Mirrors and Candles

 For any one else suffering from  Solas romance  feelings

Assignment: write a scene (a double-spaced page) that shows your character in a situation that forces them to act "out of character." Write a scene that shows your character committing a slightly immoral act. This is done to add dimension to your character. Think small, quiet actions. Maybe your character tells a lie, gossips, confesses a secret. What propels your character into this action? Place your character in a specific setting and go from there. o0o A news clipping of an article titled “Three-week-old corpse doing better, family tells coroner” sat abandoned on a table at Starbucks. Maeve frowned at it from where she stood at the counter waiting for her fair-trade coffee. It lay open on one of the uncomfortable-by-design wooden chairs. The clipping looked old and was parched and yellowed along the edges, and in the creases from where it had once been folded into quarters.             From where she stood Maeve could no...

"Be grateful it wasn't you." "The forest is a powerful ally to have." There's a new Starbucks down the street. There's always a new Starbucks down the street. The mountains are alive. No one mentions it. They don't have to. The mountain is out. You try to ignore that it looks closer today. You stare out the window into the fog and wonder what it hides. The ocean knows better than to try and take you. I can't sleep. The waves sound closer than usual. The ringing in your ears that comes with absolute silence.

It's been 3 days since I've written anything. Not exactly true, since I've been focusing on school work, but y'all know what I mean. Anyway, here's an assignment from my creative writing class. Character creation/development! My favorite! Name:   Maeve Pryce Age:  27 Where your character lives:  Issaquah, WA Physical characteristics:  Medium skin with beige undertones, average height, and bottom hour glass figure (wider hips, muscular thighs). A round face with slightly large downturned eyes, turned up nose and full lips. Manicured brows though a little on the bushy side. Two beauty marks, one above left eyebrow and one on the right cheek. Long black hair almost always pulled up in a high pony tail. Due to Poliosis she has small patch of silvery grey hair behind her left ear. Family members:  Parents separated when she was a toddler, and she is unsure where her dad is. Mother passed away not long after, and the only biological family she is c...

Class has been canceled all week. It's not the snow, really, but the ice. Fine with me, ha ha! Being able to, work on my homework at my own pace while interweaving my business duties, and recreational art without having to stress about the commute. Its weird. I have anxiety when it comes to driving. I used to not mind at all but now the idea of being stuck in heavy traffic makes my heart race. Is this what rabbits feel like all the time? I don't mind long drives. That is to say I don't mind long drives as long as I'm driving. I've recently started to get car sick when I'm a passenger. The snow is on it's way out. The wind has picked up so it's blizzard flavored weather. I already talked about the snow, haven't I? Sheesh, I'm boring today. I started the DLC for Horizon: Zero Dawn, and I like it so far. I'm curious to see how it will tie into the lore of the main game. I suspect that "The Spirit" is one of the sub-programs of Ga...

I'm taking a break from Facebook and Twitter again. I'll only be logging on to promote art stuff and when new merch is in the store. I can't really explain what I'm discovering about my attitude lately, but I know these two platforms aren't helping.

Well, it snowed.Luckily I don't have to anywhere to be today, so I'm going to enjoy studying in the comfort of my sweatpants. I used the last of the half-&-half this morning. I have lots of tea though, and I usually drink it without cream. Coffee on the other hand... I may have graduated from vanilla lattes to americanos but I'm not jaded enough to drink it black. That wasn't a read. I started Horizon: Zero Dawn this past week. I don't know I have this habit of shunning popular culture until it;s irrelevant. Well, maybe not irrelevant but not in the spotlight. Any way, the game is stunning! I wish there were more choices making dialogue options, and since I'm trash, romance options. I do enjoy how everyone is horny for Aloy and she's just like NOPE BYE, GOTTA DESTROY AN EVIL SENTIENT AI PROGRAM. I do ship her with Nil though. I mean, he's a total homicidal sociopath but he respects Aloy. They're the best bandit hunting couple. I was really bumm...

I drove through a rain storm first thing this morning. It's suppose to snow this week, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Snow is beautiful. Watching large flakes fall at night in the yellow glow of streetlights is a nostalgic past time for me,. Snow falling at night is beautifully eerie. I prefer the rain. It can tap gently at windows and can pound on roofs. It still carries the spirit of the ocean. "Storm" is a powerful word. It makes people immediately cautious. Place a noun in front of it and reactions can differ. Some enjoy a good storm. I miss the rain and thunder storms of Minnesota. Sudden rain storms in the summer are my favorite.

The house we lived in was older than the town that sprung up around it. The wood paneling was bleached a ghostly grey from the sun. Wood rot ate away at the front porch so it sagged in one corner where there was always a sick, brackish smelling puddle. Each morning I would peer out the cracked kitchen window. Each morning the blackberries looked like they were a little closer to the house.

Pale colored smoke billowed from the swinging censer. A tarnish film had corroded the golden vessel changing the once lustrous hues to filthy, dark discoloration. In the dim light from the gas lamp it was hard to make out the intricate filigree that followed the curves of the burner. I sat on the small stone steps outside my family’s home in the lower district, the scent of the incense so heavy I could taste it on my tongue. The sharp bite of myrrh and musky cedar. A bitter medicinal smell. Our street always stunk like piss and mange. I couldn’t decide which scent I preferred over the other. Cold clung to my fingers, raw red from washing, and I pulled my sleeves over my fists like a useless mitten.

Every now and then I become obsessed with a name. I'll use it for original characters, video games with character creation. Jacelyn. Sorin. Asher. Gideon. Evangeline. Cadence. Tamsyn. Tamsyn is the latest of my obsessions, but I recently replayed Dragon Age: Inquisition and gave my Inquisitor Lavellan the name "Vesper". I'm hook, ha ha! I have to write a short story for a midterm, and my process has always been to start with a character then build the world around them. In my first published work I started with the heroin Roshan, then her partner Emilian, then their jobs as monster hunters. I wonder if other writers prefer using characters or world's they've created before over creating something new each time. Look at how James Patterson brought Alex Cross to the center of a multilayered mystery time and time again, or Stephen King exploring another dark corner of his Castle Rock. Was it because of numbers; because those characters and place sell book...

I read somewhere that if we read something that reminds us of ourselves it's probably about us. Some starlet musician capitalized on this, writing a song called "If you think this song is about you it is". I think. My source could be way off. I think it's natural for humans to read into things. We're self absorbed, but it also ties into wanting acceptance. If someone "vague-books" something we immediately try to decipher it. We might see ourselves in the cryptic words. Is it guilt? Is it self consciousness? Insecurities? Our desire to be the center of the author's focus? Seattle is passive-aggressive. Maybe the whole PNW. Vague-booking is a form of passive-aggression. You feel like you can't confront whoever has spurned who so you make a cipher public, hoping that asshole sees it and knows you're on to them. However, all your friends see themselves in it, and so your post is the root of weird anxious tensions. It'd be different if peo...

I confessed to them that I have an eating disorder and they argued with each other over dieting facts.

What is " Authentic self "? Humans are impressionable beings. We absorb our surroundings, mimic others in our environments. For safety, comfort, acceptance. Do we push our true selves away? Down in the mass of meat that puts our skeletal husks into motion, for the mere sake of acceptance of lemmings? I shared a high-five with a woman in my Social and Emotional Foundations class for having chronic anxiety in common. I am authentically anxious but do I define myself by it? Finding camaraderie among fellow anxiety riddled individuals helps with the struggle. It encourages continuing the conversation on mental health, and tearing down the stigma of shame. Lady Gaga wrote "I am obsessively opposed to the typical", and I feel that this describes me perfectly. My authentic self was found beneath the rubble of castles torn down. Dishonest keeps of identities I desperately wanted for the sole acceptance of trash.