Independent Author Day By Day Series, Lost Souls I write M/M Romances of many genres. I use this blog for my writing as well as things that interesting me. That usually includes TV shows that has M/M relationships. If I get into a show, I will write about it here.
Amazon.com: In Spite of Malice (Triumvirate Book 1) eBook: Holder, Y.F.: Kindle Store
So I created a pen name for a new series I am working on. It isn’t erotica, and not romanced focus, but there will be romance in later books. This one doesn’t have romance in it.
I don’t think it would be considered YA, because there is not a main female character. Plus, there is no romance in this one. I do have a gender fluid male side character. They are there to help balance out my main character who is an asshole.
Here is the description:
Josh Crowley followed the rules of life, because he felt like he didn’t have a choice. At school, he joined football because of his large build. When he was home, he had everything he needed from his well-off family. Those at school admired him, but they admired a false persona. There was a darkness inside of him wanting to get out, wanting to hurt those around him. On the verge of his eighteenth birthday, strange dreams, and conflicting emotions manifested. An outside darkness was interrupting his life. He was something more than just a human. With new knowledge, he realized where all his hatred came from. Now, he had the power to do something about the things he despised. However, there were forces of good and evil that would stand in his way. He would become the ruler of this world, breaking through any obstacle in his path.
An urban fantasy taking place in the fictional city of Aubin, in the greater metropolitan area of Ste. Savine. It is a story about demons, fallen, werewolves, vampires, and angels. Three major demons, called the Triumvir, stand in Josh's way.
Keep getting these spam messages about guys wanting to try their first time with a guy. I mean, is it spam? Did I just miss out on an opportunity of a lifetime?
I was just thinking of this lately because I had come across a song that I thought sounded good from the snippet that I got. I went to listen to it and in the first verse of the song had the word "fucking" not once, but twice. Then he had "shit" in the chorus, then "fucking" again in the second verse. Then of course we come to the chorus again with the word "shit." Next the bridge comes and the word "fucking" is there too. That is a total of 7 curse words in one song.
Now, I'm not a prude, I don't mind curse words. I use them occasionally. But this song isn't a rap song, or other spoken word songs. It's a pop song. To be a pop hit. (This is also an independent song writer and singer).
I really like his voice, but with so many curse words it takes me out of the song. There is no clean version, and the ones that were made by others have huge skips in them because of it. I can't enjoy it.
It really sucks, because he is a good singer, and the instrumental is great.
One of my favorite songs is Crawl Outta Love by Illenium. The word "fucking' is in that song too, but only shows up three times, and it is in a more powerful position, I feel. The other song, they just seemed like filler words, and there was no reason for it. Except to keep the beat down, as well as rhyming scheme.
A good video about Wiccan aka Billy, Wanda’s son or Scarlet Witch. Since WandaVision introduced them. I was excited that maybe they will finally create the Young Avengers. Billy and Teddy (Hulkling) are a couple in the comics. I hope there is a movie of them.
Watched the trailer for the new movie. I really loved the first one, and while watching the trailer I was happy that they were doing their own things in this. Obviously it is still taking similar story points from the first one and reusing them. I think maybe it was supposed to be a remake but they changed it. I’m glad it is a sequel.
I really would have liked the idea more that Sarah has a child and teaches her the craft. Then either Nancy has a kid or Nancy herself gets revenge. Maybe say Sarah does die since it is supposed to be dark, and Sarah’s child kills Nancy.
Anyway, I still like what I saw. The only thing that I don’t care for as much is how much more fantasy the magic is. I liked the first one because the magic was based in ‘reality’. This magic is like ‘Charmed’ magic.
Other than that, I hope the movie is good and does well. Maybe people will hate it and there will be a small cult following.
So much has happened that I completely forgot about my Tumblr, lol. I’ve been writing, and with the virus, and all the crazy things going on, my mind has been elsewhere. I’m really worried about this election coming up and hope to vote Trump out. So much division has been brought out. I believe it has always been there, but because of Trump people have decided it is okay now to be hateful and racist to those that are considered ‘other.’
I hope for sanity to return to the United States. We are no longer a strong country. Every other country is laughing at us.
The Last of Us Part II came out and it is getting review bombed by people because of a few reasons. I want to go over some of that.
Spoilers
1. They are homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, assholes that want to destroy the game.
2. Some people genuinely don’t like how they handled the death of Joel, and the overall story.
3. Some don’t like how they handled the trans character, Lev.
I’ll start my way from the bottom up.
A lot of the hate I hear from those that are transgendered is that they don’t like that Lev is referred to by their deadname. I think we have to remember that video games are an art form as well. They draw from life, like TV and books. In this post apocalyptic world we shouldn’t expect a progressive group of people. The outbreak happened around 2013. Gay marriage wasn’t legal until 2015.
When you write something you draw from things that have happened to those in the community, and the struggles they go through. If you are writing something dark, you want to show that darkness, that pain. What I think the writers for this game wanted to do was to show how Lev was treated by the religious cult. The cult isn’t full of good people. They are the bad guys. Do you expect bad people to respect someone who is different from them; to call them by the name and gender they wish to be referred to. If they did, I would not think of them as completely awful, just misguided. You also wouldn’t have the story arc of Lev and his sister.
I also think it is understandable to have Lev want his mother to love him. Wanting to belong. We all want to belong. A lot of people who are different and come out to their parents want that parent to comfort them and accept them. When they don’t get it they don’t just say “screw you” many can’t. Many are children who can’t leave home. They have to conform to even survive. It is a terrible thing, and it is easy for outsiders to say they should just leave. But it isn’t easy.
Even though it seems stupid that Lev tried to go back, it is understandable. The fact you have to look at is every single “good” person refers to Lev by his name, and gender. Even some of the bad guys that aren’t part of the cult.
One of the characters calls Dina and Ellie a dyke. That’s a hurtful word, but it is to show what kind of character they are. This isn’t a feel good story, and even in feel good stories, there needs to be someone that the character overcomes and becomes better for it. That character becomes the hero.
____
Moving on to those who genuinely didn’t care for the writing.
I will say the writing is basic. It feels like it wanted to do something but couldn’t really do it. This would have worked better, I think, for a TV show. I know they are producing one, so I hope that turns out well.
They wanted us to feel for the people we killed and the animals too. They wanted a reaction. However, they should have given us an option to feel that way or not. We should have been able to not kill dogs or humans. If we were caught we should have been able to knock humans out. With how they are making ammo for guns, I think they could make tranquilizers for animals and humans as well. I think this would have helped the feeling that some had with your character killing so many people just to let Abby go in the end.
Ellie has kill so many people along the way that it gives the ending less of an impact. She lets the one person who killed Joel go, while all those others had to die. Maybe their family members will get revenge now. The cycle continues even if she doesn’t kill Abby.
Overall, I think it is a flimsy excuse for a story. I don’t fully understand why everyone was wanting revenge on Joel. I know that they were a part of the fireflies that Joel attacked, but they are in a new group now. It is weird that the leader would allow them to go after one man. I could understand Abby going herself, and maybe one other person.
I can understand Joel letting his guard down after all these years and trusting these people. I can see Abby realizing it is him just by his name, because he was where he was supposed to be. I think maybe she should have asked “Joel Miller” first before shooting his leg, but maybe just hearing the name made her lose her mind. There could be another Joel, but not likely.
The way Jesse died was anticlimactic. For a game I would have wanted more, but I think I can see what they are getting at with it. Wanting to make it so nonchalant about it adds annoyance. I’m not angry at the game, but I think they wanted to arouse anger in those who did play it.
I thought that Abby still not killing Ellie after both Owen and Mel was not realistic. Even if she didn’t care for Owen that way, or liked Mel, it was still someone she was close with. To only throw up at the sight of them dead and then not want to kill any of them after Lev basically tells her not to is odd.
After that Ellie tries to live her life. But is still haunted by the past. She gets a chance to go after Abby again. I can understand somewhat in finding her, maybe putting an end to it and talking. It could help the pain. But to have her go through all of that and then not do it because she flashed back to Joel was a little much.
Again, all this death, and she can’t kill the one person responsible for her pain. Maybe if an image of JJ and Dina appeared in her head instead of Joel, I could have accepted it better. But I think Joel would have killed Abby.
A part of me would have wanted to see a story of Ellie going down a path of hatred. Closing herself off from others instead of her forming a relationship with Dina. Still have Dina there, and try to stop Ellie, but Ellie can’t. Make Ellie into someone who basically sells their soul. Make her evil, and not caring who she kills along the way. Then when you get to Abby and Ellie is about to kill her, the game stops and then goes down Abby’s path.
Then after playing as Abby up to the same point. It gives you an option as playing as either Abby still or switching to Ellie. Then at the climax you can either kill the other or let them go. That way it is your choice. Even if they decided to do a sequel to this one, they can just chose which one is canon.
I felt the game was really disjointed with the flashbacks. I wouldn’t know how to fix it though. I almost feel they should have started off with Abby when she was with her father. Then the years after that. Have it be Abby first and then end with Ellie since it jumps around back to her anyways. I just didn’t like the jumps. Also time skips were confusing, and sometimes you think there was a time skip but there wasn’t. The end was all over the place in that regard.
___
For the very first reason in the list, I think I don’t have to go in that deep. These people see women as less than. They see LGBT as less than. They want to stop anything like it from becoming mainstream. They are sad and pathetic. They try to mask their hate for the game by saying it is because of Joel’s death. It’s not. They call Abby trans because she is muscular. (I will say that she is modeled after a real person, but in this world I think it would have been hard to form that muscle mass without a proper diet, but maybe they do make supplements.) However, that doesn’t make her trans.
Because the game does have some problems with the story, it becomes hard to criticize it without looking like one of these idiots. Because people actually have some complaints, they latch onto it.
___
In the end, it isn’t an awful game. I do think it needed more time with the story writing aspect. Maybe that’s why they were going to postpone it indefinitely. They wanted to change some things, but then it leaked and they were like “screw it.” I don’t know. The gameplay, graphics, all the tech stuff ran beautifully, so nothing was wrong on that side. They tried to say it was because of the virus, but I’m not sure. I just feel that they may have wanted to redo some things, and couldn’t because of social distancing so they couldn’t get the actors back in.
That’s just speculation though.
Anyway, I’ve said what I think the problem is with the game. I just want an option to not kill people or dogs. It would have helped with the ending. Even have the ability to let Owen and Mel go. Not make Ellie a killer. It could have changed a lot and made the story better. Or just go for it like I said and make her even darker.
You've never looked at a man and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with his eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on Earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of Hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be his angel.
So I like writing parody songs for fun when I’m wanting to take a break from my main stuff. I recently heard the song “Levitating” by Dua Lipa and every time she said Levitating it sounded like Irritated. So I wrote a few verses of my parody song “Irritated”
I don’t know if I’ll do more. It is a long song and I want to change to different things that irritate people.
It’s not perfect but I like some of the lines, maybe I’ll mess with this part some more.
A song I’m listening to right now. Just found it by listening to songs on youtube. Sometimes the recommendations get it right. Love this song by Illenium - Crawl Outta Love, and Annika Wells has a great voice
