TechnicDragon: Blog

With the end of Crushed Heart, I received several messages regarding the relationship between Ral and Rachel. I decided to re-write the last chapter to better answer those questions. Then there was another message that bothered me:

You wrote Ral like he was socially retarded and it became annoying after a while. At some point he started acting like a normal person and it conflicted with his earlier persona. What's the deal?

I can only hope to properly answer...

While Ral was dealing with the idea of getting a girlfriend, and the emotions involved, he was a social retard. Yes, he could SEE Rachel's emotions in her aura, and while he might be able to guess at why she felt the way she did, he wasn't going to act on it because to him it would be wrong. Let me explain by way of example...

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry travels with Dumbledore to recruit Professor Slughorn. When they apparate to the neighborhood, Harry asks why they don't just apparate into the house.

“Professor, why couldn’t we just Apparate directly into your old colleague’s house?”

“Because it would be quite as rude as kicking down the front door,” said Dumbledore. “Courtesy dictates that we offer fellow wizards the opportunity of denying us entry. In any case, most Wizarding dwellings are magically protected from unwanted Apparators. At Hogwarts, for instance —”

“— you can’t Apparate anywhere inside the buildings or grounds,” said Harry quickly. “Hermione Granger told me.”

“And she is quite right. We turn left again.”

Ral views seeing emotions in auras much the same as Dumbledore's view on apparating: he allows those with the feelings to express or hide them as they see fit. It would be rude to do otherwise.

Knowing this, Ral certainly comes off as a Buffon with regards to dating. And really, wouldn't anyone else who has never been on a date seem a buffoon?

However, when danger is present, he will use all of his understanding to his advantage. Remove the romantic element and he can deal with any situation like an adult. I try to think of Ral in terms of a Romantic Comedy - Especially from the perspective of the movie, True Lies.

Crushed Heart is complete - at least I've submitted the last chapters for posting.

I'm going to wait until next weekend to post the first chapter of Small Deaths. Here's the description:

Ral wants to celebrate the end of his first semester, but he's attacked while running, then he's asked to find a missing member of House Leonis, which leads to the discovery of a new serial killer. On top of those issues, Uniforms treat him like a troubled teen heading for hard times, and Lt. Stanfield's new partner's opinion is worse. What does one do when outclassed, outgunned, and marked for death? He fights. But, can Ral survive and prove his innocence when no one believes in him?

I hope everyone has a good weekend and thank you for reading!
TD

Well, it turns out the blinking power button was an indication of a problem. The Power supply only worked while I held down the test button. Further research told me that this combination of effects only occur when the CMOS battery is dead. So, I replaced the battery and the desktop computer is up and running again!!

YAY.

Well, it would seem my efforts to post new stories have been brought to a screeching halt.

The laptop I bought last year, brand new, won't charge or even turn on. Problem is I went cheap and bought it from Walmart. The damned thing doesn't have a removable battery like other laptops I've previously owned.

I also bought a refurbished Dell desktop from eBay. Seems the power supply is out on it. Oddly, it has a button on the back. If I hold down the button, everything seems to power up, but it doesn't boot. And the instant I let go of the button, all power is lost.

And I've been wanting to hammer out chapters to post!!

I'm open to suggestions.

I've never been so depressed that I've lost my appetite. Usually I'm just the opposite, I eat more when depressed.

Thanks for reading, folks.
TD

I have already submitted a corrected chapter 3, as well as submitted chapters 5-15 for posting. As I said, these chapters are complete. I'm simply running each one through the free version of Grammarly for final corrections.

Enjoy.