Day in the Life of an Idiot

 
A pencil sketch of my Star Trek character, Melek Valerian. Often mistaken as Vulcan, he is actually mixed race (Risan and Romulan*) He wears glass, which must be an affectation, honestly. I'm pretty sure glasses are a thing of the ancient past.

Mostly, I've talked about my other other Star Trek Adventures game here, but I really want to share a couple of things from Saturday night's game that I found deeply wonderful. First of all, bcholmes is a fantastic GM. We were in a bit of diplomatic pickle and had been challenged to a duel by a Talarian envoy. I was ready to go down swinging, but we ended up avoiding bloodshed as our hosts (a matriarchal set of Talarian political prisoners) suggested we have a Spelling Bee. My character is among other things a linguist, so he took up the challenge and, thankfully, won it handily.

However, the whole idea of a Spelling Bee sparked a fascinating discussion about the Universal Translator.

Like how would a Spelling Bee even work? For instance, it's generally assumed that the translator works auditorily. Like, each of us hears our native language. So, for instance, if the Original Trek crew had a spelling bee and crew members were asked to spell "dog," what would they answer? Presumably, Sulu would say, "I-N-U" as "inu" is Japanese for dog, and Uhura would spell "M-B-W-A" as "mbwa" is dog is Swahili... and both of these people would pass to the next round, right? But how would you know if they got it right? The translator would translate the letters as is, presuming there is a shared lettering system.  So, how do you do this when there's a native Risan-speaker defending against Talarians? We ending up using handwavium and letting the dice decide how it all went, but I was fully ready to roleplay it, as I'd pulled up Google translate and was going to pick a random language to respond in.  

The other fun thing is that we discovered that our entire diplomatic mission was a cover for an invasion force. So, we were stuck in a very complicated situation, as if I chose (despite being the Science Officer on a DS11, I was the ranking officer) to open fire in order to stop shuttle craft from landing on the planet, this would obviously be an interstellar incident that was... well, above my paygrade to say the least. Also, we are the Federation, despite feeling an intense desire to defend the defenseless, in this case, murder isn't really supposed to ever be the answer. Plus, we were on a research mission and so it's not like we had a full warship at our command at any rate. Anyway, we had some fun trying to figure out non-violent solutions to stopping an invasion force. I tend to like to misuse the transporter system, so my first suggestion was beaming out the entire shuttlecraft crew and depositing them directly in our brig. They were on to me by the second launch so we caught them in our tractor beam. But, then we quickly ran out of options, and had to do our best on the ground to keep the political prisoners safe.  

At one point I was able to point out to the Talarians that they might want to watch themselves as Science Officers are not require to take the Kobayashi Maru.. which means not only do I have no sense of the consequences of my actions, I also have no reason to believe I CAN'T win and unwinnable situation. And that, dear Talarians, is very dangerous to you.

:-)

Anyway, it was great fun. I can't believe that anyone anywhere is letting me be the ranking officer of any away team, but here we are!

---

* So, I have this huge backstory, of course, of how this combination could even happen. 

I've become kind of fascinated by the fact that there is canon that not only does a "pleasure planet" exist in the Star Trek universe, but that its native population is apparently governed by a hedony--a hedonistic governing system of some sort. So, the science fiction writer in me went into overdrive and decided I needed to know how this could actually Work, and filled-in some canon gaps, including deciding that the sex workers of Risa were, in fact, part of the governing body. So, I invented what I call the Seven Flowers of Risa-- Rose, Bindweed, Camila, Lily, Lotus, Thistle and Valerian (<--the universal translator's best guess at native flower analogs, of course.) You'll see my character's last name there. His mother is what is known as the Flower of Valerian and (I won't get into it all here, but each house has its own rules for how it elects its leader, it's flower--some houses also have petals, which are like vice-presidents). But, the house of Valerian choses its flower by a planet-wide beauty contest--but then agrees to give this person that position for life. So, his mother is considered the most beautiful person on all of Risa. 

I wrote all this up into a document as though it was a report to Starfleet and here's what I have as a notation about Melek: "Due to the profound availably of advanced contraception, it is unlikely that Lt. Com Valerian’s birth was accidental. Speculation provided by Starfleet sources in the Lotus House [see below] is that it is a House of Valerian tradition to bear mixed-race children whose parentage implies the lengths to which people will travel to be serviced by the Valerian Flower. It has been confirmed by Lt. Com. Valerian himself, as well as through genetic testing, that his paternal heritage is Romulan. Though Starfleet Intelligence believes they have identified several potential candidates as his father among spies and commanders of the Star Empire, Lt Com Valerian is not considered a security risk as the majority of Risans, including those in the Valerian House, are matrilineal and place little to no value on fathers or fatherhood."

This is entirely why I needed to not play a lot of RPGs when I was starting writing. I will spend literal hours on backstories and worldbuilding that no one but me cares about. :-)

 I've got this abandoned fic on AO3.

It is a series of series of Bleach fic that I added to faithfully for literal years. I abandoned it when the manga series finally ended in August of 2016 and the canonical end ships broke my pairing. I haven't written on it since. 

It was, however, for a long time a fic that a lot of the Byauka/Renji community hung out in. I still get a LOT of pleas to finish it. I have successfully ignored all the of the angry, demaning ones, but I've noticed a shift in the past several years. More and more people who reach out to me around that fic have been very patient and loving. They tell me how grateful they are for the effort I put in and are far more understanding that I may never finish it. 

Weirdly, this has made me look at it again.

So, the thing I'm wondering is: do other people do this? Do you ever re-read your own fan fic? It's not terribly embarrassing to me to be doing it in this case, as a sort of research, a prelude to considering writing more.  But, I've also re-read finished fics of my own for pleasure. Do you? It feels kind of weird because I'll get caught up in my own work and be all, "Damn, this is GOOD." I feel like I should be more cringe. Like, I'm supposed to look back on the things I wrote and sigh: Ah, my youthful indiscretion! My juvenilia! But, I wrote all this stuff as a full adult, and during/post my professional career as a novelist, so....

I dunno.

I just want to say? That junko on AO3. Helluva a writer. Highly recommend. *wink*

And not a terrible artist, either. 


Image: in which I drew fan art of my own writing. This one isn't the Byakuya/Renji fic, however, but one that I wrote with my friend Josey, called Shattered Souls in which this character, Renji, becomes a Vizard. 

Yep, Mason and I are still at this... if you're interested in hearing the two of us talk about our favorite manga's current weekly chapters, check us out: http://mangakast.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/you-are-my-sunshine-eighteen/

Also, I drew more Renji fan art: http://junko222.deviantart.com/art/Relaxing-in-the-Human-World-470045243

And now I have to run as I have many birthday presents to wrap for a certain manga podcast co-host who is turning 11 tomorrow.

Just a quick sketch and an ink of my favorite guy:

Because I haven't in a while, and I JUST KNOW that you're craving Renji with his thinking face on, here is some Renji for you. The original makes him look even grumpier. Mason is finally all caught up on the Manga of Bleach, since just yesterday we got 55 from the library. He's decided to read the rest on the iPad and catch up to me, which will be phenomenonal because then I can jump around with someone else besides empty_mirrors (not that I'm looking to replace, her, mind, but she does live in a very different time zone.)

Okay, here's my boy:



The original:



It's like it was drawn by the SAME HAND, neh?

So yesterday, I was quite convinced that my printer was going to defeat my plans for Mason's Solstice gift. For those of you just tuning in, on Solstice, this pagan family attempts to give gifts that are 'from the heart'--which has come to mean, homemade rather than store bought or of SOME DEEP SIGNIFICANCE. For instance, I once spent quite a bit of money on a pair of earrings for Shawn for Solstice, but they were perfect replicas of a children's story about Raven that we read to Mason when he was quite young. It's the story of Raven stealing the sun and the earrings were Native made and actually included a sun in the raven's beak.

But, so I started out thinking that to make Mason's tee-shirt, I would need to use our printer and heat-transfer paper that I bought at Michael's (a craft store.) This assumed that what I had at home was an InkJet printer... which I thought I had, but it turns out not so much. In fact, the heat-transfer paper nicely went in.... AND PROMPTLY MELTED COMPLETELY, like didn't even come out the other side AT ALL. Very smelly. Very impressive. I do believe, however, that my printer may actually survive this mistreatment. BUT, I had to give up on the printer option. My friends on the Interwebs suggested trying Kinko's, the lady at Kinko's said they had no InkJet printers so, nope, try Office Max. The Office Max helper also said, "No, sorry!"

I thought, perhaps, I was defeated. Because, while I can draw, I normally am baffled by straight lines (which this design would require.) But, I gave it a go anyway:



I think it turned out pretty well. You may be wondering why I am gifting my son with the number 11 in kanji. The answer is, of course, Bleach related. The 11th Division kicks butt and, since Mason might be wearing this to kuk sool (which requires black tees under the gi) this will give him extra kickiness to his buttness, I'm sure. We already swear in Japanese as part of our key-yop. Luckily, these folks are Korean, so shouting the s-word equivelant really doesn't make much of an impression. Plus, our Japanese is crappy enough I'm SURE no one notices.

When I left the house to head for the coffee shop this morning, Loki was still alive.  He's completly shell shocked and hiding under the filter, but so far so good. 

I had a HORRIBLE fish dream last night, though, clearly about the recent fish-related trauma.  I dreamed I had a tiny fish, like a white mountain minnow, who kept flopping out of his tank and I had to try to pick him up off the floor--except in my dream, every time I got my hands on him, he'd slip back out and fall into some horrible new place.  The most memorable image?  Him getting tangled in a huge spiderweb, and when I finally got him out of that he was gasping and covered in dust and webbing.

Clearly, I feel like a terrible fish mommy.

Since I was asked to provide some pictures of the recent house project, I have a couple for you:



This is a view of the picky bits.  It may not be obvious in the photo, but the crown moulding is painted brown.  In the furtherst room visible in the picture is what the real moulding should look like.  But all of the crown moulding in the downstairs was badly mistreated by our previous owners.  They used that popcorn plaster spray on the ceiling and, for reasons known only to the dark recesses of their twisted minds, they sprayed the same crap all over the lovely hardwood moulding.  Possibly because owners previous to them had painted it as well.  I know this because in the golden room, our dining room, I scraped all the popcorn plaster crap from the moulding and then used a heat gun to remove several layers of paint.  Underneath it all is a beautiful dark (red?) maple or possibly even oak.  But that's a sh*tload of work, and not anything resembling a weekend project. Shawn and I have decided that painting the moulding will work for now, and that eventually, when Mason is off to M.I.T. or Yale, we will tackle the messy, arduous project of refinishing the moulding for real.

I also painted the walls, which used to be a dirty, grayish sort of white, but are now a color that doesn't show terribly well in the photos but is a sort of creamy yellowish white.



Here, perhaps, is a slightly better sense of color.  The "new" paint is the lighter colored one.  The other wall of the foyer is the deeper gold of the dining room.  I also painted those radiator pipes going up the wall and the crown moulding you see there.  The ceiling still needs to be done at some point, but that's a little less critical because it's held up fairly well and will be repainted a very similar sort of egg-shell whitish color.

You wouldn't think such tiny bits of wall and moulding would take so long, but I spent nearly all of Sunday working on this stupid project.  The upside is that it really looks quite lovely now, and it's done.  We shouldn't need to repaint for several years.

And, now for something completely different:



Here's the latest of my fan art: Renji and Zabimaru.  Yep.  Still obsessed.

Because, you know, it occurs to me that maybe my Facebook friends don't want all my half-naked Renji pictures.  (What?  NO WAY.)
Thus, I inficted half-nakedness on YOU, my LJ friends.



So, there you go.  Enjoy.

I'm going to post a little fan art for now, and then come back to writing about my life.  The pictures below were inspired by myself again.  This one is called, "The Demon Stare" (and it's part 26 of the Curse of the Nue series) http://archiveofourown.org/works/509154.  Here is the inked, colored version.  As I think I expressed before, I'm pretty happy with a lot of what's been coming out of this fan art obsession.  I'm having a kind of break-through in terms of "oh, hey, I didn't need to look at a picture to draw this."  So, this came completely out of my head, which makes it extra-special in my opinion.  I had some trouble, however, taking a decent picture of this-- in the original you can see a bit of Zabimaru's tail (he's the striped ape-looking thing, there, in case you're wondering.)



For your edification, here's the sketch (you lose a bit of Renji's arm, but you can see the snake-tail here.):

I have two versions of this newest bit of fan art.  First, the sketch, and then the colored piece.  I like them both for different reasons.  I also have to note that this is one of the fist times I drew a picture of Renji based SOLELY on the image in my head.  I didn't even borrow the body from someone else.  This is kind of a big step for me, and I'm ridiculously proud of the results (so if my perspective is off, don't tell me.  I want to bask in the glory for a while.)



So here's the sketch.  This is my boy Renji and the externalization of his zanpaktou, Zabimaru.  Zabimaru is a nue demon, which is described on Wikipedia as a demon who has the arms and legs of a tiger, the body of a tanuki, the head of a monkey and the tail of a snake.  Kubo-sensei, however, has always drawn Zabimaru as looking mostly like an albino gorrilla with a snake-head tail.  Renji, interestingly, has chosen to tattoo his arms with tiger stripes (he also has them on his legs), and he's from a district in the Soul Society called "Hang Dog," Inuzuri, and always gets harrassed for being a dog (which seems to be the same sort of insult to the Japanese as it would be in English to an American)--of course, the ony NATIVE dog to Japan is the tanuki. 

Now for the colored version of the same:



This image was inspired by my own fan fiction again, I have to admit.  This time from a scene in which our hero is contemplating his relationship with his captain and getting some advice from his zanpaktou.  If you're curious, you can check out:  http://archiveofourown.org/works/487390

I hope you enjoy!