black - grey - white

evil - neutral - good

the basic elements of most books and films

who do you side with?

i have no idea why, but i have a tendency of liking the wrong side - the evil one that is

i simply find evil characters more intriguing, even appealing

no, not in real life, but in literature particularly

i don't know why, but it always turns out like that

even in cases where i don't know that a certain character will later turn out to be evil

evil is forbidden, thus it's interesting

at least that is how i justify my hunger for evil characters

they can stretch the rules of morality to their liking

they lack (or posses?) something that normal characters do not

face it

without the antagonists books and films would, in many cases, be plain boring

there is however one big flaw in siding with the "wrong" guys

it's wrong - so they will never (or extremely rarely) win

they'll be eliminated

erased

such greatness to waste

perhaps, in a way, that is the charm of the wicked characters

and yet, occasionally, i do find myself longing for a change

a story - not horror - where the antagonist comes out at the top

because after years of seeing my favourite characters getting eliminated i'm starting to find it tiresome

the norm doesn't need to be changed

but i want just a slight diversion from the norm

just once in a while

....

my advise to you all:

do not fall for the "evil ones" if you aren't prepared to deal with a lot of sorrow and disappointment

ok, i might be exaggerating just a tiny bit

we're talking about fictional works after all

who dies and lives is just fiction

but still

as a change i'd love to read something where my favourite character doesn't die

luckily, from time to time, i favour characters other than the malicious ones 

ironically though

when the character i prefer is not a sinister one

in 9 cases out of 10

that person will end up dying anyway

i'm not even joking

i think someone is secretly trying to make fun of me

well, at least now

after 20+ years on earth

i am always prepared for the death of my favourite character

no matter the genre and no matter the character's disposition

i wonder...

is this punishment for finding the dark side in fictional works attractive?

good couldn't exist without it's counterpart anyway

so then, why is liking evil such a taboo?

i wonder, i really do...

Time, Art Thou My Friend or Foe?

My last post, to my horror, was in October last year... and it feels like yesterday!!
What have I accomplished since, you may ask, and I will answer.
Now that we are living several months into the future you'd think I surely must have done something, but no. Nothing. Nothing even remotely significant at least, which in a way is quite depressive.

Time flies. It really does, and I don't like it one bit.

When is my 5 minutes of fame ever going to come??
Well, at the pace I'm living my life at the moment, the answer is most likely never. Again, very depressive. Then again, this is probably true for most people, me included.
But hey, it doesn't stop me dreaming of possibilities far beyond my reach. It's living with those delusions in mind I survive my boringly routine day-to-day life - especially now, after the school start.

Time, my dear friend, why can't you slow down just for my sake? Just freeze for a month or two, or perhaps four. If you did I'd be forever grateful (or at least for a while), I promise!

How I wouldn't like to finish all the games I'm currently playing, not to mention all the books I'm reading. I'm not even sure how many I am in the middle of reading at the moment... probably too many though. I'd also want to practice drawing, so I could get better and be able to draw awesome pictures. And, I also need more time to finish writing down the millions and millions of story-ideas that pop up in my head at a relatively regular pace, not to mention my older stories that are still in need of some touching up... If I only had more time I'd also spend hours playing and cuddling with my cats, even more than I do now, I could dedicate a whole day to them. Not to forget, I'd practice kendo everyday too, so that I could improve my development. I would even finish all of my school work!! All this, if I only had more time...

But, I don't.... And for the coming 6 months, I wont have this sort of leisure at my hands either...
My schedule looks something like: work, school, school work, sleep, eat, cleaning, evening-school, books, research, work practice, school, cats, thesis, cooking, hobby, raging at computer, writing reports etc, etc. Not much time for any extra fun in other words... Sometimes I wonder if my nerves will manage to deal with all the stress this coming half a year will cause me, but I suppose only time will tell...

Something tells me though, that my so-called dear friend time will turn a deaf ear to my wishes of freezing time for a while, even though I so badly would need a breather, even if just a short one... (note that I'm saying this already on the first day of school...)

Seriously, how do people have time to do everything they want, and still manage to do everything they have to? If anyone has a solution please share it with me, because I want to know... I need to know!!

(a nagging voice in the back of my head tells me it is impossible to reach such a heavenly state of being, where you'd actually have time to do everything and anything, but I'm going to keep ignoring it as long as I live... After all, ignorance is bliss, sometimes)

Until next time, whenever that may be!

Spontaneous Writing

I wonder what brought on this topic...and at this hour...
Will I ever learn?
Most likely I won't....

Suddenly, as I should have been going to bed, I felt like giving spontaneous writing a go. So here I sit now, typing away instead of catching valuable hours of sleep...

OK, so I made up a system for myself. I'll put my iPod on shuffle and write whatever comes to mind during a song. I'll let the music be my sole inspiration (it should be noted that I pay no attention whatsoever to the lyrics, just the music and melody etc.). I'll do this for the 5 first tracks my iPod randomly chooses, and each song will be a new "story".

Band - Song (playtime)  <-- this is how I'll title my "stories"

Also, because of the time limit I banned any use of dictionaries etc. so I can't promise good quality stuff... Not that I think this system would create any epic stories anyway, but lack of proper wording, vocabulary and TIME might cause a lot of strangeness, so keep this in mind and be prepared for whatever!

And, here I go!



Moran - Stage Gazer (4:02)

Swirling, it is all swirling around me.
A mess of colours.
We move way too fast on the highway. I'm sure of it.
Afraid we will crash.
The lights illuminating the dark road mix in with the dark greens, blues and greys of the landscape.
My head is spinning. I should never have tried that drug, I knew something was off with it... but at the time it had seemed like a good idea.
In the middle of it all I realize I'm actually not outside. I'm in a club, dancing. The lights are flashing.
It's hot and sweaty, my clothes cling to my body. I bump into someone and loose my footing.
Falling to the floor I hit my head. No one notices...
People trample all over me. It hurts.


Kent - Ansgar & Evelyn (4:17)

Bubbles. Bubbles. Are they made of soap the little girl ponders. They float in the air, lightly, higher and higher. Where did they come from, she wonders.
She turns her head slowly, trying to locate the source of the mysterious bubbles. But, she cannot. They just seem to appear out of thin air. Then rise to the heights, until they disappear from her sight again. She reaches out a small, pale hand to touch the soapy surface of a bubble floating close to her short, wavy hair. It felt warm, and slippery. Weird.
Why would a bubble made of soap be warm? The small girl was quite astonished by this fact. Dumbstruck even. Then, working her mind to its limits, she decided the bubbles couldn't be made of soap, but some mysterious substance. Though what it was, she couldn't tell.


The Rasmus - Raggatip (3:23)

"Chill, just take it easy" that's what she says, smiling towards me lazily. I wish I could be as carefree as her. Looking at her part of me is truly envious, it seems like she has no care in the world. Completely oblivious to what others might think of her. It must be wonderful.
The pressure of today's society is really killing me. I have to please, serve and meet everyone with a smile. I'm slowly losing my sanity. That's why it's so refreshing to see her. She's wearing clothes way too big for her, and they are way too colourful to ever be considered the norm. I wish I had the courage to be me, but as things are now, I'm suffocated by society. But how I wish to be a free spirit...


Vargasången (3:08)   <-- from Astrid Lindgren's "Ronia the Robber's Daughter"

In the long grass on a meadow far north the fairies are dancing.
Around and around goes their dance.
A lonely rabbit watches them in amazement as they move graciously in the damp grass, the droplets of dew glistening in the first rays of morning sunlight.
The small creatures laugh and dance, trying to lure lost wanderers to dance with them - till death - but tonight no one has spotted them. The malicious creatures couldn't be less bothered though, cheerful beings as they are by nature they take things as they come, dancing away. Enjoying themselves. There is also a day tomorrow.


Marilyn Manson - 15 (4:21)

Dull, muffled sounds can be heard each time the camel lowers its cloven hoofs down on the compact sand of the vast desert. Slowly it walks forward, at a set pace, almost invisible towards the brownish sand.
The camel is tired, it has walked for days. It's almost out of water. And, all it can see is sand.
Despair fills the camels mind. Ironic, that it, a camel, should get lost in the desert.
No oasis in sight, not for nearly two weeks.
How it longs for water. Cool, transparent liquid to quench its tiring thirst.
How long can it keep walking?
Not even the camel itself knows.
But it is determined not to give up, not yet.



And, I'm finished!

Some of the songs were much easier to write to than others, but these are the kind of images that popped into my head as I listened. It was fun, but somehow very creatively draining. I'm not physically tired, but my mind feels rather empty, in a weird way.

Even as I look at my "stories" now I can't really process what I have written, so I better head of to bed and have a more proper look at this tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I'll have some revelations while rereading all this, or perhaps I won't...

Sleep Paralysis

This post is going to discuss sleep paralysis, and just not any sleep paralysis but the very one that I experienced!

It happened a fair number of nights ago, during a period I was very busy at school and therefore had a serious lack of proper sleep. I was literally getting about 2 to 3 hours of sleep per night for a week. It wasn't that I didn't want to sleep, but sleep did just not come to me. Maybe I was too stressed out, however, that's beside the point.

I always lie on my side when I sleep. Preferably my rights side, facing the wall. That is the way sleep comes to me the easiest. But, this night, for some reason, maybe because I had trouble falling asleep, I had chosen to lie on my left side. The last thing I remember from before falling asleep was looking at the alarm clock next to my bed, and panicking as it turned out to be about 3:20 am. Shortly after that sleep must have invaded my mind.

It all started out with a nightmare.

I was lying in a bed in a room that had two big windows. The special thing about this room was that the windows were not facing the outdoors, but the view they offered me was that of a corridor and many other rooms similar to the one I was sleeping in. It kind of reminded me of a classroom or something. Well, anyway, as I was lying in bed, about to fall asleep, I could hear a voice call out to me, which was a bit freaky in itself as I'm quite sure there was no one but me in this room.

"Aya tulee" it said. (It is Finnish for "Aya is coming")

Instantly I knew that Aya was the name of a ghost, and even though the dream me did not believe in such supernatural phenomena something coaxed me to lift my head and look at the empty corridors on the other side of the big windows. To my horror I noticed how the fluorescent lamps in the corridor, one after another, flickered and went dark. What was even worse was that the solid blackness was slowly working its way towards my room. Dream me got terrified and shutting my eyes tight I pressed my head towards the pillow and wrapped the covers tighter around my body. Then I just waited.

Eventually the darkness reached my room, and all of a sudden it felt like a significant drop in temperature. I could feel a presence, and I knew it was otherworldly. And it got worse! The creature/ghost/being, whatever it was, crawled up on my bed and finally settled down on top of me. Lying on my side I felt a distinct pressure in the area of my waist, just as if someone would be sitting on top of me. And, as if this wasn't enough, moments later I could feel a large palm press down on the right side of my face, forcing it lower down, crushing it deep into my pillow.

This is when I woke up. I remember opening my eyes and staring out at my own, real room. Naturally it was quite dark, as it was in the middle of the night, but I clearly remember seeing my desk, located just next to my bed. And I remember being utterly grateful I could see no more, because whatever it was that had crawled on top of me in my dream was still sitting there, holding me down, pushing my head towards my pillow.

I freaked out! Someone was sitting on top of me, pressing me down. I couldn't move. It felt as if my head would be crushed against my pillow, and the hand, because it really felt like a palm of a hand, just pushed down with more and more force. I felt a presence in my room, and I was convinced that it was not a good type of presence but that something was seriously out to harm me. My initial reaction was to scream, and I did, but, nothing came out. Well not a scream at least. It sounded more like a muffled wail. The pressure on my head was constantly growing in power, I could feel my heart beat frantically in my chest, and I'm sure I could hear deep, rugged breathing from somewhere above my head. I was so grateful though, that I wasn't facing upwards, but lying on my side, because it was only this that prevented me from seeing what my attacker looked like.

It must have been only about half a minute after I woke up that I started to regain my calm. It had been roughly half a year since I discussed sleep paralysis with both my friends and my brother, and as I was lying there it somehow struck me that this must be what all this horribleness is about. Sleep paralysis. As soon as this thought had travelled through my head the pressure slowly, but steadily, began to lessen and I started being able to move the fingers of the hand located under my pillow. It didn't take long until I was completely "free".

Even if I did realise it was sleep paralysis it took a good while to convince myself of that there no longer was an evil spirit in my room. I think what finally convinced me was that my cat was still sleeping peacefully in the same spot as he had before, and I was sure that he would have reacted if something bad had actually visited me. So I calmed a bit, picked up the one of my two pillows which had fallen to the floor, patted my cat and had a look at the time. 4:43 am. I hadn't slept but for an hour. I was dead tired, but too scared to fall asleep. I lay in bed for quite a while, trying to force my eyes to stay open even though they grew heavier by the second, threatening to fall close the moment I stopped concentrating on them. I couldn't get the previous experience out of my head and I was scared something similar would happen to me, were I to fall asleep thinking of it.

In the end I must have fallen asleep because the next time I opened my eyes my room was bright and the clock was already 9. The memories of what had happened were still crystal clear though, even now they remain extremely vivid.

Nothing has "visited" me since that one night, and thinking back at it I find it rather an interesting experience. However, once is enough! To tell the truth, some nights I'm still a little worried I might experience a sleep paralysis again, so I make sure to sleep on my right side, facing the wall.

Bittersweet Creativity

Creativity...how boring wouldn't life be without it?

I often ponder upon this question...

The answer is fairly simple though; life would be pretty damn boring without it!

Creativity, I guess, can show itself in many forms... Books, music, inventions, buildings, films, art, etc. The list probably has no end. So, when thinking about it, human life wouldn't be as we know it, were it not for creativity. Perhaps there would be no significant human life at all!

Creativity is wonderful.
It is, at least for me, a way to escape the daily, often stressful, life and dive into a world of marvel and wonder. A way to dream myself away; far, far, far away from the world as I know it. To just let go of my worries, and let them flow out on a blank sheet of paper in front of me...

It is very...relieving.

However, with great power comes great risk. How many awful things has not creativity lured the human race to invent and initiate?

Weapons, war, destruction...

Maybe we are not fit to handle the full power of creativity yet, not completely, and maybe we never will be...
Creativity seems to be unquenchable; even if we know better the drive and curiosity to create may lead us astray.

Yet, I would never give up creativity.   

All good things have their drawbacks, but this doesn't mean we shouldn't utilise what has been given to us. That, if something, would be stupid.
One has only to pay attention to how the gift one has been bestowed with is put to use. What can be used to destroy can also be used to save, and vice-versa, the choice is in the hands of the wielder. This is a case true for creativity as well.

Creativity is also something we all experience, at all ages. I recently found myself thinking of the comics I drew as a kid. The plots were extremely naïve and simple, filled with childish humour. But, the idea behind them and the simplicity itself really strike me as amazing today. I could never create like that anymore. Never make such an easy and everyday thing into an interesting story.
Even though my mind is still mine I cannot use it in the same way I once did, which in a way feels like a significant loss...
On the other hand I am sure I have gained plenty of new aspects and benefits to my thinking, but the creativity I once possessed is no longer with me...

The simplicity has been replaced with complexity...

As I sat here, writing, I suddenly got into the mood of creating. And, because the theme of this post is creativity, I decided to incorporate whatever creation I made.
I am no poet, so I don't know whether this qualifies as a poem, but it's my brain's response to Lunatic Soul's Where The Darkness Is Deepest. The music gives me shivers; it is looming and eerie, and yet so filled with emotions...

The Whisper

A voice that whispers sweetly, 

Murmurs in my ear,

A stream of tickling, hot air

A scream of desperation, 

Echoes in the dark,

A chorus of sad, desolate pleading

Pale fingers flexing slowly,

Clenching around my neck,

A lack of precious, essential breath

A vision growing blurry, 

A life that fades away,

A sound forever muffled,

.

.

.

The whisper was; farewell

The Irony...

You know those days when you just sit at home, doing absolutely nothing?
Aren't those days nice and relaxing?
I think so.
However, they don't seem as enticing anymore, not when experiencing them consecutively.

Ever since my vacation started I have been doing nothing!
It's not as if I wouldn't want to be creative, but the drive to write has left me.
Or rather, it's blocked.
Writer's block.

I have loads of material and ideas for stories, but to write them on paper seems impossible.
So, I'm hoping this post will somehow kick-start my urge to write again.

I just find it rather ironical that it is only after I got free time on my hands that this writer's block started.
When I was supposed to write my thesis I seemed to have no problem whatsoever to get sidetracked.
Maybe my urge to write stems from an urge of not wanting to deal with more tedious tasks.
I don't know.

But, being unable to write is slowly, but surely, driving me insane.
That is why I am going to do something radical.
I am going to start working on my thesis again, despite being on brake.
Anything, as long as it will help me out of this downswing.

But the irony of this situation...
To think I always thought that once I had vacation I'd be able to complete so many unfinished projects...

Writing on Writing

Why is some writing so much harder to do than other?

This is a perfect question to ask myself as I am currently writing this text, which is not the text I should technically be dedicating all my time to (my thesis)...

OK, let's be fair. The most probable reason that comes to mind is motivation, or lack thereof. The thing is though, I feel quite motivated to write my thesis, because I want it done and I even have plenty of things I could write. Yet, somehow, I cannot but stare at my almost empty word document, unable to type in even a single sentence that would make sense. Why?
Furthermore, I don't feel particularly prompted to write this either, but somehow the word just keep flowing out of my brain, effortlessly.

This brings us to the second most likely reason, the amount of effort it takes to write a certain text. Writing a thesis is, without question, a tedious and time-consuming process. From time to time it even makes you feel as if a simple click on the delete button could offer you salvation from all your problems (I'm sure I'd regret it the exact same second I clicked the button though, if I was ever to go through with such an act; literal suicide, as my brother called it).
On the other hand, as I am an active story writer, and write something almost every day, background research and spell-checking should be something I am used to. As a matter of fact, I don't even dislike it that much. Plus, I do have an honest and keen interest in my thesis topic, so why is it so hard?

A third reason that pops into mind is distractions. Oh, there is a multitude of things I'd rather do than write this one assignment. Play video games, work on my own stories, watch movies, take a walk, draw, you name it! I'd do just about anything else and yet, simultaneously, I want to write my thesis and wish I had the same drive to do it, but I don't... Why though?
I have even gone to such an extent where I have promised myself not to do any of the things I want, not until my thesis is finished. And, to most part I have actually kept this promise, but still, I make no progress... It's quite horrible really...

A fourth, and final, reason I can think of is the fact that I am "forced" to write the thesis. However, ultimately, it's really all in my hands. No one is actually making me write my thesis; I do it because I want to graduate. I do it for my own sake, in a similar manner to all my other writing, so why is it only the thesis that causes me such problems???

Maybe this is just a phase everyone has to go through when working on a major project...
I don't know, but I wish it will become clearer with time.... I really hope it will...