Friday, May 23, 2014

Elemental Telekinetic Abilities


Don't worry, looking at the title kind of confuses me tool. Lol. But, it's something you'll pick up on really quickly.

Why?

Because this subject has been covered in a wide array of media, including Disney's most recent animated endeavor. Frozen is the story of the Ice Queen Elsa (her sister Anna and some boys are mentioned too, I think) as she grows from frightened child into a frightened adult who eventually embraces her abilities and sings a lovely song about it. And, now you'll be singing that song all day, courtesy of Indina Menzel and Disney.

Anyway, Elsa is a cryokinetic. This basically means that she's a psychic whose powers manifest as bursts of extremely cold energy which freezes the water vapor in the air (this also makes it a subschool of hydrokinesis, the ability to manipulate water). It's a spontaneous ability that is tied, like all other things, to the emotions of it's wielder, and if their emotions are chaotic and uncontrollable, such as Elsa who spent most of her life as a recluse and terrified of herself, then their powers are going to be chaotic and uncontrollable.

Example: Elsa in public for the first time in fifteen years and her little sister tells her she got engaged after knowing a guy for less than fifteen minutes. Elsa, understandably enough, flew off the handle and her powers went wild. That caused the crowd around her to freak out and cry witchcraft and sorcery, and Elsa got afraid. That drove her powers further and further out of her control. Then she ran away and caused an eternal winter, or something like that.

And, another popular example of a cryokinetic: Frozone from The Incredibles. And, Ice Man from the X-men.





But, cryokinesis isn't the only elemental psychokinetic power possible.

You have pyrokinetics like the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four and Charlie McGee from the Stephen King novel Firestarter. (It's also Mr. King we have to thank for the word pyrokinetic, and any derivatives thereof. Such as words that replace the prefix pyro or tele with another prefix implying some other element.)




You have terrakinetics like Terra from the Teen Titans series.


And Hydrokinetics such as Aquaman, Mermaidman, and Percy Jackson (along with the aforementioned cryokinetics).




Aerokinesis= Storm from X-men. (The technical definition of her power is Weather Manipulation, this, however is a subschool of Air Manipulation as all weather phenomena (with the exception of earthquakes and volcanoes) involve the air in one state of being or another.)


Then you have Benders. This, so far as I can tell, is an Asian term (not sure which culture; my apologies for lack of accuracy) for an individual who can control the elements in one way or another.


There is one thing I would like to note, however. However much it may look like sorcery or magic, it's not. Elemental kinesis is a psychokinetic ability controlled strictly by the mind and instinct. Think of the media you've seen. Can the Human Torch turn himself invisible and teleport from one sid eof the earth to the other. No, he can't, lol. Because his powers are of the mind, not the arcane. It is, however, possible that Johnny Storm could learn how to use the arcane. If he can keep his you-know-what in his pants long enough to study.

Anywho, I'm out.

And, later, I might try to explain how all of this fits into Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons. That is, after I do some research and figure it out for myself. Lol.

Ryan

5-22-14

Thursday, May 8, 2014

First Novels: Raising Kain

I've said this with other posts, but yes, this is the third time I've sat down to work on this post. I have a valid reason though. I didn't like the way the first one started, and I started the second about five minutes before the end of my break. Had I realized that at the time, I wouldn't have started it then.

Either way, we have this post going now, so I'll just keep on writing.

The reason I didn't like what I had first written is because I was trying to pass off wise and sage advice. Then I looked at it, and knew I shouldn't be giving such advice. It's not that I don't have experience in the situation I'm bringing up. I just don't feel that I've matured enough from that experience to really be able to see it from all angles.

So, all I can really do is tell you about my experience with “first novels”.


I started writing Raising Kain after I read the how-to book Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print. (It's a very good how-to book, and is something I would suggest any writer, new to the craft or not, pick up.) Also, the name of the author is Lawrence Block. What helped me get started on my novel wasn't really what inspired the novel. It was more of a connection I felt with the writer. The way he was talking about his writing experiences the more I felt like I could see myself in that role, experiencing the things he experienced. Then he talked about his early writing habits.

Lawrence Block wrote soft core sex novels for the first few years of his career. He would write two of these a month. He'd do twenty pages a day Monday through Friday, not write anything on the weekends, then finish the book the next work week.

I don't know what possessed me, but I thought “Yeah! I can do this!” (I would also like to note that my first novel was not a soft core sex book.) So, I sat down, on a Monday I think, with a small idea about a boy who becomes the greatest hero in Atlantis, and I knocked out twenty pages. Tuesday (day two or whatever, I don't remember the days of the week) I knocked out another twenty pages. (If you're wondering, twenty pages equals some 6,000 words, not a number to be laughed at.) Both days I walked away from the computer exhausted and broken. It took almost every hour I was awake to write that much.

After that, I didn't touch the book for a week.

I was burnt out on it. I didn't think about it. I didn't want to think about it. All I wanted to do was shut it out of my mind. It wouldn't go away, thankfully.

That next Monday (using that day because Monday is a good day to start things, I guess) and I wrote more on the story. I didn't write twenty pages. I think I wrote five, and instead of walking away from the book like I'd gone eight rounds with Mike Tyson, I walked away feeling good. I felt accomplished, and that's the way it went for the rest of the book. I wrote a little each day, and inch my inch the novel got done.

I loved that novel.

I still love that novel.

And, I found out not too long after I finished writing it that it wasn't even really a novel. It tapped out at forty-eight thousand words, and your average novel starts at sixty-thousand words or so. Yeah, I was kind of crushed.


I still consider it my first novel though. And, I still fondly remember writing it. The only thing that makes me really sad is that I need to keep it hidden in a chest for fear that someone might read it. Lol. Not because I don't think it's good, I absolutely love the story, it's because of the way my writing style has evolved. Raising Kain very much looks like it was written by a child coming out of the sixth grade.

Now, I've ran my mouth on for far longer than I expected too. So, I'm going to shut up, and maybe continue to tell the tales of my first novels.

Ryan

5-8-14

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

The Desert

Author: due.chiacchiere
Website
This is not to be mistaken for dessert, which happens to be tasty pastries stuffed with sugar. Or cake. Or any wild number of possibilities. Dessert is also not the topic of this post. It evokes an entirely different sort of imagery than what I intend on using for this post.


The desert. A vast wasteland that stretches on for miles and endless miles. The sun hangs low in these places, so it's closer to the ground and thus more capable of scorching rock and earth until nothing can grow. Anything that might have helped life flourish in these is incessantly beaten with fierce winds till it's ground to sand. The things that live there are broken and twisted creatures, designed to thrive on the destruction of other lives.

It's no place for a man to walk into unprepared.

It's no place for a man to walk into period.

Yet, in one fashion or another, we are always walking into the desert. Always walking into that unknown land stretching out before us. Before the present. The desert could certainly be used to represent the future and the unknowns it can bring.

It works as an image of the future for those who are dreading it. And, for those who feel they have no future.

The desert, the future, is simply where they go to die.

That's not the way my imagination is running right now. Just saying.

No, I'm thinking of a different figurative desert.

I've been poking at working on my novel, Cold Lunch, now for about a month. I even put the DnD game on hold until I get it finished. But, it feels like I've been wondering in a desert. I seem to have lost the connection to the book, the river than once ran through this desert and made the fields fertile and full of new life and new ideas.

Putting a book down and walking away from it is a bad idea for any writer, because you can lose that connection. That river can run dry. And, most times I would say this is fatal for the novel.

But, I'm trying to pull a Frankenstein here.

I've been reading through what I had written previously trying to make it rain. If I can find that connection again, then the river will run again, and the fertile fields will return. I don't know if i'll find that connection though...

At this point, I'm starting to feel like I've put the DnD game on hold for no reason at all.

I dunno.

I'm going to go wonder through the desert some more. Maybe preform a rain dance.

Later kids.

Ryan

5-6-14/5-7-14

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Journal Excerpt 5-3-14

I don't normally do this, and it's not something that's going to become a habit, it just so happens that I had a really bright moment in my journal the other day. It was a moment that I thought was deep and profound, but I'm not sure if it will work that way in the light of day.

Anywho, here we go:

“I'm exhausted. I want to go to sleep. I want to go home. I want, I want, I want... I irritate myself sometimes. And, ya know, I really must not want to get ahead in life. If I did I believe I'd be busting my ass a little bit harder to get Cold Lunch written.”

(This section obviously isn't the deep profound moment. It's the way I start out a journal entry on a typical work day. And, yes, I do talk to myself in my journal... or something to that effect.)

“Why can't this shit be easy?”

“Well, writing is easy for you. You're a naturally creative person who can pretty much turn it on and off like a light switch.”

“I wouldn't go that far with it...”

“I would. There's proof on your f***ing computer that you can do this shit and you're sitting here whining about it. All you need to do to get this novel done is put some effort into it. If you spend half the time writing that you spend whining you'd have the book finished.”

“I'm not going to beat up on ya for the past. (Same speaker, new paragraph.) You didn't do this or that, yadda yadda yadda. You can't go back and change that. The only thing you can do now is change the future. You an only work with the here and now. The past is just that, the past, it's passed you by, it's gone, quit trying to go back to it. I know you're thinking a “but”... Don't. Hit that bitch with a shovel right now, and focus on the future. Now, say it with me:

“The past is the past. It's done and gone and I can't change it. The only thing I can do is live in the here and now. The only thing I can do is keep this shovel with me, and keep carrying on. Keep calm and carry on. And, always remember: Bitches love shovels.”

And, yeah, I felt that was kind of deep. At least I think it was for me. Anywho, that's all from me.

Later kids.

Ryan

5-6-14

Friday, May 2, 2014

Hydra



Hail Hydra!!

“Whenever you cut one head off, two will grow in it's place.”

Yeah, I've got Marvel on the mind right now, and Hydra is the opposing force to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agency in the Marvel universe. Certain entertaining things have happened to that organization in the recent movies that won't be mentioned here, but I find them entertaining. And, I haven't even seen said movies.

I should.

Meh, maybe later.

Anywho, a Hydra is a sort of giant lizard from Greek mythology. They have multiple heads, usually three at the very least, and when one of those heads is hacked off two more will grow in its lace. Hence the quote above. There are really only two ways to kill a Hydra. You can cut off the heads and apply an intense flame to the stump to cauterize the wound and prevent regeneration. Then you can also crush the Hydra, and I believe Hercules beat the Hydra by doing just that. He dropped a mountain on the monster (at least he did in the Disney movie), and powdered every bone in its body.

There have been other depictions of the Hydra as well. They're often presented as villainous creatures in fantasy literature and role playing games. In those depictions they're often closely related to dragons. Some Hydra can breath fire, while others exhale ice, but mostly I believe they just bite things.

“Get up on the Hydra's back!” or so says Phil (Philoctetes, Hercules's personal trainer in the Disney movie) during his little role in Kingdom Hearts II and I would vote him the most irritating characters in the game.


Why?

He repeats that damn quote about five thousand times during the fight with the Hydra. It's enough to drive a person insane. Extremely insane. Like hear it in your sleep insane.

And, now I feel as though I've run out of things to say. I could probably roll back over to the D&D thing and discuss how I could integrate the Hydra into my game. But, right now I've not done a lot of work which happens to be about zombies and vampires and takes place in modern day and is thus pretty far away from Greek mythology and the Hydra.

So, I'm out peeps!

Ryan

4-26-14