3193: The Templar Flame
So Spike will be at SPX this year, manifest and life prevailing, and I figured if I was going to say hello I might as well catch up* on her stuff. I plowed through most of Templar, AZ at work on Tuesday, catching up today. May not have been the best idea--it's not 100% work safe [ignoring language, more like 98... er, 95%]--but hey, bored.
*Did I ever mention having a resistance to actively seeking out EVERYTHING that might interest me? If not, somehow, read my last post...
I admit I don't find the overarching story as compelling as others. It's a little TOO slice-of-lifey with no evident "goal"--compared to... oh... dealing with a mysterious stranger being stalked by spirits or finding a killer fighting style--and I just can't feel where it's going. "What am I reading, exactly?" comes to mind a lot. I'm not saying I always prefer fantasy/sci-fi kinds of things, but sometimes--SOMETIMES--this writing style feels more like a journal in comic format without stretching the possibilities of the medium. [This is why even rehashed "summer blockbusters" are more popular than rehashes of Clueless or Bring It On, I'm sure.]
However--and this is what I think is the draw that keeps me reading--one of the signs of good writing is character variety. Certain "Artists" I Could Name make the mistake of basically having the same character copied over and over and just redressed in cut-and-paste palette-swapped outfits without that being the joke [though it's a very old joke even when it is], but I can definitely feel the personality behind each Templar character as very different from every other character, as though they are graphic transcriptions of real people. Any cloning there might be is intentional, a product of social cloning vs. laziness on the writer's part, such as [most of] the Jakes. Sure, a few characters may be similar, but only sort of, and in a few superficial areas vs. down to the last detail minus name, outfit, and hair/eye colour.
...I feel as though I should add to that, but I can't think of what, save that I realized I could use Blogspot as a lazy comic auto-formatting engine. [LJ, too, but Blogspot's easier to set up with multiple accounts the way I want them.] Granted, I'd have to update manually, but if I ever SOMEHOW manage to generate a backlog that would merit a dynamic script for that, I'll just hire someone to write a real one. Learning code this late in the game is tough without being able to devote a significant amount of time to it =p Wonder if I should try to adopt artsangel's schedule 9_9
It's turning out that I'm definitely a cat [vs. dog] person, a case only strengthened by having Helga around. She's far too needy for those of us currently living here, and everything she does gets on my nerves. For that matter, I can't really think of any dogs I've liked enough to want to be around them for very long, much less be their primary caretaker. Banshee and Layla are a little obnoxious, but their being cats instantly make them less obnoxious, if only because they aren't always in the way like Helga is. [Banshee is almost never around.]
Mum has hinted that she's giving Jess a move-out date, but I don't know if that is past/present/future. Certainly it would be nice not to HAVE to shut every door or worry that the gate's in place so Helga doesn't go eating out of things she shouldn't XP~~~ Also, jurburs being in Mum's room mean I don't really see them every day because it feels weird going in someone else's room all the time :/ It's almost as though I don't have them...
Time for art! [I did get some minimal progress, yesh]
*Did I ever mention having a resistance to actively seeking out EVERYTHING that might interest me? If not, somehow, read my last post...
I admit I don't find the overarching story as compelling as others. It's a little TOO slice-of-lifey with no evident "goal"--compared to... oh... dealing with a mysterious stranger being stalked by spirits or finding a killer fighting style--and I just can't feel where it's going. "What am I reading, exactly?" comes to mind a lot. I'm not saying I always prefer fantasy/sci-fi kinds of things, but sometimes--SOMETIMES--this writing style feels more like a journal in comic format without stretching the possibilities of the medium. [This is why even rehashed "summer blockbusters" are more popular than rehashes of Clueless or Bring It On, I'm sure.]
However--and this is what I think is the draw that keeps me reading--one of the signs of good writing is character variety. Certain "Artists" I Could Name make the mistake of basically having the same character copied over and over and just redressed in cut-and-paste palette-swapped outfits without that being the joke [though it's a very old joke even when it is], but I can definitely feel the personality behind each Templar character as very different from every other character, as though they are graphic transcriptions of real people. Any cloning there might be is intentional, a product of social cloning vs. laziness on the writer's part, such as [most of] the Jakes. Sure, a few characters may be similar, but only sort of, and in a few superficial areas vs. down to the last detail minus name, outfit, and hair/eye colour.
...I feel as though I should add to that, but I can't think of what, save that I realized I could use Blogspot as a lazy comic auto-formatting engine. [LJ, too, but Blogspot's easier to set up with multiple accounts the way I want them.] Granted, I'd have to update manually, but if I ever SOMEHOW manage to generate a backlog that would merit a dynamic script for that, I'll just hire someone to write a real one. Learning code this late in the game is tough without being able to devote a significant amount of time to it =p Wonder if I should try to adopt artsangel's schedule 9_9
It's turning out that I'm definitely a cat [vs. dog] person, a case only strengthened by having Helga around. She's far too needy for those of us currently living here, and everything she does gets on my nerves. For that matter, I can't really think of any dogs I've liked enough to want to be around them for very long, much less be their primary caretaker. Banshee and Layla are a little obnoxious, but their being cats instantly make them less obnoxious, if only because they aren't always in the way like Helga is. [Banshee is almost never around.]
Mum has hinted that she's giving Jess a move-out date, but I don't know if that is past/present/future. Certainly it would be nice not to HAVE to shut every door or worry that the gate's in place so Helga doesn't go eating out of things she shouldn't XP~~~ Also, jurburs being in Mum's room mean I don't really see them every day because it feels weird going in someone else's room all the time :/ It's almost as though I don't have them...
Time for art! [I did get some minimal progress, yesh]