Oh snap! It's that time again!
Dear Diary,
I'm aware I meant to write sooner, but stuff just has been happening lately that time passed by without me realizing it. I hope I get to rectify it now and keep posting more frequently even though it seems that many friends and acquaintances who once posted often on the site are more or less gone. Not that it has ever deterred me before. I'm not one to abandon you that easily even if we had our little breakup, no sirree. ;)
To get things rolling, a brief summary of events since my last writing.
As for tGA--you guessed it!--I'm still posting there. We've had some rude comments here and there, but things have calmed down now as people have moved on. I intend to stay on as long as I can, though, as I'd at least want to finish my characters' stories if possible even after we moved on to Fourth Age (with a sadly unfinished Third Age story arc, but oh well). Thankfully some old-timers remain still, and we've even got some new blood even if some may take months to write a post. So far I've been grateful to be given the opportunity to kind of bridge the abrupt ending of Third Age plot with my characters' Fourth Age plot to give them closure. It's been fun expanding tGAWiki and fleshing out articles where I can and hopefully weave a nice narrative arc throughout all the ages. I know not everyone is necessary a fan of that stuff, but the beauty of tGA is that everyone gets to contribute and steer the plots in their direction or introduce their own new plots (as they have done) so it's all good.
I'm simply looking forward to seeing the culmination of years of character development from the perspective of new or less seen characters (Farah Sand, and Kareth d'Zarnagon) along with some surprising development for surviving characters like Unithien, Refan and Khalid. It's a bit of a shame that Nic hasn't had time to post lately to continue her characters' stories as I'd like to see her reactions to the development of the Andarian Empire and all the cool stories the players have come up with so far, but oh well. How many of my survive to the end remains to be seen as I like to be flexible; I do like inherent tragedy in my stories, so if they try to reach their happy endings, they've got to go through hell and beyond to earn it. And even with old foes like Totenkopfs and Clergy of Mardük gone, new enemies rise from the ashes of the old, so that should hopefully provide some interesting overarching narrative.
What I also look forward to is how willing other players are directing the plot. Over my years of tGA I've seen people relying on a select few people (mostly Council) directing the plot when they, themselves, should also help steer it. I've already seen hints of this in the current age too but that could be explained by the influx of new people who are still learning the ropes of RPing. How well they manage, and if they stick around long enough, remains to be seen, but so far they've been quite determined to continue their stories compared to folks from EoFF who don't seem to have the patience for this kind of stuff when I tested a tGA idea at their creative writing forums which only saw a few posts.
I've got to say, though, that I've really enjoyed writing for both Farah and Kareth. While they do share similarities with a few of my past characters, they're mostly free of the baggage and in especially Kareth's change we only get hints of what he's been and whether he's still villainous, amoral, or seeking redemption while most people in the world aren't aware of him being the once dreaded Witch-king. It should be interesting to see if his interactions with people other than the mercenaries are going to be as intriguing, but I hope for the best. I also have some ideas in mind for Farah who I hope gets a more prominent role in the story as I'd hate a female character like her to get sidelined by a male character when both serve as important functions in the plot. Time will tell, I guess, as I'd rather not force it when tGA is all about adapting the writing.
If any of mom's or sister's (or even brother's) friends are reading this bit: hi to you silly stalkers! I know whenever you're visiting my blog, so don't be shy. The internet knows everything and reveals your address to me, hehe! ;)
My brother Mika has found a new girlfriend, Pia, and they just had their engagement where my sister Maarit and I played music and sang. Even got offers from one of the official bands there to come work with them as a soloist, but that's a kind of dedication I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle as I've never been that good at singing stuff without looking at notes. Oh, the horror! :P
As for other life matters, still getting used to my sister's boyfriend Akseli who does have a...unique personality, shall we say. He's of a younger generation and quite different from sis's other boyfriends, and now it seems they'll get married next year. Now that I think of it, it's been a long time since our family witnessed a wedding; we've mostly seen funerals recently, so that should be a nice change of pace.
In contrast to my siblings and (most of?) my friends, my luck with relationships or dates hasn't really improved, but at this point in time I've just accepted the deal and take things slowly as projects and work tend to eat quite a bit of my time anyway. The few potential fun discussions I've had with various women these past two years haven't really led anywhere; visiting nightclubs is just such a tiresome prospect anyway because of loud and rude people frequenting it (often with just as obnoxious music choices), especially when pretty much all friends have moved to other cities or towns by now so I'm practically flying solo nowadays. It's a bit unfortunate that after all this time, I just haven't really found anyone with whom I would've "clicked"; I suppose I just haven't been looking at the right places and that my bar is just set too high. I suppose I should give Tinder a go if that's still a thing and see how it works. I suppose folks just aren't really interested in me as a person or because of my personality, but I am who I am, and I'd rather not make an extreme makeover just to please people even if it leads to ridicule at times. If anything, though, I've gotten compliments for my positivism, so that's something. ^^
I've been helping mom with chores and keeping the family home functioning; we even had quite big renovation a few years ago. Whether we keep the good ol' summer cottage, however, remains to be seen although it'll be sad to see it go if so. Granted, if we were to keep it, I'm not sure how good a guy I would be to keep it in shape as I'm not that good when it comes to renovating and fixing stuff, especially a villa which is now about 100 years old without electricity etc. and because of work eating quite a bit of my time nowadays. A lot of memories are there, though, even if we've had people vandalizing the place at times, luckily nothing major in these recent years *knocks on wood*. We've had some "berry thieves" though for the redcurrant, and I have a suspicion which people in the area might be responsible. I hope that next summer I have some sensible work shifts so I can drive to the cottage at critical weeks in late summer to catch the crooks red-handed. That should be an interesting experience if it were to happen.
Work's been hectic at Alko as usual (so no change there since last writing), and I'm now getting even more responsibilities. This is admittedly somewhat troubling to me as I know I'm not a fast worker and not good with money, and yet I need to work on the economic side of things by counting all the money, making orders etc. I hope I'll get the hang of it eventually. Bosses had to change their designated shops, so our former boss Seppo moved to the Alko at the city centre while we got a new, female boss, Kaija, from Kokkola. It's taken a while to get used to her different ways of doing things compared to Seppo, but thankfully we're getting along. I'm not sure whether the mood in the workplace is the best possible although thankfully all of us get along with one another most of the time; we've seen quite a bit of change as some people have graduated from various schools and left Alko, and only a few of us remain (including some of the older folk who haven't retired yet). The pay isn't particularly good, but as I don't spend much, I should manage. Finances would be easier with a spouse supporting, but c'est la vie.
Well, that wasn't that much for now, but at least it's a start, right? There's a lot more to write about (an catch up) still, but I'll leave more ruminations for later...hopefully not too late, though, as I'd rather not have as big pauses in writing as before. And in case friends young or old decide to take a peek after all this time (whether now or years from now): hi, and hopefully you're doing fine! :)
Yours,
Mikko
I'm aware I meant to write sooner, but stuff just has been happening lately that time passed by without me realizing it. I hope I get to rectify it now and keep posting more frequently even though it seems that many friends and acquaintances who once posted often on the site are more or less gone. Not that it has ever deterred me before. I'm not one to abandon you that easily even if we had our little breakup, no sirree. ;)
To get things rolling, a brief summary of events since my last writing.
As for tGA--you guessed it!--I'm still posting there. We've had some rude comments here and there, but things have calmed down now as people have moved on. I intend to stay on as long as I can, though, as I'd at least want to finish my characters' stories if possible even after we moved on to Fourth Age (with a sadly unfinished Third Age story arc, but oh well). Thankfully some old-timers remain still, and we've even got some new blood even if some may take months to write a post. So far I've been grateful to be given the opportunity to kind of bridge the abrupt ending of Third Age plot with my characters' Fourth Age plot to give them closure. It's been fun expanding tGAWiki and fleshing out articles where I can and hopefully weave a nice narrative arc throughout all the ages. I know not everyone is necessary a fan of that stuff, but the beauty of tGA is that everyone gets to contribute and steer the plots in their direction or introduce their own new plots (as they have done) so it's all good.
I'm simply looking forward to seeing the culmination of years of character development from the perspective of new or less seen characters (Farah Sand, and Kareth d'Zarnagon) along with some surprising development for surviving characters like Unithien, Refan and Khalid. It's a bit of a shame that Nic hasn't had time to post lately to continue her characters' stories as I'd like to see her reactions to the development of the Andarian Empire and all the cool stories the players have come up with so far, but oh well. How many of my survive to the end remains to be seen as I like to be flexible; I do like inherent tragedy in my stories, so if they try to reach their happy endings, they've got to go through hell and beyond to earn it. And even with old foes like Totenkopfs and Clergy of Mardük gone, new enemies rise from the ashes of the old, so that should hopefully provide some interesting overarching narrative.
What I also look forward to is how willing other players are directing the plot. Over my years of tGA I've seen people relying on a select few people (mostly Council) directing the plot when they, themselves, should also help steer it. I've already seen hints of this in the current age too but that could be explained by the influx of new people who are still learning the ropes of RPing. How well they manage, and if they stick around long enough, remains to be seen, but so far they've been quite determined to continue their stories compared to folks from EoFF who don't seem to have the patience for this kind of stuff when I tested a tGA idea at their creative writing forums which only saw a few posts.
I've got to say, though, that I've really enjoyed writing for both Farah and Kareth. While they do share similarities with a few of my past characters, they're mostly free of the baggage and in especially Kareth's change we only get hints of what he's been and whether he's still villainous, amoral, or seeking redemption while most people in the world aren't aware of him being the once dreaded Witch-king. It should be interesting to see if his interactions with people other than the mercenaries are going to be as intriguing, but I hope for the best. I also have some ideas in mind for Farah who I hope gets a more prominent role in the story as I'd hate a female character like her to get sidelined by a male character when both serve as important functions in the plot. Time will tell, I guess, as I'd rather not force it when tGA is all about adapting the writing.
If any of mom's or sister's (or even brother's) friends are reading this bit: hi to you silly stalkers! I know whenever you're visiting my blog, so don't be shy. The internet knows everything and reveals your address to me, hehe! ;)
My brother Mika has found a new girlfriend, Pia, and they just had their engagement where my sister Maarit and I played music and sang. Even got offers from one of the official bands there to come work with them as a soloist, but that's a kind of dedication I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle as I've never been that good at singing stuff without looking at notes. Oh, the horror! :P
As for other life matters, still getting used to my sister's boyfriend Akseli who does have a...unique personality, shall we say. He's of a younger generation and quite different from sis's other boyfriends, and now it seems they'll get married next year. Now that I think of it, it's been a long time since our family witnessed a wedding; we've mostly seen funerals recently, so that should be a nice change of pace.
In contrast to my siblings and (most of?) my friends, my luck with relationships or dates hasn't really improved, but at this point in time I've just accepted the deal and take things slowly as projects and work tend to eat quite a bit of my time anyway. The few potential fun discussions I've had with various women these past two years haven't really led anywhere; visiting nightclubs is just such a tiresome prospect anyway because of loud and rude people frequenting it (often with just as obnoxious music choices), especially when pretty much all friends have moved to other cities or towns by now so I'm practically flying solo nowadays. It's a bit unfortunate that after all this time, I just haven't really found anyone with whom I would've "clicked"; I suppose I just haven't been looking at the right places and that my bar is just set too high. I suppose I should give Tinder a go if that's still a thing and see how it works. I suppose folks just aren't really interested in me as a person or because of my personality, but I am who I am, and I'd rather not make an extreme makeover just to please people even if it leads to ridicule at times. If anything, though, I've gotten compliments for my positivism, so that's something. ^^
I've been helping mom with chores and keeping the family home functioning; we even had quite big renovation a few years ago. Whether we keep the good ol' summer cottage, however, remains to be seen although it'll be sad to see it go if so. Granted, if we were to keep it, I'm not sure how good a guy I would be to keep it in shape as I'm not that good when it comes to renovating and fixing stuff, especially a villa which is now about 100 years old without electricity etc. and because of work eating quite a bit of my time nowadays. A lot of memories are there, though, even if we've had people vandalizing the place at times, luckily nothing major in these recent years *knocks on wood*. We've had some "berry thieves" though for the redcurrant, and I have a suspicion which people in the area might be responsible. I hope that next summer I have some sensible work shifts so I can drive to the cottage at critical weeks in late summer to catch the crooks red-handed. That should be an interesting experience if it were to happen.
Work's been hectic at Alko as usual (so no change there since last writing), and I'm now getting even more responsibilities. This is admittedly somewhat troubling to me as I know I'm not a fast worker and not good with money, and yet I need to work on the economic side of things by counting all the money, making orders etc. I hope I'll get the hang of it eventually. Bosses had to change their designated shops, so our former boss Seppo moved to the Alko at the city centre while we got a new, female boss, Kaija, from Kokkola. It's taken a while to get used to her different ways of doing things compared to Seppo, but thankfully we're getting along. I'm not sure whether the mood in the workplace is the best possible although thankfully all of us get along with one another most of the time; we've seen quite a bit of change as some people have graduated from various schools and left Alko, and only a few of us remain (including some of the older folk who haven't retired yet). The pay isn't particularly good, but as I don't spend much, I should manage. Finances would be easier with a spouse supporting, but c'est la vie.
Well, that wasn't that much for now, but at least it's a start, right? There's a lot more to write about (an catch up) still, but I'll leave more ruminations for later...hopefully not too late, though, as I'd rather not have as big pauses in writing as before. And in case friends young or old decide to take a peek after all this time (whether now or years from now): hi, and hopefully you're doing fine! :)
Yours,
Mikko