I’m still hard at work on my Expedition Europa project, which I promised to showcase some information from. I still intend to, but I haven’t gotten around to it. I can verify that so far, much of the locomotion in Europan seas are based on tentacles of flagellate movement. Fun stuff.

In addition, in the off hours at work at the LRC I’ve taken to writing what I can. I am working on Dash scripts, as well as a few writing projects, one of which is a short story for an NPR contest. I am in the polishing stages at this point, and I am extremely pleased with what I have thus far. The other project is a journal where I respond to a prompt. I’ll likely post one of those tonight. The other project is me dabbling with one of my story concepts called “Worldwalker”. It’s going to take me a while, but I am going to press on. I’ll post a rough excerpt here. If anything, the roughness should illustrate that writing in a process, albeit a long, maddening one at times.

Aluia wasn’t used to waking up so early in the morning, much less being woken up by screams. At first she was only half aware of her surroundings, but the acrid smoke roused her. And the survival instincts kicked in. She leapt to her feet and dove for her armor that was resting at her side. In fluid, hurried motions she had managed to slide into her plate. She grabbed at her sword and shield, barreling out of her small tent into the settlement.

In seconds, rotting fingers were rubbing against her armored shoulder, clawing at the metal unsuccessfully. She spun, knocking the hands away; she then brought her shield in front of her. She had wandered right into a pair of ghouls. Thrusting her shield forward to create a buffer zone, and with enough room to swing, she dispatched the first of the pair, followed shortly with the second. She turned her attention to the chaos at hand, as ghouls were swarming the settlement, swarming into tents and bringing down the minor shelters. She saw survivors spread throughout, fending off the undead with great efficiency. It came with living in the area, she imagined. She immediately got to work, rushing shield-first into a trio of ghouls approaching a distracted pair of settlers.

A lot of personal pronouns in this excerpt, but I’ll fix those in time. At this stage in the project, my main concern is just getting a story down on paper. it’s not until the later stages where I make it sparkle, like so many vampires these days.

Anyway, the titular Sara of this post is one classy lady. My post wins by sheer volume, however. I refuse to let her outdo me and I am throwing down the gauntlet. Rawr.

Stay tuned for your regularly scheduled program.

In the realm of my comics, there is progress, I’ve penciled a few pages and am heavily into the inks on one of them. That page having been revised once. No pressure to finish it right away affords me chances to really play with the style, format, and shots. I think the results will be pleasing. Before I release the story however, I’ll have to overhaul the website a bit, but that’ll be a blast.

Educationally, my finals are next week. It’s the standard song and dance, the major advantage here is that the next semester does not start until late January, so that gives me a lot of time to work.

In other news, I’ve been using Google Wave. It’s very fun. If anyone is looking for an invite, just drop me a line, and I’ll see what I can do.

Something that has always confounded me about myself. I am not in any sense religious, at all, and yet, I love Paladins.

It’s a quandary.

As far as it goes in World of Warcraft (the image is of my paladin, Aluia, before the Argent Coliseum was finished), it’s probably a gameplay thing. That being said, I think it goes even deeper then that.

While the paladin is typically associated with the concept of Lawful Good, and championing a deity, I see them as simply the quintessential defender. The paladin has always been, in my interpretation, the first and fiercest in the battle, drawing the fire to defend his or her charge. While many paladin champion a deity, I think that the paladin’s strength is better represented in their convictions. To me, the concept of a paladin is that as long as one has belief in their cause, and seeks to ensure the safety of their charge, they are a paladin in every sense.

This is, of course my own interpretation, and your mileage may vary, but I think I have made a good point.

So, why did I feel like writing about this? Well, based on my concept of a paladin, I came to the realization recently that all of my projects feature a character who I refer to as The Paladin. It seems that in much of my work, The Paladin is often the lead character.

In Cosmic Dash, I would say that Dash, clearly, is the paladin. He is the key character, and takes it upon himself (though it is more often thrust upon him) to defend his charges, his coworkers. Dash’s ideals are very much based on his interpretation of balance, and what is right. Ultimately I hope to explore what those beliefs are. One of Dash’s strengths is his devotion to his friends, and I hope that I communicate that as I continue the comic. As he defends them, constantly, he would have to be particularly devoted to them.

I of course I have other projects and characters who fit this mold, but that is a discussion for another time, when those projects take on a life of their own. That being said, I believe every character in my works has the potential to be a paladin for their perceived good.

Yes, I just implied a paladin could potentially do evil, from someone’s perspective.

I suppose an example is needed. Fortunately for those of us who write such horribly geeky things, Star Wars once again provides the answers we need.

I would like to focus on two characters who I consider paladins. Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader.

Luke Skywalker, you are probably thinking, makes sense. As a jedi, he has a belief in the force, and maintains his ideals. Naturally, in The Empire Strikes back, he puts his friends before his own safety, heading into an obvious trap to defend them.

The interesting one here, however is Darth Vader, a kind of dark paladin. He definitely has the look, huge, imposing, armored. But what of motivation and defending. For this we have to dip into the prequel trilogy, particularly, Revenge of the Sith.

This, of course, is a subject for another time.

I would like to create some form of video content, but have no idea where to begin.

Thus, I ask anyone reading this, what kind of videos should I make? The only real idea I had was videos of my drunken, angry reactions to the Twilight series of books. I think there is some comedy potential there.

But yes, does anyone have a suggestion? Chime in, please.

Also, this video still amuses me to no end, I love The Guild.