( The Handsomest Generation? )
- Music:Maple Leaf Rag
( The proof )
Me, I like general "what would you do if you were in that spot." If you're honest with yourself, you can actually have some serious fun with them. So this long post is a hypothetical scenario from a movie that I watched a million times growing up. If you've seen it, I encourage you to answer and give your reasons.
But first:
Honorable Mentions:
Sakura Street Fighter Series: I love Sakura, but she's too young. The Japanese school girl thing just isn't for me. I love the fact she's a crazy school girl who beats people up, and her exaggerated nature in the Alpha Series cracks me up. But date/bang? No, not now. Try again in 6-10 years Saka.
Gwen Stacy: Spider-Man comic: I do like blondes, but Gwendy is a little before my time. She's going entirely off reputation and hearsay is a dangerous thing.
Elissandra Kyalus: From my own Legion saga, the physical appearance of Elissa was based off my dream girl in high school, though their hair color is distinctly different. However since Elissa's personality is entirely my creation, I'm not ready to enter those levels of narcissism.
And now the list:
15. Catalina: My Name is Earl Pure hotness in Latina form. But she's also a caring person to boot who seems to have an optimistic view of the world despite her rough life to this point.
14. Chun Li: Street Fighter Series Just think of all the things she can do with her legs. She can contour herself into all different positions... she's strong willed and determined... yeah... I was a Cammy guy for a long time, but then I found out that she was a clone of Bison. Yeah... even if it's not an exact clone, that kills the image.
13. Agent Dana Scully: X-Files An intelligent, take charge, red headed woman who seems to pride herself on being the logic and reason behind her partner's delusional conspiracy theories. Hot damn, she's made for me. Unfortunately Scully slowly degenerated into Mulder's realm of paranoia and insanity. Then again, considering who else will end up on this list, that really isn't a disqualification.
12. Lisa Miller : Newsradio I don't care how famous she got because she's been on E.R. Maura Tierney will always be that perfectionist reporter with the strangest quirks on Newsradio. Now only is she good looking, strong willed and opinionated, but she gets turned on by arguing. ARGUING! This is one date even *I* couldn't mess up.
11. Kaylee: Firefly/Serenity Seems like an upbeat, always have a smile on your face type gal. But she's got that hardcore side- her rant in the beginning of Serenity is pretty darn solid. (Yeah Jayne's right, I could stand to hear a little more) In addition, she's an ace mechanic. That's good, because I could barely put together my own bed, let alone repair anything.
10. Fox: Gargoyles For those of you that watched the show, you know that Fox is Demona lite. Still a rich, beautiful, fit, aggressive red head but with half the psycho and bit less of the murder. Also, she only turns into a monster on the full moon when wearing mystical gems made from Norse Gods eyes. (But on the downside, she is far less bangable in that state than Demona is in her gargoyle state--- I'm just saying) She also is the only cartoon character I can remember that got married and had a kid; I’m not sure whether that’s a turn on or a turn off, but at least it shows she can settle down, right?
9. Jarael: Knights of the Old Republic A tough as tails, loyal, take no lip type of gal with a very pale complexion. (She's white in the actual color, or lack thereof) She also possesses all those qualities without being psychotic or even going through a psychotic phase, which makes her a stand alone here since pretty much everyone woman listed was/is certifiable at some point. Her breasts also seem to be increasing in size as the Knights series continues, which might the great biological secret about her that everyone seems to be amazed by.
8. Mary Jane Watson: Spider-Man comicsI like red heads, Spider-Man comics rock and she's got plenty of spunk. I should clarify a bit though; pre death of Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane is a really unlikeable character. She's self centered, untrustworthy and unreliable for much of anything. Post Gwen's death they repaired the character to make her Peter Parker's main love interest. So for the interests of this post, we'll say Mary-Jane after the age of 24. Also this is strictly comic MJ; movie MJ got on my nerves.
7. Princess? Leia: Star Wars Trilogy I still don't know what she was a Princess of, since neither her birth mother nor her adoptive parents were royalty. (Well Padme was... but not when Leia was born) Anyway, some might be surprised to see Leia over Padme because Natalie Portman is hotter than Carrie Fisher circa 1980. But really; you wake up the next morning and she wants to get breakfast. Who would you rather deal with, Padme or Leia? Sure, you can brag to your friends about Padme, but is worth having the deal with her drama queen ways? Oh and what happens if you break up with her?
Me: “Padme, you’ve been great, but really, you’re not worth turning to the dark side over.”
Padme: “Oh you’re breaking my HEART!!!”
Me: *snicker*
No wait…
Me: *breaks out in full laughter*
Padme: *dies from heart break*
So in summary, Leia is good looking enough and easy trumps her mother in the personality department. So it's Leia, and it's really not even close.
6. Willow: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Alyson Hannigan plays very convincing shy girls that are pretty, but not hot. Willow is in the down to earth type girl that can *only* cast magical spells. But hey, you don't have to bring that up with the parents! On the other hand, beware of her past relationships; her first serious boyfriend got turned into a werewolf and her subsequent girlfriend got killed. Then she went insane. Cursed? I dunno, but she is a witch.
5. Mary Camden: Seventh Heaven Before she was named the sexiest woman in the world, Jessica Biel was sweet innocent Mary Camden on Seventh Heaven. In high school I used to go on and on about her but no one listened. She even got me to watch maybe a half a season of a show I otherwise would have zero interest in. Anyway, Mary was smart, athletic, and at least at one point good natured, though I always got the sense she was rather arrogant too. Eventually she even went towards the dark side, which is good because she was a little too light sided even for me. The kicker here is that you'd have to survive her family, which outside of her older brother, might be rather difficult to do.
4. Elliot Reid: Scrubs She's somewhat crazy and the perfect complement to my pseudo JD persona. Of course, she'd probably cause my head to explode. But since she's a doctor, couldn't she prescribe something for that? Actually Elliot, Carla or Jordan would be acceptable. I love the women on Scrubs.
3. Aeris Gainsborough: Final Fantasy VII Okay, I admit it, I would if I could.
What? Don't look at me like that. At least I didn't buy Tomb Raider just to see Lara Croft!
2. Demona: Gargoyles Human form. She could probably still beat me up, but at least there's a chance I might be stronger than her. Anyway, here are some plus sides to dating the villainess from Gargoyles:
1. She's in great shape.
2. She's a red head.
3. She's immortal, so she's going to look the same thirty years from now.
4. She's experienced. The woman is over 1000 years old. She's got to have some tricks of her sleeve.
5. She's filthy rich. It's an overlooked fact on the show, but she's probably in Xanathos territory with funds.
6. She hates humans. Bad thing? Maybe. But you know she's got to be a little curious, especially with Goliath and Eliza pseudo hooking up.
Now the bad things:
1. She turns into a gargoyle at night. This is a rather large problem.
2. She hates humans and is a murderer. This is also a large problem. Is it larger than the first? You decide.
Of course if she learns that I worshiped her character to the point where she influenced a great deal of my female fictional characters, maybe she wouldn't kill me?
So that leaves one left. Drum roll please... The winner is.......
Gabrielle: Xena Warrior Princess I like strong women but Xena would kill me. Callisto would kill me even faster. Gabrielle has the right mix of smarts, savvy, fighting skills and down to earth cuteness that clearly makes her the woman you can take home to meet the folks. (I mean come on, can you imagine Xena? That would be a disaster- either because your family would hate her, or your mother would love her, and thus she'd own your soul) Plus Gabby is a red head and a writer.
So in the end Gabrielle (played by the lovely Renee O’Connor) takes home the coveted #1 spot. Let the psycho analysis and judging begin.
When I was a kid, I sort of got into them. I bought all 14 issues of Maximum Carnage. (Admitting it is the first step towards beating it) I bought the Clone Saga crossovers. I read when X-Men did their crossovers. So it hasn't always been this way. However, I fully admit, I was young and inexperienced. And it was my parent's money anyway.
But as I got older I realized how terrible crossovers can be. Maybe because I matured. Or maybe I look back at those comics and see how flimsy some of their storylines were. Maybe I got tired of reading about characters I had little interest in reading. Maybe it's because I never ever started reading other comics as the result of crossovers. (I know, shocking I resisted the temptation to pick up Deathlok because his appearence in Maximum Carnage!)
So as you can tell, crossovers leave a bad taste in my mouth.
What has drawn my ire these days is the Vector crossover taking part in the Knights of the Old Republic comic right now. I'm sure you all remember how glowingly I spoke of the series just a few weeks ago. Well for as much as I loved the first 24 issues, the last two have been an exercise in patience.
The problem lies, of course, in the nature of the crossover. (The art doesn't help either) Crossovers are usually done in large part to bring in new readers. The hope is of course that the people who follow one comic will be interested enough after buying the comic's part in the arc, they will continue on when the comic returns to its "own world" so to speak.
Now, if you are writing a simplistic or relatively new story, this works. For example, the comic book Darkhawk back in the early 90's managed to leech off the multiple appearances by Spider-Man and many of his villains (the Hobgoblin, Tombstone, Venom) to gain a little niche for itself. But Darkhawk was just starting up as a series so it was less of an issue. Everyone is being introduced to the character, so simplicity and explanation is required.
That is NOT the case in Knights of the Old Republic. The comic is two years old and one of the series' strength is its highly developed and involved storytelling. Right now there are at least two major subplots going on in addition to the main one, which just had it's first major climatic event in a while back in issue #24. (We're on #26 now) It is also highly invested in it's main cast, which has slowly been developed over the arcs. Reading the characters in issue #4 and comparing them to themselves in issue #24, they've all come a long way.
But crossovers make continuing those two elements hard if not impossible. By the nature of the crossover, the story must connect to the other comics. How can you connect two completely separate and extremely complex stories on a whim? Or in the case of Dark Horse' Star Wars comics, four separate stories??
In defense of the creators, they found a way. The stories can be connected through a certain object, it appears. They deserve props for that. So what's the problem if that major hurdle has been cleared?
The problem is that you are still trying to draw new readers in. And in doing that you simply cannot hurl them into a story as complex as Knights' has been and expect the majority of them to swim. Readers want to be able to pick up and understand what is going in an issue. I doubt many will enjoy the story if little hints as to what's Jarael's secret or the Rohlan mystery are being dropped with the reader expected to know who these characters are. As a result, you don't see Jarael, Rohlan, Alek or any of the Knights supporting characters except for Griff really.
Which brings us to the next issue; characterization. As I mentioned, the characters have come a long way since they started. But to get the gist of who these characters are, they tend to get portrayed as caricatures of themselves. In this case, Zayne is completely inept and near useless. In fact he has done nothing except get saved by the other Jedi hanging around in this two parter thus far. Now that might have been acceptable back when the series started, but Zayne's not the same guy he was when he was tripping over himself in issue one. The guy managed to fend off a horde of invading army with no weapon except a tree branch, sparred with Jarael (who beat another Jedi in a sparring match)to a near standstill, survived a brief fight with his old master, and lasted more than two seconds against a Jedi Master. Now look, is Zayne a world class fighter? No. But he SHOULD be able to fight off a Rakghoul when he's armed with a light saber and not beg for help like some helpless school child.
But one gets the sense that in the desire for new readers to understand Zayne isn't a great Jedi, he has been made into one so bad he'd have flunked out of the academy years ago. He certainly would not have survived this long avoiding five Jedi masters with the skill set (or lack thereof) he has displayed in these two issues.
The only character that is looks anything like himself is Griff. But I'm not reading Knights because Griff, I'm reading it because I like Zayne.
The sad thing is Vector as a standalone would not be terrible. I found myself towards the end of the issue saying "Alright, we're going somewhere." The story isn't a bad story, but it's right now a bad Knights story. The story's quality would not rise or decrease if you took Zayne and Griff out and stuck in two random characters. Zayne has done nothing or said nothing that shows us who he is. It's a major let down after issue #24 was simply incredible in it's story and perhaps most importantly, it's characterization.
So it could be that if Jarael, Rohlan and Alek were in it, or Zayne were being portrayed halfway competent it would seem better. But they're not, and it feels alien, no pun intended.
Maybe things will improve in parts three and four. Maybe those side characters will show up. I mean Zayne's got to hook up with them again somehow, right? But as it stands now, I'm just waiting for this crossover to end so I can get back to reading about the Knights of the Old Republic story lines I'm so enthralled by.
So what is the Legion Saga? It's a novel that I dream of one day being one of many, hence a saga. When I say dream, it's more than just idle thought. I actually have the basic progression of the principle characters over three books planned out. What's going on around them after book one and how it fits into their storyline is something that I am still working on for my future writings.
It's a fantasy style book; from the lands of warriors with big swords, armor, magic and all that stuff which LOTOR made popular. (Ironically enough, I've seen neither the movies nor read the books) Inspired by my many hours of video game playing and early attempts at fanfiction, I decided I had ideas and should put them to use. That was back when I was a senior in high school.
Now, some 6.5 years later, I have finally finished a first draft of sorts. I say of sorts because it's misleading- the story has already been revised and nearly completely rewritten once already.
It began as a set of short story ideas. I wrote one and a half stories, the first and lone complete one featuring two of the eventual Legion principles. The other story had characters that found themselves in the current incarnation but the role they played was not finished and in the end not used.
Then I got to college. I was in the midst of really plowing into FF7 fanfiction, having at that time completed two multi chapter stories. The Legion Saga, which was not named, was on the backburner. It might have remained there had I not learned of a program called RPG Maker. A nifty little program that allowed you make your own RPGs using extremely basic functions and simplistic early age Super Nintendo/Genesis graphics, it inspired me to continue my story. It was altered and changed to be made into a video game. Characters were created, developed and the general plot of the story was finally created.
This took me three years; around my senior year of college I had finished the meat of the game. All I had left to do was make the final dungeon and sub quests. But many things, including my own health, unfortunately conspired to prevent me to making much headway.
Also around this time, I completed yet another FF7 story, which was actually my sixth! Since my college roommate was giving me a hard time about writing fan fiction I decided to stop with it and return the Legion to it's novelistic roots.
Okay, it isn't THAT simple. But in the end, I found the world of fanfiction writing unfulfilling. I enjoyed my stories- and still do when I go back and reread them. But there's something lost when it's not your creations. As I mentioned in the previous Knights of the Old Republic post in reference to why early EU stuff in Star Wars isn't well received except by die hards, it is someone else's vision you are taking to make your own. After writing 6 stories and multiple side projects set in the FF7 universe where I was making things up to suit my vision, I decided to just scrap it and make my own world.
The world was already partially created thanks to the game I was making. I had names, places, a history and characters. I knew what I wanted, so now I could make it happen.
Now not everything that works in a video game works in a novel; namely number of characters. It's an issue I'm still struggling with and I may have to revisit in future drafts. Plus writing involves description, which I've always been poor at.
It took me another 2.5 years to bring it over. Along the way I already did a serious rewrite, taking out a character when I was 2/3 of the way done. I also removed one character and replaced her with another character who as it turns out will be very prominently featured in second half of the novel and plays a huge role going forward. I also started to develop my own universe for the characters- a history of people and places, things. Much props go to De (fireflower314) for sending me a website link on universe creation. It has been instrumental in forming ideas and themes that have been or will be developed as I go forward.
So where does it stand now? 49 chapters (48 and an epilogue), single spaced, many hundreds of typed pages. I've already decided on a few storyline changes (mainly dealing with villain rationale, which was horribly underdeveloped in some respects). As a result, I have not given anything thus far to the people who have requested it, outside of Marina and Sushi, because they asked first. And they saw the last work in progress, since I've only started the most recent changes.
But that sort of changes now. I dunno when/if I'll post full length chapters, but I will post character descriptions and excerpts as I perform my rewrites. I may also post short stories dealing with the characters. I haven't decided since, while they tell part of the backstories of the characters, it's sort of copping out of what the novel is supposed to hint at. In other words, I'm writing a novel that is supposed to explain the characters well enough; if I post the other stuff first, then I'm giving the back story in something separate and not finding out how well the novel does its job. On the other hand, short stories provide insight into the world without having to read 50 chapters.
In any case, coming soon, Legion Saga stuff.
That has been the battle between my prose writing (The Terrax Legion) and my sims story. (The Ten Caesars) I'm stuck in a situation where my sims story has suffered neglect as a result of devoting my free nights to writing the Legion Saga. To put it in perspective, I'm a video game addict who played three times in two weeks; once on a Friday, once on a Sunday a week later a friend's apartment and then for an hour last Saturday.
To make matters worse, I actually organized an update for the Caesars... almost a month ago. If you asked me then how long it would take for me to finish, I'd have said maybe a week, two tops. Yet here we are, with no update in sight. I got bogged down trying to write it well then decided to go full steam with writing something down for the Legion. (At Marina's insistence) To my surprise, it all started to come together.
I got near to finishing the first draft and that became priority. And then I was on a high from finishing, I wanted to revise. Marina has advised me not to, but I can't let the fervor die. So I'm still crafting ideas for stories, terms, and general universe filling things. Also props go to rubbersushi has made it even sweeter by doing drawings of my characters. (The handsome fellow in my avatar is one of the protagonists. Sushi made it on request in about an hour. She's really, really talented, if you couldn't tell)
So what does this mean for the Ten Caesars? Well, it does not mean anything right now. This is to serve as more of an explanation as to why I haven't produced an update in a while. The majority of my legacy's biggest fans either know about this space or know someone who does. *coughMarinacough*. I played up to the boys becoming teens, as well as the same point with a few of the neighborhood's families. So I still want to continue on. I just have decided to focus on my prose for now. That could all change in a week, but I'm riding out the writing hot streak for as long as it lasts.
But don't worry, the Caesars are not dead. They will be back, sometime soon.
For those who don't know, KOTOR was a video game that was released for the XBOX and PC set 4,000 years before the time of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. This was important in making it as popular as it is. Why? Because frankly, even though the Star Wars Expanded Universe (novels, games, etc) has grown in popularity over the last 15 years, the novels and all that stuff come off as exceptionally dork-ish.
Why, you ask again?
Because they're glorified fan fiction. They are stories that are attached to the main trilogy and thus can never truly stand on their own. Overrated as the wise Sushi said George Lucas is the other day (and she's partially right), he still is the creator of Star Wars and all of these other writers, no matter how talented they are, are just leeching off his creation- characters, storyline etc. It never feels like something worth reading, but these are other people writing Lucas' characters. What makes these people any different than you or me, really?
So a while back someone came up with the bright idea of taking Star Wars outside of the established time period. Guess what? People loved it! Why? Because it allowed the creators, whether they were of comics or games, to use the Star Wars universe but show us storylines that were different and most of all, did not involve any Skywalkers. Darth Malak will always come off better than some writer trying to resurrect the Emperor for lack of storyline ideas. Even if the base plotline has serious similarities to the original in breakdown, the details and characters are new. That changes everything.
The Knights of the Old Republic series is the culmination of that. The games create their own conflict with their own core characters at the center of events. I'm one of the few who think the sequel (The Sith Lords) is better than the first, but if you have a PC and like RPGs, I encourage you to play the games. You will enjoy them.
In any case, now that I've gotten THAT out of the way, I can get to the true purpose of this post--- hocking the Knights of the Old Republic comic series.
Comics and I have a long and somewhat painful history. Amazing Spider-Man ripped my heart out with the lousy end to the Clone Saga and I never could get back into it. I tried, and have kept up with events, but they never could keep my interest. (And never will, with the storyline disaster that is One More Day. Suffice to say, it offended me as a Spider-Man fan and disgusted me as a writer) Over the last six months I had heard about the KOTOR comics and that they were pretty good. Being a huge fan of the games, I had to check it out.
And now, I am hooked.
Over the last week I have read all 25 issues of the comic. I bought the three trade paperbacks. The writing is solid, artwork mostly excellent (two great artists, mediocre fill ins) and it's providing back story to the games to the games I love so much.
The comic features the adventures of Zayne Carrick, a jedi who has some similarities to a pair of characters from the Sith Lords. (More on that perhaps in the future) Most importantly, he is a refreshingly different character. If you were not a fan of Anakin Skywalker being the second coming (right down to the virgin birth) and think that not every Star Wars main character has to be a ridiculously powerful individual, Zayne is the guy for you. He's a pretty mediocre Jedi (at best) who gets caught up on the wrong side of a prophecy. Now Zayne somehow manages to rise above that, it wouldn't be much of a comic if he didn't, but the fact that he has a unique and misunderstood connection to the force makes it all the more interesting. Whether that prophecy will lead to him discovering how to use his unique talents remains to be seen. Like I said, I have some suspicions, but time will tell if they are borne out.
I think I like Zayne because reminds me a lot of the Peter Parker from Spider-Man that I grew up with. Wise-cracking, good natured and though not always the luckiest of guys, he always looks at things in a positive light. This pic here is from the first pages of issue one, and probably is the highpoint of Zayne's existence so far, since he looks far cooler and more competent than he actually is.
I won't delve into the plot too much beyond that and that it's set in the early stages of the Mandalorian Wars (for those of you that have played the games), because I would hope you read it. But it had a good base plot line, a interesting characters (good and evil) and my favorite subplots and mystery! Also Jarael rocks.
I recommended it to a co-worker of mine who is a big star wars fan. He read the first arc (issues #0-6) and was hooked. I suggested it to Sushi and she also very much enjoyed the first arc, so much so, she accused me of using Jedi mind tricks. If that's not a recommendation, I don't know what is.
So, check out the series. If you are a Star Wars fan, the odds are good you'll enjoy it. Even if you are not, it's an entertaining read.
Well sort of. In the past I've used the internet to blog about sports. I like to think I was/am, good at it. But it may be time for me to branch out a bit and I've been pestered by Marina to start LJ thing forever now. I guess I've finally fallen to the dark side. *switches off green lightsaber, summons the red lightsaber*
So what will go on here? I have yet to decide fully. I figure this will be a place to randomly drop ideas that come to mind about the shows I watch, stuff I read or games I play. Lord knows I've had way too many demented opinions on who Cloud really loved in FF7 that have gone unspoken for too long.
My hope is to figure out a way to post my original writings here too. As some may know I've been working hard on my Terrax Legion Saga, now over seven years in the making. (I started it back when I was in HS, I'm not three years removed graduating college this May) There's a lot to the story, but suffice to say it's taken on a lot of forms in that time and I finally completed a first draft last Sunday. My thoughts have already moved on to my next story in the Saga, (it IS a Saga, right?) but that's not all bad for reasons I'll explain another day.
So yeah... that's the long and the short of it. I think I know where I'm heading with my first real post. But we'll see about that tomorrow. Until then...
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