I thought it was a stupid idea as soon as the receipt came through.

All I wanted for the rest of this horrible year was to eat snacks, play games with my online friends and pretend the world outside my front door didn’t exist. Why the hell did I sign up for this trip? What made me think doing something like this would fill even a sliver of the hole left by injustices this year? Fuck. Now I have to pack(what do I pack anyway?) FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF  I have far too much to do here, I can’t spare the time. Do these people like me enough to spend this much time with me? What are we going to do there? What about that appointment on Tuesday I need to prepare for? This is not a good idea.

It’s strange what you’ll tell yourself when you’re this tired. We’ve all seen the “my soul is tired” pic on social media. It’s when you’ve tried so hard but keep losing, or when you’re burnt out and just want to sleep for 50 years. The trip was three nights and half a day either side, in Eagle Bay. I felt a little excitement when the girls picked me up but everything prior was habitual stress.

Fledgeling

! I’m used to being one of the boys. (Cliched, for me it’s 100% true.) But there’s a line. My guys give me a degree of friendship that’s deep…But mutually, and thankfully not enough to talk about body parts and fluids in a manner that’s anything other than deliberately gross/trying to be funny or a fleeting, self-deprecating joke. This trip taught me that women talk about vaginas. Alot. Hearing about visits to the Gyno was a new one for me. LOL V jay jays aside, there was no shortage of anecdotes and random stories from our pasts. It was good to laugh after so long and to learn about other people’s experiences. Tightly wound for the better part of this year, it was good to get out of my own head…even if it was into someone else’s vagina.

Cockfight

! No one’s cock was fighting.  Some situations bring out unhelpful things in people. 7 women and copious wine in a house for days…I was nervous I was going to accidentally piss someone off. And then there was the standard dark humour/spooky things on the end of my tongue all the time. ((We were in a beachside mansion on holiday, watching movies upstairs with the front door unlocked on the ground floor. Of course I had to make jokes about being murdered!)) I’m not sure how that went down sometimes but it is what it is. Lol! A month ago, I’d been told by a girl who went to the same place we did, that she and her friends drunkenly argued and rubbed each other up the wrong way enough to start physical altercations on their weekend away! Yeah, that’s not us (and I never thought it would be.) We shared rooms, watched movies, hit the beach, cooked for each other and had fun. These girls are excellent humans, and I think I can twerk better now too so it’s been win/win.

Fly Over

! The walk/hike we went on was long, over difficult terrain at times. There was a whole range of beauty on show; bushland, greenery, the ocean, rock formations and wildlife. I wish I’d been a little more prepared, maybe some more water and maybe not wearing a freakin dress, but it was a lot of fun! The area we trekked started with a pathway full of randomly appearing butterflies ascending in messy spirals. They were all different sizes, all black and orange, flying together in kaleidoscopes like it was a fantasy novel and we were walking through a wonderland. I’d never seen anything like it. It was a moment where you can’t help but stop and be amazed by nature, and there’s no point recording it with your phone to show others because it couldn’t capture the way the moment feels IRL. Staying in that moment wasn’t hard. Yay mindfulness!

Stunning Birds

! Shopping in small speciality stores, I picked up gifts for mum and a coaster with a pic that’s a dead ringer for someone who broke my heart into 900 pieces.  I can’t wait to rest hot chai on it! The other girls purchased some skirts and household items…then we descended on the opshop (charity store, goodwill.) Somehow it was decided that we were only allowed to choose something from the $10 rack and we were going to have a fancy dinner wearing said items. What ensued was fucking epic. Everyone found an item of clothing that suited and looked worth more than what we paid and the next night we had a BBQ on the wooden deck wearing our fashionable opshop dresses and drinking wine.

Getting Peckish

I tasted Mango beer, mango Moscato, local red wines, locally made berry and vanilla jam, local vegetables and spinach and feta quiche…as well as the best chai I have ever had. We also had lunch at the brewery there and had our photo taken by a waiter guy who was nice enough to take a photo of us at the table.

Nocturnal Squawking

We decided to go to the beach on the last night to look at the stars. On the walk down, we split into pairs, and threes, merging and separating as our conversations dictated. One of the girls up ahead saw a man with something in his hand, screamed and ran through everyone in the dark. Then everyone ran. Like when a group of gazelles smells a lion nearby and one loses its shit and bolts so they all follow but no one actually knows wtf is going on.

It was a dead tree.

Cue eventually making it down the stairs to the sand and collapsing from laughter.  The funniest part was that most of the girls are trained to defend themselves so it made no sense that all of us would freak out. 7 v 1  dead tree!!  We attributed it to drunkenness/other. Lol We talked, admired the setting and tried to point out constellations with the help of apps that read the sky before calling it a night just in time to see teenagers come up for a night swim. We escaped before we had to share the beach with school leavers partying, which was good and also sad that I’m old enough not to want to be involved with the potential debauchery. *be’s mature*

I’m blessed to currently be living in a location where I see white sand and turquoise water a lot, but this place…the water was so clear and bright, the sand softer than I’ve felt. It’s definitely worth checking out and I wish I could have stayed a few more nights. Great experience and one I hope to repeat! It was everything I didn’t know I needed and allowed me to decompress and take a deep breath.

Thank you to my ladies for organising it and being such cool human beings. 

 

 

 

TLDR:

* I went to Eagle Bay

*It went well.

*I can’t believe 7 girls in one house only ran out of toilet paper on the last day

*I tried to use bird-like headings on this post and it was hard.

 

 

 

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All content is no copyright infringement intended. All posts are opinion only and are subject to change due to experience, kicking ass and learning how to adult more effectively. If you don’t like it, don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya. Elements of original content may be reproduced with expressed permission from Ever Eden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number One features in 7 books so far (yes there are 8/9 incoming that I know of.) Number One’s gender is never revealed and was always written that way. When I started writing about Cleo Darkrose, it was an era with no openly gay kids at school, one gay character on TV, and gender dysphoria was classified as a mental illness. I didn’t make Number One seem “gender fluid” for any political issues or awareness, sentimental ideas or empty token inclusiveness. I didn’t even know about anything aside from the concept of androgyny and the miracles of makeup, Bowie-style and Ru Paul. I thought it was artistic and cool that people used artistry to create an illusion and come up with different styles.  I saw similar creativity in my goth circles and the alternative clubs I frequented later but Number One was just Number One, never referred to as HE or SHE and nothing more or less.

Why tho?

Respect, firstly. Number One’s rank/position in the MDS means gender, appearance, anything else doesn’t make for a footnote, let alone a difference. Number One is Number One. Just like the other “Numbers” or heads of departments; all of their previous names don’t matter and neither does what’s between their legs.  Department heads/ Numbers see MDS as their one purpose and almost all of their identity, as far as we know.

Number One’s gender is a secret that no reader knows, except me. (muahahaaaa!) Number One has a gender they would identify with medically/biologically. I know it, and have for decades. I made the subject ambiguous in the books because I wanted a reader’s imagination to tailor characters. If you think Number One is a man, that’s 100% allowed and plausible. If you think Number One is a woman, that’s also 100% believable but the reader can use their own assumption and imagination when they read Number One’s dialogue or references to Number One by the surrounding characters.  Do you think Number One having long hair makes the superior seem female? Do you think that Number One’s attire makes the superior seem more male? I wanted to make the reader’s mind construct a reality that felt believable to them without them knowing they were contributing to their own version of the story.  It wasn’t ever a political statement or anything, I wanted you to play with me.

In Red Cowboys, we hear a character talk about Number One being like a teacher, mother/father and a God. The superior is honoured and thought of as a near-deity by the agents who serve at HQ.  We hear another character tell someone else that they are crumbling without being overseen by their superior, Number One. The agents don’t question decisions handed down or assignments given by a superior they have been raised to accept is better than them in every single way and worth the upmost respect.

Number One’s mystery made for a great character but because of the status of the superior and location (Number One is mostly found in an office on Level 4 of the Red Tag Building,) there hasn’t been opportunity to have a larger storyline in the books currently released…

I’d love to (eventually) do some sort of fanfic spin-off where the ideas could be explored.  It’s already mentioned that Number One’s bloodline comes from one of the original founders of The MDS. The subject is touched on later in the novels, but it would be fun to figure out the intricacies of the superior’s upbringing and past separately. The origin story would be very interesting and probably include snippets of real history (as with most Darkrose Novels.) In this case, the much-debated and talked about 1947 Roswell New Mexico crash and the panel recruited to handle the event. It would possibly also contain reasons for Number One’s decisions and even appearance.

Number One is not my favourite character because of the callousness (maybe brought on by being treated like a God/having no real experience with the “common man” lol) and flippant about other people’s lives. BUT Number One is definitely an extremely important part of the Darkrose Novels and I look forward to sharing more about this character with readers.

 

 

 

 

TLDR
* Number One is genderless – assume whatever you want

*It was not for any political statements or token credits.

*Number One is like a deity to the agents.

*Number One has better hair that me.

 

 

 

 

 

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All content is no copyright infringement intended. All posts are opinion only and are subject to change due to experience, kicking ass and learning how to adult more effectively. If you don’t like it, don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya. Elements of original content may be reproduced with expressed permission from Ever Eden.

 

 

 Obsta principiis – Resist the beginnings

 

Again, like all these types of posts, if you aren’t a gamer…it still stands. Just quit yer bitchn and read. It’s not all about a game.

There is a game called Phasmophobia. It’s like one of those ghost hunter shows where you watch idiots scream and carry on after asking the empty room if anyone is there. In the game, you can play with up to 4 people and everyone is on mic/headset, so you can talk to each other as well as the ghost you’re hunting. You start in a trailer with the instruments you’ve bought with money you make from previous missions or use the limited default ones the game gives you at the start. When we set out, we usually have EMF readers, torches, motion sensor cameras, still cameras, a Spirit Book, thermometers, glowsticks, sanity pills, Spirit Box, smudge sticks and more. I play with at least 2 other people in my gaming crew and it takes us a couple of trips to transport all of this nearer the house or into the room we are investigating because each character can only carry three items at a time.

I usually grab the EMF, a torch and a camera. The other people take the thermometer, video cameras and the Spirit Book and box, as well as glowsticks. The thermometer is used to find the coldest room in the house and then you start there. When we find the coldest room, we start placing the cameras so we can observe from the trailer, the EMF , the Spirit Book and box. The ghost can use the spirit book sometimes to write threatening messages and tell you to GTFO. The box is used for the ghost to speak through and will usually just say something short.

The house/school/asylum you enter is dark and, as with most social groups, we quickly fall into appropriate roles/established dynamics by accident. I’m the middle man. It’s been interesting to figure that out. I take charge if/when I need to, but I like the freedom to do wtf I want. Playing with me is annoying, I know. I’m asking the ghost if they’re single, I don’t mean to but I wander off thinking “it’ll just take a second for me to check this out” then the other people lose me or have moved to another room.  Aside from that, it’s good fun and it’s very good to know I have other people I trust to be in a crazy situation with me, (again, it’s a game – but the immersion…!) The houses are dark and you can turn on the lights but the ghosts usually trip the switch and power goes out, prompting your group or a brave person to find the breaker and reset everything. Until recently, I’ve never had to do that. I’d also never even held the thermometer.

Ghosts will literally hunt you and lights flash. They sneak by and make death-rattle creaking sounds, sometimes only one person will hear them breathe from behind.  You can “die” in the game, doomed to watch your friends complete the mission knowing that you’ve lost all the items you were carrying and need to earn money to replace them. I’ve died once. It sucked. It’s creepy and because you’ve been running around in the quiet dark so long, it’s actually scary to be stalked, chased and get your bones snapped. It’s even worse when you say “show yourself” and the fucking thing DOES.

Last night, I decided to do a mission. Alone.

Every mission suggests at least 2 people. I was scared of dying and losing all my equipment because usually one of the other people does the more dangerous stuff eg: goes back in to try and snap a pic of the ghost for extra credit/money. They also lay glowsticks in a path so we know where to hide if the ghost starts hunting etc. Usually myself and another person stay in the trailer or stand behind him in the doorway while he does this loose cannon crap. XD (which I love btw)

It was unnerving to open the front door and use the thermometer to find the haunted room alone. That’s usually someone else’s job. Setting up the cameras is someone else’s job too. I speak to the ghosts sometimes but I’m nearly always on the EMF and still-cameras taking pics of dolls that have moved or fingerprints under UV light. This time all of it was up to me. When I spoke to the Spirit Box at one stage, I asked the ghost to show itself(one of the objectives was to snap a pic)…and I literally jumped and choked on my own spit. It just appeared near the window in a baby’s room, dark matted hair, weird stance, then disappeared! The Spirit Book suddenly had “DIE DIE DIE” written in it and the EMF was on level 5 and screaming.

Before I loaded in I was scared to make a stupid mistake so I didn’t want to try. I also didn’t want the responsibility of all the equipment; setting it up effectively, using it the right way. But look around IRL, literally every level of every industry has some dumb a-hole sitting on a board of directors or in a management position who is incompetent to the extreme. And, THEY DON’T EVEN CARE. It seems people who have intelligence and foresight, who see potential issues and second guesses themselves are the people too scared to move forward even though they’re capable. I know it’s “only a game” but it made me think about my role in a social dynamic and the lack of confidence to do things alone. The worst outcome last night would have been losing all my equipment and having to wait until my crew is around so I can borrow theirs and earn money to buy stuff again.

I knew what to do and how to do it, but I’d never done it. I didn’t want to try because someone else may know better. Lesson is…just do it. In this situation the main things were: there weren’t hugely terrible consequences, and I was learning. It also takes balls because out of all the people I usually play this game with, no one would do this alone.  It’s creepy. A lot of times, people need to be told that it’s okay to make mistakes if you’re new, returning to something or having a terrible day. The perfection I expect from myself has dictated actions I take (or don’t take.) Give yourself a break. You’re learning.

“The Banshee is a natural hunter and will attack anything. It has been known to stalk its prey one at a time until it makes its kill.” – wiki

I identified it after a few scares, made money…and got out with all my bones intact. Am I going to try it again? Probably. I know I’m able to handle what gets thrown at me. And if I fail, I can just try again.

 

 

 

 

TLDR:
*Phasmophobia is a good game to play with friends and scare yourself

* I played it alone. 

*I discovered that sometimes I don’t take chances because I believe other people are better than me. 

*When I do stuff, I kick ass. Banshee ass.

 

 

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All content is no copyright infringement intended. All posts are opinion only and are subject to change due to experience, kicking ass and learning how to adult more effectively. If you don’t like it, don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya. Elements of original content may be reproduced with expressed permission from Ever Eden.

 

Would I be Cleo’s friend?

When I first wrote her, I was a young person begrudging attitudes people around me had towards women. I’m not a 3rd wave feminist yelling for rights I already have, this was about fictional heroines. I have/had no issue with the hero of the story being attractive, but I remember there being a spate of female heroes in movies/TV at the time who were badly written, like the formula for a porno. EG; something happens somewhere, no one cares about the story because it’s so shit, but as long as the heroine gets her hooters out, it’s all good in the end…Okay, but if someone with no skill was in a high-risk position they wouldn’t last long, big hooters or not. I was frustrated people didn’t see it (or didn’t care,) and it ruined how cool I thought the characters were. I wanted to create someone who was kickass in all ways.

Cleo has helped me gain experiences. She told me to train, it would be good for me in a lot of ways, but also for the writing. She made me fire weapons, difficult to come by in this country, take the opportunity and learn how it feels. She has made it so I invented weapons based on quantum physics and disclosed CIA documents, all that knowledge should be used somewhere. Sometimes I think WWCD? (What would Cleo do?) in some situations, and it’s made those situations better for me.

She taught me that sometimes other people’s incorrect perceptions are their own downfall.  She is attractive. I wanted to make a graphic novel at the time so I selected features and outfits I wanted to draw, hence the functional, but sexy to some people, weapons Bridle in King of Spades. Though that part was also written to give the dickheads who hold her captive more reasons to dislike them. Attractiveness is subjective, but including that element adds to the character. Just like it would if the main character was particularly UNattractive. The face everyone presents to the world is judged no matter who you are. Those perceptions usually dictate how you’re initially treated by people who don’t know you eg: A man is walking towards you, dishevelled, ripped clothing, a matted beard and no shoes…is he going to smell like a 6-day-old rotting corpse as he goes past you? Probably. But do you know for sure for sure, no. Is that pretty agent girl really going to give you her number when you ask? Or is she going to shoot your dick off? 😉

Cleo is difficult for other characters to figure out. I know her, I’ve known her over half my life, but we aren’t good friends. These are some of the reasons.

I understand jaded disdain for clueless civilians but her attitude was built by growing up behind the MDS walls and seeing what she has. She’s like a nature documentary, you’ve got your hands over your eyes because a lion is ripping a zebra to pieces but the film crew can’t/won’t/aren’t allowed to intervene. Agents let the world run a course while they observe the peasant sandbox. Her superiors have plans for the future and the dragnet will take care of the people living in it, they don’t matter. Her coldness isolates her from the other characters, even Agent Starr, who is ranked the same as her yet has a respect for civilians.

She completes orders without questions (aloud.) She relies on the judgement of someone/an agency she’s signed her life over to.

She rarely lets anyone know how she feels. It seems professional not to have emotion be a factor in her life, but I think real people who do this all the time aren’t healthy and aren’t as fearless as they portray. It takes balls to let people know how you actually feel. During King of Spades, we see a shift in how she handles emotions and the clumsy stumbles make her more human. We also see the consequences of that for someone in her position and whether her personal growth is a positive or negative thing in her life.

Cleo and I have to work on our friendship, but I would call her a companion I’ve had long enough to have made a significant change of my life’s course and I’m grateful we get to hang out.

 

 

TLDR:

* Cleo isn’t my best friend

*But I understand where she’s coming from, she isn’t a regular human being.

*WWCD is a cool motto.

 

 

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All content is no copyright infringement intended. All posts are opinion only and are subject to change due to experience, kicking ass and learning how to adult more effectively. If you don’t like it, don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya. Elements of original content may be reproduced with expressed permission from Ever Eden.