasy 15 now that I finally received it, and I'm loving it. It's definitely not the kind of Final Fantasy that I grew up with and fell in love with, but I'm also very not far into it. I like what I've seen so far, but I also see how some things could become a pain in the ass. While I was waiting for that, I also bought a game called Steep, which is an open world snow ports exploration game. It's kind of weird to describe. I super dig it, though. I've always been a fan of snowboarding games thanks to playing SSX as a kid, so it's right up my alley. It can be both very challenging and skill based and very relaxing and fun. It's good.

I know it's only been a few days since Nano ended, and while Nano was highly stressful for me, it feels like I've fallen into a kind of rut almost from not having it in my life. Not having a constant story to work on. I suppose what I should really do is some editing work on my novel from last year. I feel much more confident about getting something workable out of that than I do with the crap I wrote this year. I mean, there's a lot of problems with it, but I feel like last year's story had a bit more... stability to it, I suppose. I'm not sure how to explain it. It's certainly not substance. But the story had more space to be a story, I suppose. However you want to phrase it.

Speaking of snowboarding, I'd like to do some. It's been years since I went snowboarding, and while I was never very good at it, I still enjoyed it. It was a kind of a thing to do I guess. I dunno, it was pretty exhilarating to rush through the snow and only have a board and my skill and reflexes to keep me afloat. I clearly didn't have much cause I feel a lot. And it hurt. And I lost my glasses once because of it. But I still enjoyed it. I'd like to go again, but I have no idea when would be a good time. And it's been so long, I have no idea if I even still can. But I want to.

Moving mountains

"Uh, not that I'm questioning you or your skill, Sir Linara, but are you sure that you understand the levity of the situation?"

Sir Linara sighed. His squire was always questioning his actions, speaking out of turn and trying to mask it as though he was concerned for the knight's safety. It was infuriating. He had taken the boy on as a favor to an old comrade of his who had had to step down from his position after having lost an arm in battle. Linara had expected the boy to be well behaved and a proper squire, having been given to him in such a manner, but he had quickly found the boy to be anything but. He was sharp tongued and wily, and he had a habit of getting himself into the wrong place at the wrong time. Linara had to spend a great deal of time just keeping the boy from getting himself killed.

"I am sure, Renard, that I know what I am doing," he assured the boy for what felt like the hundredth time that day. "I understand that you are concerned because the beast was described to us as having the power to move mountains, but I am a knight of Rengar. I have fought and slain dragons and giants alike. Whatever this beast may be, I assure you that I will take care of it."

"It's just, sir, that I think you misheard..."

The earth beneath them began to shake, and they could see the horizon begin to move. The mountains themselves were shaking, being risen up above where they should have been. Linara pulled his horse to a stop and drew his lance, ready to charge and make the first strike, but as he watched the mountains, waiting for a beast to appear behind them, it slowly began to dawn at him that one wasn't coming.

His eyes drifted to the base of the mountains, where a series of legs were expanding, lifting the mountain on their back. It wasn't a monster lifting the mountains. The mountains themselves were a giant, living monster.

"They didn't say that it had the power to move mountains. They said it was the power of moving mountains."

Free Write 12

With Nano finally being over and December getting going, I feel both pretty drained and pretty happy with my writing, which is why I want to take a quick break from thinking about writing and just put some words down about whatever comes to mind. You may also notice that this is something I probably should have said yesterday - funny story. I could have sworn I did. Apparently I thought about it so thoroughly that I just assumed I had actually done it. So, you know. Fuck me.

Just to get it off my mind a little bit, I wanna talk about how Nano went for a second. I finished, which I'm super happy about. I love the idea of the story that I wrote, and I think it has a ton of potential to be a fascinating story. As it currently is, it is horrendous. I'm not talking first draft bad. I'm talking this clearly has not had enough thought put into it and needs to be completely rewritten bad. But you know what? I'm fine with that. This was an idea I had about three days before October. I did not have the time to really think it through and establish what I wanted to do with the story. The fact that I got through fifty thousand words with it is more than enough. I will more than likely come back to this a few years down the line when I know a bit more of what I want from the story and write it again. And I look forward to doing it.

In the meantime, I'm gonna spend some time diving back into video games for a bit. I don't plan on that being literally the only thing that I do - though it's entirely possible some days will be that way - but I basically didn't play any games throughout November because I was so focused on writing. Which doesn't necessarily sound that bad, but when games are such a prominent part of my life, it feels weird to just push them aside. It's not like I stopped thinking about them, because they were always in the back of my head and I saw news about them all the time and such. I just didn't really play them.

I'd like to start with Final Fantasy 15, which just came out, but the mailman decided that I didn't deserve it. It was supposed to arrive yesterday, then didn't. Then they told me it would arrive by nightfall. And it didn't. There's absolutely no reason it shouldn't arrive today - which means it probably won't. And even if it did, with my work schedule, I'm not going to have any time to play it for two days. So that's great.

But above anything else, I need to keep writing on the blog. Even if the quality is shit, it's practice. It's the act of actually writing something down. That's the important part of it. So hopefully this is the last time for quite a while that I miss a day.

Hiding

The air caught in Moriah's throat as she saw the bear appear in the moonlight glow. She had been joking with her friends earlier in the night about bears, and how if any came she would defend the rest of the girls from it - she was the tomboy of the group, having grown up taking martial arts lessons and having a very conservative father teach her how to shoot guns. But now that she was actually looking at one, and it was looking back at her, the terror was shooting through her system like wildfire. There was no way she could take on a bear. She would be lucky if she could get away from it. Hell, she would have been better off in its presence if she were still sleeping in her tent - then at least she wouldn't be viewed as a threat.

But now that she had been seen, what was she supposed to do? She was frozen in place, but the bear did not have such a fear. It was already beginning to stalk toward her, and no matter how innocent its intentions may have been, she couldn't help but imagine it tearing her apart. She hoped desperately that she wasn't in between a mama bear and her cub. She would be doomed if that was the case.

In the back of her mind, she could hear her father telling her that in this kind of situation, the best thing that she could do was to pretend to be dead. Just lay down, close your eyes, and don't move. But the bear had already seen her up and moving. Would that really work? If she bolted, the bear would likely be scared by the abrupt movement and chase her down, and there was no way in hell that she was going to be able to out run a bear. She couldn't out climb it, either. She couldn't out anything it. It was a bear.

Slowly she laid down on the ground and closed her eyes, doing her best to be still and not curl up into a ball. She needed to be prone. It made her more vulnerable, and in that way, made her appear more dead. If the bear for some reason decided it wanted to claw her or bite her to check if she was actually still alive... There really wasn't anything that she could do about it.

She could feel and hear the bear getting closer to her, and when she thought it was close enough, she held her breath. If she was breathing, it might give her away. She could feel the bear leaning over her and sniffing her up and down, moving agonizingly slowly. The longer it sniffed at her, the more she could feel her lungs straining to hold onto the air it was so tentatively holding. If the bear didn't decide to move on soon...

Just when she didn't think she could her breath anymore, she heard the bear start to make its way away from her. It gave her the strength to hold on just a few seconds longer, to make some space between them, before she gasped and felt the life returning to her body. She sat up as she breathed in and out hard, thankful that she was still alive, and watched the bear move away.

And right towards their campsite.

Storming

The boat rocked as the waters began to turn and break around them. The crew had felt the oncoming storm some hours earlier, as unkind winds began to blow and the air grew heavy, and had prepared well in advance for it. They had tied down crates full of supplies both above and below deck, and only a skeleton crew remained above in order to man the ship. Each was strapped with a rope and hook to be attached to the main mast should the storm break too heavily, ensuring that they would not be tossed into the unforgiving waters - though, should worse come to worst, they also had a knife on their person to slash through that very rope.

They were slow building things, sea storms, but you were so far away from any sort of land that there was nothing you could do but prepare and hope for the best once you saw them coming. It took a skilled crew to survive a storm, but even the most skilled could only do so much if the waves became too tall and powerful. They rarely counted on it happening, but they were always ready for the possibility - better safe than sorry when there were no second chances.

But as this particular storm came in, and the skies grew dark, it quickly became apparent that this would be a bad one. The boat went from rocking to nearly tipping from side to side, and the ropes that had been used to tie down all of the supplies strained with the effort. The clouds were swirling directly over head, and the wind blew hard in every direction around them. The skeleton crew was quick to respond, hooking themselves to the mast and tightening every knot they could get their hands on. Frigid rain slammed against them like stones being carried in the wind, but they pushed onward to do everything they could to keep the ship afloat.

When they realized what they were up against, it was too late to do anything about it. Too late to pray to their gods for forgiveness.

The clouds continued to swirl and were pulled down by the turning wind. And as they descended upon the ship, a face appeared amongst them, with gnashing teeth and burning eyes. The crew could do nothing but stare back as the beast at the eye of the storm descended upon them, ready to consume.

Wealth

Thomas had though it ironic that he was the one to receive the ring labeled wealth. Yes, Angelo had lost his job a few months before the funeral, but Thomas had been unemployed for two years. He lived more or less on the streets. His family permitted him to stay with them, but he did not want to be a burden upon them, and spent the little time he did spend in their houses constantly working to clean and to cook so that he would not seem like as much of a burden that they had to carry. But he spent most of his life out on the streets, wondering from place to place, just looking for work. He had lost count of how many times he had slept on public benches or hard concrete. He was pretty sure his back was misaligned - not that he could afford the doctor's visit to even find out, much less fix the problem.

He was staying with his aunt when the funeral happened, which was pretty much the only reason he had even heard about it. He didn't have a phone for people to contact him with, so if he hadn't been staying with family at the time, he never would have heard. Which meant that he never would have received the ring. Which meant that his life would have continued on in the madness and desperation that it was.

It was the following day that things started to change however. The ring had made him laugh - it was such a stupid thing for him to be attributed with. But when he wore it, he almost felt like he should open a bank account. Just so that it might eventually mean something. Hell, maybe the ring itself was worth something. But when he went in and gave them his name, he was informed that there was already an account opened in his name. He took a blind guess at what the passcode for it was, the first numbers that popped into his head. And they were right.

In the account was well over a million dollars, with an incredible interest rate. If he left the money alone, it would only take a few years for it to nearly double. With this much money, he could more than easily afford an actual home to stay in. He had no idea where it had come from, but it was there, and it was locked behind information that was only accessible to him.

And then Jonathan won the lottery of ten million dollars, and gave half of the money to Thomas in goodwill. Thomas put it away immediately - a boost like that, and with his interest rate...

He'd never need a job in the first place.

Charm

Angelo had barely sat down at the bar when he felt the eyes of half the ladies in the club beginning to land on him. He tried not to let the smile creep on to his face when it happened, but it was hard not to enjoy being the center of attention. He'd only have to be at the bar until he found someone that he thoroughly wanted to take home with him, and then he'd get to enjoy the rest of the night at his own pace. He barely even had time to drink anymore - but when you were getting the results he was, who was he to complain?

Not to mention the solid job he had landed. Shortly before the funeral he had been let go, which was a harsh blow to take, but it had taken almost no time at all to get an interview, and he'd practically been hired on the spot when he went in. Not only had he nailed the interview, but the new place was paying nearly ten times as much as his old job, meaning he no longer had to worry about bills or food. It hadn't been an uncomfortable living situation before, but at times there had certainly been some close calls. Now there was nothing to fear.

He knew it wasn't his own doing. He never would have been able to get by with any of this just a few months earlier. But it was easy to tell what had happened when every girl who approached him couldn't help but tell him how charming he was, and giggle over how appropriate it was that it said so on the ring he wore. And when he told them that it came from his dead grandmother? He could practically hear the swooning. That only had to happen a handful of times before you got the picture.

Not that he could complain about any of it. He wasn't above obtaining the gains he was getting by wearing an apparently magical piece of jewelry. After all, it had very specifically been gifted to him by a dying relative - who could say no to that? Certainly not him. His grandmother had wanted him to succeed, and that was precisely what he was now doing, thanks to a gift she had given him. To say no to that just because he could not have done so on his own - why, that would be madness. That would be ungrateful. He would take these new advancements in his life in stride, and with his head held high. After all, no one had to know that it was the ring that was doing it.

Not that anyone would have believed that in the first place.

Brawn

Bart had found that he didn't need to wear the ring on his finger to feel its affects, but merely have it touching against his skin, which was fortunate because his ring wasn't all that useful to him if he had to wear it on his finger all the time. He wore the strength ring on a short necklace under a tight undershirt, just tight enough to keep the ring pressed against his skin at all times. He put the ring on first thing in the morning and pulled the shirt over it to keep it in place before heading out to the gym.

His gains had been exponential - he'd gone from barely being able to bench press the bar to benching two hundred pounds in a matter of days. And from there he had kept getting stronger. His body wasn't becoming the huge, almost disgusting mass that some bodybuilders would become as they got to lifting at what he was lifting. But it was growing. His muscles were becoming strong, getting incredibly solid, and his fat was burning away. He was starting to look like the strong cartoon characters that no one could feasibly look like. It got him more attention from the ladies than he would have thought.

It hadn't taken long to notice the increase in strength thanks to the ring - when he got home that first day, he'd nearly pulled his door off of its hinges because of it. Then his refrigerator door. Several doors, in fact. In a bout of frustration at it all, he had thrown his tv remote at the wall - the remote almost completely punched a hole in the hole, and slowly fell out in pieces. The fact that that shouldn't have even been possible, much less by him, made it obvious something was going on. But the moment he slipped off the ring, things returned to normal.

It was actually useful, knowing that removing the ring would then restrict his strength. It kept him from breaking things when he didn't want to. And while he wasn't nearly as powerful without it, he had still gained a considerable amount of strength from working out using it. He was far from useless without it. He was fairly easily capable of carrying a woman in his arms without it, which had proven quite useful on a number of occasions since getting the ring.

He had a feeling that if this was happening to him, it was happening with his siblings as well with theirs. But if his was strength, he was pretty sure the others had lost out on this competition.

Lucky

At their grandmother's funeral, Jonathan had been the one to receive the ring with word Luck etched into its front. It was a strange thing to have - advertising that one was lucky generally didn't bring one much luck. But it had been a gift from his dying grandmother, and he would feel rude if he did not wear the gift that she had given him, so he had slipped it onto his ring just like all the others. He was surprised to find that it fit him perfectly - he wondered if she had perhaps had the rings specially designed for each of them, and if so, why she had chosen to title them in the way that she had. He had never considered himself much of a lucky person. Sure, he had his lucky moments, but everyone did. There were certainly many people who were much luckier than him.

In the days following the funeral, he didn't notice much changing in his life. He had requested some time off following the funeral in order to recover from the shock - in truth he just saw it as a good opportunity to kick back and relax for a while. He could use a vacation. The funeral, in a way, had been good timing.

Would he ever admit that? Hell no. Did he feel bad about thinking that way? A little bit, sure. But it was what it was, and he knew that grandma wouldn't want him to go getting stressed out needlessly.

He spent a lot of that free time playing some games that he had been neglecting as his hours had increased at work. He enjoyed the extra payment, but it made it harder to find time for the things that he enjoyed doing at home - primarily playing rpgs. With the massive number of hours that went into those, they weren't something that you could sit down and play for a few minutes at a time. You really need at least a couple hours to dedicate to them, and with where he was in them, he'd need some more than that. He was grinding for rare weapon drops off of end game enemies - had been working on it on and off in the various games for a few months.

Within a couple days of getting back, he'd actually managed to get them, too. It was amazing what some persistence and time could do for him. And it was about time. But as he pushed forward, the drops seemed to be happening faster, with less effort. The one time he headed out of the house for a walk, he found a hundred dollar bill on the ground. His luck was going through the roof.

Which was when he remembered the ring. And wondered if he should take a trip to Vegas.

Intelligence

Their grandmother's will was a unique one to put it mildly. To her immediate family, she had left more or less the usual things - some money, assorted possessions, the deed to her house. To her grandchildren, however, she had left each a specific one of five rings, each inscribed with a word. Intelligence. Luck. Strength. Charm. And Wealth. Other than the word, the rings didn't look like anything special - they were just golden bands with some letters engraved into the top. They didn't even look like they were all that valuable. But her will was very insistent on which ring go to which grandchild, and that those were the possessions that be passed on to them.

Arianna was the one who got the ring inscribed with Intelligence. Like her siblings, she had been surprised not only by the seeming lack of compassion by their grandmother, but by the fact that the ring had fit her perfectly. It had been a smooth, comfortable fit, and she hadn't taken it off since she'd gotten it. But more than that, she had felt differently since her grandmother's death. It wasn't some kind of grief - she had never been that close with her grandmother, and she had felt largely unaffected by her passing. Mostly just confused by the will. But since putting on the ring, she had felt as though she could think more clearly. Things that had once confounded her in her everyday life had become clear and concise. Her writing became neater, her grammar better, and her vocabulary more expansive.

It took her only a couple of weeks to realize that it was the ring that was doing it. She couldn't explain how, even with her increased mental capacity, but the ring was increasing her intelligence. And as soon as she realized that, she realized that it must be true for the others as well. Something about the rings were amplifying their capabilities, and it was an incredible feeling. To no longer feel as though she was constrained by her inability to understand certain situations or problems. She never wanted to take the ring off again.

She wondered for a time what it would feel like to wear all of the rings. But as she thought about it, she realized that if she did not want to forfeit her ring, her siblings certainly would not either. In fact, they were likely to want to do so even less than she, for while she was wiser, the others had been given gifts that could make them more successful without having to work. Trying to convince them to forfeit their rings, even for a moment, would likely cause fighting. And if the group were to fight, it was obvious which of them would win.

It was best things ddid not come to that. She only hoped that the others realized that as well.

Coronation

Prince Fernan paced back and forth between the walls of his bedroom, the adrenaline running through his system making it impossible to sit still. This was the day. This was the day that he would no longer be a prince, at the beck and call of his mother and father, but the king, with the whole country under his finger. The thought left him with a mixture of elation and fear - it would be good to finally be in control of his own life, but he would be in control of the lives of every man, woman, and child in his kingdom as well. Eyes would be on him at all times. But it was worth the freedom.

He had been advised not to eat before the ceremony, as the anxiety that he was going through may have caused his stomach to turn, and if he were to vomit on the way to his coronation, it would not be a good sign for his rule. He had spent a large amount of time drinking water, which correspondingly meant that he spent a lot of time at the toilet as well. As time drew close to his crowning, he drank less water as well - having to pee in the middle of the ceremony would surely not make things any easier or better looking than vomiting would.

By the time he was finally called to the throne room, his legs were weak from the amount of pacing he had done, and his throat was starting to feel dry. He had miscalculated the amount of time he had left before the ceremony would call on him, and had stopped drinking far too early - but he had not wanted to take another, for he was sure that the moment he did he would be called on. But still, he raised his head high and kept his chin pointed up as he walked down the halls to the throne. In a few short moment it would no longer be what was promised to him, but what belonged to him. He would be given the crown. And his reign would begin.

There were dozens of royalty collected together around the edges of the throne room as he entered, a blaze of trumpets announcing his arrival, and bringing the nobles' chatting to a cease. He stood just inside the doorway for a moment, eyeing his audience, seeing those who had elected to come and take witness, and those who had not. He also noted the way that they looked at him - he had always had a talent for being able to see whether or not someone had ill intentions from the look in their eyes. It had gotten him out of trouble more than once in his youth.

And then he strode forward, to where his father was standing, crown in hand. In silence, he knelt before the now former king, and felt the crown placed on his own head. He stood, turned. Looked over the crowd, as they took him in, and he took them in. And then there was cheering. And he was king.

Hearing

Sarah stood by the edge of the river, the only sounds being the trickling of the water and the gentle breeze blowing through the trees. It was peaceful. Serene. Something that she had not experienced nearly enough in recent memory. It was early enough in the morning that the sky was blue with the sun's light, but just above the horizon, she could still see the falling moon, its color faded. This spot, this place, was hers, and hers alone. The fish and mammals had abandoned it some time ago, for though it was beautiful, there was very little there for them to substantiate themselves off of. But Sarah did not have such requirements, and was more than happy to live surrounded by so little.

And yet, as she looked up at the sky, she heard footsteps approaching her from behind. They came from a distance away, and she knew that if she so desired, she had more than enough time to hide from their source. But if she hid, they would only continue to search for her, and the sound of their footsteps would persist. It may be more painful, but it would be better in the long run for her to just interact with the person. At least then it would end quickly.

What a shut-in. "Hey, you always so-"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am." She didn't let him finish the question. She didn't need to. "Is there something I can help you with, or did you just come to antagonize me?"

Touchy. Better come at this carefully. She's clearly heard it all before. But the king was very explicit in that he wanted me to retrieve her, or he was going to have my head. Whatever her deal is, it must be important. Start with kindness. "It's a pleasant-"

"It's a bit late for the pleasantries, don't you think?" She could see the look on his face as he went to speak again. "Don't even. I don't know who your king is, and I don't care. I'm not going with you back to him. This is my home. I am not leaving it. He can come and try to find me, bring his army. I will be long gone before he can take me. I am not returning to civilization of any kind, and there is nothing you can say to me to change my mind."

What a pretentious little bitch. He went to open his mouth again, but Sarah didn't give him the chance to say another word. "Leave my home," she ordered. "You come here with evil intentions, and you can't even be damned to consider the feelings of who you speak to. You are too self-centered to be worth my time. Enjoy being beheaded. Your thoughts will not be missed in this world."

Castles

I love medieval history, and I love the idea of being there and experiencing it. I'm the kind of person who, if I'm going to know about something, I want that to be a real, physical thing to me - partially because I learn best through muscle memory, I suppose. And that seems really hard to do when it comes to history, but there are tons of pieces from the middle ages that you can easily go and find, and touch, and become intimately familiar with. Paintings, weapons, armors, tapestries. Most of those are stuck behind chains and glass, sure. But then you can go and find still standing medieval castles and cities. And that's where history can really come alive.

I just got home from being out in Prague, where I spent a lot of time in medieval castles and villages, though this was not the first time I have done this. I absolutely love being in places like this. Feeling the uneven stone streets beneath my feet, running my fingers along the walls and feeling the roughness of their world. Seeing how weak and poor their architectural structure appears to be, and yet remembering that it's been standing there for hundreds of years against the test of time. And so often in these places, the people and stores that remain have embraced their history. They remain small, focused, and quiet. You can walk up and down the streets, the only sound being that of other people walking around, the sounds of cars and the modern world left outside the city walls.

These were the things that I missed out on in history classes in school. We'd see small little pictures of things every once in a while, but that doesn't really give you a feeling for what things were like. But you go to an old cathedral or castle, and you look at the way they constructed things, where they put artwork and what kinds of art they put up. The amount of detail they put into their work. The craftsmanship they put into their weapons - both good and bad. It all says stuff about what people thought, what they valued, how they lived.

It amazed me the first time that I visited a castle, and I felt like I had been transported backwards in time to the days of old - to the time that I had always been fascinated by and wanted to be a part of. I wanted to know why we didn't actually talk about these kinds of things, and why history class was always a boring string of shifting borders and essays - both our own, and those of the time. Yes, they helped define our world in the long run. They should be studied. But why completely ignore the life that had been at the time? I don't want to be remembered by the actions of people hundreds of miles away who have nothing to do with me. I want to be remembered by what is here, what I interact with, how I live. It's not like that becomes irrelevant because someone signed a piece of paper.

Struggle

I've been having a rough few days working on my Nano novel - I think the creative drain has been showing through in my log posts as well. I have these really interesting questions I want to both pose and answer, fascinating scenes I want to explore, character depth I want to dive into - but no drive to actually get into them. It's been getting ever harder just to put words down on paper.

I'm worried that the story just isn't good. I made a decision early on to split the narrative between the four different characters, but having certain events happen with characters at the same time in different locations I worry has made the plot too scrambled to follow. I also worry that I've made too much repetition of information, thanks to the different characters relating to the events and knowledge. I've never been much of one for having more than one perspective, but I feel like the way the story is told, it's pretty important. Especially later on, when the characters begin to enter each other's dreams - it would be difficult to have only one perspective when there are four characters, each experiencing four vastly different worlds, fears, and actions. Each having to do their own thing to save one each other.

I can't exactly take a break from writing the novel if I want to finish it - which I do. I've failed to complete three Nanos in the seven years that I've been participating, and I can easily tell you that I have never once been happy about not finishing. I always feel like I have failed in one way or another, and I feel as though that failure is not to my story, but to myself. This is what I want to do, after all. I want to write. I want to share my stories with the world.

But I am going to be traveling for roughly a week starting tomorrow, heading out of country, spending almost an entire day each way on a plane. I hope to be able to spend a good chunk of that flying time working on my novel - we'll see how well that actually works out. But because of the combination of being up in the sky, wanting to actually take some time to relax, and knowing that I will be out and about being a tourist most of the time, I've decided I want to take that time as a break from the blog.

I've said before this isn't something I want to do, but with circumstances being as they are, I feel that if there was ever a time to take a break, now is it. Ideally I won't stop writing - I should be working on my novel - but I hope that not feeling the need to find something new every day to write about will help give my brain some much needed space. I've already asked a friend of mine (who I'm pretty sure is the only one who actually reads this crap - hey, how's it going?) to make sure I get back to writing the blog when I get back, so I feel reasonably certain that this won't be the end of the blog for me. Which is good. While it's been stressful and a challenge at time, I feel that this has all been good for me over the last almost two years, and I'd hate to let it go now.

Outside

It's been a long time since I've spent a considerable amount of time outside. I was in boy scouts, and my troop - specifically a small segment of my troop, in which my dad and I were the effective leaders - loved going outdoors. We took backpacking trips nearly every other week, we went to two summer camps a year, we went to all three of the high adventure camps. We did just about everything. We were fast, and strong. We were crazy. But in time, those things started to slow down, and we got to a point where we were only really doing any trips like once a year. And I don't think any of us were really happy about that, but we had things we needed to do, and we struggled to organize and time things, and some of us forgot about our passion for the outdoors because it had just been so long.

That last one really applies to me. I love being outdoors. As much of a gamer and an introvert and a nerd as I am, I love surrounding myself in nature and pushing my body to its limits and being able to see the world from unique places, far from civilization. I love standing on the top of a mountain, the wind blowing through my hair, just looking out over the land and seeing how far I have come and what I have accomplished. It's one of my favorite feelings.

Working at REI now, which is an outdoor recreational equipment store if you don't know, has really helped to revitalize that passion in me. Granted, I still haven't spent much time going out, but I think about it all the time now, and I really want to get back out there. It's silly of me not to - I have hundreds of good opportunities to. My job encourages me to. I'm surrounded by the equipment nearly every day, and actually going out and using the stuff actually makes my job easier, because I then know more about the things that I am selling and can better recommend them.

It's a good feeling working at a place like this. To be around things that I'm passionate about, but also to be encouraged to help other people do the things that they're passionate about. REI is a very people focused business, rather than money. We want people to be happy. We want people to do things. We don't want them to buy our merchandise - we want them to use it. We want them to come into the store, ready to make new stories, and ready to share the stories that they have gained since the last time they have come into the store. Hell, we chose to say fuck Black Friday, and are opting to go outside instead. I remember Black Friday at Target. I remember what a hellhole that was, and how much money we made because of it. And REI chose to say no to that, because it cares more about the happiness of its employees and its customers. There are so many good things about it. And all based on a love of the outdoors.

Protection

Jessica watched through her window as the river a few streets down from her house began to shake and rise. The water was rippling and making waves that lapped up over the guard rails that had been placed along the sidewalk over the river, and the pedestrians walking along side it were pushed to the side, forced to run if they wished to keep dry. And still it continued to rise, a vague form visible through the falling water, until it finally split and crashed down, running into the streets and pushing the cars to the sides. A giant woman made of stone stood in the river, her eyes two balls of burning fire as she looked down on the people. Jessica watched as the people panic and ran, though she was not afraid. She had been warned that this was coming.

She opened her door and walked out into the street as the people ran past her, away from the monster. She had had time - she could have prepared some kind of costume to hide her identity for when this happened, worn it under her clothes at all times so that she would be prepared. But instead she walked out into the street in a size too large tank top and her favorite panties, in which she had been relaxing at home. She knew she would probably regret this down the line. But she had a monster to fight.

The stone beast stepped into the street, her massive foot crushing the concrete and two cars that happened to be underneath. She didn't even react, not recognizing them as an obstacle, or even an unpleasant object to step on. She lifted herself out of the water and gripped a building for support as she did so, crushing its upper two floors like paper, a few pained screams escaping for an instant before the were silenced forever. She looked around at the fleeing people, until she saw Jessica approaching her, and leaned down for a closer look.

Jessica looked back at it, no fear in her eyes - only frustration. "This my home, you piece of shit," she called out without hesitation. "Would you kindly fuck off?"

The monster stood up straight and raised its foot in response, ready to crush Jessica underneath.

But it never got the chance.

With a flick of her wrist, Jessica sent a ripple through the air which seized the beast's foot and held it in place as an orange glow came from her back. Slowly a hunk of the concrete beneath her own feet cracked and came loose, lifting her into the air to be on level with the beast's face, who could only stare back at her in anger, unable to move.

"I tried to warn you."

And she punched the air hard, her power rushing forward and crushing into the beast's chest, leaving a fist shaped imprint in her chest as she was flung back, over the other side of the city, and into the sea on the far shore.