A New, Shiny Thing: 'Gaia'

I don't know if any of you remember (or care) about when I was still pretending that I could do semi-regular update schedules and did those monthly webcomic reviews. One of those, aaaaaaaall the way back in June, was 'Sandra and Woo' written and illustrated by German author Oliver Knörzer and Indonesian artist, Powree.

Well, if you went and read that one (or even if you didn't), you might want to check out their new comic: Gaia

In Knörzer's own words, the comic 'takes place in the self-created world of Gaia where political tension between the two most powerful countries Cania and Midgard has grown in recent years. Similar to several of his classmates at the "Academy for Arcane Studies and Material Arts", the young warrior Ilias Oter is much more interested in the beautiful wizard Lilith Caillean than in politics. But soon he has to learn that Lilith is standing in the eye of a dark storm that is going to sweep across the whole world...'

In my opinion, the art is great, and although there's only 18 pages up at the moment, the characters are already coming across well and the story has purpose and a good pace. I'd say it's one to keep an eye on.

An Awful Lot Of Metaphorical Running

Well my life exploded epically recently, and mostly not in a good way, but I think we're back now. Mostly. I mean, I'm still just sort of standing in the middle of my mind staring around at the slightly smoking wreckage and wondering what the hell happened. I'm wishing life actually just had a pause button, so I could just hit that and wander off and make myself a sandwich or something and not have to worry about anything for half an hour.

God, I miss video games.

I miss a lot of things actually. I miss being able to stay up messing about on the internet 'til 5am with no consequences. I miss being able to sleep in 'til stupid times of the day and not feel vaguely guilty about it. I miss buying a book every Saturday and having it finished by that evening. I miss talking about stupid things that didn't matter well into the night because hell, we didn't have anything better to do. I miss things being easy. I miss the worst drama being your friend being late meeting you at the cinema and nearly missing the start of the movie. I miss just being able to go and wander around and just do things without having to weigh up what I need to do that day and how important it is that I do it now, or if I can put off whatever it is until tomorrow, or...

You get the point.

So what I'm going to do is, when my essays are over and done with and gone and I have some breathing space to play around with my shifts at work, I am going to buy an Xbox, and I am going to play video games, and I am going to periodically run away and have adventures and just not care every now and then. I'm going to write fantastic stories that may or may not be rooted in real-life things depending on my mood and I'm going to buy sugar mice every other week and enjoy them thoroughly. Because I can. Because if I don't, I'm going to go mad.

Well, more mad.

And Sometimes That's All It Takes

Today, I was waiting on a bus to get back to my flat, and as one pulled up, someone stopped me. He was a lecturer from the university, but, as he explained, he was heading for Glasgow. He then pressed a Plusbus ticket for Stirling into my hand and told me that he didn't need it anymore, so I should use it to get home.

This isn't important, I know, but today it was important for me.

We all come to terms with losing things. Losing people. Sometimes, this doesn't matter, and sometimes it matters more than anything. I'm bad at letting go myself. Whatever anyone might think of me, I get attached to people, and though I'm bad at showing it, I care about my friends more than anything. Although I know I'm situational at best, I'm easily forgotten and maybe no one will ever think of me first for anything, that's okay.

And I'm not fishing for sympathy. It really is okay.

Things have happened recently, and I've had to do a lot of thinking. When that man gave me his bus ticket today, I realised that sometimes it's okay to be miserable. Sometimes you have to be, and it's okay to run away to clear your head. Sometimes you lose friends that mean the world to you, and you have every right to be upset about that. But some good things still happen even before you can be happy again, even if it's something as simple as someone being nice enough to give you a free bus ride home.

At least, that's what I think.