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The Turning Point [not dead journal!]
6 years ago
Hey guys!
Been a while since I’ve done a journal (and a lot of other things), so I thought I’d pool together a few things I’ve wanted to talk about.
So first off, back in the summer I turned 26.
This is significant for a few reasons, but to me, it’s significant because I met a landmark in my life.
You see, at age 13, my family moved to a different state to avoid the literal storms and natural disasters of our former home. It’s comforting to know that, even if we stayed, our old house did not receive much damage, but ultimately, I think the move has been for the better. I have had a lot more opportunities and made a great deal of friends here that I will cherish forever.
I would constantly acknowledge, though, that the majority of my life so far had been spent in my home state, and where I am now represented the smaller portion. But that is what has changed with this birthday. I have now spent about 13 years there and 13 years here, so now the time is evenly split.
From now on, however, this new state will have been my home for the majority of my life, and that’s a significant change in perspective to me. It’s altering the way I look at myself and how I can identify myself as a person.
Second…work has been tough.
In a previous journal, I had mentioned that I was given a “permanent” position at work with a new department, Tier 2. I had a FANTASTIC time there for a few months. The work was easier and fewer and farther between, and I had made some stronger connections in the tight-knit group of people I worked with. The pay wasn’t any better here, but it remained consistent rather than needing to meet some quality requirements to keep the rate (which I was meeting anyway), and I was getting insurance/benefits through them now that I was no longer a seasonal employee. With the combination of everything, I wasn’t terrified to come into work, and instead I maybe even looked forward to it. It was the best job I’ve ever had.
In a way, though, it was actually too good to be true. There was less work because the department wasn’t reaching the workload they were expecting, so they had basically promoted about a dozen more people than they needed. On the first day of June 2018, I was brought into a conference room with about a dozen others in the department and told that we would be going back to our original positions because of this.
My heart sank at this. I dreaded going back to my old position, but I needed the work and the pay/benefits, so I said nothing and went back. For a little while, it was okay, as they had me doing only one more reasonable portion of my old work types. But that didn’t last long, and they eventually put me back on everything.
I endured through the excruciating old position for nearly 4 months, but then another opportunity arose. My job was looking for a few volunteers to go to a different department, which was basically the same thing I was doing but for the region of Washington state rather than California. I hated what I was doing currently enough and did not see any sign of change coming, so I volunteered.
Little did I know that the Washington position is worse than my old one. I’m doing more things than the California position, including new things I was never trained for in California and never wanted to do, like going over insurance claims. It hasn’t been better, and that’s what I’ve been stuck with since late September.
And to make matters WORSE, not even a WEEK after I volunteered, some changes happened at the company and the California position wasn’t going to be a thing anymore. People that were still working on the California side at the time were being moved to other departments, so if I had chosen NOT to switch over to Washington, I could have gone back to Tier 2!
Once the Fall passed and Open Enrollment was ending, I reached out to Tier 2 supervisors to basically point out that things were slowing down on my end, and if they needed more people, they could bring me back on. Initially, it didn’t sound that professional. The first thing I actually did was half-jokingly shout out “take me back” to my old Tier 2 supervisor, and surprisingly they said they would work on it. So that gave me a little bit of hope, I guess.
But I’ve waited so long to do this journal that even MORE shit has happened at work!
That supervisor is no longer there, and even though the new one shared their interest in taking me back, Tier 2 is now the department being disbanded this year. THEY’RE all being moved to different departments now! So now I’m just stuck in this department I don’t like at all, with my only option being MAYBE switching to some entirely different department on the other side of the building if shit goes down. My recent track record suggests any other department I choose to go for would likely be worse than what I’m doing now, based on my switch from California to Washington. However, if the new departments have nothing to do with health insurance, it can’t possibly be as bad.
On the bright side of this job, though, I have survived now 2 ramp-downs and have held a job for about a year and a half.
The job has also recently given raises, so now instead of making $12 an hour at the most I’m making $13 at the least, sometimes even $14 if I show up every day! I have heard whispers of them planning to change THAT too since we’re ramping down, so I’ll have one other reason to hate work if they fuck that up.
So anyway, yeah, work has been crazy and I haven’t been doing much on this end as a result.
A friend of mine recently asked for help in recording a song parody, though, and that actually got me to do stuff with my drum set for the first time in like…geez…two years? It’s been great reacquainting myself with my musical hobby and getting my set fixed up. I posted a couple pictures of it on my Twitter account if anyone noticed. But it was a lot of fun doing that, and now I’m a drummer again and making regular trips to Guitar Center.
On to New Year’s Resolutions (because yes, it’s been THAT long since I’ve done a journal), I’m hoping to do more on these sites and with you guys in addition to figuring out where the hell I’m going to live for the latter half of this year. This journal will at least be a good start to getting back on track here and bringing a few things up to date.
I am SO behind with the things I want to do. Not even just writing stories and possibly doing art or song recordings, but I’m even behind on journals! Want to know HOW behind? I still want to go back to my thoughts on Guardians Vol. 2, as well as talk about The Last Jedi and Infinity War! Yep, that behind!
As for my big projects for these sites, I want to go into some of them in a little more detail so people know where I’m at mentally.
First off, the future of the SUPERverse:
I still think about the SUPERverse on a daily basis. The characters, the plots, where I can take things… Please don’t think that I’m not thinking about it just because I haven’t uploaded any recent chapters for it. I have a LONG history of my brain going so much farther with my projects than me hands ever do in writing them, but I love superhero stuff and this project so much, and I assure you I do not want to kill it off any time soon. I am really hoping to get my ass back in gear and finish up the few chapters I have in progress that have been sitting around for a while. Among these are a new chapter for “Thunder Pup”, along with the first chapters of “Fire Fox Zero: Mark the Dumper” (a prequel to the current “Fire Fox” story), “Tall Tails” (a new story that establishes another pivotal corner of the universe), and the long-awaited “Psi-Kitty” spin-off story.
As a reminder, these stories will appear on the accounts dedicated to the project, no longer on these personal accounts.
I am also looking for a new concept artist for the project, as my friend Koopus has been similarly busy with work and other things and has not been taking commissions like he used to.
Some of may have noticed that I have been testing the FA and Twitter artist Lundo a lot, as he has drawn several of the SUPERverse characters for commissions at this point at my request. He is a nice guy, easy to get in touch with and reasonably priced, and I do love his art style quite a lot. We’ll see just how far things go with him.
I am only slightly concerned with the state of superhero movies in relation to my motivation for this project, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe spurred my desire to make a superhero universe of my own. With the main event “Avengers: Endgame” right around the corner and the future of the MCU not entirely set in stone, I’m conscious of the possibility of motivation decreasing after this movie ages. The MCU has also got me interested in comics themselves and other forms of Marvel/DC media, however, so I don’t think it will be the end. Plus, maybe DC will be turning things around some more and flesh out their universe to a pleasing degree. At least we’re getting James Gunn to do “Suicide Squad 2” AND “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”! ^^
The future of KINGDOM HEARTS: THE GREATER CHAIN:
I posted concept art for this project several years ago and still have not done much in the way of writing it. But this and the SUPERverse will be the two big projects that I focus on at this point.
Part of the issue with TGC has been starting it. I haven’t found exactly the right way to do it yet, but I have such solid ideas for this that happen later on, like for the different worlds and antagonists. I can say I have decided to go with Yo-yo and Doc Croc for Ash’s party members, instead of the initial idea for him to just have Flicker. Yo-yo and Doc Croc just make a little more sense, as they basically do Kingdom Hearts type stuff already in their source show “Simsala Grimm”. Give it a watch and you’ll see what I mean! Flicker, on the other hand, is more of a protagonist in his own right and it wouldn’t necessarily be fair to have him play second fiddle as a party member. This was initially why I chose to go without a third party member if I were to pick him, as that would set up Ash and Flicker as two good friends over a party dynamic. But still, I feel using Yo-yo and Doc Croc will work better in the long run.
I have also found a PERFECT equivalent for Malificent in these new worlds to rule over the Heartless, but I don’t want to reveal them yet. I will be going with JUST Heartless for now, to hopefully avoid the plot getting too complicated too soon. IF I can get through this first story, Nobodies and such will come in later.
I REALLY wanted to talk about this particular project because of the recent things that have been happening in Hollywood. I am actually SO GLAD that I have waited a while to do this story, as in the real world it becomes a less and less strange concept and entered the realm of possibility. I mean, look at what has happened! FOX has been bought out by DISNEY! The main character I chose for TGC is a property from Fox, and a few of the worlds I will be using fall under that company as well. Suddenly I’m not so crazy!
Additionally, Kingdom Hearts 3 has of course come out, and I have been playing it. I’m strangely not as obsessed with it as I should be; I can go days without playing it by choice, and that bothers me because the game is such a big deal. But anyway, rather than having TGC take place after Dream Drop Distance like originally intended, I can have it simply pick up the story after it concludes in Kingdom Hearts 3. After all, who the hell knows when the NEXT one will be coming out? As a part of that, I do need to actually finish KH3 to see just where things end up, which is another part of the intro to this story. I am currently at the Keyblade Graveyard in KH3, so it’s only a matter of time once I see the end. Once I have that engrained in my head, I will hopefully have a better idea of how to set this story up. Of course, if some things happen that throw some plans I had out the window, we could be in trouble…
Fursona Background Stories:
Here I’m referring to stories for my own characters, such as Fiction Fox or Dante Ciaran. They’ve been sitting around as concepts for a really long time now, but I haven’t done much to make them official. I’ve been using some characters from these stories in roleplays with a few people, and it’s really making me want to take the next step and start fleshing them out in public stories. Hopefully I get around to doing some of that.
So that’s what I’ve been up to and thinking about.
I feel like I keep saying this and nothing happens, but I really hope I can get back on track here and get some things done.
Been a while since I’ve done a journal (and a lot of other things), so I thought I’d pool together a few things I’ve wanted to talk about.
So first off, back in the summer I turned 26.
This is significant for a few reasons, but to me, it’s significant because I met a landmark in my life.
You see, at age 13, my family moved to a different state to avoid the literal storms and natural disasters of our former home. It’s comforting to know that, even if we stayed, our old house did not receive much damage, but ultimately, I think the move has been for the better. I have had a lot more opportunities and made a great deal of friends here that I will cherish forever.
I would constantly acknowledge, though, that the majority of my life so far had been spent in my home state, and where I am now represented the smaller portion. But that is what has changed with this birthday. I have now spent about 13 years there and 13 years here, so now the time is evenly split.
From now on, however, this new state will have been my home for the majority of my life, and that’s a significant change in perspective to me. It’s altering the way I look at myself and how I can identify myself as a person.
Second…work has been tough.
In a previous journal, I had mentioned that I was given a “permanent” position at work with a new department, Tier 2. I had a FANTASTIC time there for a few months. The work was easier and fewer and farther between, and I had made some stronger connections in the tight-knit group of people I worked with. The pay wasn’t any better here, but it remained consistent rather than needing to meet some quality requirements to keep the rate (which I was meeting anyway), and I was getting insurance/benefits through them now that I was no longer a seasonal employee. With the combination of everything, I wasn’t terrified to come into work, and instead I maybe even looked forward to it. It was the best job I’ve ever had.
In a way, though, it was actually too good to be true. There was less work because the department wasn’t reaching the workload they were expecting, so they had basically promoted about a dozen more people than they needed. On the first day of June 2018, I was brought into a conference room with about a dozen others in the department and told that we would be going back to our original positions because of this.
My heart sank at this. I dreaded going back to my old position, but I needed the work and the pay/benefits, so I said nothing and went back. For a little while, it was okay, as they had me doing only one more reasonable portion of my old work types. But that didn’t last long, and they eventually put me back on everything.
I endured through the excruciating old position for nearly 4 months, but then another opportunity arose. My job was looking for a few volunteers to go to a different department, which was basically the same thing I was doing but for the region of Washington state rather than California. I hated what I was doing currently enough and did not see any sign of change coming, so I volunteered.
Little did I know that the Washington position is worse than my old one. I’m doing more things than the California position, including new things I was never trained for in California and never wanted to do, like going over insurance claims. It hasn’t been better, and that’s what I’ve been stuck with since late September.
And to make matters WORSE, not even a WEEK after I volunteered, some changes happened at the company and the California position wasn’t going to be a thing anymore. People that were still working on the California side at the time were being moved to other departments, so if I had chosen NOT to switch over to Washington, I could have gone back to Tier 2!
Once the Fall passed and Open Enrollment was ending, I reached out to Tier 2 supervisors to basically point out that things were slowing down on my end, and if they needed more people, they could bring me back on. Initially, it didn’t sound that professional. The first thing I actually did was half-jokingly shout out “take me back” to my old Tier 2 supervisor, and surprisingly they said they would work on it. So that gave me a little bit of hope, I guess.
But I’ve waited so long to do this journal that even MORE shit has happened at work!
That supervisor is no longer there, and even though the new one shared their interest in taking me back, Tier 2 is now the department being disbanded this year. THEY’RE all being moved to different departments now! So now I’m just stuck in this department I don’t like at all, with my only option being MAYBE switching to some entirely different department on the other side of the building if shit goes down. My recent track record suggests any other department I choose to go for would likely be worse than what I’m doing now, based on my switch from California to Washington. However, if the new departments have nothing to do with health insurance, it can’t possibly be as bad.
On the bright side of this job, though, I have survived now 2 ramp-downs and have held a job for about a year and a half.
The job has also recently given raises, so now instead of making $12 an hour at the most I’m making $13 at the least, sometimes even $14 if I show up every day! I have heard whispers of them planning to change THAT too since we’re ramping down, so I’ll have one other reason to hate work if they fuck that up.
So anyway, yeah, work has been crazy and I haven’t been doing much on this end as a result.
A friend of mine recently asked for help in recording a song parody, though, and that actually got me to do stuff with my drum set for the first time in like…geez…two years? It’s been great reacquainting myself with my musical hobby and getting my set fixed up. I posted a couple pictures of it on my Twitter account if anyone noticed. But it was a lot of fun doing that, and now I’m a drummer again and making regular trips to Guitar Center.
On to New Year’s Resolutions (because yes, it’s been THAT long since I’ve done a journal), I’m hoping to do more on these sites and with you guys in addition to figuring out where the hell I’m going to live for the latter half of this year. This journal will at least be a good start to getting back on track here and bringing a few things up to date.
I am SO behind with the things I want to do. Not even just writing stories and possibly doing art or song recordings, but I’m even behind on journals! Want to know HOW behind? I still want to go back to my thoughts on Guardians Vol. 2, as well as talk about The Last Jedi and Infinity War! Yep, that behind!
As for my big projects for these sites, I want to go into some of them in a little more detail so people know where I’m at mentally.
First off, the future of the SUPERverse:
I still think about the SUPERverse on a daily basis. The characters, the plots, where I can take things… Please don’t think that I’m not thinking about it just because I haven’t uploaded any recent chapters for it. I have a LONG history of my brain going so much farther with my projects than me hands ever do in writing them, but I love superhero stuff and this project so much, and I assure you I do not want to kill it off any time soon. I am really hoping to get my ass back in gear and finish up the few chapters I have in progress that have been sitting around for a while. Among these are a new chapter for “Thunder Pup”, along with the first chapters of “Fire Fox Zero: Mark the Dumper” (a prequel to the current “Fire Fox” story), “Tall Tails” (a new story that establishes another pivotal corner of the universe), and the long-awaited “Psi-Kitty” spin-off story.
As a reminder, these stories will appear on the accounts dedicated to the project, no longer on these personal accounts.
I am also looking for a new concept artist for the project, as my friend Koopus has been similarly busy with work and other things and has not been taking commissions like he used to.
Some of may have noticed that I have been testing the FA and Twitter artist Lundo a lot, as he has drawn several of the SUPERverse characters for commissions at this point at my request. He is a nice guy, easy to get in touch with and reasonably priced, and I do love his art style quite a lot. We’ll see just how far things go with him.
I am only slightly concerned with the state of superhero movies in relation to my motivation for this project, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe spurred my desire to make a superhero universe of my own. With the main event “Avengers: Endgame” right around the corner and the future of the MCU not entirely set in stone, I’m conscious of the possibility of motivation decreasing after this movie ages. The MCU has also got me interested in comics themselves and other forms of Marvel/DC media, however, so I don’t think it will be the end. Plus, maybe DC will be turning things around some more and flesh out their universe to a pleasing degree. At least we’re getting James Gunn to do “Suicide Squad 2” AND “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”! ^^
The future of KINGDOM HEARTS: THE GREATER CHAIN:
I posted concept art for this project several years ago and still have not done much in the way of writing it. But this and the SUPERverse will be the two big projects that I focus on at this point.
Part of the issue with TGC has been starting it. I haven’t found exactly the right way to do it yet, but I have such solid ideas for this that happen later on, like for the different worlds and antagonists. I can say I have decided to go with Yo-yo and Doc Croc for Ash’s party members, instead of the initial idea for him to just have Flicker. Yo-yo and Doc Croc just make a little more sense, as they basically do Kingdom Hearts type stuff already in their source show “Simsala Grimm”. Give it a watch and you’ll see what I mean! Flicker, on the other hand, is more of a protagonist in his own right and it wouldn’t necessarily be fair to have him play second fiddle as a party member. This was initially why I chose to go without a third party member if I were to pick him, as that would set up Ash and Flicker as two good friends over a party dynamic. But still, I feel using Yo-yo and Doc Croc will work better in the long run.
I have also found a PERFECT equivalent for Malificent in these new worlds to rule over the Heartless, but I don’t want to reveal them yet. I will be going with JUST Heartless for now, to hopefully avoid the plot getting too complicated too soon. IF I can get through this first story, Nobodies and such will come in later.
I REALLY wanted to talk about this particular project because of the recent things that have been happening in Hollywood. I am actually SO GLAD that I have waited a while to do this story, as in the real world it becomes a less and less strange concept and entered the realm of possibility. I mean, look at what has happened! FOX has been bought out by DISNEY! The main character I chose for TGC is a property from Fox, and a few of the worlds I will be using fall under that company as well. Suddenly I’m not so crazy!
Additionally, Kingdom Hearts 3 has of course come out, and I have been playing it. I’m strangely not as obsessed with it as I should be; I can go days without playing it by choice, and that bothers me because the game is such a big deal. But anyway, rather than having TGC take place after Dream Drop Distance like originally intended, I can have it simply pick up the story after it concludes in Kingdom Hearts 3. After all, who the hell knows when the NEXT one will be coming out? As a part of that, I do need to actually finish KH3 to see just where things end up, which is another part of the intro to this story. I am currently at the Keyblade Graveyard in KH3, so it’s only a matter of time once I see the end. Once I have that engrained in my head, I will hopefully have a better idea of how to set this story up. Of course, if some things happen that throw some plans I had out the window, we could be in trouble…
Fursona Background Stories:
Here I’m referring to stories for my own characters, such as Fiction Fox or Dante Ciaran. They’ve been sitting around as concepts for a really long time now, but I haven’t done much to make them official. I’ve been using some characters from these stories in roleplays with a few people, and it’s really making me want to take the next step and start fleshing them out in public stories. Hopefully I get around to doing some of that.
So that’s what I’ve been up to and thinking about.
I feel like I keep saying this and nothing happens, but I really hope I can get back on track here and get some things done.
Chris Kit
~tails230
Great to hear from you again! I missed you! X3
BrownFoxBR
~freshstartwithabrokenheart
OP
I've missed you too! ^^
Chris Kit
~tails230
Lets chat on Discord sometime! ^^
BrownFoxBR
~freshstartwithabrokenheart
OP
Yeah. ^^
