Just Around the Corner · 4:16am March 8th
Boy howdy has it been a week.
And I wonder (yes I wonder),
Oh, I wonder, (wonder, wonder, wonder)
Is this the way life's meant to be?
I believe I've mentioned this in a previous blog, but lately, I've been addicted to ELO's Time album from 1981. To say this album is prophetic would be an understatement as today, many of the 'futurisms' from the album actually exist, or are on the cusp of becoming a reality. The modern space race, AI, robots. It's scary how much they seemed to see forty years ago, and though I don't care for a few songs like The Lights Go Down or This is the News, I never skip around and I always listen to the whole album through. What I didn't understand going in and what I feel like I've grasped now is how scarily accurate it feels to my life in particular. I'm sure anyone moving to a foreign country who doesn't speak the language or know anyone in particular can relate to Life's Meant to Be too, but it's more than that. Ticket to the Moon I could see being a thing in the next ten years or sooner depending on how NASA's Artemis plan goes, Yours Truly, 2095 is more likely to be realistic by 2035 given the rapid progression of AI, A black swan event in the form of China marching on Taiwan very much echos Rain is Falling, and inflation and the slow decent into true recession makes 21st Century Man a little too close to home. Though, the same could've been said of 08 for that one.
My appreciation of the album gets deeper the more I listen to it, and the more I appreciate it, the more I want to listen to it. I'm sure I'll either burn out on it or find something new after a while, but for now, it's what's inspiring me. I've written one and a half whole new stories over the week, but they're a bit different than the usual fare.
Star Overhead is where my head is at, and though I'm nearly done with Volume 6, I needed some short stories I could share while applying for side jobs at various websites. While drawing some of my weekly pictures, I created a scene of an older Jacklyn Malus (my Applejack) teaching a young Alex Carbunkle (my Spike) how to box. If you've read the Star Overhead, either the OF or FiM versions, you might remember boxing getting brought up a few times. I did it for about year while in college and Hajime no Ippo is one of my favorite anime ever. I love boxing and that tends to find its way in my stories. Even in Super, Applejack's fighting style is basically that of an in fighter in spite of going up against giant monsters and super powers. Consistent theming across all my works, the picture became a solid idea and turned into a story which I'll link at the end for anyone interested. It's set in the future of Star Overhead, meaning it takes place after the two books that are not available/not yet written. This does spoil some of the ending, but the same could be said about my Bionic titan stories which are also set in the far future of Star Overhead.
Anyways, I wrote this story in one sitting, banging out a whole 7.5K non-stop. I'm pretty happy with the end result, so I sent it to my editor, and as I had my older brother look at the other short story set in the same relative time also featuring Jacklyn and Alex, I sent it to him too. Of course, when I went back to read it myself, I realized that I'd maybe put a whole lot more of my own feelings down than I meant to. The basic story goes that, after the events of Star Overhead, Jacklyn later becomes military, then "FBI" and she slowly comes to terms with the fact that the world around her is steeped in corruption, and her division is effectively a group of dirty cops working for the highest bidder. She's personally tied to the Queen (Luna) though, so there's not much she can do about it. After a falling out, she sets up her own detective agency to become a free agent, having Luna's backing when she can get it, which is most of the time.
On her 28th birthday while being visited by her second family (Dawn (Twilight) and Solei (Celestia)) some random kid manages to steal Solei's purse. The incredible fortunes and talents that had to come together for this to happen at all given what a figure Solei is within the story has her choose to capture Alex and put him under Jacklyn's wing. He has no family to speak of and he's being abused by a gang at the time, and with a little strong-arming, Alex agrees to the terms. Jacklyn, on the other hand, isn't so settled with the idea. She trusts Solei though, so she goes along with it.
The uncomfortable arrangement of a fifteen year old boy living with a 28 year old woman with little to no dating experience leaves her doubting whether she can be the person Solei expects her to. The story starts here, and after a few things happen during an afternoon, she finally works up the nerve to tell Alex exactly how she feels, and it comes down to her failures, her jealousy, her stubborness, and her lack of interpersonal experience. The main source of jealousy, of course, being her brother and Rebecca (Rainbow) who both have the life she'd always wanted. It especially stings regarding Rebecca because being married and having kids was never on her radar in the first place.
My own life reflects this a lot in that my brother does have all of that himself and I can remember a time as early as being six where I said I wanted to be a father and have my own family. Specifically, as a challenge to my parents saying I could do it better. I haven't made any progress on that front at all, and the older I get, the more afraid I am that my chance will slip away, but my own personality is a hindrance to meeting people or trying to form relationships. I keep praying that the few places I do go I might run into somebody, but actually doing the hard work of going out to meet people feels like a far off dream that's never been within my reach.
There's always some kind of barrier or even one I make up just to not go out and do it, and I hate that about myself. Language barrier or not, I wouldn't even do this back in the US. It's just some kind of static fear in the back of my mind that I've never been able to get over. I have started going out more since I came to Japan, at least with my fellow ALTs, but what these nights have shown me is that I'm just not compatible with some people. I get along with them, but when there's no connecting point at all or they can't match my energy, we both just shut up and don't speak for the rest of the time. Maybe it's a mismatch of interests or a lack of common ground, but no matter how I've tried to approach this so far, I can't find a way to get into a conversation that's not entirely superficial. It's of course extra hard in japanese because mine isn't great, and that's the most sad part because I do have a cooworker at my Th/F school who I really think I would get along with well.
These building frustrations get expressed in my writing since I'm more free to put out my volatile emotions there, and I don't quite know what that says about me. I kinda wish I could get the perspective of someone who doesn't really know me well. There was this reddit post I saw yesterday that went "What pokemon types say about you/align with your personality" Generally I feel that this stuff is bullshit, but for once, it really got me. My undisputed favorite types, poison, ground, and dark, kinda hit me to a T. I'm a pretty good liar, reliable for the few friends I do have, and I've spent about an entire year trying not to be a cynic. My mantra lately has been "Don't be a doomer," because there's a lot I don't have control over and fixing most of it seems to be out of my reach for now.
For as much as I write about myself, I wonder if even my own reflections are more superficial than the stories I tell which show what's really going on in my head using the vehicle of 'this isn't me, so I can say what I'm really feeling.' So, that brings me to the title. Just Around the Corner features Applejack in my bright future universe making the biggest and most costly mistake of her life. Spoiler: The whole story is her trying to find a way out of the darkness and not commit suicide. I don't remember where I was at the time I wrote it, and that's probably for the best. If it fits the MO of my other expression stories, it was about finding a reason myself. I went back and reread that story a little while ago. Even as just a letter from me to myself, It got me choked up and made me cheer up.
I've had a rough last month here in Matsue, but getting bogged down and stuck in my own head is not the way to look forward.
Because, you never know what's just around the corner.
Weekly Art Wrap Up:
https://x.com/zach_nieves/status/1763543216434122962?s=20
https://x.com/zach_nieves/status/1763898311571014001?s=20
https://x.com/zach_nieves/status/1764275469090967998?s=20
https://x.com/zach_nieves/status/1764557302005428637?s=20
Day 11 would go here if I'd actually finished the drawing.
https://x.com/zach_nieves/status/1765361985393443243?s=20
https://x.com/zach_nieves/status/1765741432256778298?s=20
Jack and Alex Stories:
1) The Wrong Sandbox 10K words
2) The Scorpion Princess 7.5K words
The idea here is to have a Sherlock type detective series with these two, but I've not actually written a whole lot of stuff for this.
Anyways, I think I'm going to purchase and build a blog site here in a few days to post all my stories and have a second place for this weekly blog. It'll be something wordpress based and I hope I can start using that to build a portfolio. I've got to get some extra money somehow or I'll never break out of this pit, so it's about time I actually try to use my most developed skill, writing.
Until Next Time~
-KCZ
