Got really busy with life, so I almost forgot to make a post for today. It was either this, unfriend day, or hiking day. Figure ‘Homemade Bread Day’ was the best choice since I don’t do hiking and unfriending isn’t positive. So, where did this holiday come from and why?
Well, bread is believed to have been invented 10,000 years ago in Neolithic Europe. It would be a very long time before sliced bread was invented, but that’s a different post that I won’t bother with. Jumping to the 1980’s and you get this holiday, which was about making and sharing bread with family. Supposedly, the National Homemade Bread Committee in Ann Arbor, Michigan came up with it. You know, I keep thinking this is a joke, but it’s apparently a thing.
I remember my mom would make homemade bread a lot and I would help with the kneading. Eventually, she wouldn’t have the time to do so, but the activity lasted for a while. I’m not any good at baking, so bread isn’t my thing. The best I can make is ice cream bread, which still has a decent success rate. I use THIS recipe and it’s worked pretty well. Funny thing is that I’ve yet to try it with vanilla ice cream, which is what most recipes ask for.
Anybody here make bread and have any interesting recipes? Definitely reaching for a blog topic today.
I’m writing this up Thursday night for a few reasons. First, nothing really important is going to happen on Friday, except for taking my son to a nighttime light display. I’ll add some pictures to this post before I go to bed, but having it written beforehand will mean I don’t have to stay up late. I have a haircut Saturday morning too, so I don’t have to wake up early to get this out before the day begins. Guess that was the second reason, but my point is that I’d rather get this written now then squeeze it in later.
Well, a third reason is that not much progress has been made. I finished the posts for January and edited a single chapter of Darwin & the Demon Game. That’s nowhere near what I was hoping to accomplish. Everything fell apart soon after my post last Saturday went live too. If I had known what was coming, I’d have . . . Not been able to do a damn thing, which brings me to the bulk of this post.
Let me explain what happened last weekend:
So, I did editing on Saturday and some Pokemon Go like I originally planned. It was really cold and I was exhausted from work, but I got a rather meaty chapter cleaned up. Then, I learned that family was coming over on Sunday. Keep in mind that I live my parents for ‘reasons’ and this means that I have no out for family events. Well, they were coming over in the morning and I already bought a ticket to a Pokemon event from 2-5 in the afternoon. There goes the day. My best friend since 1st grade called and asked me to watch the NY Giants game. I then found out the family event was going to be somewhere else, so I told him he could come over in the morning (9:30 AM game from Germany). I figured this would give me time before and after the Pokemon event to get editing done. It would be Sunday morning that I would learn the plan changed again and family was coming over. I had no say in any of this beyond agreeing to watch the game with my friend, which haven’t been able to do all season. I barely had time to do laundry during on Sunday. By Monday, I got my son and he had schoolwork to do. Editing was left at whatever I could accomplish Saturday before I realized I lost Sunday.
This type of scenario has been happening many weekends where I don’t have my son. I’m pulled into plans at the last minute and saying no results in me getting a bunch of grief. It has repeatedly been suggested that I go to the library to work, but that means I can’t have anything to eat or drink. It’s also very open at the library now, so I don’t get the sense of privacy that I used to. Not to mention there have been times in the past where someone has tracked me down there to tell me I’m needed back home. I can’t go to the park since it’s cold and the wind makes a mess of my manuscript. My laptop still can’t be closed, so that’s out as well. In other words, I’m stuck and have to decide between my books and getting a few days of tension.
Another issue is my work hours changed in August/September. Last school year, we would start around 7:55 and end around 2:26. Now, we start at 8:25 and end around 2:52, which doesn’t give me a lot of afternoon/evening time. I can’t sleep in either because my son still has to be at school by 7 AM, so I’m waking up at 5:30 like last school year. By the time I get home, it’s around 3:15 and we have to do homework, dinner, and a variety of other things. By the time I get a moment to relax, it’s around 9 PM. That gives me 30-40 minutes to get ready for bed and MAYBE watch a short TV show. My anxiety hasn’t been dropping enough most nights for me to avoid the 3 AM panic attack.
You might be wondering why I still have these problems on the nights I don’t have my son with me. Well, that would be the appointments. He typically has at least 2 appointments every week. It’s looking like it will be a minimum of 4 for the rest of the year. This means every weekday has an appointment for him and I have my own weekly therapy session on Fridays. There isn’t a single day that I get to leave work, do a little Pokemon while grocery shopping, and go home to relax for a few hours. If I don’t go to the appointment, I don’t get to voice my opinion or even know what is going on. So, I have no choice, but to go and continue to wear myself down to a nub.
A final issue that I want to add before I go to the list is the health one. In 2023, I was improving my health because stress was low and I was able to put time aside each day to relax. That isn’t the case. Now, I am hitting the weekends where I don’t have my son with a sense of sickness. I believe the theory is called ‘leisure sickness’, which is when a person pushes their body for so long that it finally gives in to the stress and weakness once you start to relax. This results in me feeling lethargic, having sinus issues, lacking energy, and even having trouble regulating my body temperature. In fact, it usually results in me spending the morning trying to figure out if it’s exhaustion, flu, or Covid because I feel that bad. By the time I’m better, it’s late afternoon and I may have learned that I won’t have Sunday to finish editing.
That is my life right now and it has been that way for most of the year. I’m not joking when I say 2024 is the worst year of my life. Pressure from all corners have made functioning a challenge. If I only had to deal with one of the big problems, I’d be in better shape. For example, I could more easily handle the new work schedule if I was dealing with the custody/ex-wife/daily appointments on top of that. I get no time to let the tension flow away and it keeps building. It reaches the point where editing is a challenge because my focus and confidence are shot. Will it improve? I’m hoping one day, but not in the near future.
So, here’s the goal list and below that should be some pictures:
Play Pokemon Go with son this weekend.
Stay warm because it’s freezing.
Try to edit at least one chapter of Darwin & the Demon Game
Accept that I probably won’t because this week is the big finale of the Pokemon Go autumn season. Special events from 6-7 every weeknight and then big ones from 10-6:15 on the weekends. Early morning and evenings might be required on the weekend, but I don’t know if I’m going to go crazy. Maybe raid in the morning for the few Pokemon that I want and then just go shiny hunting for 2 hours in the afternoon.
Clean bathroom for Thanksgiving.
Choose a dinner to cook for me and my parents next weekend. The main reason is so that I can bring leftovers in for lunch on Tuesday and avoid McDonalds.
Try to think of February blog post ideas. Maybe do the poems and Tuesday Teasers.
Try to figure out if I can add biking to my crazy schedule since it’s too cold to do a lot of walking outside. Morning and evening are out. I really hate this time of year when it’s cold all day and gets dark at 4:30 PM.
So, this is the other character type I was thinking of last time I re-watched ‘Great Teacher Onizuka’. Now, the story is that Onizuka is a former motorcycle gang member who is determined to be a teacher. He gets a job at a private school where he is given a class full of students who hate teachers. The principal’s plan is that an non-traditional teacher like Onizuka can reach these troubled and rebellious teens when all previous attempts have utterly failed. For example, one of their previous homeroom teachers ends up quitting to stay at home eating snacks. Another I believe ends up in a psych ward, which is to show how dangerous these kids are. Keep in mind this is a comedy with dramatic, coming-of-age undertones.
While watching the anime and reading the manga, I did sense that the author was purposely going over the top. For example, Irumi Kanzaki up there (super genius with a traumatic past) pulls some messed up pranks such as blowing up trashcans around the school to break the windows. To be fair, that was when she was pushed into a PTSD trance type of thing. Prior to that, she almost got Onizuka arrested for being a pervert in public, made a garden snake look like a cobra before it bit him on the *censored*, and tried to get him into debt for buying them expensive sushi. He got out of that last one by doing a dine-and-dash then getting hit by a car whose driver he convinced to pay the bill as part of the damages . . . I said over-the-top.
I’ve done enough set up here, but I think going over-the-top is the best way to go with teenager delinquents. First of all, adults seem to have trouble writing these age demographic believably if they try to be serious. The immature teenager ends up acting older or younger than they are. This makes the audience have trouble either believing they’re a teenager or simply spending more time thinking about how they would have done things differently. I don’t know if there’s any way to effectively counter a reader forgetting that they are more mature than a teenager, so their decisions would differ, but it becomes a bigger issue for troublemakers. Why would that be?
If you don’t go over-the-top, you run the risk of their actions being unforgivable and any explanation of why they act like the do won’t matter. We live in a world where people are a lot less forgiving and understanding to both real and fictional characters. For some, it doesn’t matter that the teenager who has been stealing lunch money because their family can’t afford food. Wrong is wrong to these people and they will at the very least go negative on the family instead of realizing that a teenager might commit bad acts out of desperation or trauma. Empathy is lacking, which is why it could work better that these characters go big and the reader ends up being foisted out of escapism a bit to remember they are reading a book.
Perhaps another part of this is making sure nobody gets really hurt by the antics. Bumped around or ‘injured’ for a panel is one thing. Permanent or long-term injuries is when readers will think the teens have gone too far. Makes sense since this would get a teenager sent to juvenile detention at least in the real world. Yet, that ends the story and an author might want them to do something else for redemption. Again, we can run into an issue with an adult writing a teenager. While some decisions might be too mature, there is a habit to put the ‘act without thinking’ on a teenager character in order for them to injure another one. Kids are more aware of this possibility than we realize unless they are fueled by powerful emotions. Delinquents don’t always mean loners too, but authors tend to do a group hivemind thing with nobody pointing out the issue. If anyone does, they’re tossed out and we get ‘Lord of the Flies’. Remember that the dissolution of civility took maybe around two months and it was full survival. This would be within civilization, so teenagers won’t be as feral.
This is where I think ‘Great Teacher Onizuka’ really works out. Yes, the antics are almost cartoonish, but those that go too far tend to have at least one of the students wonder if they should stop. As the story progresses, those who accept Onizuka actively try to stop those who are still campaigning against the teachers. Maturity is gained in a fairly short period of time because of experience and finding an adult who listens, understands, and makes them enjoy things again. As I said, there is a coming-of-age aspect to this series as well as one about healing from trauma. Both of which can be helpful for teenagers even if they aren’t going through the same level as the characters.
Maybe these characters should be written primarily for their own demographic. Then again, adults might get some insight into how troubled teenagers think and act instead of always writing them off. That’s kind of hopeful.
This could be seen as an off-shoot of ‘reformed villain’ doing a redemption arc, but it’s kind of different. The delinquent, punk part of the character is in the past and not something that is shown to the audience. They are told about it and see some actions that hint heavily at what they used to do, but this character is now reformed. Of course, they still have some old habits that appear at times.
Something that I think makes this differ from a villain’s redemption arc is that the punk tends to have not gone too far. They are still able to function within society even with some judgement. Fighting, theft, vandalism, and misdemeanors tend to be the bulk of what they did. Much of it gets described as when they were minors too, so they step into the story with a clean record as an adult. This doesn’t erase what they did from existence, but it doesn’t create a paperwork obstacle that can be overused. It makes their attempt to be a ‘normal’ citizen easier, but not without difficulty.
The challenge ends up being their own mindset. The reformed punk still has the urges and reactions from their old life. For example, an attempt at intimidation from a boss could be met with threatening or physicality. They are shown to be still learning how to NOT do the things that got them in trouble. I think this makes the audience root for them to improve, especially if there’s a comedic aspect to their mistakes. There has to be consequences as well even if their actions end up getting results. Sure, the boss might leave them alone after being intimidated in return, but now the reformed punk has to figure out how to get his vacation time approved.
I guess this character tends to be more common in manga and anime too. Not sure how gangs and delinquents are different in Japan, but Americans tend to think of these characters as drug-dealing murderers. So, a redemption arc like this tends to be heavier and more difficult. With anime and manga, the delinquents don’t seem to be going that far unless they’re storyline involves getting deeper into the criminal world. For a reformed punk, it’s the opposite, which is why the previously mentioned limit has to be there. If they go too far, even prior to the story, the audience will deem them unforgiveable and there goes the entire project.
A key point to these characters is about getting and succeeding at a second chance, so I would say a major theme is hope. No matter how much they get rejected, they should keep trying and have at least one person who thinks they can change their ways. A common secondary theme is to never give up and do whatever it takes to prove you’re no longer a punk. That or to prove punk habits can come in handy with certain situations, but we’re going back into comedy there. Either way, this type of character works to make the audience believe the hero has a bad past, but can still be whatever they want since they are striving to be better.
Two characters come to mind and both are anime/manga:
The character at the top is Eikichi Onizuka from ‘Great Teacher Onizuka’. He is a former motorcycle gang member who gets licensed to become a teacher and make something of himself. That and get a girlfriend, but that plays to his immature and comedic nature. He messes up a lot, but continues trying and finding his own way to solve problems. There are themes of education being too focused on grades and not the individual in his story too, which is why he continues to demonstrate his punk-like habits throughout the whole thing. Still, it is repeatedly made clear that his past didn’t turn him into a heartless villain. Onizuka cares about all of his students and shows that there is good in his heart, which helps with his ‘redemption’.
The other character I thought of just now is Yusuke Urameshi from ‘Yu Yu Hakusho’. He is a punk who sacrifices himself to save a kid and is brought back to life to become a Spirit Detective. Like Onizuka, he retains his punk habits, but it is a much bigger scale since his situation allows him to be violent. Yusuke is fighting demons while Onizuka has to deal with school administrators, parents, and students. I would say Yusuke is given harsher edges, but he still works as a reformed punk character. It’s on a grander scale because his story is about how a violent delinquent can step up to be a hero who saves the world.
So, the reformed punk can be used for different scales of story. I feel that a sense of comedy is needed in general to soften their missteps, but you can go dramatic too if you want it to be very serious. Either way, it’s an interesting and rather uncommon hero type from what I’ve seen. Be curious to see more too.
Here’s an old excerpt from War of Nytefall: Lost. This involves Stephanie, who was the ritualist of Xavier Tempest’s team. She didn’t get as much page time as the stronger personalities. Still, I had fun when I did find a place for her, especially when she was part of a mission group. Not sure why I always put her with Archillious (psychotic assassin) and Kenneth Decker (dwarven general). Just seemed to work.
Legends of Windemere 