Fiction: Masks

Sean's Note: This is an unpublished work, posted here for your consumption. I have no intention to submit this for consideration in any form of media, although there was the possibility of tweaking or rewriting this for other purposes. My reasons are explained here, along with the exchange that led me to posting the entire story in this entry as an exercise in literary analysis. In addition, I may be posting further notes in the Comments section below.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the story:




The mask is made of steel, forged in the fires of the Emperor’s second year and polished to a fine reflective sheen. Its eyelids are slanted long and low, allowing its bearer to look upon others without their being aware of the act. And its mouth is a mere slit that barely mars the smooth metal surface, as though any whispers that issue forth would gain the sharpness of the molded flame.

“It’s a little tarnished,” Stanislai says, dabbing at it with oiled cloth.

“It’s polished enough,” I tell him, prying it gently out of his hands. Stanislai, true to his form, is remarkably obsessed with detail. Such qualities, I suppose, would be advantages in an Imperial scribe.

“I’m serious, Etiev,” he says, still holding the cloth. “You can’t go into the Emperor’s presence without a perfect face. His majesty won’t stand for it.”

I stare into my reflection in the metal’s cold depths. “He’s seen this mask often enough, Stanislai. He won’t notice it any more than he normally does.”

“That’s the point,” Stanislai says, throwing his hands up in frustration. “What if the Emperor spots some glaring flaw in your face, hmm? What if he realizes that he can’t see his eminent expression in your left side? What if he points you out in front of the entire retinue? You wouldn’t be able to show your face in court for weeks!”

“It’s only a second face, Stanislai,” I tell him, turning the mask over and over in my hands. “The second face doesn’t mean anything. The only thing that matters is the true face underneath.”

“You try telling that to the Emperor,” Stanislai says, taking the mask back. “You may still think it’s that simple, Etiev, but you know that it isn’t. Not anymore.”

“His majesty should learn to look at hearts and not at faces, if you ask me.”

“Who are you to say what his majesty should do and what he shouldn’t do?” Stanislai admonishes.

“I’m an Imperial advisor, Stanislai. I can actually do that sort of thing.”

“You,” Stanislai says, gesturing with the cloth, “are the Emperor’s villain. You are a cruel, black-hearted man who disagrees with everything he says.”

“That’s because the Emperor is a frivolous fool.”

“Don’t say that!” Stanislai says, staring at me in horror and almost dropping my mask in the process. “I… I… well, I’m not saying that you can’t think that,” he says, “but for Aquan’s sake, don’t say that out loud!”

“Why not, Stanislai? You did say that I was the Emperor’s villain.”

“Yes, but there’s a fine line between being the Emperor’s villain and getting your nose cut off by the Praetorians.”

“All right,” I concede, “all right. No insulting the Emperor.”

“That’s right,” Stanislai says, handing me back my mask. “No insulting the Emperor. Not today. Not now, not ever.”

“Can I insult Lord Vykos and Lord Tatien, at least?”

Stanislai shrugs, although he still looks more than a little doubtful. “Go right ahead,” he tells me, “but it’s your skin there.”

“Why not, Stanislai?” I ask, putting my mask on. “They’re advisors too. We’re all in the same boat together.”

“It’s your game, Etiev. I’m just a scribe. They’d fall all over each other to have me fed to the ravens.”

“No,” I assure him, “they’re already too busy falling over each other to lick the Emperor’s boots.”

“You see?” Stanislai sighs in a gesture of defeat. “That’s why they call you the Emperor’s villain. You start arguments. You throw insults. You get on the nerves of every mask in the court.”

“Even yours?”

Stanislai gives me a withering look. “Even mine, Etiev. Sometimes even mine.”

“At least I’m doing my job well, then. How do I look?”

Stanislai gives me a short, critical inspection. “As well as you could hope to look, I suppose. The steel doesn’t suit you.”

“It suits me fine, Stanislai. The Emperor gave it to me himself.”

“As much as I may admire his majesty’s choice in décor, I must admit that I don’t understand the significance.”

“Neither do I, my friend. But then again, no one ever accused his majesty of being easy to understand.”

* * * * *

Stanislai’s mask is made of soft, smooth wood. He is, unfortunately, not familiar with its origin. As far as he is concerned, it could have been cut from the forests of the Imperial domain, or carved from driftwood found upon the Emperor’s shores. What matters most to him is that the mask is a mark of his place in the courts, and a symbol of the position he has worked long and hard to obtain.

“That’s quite a lot of people, Etiev,” he says.

We look upon the grand ballroom of the Emperor’s summer palace, a massive chamber with high vaulted ceilings and lavish crystalline furnishings. What looks like the entire Imperial entourage is already here, their light conversation adamant above the colored lights and the festive music.

The masks are everywhere. They hold fixed upon the faces of every man and woman who attends to the Eldest of Elders. They are masks of wood and porcelain, masks of metal and cloth – for every mask a purpose and for every purpose a mask.

“Too many masks,” I tell Stanislai.

“You see them all the time, Etiev. There’s nothing wrong with the masks.”

“They’re masks, Stanislai. They’re empty faces. I’m not comfortable speaking with empty faces.”

“You seem comfortable enough in court,” Stanislai points out.

“I wear this same mask to court,” I tell him under the glare of steel, “and it’s remarkable how many emotions this second face can hide.”

We walk through the animated throng, our eyes registering the expressionless features around us. Some seem in a genuine celebratory mood. Others seem in a place and time not of their choosing. All of them look the same.

“The Praetorians,” Stanislai points out in a matter-of-fact tone. I cannot see his face to be certain.

“Yes,” I tell him. “The Praetorians are always here. They are always everywhere.”

They walk among the crowds, fearsome in their crimson robes and their leather expressions. Their swords wear masks as well, sleeping in silken wrappings until roused by the merest hint of disturbance. None dare to cross the Emperor’s bodyguards.

And then one of them approaches us, the redness of his uniform whispering about the marble floor. He walks with the measured cadence of his training, yet with the casual stiffness that accompanies years upon years of service. The Praetorian approaches, and the crowd unconsciously parts before him.

“Etiev?” Stanislai asks in an uncertain tone.

I shake my head, and turn to meet the officer as soon as he extends a hand in greeting.

“Good evening, Lord Etiev,” he says. “Good evening, young Stanislai.”

“Lord Polonius?” Stanislai asks. There is no mistaking the relief in his voice.

Polonius appears perplexed for a moment. “Is something wrong, young man?” he asks.

“Everything is all right, sir,” I tell him.

“It’s just that,” Stanislai adds nervously, “when a Praetorian walks up to you in the middle of a gathering like this, you think, well… you think…”

Polonius laughs, his voice muffled by the thickness of his mask. It is a dry, almost bitter laugh that betrays his old age, but it is a very genuine sound in a room full of false faces.

“You’re jumping at shadows all of a sudden, young Stanislai,” he says. “I don’t suppose you’ve done anything wrong, have you?”

“Ah, er… no, sir. Not at all. I haven’t done anything at all.”

Polonius sighs. “If you didn’t take after your father so much, Stanislai, then you would have been immediately suspicious to me.”

“He’s a scribe, Lord Polonius,” I tell him. “He listens to so much intrigue that you can see it coming out of his ears. You could convict the Emperor’s subjects on what he knows.”

“All scribes are like that, Lord Etiev, to the point that I sometimes fear for my sanity when dealing with them. Isn’t that right, Stanislai?”

“I, ah… I think I see some of my colleagues over there. Ah… please excuse me, Lord Polonius. Please excuse me, Eti… I mean, Lord Etiev.”

Stanislai scurries into the thickest part of the crowd. Polonius and I watch his earnest departure.

“You must forgive him, Lord Polonius,” I tell the old Praetorian. “He’s…”

“He’s just like his father was, Lord Etiev: Nervous as a hunted rabbit.”

“He hasn’t done anything wrong, of course. You cut a very intimidating figure, Lord Polonius.”

Polonius gives a dry laugh once more, but this time with a very skeptical undertone to it. “Was that a compliment, Lord Etiev?”

“You might say that, yes.”

“Strange words to hear, from the Emperor’s villain.”

“I may disagree with the Emperor from time to time,” I answer, “but I find it best to stay on the good side of the Praetorians.”

“Excellent insight, yes,” Polonius remarks, “although you must realize that your disagreements with the Emperor do mark you as a man to watch.”

“I’ve grown used to that,” I tell him, adjusting my mask. “Fortunately for our august Emperor, I am a loyal servant of his great Empire. We may disagree on many matters, but I assure you that it is all for the best.”

“Wise words indeed,” Polonius muses. Years of experience allow him to easily hide the expressions in his voice.

“On a more serious note, however,” I tell him, looking towards the dais where the Imperial party is seated, “I am afraid that I must attend to the Emperor’s needs at the moment.”

“The Emperor’s villain would start an argument so soon?” Polonius replies.

“It keeps him sober,” I answer. “After all, we wouldn’t want him making any important decisions while he’s drunk.”

* * * * *

Polonius’s mask is the same as that of all Praetorians: soft white leather, distinctive enough to be identified across entire rooms. The eye-slits are covered over with thin black cloth, with painted blood-red teardrops underneath each one. Unlike ordinary masks, it has no open area for the mouth – the Praetorians tend to let their blades express any disapproval they feel.

“I thank you for the escort, Lord Polonius,” I tell him.

“Think nothing of it. I would do as much for any esteemed Imperial advisor.”

“Lord Vykos and Lord Tatien don’t seem like the appropriate sort.”

Polonius gives me an odd glance. “Your feelings for Lord Vykos and Lord Tatien are no secret in the court,” he says, “but must you mention them so much?”

“They’re rats, Lord Polonius. They’re toads. They exist only to lick the Emperor’s boots so long as they can gorge themselves on the Imperial coffers.”

“You’re fortunate that they’re not here to listen to you, then.”

“I’ve called them worse names to their faces. You know what they’re like, Lord Polonius. Your Praetorians service them as well.”

“That is true,” Lord Polonius says, his expression unreadable. “But it is not a soldier’s place to question his leaders, much less an old soldier.”

“Not even mine, I expect. Not even the Emperor’s villain.”

Polonius gives me another sidelong glance. “That mask suits you very well, Lord Etiev,” he says, after what appears to be a great deal of thought.

I raise one hand to the smooth reflection of my mask. “What makes you say that, Lord Polonius?”

“Your mask is made of steel,” he says. “I understand that the Emperor finds it most appropriate.”

“Indeed,” I tell him. “But what of steel?”

Polonius’s voice feels distant, as though behind a mask of its own. “Steel moves without shifting. Steel bends without breaking. You adjust to the Emperor’s policies, yet you do not fall under his spell.”

“Sometimes even I cannot stop the Emperor from making the most foolish decisions,” I admit. “In those cases, I find it best to simply move on… and discourage him from making them again.”

“Yet the steel is also what makes a fine blade,” Polonius says, placing one hand on the hilt of his sword. “Every soldier, every guard, every Praetorian knows that their four feet of steel must be wielded in a controlled manner. It cannot merely be drawn at the merest sign of adversity.”

“Steel also makes a prison, Lord Polonius. Steel makes an unbreakable prison. And a man behind steel walls has little to offer but the sound of his voice, and the fire of his statement.”

“Dangerous words from the Emperor’s villain,” Polonius says.

“Would there be any other kind?” a sweetened voice interjects.

The lady stands before us, resplendent in a dress of blue and violet. Where the color of Polonius’s mask would promise grave threats, the form and feature of her mask would promise even graver consequences of a subtler sort.

“Moia,” I say, leaning forward to kiss her outstretched hand.

“Lady Moia,” Polonius says, refusing to move even one inch.

“You promised to send me a message,” Moia says accusingly, enclosing my hand in hers.

“The Emperor’s villain has been quite busy,” I tell her.

“You’re my villain, too,” she says.

“I find it very, very difficult to serve two masters, Moia – one a fool and the other a temptress.”

“You didn’t find it such a difficult decision two nights ago,” she says, pressing herself against my side.

Polonius clears his throat. Moia laughs, her voice sounding through the silken folds of her mask.

“I’m sorry, Lord Polonius. Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“It’s nothing I’ve heard before,” Polonius says, waving the matter away with one hand.

“So,” I begin, looking into Moia’s sparkling blue eyes. “What would such a charming courtesan want with an Imperial advisor?”

“Satisfaction for a lady’s curiosity,” Moia says, winking at Polonius. “Are you up to anything in particular?”

“Lord Etiev will be meeting with the Emperor,” Polonius answers. “It is the place of an advisor to remain at his master’s side, after all.”

“Do you have to, Etiev? Our dear Emperor has been having so much fun.”

“He needs something to temper his evening, Lady Moia,” I tell her. “If he insists on playing during his statecraft, then I can show him that he can just as easily work during his leisure.”

“You’re lucky he hasn’t asked Lord Polonius to kill you yet,” Moia says.

“I might have tempted him, though,” I say. Polonius’s mask, of course, is as expressionless as it looks.

“Why don’t I bring you to the Emperor, then?” Moia suggests. “I’m sure he’ll be simply ecstatic to see you. Let’s not get him angry at poor old Polonius here.”

“What about you, Lady Moia?” Polonius asks.

“He can’t stay angry at me forever,” she lightly tells the Praetorian. “I’m too good for that.”

* * * * *

Moia’s mask is made of the purest silks, spun in the great Eastern lands and layered in a design exclusive to the Emperor’s courtesans. It lies draped across her face, highlighting the distinguishing feature of her eyes and obscuring a smile that would make men fall to their knees in supplication. And as she moves, it whispers the tantalizing secrets that only the courtesans may freely encourage.

“Would you?” she asks me.

“Would I do what, Moia?”

“Would you?” she asks again.

“Would I do what?”

She presses herself against my shoulder once again. “You know, Etiev.”

“Perhaps, Moia. If my duties to the Emperor end early tonight.”

She purses her lips. “For a villain, you follow the Emperor around relentlessly,” she tells me.

“That is the role of a villain,” I tell her. “Where would the Emperor be without me?”

“More likely somewhere in his bedroom, rolling around the sheets with four or five young women, bestowing imaginary baronies upon any name that comes to mind.”

“Exactly,” I tell her.

“Do you really believe that the Emperor would be so incompetent, Etiev?”

“So do you, Moia. You’ve told me so.”

“Yes,” she says, considering the matter for a moment. “But I’m a courtesan. I tell stories. I spread rumors. I can say or think whatever I want because no one would take me seriously.”

“I know,” I say, looking into her blue eyes.

“But you’re an advisor,” she points out, her silken mask brushing against my steel visage.

“I know.”

“You go as far as to insult them to their faces, and they brand you a villain for you disagreement.”

“False faces, Moia. Masks.”

“You’re being very mysterious today, Etiev.”

I think for a moment. “Do you think, perhaps, that the masks hide who we truly are?”

She smiles at me. “No I don’t,” she says, attempting to see into my hidden eyes. “I don’t think that at all.”

“Then what do you think, Moia?”

“Look around you, Etiev. Everyone wears a mask. The silken ones imply the courtesans, the white leather faces belong to the Praetorians, even you know that your friend Stanislai the scribe owns a wooden face. If anything, the masks show who we are.”

“And me?” I ask, smiling at her.

She smiles back. “You’re a villain, Etiev. You’re the most fiendish villain I’ve ever known.”

* * * * *

Vykos’s mask could hardly be called a mask. It is a mottled white design over a transparent monocle that covers a single nearsighted eye. Vykos is a wrinkled man whose face gives the impression of great age and wisdom, yet as an advisor, he is perfectly content to sit back and listen to the Emperor’s wanton pronouncements.

Tatien’s mask, on the other hand, is fashioned from black porcelain, and covers his face from forehead to chin. Diamond dust surrounds his eyes, with sapphires in the center of each cheek and ruby shards ornamenting his lips. The mask otherwise distracts from Tatien’s corpulent figure, grown fat on his overwhelming support of the Emperor’s decrees.

Masks or no masks, none of them are happy to see me.

“Nothing else to do tonight, Lord Etiev?” Vykos asks.

“I was about to ask you the same thing, Lord Vykos.”

“What are you here for, Etiev? It’s not as though you’ll find any matters of government policy here.”

“It’s still a party, Lord Vykos. Don’t I get a chance to celebrate along with the rest of you?”

“Oh, do leave him alone, Vykos,” a familiar voice says.

I step back into a florid bow. “Good evening, your majesty,” I finally say.

* * * * *

The Emperor wears no mask.

Each eye is dyed with inks of blue and white. Each sleek hair upon his brow is clearly outlined. Each wrinkle, each imperfection upon his skin has been brushed away with the finest flesh-colored powders.

The Emperor wears robes of gold and green, cunningly tucked and folded to hide his growing paunch. He carries an extensive train of silk and lace, all the more to conceal his diminutive stature. He gestures with white satin gloves that cover hands so soft they would bleed at the slightest blister.

He wears a construct of gold and diamonds upon his head, although every single courtier knows – much to the Emperor’s detriment – that the wig is obvious, and that the baldness is already in its advanced stages.

In a sense, the Emperor is his own mask.

I smile. Underneath the façade, the Emperor is just an ordinary man.

“I haven’t seen you smile in a long time, Etiev,” he says.

“I haven’t had reason to smile in a long time, your majesty.”

The Emperor nods. “Another snide remark regarding a recent development, Etiev?”

“On the contrary, your majesty. I have never been in greater agreement with you… or with the rest of the court, for that matter.”

The Emperor looks confused. I am familiar with the expression, having seen it mostly during his ill attempts at statecraft.

“Well… that’s good, Etiev.”

“I am the Emperor’s villain,” I say, giving him a florid bow once again.

“Quite.”

“We wear many masks, your majesty. The masks make us who we are.”

“I don’t see quite where you’re going, Etiev.”

I smile at him. “You’re just an ordinary man, your majesty. Underneath all the posturing, underneath all the positioning, underneath all those uncomfortable robes… you’re just a man.”

He stares at me for a moment, wondering what to make of my statement. Then he laughs.

“How droll, Etiev. You are most certainly a villain.”

“And you, your majesty, are most certainly just a man.”

And I thrust the dagger into his heart.





...

What Hunts the Hunter

It's been a month since my actual resignation from my former company, and a large, well-established corporation seems to be interested in acquiring my services. I've got over twenty other pending applications to other companies at the moment, but these people have the distinction of being the first ones to reply.

The good news:

- It's a relatively high-profile position. If I don't come in as a project manager, I'll be performing similar duties and will probably receive extensive training for actual project management tasks.

- I appear to have experience in most, if not all, of the tasks of my expected position. This is a huge leap ahead of any other applicants, and my writing skills look like they were a definite factor in my consideration. (Not to mention the possibility that they're probably looking at this blog, too. Hi, guys.)

- The compensation package looks pretty good. I named a relatively high price range for my services, and they don't seem to be hesitating at the numbers.

- I'll only have to work four days a week.

- The job will involve international travel, and feedback from the company's other managers is that this makes for a good amount of R&R as well as business exposure.

- The office location is well within my convenience.

...

Sounds pretty good so far, right?

Now, the bad news:

- Two words: NIGHT SHIFT.

- Thirteen more words: I'LL BE REQUIRED TO WORK THIS NIGHT SHIFT FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS.

...

Darn it. Decisions, decisions...

Excerpted

Back when the deadline for the Fully Booked contest was looming over hundreds of unfortunate writers out there, I wrote a short story entitled "Masks" in the course of a single night. I originally meant for it to be my submission to Neil Gaiman and the other judges, but a re-reading of the story left me feeling empty and dissatisfied. So, as with every story that doesn't meet my personal standards, I tucked it into an archive folder and forgot about it for the next few months.

Now, with both the Fully Booked contest and the recent Sci-Fi/Fantasy Convention behind us, I ended up digging through my cobwebbed works and rediscovering my working draft of "Masks". While I still feel that the story isn't fit for publication, I've found a strange attraction in most of the descriptive writing. "Masks" was meant to be an outline of the underlying plots behind a fictional imperial court, and as such, it contained heavy amounts of visual reference.

My favorite excerpt from "Masks" follows. I find it odd that I fixate so much on this piece of writing, especially for a story that doesn't seem too good to begin with.

The Emperor wears no mask.

Each eye is dyed with inks of blue and white. Each sleek hair upon his brow is clearly outlined. Each wrinkle, each imperfection upon his skin has been brushed away with the finest flesh-colored powders.

The Emperor wears robes of gold and green, cunningly tucked and folded to hide his growing paunch. He carries an extensive train of silk and lace, all the more to conceal his diminutive stature. He gestures with white satin gloves that cover hands so soft they would bleed at the slightest blister.

He wears a construct of gold and diamonds upon his head, although every single courtier knows – much to the Emperor’s detriment – that the wig is obvious, and that the baldness is already in its advanced stages.

In a sense, the Emperor is his own mask.

Why do I post this excerpt here? I don't know, really. Maybe I just like this little bit of writing *that* much.

I remember typing this part of the text at a fast and regular pace, as though I already knew what the Emperor character looked like. I think I got my primary references from Samurai 7 (an animé by Gonzo Digimation, based on Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai); the Scorpion Clan from Legend of the Five Rings; and Hotep and Hoy, the Egyptian priest characters from The Prince of Egypt.

I believe that I worked my reflections from a certain ethical standpoint into "Masks", which got frustrated when I deemed the story too low-quality to publish. This probably got me writing a blog post some months later: As a result, "Faces in the Crowd" holds many of the themes that "Masks" was supposed to produce.

I find it funny that we can somehow do something right, even when we did it wrong to begin with. This episode actually has me wondering why I didn't just try to salvage the work instead of hiding it in a pile of old junk for me to unearth five months later. I'm not proud of the short story as a whole, mind you... but I'm proud of writing this particular excerpt, as I am with a few other bits and pieces of the draft. And if I'm proud of something I've made, then I believe that it at least deserves to see the light of day.

That's why this excerpt is posted here, far from any notions of Neil Gaiman or a prize of thousands of pesos, far from any prospects of awards or convention notability. This excerpt is posted here because I decided that I liked this set of five paragraphs after all. Hopefully, you'll agree with me.

That Demon Drink

It's midnight on a lazy Saturday, and all I can think about is why writers seem to drink a lot. That is to say, I'm sitting up late, doing nothing but wondering why beer often seems to figure into the local literary scene.

Aw, come on. Surely you've noticed it: Any high-profile gatherings of writers (particularly writers' workshops) always seem to involve the consumption of egregious amounts of the demon drink. Some contemporary writers' habits are so synonymous with drink that their personalities are inescapably associated with particular brands of beer (the late Nick Joaquin being identified with San Miguel, for example). And should we be surprised that Fully Booked decided to spring for more than a few cases of Red Horse during its awards earlier this evening, despite the possibility that not all of its attendees might have been of drinking age?

Of all the things, why alcohol? Is it because the notion of malt liquor figures heavily into our national culture and social consciousness for some reason? Is it because we have to find some way to keep the stress of our lives from killing us where we stand? Or is it because we figure that we all tend to have splitting headaches in the morning, anyway?

As you've probably concluded by now, I'm not a drinker. I don't touch the stuff, primarily because it usually gets me spilling out whatever I have in my head at the moment, and it's bad for my work as a result. I don't even drink socially; The best I ever do involves a decanter of champagne at high-class weddings and a glass of red wine every New Year's Eve. I have no physical means of empathizing with people who do drink, and that's why I don't quite understand how beer and literature seem to fit together around here.

Or maybe there's no link between them at all, and they just look related to each other once we're six cups deep and starting to see things. I'm still looking for enlightenment in this regard.

Under normal circumstances, I'd probably dismiss drinking as a weakness. After all, how articulate could a man possibly be when he's far more light-headed than usual, plastered enough to forget the alphabet, and probably in the grip of faint hallucinations? You'd hardly expect much of an effort from such a person.

Except that Edgar Allan Poe reputedly wrote while he was drunk. And Mark Twain seemed to know enough about the prospect of drinking to write about it. And of course, there's the fabulous example set by Nick Joaquin and a bunch of other distinguished Filipino writers, all of whom found nothing wrong with opening a few bottles and getting soused.

I strongly suspect that the true skill lies in being able to hold your liquor. That way, the drink doesn't make much of a difference -- all it'll probably end up doing, after all, is clear your head long enough for you to write the stuff you want to write. If this were the case, then the drinkers would definitely have an advantage over the rest of us poor, abstaining sods.

It doesn't do much to clear up the issue for me, though. Whether it does clear one's thoughts or otherwise, I don't think that that constitutes much of a link between drinking and writing. For that matter, why bother with alcohol in the first place? We could theoretically replace it with Far Eastern meditation, hypnotism, cocaine, or even that ultimate whiteboard eraser itself, a good night's sleep.

Okay, so maybe beer is a little easier to procure than any of the above. Whatever. It's still difficult for me to figure out exactly why it seems to have a prominent place in the local literary gatherings.

It's altogether possible, I suppose, that a lot of amateur authors out there can't break into the big time simply because they either don't drink yet, or because they can't hold their liquor just as well. Think about it: It's easy to visualize the current roster of outstanding Philippine writers as a "big boys" club of sorts, all sitting together at the same bar. If you want to be able to join such a club, you'd have to wait for an empty seat at the counter and throw back a few shots along with the rest of them. Literally.

Yes, that was an exaggeration. Again, I have no idea what it is between writing and drinking. I have no plausibility with regards to these instances, and you shouldn't listen to me at all.

But on the other hand, does that mean that I'd be far more believable if I decided to engage in drinking along with the rest of our fair literary crowd?

Eh.

If you think I'm going to start emptying the local liquor supplies anytime soon, you're sadly mistaken. I have enough problems writing as it is, and once or twice I've even encountered people who asked me if I was drunk when I wrote some work in question.

I suppose that, given the circumstances, I should really start looking upon those comments as compliments. Or not.

Review: The Peoples' Choice Award Entries

So here we are.

I've finally finished reading through each and every one of the shortlisted entries for the Peoples' Choice honor in the First Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards. Contrary to what some people may think, it's been more of a chore than anything else. These entries, no matter what Fully Booked would have us think, are still not in their final form... and I can assure you that they're far from perfect.

Taking into account that people will be voting on these entries this Saturday, I figured that it might be best to look over them anyway. I wanted to see what was good and bad about each one and see how it would apply to both my style of writing and my approach at critiquing. I wanted to write down what I wanted to see in a good story, and perhaps make sure that I applied the same lessons to my future works. That, and I wanted to make sure I was voting for the best one, too.

Before I proceed with my comments, I would just like to note that I have a particular approach when performing critiques. My viewpoint is that any short story will have some good aspects and some bad aspects -- the good aspects being those redeemable parts of the story that can be used for other works, and the bad aspects being those flaws or failures that need to be corrected or taken into account. Sometimes one side overcomes the other, giving us what we think are "good" and "bad" pieces, respectively, but the two aspects always exist in each work. With each review below, I ask myself what I think is good and bad about each short story, and tie that in to the opinion as to whether or not I like the final result.

The following entries are reviewed in the same order in which I read them. For the sake of some of the more traditional readers, I have also refrained from mentioning any "spoiler"-type details that may intrude upon their literary experience:


The Great Philippine Space Mission - I give this work points for the title alone; That was the reason why I read it first.

With that said, I feel that "The Great Philippine Space Mission" is a magical realist story in the guise of science fiction: It starts off technical and realistic (not to mention frank), but it eventually mutates into a strange combination of the two genres. As I read it, I couldn't seem to shake the feeling that it was supposed to be a completely logical story despite the fact that absolutely unexplainable events were occurring. Considering that gossip is a central theme to the piece, the two of them resemble each other in that regard: They both use information that might not really be information in the first place. They both feed us stuff and expect us to take it as it is. It's a good parallel.

The main problem I have with the story, however, lies with the social context. It's not likely to reach many international readers because it depends on details that are only familiar in a Philippine-based perception. (And despite the author's well-crafted setup, I have a hard time believing that more people gossip about Kris Aquino than they do about Tom Cruise.) Apart from this, the author has problems with grammar and verb-tense consistency in quite a few areas, and I feel that the ending is too wide open in order to work properly. (This goes in line with the work's focus, yes, but I believe that it could have been done better. At the moment, it gives me the impression that the author simply ran out of ideas for resolution.)

All in all, I think it's a good attempt at an experimental work... but it doesn't quite strike a chord with me. It's okay, I think. It's "okay", it's not quite "good", and I don't think it's certainly "great".


A Strange Map of Time - This, I feel, is definitely a strange one. It's polished, but it's not quite polished to the level of perfection. It belongs firmly in the realm of the fantastic, but whether it can be classified as fantasy or science fiction or some relatively unknown genre is really up in the air.

To be frank, I like the story. It starts off vague and confusing, but then irons itself out in the course of the tale - which is probably what it intended to do in the first place, in order to mirror the main character's journeys. It'll probably take the average person a couple of reads to understand everything completely, but in the end, everything fits together somewhat neatly. Everything eventually makes a kind of sense, as long as one has the patience to figure it out.

My primary concern with the piece is that the various stages of the main character's journey don't seem to be treated equally; Some areas get more screen time than others, and I find it difficult to see why. I believe that the story also needs to work on its setting and background descriptions a little bit, especially in the first parts of the work; The only indication I found that the main character was moving around in a future Philippines, for example, lay in an off-hand mention of hoverjeepneys in the sky.

It's a nice work, though - one of those things that you wish you had the patience and planning to put together yourself. It got me thinking, at least.


A Song for Vargas - I remember quite a few scenes from the screen version of The Last Unicorn, one of them involving both fine wine and the power of memory. I get the feeling that this author happens to be familiar with the movie as well.

"A Song for Vargas" strikes me as more of character study than a story; Not much of a plot occurs, and whatever background detail I get has more to do with events surrounding the main character's history than anything else. With that said, it's an interesting narrative rife with extensive descriptions. I particularly like the characterization of the summer wind, as well as the author's concession that a man's personality is also reflected in the view that other people take of him.

The problem I have with description, however, is that I don't like encountering too much of it in my readings. There's an oft-repeated saying that goes "show, don't tell", and I feel that whatever time spent visualizing the characters and their surroundings would be better used to advance the plot a little further. In fact, despite the richness of the background and the situation, I finished the story with a lot of questions that were never satisfactorily answered: Why is Vargas perpetually haunted by his ghosts? Does he ever find what he is seeking? What eventually happens to the island? That's not exactly the kind of closure I like to see.

Still, my quibbles could just be more of a personal opinion than a proper literary critique. If you hold more faith in description than you do in plotting, then you'll probably be fine with this story. Unfortunately, I don't... and as a result, I'm not.


Stella for Star - The idea for this story is hardly a revolutionary concept. I feel that it's been done before, although no specific examples come to mind at the moment.

Some strange voice inside my head tells me that this piece could potentially be a good one. "Stella for Star" takes a perfectly ordinary plotline and throws in a few elements that aren't quite mundane. (I'm impressed with the involvement of a contemporary gay couple, an aspect that leads to some fairly good possibilities.) These elements fit together better than expected (I particularly like the tabloid headlines), and the resulting story is entertaining enough for a quick read. To be frank, I find this to be the fastest read among all the pieces so far.

If "Stella for Star" fails in anything, however, I think it's in the pacing. I think that the work makes a significant attempt to build suspense, but that the sections read alternatively too slow and too fast. One moment we're breathlessly overseeing the interaction between Dorian and Stella, and the next, we're needlessly listening to Paco complain about his career. I feel that the character of Sophie, in particular, is wasted - she walks in for a single scene near the climax, and then we never see her again. If there's anything that I think the story needs, it's some lengthening; That way, all the folds and creases of the pacing can be smoothed out.

Basically, I'm getting the impression that this piece needs a bit of work. It's interesting, and I think it's right up my alley, but it needs some spit-and-polish before I can say that it came out right.


Atha - The author of this work and I apparently share a certain quality: We both like writing really, really long sentences.

"Atha" feels like science fiction, but it's a "dreamy" sort of science fiction - it reminds me of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil", for some reason. It's a post-apocalyptic setting where the sense of post-apocalypsis isn't too overbearing, and that's pretty rare. For that matter, while it does hover around the idea of man repeating his past sins, I believe that it also concentrates on the alternative viewpoint: That man can't help but do it, for reasons only he can understand. I find that a fresh take on an old approach.

Despite its high points, however, I think that the story actually needs some work on its setting. I spent most of the story assuming that Conrad and the main character were the only humans around; The sudden appearance of other people in the ending seems to undermine the story. For that matter, I fail to see how gunpowder-based cannons could possibly still exist there, especially when their weights and trajectories in the story feel a little too unrealistic. Some elements such as these just feel weird... or perhaps these were meant to have a slight unrealistic feel in the first place? I'm not sure in this case.

With all that said, the story feels good to me. It's a good take, although you'll have to consider things a bit in order to understand it. While I think it needs tweaking, I also think that it's quality work. It's certainly good enough to get me reflecting on it.


Monstrous Cycle - Ever gone through a short story and exclaimed "THAT'S IT?" at the ending? It can be a good or a bad indication - either the story captured your attention to the degree that you didn't expect the sudden ending, or the story didn't get enough of your interest in the first place. Whatever the case, an abrupt ending isn't a very good sign.

I like the idea behind "Monstrous Cycle". The notion of a supernatural being entering the world of show business opens up a huge can of worms: What movies would he/she make? What product endorsements would come knocking at their door? How would they compromise their usual supernatural habits? The story takes this unlikely situation into account and touches on each of those. In a sense, it makes the concept believable - I was entirely willing to accept the possibility of a winged freak of nature doing shampoo commercials, the way the work presented it.

The problem, however, lies in the "setting-story" distinction. To me, "Monstrous Cycle" doesn't tell a story as much as it presents a setting, and as interesting as the setting might be, it ultimately doesn't mean anything when it gives no substance to the events of the story. We read that something happens, and then something happens, and then something else happens, but we never see why. I feel that the result doesn't transcend anything, really. It tells me of the events that occur in the story, yet somehow doesn't make me feel as though the experience was worthwhile. It caused me to ask what the point of the entire exercise was, and that's definitely not a good sign.

Right now, I'd rank this the worst of the eight shortlisted entries. Yes, it's got some definite redeeming values, and yes, it's certainly better than a number of other pieces I've read. But I think its greatest problem lies in the fact that it needs more of a story to go along with its development, and it's a really big problem in that regard.


The God Equation - It's got shades of Dan Brown, and images of divine beings doing God's work on earth, a story idea that's been approached and used many, many times in the past.

I find the style of this story to be excellent. It reads in a far more coherent manner than any of the other seven shortlisted entries, practically to the point where it can be read aloud to a group of eager listeners. The dialogue is done well (albeit long and overbearing), and the exotic references subtly noted. There are even a couple of extremely creative touches: the systematic nature of celestial operations (which works a little like international relations), the manifestation of divine agents into human form, and the strange involvement of ice cream in the narration. It has virtually all the elements of a good piece of fiction.

Yet, for all its advantages, I don't like the short story. "The God Equation" may have the style and panaché to carry things through, but it seems to concentrate too much on the nature of its own subject matter to make for a good tale. Whole pages are spent detailing technical details that have little or nothing to do with the plot itself, and after ten pages of this or so, I was skipping over all the mentions of prime numbers, of Mandelbrot, and of Leonhard Euler. The characters feel anything but "human" to me; While they are supposed to be celestial beings, I was unable to feel the slightest empathy for what was them, or for what was going on. I got the impression that the story was both preachy and distant, and those are a couple of qualities that it really shouldn't have.

Don't get me wrong... "The God Equation" has style, rhythm, and class. I just think that it needs to get its head out of the clouds and become a lot more appealing to the average reader. What significance does a "God Equation" have, after all, if no one cares about it?


The Omega Project - I've worked with cockroaches from a literary standpoint before, although this treatment is quite new to me.

"The Omega Project" has good style and narration - not perfect, but good enough to make for a fast and entertaining read. It has good flow as well, in that it is able to alternate between two different points of view while keeping the story running. This interplay allows the story to slowly unfold, although most of the revelations appear in the first half of the piece itself. I particularly like the closing paragraphs, in that they provide excellent closure; It's been a while since I've read a satisfactory ending to a story.

For a science-fiction-centered piece, however, the "science" needs a lot more development. The story left me clueless as to how the setting came about or how the ending came to pass; There are a lot of logical disconnections in the course of the tale. There are a number of areas that seem far more developed than others, but these areas always seem to receive little more than a partial mention in the story. I constantly had the impression that something was left out of the telling, and I believe that, if there's one major flaw in this work, it's the fact that it fails to emphasize details that really should be emphasized.

In hindsight, however, that's perfectly attuned to the reality of a cockroach: Always there but hardly ever raised to anyone's attention. At least until we squish it, of course.

-----


That's it, ladies and gentlemen. That's how my comments go after a single read through each and every one of the eight shortlisted entries.

You may fully agree with some of my writings as featured above. You may vehemently disagree with them, or you may violently object to my opinion and immediately start plotting to kill me. I suppose that that's fine. We're each entitled to our own opinions, after all.

If you have any points to raise that require my attention, however, feel free to leave a comment below. I'm open to discussion regarding any or all of these stories, much more so if we can trade ideas about the whole review thing. The more people join in, after all, the more subjective our collective opinions can get.

Critters

It's about two in the morning, and I've read through three straight pieces of short fiction tonight. Along with the two works I went through yesterday afternoon, that means that I've got critiques for five of the shortlisted entries in the Fully Booked contest. That also means that I'll definitely be placing my notes online within the next couple of days.

It's struck me that this move could be somehow controversial -- after all, I'm a relatively unknown writer without the same level of writing chops that some of the more established people hold. These eight entries are presumably the best works submitted to a single national writing contest, possibly by big-name authors with credentials longer than my outstretched arms. What right do I have to suddenly go through them, and tell people what I think?

The answer, I suppose, lies in the fact that I'm a reader. And if anything, it's really the reader who has the last say in determining whether a work is good, or bad, or otherwise. It's the readers who curl up with your book in their hands and a bag of chips on the side, it's the readers who drive sales and put your name on the bestseller lists, and it's the readers who'll ultimately stop you in the middle of the street and tell you how much your writing affected their lives.

I find that last point important. I want to read these shortlisted works, and I want to write down what I think of them. My reviews may end up being good, or they may end up being tyrannical and scathing, but I'll have them down on (virtual) paper, and that's really all that I want to see.

It's not as much fun if I'm doing this alone, though. I invite any other readers out there to have a look at the same set of short stories, and post their thoughts on their online journals, just so that we can have a better, more subjective view of things. We can even go around and trade ideas on each of these pieces; Reading, after all, is a matter of sharing views as much as it is deciphering words and letters on paper.

That, and there's less than a week before everybody goes off and votes for their favorite author or short story at the Rockwell tent on Saturday. So if you're going to put up an opinion on something, then you'd better do it soon.

On my part, I'm going to be posting mine within the next few days... and maybe cutting some barbed wire and caltrops while I'm at it. I still don't know what the real critics out there will think, but I might as well be prepared.

...And the Short of It

It appears that Fully Booked has set up a Peoples' Choice category for the First Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards. They've made the shortlisted entries for both categories available to the public here, and are encouraging people to vote their favorites on Saturday, July 15. (Ironically, this means that the winner of the Peoples' Choice award will be decided only by those people who happen to be in town next weekend, but I suppose that that's better than exposing it to the security loopholes of Internet voting.)

I'm fully expecting to be shut out of the competition on this one. While I did submit an entry, it was a modification of a four-year-old unpublished piece that should never have seen the light of day again. I'm also aware that quite a few other established authors don't seem to be proud of whatever they handed in, for some reason. Put that together with the sheer number of entrants to the contest, and you get what looks like a real horse race here. (That's literal, by the way; I actually have a running bet that the eventual winner will be a complete unknown.)

What I really want to know at this point, however, are the identities of the contest judges. It's difficult to put together a plausible writing competition around here, much less one that concentrates on fantastic fiction. Works that delve into social realism have been the bread-and-butter of Philippine fiction for decades; I'm not sure if I can trust these writers to judge the more "experimental" forms of literature if they haven't tried it themselves.

Yes, I know that Neil Gaiman is most definitely one of these judges, and he's certainly qualified in that respect. I just hope that he's not the only one; Otherwise, we all should have aimed for something closer to his personal tastes.

Whatever the case, I fully expect quite a bit of sourgraping to take place in the months after the final announcement. Despite the fact that I don't consider my own statements here to be sourgraping in itself, you're welcome to tell me otherwise. I can tell you, however, that if I wanted to whine about all this, I know of far more direct methods to do so.

With that said, I'm looking over the shortlisted entries for the Peoples' Choice award to see which ones make for good reads. I don't know if these are the shortlisted entries for the actual winning piece as well, but at least we get to see what a few other people put together for the contest. If everything goes as expected, I'll probably find a story that is far better than all the others on the site, and I can put in a good word for it on the fifteenth.

Seeing that I have quite a bit of free time on my hands, I'm also planning to jot down my initial impressions about each of the shortlisted entries (and possibly put them up on this blog). That way, I get to try out the old critique muscles again after months of atrophy. I'll also be able to reassess what I want to see and what I don't want to see in my stories as well, and if anyone's crazy enough to read through eight different works of fantastic fiction along with me, then we can have a nice little discussion on the matter, too. (I'd go through the shortlisted comics submissions as well, but it would probably make my dial-up connection cry.)

So you probably know that I'll most likely be hanging around the June 15 Fully Booked event, and I'm probably enough of a sucker for punishment to attend the Science Fiction/Fantasy Convention the next day. Next weekend's definitely going to be a busy one, yes, but I suppose it could be worse. For all I know, some weird Games and Puzzles Convention might pass by someday...

Premise Without Plot

I believe that one of the aspects of writing fantastic fiction lies in the fact that you often have to conjure up a setting to go along with it. While setting-creation does provide another means by which you can stretch the fantastic element of any story, I figure that it simply allows us more room to fit the more integral elements that we want.

That is not to say, of course, that we have to create an appropriate setting for each instance of fantastic fiction we write. If we can write a novel about a young magician student and set it in the modern world without changing any of its current aspects, then so much the better. What I say, however, is that such a story will most likely be enriched by the addition of background elements: a hidden wizards' academy, a dark sorcerer villain who killed the protagonist's parents, and an invisible Platform 9 3/4 at the local train station.

You can think of it in terms of a playground, if you may: We can probably house a bunch of kids inside a small two-story house, but they'll probably be better off in a large sandbox somewhere, pushing each other off the swings and twisting themselves into pretzel-like shapes on the monkey bars.

Tabletop Role-Playing Games (RPGs) are probably the best testament to this subtle form of inspiration: They give you the setting and the background events, then invite you to supply the characters and the stories. You can pass on the same setting to thousands of RPG players in this way, and literally get a unique experience from each and every one. (Of late, computer games and interactive novels have also experimented with this ability to have readers create their own sequence of events.)

The importance of background and setting has increased significantly in the past few years, if only because there are now so many forays into the fantastic that each of them has to be distinct from all the others. Settings help make a difference there: a coming-of-age story in a medieval fantasy world will most definitely be distinct from the same relative coming-of-age story in a post-apocalyptic "Mad Max"-type scenario.

This situation has raised some odd problems with writers, I think. I feel as though we're depending more and more on setting and background than before, if only to provide a sort of logic to a story's events. Sometimes the setting even goes beyond that, and ends up being absolutely relevant to the given tale. And sometimes the story doesn't even come to fruition at all, leaving us with a beautiful, well-thought-out background that has absolutely no use anymore.

I've run into the latter situation numerous times, and the situation always transfixes me. What does one do with a perfectly workable setting idea that doesn't have a story to go along with it? Is it plausible to write it down, register it for copyright, and then file it away in hopes that we'll know what to do with it eventually? Or does it make more sense to disclose it to other people and expect them to visualize the tale themselves? Interesting ideas are something of a premium nowadays, and I think I'd like to see more exchanges like this.

Something in me, however, loves nothing more than to throw a little doubt into the equation: Are we, perhaps, placing too much emphasis on background and setting? After all, a number of critically-acclaimed works openly exhibit fantastic stories without bothering to make any effort to explain them. More than a few authors, for example, have thrown their efforts into the realm of "magical realism". Maybe the need to introduce logic into a story is more of a human failing than it is a step in the right direction. Or maybe the critics simply have no idea what they're talking about, and maybe the general public really can't stand the notion of fantasy without logic.

Hmmm... "fantasy without logic". That sounds all too ironic, doesn't it?

What I do know, however, is that you either have the logic, or you don't. Explaining some aspects of a fantastic story while purposely leaving others vague, for example, doesn't seem to work. It's as though the presence of logical explanation in some areas magnifies the lack of plausible reason in others, and you end up with a work that only confuses the reader. Either everything has to be logical, or everything has to be familiar enough to seemingly work without logic.

Am I making sense here? I'm starting to lose track of what I'm talking about.

Contrary to popular opinion, that happens a lot more often than people expect.

While the setting/no-setting distinction may or may not actually be a matter of introducing logic into a story, I feel that it's the only possible explanation as to why fantasy writers seem to come up with a lot of new realms off the top of their heads. What I fear, however, is the possibility that it may be a wrong direction to explore. Do readers look for logical stories? Is plausibility an important factor with regards to the quality of a tale?

The most frustrating part, perhaps, is that this could be more a question of mindset than it is a question of taste. We either notice some underlying order within the world, or we simply don't. In addition, the consideration of mindset would most likely cause additional problems for writers who are willing to experiment: How does a logical man, for instance, find a way to write a story that keeps logic loose and capricious? I think that it would have to require a massive amount of effort, or the equivalent of an existential lobotomy.

Yes doctor, I do think of stuff like this in my free time, thank you very much.

Unclean! Unclean!

About an hour ago, I received official word that I may have been exposed to a highly contagious virus as of sometime last weekend. I am therefore posting this warning on my blog as a public service, in light of the fact that I was up and running about like any normal idiot over the past couple of days.

I have been notified that the symptoms of the virus include spot formations around the arms, legs and stomach (although never in the facial area), occasional itching sensations, feverish indications, and uncontrollable flatulence. If you exhibit any of these symptoms (particularly the flatulence), it is important that you do not panic. Feel free to visit your doctor for confirmation, and remember to consume your daily recommended portion of Vitamin C.

I assure you, by the way, that I am not making this up. (Okay, maybe I made up the part about the flatulence, but everything else should be accurate.)

Again, please do not panic. We are told that this virus is relatively harmless in nature (although it most definitely won't do wonders for your social life). I will most likely be visiting another doctor for a second opinion on the matter, so hang tight.

For now, we return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Disclaimer: July 2006

If you're new to the blog, then you must know that I'm writing these monthly entries because of the plagiarism issue. I may not compare in terms of quality to most of the other writers out there (yet), but I'd at least like to know that I've got such a situation covered.

The plagiarism issue, of course, does not imply that certain people hold a monopoly on certain ideas or executions. Let's take philosophy, for example: Anyone is welcome to write about philosophy in general, or about their own personal philosophies, or about their own take on other peoples' personal philosophies. For that matter, anyone is welcome to write about more specific topics such as existentialism, or hedonism, or nihilism. Heck, we can even say that anyone is welcome to write about how nothingness relates to nihilism, or how religion relates to nihilism, or how bananas relate to nihilism. Ideas, topics and approaches are fair game that way¹.

What flies in the face of fair game, however, are those incidences where entire articles or selections are appropriated by misguided individuals. I can write a short piece that somehow relates weasels, lemon meringue pie and deep holes in the ground to the notion of God as a cosmic entity, and you're probably welcome to do the same if you're crazy enough to try it. But if you copy the article virtually word-for-word and substitute your name for mine in the hopes that you'll be recognized for it, then you're definitely doing something wrong.

Plagiarism is the name that we give to this theft of time, effort and creativity. It is wrong because it causes significant damage without providing any long-term benefits. A plagiarized writer loses his work to an offender who may be seen as more believable or more powerful than him, whereas an offender loses the knowledge and experience that would have been gained if he had just done the work himself. A plagiarized writer ends up questioning his motives in coming up with new works, whereas an offender reasons that he can get by without coming up with anything on his own.

To put it simply: Plagiarism punishes dedicated effort, and rewards idle laziness.

This is hardly the sort of value we want to see among the general population.

International bloggers have seen quite a number of copyright issues over the last few years, most of them owing to people who see weblogs as convenient resources more than they see them as good reading material. One particularly prominent case, for example, notes the Associated Press copying excerpts from a weblog article, and later stating in their defence that bloggers do not need to be credited as references. It was a foot-in-mouth declaration as only a large corporate entity could possibly put it.

It was the John Wiegley case, however, that convinced me to continue enforcing my stand against plagiarism. Sometime in late 2004, Wiegley discovered that one of the essays published on his blog had been appropriated by a high school student and submitted in an obvious effort to claim the work as the student's own. Incredibly, however, the school defended the plagiarist's "work", stating that electronic logs dated his writing before Wiegley's. Unable to respond with any substantial "evidence"² of his own, Wiegley consequently shut down his blog.

Fortunately, Wiegley had enough of an encouraging reader base to restore his site a few days later. He did, however, leave a lasting reminder of exactly how it feels to have your work stolen from you, much less have the act supported by an educational institution.

And all this finally brings me to my disclaimer. I post a facsimile of this every month, and maintain a Note of Ownership on the right-hand column just to emphasize matters. I'm glad that I was able to take some time to explain the issue once again, and hope that everybody came off with a bit more understanding on the subject.

The articles on this blog are all original writings as composed by Sean, with select exceptions where noted. All exceptions in this manner are clearly labelled or linked to their original sources so as to give credit where credit is due. These should give their authors, creators or originators the proper acknowledgements; In the event that I have failed to give the proper references for an article, please notify me and I will correct the error.

Any person who wishes to quote or reference any item in this blog is free to do so as long as they give the proper attributions and/or links. If you haven't realized it yet, I can tell you right now that I don't like people who copy my work and try to pass it off as their own. While I probably won't shut down this blog in response to their theft, I will still most likely come after them with any manner of torture implements (long needles, spiked gloves, bullwhips, Barry Manilow CDs³). I don't write these entries just so that they can be stolen, you know.

Finally, if you have any further issues to raise regarding plagiarism, then I'd be happy to discuss them if it means better information for all of us. Just put up something in the Comments listings, and I'll get to you as best I can. This is the kind of thing that should be taken more seriously than the rest of the world does at the moment.

After all, there are certain values that should be promoted among the general population, shouldn't there?



¹ This is a debatable point, I'll have to admit. There are more than a few people out there, for example, who feel that the definition of plagiarism should extend to ideas or approaches: I shouldn't be able to toss an idea to a media executive and allow him to make a new TV show without my proper acknowledgement or compensation, for instance.

² I note "evidence" subjectively here, as it's relatively easy to fake electronic logs if you know how. Unfortunately for Wiegley, however, electronic logs seemed to be the primary exhibits of proof in his case.

³ I have nothing against Barry Manilow, mind you. Please feel free to insert any other artists' names here: Right Said Fred, The Spice Girls, Britney Spears... whoever you love to hate at the moment. You know what I'm saying.

The Waiting Game

The good news: It appears that the turnover with my former company has gone smoothly. Over the last five years, we've always had trouble with employee resignations. Seeing that I was leaving my day-to-day duties to a team of people, it was pretty important that everything got taken into account in order to ensure their uninterrupted services. Apparently, everything did... and all it cost me was about a week's worth of job-hunting.

The bad news: It's been just over a week since my formal departure, and I am now thoroughly bored. Most of my reading material nowadays appears to be made up of blogs and the like; As a result, I get a lot of inconvenient waiting times on a dial-up connection. Add to that a lack of inspiration that I normally get from work, and it looks like I'm going to have to look for something constructive to do very soon.

On the job-hunting front, I've spent the last nine days sending application forms to nine different companies, and only one of them had the courtesy to send me a confirmation letter. That puts them a notch up in my estimation, yes, but I'm still wondering about the HR practices of the other eight companies. Isn't it supposed to be standard procedure to confirm receipt of any online application (even if it is an automatically-generated e-mail)? Or have things certainly changed since the last time I was on the job market?

Ah, well. I suppose I shouldn't be complaining. Interestingly enough, five years of constantly being on the job have given me license to apply for positions that require "extensive experience" in a managerial position. People would most likely ask why I would leave a company that has been my heart and soul for the last five years, but I believe that a change of pace and scenery would constitute a good reason for that. Hopefully I won't get beaten out by anyone who has more charisma than brains; I hate it when that happens.

Right now I'm doing cleanup -- not the same cleanup I was doing for five years' worth of files and papers in the office, but a general cleaning of my other idle pastimes. I've got over a thousand archived e-mails in my personal inbox, for example, and I suppose that now's as good a time as any to throw away the old, outdated ones.

For now, however, the only thing I can do is wait... and watch. Some people say that waiting is always the hardest part, and I'm starting to believe them.

Exeunt Omnes

I'm sitting in an internet café right now, having just gathered the last of my belongings from the office. These aren't personal knickknacks like toothbrushes and stuffed toys, mind you. These are items that were conceived and born in the workplace -- things that I'd rather take home because they hold some sentimental value. For some reason, they all seem to fit inside a short brown envelope.

Inside:

- An ashcan-type comic book, created as a pseudo-hobby of one of the previous staff members.

- A parody L5R comic, illustrated by the same staff member. (He's a creative sort.)

- A collection of plastic forks, evidence of my typical Cup Noodle lunches.

- A coaster from Australia, a memento of my boss's last vacation. (Why I don't have any mementos from my previous vacations, I don't know.)

- A Nokia lanyard that doesn't attach to anything.

- A leather picture frame from the earliest satisfied client I ever had. (It's five years old, ladies and gentlemen. I'm either that good, or that old.)

- Various notes on Antaria characters, most of which were born and built during periods of ennui.

- About thirty pages' worth of office doodles. You know you've been working for a long time when it takes you about an hour to sort through your idle scribblings alone.

- Around eighty pesos in five- and ten-centavo coins. When we got bored, we got bored.

- A condom. (Yes, my office is weird.)

Self, No Self

For the better part of last year and a good chunk of this year, my user profile read as follows:

I write. I draw. I plot. I scheme. I eat. I sleep. I work. I play. I live. I die.

But for the most part, I write.

I've been writing since I was 12, and I've had enough patience to write more short stories than I can count. At least half of them were good enough to publish.

I've done story work for quite a few things (including the Anito computer game), although I tend to work on many other branches of literary expression. Not many people know about me just yet, but I'm slowly gaining a reputation for hard, fast, creative plotlines and well-developed characters.

Otherwise, I'm a chronic game-player, growing up on a diet of personal diversions. I've long enjoyed stuff that makes me think, which means that you can probably say anything with the good chance that we'll find some middle ground to walk on.

If you're new here, do look around. Read up on the Antaria installments. Study the awkward treatises on writing. Get threats from the monthly disclaimers. Post whatever comments you want. I can very well assure you that I don't bite. (I disable, dislocate, shatter, hamstring and maim, yes, but I don't bite.)

As with many things in life, however, I figure that it's about time for a change. Most of us are blog writers, after all -- we're aware that every single one of our new posts inevitably replaces an old, run-down article on the front pages of our respective sites. We get a little older, we get a little wiser, we get a little more crochety, and we eventually have to change the way we refer to ourselves.

My profile, for example, references the Anito computer game. Hasn't it been two years since the game originally came out? And it's not as though it received a lot of exposure on the international front. If I raise any spectre of my work in my profile, then I should really be pointing out my more recent achievements, I think.

On the other hand, one really has to consider what the User Profile's for. People only usually read it once, and that's when they're new to the blog and wondering about what kind of person the author is. It's strange, actually, once you realize that we bare more of our heart and soul in our posts than we do in our profile write-ups.

In this light, I suspect that the profile write-up has more to do with a basic introduction than it does a personal description. It's literally an avenue by which we "sell" people the prospect of reading the blog -- much like the cliffhanger synopsis on the back of a mystery novel. "Will Sean continue his silent war against online plagiarism? Will Sean ever realize that his passion for games actually masks a critical weakness to kryptonite? Will Sean ever overcome his secret desire to wrestle naked in a kiddy pool filled with carbonara sauce?"

...

Er... feel free to ignore that last bit. I'm sure you get the idea, anyway.

This, of course, raises a particular question: Assuming that it's best to write a User Profile for the express purpose of making the author seem interesting, then what's the optimal method for writing a proper introduction? Should one reveal one's true identity, for instance? Can we brag about our achievements without alienating ourselves from the rest of society? Can we legitimately talk about our hopes and dreams without whining about our lot in life? How far should we go into the minutiae of everyday existence before the readers start getting bored?

The irony, I think, is that each of the above questions can just as easily be asked about our blog posts. The idea of our User Profiles being a summary of exactly who we are and how we write sounds more and more plausible with each passing second.

For my part, I'm going to be checking my blogroll to see how other people put together their write-ups. I don't expect that everybody will have a good, entertaining or informative User Profile, of course, but I think I should be able to identify what I want to see and what I don't want to see in a personal introduction. And if the experience only ends up confusing me further, to the point that I don't know how to rewrite my User Profile, then that'll only give me license to write anything I darn well want.

So there you have it. Now, if I could only come up with a snappy answer for all of Blogger's random questions...

Antaria: High Fashion

Maquin Dreamweaver rifled through his collection of clothes, and as he did, he spoke softly to himself.

"Green?" he asked. "No, no... perhaps blue. Blue with a touch of... pink? White? Or perhaps a spot of charteuse..."

He posed before the full-length mirror in his chambers, inspecting the robes draped against his chest. "Perhaps green after all," he said, chuckling softly to himself. "Sea-green and rose, with a delicate pattern..."

He wondered if Giselle was already awake. Then again, it wasn't as though she was likely to help him with his color choices. Whatever, he thought. Whatever whatever whatever.

Maquin pulled the cloth over his chemise, giving the combination a critical glance in the mirror again.

"Then again," he whispered, "maybe the blue would work better..."

* * *

Maquin Dreamweaver ran one arm across the fabric, and wrinkled his nose. "It won't do," he said impatiently. "It just won't do!"

The wagonmaster clutched his cap against his chest. "Is my lord displeased?" he asked carefully.

"Oh, yes," Maquin said in a downcast tone. "But not at you. This is excellent material."

The peasant's expression brightened. "I am glad to hear that, my lord."

"I only regret that I only have a single roll of it to work with," Maquin sighed.

The peasant raised an eyebrow. "I can obtain more of it, my lord. I have a contact in the Northlands who practically has a full supply."

Maquin glanced at him. "How much of it?"

"Bales, my lord. Bales."

Maquin gave him a wide smile. "Twenty, perhaps?"

The wagonmaster nearly fell over at the mere mention of the number. "Tw...twenty?" he asked, incredulously.

"You can provide the material, can you?" Maquin asked.

"Y-yes," the peasant said. "It will run a heavy cost, though. Thirty crowns at least."

"Thirty crowns will be quite all right. How soon will it take you?"

"I can deliver the material within three weeks, my lord."

"Two weeks," Maquin interjected.

"Two weeks?"

"Within one week I can have a single ensemble made from this roll. For the week after that, the courts of Lorendheim will be whispering about the new creation," Maquin said, running his hands along the smooth cloth. "But in the week after that, the trend will have passed and the courtiers gone for other diversions. The advantage is in the timing, dear one. The advantage is always in the timing."

The peasant scratched his head, not understanding a single word.

"It is vastly important that you return from Hadrian in two weeks," Maquin concluded. "It is very, very important for the both of us."

"Ah... er... yes, my lord."

"Now," Maquin said, "how much did you say it was, again?"

The peasant thought for a while.

"Twenty crowns, was it?" Maquin interjected. "I remember you mentioning twenty crowns."

"I did?" the wagonmaster asked.

"Yes, you did," Maquin said without skipping a beat, "although that feels a little high for me. Ten crowns would be a far better price, dear one. Ten crowns."

The peasant frowned. "I couldn't do it for less than eighteen crowns, my lord."

"Twelve crowns."

"Seventeen."

"Fourteen crowns, and not a silver more," Maquin cautioned.

"Sixteen."

"Fifteen, then."

"Done," the peasant said. "Fifteen crowns."

"Excellent," Maquin acceded, bowing in deference. "Twenty rolls of the new cloth, and in two weeks' time. I shall be expecting you."

As he crossed back into his palatial home, Maquin laughed into his sleeve. With skills like that, he thought, he could be working for the Tempestite merchants. Or perhaps not.

* * *

Maquin inspected himself in the mirror. The blue wasn't turning out so well after all.

"What do you think, Giselle?" he asked.

Giselle glanced, once at the mirror and once at Maquin. She looked thoughtful for a moment, and then shrugged.

Maquin rolled his eyes. "I guess that's why I'm the maven and you're the model," he said resignedly.

He stared at the mirror for a few more seconds.

"Green," he said, simply. His robes shimmered slightly, and then turned the color of emeralds. Giselle gave him a thoughtful expression once more.

"Yes, it's a little... much, isn't it?" Maquin said. "Lighter, then."

Giselle shook her head.

"Darker, you mean?" The robes shimmered into deeper green.

Giselle nodded. Maquin continued to inspect his reflection in the mirror.

"I guess... that this will do," he finally said. "For now."

* * *

Maquin glanced up from the parchment in his hand. "That is all, Lord Gallos," he said.

"Nothing more?"

"Nothing more," Maquin said.

The Lord of Masks was dressed in blue and black silk for the day, accentuated by velvet cloth. Maquin personally approved of the combination; it was one of the reasons why he admired Gallos so much. Whenever the man didn't follow the conventions of fashion, he made them up from scratch.

Maquin didn't like the mask, though. Gallos always wore a different mask each day; this one concealed his face in shadow and darkness. Although it certainly went well with the grandmaster's robes, it had a strange unnerving effect on its own. Maquin was certain that that was precisely what Gallos had intended.

"Do you have the secondary report?" Gallos asked.

Maquin nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, my lord," he said. "But perhaps it would be best to wait for a more private audience..."

Gallos waved one hand. "Every Masquer knows that I watch their moves as surely as I watch the others," he said.

"Very well, my lord," Maquin said. He turned the parchment over and cast a few whispered words upon it, causing the scribblings of ink to appear on the back. He knew as well as any other man that all this was merely confirmation -- the Masquer lord could certainly afford to acquire any bit of information on his own skills.

Still, it was good to feel useful. "Lord Nyris has not moved at all," Maquin began, "although the Council demands his attention. There have been more than a few petitions for you to remind him of his duties to the sects."

"Indeed," Gallos said, although he only appeared to feign interest in the matter.

"Lord Bane continues to hold the Allandrian court together," Maquin continued. "While he has certain members of the nobility contributing large sums of money to the deployment of forces to the southern border, he has prevented others from doing the same. We suspect that he is attempting to shift the balance of power in Queen Sasha's court to a more balanced setup."

As Maquin read out the contents of the report, his eyes wandered about the grandmaster's chambers. Unlike what most people expected, the Lord of the Masquers led a spartan lifestyle punctuated by the illusion of opulence. It was, Maquin had to admit, a very Masquer thing to do.

And then, of course, there was the matter of the man's bodyguard. Maquin didn't know her very well -- none of the Masquers did, save for the fact that Gallos seemed to trust her implicitly. She was a strange person, always dressed in the same light robes without thought as to how she looked. Maquin could easily tell a person's character based on their fashion alone, but even he had trouble reading her.

Now that he thought about it, however, she was probably like Giselle: A loyal retainer completely devoted to her master's whims. What made Maquin unconfortable was that she seemed otherwise at times -- especially when Gallos asked for her advice on matters. He asked few people for advice on anything, short of wanting to see how their thought processes went.

She caught his passing glance, and returned it with a suspicious glare. Maquin smiled back, taking pride in the resulting derisive snort.

"Maquin," Gallos suddenly said, interrupting him.

"My lord?" Maquin asked.

"Don't play with her," Gallos said.

Maquin gave him a fascinated smile. "Yes, my lord."

* * *

Maquin critically inspected his right sleeve. There was something about dark green, yes, but Maquin felt that it had overstayed its welcome. He considered giving the blue another try, but he didn't want to end up flip-flopping between the two choices for the rest of the day.

Finally he gave in and watched his robes change to match the soft tones of the earth. He wasn't sure at all about brown; it made him look like a peasant, no matter how good it tended to look on Giselle. But on the other hand, Giselle looked good in anything. He knew the type.

Maquin glanced at her. "That," he concluded out loud, "is why you can't give very good advice when it comes to color coordination."

Giselle gazed back at him, unable to give a proper answer.

* * *

The young woman stared at her reflection in the mirror. "I don't like it," she said.

Maquin all but threw his hands up in despair. Kharandon Greybane had ordered a dozen new wearables for his sister, newly-returned from the Northlands, and she was already down to the last two sets of robes. While Maquin had expected her to be non-materialistic, he didn't expect her to be practically an ascetic.

"Don't you have anything more... practical, Lord Dreamweaver?" she asked.

"Lady Octavia," Maquin said in his most patient tone, "these are the fashions that are currently in vogue across the courts of Lorendheim. While a few of the designs do reflect only recent trends, I am sure that some of them are more than passing fancy."

Octavia adjusted the bodice of her current ensemble. "In the Northlands," she said, "we wore far more clothes than these... rags."

Maquin chose to ignore the remark. "I must remind you, Lady Octavia, that the denizens of the Northlands don't have much of a choice when winter cloaks their land all year round."

She disappeared behind a paper-and-cloth screen in order to try the last of Maquin's fashions. "Most of these show altogether too much skin, Lord Dreamweaver. I'll have you know that I am not that sort of woman."

"They don't show that much," Maquin replied, picking up a jacket from where she had discarded it. "They show just enough to merit attention. Your esteemed brother could tell you himself that attention is important in many of the nobles' gatherings around here."

"I'm not looking for attention," Octavia insisted. "I'm just... here."

Maquin rolled his eyes skeptically. "Everybody looks for attention, Lady Octavia. Some don't even find it at all."

"Oh?" Octavia said in the same skeptical tone. "What about you, then, Lord Dreamweaver? Why do you seek attention? Is it for your talents? Your status? Your self-esteem?"

Maquin thought for a moment, and had to admit that despite her asceticism, she had asked an excellent question. "It is the fashion, Lady Octavia," he said. "It is always the fashion."

"Fashion," Octavia repeated.

"Yes, fashion," Maquin said. "Surely you would be familiar with the saying that clothes make the man... or woman, in this case?"

"Yes," Octavia said, dismissively. "Merely another lesson that we only see what lies on the surface of things."

"That may not be entirely correct," Maquin mused. "Fashion is a conscious choice. Style is a deliberate bearing. We present a part of ourselves to the rest of the world, but simply choosing which part to show already tells us exactly what sort of people we are."

"Mm," Octavia said, pulling something over her head.

Maquin waited patiently for the young woman to emerge. When she finally did, it was in a lovely white dress with green trimmings, exactly the sort that anyone would be delighted to wear to a royal celebration. Maquin was quite proud of it; he had chosen the colors himself.

Octavia picked at the high collar. "It's itchy," she said. "How can anyone possibly find it comfortable to wear this?"

Maquin sighed. This was going to take far longer than he expected.

* * *

Maquin Dreamweaver lay sprawled across his four-posted bed, visions of blue and green and earth tones dancing in his mind.

It had not been a good day. In fact, it had been as far from a perfect day as possible.

Maquin shuddered, and noted his schedule for the rest of the week. Here was a meeting with the Metrian Guild, which was possibly the stingiest of all the sects, according to Maquin's experience. There was a fitting with the Lady Saville, and doubtless she would try to seduce him out of his nominal fees again. Here was another dreadful meeting with the Lady Ophelia, who could wear even the finest clothes and make people wonder which unfortunate animals she had recently skinned.

Sleep did not come easily to him nowadays, and for good reason.

"Blue," he said, and his clothes shifted to the color of sapphires. Maquin went through the general spectrum from sky-blue to azure blue, then dropped the idea and went for green instead.

Then again, a quick glance in the mirror convinced him that the green looked terrible. He regretted using it for most of the day, but not as much as he regretted playing around with the earth tones. Perhaps he should have asked for Giselle's opinion, after all.

In the end, Maquin Dreamweaver resolved to sleep on it. He needed the sleep; it calmed his mind and allowed him to take on a jumble of different worries all over again.

He discarded his robes carefully, draping them over the gilded screen in the corner of his chambers near the full-length mirror. He was glad to be rid of the vestments; despite all the praise and glamor, he had to admit that they chafed from time to time.

In the end, Maquin fell asleep as he usually did -- naked, under the thick covers of three sets of blankets.

He slept quite soundly for a man who was always in a constant state of activity.

He never felt as free otherwise.

On the Cheap

Yesterday, at the Powerbooks warehouse sale, I came upon a startling realization: I am, in all likelihood, the greatest cheapskate on the face of the earth when it comes to buying new books.

Now, I'm perfectly aware that most of us try to save money on reading material. We borrow comics or paperbacks from friends, we join neighborhood book exchanges, and we download "free" stuff from file-sharing applications. All that, however, doesn't automatically mean that we're total misers when it comes to books; it merely concludes that we like to read.

I'm a cheapskate, plain and simple. Whenever money finds its way into my wallet, I try to make sure that it stays there. And given the prices of quality reading material in the local bookstores, I'm more likely to browse their shelves, shudder at the numbers printed on the price tags, and leave empty-handed.

On the other hand, hanging around the air-conditioned confines of pristine shelves and hermetically-sealed displays isn't anything new. So I take things one step further: I scour warehouses, garage sales and corner stores -- all places where unsold stock and unwanted hardcovers go to die -- and still leave without finding anything of interest. I have a philosophy that dictates that I am only obligated to buy a book if I feel that it's worth keeping for the long term... and it relegates my buying habits to about one paperback every couple of months.

You want more evidence? My room was derisively called "the black hole" once, if only because I have a habit of borrowing books and then losing them in the harrowing morass that serves as my personal quarters. People literally lend me reading material and fully expect to never see them again. I strongly suspect that this is because I make sure to keep every favorite bit of reading material I find, borrowed or otherwise.

This has resulted in a couple of interesting aspects to my life: One, long-standing friends know to buy me books as opposed to lending them. Two, anyone who actually manages to borrow reading material from me should realize exactly what a rarity they hold in their hands.

Another less obvious aspect, on the other hand, cuts far closer to the bone. I've long assumed that writers and readers were one and the same: If we read, then we write. If we write, then we read. But if that were the case, then where would a miserly reader fit in?

I suppose that that would explain why I only put out a new piece of fiction about once a month. It's entirely possible that I could be just as stingy when it comes to storytelling.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I was walking around a warehouse sale yesterday, studying the titles and cover images of a thousand low-priced books while a lovely female friend piled more and more softcovers into my basket. She openly wondered why I wasn't really buying anything, and in the back of my mind, I suppose that I was wondering the same thing.

In the end, however, I did pick up a few old paperbacks that seemed interesting. They were selling for about PhP50.00 (approximately US$1.00) each, although all three were disjointed parts of a single out-of-print series. (I had seen them around the bookstores some years ago, but held off on buying them because, well... you know.)

The good news, however, is that it's altogether possible that I'll end up with more reading time nowadays, seeing that I've finally resigned from my five-year job. That means, of course, that I'll probably eventually cure myself of the horrible, terrible, miserly habit.

Then again, considering that I'm now unemployed, I'll have to keep a close watch on my personal savings. And that, of course, means that I might just have to stay a cheapskate for just a few more months.

After all, if money somehow manages to find its way into my wallet while I'm out of a job, I should probably find a way to make sure that it stays there, right?

Pffft.

Sorry, everyone.

Coming into this evening, I had in mind a nice concept for a post about blogging, random ideas, topic consistency, and mental flatulence. I wanted to explore a point of view that concerned writing about what happened to be on one's mind at any particular moment, and how such writing would end up interesting reading for any number of people. It looked like a good point of discussion, and I consequently spent the last two hours working on the draft.

The trouble is that, every time I hit the "Preview" button and went over the article itself, I didn't like how it was turning out. I don't know if it was the grammar or the phrasing or the habitual run-on sentences or what, but it just didn't read the way I wanted it to read. And if I don't like how an article reads, then I don't think it's worth putting out here.

So I did what I usually do when I come up with inferior stuff: I rolled the paper out of the mental typewriter, crunched it up into a ball, and bounced it off the rim of the nearest wastebasket. I may or may not resurrect the idea for future use, but for now, it's dead to me.

Yes, I know that it's possible to salvage bad stuff every now and then. Sometimes it just needs a little tweak, a second read, or perhaps even a fresh coat of paint. In this case, however, I not only felt that the work was distinctly inferior; I also thought that it deserved a complete re-evaluation. It's the kind of writing that you just give up and sleep on, if you get my drift.

And now that all that has been said and done, I realize that I have a sizeable gap in my blogging schedule.

I'm in the last days of my present employment right now, and I'm scrambling to finish things up so that I have as few obligations as possible after this coming Friday. In the recent past, this workload would have left me with too little time to post new entries. But I don't want another period of time where I post less than once a week, because that leaves me complacent. That leaves me idle and lazy. That leaves me rusty and atrophied. And if anything, I can't claim to be a writer if I don't write.

So this is all I have at the moment: The shreds of an article whose idea sounded pretty good, yet whose execution left a lot to be desired. That, and an apology for not presenting anything really substantial tonight. Hopefully I'll have something new in the next couple of days.

In hindsight, however, this does prove that one can technically write about anything. Even at the point where one has lost his original intended post, one can still write about losing that same post. C'est la écrit, I suppose.

Sorry again, everyone. Do check back in a couple of days...

Quiz Feature

You want a setup? Well, I'll give you a setup.

You see, I've had an entire small, two-story house all to myself for the past few days. I'll repeat that in case you didn't hear that the first time: I've had an entire small, two-story house all to myself for the past few days. And if everything goes as planned, I'll probably hold it for a couple more days... until about 6:00 pm on Sunday night when the rest of the family finally arrives home.

Yes, that's right. The rest of the family -- mother, brother, sister -- decided to fly to Hong Kong a few days ago. My sister graduated from high school this year, you see, and she wanted to have a more substantial vacation before we shunted her off to college. So they fly to the former British territory, I stick around to hold the fort, and Bob's your uncle.

Unfortunately, unlike the developments in most crazy American teenybopper movies, I have no plans of holding a massive celebration of drunken debauchery at this time. For that matter, most people who read this blog have little or no idea where I live anyway, so it's not as though I'll be looking at an extensive guest list if given the chance.

And that's too bad, really. It would have been a nice party.

But I digress.

By now, you're probably wondering exactly what I've been doing ever since they left. For that matter, you're probably wondering if I've already broken into the liquor cabinet, trotted out the illegal substances, and called the local escort services. The truth is that I'm going to remain evasive about the matter, if only because I feel like messing around with the normal writing approach tonight.

My recent activities are detailed in five multiple-choice questions below. I'll eventually get around to giving a straight answer for each question, but you at least get to look through the products of my insanity and first speculate on what the hell I'm really doing over here.

So... shall we begin the narration?

1. It's obvious that Sean's been spending his days at work. But what has he been doing every night while the rest of his unsuspecting family is away on vacation?
a. Partying at the local nightclubs.
b. Picking up loose women.
c. Watching Jeopardy.
d. Watching porn.

Answer: (c). Darn you, Alex Trebek. Why must your show be so compelling, especially when it all goes down to Final Jeopardy?

With that said, I haven't been completely glued to the TV for the past few nights. I've been tweaking some bits of Legend of the Five Rings game theory, beating some short fiction out of my head, and dozing off at two in the morning when there's nothing left to do. None of that is very constructive, no. But at least I haven't been completely glued to the TV for the past few nights...

2. Hey, wait a minute... Sean weaseled out of the family vacation because of work obligations. What's he doing that makes him so busy in the office?
a. Finishing an important project.
b. Cleaning out his work desk.
c. Nothing, actually. Sean just likes working.
d. Watching porn.

Answer: (b). I'm contractually obligated to clean out my desk and wrap up all of my concurrent assignments, since my official resignation takes effect on Friday next week.

Yes, I'm leaving my current office after more than five years of engagement. It's not because of any measure of dissatisfaction, mind you. It's just that, after more than five years' work in the same field, I'm solidly in the "burnout" phase. I'm looking at approaching a different work discipline right now, perhaps something in marketing or corporate communications.

From an ironic point of view, this also means that I'll be stranded on the other side of the job market for a while. I put together quite a few notes on job applications a few months ago; We can probably think of this as a way of putting my money where my mouth is.

3. Hey... the weekend's coming up, and there's a holiday this Monday. So what did Sean do to prepare for this long break period?
a. Collect DVDs of CSI.
b. Collect stuffed toys.
c. Collect reading material.
d. Collect porn.

Answer: (c). In the last week, I've picked up the usual cheap paperback novels, magazine back issues, and comic book manuscripts. Gem was nice enough to throw in a Madeleine L'Engle book and a Year's Best Fantasy collection into the mix, and if I can find some way to scrounge up the money, I can pick up a couple more pieces of high-end material.

I'm planning to put a bunch of stuffed toys together for another mini-comic strip, though. But I'm stopping short of actually collecting them -- I think I've got enough to work with at the moment.

4. Oooooh... stuffed toys! Where's Trevor in all this, anyway?
a. In Sean's closet... and boy, is he mad.
b. At the foot of Sean's bed, watching his every move.
c. In Cancun. Summer vacation rules, baby!
d. Watching por... ah, heck. This joke's been beaten to death already.

Answer: (b). For the record, I did stuff him back into the closet one evening. The next morning, however, I found him sitting at the foot of my bed again, just staring at me like he always does.

Yeah, that's creepy. But at least you get used to the garlic after a while...

5. Tomorrow, with his family still a thousand miles away, Sean plans to:
a. Perfect a cure for cancer.
b. Repair the hole in the ozone layer.
c. Join a threesome with a couple of Victoria's Secret models.
d. Get a haircut.

Answer: (c). It's a long story, you see, and it involves Scottish bagpipes, fine silk neckties, and ripe bananas. (Mmmm... bananas.) Suffice to say that from there, it was easy for them to fall for my manly charms, and...

Okay, so the answer's really (d). I'm probably going to spend an hour in the barber's chair tomorrow, trying not to fall asleep in the face of electric razors and liberal doses of aftershave. I'm about a week overdue for the haircut, and my scalp's starting to resemble the Amazon rain forest. It's time for me to get cleaned up a bit.

After all, I wouldn't want to look like a total slob once my family comes back on Sunday evening.

For that matter, chances are that they'll probably first inspect each and every corner of the empty house. Then they'll turn to me and ask exactly how I was able to hide all evidence of my massive celebration of drunken debauchery, in which case I'll just tell them that the stuffed bear did it.

Trevor most likely won't appreciate that, but I've got him perfectly under control.

...

Right?

...

Hello?

...

Namespotting

JP: Hey, Sean
JP: I'm making a Warrior/Ritualist for the Guild Wars MMORPG.
JP: Warrior is self-explanatory.
Sean: "Zankuro" comes to mind.
JP: A Ritualist is a shaman-like character who summons spirits, including ancestor and dead spirits
Sean: Right, right...
Sean: Male, right?
JP: Does Zankuro have any special meaning?
JP: Yes, male.
Sean: No specific meaning.
Sean: "kuro" means "black" in Japanese, though, or it can alternatively mean "ninth son".
Sean: "Zankuro" just rolls off the tongue pretty easily, and is a fair choice if you want to sound intimidating.
JP: He's not really an intimidator. just a noble but down-to-earth, soldier-minded LG or NG* kind of warrior.
Sean: "Isamu".
JP: A sincerely humble samurai, so to speak
JP: What does that mean?
Sean: "Isamu" = "bravery".
JP: PERFECT!
JP: Hey, thanks a lot!
Sean: If you're looking for other possibilities, though,
Sean: I'd strongly recommend just stealing something from L5R.
JP: okay, shoot
JP: Ha ha!
Sean: Seriously.
JP: I was thinking about that...
JP: Okay, thanks a lot, Sean.
JP: Gonna go and make that character now.
Sean: That's okay. It was fun. :)

* LG ("Lawful Good") and NG ("Neutral Good") are examples of personality alignment, usually referenced by players of Dungeons and Dragons and other similar storytelling games.


Honest, doctor. I really do run into conversations like this. :)

Now, I don't play Guild Wars like many other people do, but it's nice to run into a naming exercise every now and then. I have a tendency of naming characters on the fly, so this one happened to be right up my alley.

The catch, of course, was that JP was looking for a Japanese or Chinese name. While I like to think that I'm fairly good at transposing Western syllables into good names, Asian names are another matter altogether. With all the variances in pronunciation and whatnot, there's no telling what you might inadvertently come up with. You certainly don't want to name your character something embarrassing, or insulting.

So this is where the irony of the situation comes in: It's probably best to steal a name from somewhere, if it comes to that.

Yes, I'm aware that I'm a steadfast anti-plagiarist; My stance hasn't changed on that matter. But in cases like these, you're not looking to use the name for profit or any kind of commercial purpose. You just want a moniker that your fictional character can carry around in a fictional game world. "The Red Warlord Zankuro" certainly sounds better than "The Fair Maiden l33tb@be21", after all.

"Zankuro", for that matter, was the final boss in the Samurai Shodown III arcade game. "Isamu", from what I remember, is both a personality in the Legend of the Five Rings card game and a character from the Macross Plus animé. Both names had a fair bit of baggage associated with them, which made them easier to use -- I ended up having a feel for what their respective personalities looked like, based on this baggage, and I like to think that I was able to pass that on.

It's not stealing, no. But there's quite a fine line there, to tell the truth.

Assuming that we've all played a few RPGs here and there, it might be interesting to look back on the names that we gave our old characters. For my part, I remember using Elemen (Diablo II), Xinet (Neverwinter Nights), Zahn (Breath of Fire), Scythion (Zeus), Stryker (Wing Commander), Alexander (Final Fantasy Tactics) and Ming Xu (Vampire: the Masquerade). When taken as a whole, they'd probably say something about our own personal psyches.

Or they'd just look like a bunch of random character names all rolled together into one great big katamari. It's your call.

Then again, that's probably why I haven't gotten into MMORPGs yet: I have enough trouble keeping my current repertoire of character names straight.

I just hope that Isamu up there lives up to his well-gifted name...

Disclaimer: June 2006

Reiji raised an interesting point in the disclaimer I posted last month: I tend to come off as boastful or arrogant in these posts. I find that to be a very logical observation, for reasons that I'll outline later on.

For now, however, it might be best to take a long hard look at these monthly disclaimers. Why do I continue to write these things up, for example? I mean, I've applied for a Creative Commons License, I hold a Note of Ownership on each page of the blog, and I make it a point to encourage people to find their own voices instead of parroting what others think. On average, a monthly disclaimer post usually lasts less than a month on the front page, so it's actually far less efficient than any of the other alternatives.

All things said, there's really no reason for me to continue writing these.

And yet, here I am.

...

When I first set up this blog back in 2004, I knew that I was going to be writing in it. Not just writing, mind you, but writing writing. I was going to put up whatever happened to be on my mind at the moment, and apart from the serious reflections and the strange vignettes, that meant scribbling down my peculiar brand of fiction for the tastes of an online audience.

The catch with placing all of these things in a blog, however, lies precisely with that online audience. People see the Internet as a convenient resource: they read, they research, and they download. The Internet is a massive repository of searchable information -- it's like your school library's reference collection, in a way. And, like any massive repository of searchable information, it's easy to take for granted.

In a sense, it's not that people steal things. It's that people steal things without realizing that it's wrong to do so, especially when it comes to the Internet. When we can download MP3s, movies, scans and software hacks without giving much thought to ethics, I don't think it's difficult to see how people can copy images, essays and other literary works without regard for their context or use. Some of them even go one step farther and claim them for their own, which isn't that much of a stretch from the fourth-grader who copies an excerpt from the school encyclopedia and gets an A for his "efforts".

So I write disclaimers every month. I've found that it's actually very easy for people to miss an everpresent notice or announcement, mind you. But I figure that if I can hold their attention for a long enough period of time (about a month, in this case), then they'll probably read every post I write in the interim. With any luck, that should include any rants, threats or legal issues I end up putting online.

That only leaves the spectre of emotional impact, I think. It's easy to come off as irritating, paranoid or obnoxious when writing disclaimers like these. But how else could one possibly express oneself? These are one's own babies, after all. Everyone but the most prolific of writers out there probably knows that it's ain't easy thinking up a thousand words, organizing them, and putting them down on virtual paper for the rest of the world to criticize.

The last thing any writer wants is to see his words being claimed by some lazy idiot with too much time on his hands. And it's no picnic seeing those same lazy idiots misquote, distort, or blow those same words out of proportion, either. Is there any wonder why we come off as a bunch of overzealous elitists?

Better to show your fangs than let people know that you've declawed yourself, I say.

...

So now we come to the part of our program that deals with the legal information. If you've been reading this blog for at least a month, then this should sound familiar to you already. If not, then I hope that I've been able to entertain you so far with my mad ramblings and pathetic sob stories. Just remember not to steal my stuff, and we'll do just fine.

thinkobnoxiousthoughtsthinkobnoxiousthoughtsthinkobnoxiousthoughts

Everything that is posted on this blog is an entirely original work, except where noted. Any non-original work, or any entry that makes references to outside sources, should contain the appropriate acknowledgements. In the event that one of these posts does not have the given well-deserved references, you only have to contact me so that I can rectify the error.

Others are welcome to reference anything in this blog as long as they do so with the proper attributions and references. I do not tolerate people who quote me in a manner that is extremely inconsistent with my original point, nor do I have much patience for people who claim that they were the real influence behind my personal works. (Not that any sane person would claim to have written any of the more stupid stuff instead of me, mind you, but still...)

These are my standards, ladies and gentlemen. I have to draw the line somewhere, after all. If you're interested in discussing this further, the Comments link is right down there.

Have a nice day, everyone.