PumpkinApprentice431

I had a recent thought regarding a specific plot point in "The Madness Files", something akin to the alluded couples in the Descendants franchise.  Namely:  which Disney villains would truly be most compatible as [heterosexual] partners?  Only a handful of concrete combinations were outlined in the Descendants franchise, and that includes both sides of the good/evil spectrum. My curiosity led me to spin a few more threads of fate for my own story.

The couples I've come up with so far (spoiler warning for some of these, being "surprise" villains from their respective movies):

--Maleficent & Hades
--Mother Gothel & Judge Claude Frollo
--Ursula & Dr. Facilier
--Queen of Hearts & Professor Ratigan
--Queen Grimhilde & Gaston
--Lady Tremaine & Prince John
--Sugar Plum Princess & Lotso Huggin' Bear
--Morgana & Hans
--Angelica & Captain James Hook
--Red Queen & Turbo
--Te-Ka & Chernabog
--Madam Mim & Jafar
--Bellweather & Governor Ratcliffe
--Cruella de Vil & Shan Yu
--Queen Narissa & Randall Boggs

As you can tell, I tried to keep all the pairings exclusive (i.e. no one character is coupled with more than one other character) while not limiting them based solely on their species.

So, what do you all think?  Do these combinations make sense?  Are there any other Disney/Pixar villains you'd want represented in a list like this?  Are there other combinations you would consider better matches made in... (would we consider these matches made in heaven or hell...?)  Either way, leave your thoughts and comments below.

My, my, how long has it been since my last decision to put my words into public print?  How long has it been since I've had the combined nerve, energy, time, and drive to do so?  It's hard to say, honestly.

Harder still, it seems, is looking back at my track record on this site.

Back in the early days, in high school and college, when my spirits, outlook, and amount of free time were high, I found communities interesting:  the opportunity to show my work and embrace their works as a collective willing to share greatly appealed to me.  My work flourished during this period, with both an audience to develop my artwork and skills for and critiques with which to further hone my craft.  Those were the good times.  Developments came steadily, even if the content didn't extend beyond short stories, hand-drawn scans to MS Paint-colored pictures, and chapters to novels still in progress even to this day.

Then the cracks started forming in the foundation I had built up in my head.  Members of the communities began dropping out.  My enthusiasm got the better of me on more than one occasion, leading to making request promises that have as-of-yet gone unfulfilled on one side and heated verbal confrontations on the other each becoming another regret to throw onto the mental pile.  Doors began shutting, some as a result of these immaturities on my part, while others just faded into obscurity.  Neither left me with much to build back up with:  the communities dispersed, and the audience I once thought I had disappeared.

Discouragement and an unwillingness to reach out (brought on by a fear of running my mouth and chasing away more people) coupled with woeful inexperience with self-promotion have left me with little hope for my artistic exploits, this site or otherwise.  Nerve and drive abandoned me.

Energy and time evaporated through a different (but not altogether negative) channel.

It's been no secret that I had been looking for a job (possibly a career) to be able to pay off my student loans.  Lifeguarding at local pools (the one by my house, the YMCA's, and even Little League) gave me too inconsistent of hours and too little dollars per hour to do much else aside from funneling it straight into loan payments:  nothing for gas, games, or other personal effects.  A two-month holiday shelf stocking at Toys-R-Us helped to alleviate some of this burden, but everything dried up completely going into 2018.  Months and years looking for more substantial employment and failing to garner much left me emotionally drained and hopeless.

Then, through a series of happenstances, I found a company willing to hire me full-time:  a small document consolidation firm located in Sunbury.  The hours are consistently 40 a week with a pay rate above minimum wage, the work is fairly easy if physically strenuous at times, and the other employees are friendly enough.

There only exist two major problems, at least for me:  the working hours and the commute.  The hours being 8-4:30 isn't so bad on its own, as this gives me the full eight hours a day minus the unpaid half-hour for lunch.  The real kick-in-the-pants comes from the commute:  45 minutes minimum one way.  The early hours required to make it to work every day coupled with my rocky relationships with mornings in general leaves the slog of a drive mentally exhausting in and of itself, even if the route is mainly highway with minimal turns.  One additional small nitpick in tacking on these drives with the full-time hours is that all this combined time away leaves little time to take care of at-home activities like dinner, personal projects, game research, and (of course) sleep.

Not only are my physical energy tanks having a toll taken on them, but 45 minutes each way leaves me with only four days' worth of gas in my current vehicle.  So, unintentionally, my paycheck has been taking these hits more often than I would otherwise like.

But I digress:  the work itself I find more fulfilling than most of my previous employments, and thus I'm willing to put up with the minor gripes.

All this being said, though, and on a positive note, I have not completely halted my artistic exploits.  The work has slowed significantly with the nature of the work I have been doing, but I have been making periodic uploads to my story site.  Traffic isn't as easy to read there as it can be on this site, but the customizable format allows me to tell the story in the ways I want to more easily.  To that effect, much of my effort has been dedicated to that story and my Source Filmmaker experiments (including a... secret project now viewable on a different site); most other projects have taken a years-long backseat as I contemplate reworks (yes, even my more popular works on this site, Skeleton Keys and Dark Times Ahead [a.k.a. Kingdom Hearts Smash Story]).

For those who read this, thank you for your patience as I deal with this stage of my life while also striving to accelerate my output.  My content may not be as regular here as it used to be, so I urge you to visit my site and leave your comments there.

No, seriously, what the fuck am I doing with my life?  Why have I felt so drained this summer more than any other?  Why haven't I been as active on here as I once was?

Honestly, I have next to no idea.  Well, except for the activity on here bit; an update from months ago screwing with gallery organization turned me off from submitting more story pieces.

I had plans.  I was supposed to have 350 handwritten pages in my story by now, starting from the 305th page at the start of summer; I'm currently sitting with page 308 unfinished before me.  I was supposed to have all 24 of my character pictures ready for my website; I only have one of them with any kind of color.  I was supposed to be working on the sequels/remasters to my more successful YouTube videos; I haven't even created the SourceFilmmaker sessions.  I was supposed to have a position waiting for me after the summer, something other than being just a seasonal lifeguard; I'm currently not expecting employment past August.

Maybe I'm spreading myself too thin with all these expectations, coupled with all of the various games I've been playing and in which I've been getting my ass handed to me.  Maybe it's all a matter of focus on my part.

Or maybe I'm wondering what the fucking point is.

This week, the computer that had all of my original Source Filmmaker movies (not to mention countless files belonging to the rest of my family) became incapable of loading properly without giving me a black screen before the login screen or sealing me in a screen without a functioning keyboard or mouse.  Then, in an attempt to fix this problem, I used my personal zip drive to create a backup operating system to attempt a functioning reboot; little did I know that it would wipe all the files I had on there, however few updates I had made since backing them up last.  All this, and still that computer refuses to function.  How can I call myself a computer science degree holder if I can't even fix my own device?  Even if it's a Game Design & Development degree, I should have a better understanding of computers than what this recovery is showing.

On top of that, what's to stop my stories and art projects from falling prey to another stupid mistake on my end?  I might have the physical copies, but all the subtle notes, changes, and section rewrites that happened with the digital copies can't be easily reproduced with as fickle a memory as mine, especially in regards to the visual media pieces.

Maybe my mood wouldn't be so far in the toilet if I felt like I had friends that could share this burden, but... even as people might consider me their friends and themselves friends to me, I don't consider myself a friend to them even as I consider them my friends.  I can be petty, asking people for requests without fulfilling my requests pool (I still haven't forgotten my backlog of art pieces that I owe people on this site), and worse still I know I've let my words hurt more than my fair share of people.  I'm moody, self-centered, over-ambitious, and overall too much of an unworthy jerk to have anyone consider me their friend.  I don't mean to offend anyone with these words; like I said, I may consider you friends to me, but I can't in good faith consider myself a good friend to any of you.

Well, with all that off my chest, maybe now I can face this fucked-up world where one of the most politically incorrect sons-of-bitches (seriously, how can someone that had a Comedy Central Roast about them POSSIBLY be seriously considered) can be elected President of the United States. :\

Wow, can't believe it's been this long... half a year since my last journal, not including that little outburst barely worth mentioning... and life continues to move at a breakneck pace.

My little sister got married a few weeks ago and has since near-completely moved out of the house (thank God).  Thankfully her wedding reception took place at the local country club and didn't need us to set this one up.  The food was good, especially for the rehearsal dinner; and she seems happy with how things are going at the moment.

Halloween and Thanksgiving came and went with barely a whimper.  We only had like 8 groups of trick-or-treaters, maybe less.  Pretty much everyone showed up for Thanksgiving, though, at least in the immediate family; so that was kinda nice.  Maybe the quietness is just a sign of the times, maybe it's a sign of me growing up and the holiday luster wearing off...

What else, what else...?  Ah, I competed (and admittedly failed) in this year's Saxxy Awards, entering with a movie that has since been improved upon.  The latest rendition (that I am willing to promote) can be found here:  

And, finally, there's the new job I've been accepted to.  Don't worry, I haven't missed that one:  only by this time next week will I have accomplished my first shift there.  It's nothing fancy, just a package handler position with Fedex.  It will hopefully pay twice as much as my current job and allow me to better pay off my college loans.

That reminds me:  since this job will be a couple hours outside the city, I'll be officially moving out to live closer to where I'll be working.  This might only be a temporary living arrangement depending on how well the job goes, but hopefully living on my own and being out of the house will do me some good.

Well, I guess that's everything.  If Trump hasn't run this country into the ground by the time I drop my next journal, I wish you all the best.  I'll still be working on my stories, movies, and games even with this new job, so I hope the very few of you who still pay any sort of attention to me look forward to it all.

Wow, almost two months since my last journal entry... where has the time gone?

I figured I'd stop by again and give you guys an idea of what I've been up to.  Basically I'm still looking for a full-time job while working at the local YMCA's and soon the pool by my current residence, drowning myself in personal projects, and researching various gaming titles.  Nothing special, nothing really surprising. :\

For those of you who still check up on me, I do apologize for my lacking activity and possible lack of quality.  I'm trying to maintain my self-imposed doctrine regarding Madness chapters being "purchased" with views and comments; and, since that's where most of my literary work has been poured into of late, that leaves little material to be submitted.  Is it selfish of me?  Maybe.  Is it petty?  Maybe.  But will people bother even yelling at me to get off my keister?  Nope. :\ But who am I to judge?  Maybe people just don't even have the patience to look through only 700-2000 word chapters.  Maybe the worlds revealed so far in the story don't interest enough people.  Maybe my characters turn too many people off from reading their further escapades.  But it's not like my art skills are going to improve by much anytime soon, so a web comic or something more visual and requiring of minimal viewer commitment like that is out of the question.

But I digress.

Overwatch comes out tomorrow (possibly tonight, the server turn-on has me confused) and, yes, I have it preordered.  I even participated in the open beta they held three weeks ago.
My go-to heroes during the beta:
Offense:  Reaper, Pharah
Defense:  Junkrat, Torbjorn
Tank:  Roadhog
Support:  Symmetra (Defense), Zenyatta (Offense)
Anyways, it pained me to get the skins I had been hoping to get, since any progress made during the beta (including unlocks) would get reset before the official launch. :\ So much for that Roadhog Mako and scorched Junkrat...

I've also been playing Assassin's Creed lately, a new acquisition I came upon during a Gamestop sale:  7 titles in the series for only $40.  Still working on the first title, though, and only about halfway through it.

What else, what else... ah, I turn 26 in two Thursdays from now, so that's something:  a direct message from the world saying to get off my ass and join the human race. :\ To that end I've been almost constantly pressured to find a better job than what I have now as well as a girlfriend.  As if I didn't have enough on my shoulders with college loan payments and now healthcare payments riding my ass...

*sigh* Sorry if I sound a bit negative... sometimes one just needs to vent, however minimally.