Free to be Personal

Disclaimer: possible TMI/NSFW warnings may apply.

Many years ago, circa 2003, I took out a personal ad in a local newspaper. It was a free paper, but you had to pay to check your own messages or if your ad was too long to begin with or you wanted more time. The point is you got what you paid for and that made it very manageable and easy to navigate.
Later on, I discovered dating sites, namely Yahoo! and eHarmony. The latter proved to be the better site by way of its guided communication, which eliminated nearly all small talk and thus made connections so much more efficient. Yahoo! meanwhile, had a bit of a quality control problem, mostly due to the fact that most people only took out ads because they were pre-registered via their e-mail accounts, simply thought to themselves, "Oh, what the Hell!" and left it at that. There's also that age old problem that far too many people simply can't write. I'm not a fascist about grammar, more like a constable in a small township, and I'm on record saying I don't even believe there is any such thing as perfect grammar, especially when it comes to pronouns in this liberally-enlightened age. Still, despite those standards, most people can't get past a headline without notching punctuation. What's worse is they openly admit their fault and essentially give up right then and there, as if the thought of giving their words a once-over would be an irredeemable sign of weakness. That saddens me; if you can't be bothered to take presenting yourself even somewhat seriously, what kind of people do you think you'll attract? There's being yourself, and then there's showing off your "lazy place." If you're going to wear a T-shirt and jeans to a wedding, at least have it be one of those tees with the tuxedo printed on it. It's an old joke, but at least you thought of one.
I think the biggest part of the problem (besides giving free users too much freedom) is the sheer volume of information you can put on a dating site. Sure, you can keep things concise, but that's not going to change all those potentially barren headings that force you to compartmentalize your persona, spread yourself thin across all vaguely similar topics. It's Blank Page Syndrome with your love life on the line. Call me old-fashioned, but I miss the old newspaper style of classified ads. You wouldn't use them to find your future spouse, but for a simple date or fling, it gets to the point and doesn't waste anyone's time. Some may argue there's more risk involved due to the pithy presentation, but the risk of someone abusing a free service is greater. This brings me to Craigslist.
Craigslist is a damned cesspool, and I'm not merely referring to those horror stories about child prostitution ads being wah too easy to come across and seemingly impossible to moderate. I'm talking about it being the worst of both worlds; the way people try to combine the newspaper style of simplicity with the pure unrefined illiteracy of some online personals. That Craigslist is free is its deepest flaw. Couple that with its popularity, and you've got a breeding ground for depravity. Granted, microtransactions aren't a foolproof deterrent for creeps or a magic bullet of quality assurance, but they are not without merit.
There has to be some kind of middle ground, a way to reach about the same number of onlookers as Craigslist, have the simplicity and directness of a newspaper ad, but still convey a serviceable amount of trust like a more upscale dating site. I once thought of Twitter, having a separate account that would operate entirely through Direct Messages for correspondence (casual flirting, icebreakers, and the like) until calls or meetings in person could be arranged. I even wrote up the ad, trying to best summarize what I'm looking for in a not-too-serious/casual-with-an-option-for-more relationship. I don't know if I'll post it there or go through with the plan, but I do know that I'm essentially done with dating sites (for reasons I won't bore you with right now) and I doubt I'll give in and tread the dreaded waters of Craigslist's "casual encounters/misc. romance" listings. So, I'm simply going to post the ad here, get this out of my system and see what happens next. I should add this is modified to include age (I've decided my cut-off is my own age +/- 10 years) and expectations (I have an admittedly laissez-faire attitude about longevity in relationships). Everything else is how I'd planned the tweet, possibly with a hashtag like #personalad. Hopefully the shorthand isn't out of date.

Tall, slim SWM, 31yo, seeks 21-41yo fit or avg SWAHF bass player who doesn't mind being tied up for FWB, possibly more. Must love cats, movies, and retrogaming.

Yep, this is pretty much what I want. Hopefully I won't have to pursue more realistic goals like hunting unicorns in the Atlantean wilderness.

I shouldn't drink and type.

*Singing voice can be subbed for bass guitar.

Practice > Perfect

OR:
Vent-ish Art of Sorts
 
Fun fact before I drone on in a "woe-is-me" fashion: this was originally upside-down, the red veins meant to convey "branches and trunks" of sorts. When I looked at it again, after applying the horizontal lines, I realized they looked more like roots hanging over an underground river, so I flipped it around. Good thing I didn't sign it ;P 

It's been a rather rotten day, the sort where this is the best thing to come out of it, and it was merely practice before the main shoot. 
I'd planned to shoot three videos today. They weren't anything special, little more than, "Hey, look at these ridiculous things" plus a trailer for the ePub edition of The River of Blood going live on Smashwords, as well as possibly some reader stores like Kindle, Kobo, and Sony. However, the first ridiculous thing video this morning simply fell apart. I had one of those epiphanies best summed up as, "The Hell am I doing?" It didn't help that for all the talking points I had worked out, they didn't fit together as well as I thought once I started rolling. It's like those behind-the-scenes docs where the team is putting together a monster costume, making sketches, forming molds, shooting test footage in the lot with a camcorder, and it's all looking real good... then they get it on set and everyone realizes how utterly ROFLMAO stupid it looks. 
So, I figure, "Brush it off, I haven't made a video in a while." and write the whole thing off as practice. I decide to hold off on the second one, which is just showing off something funny about a notebook I bought (don't pretend there aren't worse things on YouTube with a thousand times the hits my whole channel gets), and double-down on the third, the trailer. It involved a lot of fairly complex editing of very tight shots of me painting the cover illustration (or rather, an approximate likeness thereof). In the meantime, it was a very frustrating day out with my roommate, whose recovery from abdominal surgery has her in a fair amount of pain; pain's she's somehow convinced (like far too many problems in her life) can be alleviated by whining about it endlessly whilst carrying on doing things to aggravate it. It didn't stop there, suffice it to say: Not a great day on that front. 
Managed to wind down after that, get a bit relaxed so I could work on the trailer video, making the practice image above to nail down a brush technique, which can be a bit hard to do with Sharpie brushes as they tend to dry out fairly easily mid-stroke. I've got some calligraphy markers from them that may fair a bit better if I make anything like this again, though the fading does have a nice effect in their own way (like my sumi-e pieces). The video frankly looked ridiculous, totally unfitting with the tone of the story, and I realized I was simply not in the mood to edit the damn thing. Like post for my drawings, editing for videos is the step I like to minimize as much as possible. If I were a Hollywood director, I'd be very much in the Kubrick vein of the long take. 
I may still resurrect the trailer later, possibly tomorrow, on the off-chance I wake up in better spirits. It's not likely, which is why I'm posting this here.

The River of Blood

The River of Blood

A webbing of red lace poured out from every slit in the black skirt, swaying to and fro with each of the queen's strides. Everything she did seemed to carry such an elegance, even the way her littlest finger toyed with the length of chain she held over her shoulder. Her prisoner in tow on the other end of the chain was less than taken with the queen's poise and grace.

She was a thief of notorious repute despite her age. This had bolstered her hubris into making an attempt on the queen's jewels, kept on her person at all times, even to bed. The risk would bear no reward. The hand that clamped down on the thief's wrist seemed almost to have a mind of its own, the queen only opening her eyes at the thief's startled gasp. Her majesty did not scream, instead tightening her grip as a grin crept across her face, bringing with it an amused chuckle. Fear pierced the thief to her very core, leaving her frozen in place. It was only an instant before she snapped out of it and remembered her knife, only to glance down to see it twirling in the queen's fingers. The chuckle had become a hysterical laugh. This alerted the guards, who promptly stormed into the room, surrounding the bed. The queen sighed, slackening her grip as she fell back against the pillows in mock disappointment.

The thief found herself scrambling into the arms of a guard. The guard was startled by this and found himself putting a hand on her shoulder, as he might have for a lost child. By the time the thief came to her senses, she felt her arms pulled behind her, secured with heavy chain by another of the queen's men. The hand on her shoulder tightened, forcing her back round to see the queen slide off the other side of the bed and make her way to an armoire. A guard opened it as she approached, revealing an accumulation of knives buried in the wood, their points only just breaking the surface of the door. With a sweeping gesture of the queen's arm and nary a break in her stride, the thief's knife was added to the collection. A snap of fingers sent the guard holding the door out of the room with two other men following right behind. This was all so surreal for the thief. Everything from scaling of the wall to the sound of her own knife embedding itself in an armoire was running through her mind over and over again. She had been so careful, so meticulous, considered every possible failure, but all for naught. The thief stared daggers into the queen's back as she took her time slipping on a black robe over her red, lacy evening gown, reaching down to pull parts of the gown through slits in the robe, turning the whole ensemble into a performance. The queen glanced over her shoulder to smile at the thief before resuming her fitting, unphased by the stare. The thief looked on in silence.

She expected to get some sort of lecture from her royal highness before being carted off to the dungeon, or at least some gloating. What she did not expect was for the queen to turn away from the armoire dangling a heavy, iron collar from a length of chain. 

"Shall we go for a walk?"


The spikes that lined the inside of the collar were not sharp enough to draw blood. Rather, they were to give incentive against not keeping pace or speaking out of turn by way of a firm pull. Still, she couldn't help but wonder if what she felt rolling down her back was merely a bead of sweat. The party walked at a leisurely pace set by the queen, the last two guards from the bedchamber marching in silence behind the thief the entirety of the seemingly endless trek from the high tower into the depths of the castle.

As they went further, the plastered masonry gave way to earthen clay with tiles of red marble arranged in a flowing mosaic. It was a simple beauty the thief had never given much thought to, always too transfixed on the opulent. The queen explained that the castle was built upon a spring which served as irrigation for the garden. The flowing warmth allowed roses to stave off withering well past the first snowfall, a spectacle beheld by only a select few. Unfortunately, her highness sighed, the spring dried up years ago. The fountain atop the source was knocked down, the entire chamber altered to serve a different purpose, one the queen insisted would be as spectacular as before. As if on cue, the end of the hallway was in sight. The thief leaned to one side to see over the queen's shoulder a fairly small door in front of which were the three guards the queen had dismissed earlier. One held out an ornate key to the queen, asking quietly if she needed them further. Her majesty held up her hand and took the key. The guards passed, the two escorts following. The thief looked back over her shoulder at them walking away, immediately regretting it, not just for the spikes scraping along her neck, but the thought of the queen pulling on the chain. She winced in anticipation, turning slowly back toward the door to find the queen patiently standing beside the open door, politely gesturing the thief to enter. It was hard to find relief in any of her majesty's shifts in manner, each act of courtesy carrying the scent of a trap. After a brief hesitation, testing to see if the queen would tighten her grip on the chain, the thief cautiously walked through the door, the queen closing it behind them.

The chamber resembled a place of worship with its domed ceiling and columns along the walls. However, there were no statues or icons, doubtless removed in favor of the queen's machinations. The columns had been methodically chiseled in places to remove their engravings. All had been adorned with iron rings through which were strewn lengths of chain. In the center was the culmination of the queen's master plan, the ultimate defacing. It was the base of the fountain that once channeled the spring. A pair of grated spouts along the edge fed into small canals that ran parallel toward the door, leading out to the garden. If there had been a statue in its center, there was no sign of it. Instead, the base had been filled in to serve as a platform for a monstrosity of engineering, a guillotine built for eight, same as the number of columns encircling the room. The thief suddenly felt sick to her stomach with the revelation of the queen's grand spectacle.

She recalled seeing one in the town square as a child, though not as elaborate as this one. It was eventually taken down, having never been used so far as she could recall, replaced with a statue of the queen. Her highness led her guest up a short flight of crude, wooden stairs. She stopped in the center and spun round on the thief, directing her attention to the array of stocks, four on each side, all occupied. Man and woman, boy and girl, young and old, it was an eclectic assortment of prisoners. The queen explained that after the spring dried up, tourism to the town declined, and stricter laws were needed to keep the rising crime rate in check. Of course, the queen chuckled, strict laws were nothing without severe punishments behind them. For a time, there was no shortage of criminals to maintain the steady flow. Prisoners from neighboring countries looking to save face were brought in under the guise of exile for a price. Still, it was never enough to match the flow of the spring, and eventually the laws worked too well. Fewer and fewer were brought to justice, slowing the new spring down to a trickle.

The thief looked around at the device, trying to work out what her part in all this was meant to be, or if this was simply the lecture and gloating she'd been anticipating from the start.The crimes of the eight were rattled off with an air of ambiguity, one a murderer, others thieves, another an artist who tried to incite a revolt, two that refused to pay taxes on their businesses, and another who merely stood in the way of the guards' pursuit of a child caught swiping apples from a cart in the market. As the queen read off these convictions, none of them said so much as a word or tried to look up. No doubt they'd been tortured, starved, or otherwise rendered broken in light of their impending fate. Rather than supporting themselves on hands and knees, the prisoners were laid on benches, wrapped in canvas and secured with straps tight enough to squeeze the life out of them. There were no baskets to catch the severed heads, only a pair of deep grooves chiseled into the brickwork that ended in rusty grates before spilling over the edge of the old fountain and out of the room. The ceiling was a mess of pulleys and gears, most of it hardly appearing necessary for a device regarded so highly for its simplicity. Even the blades themselves were atypical, perforated with several small holes instead of a clean, metallic shine.

A tug on the leash brought the thief back to attention.

"I am not telling you all this merely so I can throw you in a cell to rot, much less execute you. I am telling you this because you have a decision to make, and it is important you have context." The last word carried a biting sharpness rivaling the twin blades hanging overhead. The thief straightened up, putting her shoulders back and her head up. Impressed, the queen smiled, continuing her ominous proposal.

"You will receive a full pardon for your trespass, leaving here with a perfectly clean slate. However, if you defy my word within my kingdom or its borders again, however minuscule, you will find yourself in their position, awaiting the fall of a blade." There was a stifled sob from one of the prisoners. The queen waited patiently for silence, a delighted smile creeping across her face. It remained while she carried on. "If you decide not to do as I ask, your leave of this place becomes more complicated." With that, the queen pulled the leash taut and began waving her arm left to right, causing the thief to sway gently with it for the sake of the spikes. "So brave of you," she cooed, "Never before have I had a visitor come calling in the night like that. Despite your intent, I found the whole affair rather amusing." The thief took a step forward to put some slack in the leash. The queen mockingly pouted at having her fun ruined, only to laugh and shake her head, "A rare gem such as you belongs among my treasures. You will be my servant, my pet, and my personal plaything for whatever whims may come to mind. You shan't come to any real harm, but your life will be solely for my amusement, so long as I wish it. It could be the rest of your life, or on the morrow."

The queen reached up and pulled down on a chain, setting a few of the pulleys in motion. There was a mechanical clicking sound of gears locking into place as some of the ropes and chains above tightened.

"Either way, I'll have no need for this room anymore." The queen held out the end of the chain to the thief at eye level.

On the end of the chain was a wooden handle wrapped in leather. There were teeth marks on it.



COPYRIGHT MMXIII CE RMJZ

A "little" PERSPECTIVE

Because sometimes blaming the victim is right on the money.

VECTOR 5NA1TF

Ladies and gentlemen (and all those in between who say, "Nuts to labels!"), I give you the first and possibly only appearance of 5NA1TF, a robot made using a vector editor in Google Drive's office suite. The background, embers, and text are done in GIMP.
The serial number (which would have been visible on the main body had I found a shade of gray I was happy with) stands for "5ir Not Appearing 1n This Film" as he is not part of the storyline for That Which Never Lived.

My Second Job

This has been a rather hectic week, very draining. I mentioned on Wednesday on my DeviantART account that I sort of had my weekend early. I've been making uploads there nearly everyday, whereas typically I sketch and plan during the week, leaving "showtime" for the weekend. It generally works out as I sometimes have a habit of staying up too late when I work on art; not so fun for workdays, but fits in fine with my weekends. This week, however, I've been a bit antsy and fidgety. I'll get very irrational and jittery, wanting to work on stuff, only for the feeling to peter out and die as soon as I start. I'll tell myself I have to do something, and then do eight other things to avoid it. That may sound like plain ol' procrastination, my mind essentially taking the easy way out to get a sense of accomplishment, except that what I've been doing to put other things off have been more engaging, take more time, and probably give me a much greater sense of satisfaction. Looking at it now, though, while I certainly felt like I was pouring myself into the work, it doesn't quite show through sometimes:

That last one just began as an idea for making the center of an Artist Trading Card square by having lineographs in the borders. I had no idea what the content would be, so I just went with it, and I think they frankly look terrible. I fell back on old habits like trying to pass off obscurity as talent. It feels like I might as well have posted pages from my notebook with an Instagram filter slapped over it. I tried to push myself forward, thinking that if I make a lot of stuff I can make up for the lack of quality with quantity. Really, it was acknowledging spreading myself thin. In my defense, I do have an upcoming painting project that will involve making 50 similar pieces, so I am legitimately trying to make myself produce as much as possible for reasons other than a self-defeating defense mechanism. I wish I could apply that excuse universally, though.

Most of what I've been putting off are things I have to write. It wouldn't be any big deal except that they're essentially replies to people, all somewhat related, and rather taxing. They don't get particularly personal or anything, but they are nonetheless revealing and honest.

It involves two journal entries on DeviantART about Anita Sarkeesian's video project Tropes vs. Women. Why two? Well, one is the actual criticism I have for her work (Short version: subject matter's fine, my issues are elsewhere), while the other is a sort of full disclosure. Basically, I'm going to map out where I stand on the spectrum of feminist ideals with a short list of random thoughts about women and my relations with them. It's been a bit tough to write because while I've been outlining it in my head the entire week, it all breaks down when I sit down to write it out, even if it's to jot down the thought I just had. I've never really had that problem before, and it worries me.
Writing has always bugged me a little because I'm the kind of guy who sweats every word. When I draw or paint, there's only so much "undo" I can do, and I'm generally stuck with whatever I make. Most of the time, fortunately, I like it a little better than what I first envisioned. With writing, though, I've got infinite levels of Undo, with no real loss besides time. Doesn't sound like a big deal, though as I mentioned, I promised these two journal entries, I'm not going back on it, and I've got something similar to do that's for someone.
Oogle wrote a journal entry on her Tumblr that I've been trying to reply to since she first posted it. I'm not going to tell you which one. At first, I was going to relbog it and add what I wanted to say to it. As I gathered notes for it, though, I started to have doubts about doing that. On the other hand, while it's essentially a reply to her, it's written as an open letter to the people she mentions in the original Tumblr entry. If that makes absolutely no sense at all, that's part of the problem.

This is how my mind works most of the time.
I feel like it's starting to wear on me, but if I back out or drop it, I'll feel worse.

Good night, and good luck.

Pretty Gold Dress

This was an idea I had been toying with throughout the week. I may well revisit this one (truth is I could probably draw her forever), as I meant for the dress to be impossibly long and flowing. Instead, I misjudged the size of my canvas, and ended up bringing the "camera" in a lot closer than intended. Ah, well...

Voice of the Green and Blue Veiny Square

I went back and forth on a green version of the 0-2-7 minis, but I was using Sharpie pens for those (except for the one with the photonegative filter on it) and those don't come in green. I did, however, have a pair of "micro" Sharpies of different shades of green. This is the result of that. The lineograph was merely a fun afterthought.

0-2-7: Variations on a Theme

While researching Marcel Duchamp for another project which may well be cancelled, I came upon his The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even piece, and wanted something that would have a similar energy and starkness. Got a bit carried away, especially with the bottom of a cardboard box.

Month of Meh

For as much as I put the URL for my Blogger page out there in my work, it may well be the site I neglect updating the most (with the possible exception of my Gamespot profile, but that doesn't quite count). I'd debated simply posting some of my recent artwork, which hasn't been anything terribly good since I'm focused on writing right now. I even resorted to digging up something I'd made years ago which was left in a drawer until recently.

The problem is that a lot of my work is a bit scattered because I'm slowly transitioning to a new computer. This means I'm officially back to using Windows, specifically 7. Protip: if you're in the market for a new computer, especially a laptop, make office supply stores like Staples and OfficeMax priorities as they clearance things out all the time, making for some very good deals. I had considered going with 8, but I just couldn't get past the tile interface. I'll get a Windows Phone before I bother with the OS on a full PC. In fact, I'm working on putting together a bootable USB drive that will let me run Linux Mint on the laptop if I ever want to use my more familiar version of GIMP. The Windows edition has some serious drawbacks, mostly with regards to the text tool. Adding signatures and watermarks to my images should not be this tedious. In the grand scheme of things, about the only upshots Windows 7 gives me is access to Skype as well as the full and proper use of my new scanner. Other than that, unless I get back into editing videos, Mint was perfectly serviceable. Still, it's nice knowing I have genuine options and don't have to rely entirely on freeware to get things done. There's nothing wrong with freeware, mind, except that there's absolutely no real QA and upgrades and fixes depend almost entirely on the whims of volunteers. Some have donation options which could conceivably be a way of getting needed changes made, but it's ultimately a free service and therefore no one really has a right to complain.
Speaking of taking things for granted, I found out about a most curious phenomena called crossed letters. It's also called cross-hatching, but it's not referring to the sketching technique of using repeating and crossed lines to create shading. What it is, simply, is a means of saving on paper by turning the sheet 90 degrees and carrying on writing. The idea is that paper was not only expensive, but postage wasn't much better, so people made the most out of what they had and resorted to making their letters look a little something like this:

It's not the best example; most of the samples I found online were in cursive, which seems to work a little better than print (ironic considering how inefficient cursive actually gets when you try to make it legible). Still, it's said that with time your brain works out what it's supposed to focus on and you learn to adapt to the weird presentation. It's a neat little experiment worth trying sometime. It's like using a quill/dip/fountain pen or learning a simple magic trick or speed dating; something everyone should try at least once, if only for the character-building.

On a dour note, things around the place have been a bit strained. Tensions are high, and while discussions were had, they didn't leave much all that resolved. Let me put it this way: I know being disabled is a difficult condition, and it's important for others to be sensitive to it. However, there's a point where being "considerate" amounts to walking on eggshells and living a kind of  "nurse's sleep" that you not only feel trapped in, but are practically told you're supposed to lie back and accept because... there's really no good reason given, the closest to "sort of reasonable" being "if you've never experienced (blank), then you won't understand." which is kind of like saying only people with cancer have any business doing cancer research.
It makes me think of why I absolutely hate certain movies. Requiem for a Dream, for instance, commits what I consider the cardinal sin of narrative by trying to make me feel sorry for people whom I not only don't care about, but really want to get their respective wake-up calls. In short, a bunch of druggies try to "make it big" so take giant risks that either cost them their lives, their self-respect, and/or their freedom. The idea is that I'm supposed to scoff at these people, only for a naysayer to ask, "Well, haven't you ever had a dream? Didn't you make stupid decisions?" and instill in me a great epiphany that moves me to tears. Trouble is, relating to something doesn't mean you automatically approve of it. To put it another way, the stupid things I may have done, aren't things I deserve sympathy for, and probably wouldn't want it. To quote Star Trek V, a movie I sometimes feel gets erroneously mistreated, I need my pain. I've inadvertently sabotaged my own life at times, but not only do I not want a second chance to undo those screw-ups, I don't want people to feel sorry for me for them. Sometimes things really are black and white, right and wrong. Circumstances may count for many things, but it's not always a free pass.
What I'm saying is, I don't have to stick my hand in a fire to know it's hot, but that doesn't mean I can't warn people who want to see for themselves what all the fuss is about. As for sympathizing with those who get burned, well: How sorry can you really feel for an alcoholic? Sure, they've clearly gone through some awful hardships that have driven them to find solace in the contents of a highball glass, but at the end of the day, no one's force-feeding them the stuff, and you can only commiserate so much before you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, pick a path, and stick to it. That's more or less where I'm at, and one of those paths involves leaving someone to face the same challenge, and I never like to walk away from problems.

Good night, and good luck.