Hug Me Universe

It's like this;
I love you
okay. And
It's like this;
I feel like
okay. And
It's all coming apart
okay. But
It's all coming together
okay. While
The stars dance and
I know your name I feel
okay. But
You don't have a name,
You have every name,
okay. And
All the names I ever loved,
all the names I'm gonna love,
okay. And
I don't know you yet,
okay. And
I've known you all my life,
okay. And
Let's pretend you're a girl,
okay? Cause
I love you
and that would feel
less gay
okay.

Strindberg och Jag

Natt
en himla massa natt
och så flaskan
som skulle kunna innehålla absinth
fast det gör den inte
om den hade gjort det
kanske Strindberg hade varit här
hos mig.
Fan, Strindberg, jag känner ju inte ens dig
vi levde inte i samma tid eller rum
eller ens i samma land egentligen
och inte har jag läst nåt av dig heller
fast jag såg fröken julie
en gång.
Men ändå,
jag känner mig lite ensam
och vem annars?
Jag menar, han om någon
jag menar, det verkar som om
jag menar, jag vet inte
för jag har aldrig känt Strindberg,
jag menar, att ha en vän
en sådan vän
som Strindberg
det har man inte
Strindberg och jag
vi känner inte varandra
vi har aldrig träffats
och jag har inte läst
det han skrev
ändå
på något vis
Strindberg
och jag.

The Least Creative Hell

"Finally, for the Kaafirs, the situation will be such that for every infidel a coffin will be prepared for them to the length of their height, and then they will be put into this coffin. Then, it will be set on fire and it will be locked with a padlock of fire. It will be then be put inside a larger coffin also made of fire and the gap between will be set on fire. A padlock with chains made of fire will also be put around it. It will then be put into another coffin and then also set on fire"

Can your vision of Hell possibly get any more monotonous?

Attencion!

My parents have decreed that we can stay at my house for New Years as well, and some time after that, should we feel like it. So, if you don't have anything else planned for New Years, deciding to stay a bit longer means profit!

In Other News

Tabloids today hit an all-time low with the following press-stopping news:

"SINGLAR I UPPSALA
Här är singlarna som söker kärleken!"

So now the tabloids are competing with annoying Flash banners. All I can say, is wow.

Status Report

Reporting my Status: It is kind of okay. I'm reading Iceye's new advent story, it is not what I had expected, not by far, but we'll see where it goes - and it intrigues me. I dare not say whether or not I like it yet, we'll see...

As for school, it is murdering me. I don't have the energy to attend all the classes, but I can't afford to miss any useful classes. Problem is I have no way of knowing which ones are useful and which aren't. But - only two weeks remain of the hard stuff now, then I should have a week to sort of wind down before Christmas. If I fail anything, it'll be the calculus exam, which is early. It'd suck if I did, though.

I'm hoping to see most of y'all people sometime during the Christmas holiday, before it's back to the mill of doom. Hopefully I'll have more free days next term, I could come visit y'all peeps - those of you who are not in the military, then, you'll have to warn me when you're free for visitations.

For fun these days, I play Civilization 2 when opportunity presents itself. Occasionally I play Exalted, when I feel like being a dumbshit and missing classes the day after. I did that yesterday, which is why I'm blogging now at 11.35. But, I take pains to only miss algebra, which is so far an easy subject.

To make this blog episode more interesting than just slices of my life, here is a short-short story:

"When I woke up this morning, I heard a loud rumble. It was strange, because it sounded like thunder, but there were no clouds. Looking outside, I saw some people standing around, confused as to what it might have been. I got dressed and went to school, looking around to see if I could spot any falling trees or something. Nothing. On my way there, more strange noises occurred - people looked mildly confused, but nobody reacted to the loud, wailing alarms that started sounding from - again, seemingly nowhere. It got worse and worse, and I could hear screams in a distance, and more loud rumbles - almost like booms, almost like explosions.

It sounded like war. But - why couldn't I see it? Where did all these sounds come from? The alarms kept resounding as the booms and screams died away. Then, as I finally reached my destination, I saw a terrifying sight;
before the school building, people were lying tossed about like dead leaves. It looked like they'd been killed by an explosion - but nothing around them was damaged, not even their clothes.

The alarms kept screaming."

Rage

Boundless rage and want
Bounded by this mortal frame
Blocked by years of teaching, learning
Besieged by culture, moral, justice,
By all that's right and good and healthy,
It is trapped.

Yet it is there.
Yearning for you.
Years of waiting
Yoked by minds, sealed away:
You know it, you have seen it,
You have smelled it now.

Always craving more.
Awful, brutal, horrid want,
Awesome, massive width and scope
Attacking to arouse, amaze
Anarchy inside you grows and knows:
It will be freed.

Want.
Will.
Wolves and dogs
Wildcats, baying hounds
Wicked, evil, dark and wanting
It has smelled you now.

Lust.
Life and death,
Less or little, much or more,
Leech it from you, make you mine
Live within you, scent you, taste you
Love you, bite you, have you, want you, take -
It will take you.

More a beast than man!
Men have felt it, men all feel it
Men have known it, men all know it
Men have wished it, men all want it
Savage, simple, strong and surging
Searing, scouring, screaming, singing
Tearing throbbing thrashing taking
Take it all!

Wisdom from the Void of Madness

"Time Slave features Norman's social philosophy of male-dominance, and expresses an unexplained connection between female sexual subordination and the speeding up of the development of space travel."

--from Wikipedia's article on Time Slave, by John Norman.

Nothing Is Real

Tonight, I had many dreams.

I dreamt about Megan - about remembering her as a person, as a friend. About hanging out with her in the US. I dreamt about the US as a country, too. I dreamt about Tingvallagymnasiet, I dreamt about talking to a man breaking down crying in the seat next to mine in a lecture hall. I dreamt about some medieval fair, and people walking around with cardboard swords. I dreamt of watching anime with a group of people, and singing along in the theme song.

I dreamt about all this, and more. And when I woke up, it didn't feel like a dream.

More, it felt like I'd just lost a grasp on reality. And this made me think; I'm not going to pull the Taoist "Am I a man dreaming I am a butterfly?" again, but honestly - those dreams roused more emotions than I've felt in almost six months now. They made me feel more alive than I've felt since I started studying maths.

And isn't feeling what matters, when you boil it all down? Isn't what you feel that's important about your life? Feelings are the only things that prove to us reality exists, or at least that reality exists as something more than shapeless, empty blobs. It doesn't matter whether or not I call ice cream "ice cream" or "hammersalt", so long as there's joy in eating it.

I'm not saying I've been emotionally dead the last six months. But I could be so much more alive.

I think I've forgotten how.

Global Warming

I caused a little bit of it today, I think - unwittingly.

I ordered a book off Amazon - Changeling: The Lost, incidentally - a while back. Inside the parcel, it was stamped as having travelled from Florida to the UK, since i ordered through the British Amazon. So far, makes sense.

But on the package is a postal stamp from New Zealand. Whatfuck? So, for some reason my brand new Changeling book took a detour through New Zealand between the UK and here. Why? Why, why, why? It's on the other side of the goddamn planet. This is just confusing.

This Morning Comes Today

My body seems to really hate six o'clock. I'm supposed to get up at six every day, and for some reason my body really prefers eight. It's happened more often than not now, I think, that every day I start at eight I've woken up at eight sharp, feeling refreshed and ready for a new day, and somehow having slept through my alarm ringing.

If I have to get up at eight, I feel fine. On the days I actually manage to get out of bed at six, my entire day is ruined, and I feel like crap. This despite the fact that I should be used to getting up at six-ish now, since I have to do that almost every day. It's funny, cause my circadian rhythm seems to be really sternly convinced that it's a bad idea.

What am I supposed to do?

Sidereal Wisdom

Wow, I'm blogging a lot lately. Anyway:

"Once, there was a maiden...
...who stood at the centre of every dance.
Back then, she knew all the dances.
She never missed a step.
One day, she heard something in the music, as a singer dropped the beat.
It taught her the joy of dancing poorly.
She started dancing, more and more awry.
Love has no rules, she said."

From the Manual of Exalted Power: Sidereals.

Hey Björn!

I see you still read my blog, good. Please tell me a way to contact you, I can't seem to reach you on your cellphone. Is it just the country code that I should change, or do you have a new number?

Follow Up

My experiment was at least a partial success for a timeframe of one day. I managed to master Gaussian Elimination and got a basic idea of linear equation systems, without the aid of a teacher, and a lot faster than I would otherwise.

I didn't really make progress in my calculus, but attending school today showed me I didn't really miss anything at all; I followed what was happening.

Conclusion: A valid, speedy tactic, but not one to be used for extended periods of time. Perhaps I shall try how well it works for two days, some other time.

Lectures Are Not For Me

Today I am conducting an experiment.

Will I learn more if I stay home and study, than if I go to school and listen to the lecturers? I'm starting to doubt the proficiency of especially one lecturer; many classes feel like a waste of time, problem being I can't skip only those lectures since they're in between other, useful lectures.

So I figures, what if I do as much work as possible at home today? Maybe that'll teach me more. It requires more discipline, of course, but it also saves me prodigious amounts of time since I don't have to walk to and from school, nor do I have to listen through a lecturer's fascination for certain small, irrelevant phenomena. It's not that I mind the trivia, of course not - but with the high pace of education here, I have a feeling I can't afford a lecturer who wastes my time. I'd rather spend my free time drawing than listening to a guy going on and on about miniscule mathemathical trivia, actually.

So, everyone cross your fingers that I won't be consumed by sloth while I conduct this 'speriment. Thanks.

A Quote and a Dream

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
-Albert Einstein

I think I have a serious imagination addiction. Cause, you know, now when I'm in the maths program, just when I'm seriously beginning to study something I have a passion for, logic suddenly seems too small. It's like maths is all about restraining your thoughts, channeling them in a certain way - for greater power but less flexibility.

Somehow I feel I gain greater knowledge from dreams than from maths.

A few nights back, I dreamt that myself, River Tam, Bruce Willis and a voodoo god whom I suspect was Papa Legba, were to storm a hi-tech bar located in a swamp, ruled over by a cyborg sort of guy. Trick, the black vampire from Buffy, worked for him in the gym, except it was just the actor of Trick, not actually a vampire.

I was supposed to plant a computer spike to get the others in, but something went wrong and Bruce Willis never showed up, meaning I was without a good gunman when the fighting broke out. I had to flee into the cyborg man's office, and then escape through a hatch down into the gym, where I fast-talked my way out of Trick's way and got into their security center and laboratory. Just when everything looked like we were screwed, Papa Legba rose an army of zombies and marched them on the gym, allowing me time to escape alongside River.

I had stolen a few important things from their lab, so the assault wasn't a complete failure, but I knew we hadn't quite won yet because we didn't manage to destroy their computer central. Unfortunately, fleeing from the place, we were chased by some black dogs, only saved by a white tree from which I broke a branch and used as a magical staff to sling white light at the dogs, killing them.

Now I wonder; where did Bruce Willis go?
Also - the real question, the key question - did this dream give me more knowledge than my waking studies did?

I do not know.

Finns

Morgonen faller
som stenbumlingar på en trottoar
jordbävning
säkert
och jag sa ju,
att jag alltid skulle finnas här,
nog finns jag alltid.

Men när allting blir så här tungt
är det lätt att glömma bort
vad som finns och
vad som inte gör det
till exempel häxor
finns väl egentligen inte
jag finns iallafall,
nog finns jag alltid.

Du vet,
jag glömmer inte bort dig
ens när du inte är här
för trots allt
även när du inte syns,
nog finns du alltid.

Du vet,
även när vi inte vet att vi gråter
för varandra
för att vi inte pratar
för att vi inte skrattar heller
för att vi inte syns
och inte ser varandra
nog finns vi alltid.

För det gör vi ju.

Hay guyse!

You know what I just realised? We're all gonna live for at least another year, with pretty high likelihood.

Imagine all the cool shit you can do in a year!

By the way

Happy WTC day everyone!

Sloth, Irresponsibility, and Kidnapped Princesses

So, I took today off. In retrospect that might not have been the cleverest move I have ever made, seeing as the first test of the course is tomorrow, but aside from induction and combinatorics everything has been horrendously bland repetition, so I'm hoping I'm not missing anything particularily important. I don't think I am, given that they were going to talk about basic trigonometry today and that only for two hours.

So, instead of trigonometry, here comes a blog post. My schooldays have been horribly taxing, but I've finally caught up with the material so that I'm no longer lagging behind. Both Chinese and maths are sort of in a good equilibrium now - I'm a little bit ahead in both subjects, only a tiny advantage that I'll probably lose in taking this day off, but losing an advantage doesn't mean gaining a disadvantage. Tomorrow's the first test, which I passed last year without any problem at all, so I'm pretty calm.

So what have I been doing with my time lately? I've been writing a story about three brothers, I've been playing Knights of the Old Republic, and I've been writing a few pages of random junk. And then, there's schoolwork and roleplaying games, which I'd say have been taking most of my time. I have lots to write about both, but I think maths would bore you more, so I'll fill you in on the roleplaying games instead; Anton and Madde make for an interesting two-man party. I always rather liked storytelling pairs of players, as there's room to give NPCs a bit of extra space that way, but Anton and Madde's styles of play can be difficult to intertwine sometimes. Happily, I'd say that this is running along smoothly. Madde plays Kalyna, a 16-year old adopted girl, raised in a family of petty dukes, and Anton plays Taran the Dynastic Dragon-Blood "Noble-who-gets-cities-as-a-birthday-present" who reveals to her that she's the will-be Empress of the World.

Last session was an interesting, and hitherto rarely seen phenomenon - it ended with Kalyna (Maddes' character) being kidnapped by an old daimyô at whose palace they had been staying as guests. He had complained that his wives all bore weak, mortal children, and when Kalyna arrived he wanted her to bear him "strong sons". Taran, obviously, was outraged at his heresy towards the future Empress, and tried to fight him - and failed. Despite me being a general sadist when it comes to my antagonists, it feels like the heroes rather rarely fail in defeating them: This time, however, it happened royally, which leaves the story in an interesting situation. Taran is knocked out cold and nearly dying somewhere in a ditch, and meanwhile the young Imperial Princess is imprisoned by a lecherous old man who's desperate to see his lineage continue. Neither of them are dead, both are just in very, very uncomfortable situations - it'll certainly be interesting to see how they manage.

Oh, and on a completely different note, I finished reading Anansi Boys. Excellent, excellent novel. I liked its pace, which seemed very fast but, when you go back to think about the novel, was actually probably pretty slow. It impresses me when an author can tell a story in nearly 500 pages without boring you at any point in the reading - that's rare, with my screwdriver-sized attention span.

I suppose that's a bit of my status report for now. I might also throw in a few fun facts, such as how interesting it is to study Chinese, how nervous and uncomfortable I get when I skip school even if I know it's stuff I don't need to attend, like today, and how I walk around telling myself "Dude, it's sin o/h, cos a/h, tan o/a. You know this stuff. Relax, mate". I wish I could portion out my diligence in reasonably sized chunks, rather than working tirelessly for 16 hours, sleeping like the dead, and spend the following day barely attending school and being nervous about it. Another fun fact is I've been visiting Anton's friends, who had a water-pipe standing around in their kitchen. And I've been doing a lot of walking. Seriously a lot of walking. My legs are like, bodybuilder legs or something. Except, you know, for walking.

So, until next time: Don't let the kazoos bite ya!

On Justice

Once upon a time, there were three brothers living in a cabin in the forest. It was a rather pleasant little forest, one of those comfortably black forests which is not quite black enough to contain bandits but quite black enough to contain a fairy tale. The cabin was, likewise pleasant - not too big, not too little, just spacious enough for three brothers to live and work in. Well, not all of them worked, of course.

The eldest brother was a blacksmith, and he worked hard all day to make ploughs and bridles and buckles and knives to sell in town; it did not make him rich, but it did give him enough money to buy food for himself and his brothers. The second eldest brother was a student - he had convinced his elder brother to buy him a Book of Wisdom, and he spent all day studying this book, except when the oldest brother asked him to go fetch a pail of water, or some firewood. The youngest brother, finally, was a poet; he did not quite work as hard as the eldest - indeed, not even as the second eldest. Instead, he spent his days sitting around the cabin, pondering what rhymed with "orange".

One day, which seemed to become a quite ordinary day, the eldest brother woke up to find that he didn't have enough firewood for his smithy. He'd been given a rather large order of one hundred belt-buckles, and he was anxious to get started with his work, so he lunged out of bed, took the last of the firewood and started up the smithy. As soon as the iron had softened ever so slightly he began clanging on it, and he made such a noise that he woke up his brothers even though they slept some distance away from the forge. As soon as he saw them coming, he turned to them and said "Brother scholar, you must go out and fetch for me more firewood, or I shall not get this order finished in time."

But the scholar, who was indeed quite a busy man, replied "I must study to-day, for soon there shall be a Professor travelling through town I hear, and if I impress him enough with my wisdom, perhaps he will teach me though I have no money to pay him. Let Brother Poet go, instead." So Brother Blacksmith turned to Brother Poet, and said to him "Fetch me some firewood, or I shall not get this order finished in time." Brother Poet wanted to object, saying that he had just figured out a good rhyme for "yellow", which wasn't quite the colour he intended but was still better than being stuck on "orange", but Brother Blacksmith did not want to listen, so Brother Poet had to go out in the forest and fetch some firewood, despite his protests.

So, he took a few ambling steps into the forest, and started picking sticks - but as poets' minds do, his mind wandered, and soon he found that he had followed a pretty bird instead of picking up sticks, and not too much later he was lost. In this part of the forest, there was a pretty green meadow surrounded by lush, green forest. As poets very much like pretty places, he sat down to rest for a bit to figure out where he was. As he did so, he saw something glitter in the grass. Picking it up, he found it was a bejeweled bracelet, no doubt one that was once used by a Princess. Delighted, he decided to run back to his brothers to tell them the good news.

After having spent some more time lost in the forest, he returned to his brothers in the after-noon, when they had both taken a pause to drink a cup of hot water (they could not afford tea, you see). Triumphantly, Brother Poet raised the bracelet and displayed it to his brothers. "See what I have found!" he said. The three brothers were very delighted, and embraced him, and kissed him. They let him tell the story of how he had found it, and as soon as he had finished speaking, Brother Blacksmith stood up and spoke.

"It is only right that I should have this bracelet. I have been working to feed you, brother Poet, and you, brother Scholar, since we were but children. If not for me, you would not have food on the table. Clearly, I am the one who should have the bracelet, for my work has been the greatest."

As soon as he had finished speaking, Brother Scholar stood up and spoke. "It is only right that I should have this bracelet.", he said, "The Book of Wisdom says that riches should go to those who have need of it; what's the bracelet to you? Food on the table we have, and poetry doesn't cost a penny. If I have this bracelet, I may sell it, and with the money I can pay a Professor to give me Education. Clearly, I am the one who should have the bracelet, for my need is the greatest."

As soon as he had finished speaking, Brother Poet stood up and spoke. "It is only right that I should have this bracelet.", he said. "Was it not I who found it in the forest? Besides, I am a Poet, and I understand beautiful things; the two of you would merely sell it for money, but I appreciate this bracelet for what it is, not for what it is worth. Clearly, I am the one who should have the bracelet, for my love for it is the greatest."

Which of the brothers should have the bracelet?

Bruce Willis

How good a shot is he? You see this dude confidently pointing a gun at someone in almost every movie he's in.

It's 06:06 and I refuse to google this question out of pure spite, just so it will boggle your heads and you will have to do it yourselves.

On Monday, that is in 18 hours now, I have school for 12 hours. Feel my blaring pain; class starts 8 and finishes 8.

And there's homework, on top of that. Joy is moi. G'night!

Nick Carraway and I

So, in the spare hour of lunch I dug through my backpack looking for The Happy Prince, and instead found The Great Gatsby (I had accidentally packed that book instead - again). Reading the introduction to that book, I came to realise what it is I love so much about this piece of work.

This is, simply, that I can identify with both of the main characters - with Jay Gatsby, and above all, with Nick Carraway - because, much like Nick, I gravitate towards people far more splendid than myself. Nick is a man who finds that great men tend to trust him, in his own words, and he's got a strange fascination for Jay Gatsby, this larger-than-life fellow whose ambition and despair the book is about. Thinking this, I realised that I am much like Nick Carraway in that I associate with great people, for whom I hold great adoration.

I don't talk about Gatsby's kind of ambition, because I know nobody with that particular type of splendour. I am saying, though, that the people I associate with - that is to say, my friends - seem to me passionate people, with a dedication to living life to its fullest. They all do this in different ways, to be sure, but there's little negotiation - little holding back. Some of you seek to change the world, others, to change yourselves, still others, to be free of the worlds' expectations - but all of you are, in some ways, my superiour. I do not say this lightly.

There is a saying that "everyone I meet is in some way my superiour", which would make the above point moot. I don't think so, however; there are people more skilled than me in many areas, to be sure, but their skill is a tool, a means, a crude device. This is not superiourity - whether this skill is social, physical or mental, it's no more sophisticated than Tom Buchanan's polo playing (sorry for all the references, to people who have not read the novel, by the way). The splendour I see in my friends is their devotion to the idea in itself, to the concept that a higher purpose is hidden inside a skill. The difference between skill and superiourity, then, is analogous to the difference between brawling and martial arts; a man swinging wild punches can surely defeat a martial artist if he's lucky, but to him the fighting is only a means - never an art, never a purpose in itself, never a soul's treasure like the art is to the artist. Jay Gatsby is more than a wealthy socialite - he's a man with the American Dream burning at the very core of his soul.

What I mean to say - and I might be wrong, but what I feel - is that everyone I know and love possesses such a soul's treasure, a flame which makes them my superiour. Many, many people in this world could beat me up, but Love is truly my superiour in the martial fields. Many could talk faster and crack better jokes than me, but Eva has a burning passion for people. Many could draw better than me, or analyse comics better than me for that matter, but Björn has a flame of creativity which suffuses all his essence, and so on, and so forth. The list goes ever on; everyone I love possesses such a flame, and it would be pointless for me to recollect everyone's talents and ambitions - you know them yourselves, and each of you possesses more than one of them. It is as if you've seen a glimmer of some Platonic ideal, and seek to pursue it.

And, like I said at the beginning, I see some of Gatsby in myself as well. Though I waiver in what I want, I too can at times feel like I am superiour in what I do - not because I do it well, but because it is so important, so great, that it becomes larger than life. It is at times like these that I can truly believe in the green light across the bay. Nevermind what it means.

Some Words

I don't really have anything to say. My life is pretty boring at the time, not to me perhaps, but to an onlooker, an observer who is not me. This phenomenon is similar, but not identical, to how a particle behaves differently when observed than when not observed. It is similar, but not identical, to how a puzzle is unsolvable when one does not have all the pieces. It is nearly, but not quite, the opposite of love at first sight, where you love someone you don't understand.

Hence, I have nothing to say. Yet I write.
I write because I am bored, because I feel like it, because it makes sense. To me. This is what one normally uses a diary for, but I own no diary, so I will use my blog, and I will write things in it. Not saying things does not mean one has nothing to write. This is true.

The opposite of loving someone for who they are is despising someone for who they are not. The opposite of feeling comfort because your friends understand you is not being understood because you are uncomfortable. The opposite of light is light, at a different wavelength. The opposite of human is human, at a different wavelength. The opposite of love is desire, which is similar, but not identical, to how altruism is the opposite of egoism, but also similar to how up is the opposite of down, as one would be meaningless without the other.

The opposite of me is nobody. The opposite of you is loneliness. The opposite of lucid dreaming is muddled wakefulness. The opposite of enlightenment is ignorance. The opposite of opposite is the same thing as a synonym. The heart is an organ. Truth is relative. Beauty is absolute.

Trolls are ugly.
Planets are big.
Metal is hard.
Angels exist.

When one thing changes, another thing must also change. When a thing is stable, another thing must also be stable. Both these statements are infinitely recursive. Therefore, all things are either stable, or all things change. Therefore, Achilles slipped and hit his head, and forgot who he was. He has not remembered his name since, and he does not remember why he's running, but he's running and running but never catching up with the turtle, because all things are either stable, or all things change. The name of the game is forgotten. The game of the name is the search for God, because it is a game where we seek to name something "God". The night is not on fire. The fire is not a knight. The knight is not a maiden, and the maiden is not a whore. The whore is not a horse, and the horse is not a cow, which in turn, is not a mouse. The mouse is nowhere to be found.

I am running out of words now.
Goodnight.

It's Night

It is night, and I'm making a second blog entry. I'm sitting on a pointless chat room and talking to some guy I just met across half the world about how he has trouble getting dates.

Why am I doing this instead of packing my stuff? I should really get moving to Uppsala tomorrow.

I work in mysterious ways.

Sorry if I'm one day late to Uppsala, everyone. I was busy talking to some dude across half the world. He studies history. That's cool, I guess.

The Rise and Fall of Creativity

So, within the past few days, I have spoken quite a bit with Sara, David, Love, Da-Ryun, and Björn - some encounters one-on-one, some in great groups.

The time between these encounters, I have been writing. And I have discovered how much interaction fuels the fire of my creativity. It's peculiar, really, since the things discussed are quite unrelated - it just seems like being with people in ways that I like makes my brain want to do completely unrelated, very creative, and a bit useless, things. Which, to me, is a great thing.

It's not like I write a whole lot, really - my text is rather sparse - but I'm satisfied with what I've got so far, and I have a few more ideas that can be squeezed out of my head. This is all good, because it distracts me from the turbulent times up ahead - school starting, moving, cleaning apartments, et cetera, et cetera. The one problem I see is that once those turbulent times actually start, they might drown out my creative phase. Which would suck, in my opinion.

Not that I think people care a lot, but I will summarize what I've written and planned in this week below, for me to read and look proud at.

The first chapter for a Dragon-Blooded game, called The Fifth Virtue. In the first chapter, we discover just how cruel Lady Mnemon can be, and meet with Prince Saigoru, a major hottie. We also meet a ready-made character for Madde; Madra Sil Kalyna, a wild and free duchess.

The continuation of the Denandsor adventures of Cherubael & Kali, involving a bucketload of danger with a sprinkle of essential puzzle. In this episode, the heroes must face their fears, but if they succeed their rewards will be great - and perhaps, a bit surprising... Yet, the consequences of failure are far worse than the heroes would imagine.

Very haphazard and random notes (not yet finished) planning the future of New York, as shepherded by Jack Hudson and Karen Lennox. This time, a serial killer is on the loose and Robin is in deep trouble - despite her powerful magics. Jack meets an old friend, and Karen finds herself in unfamiliar territory.

The fourth (I think) chapter of the Chronicles of the Bronze Falcon, in which we meet the Drug Khans of the East, including an unexpected guest, and perhaps have time to discover a hidden ninja clan, this one aspected towards Water. Also, we get to follow the education of Er, as he finds himself a new sifu...

Extremely sketchy notes for the Final Showdown in Berlin, where Gabriel reveals a secret, Killian is forced to negotiate, and Lucien... well, we'll see what he does, won't we?

I think that's pretty creative for what's been done in the mere span of a week. And, as mentioned above, the week has been filled with pleasant discussion and, to some extent, cuddling as well - so I've been time-effective here, if I may say so myself.

Now only to handle the packing, and soon I'll have to be efficient for real-life reason. Maaan, why can't that be as fun?

The End of Summer Draws Nigh

I find that the end of summer draws nigh. It's funny.
It seems like it's been forever since the term ended, and now there's not much familiar to return to - the Uppsala I'll be going to is a completely different place than the one I lived in last year. I'll be living in a different place with different people, I'll be doing different things - Sydow and Sebbe will be in Kramfors - I have far less demands on me, in one way, and far more, in another.

It's funny how unpredictable life can be.

Diminishing Returns

The Law of Diminishing Returns
holds true
sadly
even in love
Every time I look into your eyes
there's a higher investment
I will never again
love as I once did

Count the times
Count the times you've been hurt
and you'll find
(with a simple calculation)
that economics
are more painful
than what feelings can explain.

Ideas

I'm having too many ideas lately, so I'm going to write them all down here. Needless to say, they're all for roleplaying games because I'm so single-minded you wouldn't believe it. I'm a bit like Henry Lee Lucas except I make creative games instead of creative murder.

If anyone's interested in any of them, feel free to tell me and I'll develop that idea. As it is now, I don't have much more than what you see here – but like I said, call dibs on something and I'll flesh out a story from it.

Beyond Countless Doorways

There are many tales about people finding a door to another world. This story, however, played with Arcana Evolved rules, isn't about someone finding a door. This story is about someone finding a key. It's not just any key, though – it's a key that opens any door. The twist is that the doors it opens don't obey the laws of Behind and In Front Of – rather, the key opens doors between planes of existence.

Pretty soon, though, the key draws the attention of Something. Now, in order to keep the key from falling into the hands of evil, you must run – and you must run beyond the countless
doorways, in an attempt to find someone or something capable of fighting back...

Worlds Collide

The Diamond Throne is a very free world. It's a world where men and women, humans and sibeccai, tall and tiny are all treated as equals. Imagine, then, the sudden disaster when two planes of existence suddenly synergize, violently crashing into one another and opening a gateway to a world where such freedom isn't taken for granted. In the world of Scarlet, men are the dominant race and all other species are seen as ”lesser”. Oh, and that's men, as in not women.

Enter a story where a Champion of Freedom might find himself fighting side by side with a Champion of Feminism, as the values we take for granted experience some turbulence in an interplanar culture crash.

The Invisibles
Set in the World of Darkness, this story asks us what happens when completely ordinary people suddenly gain the power of complete and utter invisibility. Fading from the world around them, they don't exist on paper, don't detect on security cameras, and can easily go wherever they please. They are Shadows, people who only barely exist, people whom the world itself only barely registers. In a world with so much paperwork, what does utter anonymity mean? Is it dangerous? Is it a saviour? Is Anonymous really legion? Does Big Brother really see you?

Heavenly Father
When a few deeply religious people from the same church suddenly find themselves changed into bestial monsters, how do they deal with it? When they suddenly find out that animism is true and that spirits dwell in everything, what becomes of their faith? When everything seems lost, does God still hear them? This Werewolf: The Forsaken game draws upon themes from the Book of Job, asking us if God hears prayer, if God really works in mysterious ways and, indeed, if God exists at all or is just a shadowy illusion, made by a multitude of miracles.

Beloved Mother

This is a tale about a shattered family, played out from the perspective of orphans who have lost both their parents and live with a cold and distant uncle in an environment where nobody seems to love them. But when they eventually discover that branches of their family still prosper, and when they learn that their mother may still be alive – suddenly hope flares up once more.

And hope will flare indeed, for the twist to this story is that the poor siblings are Terrestrial Exalted, Chosen of the Dragons. Will they be able to reforge their broken family, or will they too fall apart, driven by their own ambition? Is blood thicker than water, and does a hero still need her mother?

The Light Fantastic

Magic is fascinating. Magic is beautiful. Magic is power.

Enter a group of Exalted sorcerers – Solar, Lunar or otherwise, who have come to understand this truth. Banding together for the sake of their own ambitions, these sorcerous heroes seek the Light Fantastic, a legendary artifact said to exalt any sorcerer to levels hitherto undreamed of in Creation.

In a world where Exalts wield the power of the gods, though, such an artifact must be incredibly well hidden. This treasure hunt adventure is more than just a search for gold and jewels – this is a quest for power so tremenduous that it's never before been seen. But magic is not a simple trifle you stuff in your pocket – the Light Fantastic requires the right state of mind and an enlightened soul, something which cannot be dug up in a treasure chest. Not only must our heroes seek the artifact itself, they must also learn the true nature of magic – a quest, perhaps, even more difficult.

Steampunk Swashbucklers

Experience the future of the Diamond Throne as our hapless heroes accidentally deepfreeze themselves for a thousand years. Awakening, we find a world where gunmages wield gunblades against steamgoblins in steam-driven airships with steam on them. And guns. And stuff.

Okay, so this idea is a little unpolished so far, I'll be the first to admit it.

I reckon that's all I have so far. If anything interests you, give me a comment.

Looking Back

Scrolling down on this blog makes me realise how long this has been going on. I haven't been truly, genuinely happy since I wasn't elected the Sexiest Man Alive. That was two months ago.

This is not how I am, I promise! If by any chance you stumble into my blog now and see what has happened to me the past two months, you will probably not understand how all this hangs together! If this is your first impression of me, and probably your last, it's not correct! I am not like this!

How long do you have to be in a certain way before it becomes you? A decade? A year?

Two months?

Is this who I am?

Tiny Satori

Sitting on a concrete bench
A single drop of rain
Strikes me
Upon the forehead.

Instant poetry

I Want

I wanna bang you like a screen door

I Wanna Be Sedated

I wanna floor that

I wanna vaccuum

I want a famous face

I want a fig newton

I want all you

I want it hard

I want it that way

I want my pizza

I want nice things

I want that

I want the whole sweet

I Want to be Your Canary

I want to borrow your copy of Re-animator

I want to break free

I want to bring you down

I want to die

I want to get out buffer

I want to govarn

I want to have sex with you

I want to kick your puppy

I Want to Know What Love Is

I want to see other people

I want you

I want you chills

I want you in me

I want you in the worst way

I want your body

I want your soul...

I wanted it done yesterday

I wanted more power to win!

I was about to say

-----------------------------

Courtesy of Urban Dictionary. I just copy-pasted all their "I want" entries and edited them.

Worst Idea Ever Revisited

Remember my idea about writing slashfiction about your friends?

Yeah, I wrote one. It's four pages long, and it's called "Chicago Airport" - I think you can figure out which two of our lovely friends that includes. I'm now going to make a short poll as to what I'm to do with this terrifying piece of fiction that's so awkward it generates awkwardness even before it's written. I have a few disclaimers about it.

o I am not serious.
o It doesn't contain any sex, it's pretty mild and romantically-themed.
o If you're a homophobiac, you probably shouldn't read it.
o If you're into guy-on-guy action, this piece of fiction will light your knickers on fire. Seriously.
o I will give the two main characters an opportunity to read and/or censor this thing, to see if it offends you or if it's just embarrassing. It was embarrassing as hell to write it. If it offends you, seriously, be serious.
o Again, I'm not serious. Seriously.

So, what should I do with it? I could either upload it here on my blog, or mail it to people upon request, or keep it to myself, or delete it forever and never speak of it again.

What say you, my friends?

Triangle Man, Triangle Man

My computer fried itself a week or so back, hence my disappearance.

Also, my life at the time feels very topsy-turvy.

I will elaborate later, I think.

Preferrably in person.

Probably crying.

A little.

:'(

Still Alive

This was cathartic.
I'm making a note here: I'm okay.
I may have overstated my emotions.

Relationship problems;
We do what we must, because, we can
For the good of both of us
(except when someone gets hurt)
But there's no sense crying over every mistake
You just keep on trying 'til things almost feel fake
But then backtrack just a bit
When you think all about it
Then you'll find out you are
Still Alive.

The Clown and the Lover

The hardest art in the world is that of comedy, for nothing is seriously funny.

The hardest subject to understand is yourself and your own feelings, wants, and desires. We don't know what we want, and we get it. That's comedy again - breaking with the norm; writing a sentence in a way it wouldn't be expected.

This is an open train of thought, a flow of words that I'm not really steering. Comedy does not work this way. Comedy is careful, planned, it has rules, rules for how to be unexpected. Comedy cannot be improvised. Neither can love. These things, these things that provoke emotion in us, must either be carefully thought through, or they will not work. There are rules to love, just as there are rules to comedy. They exist in the space between us.

Nobody wants to see a naked human. Naked humans are ugly. There's nothing funny about that nakedness. Comedy never really drops its pants. Comedy wears polka-dotted underwear, that were carefully designed to be there. Lovers never really remove everything. It's planned, all of it.

And the worst part is, I don't know where I'm going with my plan. It's there, step by step, gestures to provoke laughter, glances to provoke love, but where does it all lead? And will anyone ever get there? We're all so easily overthrown.

Unexpected things ruin our plans. Undressing is planned. Sex is planned. Unplanned sex is rape, and rape is ugly. Beautiful things, that's it - all beautiful things have a plan. All beautiful things have rules. Everything beautiful leads somewhere, but we never reach our goal, for ugliness topples it before we're really there.

Ruined plans, overthrown plans, naked people doing their best to hide behind their beauty, comedians doing their best to continue with their jokes despite the guy on second row dropping comments.

Comedy is the hardest art. It needs to pretend to be free while at all times being bound.

There is a lot to be learned from comedians.

Sexiest Man Alive

o George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Richard Gere have all won this award twice. That's pretty sexy, folks (Though personally, I'd say both Gere and Clooney beat the snot out of Pitt).

o Sean Connery and Harrison Ford are the oldest and second oldest winner of this award, at the time they were elected winners. Both were in their 50's. Does this tell us something about just how sexy genes Indiana Jones must have?

o Surprisingly, Johnny Depp has only won once. What is this? Madness?

o Speaking of which, Gerard Butler hasn't won even once. That's seriously madness.

o The real Leonidas couldn't have won the price, because he wasn't alive when the awards started being handed out. I think he deserves a posthumous award, though.

o Also, John F. Kennedy Jr. is the only non-actor to ever win this price, making him the sexiest son of a president. He worked as a lawyer. The sexiest lawyer ever.

o The winner for 2007 was, somewhat surprisingly, Matt Damon. That's pretty funky.

o I have never even been nominated for this award. I need to grow more muscle.

o Nick Nolte is a guy who won who I've never even really heard of.

o The only black man who won the award, ever, was Denzel Washington.

o The best and the worst James Bond-actor are both winners - Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan.

o There's oddly one woman on the list, Cindy Crawford, because they decided to include her when Richard Gere won the first time, being that they were the sexiest couple. That means Cindy Crawford is probably the only person to ever win the "Sexiest Girlfriend Alive" award.

o Johnny Depp still only won once. Brad Pitt won more times than him? Maaaan.

o I don't really have much more to add.

A Random Thought

Sometimes it feels like all we do in life is searching for something that matters more than searching for something that matters more than searching for something that matters more than searching for something...

I Am He

I am He Who Loves.
I am he who opens his arms, who lets you in close,
who listens and preaches.
I am he who washes your feet, who gives you comfort,
who gives you hope.
I am he who stands by your side when you need me,
And wait for you patiently when you do not.
I am he who embraces.
I am he who is embraced.
I am He Who Loves.

I am He Who Betrays.
I am he who smiles falsely, he whom you know you cannot trust.
I am he who kisses his friend, to see him taken away.
Men say "There goes the man
who took our light from us."
They spit on me, and call me names, and rightfully so.
For I am he who fails you,
I am he who turns from your side.
I am he who abandons you, who steals your friend from you
Who sells out Love itself,
For thirty silver pieces.
I am He Who Betrays.

I am He Who Denies.
I am he who asks
"What man? What promise?"
I am he who claims ignorance, I am he who turns away
Who shuts his eyes, deafens his ears.
I am he who lets your friend
fade from this world.
I am He Who Denies.

If you wish to love one,
You simply must love all.
We cannot be apart, you see -
For we three, we am me!

Quote of the Day

"Tron är ett svårt lidande, vet du det? Det är som att älska någon som finns därute i mörkret men som aldrig visar sig hur man än ropar…"

Live Forever

Gamers across the world are saluting him, and I won't be late to join them.

There was a man who reinvented storytelling. I'm not sure if you know how much his works meant to me, but I'm fairly certain that you can guess. What he did was not merely reinvent an ancient artform, however: He invented something new, something which has been my hobby, my art, my medium, and on occasion, my life.

E. Gary Gygax, inventor of Dungeons & Dragons, passed away the 4th of March this year. The invention of this game and the other games that soon followed is by no means something he did alone - it involved thousands of people refining, developing, and first and foremost, playing. Some of these gamers I have been fortunate enough to know - the vast majority, not. And of course, I have never even met Mr. Gygax myself. I still say, though, that without his invention, I would live a wholly different life, a poorer life. Monte Cook's words are the ones that best describe what he has meant for me and thousands among us:

"With his help, I have traveled to unknown lands. I have created unknown lands."

The first Dungeon Master is dead. May his legacy live forever.

So I Took My Test Today

I Think I Kind Of Made It. It Was On Neuroscience, Conscience And Child Psychology So If You Have Any Interesting Questions Feel Free To Ask Them.

Also It Involved Statistics, Awesome Huh?

War of the Words

Project Chanology is on everybody's keyboards now, after the attacks on scientology on February 10th. Here's a nice forum thread about it. This is probably the new kind of revolutionaries we will see - legions of anonymous protesters who have no contact with each other save for access to free information.

Nobody controls these kinds of protests. Their methods may be immoral and faulty, but their motives are pure and I believe that for the most part, Anonymous is (for once) doing the right thing. The Internet exists to make all information available to all, everywhere. Historically, speeding up communication has always led to humanity's well-being. We stand now on the brink of an era when the last barriers are about to fall. If they don't, and the Internet is restricted, I doubt "democracy" will exist in a few generations.

The rise of Anonymous is a sign of our time. Sure, they a group of nerdy, trend-obsessed b-tards who enjoy posting retarded material on the internet. What matters in freedom if speech is not what you use it for. What matters is that you use it. Anonymous uses it.

Do you?

Trivia Time - Part 2

This is less discussion-worthy subjects, just stuff I found kind of cool.

Research by Goldstein et. al focused on teaching video games to elderly people, aged 70 and up. They found interesting beneficial effects on cognitive abilities that have yet to be studied - while uncertain, it seems video games can actually be especially healthy for the elderly. Sadly, the study doesn't specify what video games they were, but it warms my heart to imagine 80+ Americans playing WWII-games and reliving old memories.

Furthermore, I found a scientific definition of "identity" - pretty fun to read about. It's defined, at least in the book I'm reading, as: 1) Social groups that we identify ourselves as members of. These include gender and ethnicity. 2) Personal characteristics in the form of adjectives, such as "smart" or "friendly" and 3) Goals and values.

They are, apparently, ranked in order of importance - and bear in mind that relationships count as "groups", so that "girlfriend" can be a very central part of your identity. If we're to define identity by this fashion, discrete categories seem to be a lot more important than what feels instinctively right - but there is an alluring simplicity in this way of treating identity. I can see how it works scientifically.

Finally, related to the daycare issue, in part 1 - some states of the US require parents who divorce to go to family therapy - not necessarily to mend their marriage, but to help the children get through this traumatic event. I think this is a law that should be applauded - why don't we have something like this? A law that requires parents to make sure the kid is more or less okay in a divorce situation? Or do we?

My source for all these snippets of trivia is called "Psychology - The Science of Mind and Behavior" by Michael Passer and Ronald Smith, International Edition.

Trivia Time - Part 1

Filling the Internet with useless trivia since 1647.

I've been studying more psychology, and I've hit a veritable gold mine of things to discuss or just blurt out in conversation to appear clever and intelligent. Though I prefer the former, I don't mind the latter, and these issues definitely interest me.

The real issue I was going to discuss is actually an interesting cultural difference between the US and Sweden; I read an American study about the influence of daycare on pre-school children. A while back, this was a hot topic in Swedish politics - I dunno, it might still be. The interesting thing is that in Sweden, the focus was on how being reared in a "social environment", as in a "dagis", would help a child's development. The American study, au contraire, discussed how being raised in a daycare center may harm a child's development.

The study reached the conclusion that exposure to daycare centres is more or less harmless for a child, with a notable effect saying that there is a slightly larger risk to develop anxiety if there's no regular teacher to bond to - that is, public daycare causes anxiety if and only if the teachers are replaced "often" - I didn't find the operational definition of how often this would be, unfortunately.

What's interesting isn't the study in itself, but the cultural backdrop against which the questions occur. Swedes presume that daycare is good, the question is only how good it is. The American point of view was diametrically opposed, asking how bad it is. The American study found no beneficial effects of daycare - though of course, they weren't looking for it. Swedish studies might find something.

I'm not saying psychology is inherently flawed - but it's interesting to see how large a factor culture can be.

Which leads me to my second bit of trivia - research on gender identity. Now, children learn things in pretty odd ways, so this is in no way conclusive evidence that gender is "fluid" - but it turns out that many children are incapable of grasping the idea that gender is constant until the age of about 6. While they very quickly understand the difference between boys and girls, many believe it can change - boys want to grow up to become mothers, and can't understand why this is impossible. This study is pretty interesting; there are huge biological differences between men and women, but it is possible that it's hard for a "blank slate" individual to instinctively associate these differences with what's between your legs. Interesting evidence that gender roles may, in fact, be a social construct (though remember, children learn things in peculiar ways). Some children never fully adopt gender constancy - these are likely to keep viewing gender as relatively fluid all the way into adulthood.

Anagram Time!

Turning your names into silly anagrams, since 1988. My intent is to make new names for people, such as "Fred Slitgröt" or "Glen Träben". Some you've already seen, some are new.

Note that, while I've made up the anagrammed names by myself, the random phrases have been generated by the Internet Anagram Server. Brent can show you how to find it if you're interested.

David is "Drake Davis", which is just a plainly cool name. You can also rename him "Vidar Daske" if you think a more nordic-sounding name suits him. "Interestingly, his name also anagrams as "Dark Advise" which, while misspelled, is still pretty ominous.

Madelene has got an interesting name. Meet "Emerald En Gebby" - a little more nonsense than usual, but I just liked the fact that you could spell "Emerald" too much to pass up that opportunity. If you want a more descriptive or poetic name, how about "Dame Green Byble" or "Amber Bend Elegy"?

Anton is "Brent Googlefan", the guy who loves Google. His name can also be anagrammed as "Torgel Bonefang" or "T-Bone of Gangrel".

For all you Exalted fans - Love is a "Cloven Solar"; perfected, but can't make up his mind. You can also rename him "Sven Corolla", making him sound like a Swedish American during the 50's - pretty rad, I must say. He also has "No Coveralls".

Sara's new name is "Karma Furtears", making her sound very hippie. Hippies are cool. She can also be anagrammed as "Ar, Karate Smurf" which frightens me a little bit.

Kristin is "Kit, Handguns Girl" where the umlaut is removed because umlauts don't make sense in english anagrams. Keeping the umlaut, she becomes "Grin-Ling Hästdunk" which isn't as pretty, but is still pretty funny when you think about it. Other interesting things you can write (without umlaut) include "Kind Hug Starling". Most disturbing of all is possibly "Drag King, Nil Tush".

Kuffu's anagram is the classical "Jason Venomkiss" - I stick to my guns on that name. "Novas Smoke Sins" is also an interesting factoid derived from his name.

Björn becomes "Jarl Orbas Knellsworn", again, without umlaut. Without umlaut, you can also spell interesting phrases like "Jews snarl or bankroll" or "Newborn Larks - Lol jars" or other interesting phrases. This guy's name is a veritable goldmine, seriously.

Eva becomes "I Wavee!" or possibly "Via Wee", meaning "Way of the Tiny" in Latin. Honestly.

Da-Ryun also has an umlaut problem. I'm getting a little lazy at this point in the anagramming, so I'll just blurt out "Troya Darkrune", which is without the umlaut problem. You can also spell "Rad Ray Nuke Storm" which sounds very very science fiction. There's also an odd X-men reference, in that you can spell "Storm N'Dare Ryu Ka" - the two last ones are unrelated, but Storm is Princess of N'Dare. Co-in-ci-dence?

Whoosh. I think that's all. Feel free to use the Internet Anagram Server to play more. It's fun.

Neuroscience

Today has been spent studying the subject of psychology, specifically how the brain and nerves work - and I have encountered a lot of interesting trivia on the matter, that I thought I might share with you.

Firstly, stem cell research is apparently making it increasingly likely that we will be able to mend broken nerves - up to and including nerves in the spine, possibly even in the brain. The possibilities here are endless - paralysis can be cured, neural diseases can be stopped, and we could even potentially regrow lost limbs (we can already clone forth raw flesh - if we can give it functioning nerves, we could attach limbs to ourselves). Aside from the sheer practicality and awesomeness of such an invention, it works in an interesting way; stem cells introduced into the spine or the brain find their way towards a damaged nerve and replace it.

Doing so in the brain, which is still more science fiction than science but sort of possible, would be interesting since each individual nerve doesn't contribute to our identity - merely the structure, the pattern of nerves. I'm not entirely certain about how neurobiology works, admittedly, but it seems like it's not impossible to speculate in making your brain effectively immortal by introducing new stem cells to it on a regular basis. Growing and learning to control nerves would also hypothetically make it possible to grow organic computers, if we could learn to dictate the growth of the nerves and interact with them in a meaningful way.

A second interesting invention is the Cortical Implant, built by the University of Utah. Apparently this invention allows for wireless eyes for blind people - a camera in a pair of glasses connected to a computer sends information to a microchip implanted in the brain. This chip stimulates the visual cortex of the occipital lobe, causing you to perceive flashes of light - an effect since long tested. What the researchers are now working on is a way to turn these flashes of light into "pixels", allowing blind people to see, albeit in black-and-white low-resolution only. Currently there are enough such "pixels" for blind people to be able to read, although only one letter at a time and they need to be large and glow - which is still pretty damn impressive, considering the method works on people who don't even have eyes.

In a manner of speaking, the future is already here. But, all this tampering with the brain and the neurons is getting me awfully curious about my favourite subject again; identity. It seems like the way the brain is constructed indicates that identity, much like the brain in which it resides, can be picked apart - we even know how to "switch off" some functions of the brain, such as sexuality or aggression. If you ask me, these two aspects are rather large a part of how people work.

Worst Idea Ever

I got the worst idea ever yesterday. I was walking away from school, and I started pondering about the whole flirt-wheel thing we constructed a while back - and it struck me that there are no (at least, as far as I know) homosexuals in our little in-group in Uppsala. Bisexuals, sure, but no strictly homosexual people. So I started pondering how that would change things in the little relationship wheel. You know, what if I hadn't dated Eva, but gone with Jocke instead? Thoughts like that.

One thought led to another, and I got the worst idea I've had in a long, long time - possibly ever: Writing slashfiction about your friends. Seriously. It weirds people out, potentially grosses them out, potentially offends them, and add to that that they're your friends and will be totally confused about why you think it would be a good idea for them make kisses with another friend. I am so fascinated with how stupid this is, I can't believe it.

It would be such a horrible idea.

I dare you all to try it. Write about the senpai-kohai relationship between Love and Björn in a ninjutsu context. Elaborate on the stormy passions between Anton and myself, started by an apple core kiss on a truth-or-dare session so many months ago. Make poetic descriptions of Madde and Da-Ryuns long forgotten love affair, that still burns under the surface, hidden away for so many years.

I'm a horrible, horrible, horrible person. Feel free to tell me how bad this idea is and hate me for a set amount of time for it. Maaaan.

Disclaimer: I don't actually think homosexuality is weird. It would probably be even weirder to write heterosexual love stories about your friends. Slashfiction, though, tends to be thrillingly "forbidden", which is why it would have a higher fun factor.

Disclaimer: I am not actually a pervert. Seriously.

Disclaimer: I don't actually think slashfiction is perverted.

Disclaimer: I can't even talk about this subject without potentially offending people. I am so awesome for getting this idea. Worship me forever starting immediately.

Some Theoretical Discussions, Mostly With Myself

Since I didn't really have anything useful to blog about today, I'll write a bit about roleplaying. As usual, if I bore you, you might feel like hugging a dinosaur instead of reading my blather. Actually, hugging dinosaurs is recommended anyway, on account of dinosaurs and hugs both being awesome inventions.

I hereby proclaim myself the king of random links, incidentally.

Lately I've been noticing a lull in my planning things. Those who have seen me work in the roleplaying-happy mode have probably noticed that I spit out a handful of ideas every week, write down a few random settings, hooks, characters, plots, or stories - mostly as part of an ongoing campaign or chronicle, but sometimes just loose ideas that I might incorporate in a game sometime in the future.

However, most of the games I've been running for the past month or so, excepting the AE-campaign over New Years', have been more or less entirely improvised. Adding to that, some of the best games have been entirely improvised, like the last session of Berlin, or the whole Mutant: The Mutationing storyline. This has made me awfully insecure when I plan things, because I feel as though a lot of the time my planning doesn't really amount to anything. And, when I sit down to plan something out, I find that I can't really think of anything because I'm getting used to thinking on my feet - complicated 13-step plots just don't come as naturally anymore.

I've been thinking I should probably do things more the Berlin way, letting stories grow out organically - basically playing and seeing where the story ends up, just writing down new setting details and NPCs on the fly. The problem with this is, I rather enjoy having a master plan which is good to fall back on, plus, I can't really work on my favouritest hobby of all times without players if I'm to improvise all the time. So I don't really know - people tend to say my improvising usually turns out better than my planning. Does this mean I should plan less?

I also have some difficulties figuring out how to plan things up ahead; I want to give players as much freedom as possible, but obviously the only way I can maximize freedom is by not planning at all, or nearly nothing at all. Locations and people generally require people to actually visit them, which needless to say is nearly impossible to plan out without enforcing things. Usually there's no problem with, say, "The treasure map leads to Mount Dumb", but it becomes boring very quick if there's only one route to Mount Dumb, giving no choice whatsoever about how to get there. Or so I think, at least. The solution here is obviously to plan a lot, which can be fun but also frustrating.

Events are highly different, because they can be thrown in when the action stalls - things like "Your girlfriend bursts in, crying 'Max is dead!'" or "Suddenly, the assassins sent by Xiao Bong leap towards you!" The problem with events, though, is that they usually don't happen in a vacuum. I can't really plan the above events out without having some reason for the characters to be involved with Max or Xiao Bong. That is where plans get really tricky - core characters like that are part of the setting, and the setting doesn't really come alive until the characters have interacted with it. Hence, I can plan a setting but I can't plan for it to live, and a setting that doesn't feel coherent or relevant just won't work.

In conclusion, then, I think location-based games (like most fantasy games and games with a tactical element) are handled easily - for more freedom, plan more options. This is fine, and I rather enjoy it usually - but few games are entirely location-based, unless they're vanilla dungeons. NPCs can work this way, too, but they tend to become very flat if they're just part of a plans-web; they simply need an element of personality, and if you try to dodge stereotypes and make NPCs unpredictable (which makes them feel more real), the problem is it becomes very hard to plan them. Thug #3 just attacks you. Ariel Hanna Seraphina Hummerstungerdoppelbergsson might on a whim decide she likes you if you snap a comment which suits her personality. Big difference in the theoretics behind those two characters there.

I suppose the solution with events could be to plan a bunch of events that seem to hang together coherently, and then prune them away as they become irrelevant. It's sad, but it's much easier to cut things out on the fly than add them on the fly. And, well - planning things definitely keeps them from becoming completely stupidly sucky, even if it's no guarantee for a great game.

Back to the writing board then, I suppose.

Self-Reference

This blows my mind. Me and Björn had a discussion about Internet flame-hate-wars-things, where people dedicate a lot of time to hating and insulting each other, and came into webcomics, which are a hot potato. Encyclopedia Dramatica points out that lulz and anti-lulz complement each other, which seems to be true in the case of webcomics as each webcomic with a fanbase has a complementing anti-fanbase of approximately the same size. For everyone who loves a certain comic enough to read it often, there is someone who hates it enough to spend lots of time bashing it.

Now observe how self-referential our culture has gone. This is a truly stunning example of how impossibly convoluted Internet Culture can be.

First we have the webcomic, Dominic Deegan. Following this up, the people of the Internets have made a parody on Dominic Deegan, called Dominic Durgan., presumably due to disliking Dominic Deegan and wanting to poke fun on it. Then, this very same guy has made a review of his own comic which is done to parodize his review of Dominic Deegan. And then, finally, this.

This baffles me to no end. Our entire culture has gone ouroboros. It's like we've built up this cultural tower, slowly, during the centuries, and now are speed-building a rickety cultural skyscraper on earlier foundations. Now it's culture to bash people who bash artworks which in turn are impossible to understand outside our cultural foundation. If we finally make contact with aliens, they'll have to read, watch and play every work of fiction since the Bible to even make some sense out of us. Wow.

Simba won.

Indeed he did.

Isolation

So I had another dream, a very vivid dream, which made me think of Stephen King's "Secret Window" or if it's called "Secret Garden", I don't remember.

I dreamt that I was out with my grandmothers' brother, beyond Arvika, beyond Dalen, beyond Här slutar allmän väg, about as far out in Värmland as it is possible to venture, the middle of nowhere. I've been there something like once or twice before, but it's peculiar that the memory should be so real in my mind.

It was strange, because nothing really happened in the dream - I was just there, pondering what would happen to it after my relatives there die. Who wants to live there? Who wants to live as far away from the cities as that? The closest place where you can buy anything at all is a gas station, the closest community even resembling a city is Charlottenberg, four and a half kilometres away. Their home is in the middle of the forest, and I think they have about one neighbour that you can at all see from their house.

How do they survive like that, I thought? Two old, old people - my grandmother is in a service home, chrissake - and then it struck me, that people have been surviving like that for most of this country's existence. And they've been doing well.

I can't even begin to get into that frame of mind, though. I could say it would be nice to live a while like that to clear out your mind - get inspiration, write, draw, et cetera, since there's no internet there, no connection to the surrounding world save telephones and mail. Yes, that would be an interesting experience.

But what is it like to live that way? I don't think I'll ever know, and I think there are very, very few of our generation that would be able to survive that self-sufficiently. It's not like they run an active farm, like everyone else they go shopping about once a week, it's just that they can't pop down to the store in between if there's something missing. They can't even pop over to a neighbour save the one old guy who lives a little further than a stone's throw away. And they've been living like this for their whole lives, including almost 20 years of retirement. 20 years of not leaving the house except for once-a-week-shopping and special occasions.

I know a lot of people my age who have grown up relatively isolated, true. But you guys, correct me if I'm wrong, have always had other people around. I mean, at least you've gone to school. I don't know if you can identify with this old couple - it would be interesting if you say you can - but myself I know I could never get into that frame of mind. I'm not particularily oversocial, but I think my imagination would begin to turn the place into Salvador Dali's nightmares after a few months. There's nothing around, a mind-blowing amount of nothing, and - well - it blows my mind.

I find it fascinating. Don't you?

Which Disney Protagonist is the most awesome?

I think I've included every options for which people are going to vote. If I missed anyone, I guess you'll have to cast your vote in a comment instead. Some more obscure movies are kind of missing.

An Awesome Dream

It's not often you have dreams worth remembering, but I'd say, I had one tonight - so not to forget it, I'm writing it down.

It started with me trying to get into a strange warehouse to find out what was going on. I was peering through windows and stuff when I suddenly found the walls had disappeared, and with a peculiar type of concentration I could make everything static around me vanish. Nobody seemed to be noticing, so I walked into the house and found a large boat.

More peculiarly, I kept testing this "make-things-disappear" and it seemed like nobody saw me while I had it active. For some reason my first thought was that I might've become a vampire, but after some experimentation I found out that I'd somehow learned how to become ethereal. The things didn't disappear, I just made it so that I could walk straight through them - I just couldn't perceive them while I was doing so, for some reason.

Then I met the guy who owned the boat, and found that he could see me, even when I walked through walls. He was this short black guy who sounded a little like Chris Rock, and I think he had some kind of x-ray vision, though he never told me. I tried to hide from him in a church, but it was sort of disastrous since I accidentally made the whole church disappear from my view, so I couldn't find anyplace at all to hide - or couldn't find out how the church was built up. So he caught up with me only to tell me he was in hiding too, from some agency that shortly caught up with us inside a mall. I tried to flee, but I failed to work my wallhack powers while under stress, and I was cornered in a hardware store and had to give up. The agents were two - one man in a suit, and one short girl dressed sort of like the Crocodile Hunter. I found out that these "powers" manifested in about one individual in a million, and that the girl also had them - but she didn't say what they were.

The agent-guy showed us to a men's urinal at that very mall, which had a concealed passage into a base of some sort - stocked full with supplies and accessible only via a secret door and then a skilift-like elevator, where you had to hang on to a small red round plate attached to a cable. Once in the base, I found out they paid people to get rid of their powers in order to protect the public - I was offered two units of money for mine, which I somehow understood was a great amount of money, though it was only offered in the form of free access to all the wares at the mall (it was pretty big, thought). Apparently the pricing was based on which body part the power originated in - my black friend was offered eye surgery for two units, I was offered surgery in some kind of weird gland which I think might have been the pineal gland, though I'm not sure.

Before I could say yes or no to a laser surgery relieving me of my powers, something happened. A guy with a dog (I remember the dog, but not the guy) somehow started the self-destruct power of the place remotely, meaning there was a total panic and utter stampede. I got away alongside the Crocodile Girl, fleeing by making the elevator shaft intangible and for the first time succeeding to work my power under stress, fell through it, and climbed up inside the mall - where I was caught by the cashier for having "shoplifted" Ahlgrens bilar, that had somehow wound up on me at the base. I tried to shift the cashier woman away in order to vanish, but at that point I woke up.

The scary thing was, during the whole time I dreamt, I was able to shift buildings and objects away, but I wasn't able to shift them back again no matter how hard I tried. Things that I "vanished" were simply gone to me, though not to everyone else. Also it seemed like shifting made me turn invisible, though I'm not sure if I was actually invisible or if I was just on the other side of a wall or something.

Regardless, a very cool and exciting dream, and one of those nasty dreams in which you make new friends that seem awesome but, upon waking, you find they never existed. It's sad, really.

About the Chinese One

So I was asking her what to blog about, and she said "ABOUT ME!". I'm pretty sure she wasn't serious, but heck, I don't have any better idea.

Actually I don't have any idea what to write about her either, but I'll try. Living with Eva is kind of like living with a five-year old who is also more responsible than yourself. It's kind of strange to watch her alternate between "MOVIE! MOVIE NOW!" and "We need to take care of the laundry, this instant!" but it seems to somehow mysteriously work, and we've got a running household. I don't know how well it'll work this year when we'll both have a bunch of school to do, but hopefully it won't be a problem even though we have kind of little time for each other (which is of course a pity).

The combination of childyness and responsibility is mostly practical and cute, but can sometimes be a little hard to cope with since she's got an energy level that's pretty high, which can sometimes make me a little tired of all her oversocialness. I don't mind locking my mind into a book once in a while, but it can be hard if Eva is going on with some project - depending on how energetic she's feeling, it can range from something as majestic as arranging a LARP to something like "Brush teeth! Brush teeth NOW!" which, needless to say, is sometimes a bit bothersome - especially when "Brush teeth now!" occurs, say, four in the morning.

I know that the above statement about energy is going to be subject to a lot of innuendo, and I would suppose you're all dying of curiousity regarding how we go together on the purely carnal, despiccable and sinful plane. The answer is, of course, that we sort of compromise. I'm gonna leave the rest unspoken, but suffice to say that Eva is probably a whole lot less pron than you all think. Didn't see that one coming, did ya?

What else is there to comment about, without getting sappy? The power of the sad face? The complete failure of us both to eat and sleep on reasonable times? Or the fantasticness of finally having found a girl who not only understands, but actually likes, gaming? Or how sometimes, I like being alone, but this is due to me being an INTP?

I'll leave the rest unspoken, leave my loneliness unbroken, leave the bust above my door - take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door;
quoth the Raven - I can has cheezburger?