Welcome to Bubble League! I’m Alan Trullinger (aka Elder Leaf), and this is my personal website.

I want to write fiction for a living and produce electronic music as a corrolary to the fiction and to those ends I temporarily stopped attending college where I had been studying as an English major and decided that I would somehow become a visual novelist, making story and music. To achieve this dream, I may end up into or out of more occupations that I can predict in an attempt to find stories to tell, and the proper ways of telling them.

My favorite science is probably Sociology, the semi-science of group behavior that got started by Karl Marx among others, but it’s not because of him that I like it because I was making games and stories containing sociological observations even before I had gone to college and learned that “sociology” was an actual word, and that I wasn’t the only one with an interest in it.

My favorite short story is “Cigarettes” by Yukio Mishima, from the book Acts of Worship. It is the most beautiful story I have ever read and exactly the same thing that I would write if I had a brain.

My favorite novel is The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

My favorite animated movie is AIR The Motion Picture, and my second favorite is Treasure Planet. AIR has an awesome story, and Treasure Planet is amazing even though it could have been much, much more.

I strongly dislike Hemingway the man and his legacy and everything related to his writing and blame him for all my writer’s block. Him, and all the English teachers who have ever told me to “show, not tell.” I mean, I guess that’s fine, if you totally want to be ironic and suspend belief and pretend that stories spring from the minds of gods and not men. I’d better not get started ranting.

How stuff is organized on this website:

My journal entries are on the home page (sigh). My whiny and vague complaints and topical observations, along with stories, go in the forum. I treat everything on this site like a work in progress, even if it’s not, so don’t take it too seriously.

About my music:

My music is upbeat electronic synthpop with lyrics inspired by an incredible variety of things– mostly pain.

I want to think of myself as a student of sound– a producer– because I find the art of sound a lot more interesting than the skill of composing or playing a musical instrument. One of my goals is to meld odd elements that would sound incongruent by themselves into a pleasing whole, much as a chef combines a bunch of untasty ingredients to create a tasty food. If sounds were cakes, then I would be a baker. A good song is one that I can listen to a dozen times in a row because I keep noticing subtle new details. This is true of all my songs, or else I wish it was.

I’m maintaining this website as a hobby because all the free websites out there are not to my liking. This means that I’m either a perfectionist, or… yeah, I guess that explains it.

There are forums on this website, I’m not sure why. I think I wanted to use them to organize stories and stuff, but I’m not sure if it’s working better than having everything as part of a blog. It really bothers me when things are disorganized.

I keep accounts on some other websites and update them whenever I have better things to do. (This listing is here mostly for my benefit.):

• My Shelfari Bookshelf - This is a listing of books that I’ve read and liked enough to want to remember the names of.
• Zazzle T-shirt Store - I made some old-school pixel art designs and put them on T-shirts that anybody can buy. I bought one of my designs (Walk Cycle) on a shirt and it is excellent.
• Bubble League on Myspace - My electronic music band has a website! And you can hear some of my songs and download them! It’s like the best thing ever!
• Bubble League on RPM Challenge - My page on the RPM Challenge website. The challenge was to record 35 minutes of music during the month of February 2008. I completed the challenge!
• My Anime List - A list I’m keeping of anime that I’ve watched and manga that I’ve read. If I’ve watched an entire series, that’s because it’s good and I recommend it. Movies or individual episodes, not so much, unless I rate it highly.

Personality:

I’ve found personality tests to be interesting and maybe even useful. They consist of a series of questions about personality traits. After taking the tests over and over, I’ve learned that when I answer the tests insincerely, basing my answers on what I wish that I was, I come up as an INFP personality. But when I answer based on how I actually act, I come up as an INFJ, although the difference is not great between the two. Look at the chart and you’ll see what I mean, even if you don’t understand what it means. Based on the tests I’ve taken, I think that at certain times, and with certain people, I may come across as more of an INFP or an INFJ.

Here is my “badge” from a free personality test website. (I don’t get anything if you sign up with this website and take the test, in case you were wondering.)

The Servers:

If you ever want a website of your own, may I highly recommend Lunarpages? They host this website. I’ve found that they have good service and web hosting features. If you buy a hosting plan through the link below, Bubble League can potentially earn money! Not that you care about that or anything, but I thought I should mention it.