From The Vault: Drill, Baby, Drill

From The Vault: Drill, Baby, Drill — Blue Ink Alchemy

Watching Gurren-Hen last night, I come back to the reasons why I fell in love with Gurren Lagann in the first place. I want to revisit that.

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Courtesy Rabbitpoets, will credit original artist! When I encounter a new story that I find myself enjoying thoroughly, there's a part of me that can't just leave it at that. I have to look deeper than my superficial glee and take a look at what really calls to me about the tale. I have to examine characters, plot points, meanings and development. I don't know if it's my background in doing so for years at university, or my desire to better understand other stories so I can write mine better, but in any case, it's what makes me review and critique stuff on a regular basis. Case in point: I just finished watching the anime series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and I enjoyed the hell out of it. I'm no stranger to big robot anime. Voltron and Robotech (Macross in particular) were staples growing up. When I hit university I was introduced to more - Macross Plus, Gundam Wing and the brilliant but bizarre Neon Genesis Evangelion. There are plenty of other mecha anime out there, and plenty of anime that get classified as shounen - aimed primarily at young or teenage boys with exciting action and plenty of fighting. One might think, with a cursory glance, that Gurren Lagann is in the same vein as these, even with its unique aesthetic, but it doesn't take long for the series's true strengths to reveal themselves. In a few other series I've dipped my toe into and even enjoyed, the main character gets his special power or destiny, and pursues it with dogged determination that, while admirable, does not vary his character much. Gurren Lagann, on the other hand, lets its characters develop naturally. The character of Simon, in particular, goes through a lot of growth from the beginning of the series to its end. In addition to the respect I give a story for the willingness to actually end legitimately and well, there's the fact that the Simon at the end of the story is a different person, a more developed person, than he was at the beginning. The same goes for Yoko; a character that easily could have been relegated to simple fan service is also allowed to grow, breathe, develop, and take on a life of her own. Another way in which the series sets itself apart is in the fact that actions have consequences. Each victory that our heroes gain take them deeper into a world they did not anticipate, and as much as the show likes to treat the laws of physics more like loose guidelines than actual rules, there's no cheap resurrections and no going back. Changes are irreversible, and consequences must be dealt with. In a general genre and specific sub-genre that is usually all about an empowerment fantasy free of consequences, seeing a show that drops the hammer on its character multiple times for things they do is refreshing. As cool as it would be to pilot a giant mecha, Gurren Lagann seems to treat its unique and strikingly designed machines as exactly what they are: vehicles. They're the means by which the story and its meaning are delivered, and the meaning is this: it's okay to be yourself. In fact, the ideal way to live one's life is to forge ahead making one's own destiny with a sense of self-belief. Believing in yourself can be hard to do, especially when it feels like the whole world is against you, but when people have faith in you, and you have faith in yourself, there is literally nothing you can't do. Rather than relegate such things to occasional character moments or after-credits messages, Gurren Lagann makes this the driving force behind its narrative, a massive drill that bores a hole right through your expectations. The individual's sense of self-worth is a weapon in and of itself; when fully realized, it's an extremely potent one. I may be reading too much into an anime series, or drawing an inordinate amount of inspiration from it, but that's who I am. I take the lessons I find from what I experience and I try to make them a part of my life. I am, as always, a work in progress. I will never stop learning, never stop growing, and never stop writing about it. That's what I do. And the more I do it, the more proud I become of what I'm doing and what I will do in the future. I may not live up to some expectations, I may make mistakes, but I will make my future my own, because that's what you do when you come to realize who you are and what that means to you and to the world around you. I'm a writer. I'm a fanboy. I'm a critic and a philosopher and I fight for what I believe in. Who the hell do you think I am?

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Blue Ink Alchemy

500 Words on Momentum

500 Words on Momentum — Blue Ink Alchemy

With everything that's been happening, I am more and more aware that it can be extremely difficult to maintain a consistent pace. From running to writing to preparing for life's next adventure, things seem to be happening in short, irregular bursts, rather than unfolding according to any sort of plan. I keep telling myself that I'm going to do X, or set things up for Y, or be more vigilant regarding Z, but more often than not, I'm just satisfied in getting home and being free from responsibility for at least a couple hours. A big part of it is, I believe, momentum. Last year at this time, I was working out regularly, pretty much every day, and pushing myself to write more. I'm not sure where all of that energy went, or if it never left and I simply lost my pace of the long, cold winter and the rough road I've been on over the last few months. It can be hard to start certain things, like an exercise regimen or an intense artistic endeavor, but I've found that once you do get started, it can be equally hard to stop. There are a lot of things you can do to jump-start your endeavors. An adjustment in sleep or diet can be a good place to start, as can changing your surroundings. Leave what's holding you back behind, at least for the time being, and let one of your new ideas have some time in the spotlight. You really don't know how something is going to turn out until you try it, after all, so even if a new project goes nowhere, if it leads to you coming back to something you were struggling with stronger than ever, it will not have been a waste of time. In fact, time you spend trying to regain momentum is not a waste, either. I've never been mountain climbing, but I imagine the same applies. The first few steps up a mountainside are not a waste of time, no matter how deliberate you make your pace to prepare yourself for the climb, take in the scenery, snap photos, or take another inventory. When you're preparing to run, you may spend time making sure your water, your music, your shoes, everything is in order. Again, not a waste of time. It helps organize your mind to deal with what's ahead. And it's likely to make the event even more rewarding. This is a case of saying it to myself as much as to anyone reading: Don't give up. Keep trying. Continue to push forward. Even if you've stumbled, tripped, or slowed to catch your breath, the race is not over. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. If you've lost your pace, don't worry. You can get it back. Just keep breathing and measure your steps. Before you know it, you'll be beating your old times and on the road to victory. You just have to want it. You can do it!

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Blue Ink Alchemy

Bad Shed

Bad Shed — Blue Ink Alchemy

The time was right. The scales were old, and worn. New skin was eager to emerge beneath. She rested, waiting, avoiding food, her eyes cloudy and unfocused, all but blind. She curled under her favorite rock, out of sight, out of the light. The surface of the rock was rough, as was the bedding in the enclosure. The air was moist and warm, perfect for her. The time was right. Slowly, deliberately, she rubbed against her rock. She pushed her head forward towards the hazy light ahead of her. The moisture of the air in the open areas of the enclosure kiss her new scales. Inch by inch, she emerges from her old skin. White and dry, it begins to fall behind her. It is a long, difficult process. But it is necessary for her to live. It isn't quite halfway along that things start to go wrong. She's moving forward but nothing is happening. It feels like she's going nowhere. The more she moves, the tighter the ring of old skin becomes. Her tongue flicks out. The air has gone dry. She is trapped in her own skin. It is irrational to hate the air, hate the tank, hate the rock that is no longer assisting her. But she can't hide the frustration. There is a hiss. A waste of precious air. The air is closer, now, more entrapping. It's getting harder to breathe. This isn't right. Our skin is not supposed to be our enemy. This is supposed to be an exciting time, a new beginning, the next step forward. Instead, with each passing, gasping moment, it feels like the end. There is a large shape outside the enclosure. Noise, movement, things that seem superfluous because it's getting harder and harder to breathe. There is a rush, a breath, moist and warm and welcome across scales old and new. A surge of hope. A burst of energy. Maybe just one more inch. It would be easier to quit, to lay down, to rest, to sleep. Forever. Maybe just one more inch. She sheds another inch. And another. And another. When it's over, she curls up on her branch, near the light she doesn't comprehend. It's not as distant or warm or complete as the one outside with the noises and the breeze. It's closer, and it hums, but it's warm and welcome and she rests. Her old skin lays forgotten near the rock. It would have killed her. But she was stronger. She was more determined. And she had help, help unlooked for, but help she had needed, help she adored nonetheless.

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Blue Ink Alchemy

Change The Scene

Change The Scene — Blue Ink Alchemy

I've been finding it difficult to write lately. I have a ton of ideas chasing themselves around in my head, projects to complete and new novels to start, yet I'm running into some serious roadblocks. I have to assume that I'm not alone: a lot of writers are pre-occupied with many things, from life events to other endeavors to all sorts of personal issues. You should be writing - we all should - and if you're not writing, something has to change. If nothing else, you have to change your scene. A lot of writers have a particular area set aside for their craft. Away from foot traffic, secluded in some way, or just portioned off from the rest of a room, it is their fortress of solitude. When I move, I will be taking my writing desk with me, and it will be in a different corner from my computer desk. Even if it's just across the room, that separation is crucial. When life gets tossed into upheaval, it can be difficult to maintain the things that are essential to both our futures and our happiness. There's a great deal of immediate tasks to deal with when changes occur in life, and not everybody has the same reaction time. To get back to the good places from where we can be productive and happy, sometimes the scene has to change. I'm going to keep working on getting myself to that place. That's how I'm going to beat back the dark things and stay on track with my goals.

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Blue Ink Alchemy

The Appeal of Hearthstone

The Appeal of Hearthstone — Blue Ink Alchemy

I will, in fact, fight with honor. I'm working on a post that talks about time management. It is, from my perspective, one of my biggest flaws. I find it difficult to parcel out my time in the most efficient way possible. The dayjob, exercise, writing, home maintenance, eating, sleeping... things get pushed around and I get distracted, and I end most days wondering where the time went. I know, consciously, that I need to make more time for things that are important to me. Why, then, am I setting my sights on playing more Hearthstone? Specifically, I'm going to be playing more Constructed - I'm not that great at Arenas. I'm brushing up on advice for more effective laddering, choosing a deck that I will stick with - probably DKMR's Paladin deck - and pulling myself back when I begin to tilt. Ideally, I'll be putting in time on this every day after I take the time to write, and that in turn would be happening after I get home from the dayjob. The reason for this is simple: I miss high-level competitive play in these sorts of games. The events of Magic: the Gathering I've attended, both when I was younger and more recently, were at their most enjoyable when I was locked in competition with another player. I haven't been part of that scene in a while, and I won't be getting involved in a Netrunner community until after I move. The advantage of Hearthstone is that it's a digital form of the same type of competition. The barrier for entry is lower than StarCraft 2, and personally, I find the experience of playing Hearthstone less clinical than playing StarCraft, even if I do enjoy both games. The in-depth interactions of cards, the delicate nature of move-countermove over the course of a match, and the visceral feeling of both winning and losing - these are things that really appeal to me. Part of this is certainly Hearthstone's glossy coat of that certain Blizzard magic. Their games are always high quality in terms of graphical presentation and sound design. But on top of that, the more I play the game, the more I find things very finely balanced. With a variety of ways to play a class, to say nothing of different classes, success or failure ultimately comes down to the individual player. Without the immediacy and attention demands of a real-time strategy game, careful decision-making and precise timing are rewarded in a very satisfying way. This could just be my take on things, but I can't deny that this, too, is part of the appeal. I want to get better at Hearthstone. My goal is, eventually, to compete in a tournament with the confidence to advance at least once through its brackets. To do this, I will aim to climb the Constructed ladder into the Legendary ranks. When the new season begins, I may even begin streaming and recording my games. Who knows? This could open new doors for me, and that's never a bad thing. It's another step in my journey forward, and it's my hope that folks out there will be willing to take that journey with me. Or at least point out whenever I miss lethal damage.

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Blue Ink Alchemy

From The Vault: An (Old) Writerly Rant

From The Vault: An (Old) Writerly Rant — Blue Ink Alchemy

It's been two years since I first went off on this particular rant. I've updated some text accordingly.

"[A] writing career is about putting a bucket on your head and trying to knock down a brick wall. It's either you or the wall."

~Chuck Wendig

Reality's a stone-cold bitch. That's why I mostly write fiction. I identify first and foremost as a writer, not necessarily a programmer or a social media guru or mediocre gamer. As such I've come to accept several truths about myself.

• Any emotional problems from which I actually suffer will be exacerbated by the short-sighted stubborn sociopathy inherent of being a writer.
• If I take up writing as a full-time profession I am going to dodge debt collectors and utility bills even more than I do now. (Don't panic, family members, my knees are unbroken and will remain so. I'm just not dining on steak and drinking cognac. More like dining on pasta and drinking cheap pop.)
• The longer I do not write full time and cram writing in whenever I can into the nooks and crannies of a packed schedule, fueled by whatever energy I can spare, the more my writing is going to suffer for it and the less likely I am to get published before I'm facing off against Gandalf and Dumbledore in a long white beard growing competition. Which I'll win because they're fictional.
• While writing is an evolutionary process that requires several drafts, torrents of trial and error, and accepting that one's final effort might still be a flaming pile of poo, processes in the professional world are very different, and being writerly will rarely be tolerated long in the face of clients who want what they want yesterday for less than they want to pay. If you don't get something right the first time, there's the door, don't let it hit you on those fancy pants you thought you were wearing.
• I am never, ever, for as long as I keep breathing, going to give up writing.

Sure, I'll be miserable more often than not. Who isn't? I've learned to seize and capitalize on my joy when I find it. The smile of a loved one. Pulling off a win in Hearthstone. Meeting fellow geeks in person instead of just over the Tweetsphere. The open road on a sunny day. Enforcing. A decent movie or video game with a coherent story and three-dimensional characters. My mom's cooking and my dad's laughter. Good pipe tobacco. And finishing a story. That's the hidden beauty of writing. If you do it right, you get to finish it multiple times. After your first draft, you go back and edit it. And when you get through the edit? Guess what, you finished it. Awesome! Now go do it again. Work, edit, revise, cross out, swear, drink, work, write, grind, swear, edit, DING. In my experience it's not a case of diminishing returns. The next round of edits might not be as heady in its completion as the last, but it'll be different and it'll still be good. And let me tell you, it's a long hard road to get there. Even if you do write for a living, you still have to produce. Instead of the aforementioned clients you have looming deadlines, a constant and gnawing doubt that your writing just won't be good enough and the cold knowledge that at least a dozen younger, hungrier and more talented penjockeys are just waiting for you to fuck up so they can take your place, and your paycheck. Pressure from clients or deadlines or those lean and hungry wolves becomes pressure on you, pound after pound after pound of it, and when you go home at night with even more words unwritten, you're going to feel every ounce of that pressure on your foolish head, and every word you haven't written will pile on top, each one an additional gram of concentrated dark-matter suck. It's a love affair with someone who never returns you calls when you need them but always calls just when you think you can't take another day of this tedious, soul-eroding bullshit. I said earlier I mostly write fiction. This, for example, isn't ficton. I wouldn't mind writing more recollections like this, but guess what, I'm not getting paid for it (I could be if somehting hadn't gone wrong with my ad block, thank you SO much for that, Google Ads). My movie & game reviews, short stories, commentary on geek minutae, Art of Thor series, IT CAME FROM NETFLIX!, the Beginner's Guide to Westeros? Not a dime. I don't write any of that because I get paid for it. I do it to entertain those couple dozen of you who cruise by here every day. I do it because I feel I've got something to say that hasn't quite been said this way before. And yes, I do it because I love it. It's in my blood and my bones. It keeps me awake at night more than bills or code or politics or Protoss cheese or ruminations on the Holy Ghost. And since I doubt I'm going to be getting rid of it at this point in my life, I might as well embrace it and make the most of it. I'm going to suffer more hardship. I might have to move, or change jobs again, or go through some embarassing procedure because I tried to hock my words at passers-by on the train and had made one of the first drafts of my manuscript into what I felt was a fetching kilt (nae trews Jimmy) and a matching hat that may or may not have been styled after those conical straw numbers you see atop badass samurai in Kurosawa movies. So be it. Say it with me, writers.

I will not whine. I will not blubber. I will not make mewling whimpering cryface pissypants boo-hoo noises. I will not sing lamentations to my weakness. I am the Commander of these words. I am the King of this story. I am the God of this place. I am a writer, and I will finish the shit that I started. Amen.

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Blue Ink Alchemy

Making Twilight Imperium Mine

Making Twilight Imperium Mine — Blue Ink Alchemy

I've written up a couple in-depth after-action reports of Twilight Imperium before. I'm willing to do it again for the game that happened yesterday, but I find myself spending time and brain-power analyzing the game in terms of its structures, house rules, and interaction with the players. I've only played the game a few times, so I'm by no means an expert, but I've seen a variety of races bounce off of one another, and I've tried bringing different sets of rules to the table.
Our galaxy on 6/21. One of my favorite discoveries is 'Star By Star'. Part of the fan-created set of mods called Shattered Ascension, 'Star By Star' modifies the initial setup of the galaxy. Instead of everyone's Home System sitting on the outermost rim of the galaxy, the hex containing that system is in with all of the other hexes, which are dealt to all players and held like a hand of cards. This allows more dymanic placement of systems and intriguing gameplay. You can't put your home right next to Mecatol Rex, the former throneworld of the Lazax Empire, and the Embers of Muaat need to start on the outermost rim. The other major change in house rules that I feel makes the most of the game is the modified nature of the objectives. Normally, Preliminary Objectives are dealt to players in private, and Public Objectives remain in their deck face-down until the Bureaucracy strategy reveals one. And in that case, the person with that strategy can reveal an Objective that very suddenly ends the game. There is an option rule called Age of Empire that makes Public Objectives... well, public... from the very start. I modified our Bureaucracy strategy so that the Objectives are tied up in 'red tape', requiring them to be 'unlocked' before they can be scored. Additionally, the Preliminary Objectives are shuffled up and one for each player is set out. Any player can claim any Preliminary Objective, allowing them to score a Victory Point and draw a Secret Objective, but each player can only score one Preliminary Objective. This is a bit more balanced and allows players to play to their strengths and positions, rather than wasting time and energy on something that's outside of their plans.
A clash between the Barony of Letnev (red) and the Federation of Sol (blue) I've played Twilight Imperium with several different players. While the randomized nature of the procedurally-generated galaxy, the Objectives, and race selection always ensure that every game is a different experience, it's become clear that some races favor a particular style of play. Those that give advantages in terms of combat strength, such as the L1z1x Mindnet, Barony of Letnev, and the Mentak Coalition, seem to shine under the control of an aggressive player, while others like the Emirates of Hacan, Xxcha Kingdom, and Universities of Jol-Nar reward more patient play. There appears to be a balance between those types of races in the base game, with the Federation of Sol right in the middle. As for the expansions, it may seem that the Embers of Muaat are incredibly overpowered, but the advantage of their starting War Sun can be blunted by players on the lookout as well as those racing towards War Sun technology of their own. Some of the races favor a longer game with patient play, such as the Arborec or the Ghosts of Creuss, while the Nekro Virus rivals the Mindnet in terms of naked aggression. There are a few races I haven't seen in action yet - the Clan of Saar, the Winnu, and so on - but they're certain to make an appearance sooner or later.
The Barony beating out the Arborec (gray) for the win. Regardless of the races in play or the rules you use, I have yet to play a game of Twilight Imperium that's disappointed me. Every one has been a day-long experience, every one has left me intellectually drained, and every one has been deeply satisfying. I love that it can both play right into your individual play-style and push you to try new things, as well as providing ways to get to know your friends. Who will stab you in the back while you're pursuing a particular Objective? Who will send a Spy to the Galactic Assembly when they've been talking about making peace? If you have the time and resources, I highly recommend playing it at least once. Despite its scope and complexity, it is an excellent game; perhaps one of the best that I have ever played.

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Blue Ink Alchemy