#especially considering the last time he interacted with humans was canonically about a hundred years prior

[musclesandhammering]

How did I never even consider this, this is actually so funny 😭

Headcanon that castiel is awkward because he doesn't fully understand English. Like, yeah, he can navigate a dictionary, but when it comes to jokes and phrases, he doesn't understand them. Then Sam and Dean find a book in the bunker that is like a learning guide for enochian, and it is surprisingly easy to learn. So now that they understand the basics of enochian, they start being able to deliver all the comments Cas would make under his breath, and they have to come to the horrible realization that Castiel is a fucking asshole. He just doesn't know how to be an asshole in English.

[originmade]

ZEREF DRAGNEEL - PORTRAYAL MASTER POST

Tags: Headcanons. Asks. Interactions.

This post is to cover all major canon divergences as well as any important details that are worth sharing about my portrayal of Zeref. All of these points remain no matter the verse unless stated otherwise or plotted with specific partners. Zeref Genuinely is such a fascinating character and Villain. It sucks Ma.shima was the writer behind him. Please Note: Zeref's Portrayal is very heavily tied to my Mavis Portrayal

1 ) By nature, Zeref is a very kind and gentle person. His value for life is a driving factor as to how he became who he is and why he does everything he can. It was his goal to preserve and cherish life that ended him up with the curse to kill so many, and that's why his death count is so high.

2 ) Zeref is unable to be consistent with his thoughts and actions, typically contradicting himself, even within the same conversation. The curse has forced his mind into an ongoing game of backtracking and reprocessing, not wanting to take any more lives but also attempting to be so apathetic that he could care less if they were taken or not. It's such an intense balancing game that many view him as insane as he attempts to keep it up

3 ) While he desperately attempts to keep his distance, Zeref is extremely charismatic and persuasive when he is actively engaged. He knows how to command a room and be a strong presence, making it hard to be ignored. However, despite these traits, he attempts to act with the interest of everyone in best, not himself.

4 ) In general, Zeref is harmless to interact with, as long as you don't attempt to form a strong connection or bond with him. He will keep all interactions and conversations as short as possible and refuses to learn personal details. The only reason he had agreed to teach Mavis and the other founders magic was due to Mavis's manipulation

5 ) Alvarez was not formed by any militaristic means, but was rather diplomatic in nature. Zeref is so apposed to death and puts himself in a deep self imposed isolation that I genuinely refuse to believe he would use extremely force and cause hundreds of deaths to unite guilds. Zeref united the guilds to prevent growing conflicts between them and also strengthen their individual means by opening up more trade routes and alliances. Alvarez existed as a project to see if he still does maintain some bit of his humanity, that he still has the compassion and mental stability to bring forth good, especially after all the cults and death that have come from his actions.

6 ) Zeref truly was in love with Mavis, through it was an extremely misconstrued notion of love. Zeref had spent the last 300 years in isolation, alone and with the genuine belief there shall be no company and relief for his curse and mistake, so to find another with the exact same curse, it filled him with a deep love and determination to keep the one thing that could very much become a consistent. He became possessive of Mavis and the idea of not being alone, of having someone to rely on. These emotions overwhelmed him and considering the closest feeling he had to this was the love of his brother, he believed himself that this is what love is.

7 ) Following Mavis 'death', Zeref developed Schizoid personality disorder, having lost his one true chance of forming a genuine connection. Its extremely difficult to get close to him, as he will shut down any attempts before they begin.

8 ) The war on Fairy Tail was about the Lumine Histoire, but much less about the desire for the unlimited magic. Even though their time together was limited, he was aware that Mavis would have wanted death, it was what she had asked of him when they were reunited, and his goal was to destroy the artifact, in hopes of granting Mavis one final sense of peace. If it meant taking the magic for himself so she would be rid of her curse or using it to rewrite time, so be it. His end goal was Mavis' death and eternal rest, but he knew his reputation and relationship with the guild would limit any hopes of diplomacy about the actions, especially considering how highly Makarov had deemed and swore to protect it. War was truly his only option, despite how much he hated needless death.

9 ) Cannot believe I forgot to include this when I was originally writing this. ZEREF IS NOT AUGUST'S BIOLOGICAL FATHER. ZEREF DOES NOT HAVE ANY CHILDREN. I stated this in my Mavis portrayal notes, but the entire implications around August is genuinely awful, on top of that Zeref would never want a child considering he knows he'd end up killing them, either by forcing himself to neglect them or by loving them and the curse taking hold. Zeref is not a father. Zeref never had kids. Mashima fucking STOP.

More shall be added / this post shall be updated when deemed necessary

[clairenatural]

destiel, 2k. dean’s self loathing but it ends up fluffy so it’s ok. pining. destiel finally becoming canon because sam just wants to drink smoothies in peace (this is a repost because the original got deleted!)

It’s a few weeks into all of them being back in the bunker, Sam and Dean and Jack and a rapidly humanizing Castiel, when Sam decides he’s had enough. It had been bad enough the past decade, when Castiel was always leaving and there was always another apocalypse to distract them, but the past few weeks have become damn near domestic and the mutual pining is driving him up the wall.

Sam finally snaps at a small bar in Lebanon. Cas is caught up by a pretty girl at the bar and Dean has barely touched his beer, instead watching the interaction with a mixture of longing and heartbreak, and Sam can’t take it anymore.

“Dude,” he starts, and when that fails, “Dean.” Dean looks at him. He frowns.

“What, Sam?”

“Just go talk to him. Or drag him back to the bunker and talk to him there. I’ll go stay with Eileen this weekend, I’ll even take Jack with me—just please, Dean. For me.”

Dean blinks at him, glowers a bit, and takes a sip of his beer. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

Sam gives him a look, unimpressed. “It’s been ten years. And—” he puts up a hand to stop the protests. “And listen, I know it’s been…rough, but by some miracle things are calm right now. So just tell Cas you’re in love with him so I can stop feeling like I’m interrupting something every time I walk into the kitchen.” 

He shudders a bit, remembering the day before when he walked into the bunker’s kitchen to see Dean and Cas just staring at each other over two mugs of coffee, hands still touching where Castiel had handed the mug to Dean. Sam had cleared his throat and Castiel had jumped, spilling the coffee, and Dean had glared at his brother as he reached for a towel.

Sam had just wanted a smoothie.

He glances back across the bar table to where Dean is staring at him, open mouthed, and watches as his expression shifts to a glower as he apparently gives up on trying to deny it. Sam counts that as a small victory in itself. 

“Why? So he can freak out and leave again? Dude’s just starting to get comfortable, Sam, I’m not about to chase him away.” Dean’s tone is angry, but Sam knows him well enough to see through the facade. There’s no real anger there. Just fear.

His heart hurts a bit, for both his brother and their best friend. “Dean,” he starts, gently, leaning forward in his chair. “He’s an angel. He’s been here since the beginning of humanity. He put your soul back together. Do you really think he doesn’t already know?”

Dean’s staring at him again, as if he’s never considered that before. He looks apprehensive, and mildly terrified, but before he can respond Castiel appears back at their table. He slides a beer across the table to Sam, then to Dean, who doesn’t look at him, before settling down himself. There’s a half second of awkward silence before Dean changes the subject, and Sam sighs. Nobody could say he hadn’t tried.

----------------------------------------

Dean can’t sleep. 

He’s staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom, replaying the last few things Sam had said. He’s an angel, Sam had said, as if that wasn’t obvious. And it was, it is, but—it’s too easy to forget sometimes, especially the many times he’s ended up more human than angel, that Castiel is thousands of years old. Dean never forgets that he’s an angel, of course. That’s one of the staples of the voice in his head, the one constantly telling him to keep his feelings for Castiel a secret to the grave. Over the past ten years Angel of the Lord has become nearly synonymous with too good for you and better than you would ever deserve.

It's what being an angel means that Dean doesn’t think about. That Castiel has spent millennia as nothing more than a wavelength of light and celestial intent before giving it all up to drag Dean out of Hell. That he was a soldier, a seraph, a term that Dean thinks he knows but also doesn’t fully understand the weight of. Castiel misses a pop culture reference and Dean forgets that he understands the physics of the cosmos on a level his human brain could never comprehend. Or, not forget—he could never forget. Dean just doesn’t like to look too closely at it, because staring everything that Castiel really is in the face just makes the voice louder. Makes him feel like just a speck of dust in comparison, unworthy of the angel’s presence or time or attention. Makes him wonder why Castiel has given up everything that he is and was, everything he had since the beginning of time, for that one speck of dust.

So maybe Sam is right. And Dean hates that. Because maybe Sam is right, but Castiel has only stayed over the years because he has nowhere else to go. And he has nowhere to go because of Dean. Because the very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost, Hester said. Because too much heart was always Castiel’s problem, Samandriel said. Because I’m hunted, I rebelled, and I did it - all of it - for you, Castiel himself told him, once upon a time. I’m doing this for you, Dean. I’m doing this because of you.

And Dean had reacted in anger, like he always did. Like he always does. And Cas keeps coming back anyway.

He needs a drink.

He sighs as he hauls himself off his bed, creeping silently through the bunker on the way to the kitchen, but pauses when he hears the murmuring of the television coming from Castiel’s room. It’s a bad decision but he turns towards Castiel’s bedroom door and pauses for a moment, listening to the soft sounds of a nature documentary through the wood. What are you doing? The voice scolds. Sure, Dean. Creep outside his bedroom at midnight, that’ll make him feel real comfortable.

The television clicks off. Dean assumes he’s going to sleep, something he needs to do more and more lately, and is about to keep going to the kitchen when—

“Dean?” Cas calls. Dean freezes. He could leave quietly, and they’d both pretend it had never happened. They were good at that. He could also make some sort of excuse and continue on his merry way. He doesn’t do either.

“Can I come in?” He asks instead, and Castiel says “yes,” and then Dean is pushing open the bedroom door.

Castiel is sitting on his bed, cross-legged, wearing a pair of sweatpants they’d picked up from the local thrift store and a t-shirt that is (was?) definitely Dean’s. The sight makes his heart clench. He hadn’t considered the potential consequences when he’d dumped a bunch of his old clothing on Castiel’s bed, and it sure isn’t making anything easier.

“You sleeping tonight?” Dean asks, and Castiel shakes his head.

“I don’t need to.” He pauses. “You should be, though. Is everything alright?”

Dean shifts on his feet. He shoves his hands deep in his pockets. He looks back at Castiel, meeting his gaze. There's something so uniquely deep about it—it wasn’t there in Jimmy, and even now, nearly human, his blue eyes feel centuries old. But not like the ocean. The blue eyes/ocean metaphor is overplayed, and when Dean looks into Castiel’s eyes he doesn’t feel like he’s swimming in an endless azure ocean. He feels like he’s drowning in the Marianas Trench.

“Do you know?” Dean asks. He doesn’t mean to, but he isn’t surprised when the words come out of his mouth.

Cas blinks at him, then frowns. “Know what?”

“You know.” Eloquent as always.

Cas quirks an eyebrow. “I know many things, Dean, but even with my full grace I can’t read your thoughts.”

Dean blushes. He hopes the darkness of the room, illuminated only by Castiel’s bedside lamp, obscures it. “I guess prayers aren’t quite the same, huh.”

There’s a loaded pause. Cas shifts, moving away from the headboard to sit at the edge of his bed, facing Dean. “Praying is more abstract than humans think it is,” he starts. “Gratitude is often close enough. Longing can come through as prayer. Love… when love gets close enough to worship, it’s the loudest of all.” He pauses there, searching for a reaction. Dean isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but he doesn’t even think he’s breathing—he’d stopped as soon as Castiel said love.

After an excruciating moment, Castiel continues. “So if that’s what you mean…”

Dean braces for impact.

“Then yes, Dean. I think I knew before you did.”

And, well. There it is. For some reason, Dean isn’t running away. He thinks it’s probably because Cas isn’t running away this time—and because he’d come back. He still comes back. Regardless of the many, many times Dean had been the one to push him away.

So “I love you,” Dean says, quietly, voice rough, because there’s really no point in not saying it anymore. Then, “I mean…I love you.” He clarifies, even as saying it twice sets off alarm bells, because if there’s one thing they’re good at it’s miscommunication.

Castiel blinks at him. “I know,” he replies, puzzled. “Is that not what we were just talking about?”

Dean stares at him. “You’re still here.”

The confusion on the angel’s face deepens. “Yes, because I love you too. I thought that was obvious.” In another lifetime he would’ve used air quotes.

What.

Dean pauses for a minute, reeling, trying to figure out if he misheard.

“Obvious,” he clarifies, as if that’s the word he’s struggling with.

“Yes.”

Dean is still staring, feeling something akin to shock. Obvious?

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I have. Multiple times, in multiple ways.”

Dean thinks back to profound bond and I always come when you call and I’ll watch over you and I could go with you and hundreds of moments in between.

Oh.

“You didn’t care that I never got the message?”

“I’m thousands of years old, Dean. Ten years is nothing. I was willing to wait.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dean replies, because that is a whole bunch he doesn’t have the energy to unpack, and his brain still isn’t completely caught up to what’s happening.

“No, I’m Castiel.”

It’s an old joke, said with a smile, and that combined with the absurdity of the situation means Dean can’t help but laugh. He looks up and makes eye contact with Castiel, who grins back, and suddenly there’s way too much space between them.

Dean crosses the bedroom in a few strides, and Cas stands to meet him, and then they’re kissing, and Dean isn’t even sure who started it but they’ve both been waiting long enough that he isn’t sure it matters. He has his arms wrapped around Castiel’s waist, clinging to the soft fabric of the t-shirt that was once his own, when something in the back of his head starts screaming that this is a bad idea and he’s just going to leave tomorrow and are you dumb enough to think you can actually have this?

But then Castiel makes a soft noise in the back of his throat and deepens the kiss, pulling them impossibly closer together, and for all its years of practice Dean’s self-loathing can’t come up with a response to that.

Castiel pulls back first, flushed and breathing heavily, and Dean chases his lips for a moment before Cas catches him in his gaze, in endless blue. Suddenly, Dean isn’t drowning anymore. He’s on a lifeboat, and the trench is impossibly deep beneath him but he feels safer than he has in a long time. Home, his brain supplies, helpful for the first time in years, and Dean smiles.

Cas smiles back, bringing a hand up to Dean’s face to trace his thumb along his cheekbone. “Will you stay here tonight?” he asks, soft, and Dean leans in to press an equally soft kiss to his forehead.

Tonight and every night, he thinks. “’Course,” he says, and then leans in to kiss him again.

Two mornings later, Sam walks into the bunker’s kitchen to find Castiel pushed up against a counter, Dean kissing his way down his neck. He yelps and retreats around the corner.

“Come on, guys,” he yells, from safety, and the two have the audacity to laugh.

“You did this, Sammy,” Dean reminds.

“I said I wanted to stop interrupting things in my own kitchen,” Sam counters, but he can’t find it in his heart to be angry. He sighs. “Whatever. You know I’m happy for you. I just—” he pauses. “Can I at least come get my smoothie?”

[thewritingof-therose]

Hi! Last week, with the publishing of the 20th chapter of Hasard, I reached the 100 kudos on the fic, so to celebrate it, here’s some kind of bonus chapter where I talk a little about the conception of the story, along with comments about each chapters. 

Enjoy!

----

So… 20 chapters and 100 kudos already. To be honest, by the time I started imagining this story, I wasn’t really expecting to be able to celebrate that milestone of kudo on a single fic and even if I already celebrated the 2000 kudos in general this year, if we make a quick calcul based on the numbers of kudos and all the fics I’ve published, at the time I’m writing those words, it’s the same that if each one of my fic had only 20 kudos… So yeah, finally reaching the hundred on a single one makes me so happy \o/

Anyway, here’s some trivia and fun facts about Hasard and the first twenty chapters of the story.

First of all, some history:

I had the idea for Hasard in May 2018 as I was watching the tv show Lucifer (I am not up to date with it, please don’t try to spoil me this show ^^’) and I imagined one scene that just… shaped the entire story and it took me less than a few hours to know that I would write it. Even if I wasn’t sure how long it would be and that there had been some changes. And no, I won’t tell what scene kickstarted it all because she still has to come and it could be quite a huge spoiler. 

Following it, my brain quickly went into developing the full story and a few things changed. On the top of my head, I can say that Maiev was meant to be more on her own, almost a complete independent Hunter that would have also been resented by the other Hunters, along with a way more black and white view of the demons. She was meant to be more aggressive against all demons and really thinking that they all deserved to die, but I softened that side of her as I shifted the world building with the presence of hybrids. 

At first, the hybrids were meant to be a really rare kind and I wanted to keep that status for a few select characters because it could have brought some really good story for them. Then, as I kept working on the worldbuilding, I came to the idea that actually, hybrids were extremely common, but at the same time, the demon’s presence was still a secret from most of the world because most hybrids started centuries ago and their blood and physical attributions were weakening the more they were reproducing. So, about 80% of the world is made of hybrids of all kinds of generation (who is my way of scaling the demonic influence on their life) and the 20% left is shared with the full demons and full humans. 

Full demons are simply people who don't have a single drop of human blood in them. Usually, they are born from two other full demon parents or they just appeared like that (that’s the mytho). They are extremely powerful and good magic users, but now, they are rare. It was easier to be a full demon millenia ago when they ruled over the world and the few that are left in the current world of Hasard, survived either by hiding really well, manipulating their way to stay alive, or simply because they accepted to work with the humans and they went on. 

My best example of a full demon is Velen. 

The full humans, are the humans who either had never gotten a single drop of demon’s blood in their bloodlines, either they purged the bloodline after making sure that there had been at least 10 generations since the last time a hybrid was born (technically, every child following it would be considered as an hybrid, but the other parent would be a full human to weaken the demon’s blood which each new generation). Full humans are rarer than full demons and they tend to be bad news as almost all of them are associated with the Priesthood (who’ll get some more explanation later.)

I haven’t presented yet one of them to give an example, but one is ready to show up in the Second arc of the story. Won’t say who to not spoil the surprise x)

As for hybrids, there are two kinds. The one born from a demon and a human, and or hybrids (two hybrids will keep creating hybrids and technically, as long as one of the parents has human blood, the bloodline will stay a hybrid one). And the second one hadn’t been introduced yet. We have characters that are that kind, but it’s some worldbuilding elements that will show up later and so, I'll keep it to myself for now. Feel free to theorize though! And usually, most hybrids will simply call themselves demons instead of showing signs of weaknesses by not being a full one.

For the title of the story, it had been extremely hard for me to find one. Ever since I started preparing everything, it had a codename and it was “Modern AU” and it stayed like that until the very minute of the publishing of the first chapter. I was already going towards “Le Hasard Fait Bien Les Choses” but I was bothered because it was French, and no matter what, I couldn’t find a good English idiom that would have all the nuances of the French one. The only thing that comes close to it would be “Fate is a funny thing” and yet, I’m not entirely satisfied with it. So, after a long debate with myself and help from other people, I came to the conclusion that I had to keep the French title if I wanted to be happy with it. 

It might not help much to get people interested, and I’m considering adding “Fate is a Funny Thing” after it but I’m debating it.

I think that's already a lot, so let's move to the trivia per chapters:

A Muffled Shout In The Night

Oh boy, first chapter! I was so excited to finally start the story but I was also really stressed. I tried to give away a quick summary of how the universe was working, along with my two main characters + showing up the first supportive characters towards Maiev. Trying to present all the cast (so adding Illidari and more about Illidan) right in that chapter wouldn't have really worked so, instead, I went to show that a more "Legion-y" timeline could be expected thanks to Khadgar and Velen's presence in the chapter. 

I kinda hope that I succeeded to already show Maiev's obsession towards the Betrayer through her first lines.

Though I will be one hundred percent honest with you. The end of the chapter with Illidan running away, don't expect much from that interaction. I kind of always forget about it unless I'm reading back the chapter… I only needed a reason for them to stop fighting and the chapter to carry on.

But who knows, maybe I'll tie it to something one day.

Two Black Coffees And A Meeting, Please

When writing it, I always knew that Drelanim was on the other side of the call (or at least another Hunter) but as I read the moment a few times, I realized that I could have gone for a completely different way. One that would have probably surprised everyone.

But yeah, in another universe, it's Illidan who calls Maiev because he's in front of her place as they decided to meet for breakfast there. It would have been quite nice and unexpected for the story, especially that Illidan would have gotten right away the reveal that Maiev was actually the Warden as she would have complained about the wounds of the night. 

In the end, I went on with my first idea and made them meet for good in the chapter.

And, like with the first chapter… the "current problem" that he talks about to Kor'vas went nowhere… I'll more than probably get him to acknowledge some uninteresting side story for it at some point.

Memories Of A Rainy Day That Will Never Be Forgotten

For that one, one word: Ouch.

By the time I started to write this chapter, I was also preparing the Advent Calendar of 2019 and I had decided on telling Naisha's story, and I had to realize that I still had to foreshadow some elements from it to make it work. Of course, the title is fully referencing the day she died and the demon that Maiev killed right at the beginning of the chapter was similar to Naisha, putting Maiev in a stabbing mood. And it led us to another necessary addition for the Calendar's chapter: Malfurion.

(I'm also wondering how many people guessed right away that Malfurion was the one Illidan was calling…)

Brother, My Brother, Tell Me What We're Fighting For? 

Even if Malfurion had more of a cameo than anything in the Calendar's story, I felt the need to introduce him to put the bases of the twins' relationship. I always knew that he was a doctor and that he was mostly helping Illidan when he was getting in trouble, and as their backstory is different from WoW and that they are both demons, I didn't want to go on the canon path for them. 

I cannot tell much about it because we'll get fast to their backstory (Second arc) but here, Illidan and Malfurion mostly grew up in a world where it was them against the rest of the world. They were born during the glorious days when demons ruled the world and they saw it change through the millennia that followed. After everything, they would be devastated to lose the other and suddenly be the only one left. This is why they are way closer than they could ever be in canon (and also Tyrande isn't part of their backstory so it helped them keep a good relationship). Sometimes, they part ways for a few decades. Malfurion goes back to medical school somewhere and makes sure that he's up to date for it, or Illidan just moves with his clan to experience new things. But they stay in contact and always come back in proximity of one another.

The end of the chapter was my obligatory "shock reveal/cliffhangers" before a break. But well, I wanted to keep the Legion's existence in my sleeve for a little longer, but I realized that it would allow me to make them into a concrete threat as the story will progress + allowing Illidan and, mostly, the Illidari to be a little more presents into the story.

Actually, the chapter's name comes from a song from the occidental version of the first Pokemon movie. It's a line from the song that plays when the Pokemon and their clone fights, and i used it mostly for the brother's mentions and because it would totally be a thing said by one of the twins in their past…

A Flower Arrangement Made With Your Face In Mind

At that time, I wanted to make a chapter to develop a little more the supporting characters of the cast, and as I was taking back the writing of the fic after a four or five months break, I thought it would be nice. 

So, we got a little side dish of Illidari for it and that’s pretty much the only chapter (until now) where Illidan or Maiev barely appears in it. Yet, I threw some worldbuilding and foreshadowing in it and I still like it, so it isn’t really a filler.

I’ll probably do more chapters like that in the future, but I’ll see with the pacing of the story.

Willingly Accepting Your Death Isn't As Easy As I Thought

I don’t have much to say about this chapter. I still really like it and especially Maiev and Velen’s interaction. 

Along with showing that we were far from a potential romantic relationship, at least on Maiev’s side x)

A Laugh That Will Echo Through The Ages

Oh my God, that chapter! I could probably talk about it for hours but we would quickly reach the spoiler territory so I’ll see what I can tell without shooting myself in the foot.

I loved giving Khadgar some more identity and I like his relationship with Maiev. In the story, they are around 10 years apart, with Khadgar being the youngest. He’s like an honorary younger brother to every Hunter and even if Maiev won’t admit it, she’s kinda thinking the same. 

If he had been in the spotlight for this chapter, it was actually because I was thinking of writing his backstory for the Calendar of 2020 but in the end, I scrapped the idea and wrote something else. But It’ll happen at some point.

You Were In My Dream Last Night, And I Found You That Morning

A simple and nice chapter to calm down from the action heavy that was the precedent. I do throw some crumbs of foreshadowing and backstory, mostly for Maiev, but we will have to wait quite some time for the full one. Even if to be honest, before I release it fully, there will probably be some people that will stitch everything from my crumbs.

Illidan’s dreams are meant to be a plot point all through the story, and I decided to start them with this chapter. And of course, we can see that it’s the first chapter where Illidan, even if he isn’t conscious of it, starts to like Maiev more than he should have at that point.

A Red Dress And Heels To Hide The Knife In Plainsight

I loved writing that one. Showing that Maiev had more hobbies than hunting demons, along with showing how you had to act to get her to do things that she would refuse to do otherwise. Most of the time, if Sira gently asks if she wants to go do some shopping, Maiev always has something else to do. Not that she hates shopping, just that she thinks there’s better things to do. 

I could probably go more about Worgens and their existence, but it would spoil some part of the story :/ 

And honestly, I had an alternate version of this chapter where Illidan saw Maiev and Sira hurrying in the streets, followed them and he would have eavesdropped on the conversation about him. It was obviously bad because it was confirming that Maiev was at least a Hunter (which he won’t know until a while by that time) and it would have been totally an excuse for smut x)

A Warning Falling In Deaf Ears

With this chapter, I’ve been working on mixing the idea of chapters 5 (to concentrate on rest of the cast) with more of the main story. Like that, I show that there’s more than Illidan and Maiev in this universe, but at the same time, I’m still progressing their story by sharing the chapter between the two. I really liked writing Kayn like that and I think that one of my favorite things to write in this story, it’s Illidan and Malfurion interacting.

A Touch So Familiar, Yet So Strangely Threatening

I remember writing that chapter and suddenly realizing that it was going to be longer than the precedent, and i thought for a moment that I had to cut it in half, but I couldn’t find a satisfying way to do it, and it would have fucked up my outline, so I just carried on with it until I had told everything that I had to. 

With that chapter, I’m trying to show that Maiev can be really crazy when it comes to the Betrayer and his followers, but I can assure that she wouldn’t wound any of the Hunters, even if they cannot really be sure about it. And the little dialogue with the B-word made me laugh and yes, Maiev already called the Betrayer a bitch to his face. In 13 years, it would have been weird that she didn’t think of it at least once.

For the rest of the chapter, I just wanted to show that Maiev and Illidan were becoming comfortable with each other + setting up a reason for her to be worried about Illidan to show him her good side.

Screaming Under The Full Moon Won't Change Your Fate

The one thing I keep from this chapter, is that I can’t wait to dive more into Velen and Maiev's relationship.

Otherwise, yeah, if Illidan were to go into a fight only wanting to use magic, he could kill Maiev without breaking a sweat. But he likes the challenge and feels like it wouldn’t be satisfying to annihilate her with just a spell, so he’s fighting blade against blades, unless Maiev is really close to kill him.

A Fateful Call That Only You Can Be Blamed For

I have nothing much to say about it. It was one chapter that I really wanted to write and publish, because it’s the one where Illidan just let his guard down around Maiev for good, and now that he won’t try to trap her into admitting that she is the Warden, it allows him to see Maiev in another light.

That anyone can guess what it is.

Oh yeah, just that I threw some good crumbs of the fact that Illidan is a self-loathing addict in my fics and that it’s one of the reasons he falls so hard for Maiev after this chapter. But it’ll be a good talk for either another chapter, or later.

Going Separate Ways For A Night But Not The Life

Nothing to say, it was a transitional chapter to show that Illidan really believes that Maiev isn’t the Warden, and that there’s more than the fight to them.

Stab Me Once, Shame On You. Stab Me More Than Twice...

A fun little chapter. Velen is more modern than most people can believe and once again, I like writing about the interactions between Illidan and Malfurion. Of course, if you go back to read this one after chapter 20, you might see that I already knew how it was going to happen from this chapter, as the 20th got his title in this one.

I just hope that people read the story from the Advent Calendar 2020 to know what happened in the middle of it.

And From There, Fate Laughed At Them

I could talk for hours about Cordana in my AU. I just love what I’m going to do with her characters and I hope that my readers will like it too. 

But to give some crumbs, Maiev and Cordana have been best friends since high school and she’s the first long-time friend that Maiev had made in her life and thanks to Cordana, she met with Sira and the group, but most importantly Velen. Cordana is a hybrid of sixth generation, so her demonic attributes are almost non-existent, but she kept some supernatural ability from her legacy. She knew from a very young age that she wanted to hunt demons and protect people, and met with Velen early to prepare her future job. Once she discovered that Maiev had some natural abilities to hunt demons, she saw them as the future “Best Best Friend and Hunters” and convinced Maiev to give a go to the hunt. She was forced to move out in another city but she kept contact with Maiev and the rest of the group. In terms of strength, abilities and hunting score, she is right behind Maiev.

Otherwise, I will add that I had a lot of fun writing the conversation between them about Illidan and how he would be better than the Betrayer *winkwink*.

I didn’t make it clear in that chapter and it won’t be important, but Khadgar has a crush on Cordana.

Cordana meant well with the message, and even if in real life, I would condone such action, here, I needed it to move things around because yes, neither Illidan nor Maiev would make the first step if it wasn’t for Cordana.

During the fight, at the beginning of the scene, Illidan totally complimented the Warden on her abilities but don’t try to make him admit it.

Last thing: my nickname is Fate. I’m the one laughing.

Games, Games, All Is Games

I don’t really have anything to say about this chapter.

Sometimes, Cowardice Allows The Survival Of The Smartest

To be perfectly honest, I regret how I handled Cordana’s week in the story because I’ve barely done anything with her but I can explain where the problem is. I knew that I wanted Illidan to discover the warden’s identity on chapter 20, and I planned all my updates around that one fact, but when it came to the outline, I wasn’t sure what to tell between the chapter 13 and 20 to reach that point and thanks to the Calendar, I moved things around that one and I ended up having the idea of making Cordana appears (She should have come in person in the story much, much later). And as I needed chapters 18 and 19 to build up to the reveal, I ended up completely stuck and making her appearance too fast and if it wasn’t for the message, she would have been useless to the story. But I realized it too late and I couldn’t rework my outline in time.

But well, i’ll give her a better mini-arc in the second arc of the story to atone for it.

Otherwise, I hope that the feel of the countdown to the reveal starting by the end of the chapter had been caught by some people x) It’s obvious to me, but well, i’m the writer.

Step By Step, Tick Tock Said The Clock

Just a build up chapter for the 20th. Even if I really like it and that I’m preparing the ground for future plotlines but I’ll let you guess which one it could be x) 

I know I haven’t make it clear in the chapter, but Malfurion knew that Illidan was lying when he pretended that his problem was the Warden “may-be-may-be-not-a-hybrid/demon” but as he also know that his brother is a “stubborn motherfucker” he let it slid. 

And yes, somewhere in my mind, there’s an alternate universe where Maiev accepted Illidan’s invitation and that they would spend the evening at her place. Without a reveal first.

Any Last Wish?

I don’t really have something to add to this chapter. I succeeded to write it just as I wanted.

I just had a long debate with myself as to how I wanted it to end, as I had the choice between cutting it right as Illidan is saved by the Warden (maybe not revealing her identity before the next chapter, or it would have been the last line) or just as I did, by them reaching her place first. I chose the latter because I want Chapter 21 to start with a really specific scene and I thought that it was better than a cheap cliffhanger. 

The last thing I'll add, is that for the story to go well, I had to make Illidan be the first to be aware of the identity of the other, mostly because he can be the one to change his mind more easily about wanting to kill the Warden. If it had been Maiev discovering that Illidan was the Betrayer at this moment of the story, he would have died.

And now, because I'm not done yet, here’s some info about the bonus chapters that were published independently from the main story!

AC Day 8: A Morning

First calendar, in 2018, and I already knew that I was going to write Hasard. It had no name by this time, but I had written that small scene to try out a few things and see how it’ll work.

There’s a really high chance that I end up rewriting it for the main story, but I think that a few elements will change. We’ll see.

AC19 Day 24: Hasard: Naisha

Probably the worst (in terms of feels) chapter of the story yet.

Naisha is probably the character who had a story and fate the closest to canon and I wanted to keep it like that, as it allowed to shape even more the hate between the Warden and the Betrayer. Honestly, she wasn’t deserving of a death like that, especially that if the Betrayer hadn’t intervened that day by trying to kill Maiev, Naisha would have survived.

Actually, in any other universes/storylines possible, she would have survived. Unfortunately for her, she fell right into the feud and became a victim of it.

At this point of the story, Illidan isn’t even completely aware of what happened that day, and he has no idea who Naisha was. All that he knows is that he thought to have killed the Warden, only to find her, even more angry in the following week. He just knows that he had killed the wrong person, but he had no idea who. Maiev herself doesn’t know for sure that it was the Betrayer the culprit, as she couldn’t see clearly in the rain.

Of course, it’ll end up being brought up in the story :)

AC20 Day 8: Hasard: Malfurion’s Hellish Day

It should have been Khadgar's backstory actually for that Calendar. But even if I have a good idea about it, I realized that I wasn’t completely inspired and that I was missing a few details to be able to write it. So, in the end, I went desperately after another idea and thanks to Melowen, I think, she got me on the idea of writing about Malfurion.

In the end, this chapter, meant to be a funny one with Illidan and Maiev forced to be in the same place for the same job, with Malfurion, aware that it would be a catastrophe to let them discover the truth, ended up shaping the last chapters currently published.

And if you are wondering, no, Illidan wasn’t trying to trick his brother in giving him the secret identity of Maiev. He was just trying to get his brother approbation about the woman he was starting to crush on.

The line: ‘“Yeah, everyone tells me that I look like a famous actor,” Malfurion faked a chuckle, glancing at the woman.’ is a reference to my Bodyguard AU where Illidan is an actor. 

Alright, that’s all for the trivia! Thanks for reading this bonus chapter, and the main story until now, and I hope you’ll keep enjoying reading Hasard!

Rose

[blodreina-noumou]

6x04, The Salt, B/C

I really, truly think the writers fumbled the Bellamy/Clarke dynamic so hard. Nothing makes this clearer than my dashboard’s vastly different opinions about the scene where Clarke apologizes to him. The writers have never been clear on the relationship that Clarke and Bellamy have, I honestly think there isn’t any Behind the Scenes interpretation, given how some writers seem to write episodes that emphasize their potential romantic relationship and some writers seem determined to burn that down. Everything about them can be taken either way - romantic or platonic - and yet they no longer make any sense on either level.

And now, they’re trying to patch together a believable, strong friendship that simply isn’t believable - unless it’s what you want to see. So half the fandom is rejoicing that things are “back to the good old days,” and the other half is furious that Bellamy appears to be suffering from amnesia about the things that Clarke did to him only a few days ago. I honestly have no idea how to feel, and I don’t think the writers know how they want us to feel. Not about them.

It just doesn’t make any sense. It even rang hollow for me back in s5, when Bellamy poisons Octavia because she threatens to have Clarke executed. Time and time again, the show demonstrates that Bellamy is Clarke’s button, and Clarke is Bellamy’s. Back in s3, when Abby is under the influence of ALIE, she knows torturing Bellamy will break Clarke. Also in s3, Bellamy risks his life to save Clarke, despite the fact that she abandoned him three months before. In s4, when Bellamy is about to open the door to the bunker, he risks his life by forcing Clarke to choose between shooting him to stop him from opening the door, or letting him open it and bringing the death of hundreds of her people - of, in her eyes, humanity. She doesn’t shoot. In s5, Octavia is well down the warpath before Bellamy finally decides to personally try to take her out - because she threatens to execute Clarke. Bellamy’s biggest regret is leaving Clarke behind, to the point that he risks his life to wait for Spacekru, unwilling to make the same mistake twice. Clarke called Bellamy every single day for six years, despite never hearing a response, or even knowing if they survived long enough to make The Ring livable. Dozens of examples litter the entire narrative, starting in s3 especially, where Clarke and Bellamy choose each other over the lives of their own families, of humanity, of themselves. 

But why? Because they’re in love? How?

It all has to rest on their interactions in s1 and s2, because they’ve been on the same side very rarely since then. They’ve barely even been in the same place since then! They had a really shitty month together, watched a bunch of the kids they felt responsible for die, and then were separated when Clarke was taken by the Mountain Men. They were together for a handful more days, but barely spoke, as Clarke was far more preoccupied with keeping Finn alive. Then she sends Bellamy to spy in Mt Weather. They’re separated for another few weeks. Then they genocide a bunch of people together (soooo romantic! they touched hands!! while murdering hundreds!!!!!), and Clarke fucks off into the forest to play Grounder for three months. During their time apart, they both fall for other people and those people die horribly. They briefly reunite to figure out how to save their people/humanity again in s3 and s4, then separate for six years. During that time, Clarke becomes a mother and Bellamy enters a serious, longterm relationship. They do not speak - Clarke talks into empty air to make herself feel better, to help herself remember her (most likely dead, at that point) friends, and on the dimmest hope that she might find some conversation with someone other than a child for once. Bellamy and Spacekru return, Clarke’s on their side for a hot second before Madi is threatened, and Clarke proceeds to systemically betray every single member of Bellamy’s family, who he has known and loved for six years at this point, much longer than the handful of weeks he spent with Clarke Griffin before the world ended. Then everyone rushes to salvation, sleeps for a hundred or so years, and wakes up with yesterday’s problems still fresh on their mind. It makes sense that Raven and Murphy cannot stop themselves from sniping at Clarke, and it makes zero sense that Bellamy is totally fine with her! There is no discernible onscreen reason for Bellamy to side with Clarke against his family, to defend her, to smile at her and hug her.

The only reasons are because, despite it not making a damn bit of sense, Bellamy and Clarke are each others’ buttons. And that only makes sense if you slip on shipper-goggles and assume you’re watching the world’s slowest slowburn.

The worst part of it all is that time jump. Without that six year gap, it might make sense that Bellamy and Clarke would fall for each other. They certainly seemed ready to in 4x13. But then, the writers separated them for so long, primarily because they needed to age their characters to match their cast, who are rapidly aging out of the believable “I’m a teenager” stage, even with television always stretching that to the absolute limit as it is. 

But this isn’t a slowburn, it’s a fumble. The writers have been spinning the “they’re just friends!!!” plate for way too long. It’s just clumsy now, and the reason no one can agree on what Bellamy and Clarke mean to each other is because the narrative has never been clear about it, not once. Their feelings towards one another, how quickly they’re willing to turn on each other, whether or not they consider one another expendable - all of that can and does change on a dime, every episode.

Here’s what this has to do with 6x04 - pretty much everyone but Bellamy rejected Clarke’s attempt at an apology. Raven bites back, Murphy will not stop giving her shit - only Bellamy listens, and hugs her, and seems ready to accept her apology. I’ve seen a lot of people insisting he didn’t, but I’m sorry, he did. If you can’t see that, you’re stretching as hard as shippers do sometimes. Bellamy has forgiven Clarke, whether it’s deserved or not, whether anything has happened onscreen to justify it or not. That’s what the narrative is going to continue to do - support the idea that Clarke and Bellamy mean so much more to each other than they’ve ever earned onscreen or in the script.

Now, Clarke is “gone” - Russell indicated that her mind would be erased when Josephine took over her brain - and it’s going to be up to the people who know Clarke best to try and figure out that someone else is in her body. Given how everyone but Bellamy has responded to her so far, who do you think is likely to notice first? Madi is the obvious choice, but it’s clear she’ll be distracted by Sheidheda this season. Either way, I guarantee that Bellamy and Madi will spearhead the “save Clarke” campaign.

Even though it doesn’t make much sense, that Bellamy has even come far enough from what Clarke did to him and his family, that he’d be willing to talk or spend time with her unless he was forced to. That’s what’s coming. And I’m so frustrated, because I truly don’t think the Bellarke dynamic is earned, even still, and especially now, given how poorly the transition from s5 to s6 has been handled. All this will do is continue to fuel the fandom fire over what Clarke and Bellamy mean to each other, yet the writers will almost definitely still refuse to commit to making their relationship canonically romantic.

Why are they playing along this line? Are they ever going to do anything with it? There was a solid chance that The 100 ended last year, that we never got an s6. The writers gave us an ending that was meant to be open and yet satisfying - one that ended with Clarke and Bellamy embracing. Will they ever go farther than that? Will there ever be anything to legitimize their feelings for each other?

I’m not saying they’re behaving in a way that only a romantic couple can behave. Best friends are meaningful and frequently sacrifice for one another in stories and in real life. But even the idea of Bellamy and Clarke being best friends no longer makes sense to me.

It’s just...unearned. This whole season has felt unearned. The longer it goes on, the more I wish things had ended in s4. There are definitely some bright spots, but so few of them come from the OGs.

We’re heading into a brief hiatus - at least a week, next week there will be a repeat - so I’ve got time to wrestle with this and get over my salt. Still, I can’t help but dread how this messy, poorly written dynamic will continue, given that it’s my absolute biggest minus of this show.

[cat-at-dawn]

IN DEFENSE OF THE DEATH OF  ████████ , AND AN ARGUMENT AGAINST SUICIDE

This one’s for the manga readers! Post-volume 19 meta, spoilers aplenty! read at your own risk

Though the literal iteration of the death of Ash Lynx can be viewed as a purposeful shuffle from this mortal coil, a specific decision made with weight to return to the New york Public Library to live out his last moments dwelling on Eiji’s letter only to intentionally fade away, here stands a lonely argument; out of the entire cast, no one person deserves death in the same capacity more than Ash Lynx does, and his death is not a suicide. Let’s break it down.

Out of all of the MANY problematic elements of Banana Fish, not even trying to hazard which offense is worse than the next, we can all simultaneously agree that one of the most heartbreaking twists of the series comes at the end of volume 19, when after receiving Eiji’s goodbye letter, which essentially amounts to an incredibly pure love declaration, Ash allows himself to be mentally distracted long enough for Sing’s brother Lao to deliver a killing stab to his intestines. Though Lao dies shortly after Ash’s retaliation, Ash continues to linger in a liminal place. The question hangs in the mind of the reader, if Ash approached a happy ending, why would he not seek hospitalization? Why would he allow himself to bleed out? The manga strikes back hard at the reader with a quite prolonged death sequence, in which Ash retreats to his favorite place to be alone, the New York Public Library, where, with a smile on his face, he falls into a peaceful sleep and dies at a reading table while clutching Eiji’s now bloody love letter. What is the nature of his mindset which dictates this course of action? Why, with Eiji hale and hearty, would Ash choose death instead of medical treatment and a possibly much happier ending to this tale of woe? At this point, I can only wonder if we, the readership, have read the same story. The ending of Banana Fish is hotly debated, and even though as a queer storyteller myself I fundamentally have trouble with gay death as a narrative element, I can’t help but question why people can’t empathize more with Ash’s decision. When judging the manga as a standing piece, I can’t think of a more satisfying, or simply more correct turn of events.

Directly out of the gate, Ash’s death is foreshadowed in the title of the series. A Perfect Day For Banana Fish is a short story by J.D. Salinger which follows the last day in the life of mentally ill World War 2 veteran Seymour Glass, who befriends a little girl while on vacation at the beach. He invites her to catch bananafish with him, and explains that the greedy fish enter holes to gorge themselves on bananas, but become too large to escape again and instead perish in the hole. Later, Seymour returns to his room where his wife is sleeping, and he kills himself. Salinger relates this as a metaphor for his own personal experience in the war, specifically to his time at the Battle of the Bulge and in Nazi concentration camps. He is quoted saying Seymour is an iteration of himself, and has gone so far as to say that he “found it impossible to fit into a society that ignored the truth that he now knew.”  The point of the story has always been to examine the irreversible damage done to the human psyche by war. The Perfect Day referenced in the title is exactly that; the quest of a broken man lacking the power to overcome his trauma to find exactly the perfect day to die. So it also is with Ash, we understand from the very beginning that making this direct analogy to Salinger means the manga will be the slow disclosure of someone who is irrevocably damaged by their circumstance as they come to terms with the moment of their own death. From the very first panel you see him, Ash’s death is already fated, and truly the most heart-rending struggle of the series is watching him grapple with this identity, up to nearly the very last second. As a reader, we continuously keep hoping and praying that he might, against all odds, find salvation despite literally every piece of contrary evidence suggesting otherwise. We have violent affection for Ash as a hero, and we want him so badly to live on, to make it to the other side. He both finds salvation and doesn’t find it, because like everything else about this manga, Ash operates thematically on contradictory levels all the way through the story and on to the bitter end. Let’s break it down even further, by considering exactly just how fucked Ash really is.

Ash is born Aslan Jade Callenrese, and then quickly discarded. He briefly experiences a short period of normalcy with the love of his brother and distant father before Griffin is drafted. Almost immediately after, Ash is raped by the Bluebeard of Cape Cod and then blamed for it, and from then on, his life is a progression of non-stop horror. He is kidnapped by Marvin who repeatedly rapes him over a period of years. He is sold into sexual servitude at Club Cod. He somehow  manages to avoid getting addicted to the opioids that all the child prostitutes were fed to keep them tame, and when Ash escapes, it is only because he is instead personally taken under Papa Dino’s wing, who specifically sexually abuses him while simultaneously not knowing or caring that Marvin continues to rape Ash, among presumably a handful of other people. Blanca is a small, bright focal point for Ash at age 13 when Ash lets himself briefly believe he has autonomy, and he is released to start his own gang. Ash’s fundamental humanity and inherent leadership magnetically draw people to him, and for the first time in his life, Ash briefly entertains the idea of having a private romantic relationship of his own. He is attracted to a girl he likes very much, but she is murdered almost immediately due to her association with him. He afterward throws himself into the business of his gang without ever fully extracting himself from Papa Dino’s hold. It is only with the discovery of the capsule containing Banana Fish that Ash for the first time in his short life discovers a bit of real leverage he can actually use against Dino. The subsequent drug war sees him beaten, sent to jail, raped many more times, and sent on a cross-country mission on the lam from the law, as well as from Dino’s goons, both Corsican and Chinese. Yut-Lung proves to be a worthy adversary in LA, and his teaming up with Arthur sees Ash murdering his best friend Shorter in cold blood who is forcibly high on banana fish in order to save Eiji from an especially savage disembowelment. Ash is later declared legally dead, sent to a private insane asylum to be experimented on, tortured with the mangled bits of Shorter’s brain, and then after escaping yet again, still forced into a corner when Dino tricks and threatens him into becoming officially adopted, once more in order to prevent Eiji’s death. Ash is drugged, literally blinded, beaten, and emotionally and physically torn down. He nearly dies from intentionally wasting away, and is hospitalized. When he eventually once again manages to escape, it is only to regroup long enough to prepare to engage with his men in actual guerrilla warfare. The mercenary Foxx kills nearly all of Ash’s remaining gang, and once AGAIN, Ash is raped.  Ash is ultimately deprived of his revenge when he then has to witness Papa Dino’s death by the hand of someone other than himself. These are the major plot points, and don’t even touch on the myriad of lesser cruelties Ash has dealt with over the course of his short life, of which there are many, many more.  (See: The death of most of his friends, that fucklord Arthur, everything about Cape Cod, the pain of using his sexual wiles as a weapon, the pain of knowing if he opens up to others that the lives of his friends will be in danger, the pain of being unable to give his loved ones proper burials, his one hundred issues with classism, his complete inability to trust others with important tasks, the list goes on.)

Around volume 10, I started, in a serious way, feeling like Ash deserved death. Not in the way that a dog is put out of it’s misery when it is sick, but more in the way that when the path is this hard, the reward at the end should be equivalent to the struggle. Being a CSA survivor all on its own demands a certain level of understanding, especially when approaching volatile, sensitive subjects like suicide. The act of taking one’s own life is so deeply personal and hotly debated that there is no true narrative argument legitimate enough to address it’s purpose. All of it is too subjective. However, in the case of Ash Lynx as the thematic hero, the case stands that he never, except for perhaps the small corridor between the ages of 0-7, lived a life anywhere remotely near average, so his many brushes with near-suicide are chillingly understandable. At one point, when forced to either shoot himself in the head or watch Eiji die, Ash even goes so far as to grab the gun and immediately try to blow his brains out. When the gun is proven empty, instead of breathing a secret sigh of relief, Ash only demands that Yut Lung give him a bullet. 

Though this emphasizes Ash’s near fanatical devotion to protecting Eiji, whose innocence he both disdains and canonizes, it also represents his constant readiness to die. This flirtation with the reaper is emphasized over and over in the official art, where a sexual element is often present in his interactions with death. Ash wishes for death to embrace him, he literally desires it. This is mostly on a subtextual level, but other times his desire is stiflingly surface-level.

 The extent of Ash’s damage is so severe and was inflicted on him so early that his ability to live a normal life was only ever subject to his situation. An argument can be made that his unusually high IQ kept him from the brink of emotional destruction for the majority of his life, but in spite of his incredible virility and strength of character, Ash’s prospects as he aged were always bleak at best. Ash the adult is almost unfathomable. He was literally never allowed to be a child during a key developmental period, and even the manga infers that Eiji’s presence as a romantic element is strongly tied to Ash’s desire to return to a time of innocence. Ash is permanently trapped in a never-neverland of sorts, sexually defiled to the point where his own sexual awakening has been completely obscured beyond his own recognition. His relationship with Eiji is painfully asexual, one, because literally everything about Banana Fish is painful, but also because it is unclear if Ash may have been naturally asexual in the first place or if he was made into an asexual as the result of his childhood trauma. Either way, he certainly doesn’t have a lot of choice about the way that he is, and that way is, fundamentally, morally, and spiritually exhausted. It is only his tenacious spark, his survivors grip to life, and his affection for others in his life whom he loves that are weaker than him, that keeps him stubbornly clung to his own mortal vessel until the very end.

Eiji’s presence as a guiding light is, in THE definitively heartbreaking turn, the permission Ash needs to allow himself to finally die. He has always known that he would die, probably even thought that he should have already died, many, many times over. He is permanently and irreversibly damaged by the course of his life, and though we scream and cry and pray in the hope that Ash can make it, that he can still pull through and come out on the other side living and thriving in love, he was ultimately just never meant to make it that far. Even when Eiji tries to convince Ash that he is not the leopard, that he can come back down from the mountain, we are distantly still aware that this is not true, despite how difficult it is to accept. This difference of character is most clearly seen in Ash’s foil with Yut-Lung; both boys are the savant products of rape-and-murder-riddled childhoods. However, where Yut-Lung lacked anyone to give him acceptance and affection as he grew, Ash ended his time knowing love. Where Yut-Lung survives to the end and goes on to an even higher position of strength, he still has an emotional arc to complete. Yut Lung must discover for himself the value of human life. Ash already knew this value from the beginning, because his moral compass, which sometimes admittedly became scrambled, more or less always pointed true by the end of things.

The argument can be made that as the embodiment of the concept of Salinger’s short story, Ash is fated to die. Eiji, who in many ways is the window through which we experience this world, refuses to bend to fate. He insists in innocence again and again that Ash can change his fate, and for a moment, when Ash finds the plane ticket to Japan in Eiji’s letter, we really, really want to believe him. So, of course, because this manga is singularly cruel, it is here that Ash is stabbed. Of ffffucking course, after everything, death comes for Ash in a fashion which is completely mundane against the grandiose, bombastic scale of the story. An old grudge settled by someone Ash didn’t even have the time to hate in the first place. Ash let himself believe in a real life with Eiji for a single moment, and that proved to be his downfall. When he let his guard down, he let death in. He realizes his destiny immediately, because he is not stupid. His death is not a suicide, it is an understanding. 

 According to Akimi Yoshida, fate always wins out, but what the manga adds to this sad experience is this; despite everything, unlike Salinger’s broken Seymour, Ash’s heart in the end is full of love. His perfect day to die is the day he reads Eiji’s letter, the letter that declares them permanently bonded. Falling in love allows Ash to let go of himself gently, instead of the infinitely more brutal end he would have met at a villain’s hand otherwise, if he hadn’t fought tooth and nail for his very last scrap of autonomy up until that moment. Eiji’s love as an act of compassion is most perfectly realized; because Ash’s Perfect Day is one of is own making. All the circumstances together form a perfect conclusion. He didn’t see the knife coming, and he didn’t need to. After Papa Dino’s death, after Eiji is gone, Ash can finally stop. He can accept that his trauma is greater than even him. In a life spent being forced back and forth according to the violent winds of his circumstance, he chooses to, (and that’s important, he chooses to,) retreat like a cat to a quiet place of safety to live out his last moments. In this way, Ash’s death is merely a setting down of something unbearably heavy. Because he is loved, because Eiji is safe and far away, Ash is at last released from the prison of his life.

Other Banana Fish Meta: CAPE COD AS PURGATORY AND ASH’S BREAK FROM INNOCENCE

[donnnoir]

Dallas, TX                                                                          June 30, 2019

Well Friend’s, although currently I suspect there are no readers of my crude blog.  Other than those that may have an interest from the Shadow Government’s perspective.  They always keep tabs and monitor my actions and interactions at large or singular.  An annoying fact of Life as me.  So hopefully at some point and time in the future an interested party will have numerous pages to sort through.  I am trying to get all my material under one or two roofs / forums which can and are accessible to everyone.  At least that is my hope and the intention of all this.  Granted it also allows me an outlet to vent some of my frustrations and the various events, occurrences and histories with this and more that I have Lived and experienced throughout my Life.  Now in such a spirit I am posting a electronic log entries after I arrived back in Austin TX, following the events I experienced in Southern California.  Which events culminated in my being shot twice in my left leg and subsequently ran over by an F-350 dually pick-up, running me over from toes to my head being dragged under the dual tires on the driver’s side of the vehicle.  Needless to say it was an interesting evening.  I was run over on East Anaheim St. about one hundred feet from the intersection with North Henry Ford Ave., on the south bound side of East Anaheim heading back toward Long Beach, I believe the location is still in Wilmington. With the location of my being shot some distance from there and that being approximately 325 North Lecouvreur Ave., Wilmington.  These events happened on or around the 5th of March 2018.  I was transported to St Mary’s Hospital at 1050 Linden Ave. Long Beach, CA..

The following are a series of electronic entries to an ad hoc journal at the time.  I Post this ad hoc journal in its raw form, the only editing being for the most part that of correcting some of the major spelling mistakes.  Hopefully I  have retained the jagged nature of my mind set at the time.  I freely admit that upon my return from California for the first time in my life I was showing signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.   I still have on occasions bouts associated to this PTSD.  I trust as coming events unfold and I have New Obstacles and Challenges to focus my attention and thereby forestall the elements of the Disorder.  Thus I Post this warts and all.  Without regard to its chronological or content of order. Because of this I will no doubt be covering much of the data, information and stories at a later Posting.  I will also be Posting the images of my hand written journal, as the loose leaf entries that I have adopted as my handwritten format.  Since every log or journal I have started has been stolen repeatedly.  So I now write on whatever loose leaf papers I have before me in the moment.  I hope to Post those as packaged folders Postings in their chronological order.  There is a degree of overlapping entries between this Posting and those of my handwritten entries.  Bear that in mind should you actually elect to read all of these.  Most of the entries some date and location headers.   I hope that in doing this that no seeming contradictions arise, especially since I am the source.  I welcome any inquires from any reader of my material.  Thus I submit the following:

Welcome, seems it has come to this. I am going to attempt to compose my thoughts and histories via electronic medium. My reservations must give way to practical realities. Not to mention the fact that each and every one of my previous logs / journals has been stolen from me. A immensely annoying recurring theme.

Thus I am going to try and make a virtual journal. Presumably I will augment this with the additional paper journal. Which will then be uploaded into a file of images. The hope being the combination will effectively accomplish the task. Towit that of providing a record of my life including events in the extreme. Additionally I wish to leave behind in some convoluted fashion my diverse understanding of things. By far I would consider the latter to be a far greater contribution to the brain wealth of humanity. I would like to think that should any of this writing come to light. It does so some time in the future . When the more fantastic elements can be seen in historical context. Such that what would otherwise be seen as speculative ventures into science fiction writing, will be known as simply fact. Because believe me when I say I truly wish and hope to be / will be wrong, regarding that which is to come. For a change!

Sigh… I must take a break, now. Necessity requires I consider many issues, not the least of which is where to start, and how best to proceed. Besides the fact I have not developed the requisite manual dexterity to type with my thumbs.

Monday July 2, 2018 … Killeen Texas

Sigh… damnit all to hell! I am having one of those rare days when I feel anxious, overwhelmed to the point of feeling trapped. I do not know if it is possibly PTSD related. I suppose I have to accept that as a issue with in me from now till the day I die. Regrettable not to mention humiliating for me. Granted, I suspect that the the cannabis Jade bought had a little something extra in it. So she could anesthesias more effectively giving her a reprieve from the increased infra-sound, ultrasound, microwave along with the entirety of the electromagnetic emissions I am at present enduring. I am concerned for her and her son Joey's well being. Despite her being one of the girls / operatives / victims of our government’s illegal covert initiatives know as MK Ultra. She is a bundle of contradictory issues and personalities. Your typical Golem. Her biological father is Warren Causey. He was George Bush Sr. right hand even prior to Sr becoming head of the Central Intelligence Agency. Causey was Sr's go to man for wet works and deep black bag operations. Especially if the back side had a tail which could be exploited for control of any or all parties involved. Causey is a true satanist and worse. He recently developed a rapid onset of Alzheimer’s. Not quite as sever as my own father and name sake Donald Paul Williams. But the timing of both though separate is suggestively coincidentally to events associated to me and those involved in FOXing me. I suspect brother Magnus of being petty. Grinding and hammering on old grudges. Along with becomingly increasingly punitive in operational objectives concerning breaking me to the point of my “losing” it. At which point and time my only anticipated options would be to appeal to their overview and / or full capitulation to their agendas. Thus far I have successfully thwarted their attempts. Yet it has come at an immense cost to me, across the board. Okay in anticipation that I may never acquire the journal I started last year upon my departure from Long Beach, California. A long walk beginning by The Queen Mary and which ultimately landed me in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is becoming increasingly incumbent that I reiterate elements I previously wrote down back then. You would think it would be a simple straightforward process. Naturally such is not the case, for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which are context and my desire to avoid sounding narcissistic, or worse disillusion. Yet failing to do so will ultimately end in me portraying myself as such, even more so. Besides I really hate repeating myself, sorta a pet peeve of mine.

To the uninitiated this is going to sound ludicrous and insane. However, any comprehensive primer would require volumes of esoteric information, along with accompanying commentary and should include appropriate citations. All from tomes that are closely guarded. That I am denied access to permanently and utterly. Thus it is best to proceed directly into the matter wading through the initial convolution, realizing by degrees it will work out becoming about as clear as mudd. The luciferains according to their Canon refer to me as “The Dark One”. It is an appellation pulled directly from their actual scripture as initially iterated  to Cain from lucifer, himself.

Obviously atheist may take exception to these concepts, especially the language used. There is not much I can say in response to their misgivings. Because their beliefs lack the framework from which to attach this model. Hell most individuals beliefs also in like fashion lack similar mental framework. Yet most have allowances or the tools where with the modular architecture of their minds are able to “build out” an additional wing to the mansion in their minds which houses their understanding of “reality”. At the very least they can entertain the blueprints to an “add-on” to their mansions. Similar to the operations of our minds “cognitive consistency”. Dr Richard Alan Miller is fond of noting “I would never have seen it if I hadn’t believed it”. Or by extended reference the belief that if you have enough information to postulate a coherent question, you already have enough to know the answer. You just have to convince yourself of it. The implications are profound. Stretching into metaphysics and the issues of faith preceding the miracle(s), and even magick! All topics I have and will continue to touch upon in my ramblings. But I go too far afield of my primary focus. Simply, I am The Dark One. This is both metaphoric and literal. For the few people whose sight allows them to to clearly see into the underlying spiritual realm of our world. Because all things that “are” where first created in spirit. Elsewise they would not exist or remain lifeless sterile elemental at best. There are also at worst case possibilities, but we will forego any such dialogue for the moment. Everything we see and interact with has a corresponding spiritual aspect providing impetus to the whole. Usually the spiritual aspect even resembles the physical expression, although at times the proportions differ. A fact that I know I will touch upon in other areas as topically necessitated. Nonetheless if one was to see our spirits they much resemble the physical form of our bodies, though a bit taller (note this is a foreshadowing hint, to a vastly different topic I Will Be Addressing. At times I may interject future foreshadowing hints, though sans the extensive explanations). Depending on the scope of vision applied a person may / can see many other things. For my current model I am going to stick to issues of direct correlation to what we perceive as the physical world.

Okay, yes I do know I tend to take a long round about, seemingly loquacious manner, almost tediously so in my explanations. This is due to the fact that words are nebulous, our ability to effectively communicate was fractured becoming compromised long ago. As a consequence, for clarity's sake I find this too wordy manner necessary to minimize confusion later in the discussion. By degrees we lose our way, or perpetuate our lost condition. Therefore it is by incremental degrees I am trying to more properly realign the various skewed beliefs we all hold. It is simple geometry, trigonometry or if you prefer vector math. If your initial bearing line is off by a few degrees, as you proceed further down its vector, or direction of travel where you end up will be considerably different than you meant to be. I wish to be aptly clear as to this fact early in my shared discourses.

Back to the proximate relationship of the spirit to our physical nature / condition. Also know that our spirits are gender specific. The entirety of humanity in this expressed Creation, the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Have migrated to this plane and place from Our Heavenly Home. That being a higher plane of existence, a organized realm of Love and Light. We, being all of us from Adam, Lilithe, and Eve till the last child of Eve is born, we are they that kept our first estate. Thereby earning both our right and place to be born here in this that by our common assent / consent / agreement we agreed would be real, thus we call it reality, simple. Wherefore, this being real by our mutual assent, means by extension that our actions here shall have real consequence to our station thereby effecting our progression. Those within Our Divine Family that rebelled and failing to reconcile back into the Family are denied participation in the progression of this estate and the subsequent assignments as to which paths we are to be assigned to in our individual journeys to progress back home.  Meaning, i.e. lucifer and the one third that fell (more properly “that were cast down”) with him. At times I will refer to lucifer as lucy or louie a small affectation I have over the years grown fond of as pet names for he who would seek dominion through his lies. Know that for my part I have always viewed our existence as an ongoing extension of the war in Heaven. Even as a toddler this was simply the nature of the world, in both a literal and metaphoric sense. Lucy is playing an end game gambit. As to our day to day offenses he for the most part cares little, seldom choosing to involve himself.  As I try to tell people; we can do bad all on our own, we don’t need the devil or louie's help. Matter of fact regrettably this particular Creation is an aberration. Most Creation’s do not have a Lucifer, who refuses to repent and reconcile, and worse yet becomes Satanish.  In so doing thereby becomes completely nonredeemable. Fit only to be cast out beyond the dark realms / dimensions. So far that not even a god could ever hope to make it back to Our Heavenly Home. Heady fanciful stuff, with a touch of discordance due to conflicting superlatives, I already know. From the presumed position of our understanding as a whole it is the best I can do with our shared mythos. The presumed contradictions fade as our understanding increases. Please accept I know little, next to nothing. What little I may grasp, has been fought hard to obtain over a tumultuous lifetime.

One of the hopeful eventualities concerning our collective situation in this Creation which I try to communicate to those that appear to show potential for understanding the following idea. Is that, Once we “eventually” progress through this Creation. As our then on going progression continues through multiple future Creations we will in all probability never encounter another such circumstance / Creation wherein any of those will again be with the added burden of a Satan / Lucifer persona to add complications to our individual, group, and familial progress. Who would threaten to usurp Creation from G-d and all of us. We can do bad all on our own. We really don’t require an objective excuse or archetype on which to pin our failings. If you are acquainted with the Book of Revelations, in its pages are the clues to understanding Lucy’s actual focus / agenda for our Creation. For we are eternal beings, Children of Divine Parentage. We live through infinite eternities, progressing and striving to Perfect Ourselves unto the Image of Our Heavenly Mother and Father. Now I sound like a some traveling revivalist preacher. Might as roll out the tent and tambourines, hahaha.

Wednesday July 4, 2018 – Killeen, Texas

Well happy 4th of July, U S of fucking A. Not to be cynical, but here we are celebrating another Independence Day in the Land of the Free. The irony is inescapable. Sadly too many individuals become distracted and lost in the perpetually shifting landscape of dysinformation. Yes the horrors these people revile against are very real and indefensible. Except in the losing of perspective, failing to see that these innumerable struggles are purposely being generated to engage the population to distraction. Usually these horrid distractions are set cross ways of social and cultural lines. This formulaic tactic is meant to ferment hostilities, hate and conflicts across the associated strata. This has been repeated throughout history to create wars, fracture our social structure, warp our values, and indoctrinate the population en mass with beliefs such as to reshape our view of reality shackling all of us to a diminished image and sense of self along with the entire human race. Once we accept this warped view as the archetypal potentiality of us all. We are guaranteed to sell ourselves and our brethren into slavery. In due course I will be discussing at length the geopolitical history within the framework of our limited knowledge of what we recorded since the flood. Rather what we have been permitted to know of said records. The fact that much as been redacted from the common brain trust passed on to us via academia. Those alabaster halls occupied by self appointed guardians of the approved versions of knowledge and information released to us vulgar unfortunate masses. So burdened, I shall pass this Holiday celebrating the antithesis of its traditions.

Continuing in the same vain as previously began prior to the day’s celebrations, in much the similarly convoluted fashion as before… I, The Dark One of Occultic Lore. I have been told; that I have done things no one in the history of the world has ever done previously. Personally I can only cite one quality as being demonstrative of such high praise. Though in all honesty I am more often than not being chastised for lacking focus, being lazy, acting the fool in the face of my enemies, or being cavalier in my affections, or placing myself at undue risk of life and limb, and the list goes on and on ad nauseaium.  This from the select few who know and understand who and what I am.  Those who may actually care about me, and would see me fulfill that which I have been foreordained to do whilst sojourning here. The totality of our circumstance here, now at this moment, we soon shall enter perhaps the most critical and precarious point of our history and that of this Creation.  I am all too well aware of this along with that which shall soon come to pass shortly.  This awareness, I experience across multiple vectors while being cognizant of a sea of permeations which ultimately stream toward a specific Crux in Our Familial Aggregation (I am trying to develop appropriate nomenclature – wherein I avoid certain more readily common labels or descriptors and/or appellations. Whose usage has been subverted into the double speak practiced by the various satanic and blood occultic families which run the world. Who have ritually (via trauma) conditioned and indoctrinated their acolytes, golems / victims to hear and respond to accordingly, never in a positive manner. Wherefore it is incumbent upon me whenever possible to avoid affirming these, even to the point of reinventing the ascribed nomenclature.) within this Creation. As a consequence I must stumble through idiomatic constructs, ungainly though they be. Believe me if you knew and understood the actualities ascribed to words and the double or multiple meanings applied to them within the Families. The evils, the pain, the denigration of the individuals / victims usually by those nearest them; ultimately by extension it eventually infects and corrupts societies unto the world at large.  You would weep an endless river of tears unto filling the seas, if you could see this in your minds eye properly.  As long as this perniciously malicious spiritual / familial / multi-generational / social / cultural pathogenic practice continues, our struggles will end in naught. Hence into this morass I must seek to keep my appointed task. How best to explain this? I have spent the majority of my life in the haze of denial.  Avoiding my differences.  Putting off my preparations for that which is to come.

Since approximately twenty four plus months prior to Operation Jade Helm our covert Intelligence apparati, including elements of the ruling shadow government began a concerted effort at Foxing me. The on set of Operation Jade Helm and its scope marked an exponential increase in expanded efforts against me.  Now, let me make clear Operation Jade Helm’s purpose was not solely to target me, there where many targets across the greater portion of the United States of America.  Death dealers and various squads of assassins executed / murdered an increasing number of American Citizens, most had been identified for some time to be exterminated.  Impunity seems to have become the operational by word.  The extremes demonstrated continuously since that time defy all reason. Defining the architects of this action as being criminals is almost quaint.  This level of criminal insanity goes beyond the point of being treasonous. With the majority of resource allocation comes from “military Intelligence” which then utilizes other military resources and supplies.  Thus it is that we have been duped into financing our own demise.

For purposes pursuant to their agendas, they have labeled me a domestic terrorist.  Thereby presumably justifying illegal exercises and persecution of my person.  Rationalizing by extension similar acts against my family and anyone I may care about and or Love. Death for them would be preferable to the horrors their personages have been and are being subjected. I know I sound ludicrously paranoid with delusions of grandeur in the extreme. Hahaha….  gosh how I wish, hope and pray such were the case. I make this record in defense of myself and my actions. Naturally I fear all my good intentions with their accompanying actions are for naught. I realize that upon my death as allotted to the sons of man, as to the first part, my character will be maligned in the worst manner possible.  A issue I will address at length later in this on going exposition of myself and my misadventures as they may be.

Thursday July 5, 2018.  Killeen Texas

Despite my misgivings it seems I survived all the pops and bangs of our nosiest of American Holidays. A joyous circumstance to be certain. From now till my last day of my allotted life as unto the children of men, my life hangs in the balance. The ante to live my life as it were.

My current accommodation over the past almost six weeks has been with an old flame and friend Jade Causey – Chamlee, and her 18 year old son Joey, whose given name was Freddie. Bless their souls for extending to my worn out arse a place to stay and recover. Regrettably my physical recovery is taking much longer than I anticipated. I am fully aware my expectations regarding the time necessary for a complete recovery was / were unreasonable. But I need to set the bar high to keep from being complacent. Now had my situation been inclusive of adequate financial resources I would be at least relatively close to my timetable. I would have had access to better medical, dietary, living and therapies. Hell my injuries would have been properly tended to at the hospital in my initial admittance. Instead I continued to be the object of curiosity and experimentation. With little consideration to trying to give me appropriate medical care. I have come to know what to expect, due largely to my younger brother's general attitude. Wherein he rationalizing what him and others do to me, as simply a matter of effect associated to the who and what I am. It is rationalized that if  I, Donn am this special chosen person than he/I should be able to survive everything, whatever it may be.  Because if he/I don’t than obviously he/I am not that special and thus not protected from on High.  Horrific logic used to rationalizing a growing list of atrocities committed against my person. A ugly fact of my reality, one I anticipated. What issues make this whole fucked up process unacceptable, malicious, acutely painful and unforgivingly egress is the manner by which they have targeted and used others. Especially my younger brother, father, son, Tiffany, Revaka, Heather, Angie and numerous others. They have been tortured, abused and treated as disposable commodities. All are scared and precious, some are very unique with abilities reaching into arenas not generally accepted or understood in today’s world view. Yet these individuals are denigrated, abused in some of the most deviantly sordid manners. Most are ultimately destroyed, first robbing them of their minds, bodies and in some final insult of their very souls. As it appears that they are being harvested for physical vehicles to have demons placed in their bodies. Yeah, I suppose I could say it in some sort of more politically correct parlance as “aliens” from a lower resonating dimensional reality / realm. Somehow I find that by doing so it fails to communicate the malicious evil inherent in the process. I find the old nomenclature to communicate the Truer meaning. Though some eras of our past carry their own obvious failings magnified exponentially by ignorance while fueled by misguided zealotry. They were not called the Dark Ages for nothing. Similarly different cultures, societies, periods, places and times have fallen to various abysses of Darkness. We have this false mental image of life on Our Earth proceeding in some linar fashion from primitive man (including Adam, for those of a theological inclination) struggling out of caves. Fighting against their own primitive brain / mind which was trapped in a diminished brain pan capacity from questing for fire against ignorance and superstitions. With us being the cumulative beneficiaries of this on going process. Peoples of those ancient times could not have been as intelligent as those today. Therefore they could not have grasped the concepts we do. Some of the most ridiculous fallacies of logic ever presumed to rationalizing and justify conduct or beliefs. Matter of fact the inverse is actually True. But what the fuck could I possibly know!

Sadly my frustrations are rearing their collective heads as it were in my writing. I wish I had been more diligent in securing my journal I started last year upon my departure from Long Beach towards Utah. I was more focused recording relavent issues in a contemporaneous fashion. Not to mention a considerable investment in explanations dealing with a variety of associated topics. Grrrrr… all I did then was walk and write. I may soon be in a recurrence of such, shortly. I can no longer abide where I am. All the more so under these conditions. Deep in my mind I am aware of happenings which require my attention. Not to mention my friend’s household is not psychologically conducive to my state of being. At least not in a healthy way, good intentions not with standing. My largest obstacle to my leaving believe it or not, is my need for acceptable footwear. Flip-flops aren’t going to cut it. Hell they are wholly inadequate to even walk just up the street a block or two. I must admit the sidewalks and streets of California were well suited for walking.

Monday July 9, 2018.  – Killeen, Texas

As Pooh would be apt to say, “Oh bother”. I feel for the most part Tigger. Bouncing all about spinning, twisting, flipping… as well on my head as my tail. I am most acutely wanting to find my focus once again. My communication skills seem heavily compromised. Not that I was ever able to write as effectively as the great Nobel Laureates. Generally speaking I could at least maintain some linear cohesion in my writing.  Physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally I am shaken.  Much as if my being was trapped in the tremors of advance Parkinson’s. In similar fashion my expressed thoughts and experiences lack focus, my abilities at lucidly articulating my larger life occurrences is choppy at best. Failure is NOT an option! No matter how I feel or how events are or may effect me, I must regain my composure and find my center. While reacquiring my skills of teaching and sharing what I have learned.  Please excuse me if I don’t edit the foregoing entries. As convoluted and murky as they may be, their relevance contemporaneously can not be diminished. Hopefully they will in due course provide a benchmark to juxtaposition future writings and notes thereby effecting a glimpse into my state of being at the time of writing.  Grrrrr…….

They have done a very good job of isolating me. All the more so, as I try to come to terms with the potential cost to those I would seek commerce with across all levels of our socioeconomic strata.  If what I endured while being the object of a Foxing protocol by our shadow government’s covert intelligence community are any indication. Anyone who associates with me, either at mine or their initiation is subject to become targeted for retribution as punishment to me. Too high a cost to blindly impart with out consideration to finding possible means of mitigation. Or at the very least terms whereby I am ultra selective with whom I interact. Along with the rationale for said interactions. Soon enough our social dependency will require I abandon all such pretext or attempts at shielding anyone from consequence. I fear that time shall be upon us/me far too soon. Perhaps I am again being exceedingly naive. My efforts are most probably for naught. An on the at large canvas of the bigger picture my presumption at damage control will only result in a larger area and impact of effect upon our society as a whole. Not that I am some savior or prophet, far from it actually. In the grander scale of things, I might best be referred to as a “wild card”.  Meaning that in any analysis of the interaction of variables, one may with a degree of certainty predict the outcome of any issue, contest, conflict even war. However should certain individuals or a very small dynamic group of individuals enter the forum. Suddenly the landscape of the matter shifts radically to the point that the original outcome no longer applies or is meaningful. We have numerous examples of such occurrences throughout our histories. Of salient import to us here in America is The Battle of Thermopylae, and the 300 Spartans. We all learned about continents in school. Did you ever notice that Europe and Asia were counted as separate despite being one land mass. The reason is that Western Culture and Asian (Oriental) Cultures being vastly different it was traditionally ascribed to them being two separate continents. We may naively presume to ridicule such a blatant indulgence as arrogance. Yet there are fundamental reasons for this error being valid. We as the heirs of Western Culture, need to understand the mythical / legendary impact of these distinctions upon our mameic memory, especially those of us of the West. From Greece to Rome, then following our Angelo – Dutch (Iberian) roots it is transmitted to us. The importance and permanent impact of the actions and sacrifice of Leonidas and 300 Free Spartans against over a 1,000,000 servile basically slaves to a potentate deemed quasi divine, carved out a legacy of Freedom which stands even today. An Epic “wild card”. There are many others, most are lost to us today. With the occasional exception that survives in our Epics, our Mythologies, our Legends. Most such stories are the blending of factual events with older religious or semi religious traditions. Which aliteration was a common and accepted means of teaching the lessons of both convanents in a factual and metaphoric means. Much the way Jesus Christ taught using parables, allegories composed to have layers of meaning dependent upon the degree of understanding had by the student. So a natural continuation of this is to be inclusive of many historical events, along with the trans literal substitution of the individuals to those of prophecy or the the Divine or Angelic intercession of some ancient history. These depending on circumstance would be iterated and reiterated in verbal traditions to be celebrated in the retelling, usually in association to particular annual festivals. Such as the case with the Saga of the Norse Kings. A subject I hope to have the opportunity to entertain at length later in my writings, scribblings. The vast majority of my ideas, concepts, models and histories can generally be attributed to greater minds than mine. As has been said before, the reason I / we can see so far is that we stand on the shoulders of giants, those that have come before us. Yes I paraphrase taking a degree of liberty. More particularly to hopefully retain its original meaning.

Funny I have been much as I am, the entirety of my life. Before I commence an in-depth sharing of many of the somewhat unique occurrences and events that have brought me to this proposition in time. I wish to clarify and reiterate some postulates. Elsewise a portion of my own records and logs may well be used against me. Principally by interests who would wish to call my lucidity and grasp of reality into question, in the hopes of indicting or coloring my character via my words. No doubt they shall do so nonetheless. I only wish that my original is sufficiently vetted in the sane understanding of reality has to be a defense to my honor and mental facilities. Thus, again – I am No prophet! Nor am I an Alien. Hahaha… Nor am I some savior! As far as religion – I will say as was told to me by what would be termed alien contactees, or more specifically those that I felt and believed we’re genuine. Of the many I personally met back in the 1970s. According to these individuals as to the subject of religion and the Bible when broached to the various aliens these contactees interacted. All the aliens responded that yes the Bible was more or less correct and that it was wholly applicable to us, our Creation, and Our G-d. I know not at all what they say on the popular shows in the media today. Hmmm,…. As to my personal religious beliefs and inclinations, I am Mormon by conversation and have been excommunicated for many more years than I care to mention. By the way my excommunication was due wholly to personal moral matters not issues of doctrine or beliefs of Faith. So if somewhere in my upfront acknowledgements, you find me wanting of naïve. Fine, do or do Not as is in you, or as is your want. I make no apologies, nor seek to compromise in some misguided attempt to achieve an accord or consensus. Rather quite to the contrary, I share, present, seeking dialogue broader than an account of the happenings surrounding my life. Simply because I am appalled by the amount of lies and disinformation being used to indoctrinate the populace. Add to this the lack of corrected and broader views from the dreadfully homogenous perspective droning from damn near every sector. The present modalities disgust me, breaking my heart such that I would to weep day and night for Our collective Family. Yet better spent are my efforts in defense of the Truth and an improved accounting of our histories and circumstances. In pursuit of same I find I must submit my private life and experiences to general scrutiny. The majority of which I have never shared with anyone prior to the last six to eight years. I have desired to live a rather conventional life, for the most part. Realizing that soon enough I will forever be denied the Joy of such.

To this end and the accompanying process I submit some of the earliest memories and events of my life and childhood. One of my earliest, if not the earliest is being in my crib prior to the age of two. My father was working for numerous government and governmental contractors at the time. Naturally I don’t recall those details. Our family had just moved to Southern California. We were living with my mother’s sister somewhere in East Los Angeles. Their home was the typical Spanish Colonial. Anyone familiar with the style and form of such. Know that hallways usually converge into a common room, you cross to the hallway leading to the room you have as your destination. In this pass through common room is where my crib was stationed. Probably the best location for it and me. So the various women could occupy my attention should I become fussy. An many times this common room was an area where the women would congregate as my recollection is. Well across this room was a pantry closet, with selves and full of the sundry items found in such for the time. In the coming and goings of my family and relatives there were numerous occasions that would find me unattended, alone in my crib. It was during one such interlude that the commencement of a reoccurring vision / dream began. I having been left alone to my own devices (parenting back in the day). When the door to the aforementioned pantry slowly opened wide. A beautiful female Golem, her physique had the appearance of red bricks. Yet the contours of her form were singularly female. Rather she had distinct curves with aquiline sculptured features. Most hauntingly she had these striking blue eyes. She never spoke a word, her eyes spoke volumes to my initially shocked mind. As the sounds of returning relatives approached, she gracefully returned from whence she came. On the first couple of occasions I witnessed this I raised a bit of a commotion. I was not yet verbal, and in all honesty I was a late talker. Well the relatives thought I might have seen a rat. So they dutifully opened the pantry to inspection. The pantry was then as it always was, with neither a rat or exquisite Lady Golem. This parade continued off and on for the majority of the our short time residing at my aunt’s house. Usually the Lady Golem had those blue blue eyes, though green and grey versions are among the visits. Each and every time she would come to the side of my crib, moving her head, or tilting (cocking) it just so. Always her eyes full of questions and disbelief. Her eyes seemed to express; You? You are the one sent? Hmmm… You don’t look like much! Look more like a little wet rodent, but who knows?. This was more or less the sentiment expressed in her eyes. Following my first encounters I became accustomed to her visits and would actually miss her on the rare occasions of absence. Needless to say from early childhood I saw the “world” differently than others around me. I also learned to accept this altered perception without fear, understanding its validity within the accepted context of what is “actual” or the “concrete” reality of our existence.

If you may recall back in the haze of school days. During various lectures the teacher's would sometimes use what is commonly referred to as an over head projector. Depending on what was being taught, it was also common practice to layer over lays. These would either complete the image or at times super impose other images as needed. Sometimes even as multiple layers of over laid transparencies. Some of you more contemporaneously educated individuals may never have seen such primitive presentations, having known only power point. For those so blessed what I describe next may be Greek to you. For the dinosaur amongst us most should have some recollection. This model is the closest I can use to illustrate how the world appeared to me growing up as a child. Usually I would see what could best be described as up to two transparencies overlapping the “real world” in general. I could even lift these overlays to get a clearer view of what was being presented before me. At times these would both be at in the foreground of “reality”, other times both would be in the background, while at other times it would be split one in front and one in back. Yet there were numerous other configurations, sometimes completely unrelated to the happenings around me (foreshadowing alert). Gradually this ocular affect of the world began to diminish till it no longer was within my field of vision. By the time I was around sixteen to seventeen years of age this effect was effectively gone. Since then I have experienced this only a handful of times. I usually take a different approach, I will address momentarily. One of the proximate results almost immediately of perceiving my world in this manner is that I usually know the scope and degree that anyone is lying. As an adult it is not quite as prominent as in my childhood. Though there have been exceptions. As a direct consequence my earliest life lesson was in due course the hypocrisy of the adults around me. Everyone would profess such devotion to “the necessity” or importance of always “speaking the Truth”. Yet I would be punished to no end for pointing out the hypocrisy of the fact the adults more often than not lied as suited them. I learned to keep such to myself. Something I still do to this day. I tend to filter or make allowances far too much now as an adult. Invariably leading to greater complications. Besides transparencies certain images or objects would “float” across my field of vision in similar transparency manner. Some of which I could not decipher any context or meaning at the time or since. To begin to place elements of this visual experience I need to explain tangent events of recent.

The advent of the Internet and the information highway is as with most such paradigms, both a blessing and a curse. Dependent largely upon the nature and supposed inclination of man. We are all no doubt familiar with the media platforms of Facebook and YouTube. Like everyone else to some degree I have had occasion to surf around doing research or simply for mindless pleasure. Back prior to Jade Helm, when my Old Lady (though she was substantially younger) Tiffany and I were keeping house in Austin, Texas. I noticed a YouTube video regarding the Apollo 20 mission. Oh by the way according to my histories the Apollo lunar missions went up to 20. I wanted to see what was been discussed along with what twists and turns the disinformation specialist spin their distractions. Which if you can determine it sometimes conclude what they are trying to hide or if their direction of spin is a “z” vector you can sight 180 degrees opposite to determine the landscape they don’t wish you to see. You may consider all this a large investment of mental energies, it is just how my mind works at times automatically. Back to the Apollo 20 video. In the video there was some general discussion of aliens, their nature and origins. During this open dialogue, there was a series of various old clips. I presume were some how removed from the archives of NASA. Many of the older non-defined clips I was quite familiar with the images. Not because I have ever seen them as photos, images, clips or video. At the time I was floored, since previous to that moment I was unacquainted with their context or related meaning. These objects I use to see in the exact same configuration and involved in the exact motions approximately forty years earlier as I was growing up. Matter of fact judging from the age of the imagery I would have to conclude I was witnessing them contemporaneously as a child. Without the context of outer space or NASA I had presumed I was watching some complex interactions of some sort of strange protozoal life from. I even remotely as concerned they had some how become infected to my cornea, so prevalent we’re the objects across my vision. So striking was their imposition upon my sight that more than four decades later their association was immediate and most assuredly certain. One less mystery to worry about. Yet the implications are troubling profoundly. Both of myself and the world at large, considering how maliciously the world's population has been lied to and manipulated. The ends of which are too shocking and horrible to ever discuss. Although in previous conversations at moments of weakness I have divulged a greater portion than may have been prudent.

Wednesday July 11, 2018.  – Killeen, Texas

You may right so wish to ascribe or diagnosis me as having a form of delusions inclusive of all types of hysteria, grandeur, psychosis with severe religious obsessions. For what passes for psychiatry today within the public ledger domain, you may be correct. I would offer in defense a extensive lifetime containing a ongoing accounts of a similar or even greater note. Although I am not a Moses, peoples of another time would recognize me as being touched by The All Mighty, as it were. I will at least own any such appellation. Am I some righteous man deserving of beautification unto sainthood, I would argue Not. At best I have tried to be a descent man, who speaks the Truth as much as possible. I am burdened by an additional commitment.

Back in my youth, being around nine years old. I had a singularly profound series of visions / dreams. I repeatedly dreamt my death, accompanied by the various permeations associated to reaching same. The process took several days (nights) between three to five. Being so young I didn’t think to take particular note of the days my dreams were thus occupied. They obviously had a unique feel with a equally sensational intensity, they still abide with me today. I distinctly recall a voice of sorts coming to me following the last night of witnessing this panorama of my life's end (as are the days accorded to the sons of man). Now this voice which came unto me, I presume it was within the precincts of my mind. Not that it would have mattered greatly since I was alone when it came unto me. Nor did I think to ask from whence or whom spoke. I knew and could feel the light of our Divine Home as I heard the intent along with the presumed words. It was a simple dialogue, stating; “this is how it ends, this is what you have come to do. You need not do it. You have the right to choose. However if you are to complete this task. You must choose to do so now.”. Being a precocious and arrogant child, I immediately presumed that if I had been sent to do such, than the obvious was that I was the best candidate to accomplish the prescribed task. Armed with such infallible logic, I whole heartedly accepted my calling understanding it would come at great cost. Now granted, an understanding of the true scope or magnitude or the enormity of the cost or suffering I fully lacked. I have spent my life preparing. I have come to know that even at the prescribed time I will lack of my own what is necessary. I shall present to the task my all, trusting in Our G-d to shore me up to complete that which I would do. Subsequent to acceptance of this appointment I am to keep in the near future, my sight / vision increased. The frequency and quantity began increasing dreams, visions, revelations, transparencies along with my general perceptions increased. I now openly own the fact that I see the world through the eyes of the mystic. Only recently was my sight dampened. A heart breaking topic the occasion of which surrounds losing my Love Tiffany. The subject of which shall also be laid upon the alter for examination by the modern day augers. Find what fault if you will, I care little. Only know that matter and its accompanying are for later. I must at present attempt to continue in this established vain of thought recounting events long past in my short life. Besides the notations contemporaneous to me and my circumstances or any of the other tripe I have need to spew forth. Believe this, if I could accomplish my foreordained task without sharing, discussing or placing ultimately for public review any of this – such would be my desire. Painfully I have had to come to terms with the ugly reality I must prostrate myself to assure I am able to do what needs be done. Onward thru the fog, as it were.

Without going into specifics too much, early on I displayed another aptitude. Sometime around first to second grade. My Dear sweet mother recognized I somehow had a hand in the going ons of the other children that back then composed the group of children who had commenced to being around. Now my mother was blessed with a keen intellect. Which included the wisdom to not over think somethings. Instead wherever possible if there was a direct and simple solution to apply one's efforts to the solution. Thereby allowing life to continue on as meant. Almost elegant in its simplicity, usually quite effective in solving any problem, a quaint provincial version of Occum's Razor. Consequently the solution was simple, as she noted; “son, I don’t know what you are doing. But it is wrong. Apparently you need my help understanding that.”. There after I regularly got my hide tanned. Until sometime around the age of seven plus the realization that just because you could do something; does not mean you should. And that everyone is entitled to make their own choices. Afterwards the occasion necessitating my tanning ceased as a consequence to those particular actions. By no means did I fail to earn other occasions of corporal punishment as befits a young boy trying to find his wings, so to speak.

Growing up making my way through our education system of public schooling. I never cracked a book. Now one should not presume schools and childhood were smooth sailing. Quite to the contrary, in second grade my school in southern California labeled me “retarded”. Lacking a separate facilities or classes you were simply shoved to the back of the class with similarly challenged children. Nor did they have to test the child or give notice to the parents. Following a few weeks at the back of the class I began to demonstrate “odd” behavior. Which my always observant mother was quick to question. She went to the school and raised holy hell. In actuality it was more of a racially motivated issue. My parents being divorced, the school only saw my Hispanic mother. Being profoundly dyslexic, their initial assessment was that I was a Mexican, and you know you can not teach their kind. I was going to a all white school at time. Not to mention kindergarten in Watts. During the riots in 1965. I had to have police escorts to school. While I still have very distinct memories of the entire family sleeping in the living room with all the doors and windows blocked and barricaded against the rioting blacks. A sort of difficult time growing up. Believe me I know what racism is like. I am not going to hold my tin cup up on that lame ass subject. The fact that there are those in this country that hold onto this issues as the reasons for all their troubles. Or that there are groups and individuals who exploit this history for their enrichment. All this does is allows an ever expanding rifts in our society. The age old axiom of divide and conquer. Yet we all seem oblivious to this, instead we rush to our own deaths.

Thursday July 12, 2018,. – Killeen, Texas

Aaagh, fuck, damnit…. I fucking swear. Why do I even try to help anyone. Generally they hold to their own practices of appeasing the least common denominators by which they live. What can I say. As gracious as my hostess and her son may be. I doubt if I can tolerate much more of their dysfunctionality sans any self realization or objectivity. And they wonder about Joey meeting someone (female). I can’t imagine the woman who would find any of this manner or lack of is appealing. I try to maintain perspective because I do recognize the roots of most of the antisocial behavior. Even if it expresses its self differently than one may anticipate. I just don’t have the tolerance I usually do. In my current condition of convalescing from my injuries, makes me subject to the vagaries that define the lives of normal people. Due to the obvious singular quality of my life I have had to come to terms with the fact that I do not process anything in like manner as my peers. An before everyone thinks I am trying to sound all superior or some such, please note that I am continually making stupid mistakes principally due to my own naivety. We all have this aspect wherein we judge our circumstance and that of others from the pigeonhole perspective. Everyone else's view though differing from each other falls within a given area, or a few degrees of each other. Mine falls a extreme distance outside of what could be considered the norm. Nonetheless being very human I continue in the belief I perceive “reality” much as the other person from a similar understanding and values system. Invariably this attitude finds opportunity to smack me in my face by its differences. Each and every time I am recalled that, oh I knew better because I am fully aware of the differences and should have factored accordingly. Even now at this more venerable point in my life I find one of my biggest failings is naive belief in the character of my fellow man. Yet if my assertions as to my last day as are allotted to the sons of man be True. For the greater part I will be doing so for the entirety of Our Familial Aggregation. Even for those who seek only to cause me and those I Love and care about, harm or maliciousness. Because that is the way of things in our Creation. Soon enough the vile evil shall reveal itself, the kid gloves shall come off and life will never be this peaceful again. If it be the will of he who sent me I will seek to balance many scales of injustice. Till then I must endure and prepare as best I can.

Well enough complaining about friends who do their best given the circumstances. I appreciate all they have done on my behalf. Especially since to a large degree they grasp what potentially may be the cost. Even if in some small ways they may have been influenced by the same malicious or “Bees”, that seek to be the cause of my failure. For such is the nature of things in the abyss. Especially considering the length of time I have elected to spend wrapped in the confines of twisting throughout what we commonly refer to as “reality”. I generally feel more comfortable surrounded by its miasma and ickor than anywhere else. As much as it may appear to be a contradiction it ultimately is fact. Sigh!!!

For the time being I guess I will change the temporal focus of my entries. I can seldom stay focused on any particular time frame for an extended period. Doing so usually causes me to shift to the associated memories which become very visceral in nature. Soon it begins to become a tad overwhelming. All the more so once framed in relation to the present context. I sincerely hope that suffices and is remotely coherent. I am usually deconstructing my conceptual models and ideas into a form more acceptable to being understood. Sometimes I become lost in the process to the point I know what I mean despite the fact that the words and or syntax are nonsense. In conversation I sometimes have to stop and ask if what I have postulated or presented in the dialogue makes sense. I know it all made sense and sounded good in my head. Aaah but I can’t always presume to have effectively communicated the same.

Saturday July 14, 2018.  – Killeen, Texas

Well here it is the weekend, somewhere in Who-ville are working stiffs cheering at the arrival of the ritual with its time off. It has been interminably long since I have have lived a life so constrained as to include the simple Joy of a defined weekend of days off. Hell I am usually engrossed in my vocation daily. With my ever prevalent purpose always driving me. For the most part I have become unfit to be amongst civil company. Yes I am conversant. I am genial enough when in mixed groups. I tend to empathic of those around me. I genuinely give a damn as to the well being of others. Even so, the inescapable Truth is that the darkness is too imbued into my being. Because of the darkness of my spirit, I have become rolled into the ubiquitous abyss of our “reality”. Though it does not effect me quite the same as others its taint has woven into my fibers. Not being much of a liar I lack the necessary tools to hide it from general view.

Wednesday July 18, 2018  - Killeen, Texas

Well damn, I sometimes really get fucking frustrated.  At one level I am perpetually detached from the day to day focus and obsessions of everyone around me. I can’t bring my mind to focus on the general ideological concepts propagated by the geopolitical theater. Which resembles an episode of the moppet show as far as I what it appears. Are the offenses and injuries less or non-existent to my sympathies or moral indignation; not in the least. They still represent injustices and crimes which need to be effectively dealt with and hopefully the scales will balance. Even so, I just can not seem to get all worked up over these slight daily travesties. All the more so since I tend to view all these for what they are within the larger perspectives and plans of globalist / occultic families. Typical divide and conquer, or simple distractions from their primary objectives. I can appreciate everyone’s sentiments and attitudes that the scenarios of what is to come are not perceived as real or likely. Hell even I given enough distance and time begin to feel as though none of it is possibly factual. Except for the fact that I have lived a life associated to these eventualities. Even when I was in the thick of things all those involved would tell me bold faced lies as to what was occurring. As if to make me question the obvious, because the obvious Truth of the matter was outside any social norms. I guess there are those for a convenient lie is preferred to Truth too extreme to accept. I have been at this life, spending the majority of my existence living in the abyss. Which is everywhere, it co-exists with whatever social or cultural conventions occupying our realities of the moment.  It is ubiquitous yet invisible to all but those who have had the misfortune to have grown up in its mists, or the uninitiated. Due to my unique occular abilities I am sort of self initiated. It took me a little while to come to understand the meaning of this subset of our world. I have always seemed to rub against this sub culture, even as a child. A odd fact which has taken me many years to come to terms with it. Even then it was a process of educating myself to be able to grasp the entirety of the concepts. Though outrageous beyond belief, it is nonetheless part of a larger pool of knowledge I have fought long and hard to achieve. We are a phenomenal expression of life, even across the multiverse. For all our uniqueness, we are seemingly determined to trivialize who and what we are. More importantly the processes and manner whereby we are to accomplish our purpose “here”.  Truly phenomenal!!!

Yet I digress. I am simply getting on my soapbox, whipping the horse, so to speak. Grrrrr…

How best to convey some of the basics back into the discussions and open forums in our sea of opinions. A perplexing problem one that has vexed my soul for almost three decades. I suppose the real source of my reservations has principally revolved around my own reluctance to be centrist to any reintroduction in a general dialogue. Much to my consternation it is plain that to accomplish this and thereby facilitate me being able to keep my appointment in the future, I must find the where with all and means to personally become directly a part of our social dialogues. I can freely admit to my own megalomania. I try not to buy into it myself. I shan’t feed such feelings or Mali-adpted inclinations. What ever a person's tendencies, we fail our own interests in doing so. To the point of it becoming a all consuming psychosis. Our histories are replete with the villains who are consumed by base desires at the cost of all else. Not that such is my fear. Rather I prefer to do what I can from a position far from the limelight. We don’t always get to choose how best to accomplish our goals. My non-object oriented way of thinking I suppose. Aaagh, this is an area I would deeply desire some assistance. Not to mention the realities of presently being impoverished. I had best get used to my condition, I fear I shan’t know any other for some time to come. I guess I need to find the way and means to broadcast my ugly mug on to the internet. I guess I will start some YouTube type of series. I need to really get my act together!

Amazingly as we and our solar-system has traversed the apogee of its elliptical orbit with its sister star. This having occurred back in December 2012. We are now accelerating towards our sister star on the side closest to our Galactic Center. We will soon be re-entering the flows of Magick. They are part of the natural order of things. Think of it as a higher order of physics. We conveniently suppose a posture of superiority over some earlier more organic beliefs or systems of interactions within our realities. Although witchcraft, paganism, shamanism, and various other practices have been collectively maligned for associated practices related to satanistic practices (which Are very evil). In many such cases we have throughen the baby out with the bathwater. I am not trying to condemn nor make excuses, only to ask for a broader open review of these strangely different beliefs and practices.  Many times they are simply corrupted versions of our Judaeo-christian thought, beliefs and practices. Sometimes I even find missing pages of our religious histories amongst these. An to borrow a quote;  “We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for fools for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) involved in their creed of witchcraft.” - C. Lamb.

Friday July 19, 2018.  – Killeen, Texas

Now as to my disjointed quaint manner of writing, I am recalled of yet another quote from Webster’s,  “Prolix, Diffuse. A prolix writer delights in circumlocution, extended detail, and trifling particulars. A diffuse writer is fond of amplifying, and abounds in epithets, figures, illustrations. Diffuseness often arises from an exuberance of imagination; prolixity is generally connected with a want of it.” [1913 Webster].  As to which, my confused manner may be likened, I leave such determination to those who due to some pathological compulsions decide to continue on through the disjointed tediousness of my log.  Excuse my quoting, it but appears the best and most eloquent descriptive means external to my own critiques. Wherein Webster provides what I believe is a more accurate description of my loquacious manner and style of communication. Bleck, ugh…

On to more relevant matters. As I continue to play my game of catching up to the current state of affairs in my existence. Jumping back to around August last year, at the time I elected to take my leave of the Long Beach / Wilmington area of the LA Basin. The majority of occurrences I previously wrote down in a contemporaneous log as I walked out of LA ultimately reaching Salt Lake City, Utah. With a brief momentary stay in Las Vegas, Nevada. My mind aches at the memories from that time. Regardless, there may in the retelling be wisdom or beneficial information for myself or others. Sorry if some of this has a choppy feel to it. There are mountains of unresolved emotional context and histories, which continue to elicit extremes within me. I hate sounding apologetic from the get go. Not that any of the vacillating diminishes the importance of the material or what I endured.

In July of last year, my younger brother was arrested and placed in presumably Twin Towers downtown Los Angeles. It was involving drugs and a handgun. I saw him and the P.O.S. , earlier that night. I already knew there were going to be problems. Additionally I had been indirectly informed my situation was about to become difficult. No more niceness regarding my treatment, operational dictums were changed. Initially I was was acutely aware my younger brother was not in police custody. I figured he was being held some where on or around the federal facilities of Terminal Island in the Port of Long Beach. Later parts of my sight of his circumstances were confirmed to me, though the exact location never has been (foreshadowing). Sometime during the second week of his presumed incarceration. He digitally appeared in the system with the appropriate arrest date, and information. To this day I am not convinced of the terms and conditions accompanying this purely “staged” event. No doubt there were days he was in the Twin Towers facility. Anything else is highly suspect at best if not solely manipulated data for the purposes of the Op. Nonetheless, I was sorely put upon. Due to the determinate fact that whatever had previously as well as on going to date are the proximate results of his being “my brother”. I was aware my brother was not my brother. I later would describe the fact as, “my brother was murdered on the mesas of New Mexico 4 (5) years prior”. I freely declared the fact, even with my younger brother present. At the time of his arrest I had invested two years trying to awaken and heal his soul. During this ordeal, he was on goingly conditioned (subject to various satanic trauma assisted by ultra high technologies deployed by our Shadow Government for the purposes of mind control). I can not escape a degree of culpability. Many may seek succor in the belief that I was not responsible, nor the individual inflicting these horrors to my younger brother. I acknowledge the physical reality as being so. However the moral reality is that, We are our Brother's keeper. An for myself it has a immense literal quality. We are all part of Our Larger Familial Aggregation, what we do, say or do not effects all. While in my particular case, he is my younger brother – same Mother and Father. I have known what to expect from the future all my life. I have even attempted to convey this knowledge in abstract to my brothers. Granted I did Not know that in recent times the evil practitioners of these vile satanistic rites had made a huge technical breakthrough. It use to be, if an individual attained adulthood free of these practices or influences, then they would die free of its chains. Obviously a person could freely elect to cultivate any base desires or perverse inclinations. By “choice” being the operative mandate, those chained to the MPD / DID minds of victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) are forever robbed of any choice in the matter. Not even I can “set” them free or the chains forged in their infancy and childhoods. I can only unlock the gates and offer them the means to heal. The process is long and painful, requiring more years than anyone can live to hopefully heal. Sadly as each victim is considered chattel to the perspective heads of each “family”, who is in turn property of another. Hence there are functionally twelve Satanic Patriarchs seated at the heads of their “family”. Under Satanic Dogma they consider themselves “gods” of their worlds. According to their beliefs you exist as titled property, if not than you are of no consequence thereby you do Not exist. The worth of you and yours is less than the trash sent to the dump.

Sunday July 22, 2018 – Killeen, Texas

Continuing with similar point of fact as discussed, it may all sound or would be considered linear, a straightforward affair. Appearing almost orderly, locked in some strange perverse dance. When it is anything but. Take into consideration the matter of succession. You might be inclined to infer that being Patriarchal, it is a matter of patrialinacal father to son. The reality is far from such Familial Sensibilities. Simply put, upon the death of the head of any household. He, who inherits is the male gains control of his clan by right of arms, or force. Basically if you are not yet feared enough to demand your seat as the heir to the estate. The one who rules does so because he has murdered and killed all the opposition by blood rite according to Antediluvian Law. Meaning you not only kill your opposition, the action is inclusive of all males of immediate consanguinal association. The wholesale murder also removes any potential blood retribution by those who possess an immediate claim to do so. Secondly it demonstrates to clan members at large the vicious response dissent will meet. Terror then substitutes conditioned context within their trauma-based mindset vicariously confirming that male's natural right to head that Family’s Branch of the Larger Familial Group. If you can remotely rationale order from such chaotic slaughter. You more than likely were raised under such paradigms, or your values are perversely twisted and I recommend you seek professional help from any school of thought practicing a highly structured value system, preferably based on some well established benevolent religion. Notice I qualify said using the word benevolent. Cause if you use the most liberal definition to the concepts of religion you could quietly slip satanism or luciferinism in as established religions. The distinctions are sufficient as to invite debate. One I feel is much a waste of time for all parties. Generally I ascribe it principally to a matter of semantics shackled to vastly differing modalities of operations defining values. Our time can be better spent educating ourselves up and out of overly cerebral arguments designed to trap us in artificial concepts posing as reality. A overwrought process favored by Academia in defense of entrenched theories dressed in the ideology we refer to as the “Scientific Model”.  Yes, I have great disdain for what passes for education and schools of higher learning. They have long since been co-oped into the problems they were meant to free us from being slaves. I will tuck that soapbox away now, thank you for your indulgence.

What is even more incredible is the fact that this insanity is governed by their own set laws and rules. They even have a court system with defined jurisprudence. Not any sort you or I could consider properly legal. Rather it is more a system to maintain the “status quo” based on traditions, precedence, along with a strange quasi religious tones from Antediluvian Laws. Even known lies are acceptable if left uncontested but those who have standing and recognized Familial context. Elsewise the stated lie will stand as fact, enforceable to the fullest extent to which the system can accommodate.

Now if you followed that loose explanation, allow me to attempt to give an overview of some of the semi-societal interactive relationship between myself and these psychopaths. Especially above the standing rank and file victims constituting the entirety of the Families. I have a singularly unique interactive connection to them, their Families, their politics, traditions, religious dogma, technologies of the Shadow Government, including possible contingencies for what is to come. It is a chaotic and confusing dynamic paradox. Perpetually in a state of change, in recent times there has been much difference of opinion concerning how to acknowledge or interact with me. Technically I am a nonentity, because I exist outside the direct consanguineous relationship, nor am I amenable to joining their point of view. I remain in opposition to them, their practices, beliefs to the extent of being fundamentally adversarial to “them”. It is worth noting I have been at this so long that everyone I know or deal with daily belongs to this subset of our society. Almost all my friends, associates, girlfriends or anyone else comes from some blood occultic families. Some even to what capacity they are able seek to support me in my efforts. I am alive today because some evil bastards simply decided not to do as they were instructed. Knowing full well the consequences for siding with me. Try to understand these individuals have lived corrupt malignant lives, they hate themselves but are forbidden to take their own lives. There is virtual nothing they can do to truly cause those over them to flip out or take offense. Yet they do recognize that my stumbling about is upsetting. Having run around everywhere doing what I do. I have always done so without a net, so to speak. It is a source of boarder line amazement, more particularly they think I am “bat-shit” crazy! Nonetheless I am still here. You may know people who collect body art, fashionably tattoos these days. I sometimes joke of my own collection of scars and injuries to my body. Thankfully I heal exceptionally well. Most of my scars heal to the point of being almost unnoticeable, if you did not know my histories. It is an exhausting hobby, painful too! A frequent refrain I hear while being admitted to the ER or ICU has been, “Mr Williams, you are very lucky to be alive”.  “Yeah Doc I hear that allot. Do the best you can.”.  It has become somewhat of a ongoing joke, amongst friends and family. These days those groups have become ultra thin. Another reason I make this record of events in my life including improved contemporaneous writings. We can all hope for such. Believe me if it was up to me, no one would know much if anything about me, or my life. I have been, or more correctly I have allowed myself to be forced into a dreadfully unpleasant set of circumstances, as I have whined concerning previously.

Okay Sherman set the way-back machine to the 80’s and 90’ of the last century. Seeing patterns across the country in the minds of crazy ass bitches, now I do Not mean that in a bad way. I have a immense affinity for beautiful crazy ladies. Now as I was saying, the imagery within their minds was too consistent to be coincidence. The language of our sub- conscience is imagery, archetypal, motifs, iconography, mythical, dreams, visions, will of the wisps and whimsy. I believe we all “see” much more of one another than we choose to accept. The largest hurdle to understanding is this compulsion to read or understand what we “see” before the picture is finished assembling in our minds. This tendency has been increasingly pushed into smaller and smaller bits. Which as a negative exponential inverse function has become more and more confusing as to be nigh meaningless with each subsequent reduction. Hence at a time when we should be more connected to everyone. We find increased feelings of isolation and alienation. No matter how much we communicate with our neighbors next door or abroad we have less consensus or feelings of commonality. We sequester these feeling with their accompanying anxieties, less we inadvertently offend anyone. Like what the Fuck! It is part and parcel of the Adult World. Being offended or offending others is how things get done. Usually for the best interests of everyone. Granted we should strive to be engaging to achieve our goals, short of violence or intimidation. Yet as any honest government would gladly concede. Once negotiations by normal means come to an impasse then comes negotiations by “other means”. The debased conduct of sordid persons is best met with our best foot forward, right up their ass! Like most animals, immediacy tends to be the most effective in correcting Mali-adpted conduct. Back to the horse I rode up on, hahaha.

At any rate, over the years I began to solve the underlying issues. I actually came to my own work arounds prior to fully grasping the centralized source or the impact of its implications. Years later I did begin to hear limited bits of information over the internet. Although it did take me a while before I started to correlate the “conspiracy theory” data with what I was “seeing” in women throughout the country.  Largely because few had any real coherent information. Eventually, information concerning Project MK Ultra and our government's Psy-Ops programs sufficiently surfaced to flesh out the details. As a child, young teenager I was familiar with the government’s LSD experiments for a variety of reasons, mind control being one aspect. Frankly I can not believe there are people today who do not know or refuse to believe that our government conducted such experimentation on the populace. It was just common knowledge in the circles I travel. If you read the Program Outline for MK Ultra it has an extensive list of lines of “study” information was to be explored, accumulated with a focus of deriving paradigms of control on individuals, groups, countries, cultures, and from that to the world at Large. The Globalist, New World Order, G-7, Trilateral Commission, Illuminati the individuals and their constantly shifting panorama of institutions and foundations are continually sifting beliefs and cultures in an multi-generational game of Three Card Molly. Degree by degree all the world’s various societies and Cultures have been manipulated via global misdirection with large quantities of restructuring of values and beliefs. Till everyone on Earth thinks good is bad; and bad is good. I should think we have all heard these arguments before, usually framed as the delusions of conspiracy theorist. All rather convenient as a means explaining away any descent or even an open fair discussion. Our social structure has drifted far from where we should be. Starting in 2020, everything is going to change and never be this pleasant or nice again. Well at least not till after the Second Coming. Hahaha, despite sounding …...

[alanfromrochester]

Andalite Chronicles reread - still awesome

I just reread The Andalite Chronicles. Both the action and backstory were as great as I remembered.

Now that I'm watching Star Trek, I noticed more such comparisons: Battle bridge, plasma conduit and memory wipe were direct phrasing. On the Enterprise-D, ensigns have shared quarters versus arisths' tiny personal quarters on Dome ships. Alloran's attitude reminded me of the warrior side of Starfleet compared to the scientists and diplomats. Enemies working together to save both them, Esplin and Elfangor getting to the Time Matrix, reminded me of TNG s2e8 A Matter of Honor and s3e7 The Enemy. The conclusion, a butterfly effect from avoiding trouble, reminded me of TNG s6e15 Tapestry. Ethical mutiny echoed TNG s7e12 The Pegasus.

Skrit Na were a great in character explanation for stereotypical aliens - their and their ships' appearance, the stealing and experimenting behavior. The diatribe about feet that need shoes, versus hooves, came off as ableism as well as funny cultural confusion. It took me a bit to realize that Sub-Visser Seven would become Visser Three, but his characterization made a lot of sense once I noticed. Sick at hearts was great Andalite-specific phrasing.

Loren represented good human nature in her curiosity; Chapman's selfishness and distrust showed a bad side of us.

Alloran chewing out Chapman for insulting Loren's father's PTSD remains one of the series' great serious moments. Yet Alloran's sympathy seems somewhat incongruous with Andalite ableism. Of course, Elfangor in the Mustang remains one of the franchise's humor highlights.

Before this, the last modification was 11/22/14, I made only wording changes to original review. I can't find the original post so I'm adding it below rather than reblogging; this happened with one of my previous rereads as well.

5+/5 "A wealth of information on the series"

The canon information started coming quickly, and I love that. This included things I didn't know and confirmation of things I had suspected. There were a lot of great parallels to the main series.

So a Dome could beat a Pool and fighters. I'm guessing it could also beat a Blade (and fighters?) one on one, but not both. I thought the Yeerks won because of Visser Three's tactics, hiding the Blade ship in a lunar crater.

Elfangor saying he was too weak to morph implies that he still had the power. I thought he lost it when the Ellimist restored his Andalite form, like how Tobias remained a hawk but could morph again.

So the namesake dome is a third of a mile across; 1760 feet (536.45 meters) isn't usually put like that, but it seems reasonable for an especially large dimension of a major warship. [The largest human warships are the US Ford class carriers at 1106 feet (337 meters) long]

I was afraid the Andalites had been reduced to slowing the Yeerks, and this confirmed that.

The hirac delest (memory record) framing device works well with stories of Elfangor's youth. It seems that he was a goofy youngster like Ax is.

So fighter pilot attitude crosses species barrier. I thought so. Models 14 and 22 seemed like an F-14 vs F-22 comment, though I'm not sure how accurate that analogy is in detail. Also, older Andalite fighters having pilot and gunner could explain Bug fighter design.

It was interesting to see the comparison between phasters and Dracons or Shredders made in canon.

Human-Andalite interaction was fun here as it was in the main series.

Chapman seems like David in the sense of focusing on how he can make the alien interaction work for him. I knew he was named Hedrick. No wonder he's on a last name basis.

Rather than dwelling on details of the action scenes, I got caught up in the adventure, which seems like a good thing.

I see Alloran as harsh but sensible even before the pool flush. I like how he called out Chapman for insulting Loren's father's PTSD, saying that a non-warrior wouldn't understand. Speaking of which, Elfangor said he was unaware of PTSD amongst Andalites. Does Elfangor not notice that due to youthful idealism? Do Andalites either ignore it more or have better medical care for it. Is their brain chemistry less prone to it?

I remembered Dracons made a TSEEEW sound. I was interested to learn that Shredders went TTTSSSAAAPPP. I notice slight variations in the amount of each letter. Is that intentional on K.A. Applegate's part?

Is Elfangor's reaction to the Taxxon ship boarding action PTSD or just first time jitters?

So not morphing for pleasure is a general Andalite thing. I thought it might have been an Animorph security issue.

I'm fascinated by the look at the Taxxon homeworld. I knew Elfangor couldn't give into the hunger, but I hadn't thought about suspicious that looked.

Sub-Visser Seven seems to have Visser Three's attitude. I wonder if it's Esplin 9466 pre-promotion. The improbable escape also seems like the main series.

I knew Arbron was a nothlit before he said that, but is that hindsight from reading facts about the series?

Hmm, Bug fighters are slow in atmosphere. That could give humans an advantage in fighting them. However, 3,000+ MPH is way faster than even top fighter jets. Overall, that was a great bit of information on ship design. It was also another good part of the adventure.

So Andalites commit suicide by tailblade rather than be made Controllers. Suspicion confirmed.

Elfangor's human culture shock is funny, as with Ax in the main series. Apparently he's looking at cigarette ads. The chapter ending with "and I liked it" made me think "It's Only Rock And Roll (But I Like It)" is one of the other Stones songs on the tape with Satisfaction and Honky Tonk Women. I figured Andalites would identify with natural environments on Earth.

Alloran showing up in Hork-Bajir morph? Hadn't seen that coming, nice rescue.

Besides the ethics of a particular decision, a moral stand leaves the dirty work to someone else. Alloran has an interesting point there. The quantum virus announcement came off as letting his big secret slip out of anger.

So I was right that Sub-Visser Seven went on to infest Elfangor. This also shows that Esplin 9466 already had his main series personality by this point in the war. I wonder exactly when the infestation happened and how Chapman is involved.

I really started to ship Elfangor/Loren by this point. Even before it came up in this story,

So the Graysha Nebula is hundreds of light years from Earth. My first thought is that the asteroids feed off of energy.

I figured Bug fighters might be launched from the Yeerks' bigger ships. I wonder how Pool capacity compares to Blade.

Mortal enemies working together against a bigger threat is always interesting. The hybrid bizarro world was a compelling result. Is this where Esplin/Alloran acquired the Vanarx morph?

Liquid grass? I had wondered what the humans were eating, and I'm not sure why it didn't come up until now. Considering the air hoods, I wonder what's slightly different about Andalite atmosphere.

The Ellimist is a dick, especially considering Elfangor/Loren, but we already knew that. Then again, I can see his greater good logic a bit more clearly now. (And apparently it's also the standard scifi not messing with time stuff)

No wonder Elfangor said F this. It's plausible and helps move the story along for the captain to be understanding and even supportive.

Loren aged to 18 from the Time Matrix; it seems poetic that she started out at about 13 like the Animorphs.

I did already see Tobias' friends as his new family.

[fountainpenguin]

P & Q

P: How much do you plan in advance versus letting the story unfold as you go?

Story-wise, ends and general events are always planned early on (All 130 Prompts, most of Identity Theft, Hawthorn Haven, Little Imperfections, No Anesthetic, Factor It In, Devil’s Backbone, and so on are already planned even though I won’t be posting some of these things for years), so it’s just a matter of doing the actual writing. Beginnings come next and middles come last.

For me, writing is a matter of saying, “Here is my destination. Where are we coming from and how do we get there?” Depending on what I’m writing, sometimes where I’m coming from is the previous chapter, sometimes it’s a specific point in my timeline. Chapters don’t require a lot of set-up because readers should more or less remember what’s recently happened to a character, but with one-shots I have to clarify not only the setting, but recent events as best as I can. There’s a different mindset there.

Origin, Knots, and the Prompts are divided into over a hundred different files in Google Docs, so I can’t give an accurate word count, but I probably have 200k words on hand for both Origin and Knots and at least 300k for the Prompts. I wrote scenes I consider significant early on and I’m working my way towards them, correcting inconsistencies along the way.

What I plan worldbuilding-wise for a fantasy series is another topic altogether (Expanded on below the cut).

Sociopolitical Aspects

For my Mario works, for example, the first thing planned was how the Koopa Kingdom is laid out, and where the Koopalings fit into my ideas. Then it was a matter of deciding which parts of canon I want to draw from and what I want to do with it. I didn’t rule out the new kingdoms revealed in Odyssey, but I definitely didn’t erase Sarasaland and the Beanbean Kingdom either. I worked out the political systems of a few countries, what the social norms and big crimes are, and the basics of Bowser’s inclination towards violence.

I have a document noting what the people of each land are called and what their native languages are so I don’t have to worry about contradicting myself later, which has been extremely useful. I even determined populations for different kingdoms, with the Mushroom Kingdom at about 235 million people, the Koopa Kingdom almost twice that, and the Beanbean Kingdom a measly 4 million. Even if this info never comes up in story, it helps me understand how people interact with one another and fit into this system.

In my FOP works, I worked out the history of Fairy/Anti-Fairy conflicts, drawing from aspects of canon such as the known war over human godchildren. The Pixies fit in there too as the neutral party. Then there’s the matter of fitting in the aliens and humans. Deeper yet, the Ghosts and Beasts. Figuring out the international relationships up front works best for me, and then I can later determine how characters with this background interact in this environment.

In my Danny Phantom works, I drew from a comment Butch made once that although King Pariah was a tyrant, he did keep the Ghost Zone organized and it’s fallen to chaos since he was overthrown. I worked out Ghost-Skeleton relations, how the Observants play into things, and what the space within the world might be like.

In my WordGirl works, determining how Hexagon functions was crucial to what I decided to do with Kid Math: In this case, his planet is obsessed with math to the point they only have spoken language, not a written one. They use numbers and mark up blueprints, but written language is for the Lexiconians [Insert snobby scoffing].

When writing Rhyme and Reason backstory, I worked out how common powers are, how those with certain powers are treated by society, what kind of education kids with powers get pushed towards, what laws might exist, how many heroes there might be, and how police involvement works in cities that have heroes. In this alternate world, there are things called charm schools that are “finishing schools” for kids with powers, and Rhyme was almost sent to one until she ran away.

Physical Aspects

I made the Mushroom Kingdom an archipelago and chose Indonesia as my main inspiration country, researching the climate, seasons, plants, and meals typically found there. I know exactly when the dry season ends and the wet season starts and how this affects the Piranha Plants.

In FOP, I understand the landscapes of Fairy World and Anti-Fairy World, what kinds of mountains and water features they can have, and the flora and fauna found in each location. I know ways to move between locations, what travel is possible with magic, and what happens in times there isn’t any magic. I know what the major buildings are, where they are, and what they do.

In my DP works, there are certain stable parts of the Ghost Zone and certain unstable parts. It’s easy to get lost if you’re new there and not used to things moving around, but as you learn the rules of the world, you’re able to identify landmarks. I know which populations live where and what those landscapes are like. I came up with rules for how lairs work and how far things can move about the Zone. I know how things work and which characters know X amount of information about their surroundings.

Cultural Aspects

I pored over a LOT of small details in canon for my Mario works. I took painstaking notes about the Soybean civilization, the ancient Luffs, the fallen Bask Kingdom, and all sorts of historical tidbits and worked those into modern canon. Some stuff didn’t cross my path during my personal gameplay, but I like knowing about it anyhow.

I considered Peach’s pathway to becoming queen and how she fits her role, especially compared to her predecessors. I made stars important in Mushroom Kingdom culture and the moon important in Koopa culture. I created lore for why karting exists, canonizing all locations and the general idea of kart racing even if I’m not going to make every kart track canon or organize each game in a timeline.

FOP worldbuilding involved gathering as much canon from the show as possible, collecting info from folklore, plucking bits and pieces from insect and bat biology, and marrying the three together. It was important to me to give Fairy World a distinct culture different from any on Earth, and really examine how magic affects daily life in this world.

Anthropomorphizing insect behaviors gave me Fairies who lick faces as a form of greeting and who favor those with freckles above those without. Not exactly accurate to show canon, but it works great. Gyne and drone relationships have been fun to build, and I made sure my timeline included points in the past where such relations were different than modern times. Changes in relationships over time is something that really fascinates me.

Anti-Fairy World also gets a unique culture. Since they’re evil antagonists in show canon, I certainly didn’t want to race-code them like any group of people on Earth. I’ve tried to design them their own culture, heavily inspired by bats and a belief in luck above all. Bats aren’t sociosexual, but they are promiscuous, so I don’t stick wholly to bat behaviors either: they’re partially based on bonobos. Most importantly, I made sure everything I did was fun for me to write.

With my particular writing style, it works to have deep, complex culture for the Anti-Fairies. If I wanted to write short, lighthearted pieces, that would impact where my worldbuilding priorities lay (Probably lots of cute holiday traditions and less focus on why Anti-Fairy culture revolves around causing others harm).

General Research

Heights, timelines, food, and clothes are all things I settle as soon as possible, and I keep ref sheets on hand so I can fact check myself at a glance. Fairies and Anti-Fairies, being a species who live in the clouds, have easier access to silkworms than cotton plants. That determines what their clothing is made of, what products are expensive, and what gets worn on certain occasions. 

I draw from canon where possible, using screenshots or known character heights (Mario canonically 5′1″) and comparing them to others. Being of a different height can impact how others view you. Dining etiquette is a fun cultural difference that can create conversation or social awkwardness and really set the mood.

With fanfics, I dig as deep as I can. Did you know Wario canonically doesn’t know how old he is because his mom never threw him a birthday party? Or that he keeps a matchbox of ants in his cabinet and is “waiting until they worship him as a god”? I drink details like this by the gallon.

I prefer nailing this stuff down before getting far in my writing because that’s what works for me personally. I worldbuild further over time as I think up new questions I didn’t already have answers for.

Unique Aspects

Magic systems are complex. They generally take me longest and are more work than play. I like to have an outline of how a magic system works, write the story, figure out what I absolutely need magic to do and what I don’t want it to do, and then tighten the system during the revision process. For example, I weakened shapeshifting in my FOP works so you can’t easily hold another form while aroused- I personally didn’t want age changes to be involved in lovemaking. That expanded to making it hard to hold a form when you’re drunk too.

It was important to me in my Mario works to have 1-Up mushrooms exist and be capable of saving your life, but I also needed a reason why people don’t walk around with 99 lives and consume 1-Ups at all times. After wrestling with plans for a while, I decided to make them time-sensitive. You have to consume them often to have more than one life on a regular basis, and they’re pretty rare. As long as I can justify why someone has access to this rare item, I can utilize a 1-Up’s power, but I can also justify killing someone off if enough time has passed since they last consumed one.

With Fairly OddParents, I’d seen enough episodes to understand the basics of wishes, magical backup, and Da Rules. When I became serious about writing FOP ‘fics, I started noting the times Cosmo and Wanda failed to use magic for reasons other than Da Rules (Not in sync with each other, low battery, lack of belief in magic, Big Wand toppled over, etc.) and built my version of the FOP magic system to accommodate as many of these “inconsistencies” as I could. My take on magic is complex, but I can stretch the system many ways, so it works great for me.

Will I use everything I’ve worldbuilt in story? I might not say it directly, but having a pool of information I can draw from helps me find ways to flesh out a character’s life. Some stuff makes it in, other stuff is only vaguely glimpsed. To me, diving into worldbuilding is fun. Taking what I have and creating something with it is even more fun. I could whip out a bunch of one-shots about basic slice-of-life events without doing all this work, but tying my stories to social, political, or culture aspects of the world is what I really enjoy.

Q: Do you have any discarded scenes/storylines/projects?

//Laughs

I don’t like deleting things, so I move them to scrap docs instead. Origin, Knots, and the 130 Prompts each have a scrap file of 50+ pages (91 pages of scrapped Prompt scenes) and I can usually remember keywords so the deleted scenes are easy to search for if I need them. Some get recycled, even back into the same chapter I originally deleted them from, but a lot stay dead because they were either irrelevant or inconsistent with the final material. 

Fortunately for me, I have a good memory of what I kept vs. what I scrapped. I’ve compiled some favorites in my deviantArt Sta.sh and linked them in my FOP sideblog because they’re my version of sketchdumps. Even if they’re unfinished, I still think they’re interesting to look at.

For some reason I don’t delete much from my standalone one-shots, just my multi-chapter stuff. Most of what enters my standalones survives.

The projects I’m most hurt to have left hanging are my Total Drama stories The Beatin’ Path and Lions Under Palm Trees, keeping with my tradition of writing stories about eliminated contestants at that season’s elimination location from the perspective of the first character eliminated. I have a good 15k words written for the former and 25k for the latter, and I just… let them slip through my fingers in favor of Fairly OddParents years ago.

Arguably letting them go is for the best because I took the “cartoon physics are canon” concept and RAN with it, so I have an entire plot arc about one character coming into puberty and having his ability to utilize cartoon physics switch on for the first time. I personally consider Lions one of my best works in terms of matching my niche interests, but the acknowledgement of cartoon physics does stray from Total Drama canon, and I just couldn’t get over that enough to keep posting it.

Some of my all-time favorite scenes and characterizations are in these stories. I’m glad I have what I do for myself because these works make me smile even all these years later, buuut it’s probably best if I keep most of this nonsense private. This is probably my favorite snippet of the entire Lions draft, though:

“What’s in the box?”

Don’t say the hearts of small animals, don’t say the hearts of small animals.

“Stuff for my girlfriend.” It wasn’t untrue.

The least loved always end up my favorites somehow. I’m still so in love with my delusional wizard. I honestly might love Leonard more than I love any of the FOP characters I write about nowadays; he was the best I ever had. I mean, look at this FREAKING CHILD-

====

“Hand me my dice.”

Beardo dropped the dice in his hand. Leonard rolled them across the grass. Nine. He groaned. But, obediently, he knelt and poked his head inside the damaged zeppelin.

“Roll me an observance check.”

“Snake eyes.”

“Seriously? It’s dark. Try again. Higher this time.”

Beardo gave the dice another toss. “Lucky lucky seven.”

Leonard let out a high whistle between his front teeth. “No response,” he said after a moment. “I don’t think there are any animals down there, except maybe a few rats and some bugs. All right, I’m jumping down. Keep an eye on my back.”

He slid through the gap and dropped out of sight. Beardo heard him say, “Lux up,” and click the penlight on his keychain.

====

“Incriminatus, television.”

No reaction.

“Incriminatus, television.”

No reaction. The Christmas advertisements blared on. Leonard raised his wand to his eye, then slapped the tip a few times against his palm. “Come on, wand. Tammy isn’t here anymore. Why aren’t you working? I still believe in you.”

The door eased open. “Hey, Leonard,” Jen said in a voice of false cheerfulness. “I got your toothbrush out of… the other room.”

Leonard didn’t try to switch off the TV and faced the window instead. “Brushing teeth is for people who can’t do it with magic.”

====

“Wait.” Leonard raised both hands above his head, squeezing his eyelids tight. “Wait. What you’re saying is, Scarlett pulled a Courtney to the extreme and hid her secret identity as an ‘evil’ mastermind supervillain shaman queen this entire time. She played a character so well that even her closest friend – not to mention Chris – couldn’t see through her act until she chose to reveal herself. At which point she then convinced everyone that she was actually said ‘evil’ mastermind supervillain. You’re telling me there was a LARPing goddess in my presence, and I completely missed it.”

“I didn’t put it in those words for a reason,” Jasmine said, “but at its core, yes.”

Leonard pressed his hands to his cheeks and stared into his salad. “Holy flipping plot twist. I am so turned on right now.”

“No,” Jasmine said, jabbing him in the chest with one finger, “No you are not.”

Amy clicked her tongue. “Leonard, you have a girlfriend.”

“Not anymore. That’s it. I’m breaking up with Tammy for real this time.”

Beardo slapped him on the back of the head and made a sound like a police siren.

====

One Lions chapter was named “Baa Baa Blackmail” if that tells you anything. Ah, memories… It’s probably for the best if these projects stay retired, but I love them so very much.

Fanfic Ask Meme

[nightshade-victorian]

i need to know more about N'kari 👀

I’ll do the Oc Character meme thing for you and answer any other questions you might have after… there is so much on him :D @marbleunderthefridge there is some new canon you might like and I hope you don’t mind me tagging you @occultdetectives but you might enjoy this…

@sisterofsilence thanks so much for drawing my baby

Full name: He has many names; some are daemon names gifted by Slaanesh for excellent acts of excess and indulgence, some are his own inventions to inspire appropriate reactions and some are locked tightly away to prevent rivals from gaining an upper hand. He goes mostly by N'Kari the Shining Subjugator (which referances his war band, the Silver Sàde) or alternatively Silk-strings. As you can tell he likes his phonics to refer back to Slaanesh as you can never be too polite to an multidimensional transcendental beings. N'kari is actually the name of the Keeper of secrets that he has imprisoned in his staff; the Vaas'thi'ek (King of pleasure). His real name is Shukura Nanaja and was in fact one of the only surviving Terran Emperor’s children. He keeps this really locked up tight as names have power.

Gender and Sexuality: N'kari isn’t as fluid as he looks and has a very clear sense of self which is predominantly masculine in nature. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like experimenting with his presentation like any self respecting Slaaneshi… he is one gorgeous bastard is all I’m saying.He’s very gay and never showed interest in his female astartes colleagues even when not corrupted. Only men have seen his dubious affections which they all wish they hadn’t barr maybe a few.

Pronouns: he/him. He’s not very patient with ‘silly’ and ‘made up’ pronouns though he rarely sees anyone as fully worth his time/respect and mostly refers to others like chattel or inanimate objects.

Ethnicity/Species: Astartes (however Fabius has grafted Eldar DNA to him which has resulted in some interesting developments in his Psychic abilities and visual appearance. He really wasn’t happy about it).

Birthplace and Birthdate:Shukura was born on Terra and the youngest terran Emperor’s children marine made. He comes from the Emperor’s own Birthplace of what was modern Turkey to a noble family of scientists who lived within the imperial palace courtyards. His family were especially honoured when their son was chosen for the Astartes Legions and gave him only the best.

Guilty pleasures: Anything that brings him pleasure for that moment. Actually he’s very much in control of his urges for pleasure which saves much of his sanity though he is deeply sadistic and takes great pleasure in inflicting pain on others. I suppose his really pleasure (and weakness and possibly only love) is August Gerhard… an Ultramarine he captured and tamed into a pet for himself. He has decidedly twisted feelings for poor Gerhard which stem from bad memories, deeply personal desires and straight up corruption. N'kari both adores and hates Gerhard for this. He loves vintage music boxes and carousels on a less morbid note and has been known to restore ancient ones to full glory.

Phobias: Loss of Control. That is really his only fear… he has such a control complex even though it in itself is tightly controlled. When situations go beyond his control, he will seek to tighten his grip on what he does have under his power (usually Gerhard). He rarely lets everything slip away from him and will hoard elements of control like jewellery. It’s all part of his superiority personality that sees only himself and a few select others as actually full and complete beings with totally rights over the imperfect scum.

What they would be famous for: N'kari is already famous in the Eye of Terror for multiple reasons. He is well-known mostly as a man of business rather than combat. Combatants are a hundred a penny in the Eye and so Chaos marines that make a very successful living out of businesses are quite rare. Runs three businesses on a permanent basis and has his fingers in innumerable others, mostly as a shareholder. His most notable business is Slave raiding/trading which seeing as slaves are practically currency in the Warp, he’s practically the equivalent of a money lender. He tends to specialise in exotic and high quality slaves such as large rare Xenos breeds and unfortunately Astartes. Astartes are his most sought-after commodity so N'kari has developed ways of mass capturing Astartes that have driven Chapters to the brink of extinction. That in itself is considered a feat, has affording him large amounts of privilege in the Eye and granting him unchallenged interaction to exclusive places/people/events.His second and arguably his most famous business is his Psykosurgery and Soulmetrics. The warp is the stuff of souls and thus it’s only natural that its inhabitants want souls to be proud of even if it increases their risk. Think of it like plastic surgery but for the soul… N'kari can imbue souls with flavours, patterns, essences and many other abstract concepts that are only tangible in the Warp. A slaanesh cultist may want to embody a certain concept and have their soul modified so that their very spirit compliments their theme or a warrior might wish to increase the fear they inspire on the battlefield and have a warsong grafted into them. The possibilities are endless and only N'kari truly understands the arcane science behind it. He guards the secrets so jealously that even Slaanesh is kept guessing. Similar methods are frequently applied to slaves that are of particular value to increase their desirability and usefulness. Some are made into ‘living dolls’, their very souls scrubbed clean and prepared for new personalities or purposes.

What they would be arrested for: Literally everything he does is a crime against humanity and life in general.

Oc I ship them with: N'kari has four official ships which are the most plot important. His first relationship is the most plot important but also the most tragic. Shukura as a loyal marine was deeply in love with an Ultramarine Captain called Varius Lucretius. Shukura was a Librarian and thus (wisely) avoided by most but Varius while a little unnerved by Shukura’s possessiveness, was actually rather in love with him. Varius’s levelheaded and emotional healthy person was a good influence on Shukura and if their relationship had survived, it could have saved many lives however it didn’t. In fairness the initial disaster wasn’t Shukura’s fault but his need for control, his suppressed sadism and inability to let go combined together to make a tragedy that could have been avoided. Varius died in complete agony and terror which left such a mark on Shukura that even ten thousand years after, the event is so burned into his mind that it cannot ever dull. The second ship is a follow on from the above but it is so down the unhealthy and abusive scale that it’s not really a ship… more like the worst Master/slave relationship possible however it is the longest and most significant. Varius’s geneseed was successfully recovered and was of course returned to Macragge. It had several hosts over the next thousand years, giving it a respected position and age in the Ultramarine lineage records. The geneseed was actually going to be retired from implantion as it was no longer successfully replicating new ones but it was decided to implant it into one last host. This host was a young peasent neophyte called August Gerhard. To his immense misfortune, Gerhard grew to echo Varius’s features so well that when he faced off against N'kari, N'kari became obsessed with his capture and risked an entire catch of Ultramarines just to snare him in the most perfect way. Gerhard was captured and taken by N'kari back to his ship where he ‘trained’ to be the personal pet of N'kari. It is the most miserable life you can imagine for Gerhard; he’s the subject of intense psychological/emotional/physical abuse which has actually shattered his resistance leaving him broken and deeply traumatised. N'kari loves Gerhard but in the way only a chaos marine can; with a twisted mix of affection and cruelty. Gerhard himself is actually unaware of how much he resembles Varius leaving him with tormenting questions as to why N'kari treats him the way he does. The third ship was the shortest but has a lot of later plot importance. Shukura and Fabius used to be partners. Shukura was the first person to be taught by Fabius in the Haemonculus ways and more importantly the only one to survive. Fabius and N'kari understood each other on a level that was completely unprecedented by both and while it wasn’t really a sexual relationship, it was a deeply intellectual one. It ended very badly of course when their experiments on each other finally reached a limit. Fabius had grafted Eldar DNA to N'kari which in his eyes was like pouring pollution into a lake. N'kari got his revenge however in using his newly found eldar abilities to give Fabius trypophobia (a fear of hole clusters) which greatly impeded his work. They despise each other to this day but sometimes find that they are the only ones that can understand the other.The fourth is way more casual and doesn’t yet have any plot significance; Vicious and N'kari. Vicious and N'kari have had a thing for about as long as they have been traitors. Its more a case of ‘You scratch my itch and I scratch yours’ XD.

Oc most likely to murder them: Oddly enough this is most likely going to be Gerhard. Gerhard after he had escaped from N'kari’s chains and wants revenge with every fibre of his being. N'kari just can’t bring himself to kill the face of his lover despite it being his deepest desire. Though honestly a lot of people have it out for Nkari… he’s not exactly popular for his personality. The other person might actually be my other Slaaneshi Warlord Calliope; an ambitious mortal who is already making a lot of waves in the Eye. She’s powerful enough and if N'kari presents a threat to her plans… it doesn’t matter if he is still technically an ally.

Favourite movie and book genre: well he is complying his own encrypted notes on his Psykosurgery and Soulmetrics, reading whatever material he can squeeze from Fabius and the piles of arcane texts he can find but apart from that he doesn’t have the time or the inclination to ‘enjoy’ the creative work of others.

Least favourite tv/movie cliche: He hates Tv. Seriously even as a loyalist… he couldn’t stand it. Shukura was one of those super snobby people that would make passive aggressive comments to people who are always talking about TV programmes or films and make out how much better it was without it. It’s especially ironic because his character originally inspired by the Childcatcher in the film Chitty Chitty bang bang

Talents and powers: N'kari is a very talented person and boy does he know it. He has a very thorough understanding of his own abilities and is always pushing the limits he has found like a true son of Fulgrim. Even as legionnaire, Shukura was never the best close quarters combatant, only ever being just average in swordplay and marksmanship but he really excelled in his psychic abilities and his uncanny strategic planning. His Psychic abilities manifest usually in a mix of illusion, telekinetic energy and highly destructive empathetic channeling. It wasn’t uncommon to see him hang back, casting subtle illusions to confuse the enemy and wait for an opportune moment to unleash a mindflaying torrent of emotional energy against the leader and his minions. Naturally this didn’t earn him much favour with the martial III legion but Fulgrim encouraged Shukura to explore and perfect his abilities. It was in pursuit of this that Shukura began to study Astartes Psychology under the apothecaries, believing that in the understanding of his own mind, he would be able to push his abilities further than ever. This however didn’t happen as intended as he grew more interested in the science and theories behind Astartes Psychology rather than applying it to his own psychic studies. He devoured anything that involved general psychology and began to make his own studies on Astartes behaviour and it’s manipulation. Shukura quickly became the foremost expert in both Astartes Psychology and Psychiatrics, routinely assisting the apothecaries. It was in these studies that Slaanesh would find a businesslike but willing supplicant in Shukura, stoking his fascination for the more extreme behaviours and disorders. As the legion fell, Shukura experimented on his own brothers but rarely to their pleasure or enjoyment. He pulled the threads of their minds and hearts apart, subjecting them to intense psychic stresses that even the slaanesh corrupted marines struggled to handle. N'kari during the heresy had ample astartes captives to perfect his techniques and skills to the point where he can manipulate an Astartes’s deep thinking without even using psychic abilities. This is one of the reasons why he goes unchallenged by most warbands… they are genuinely scared of him. His most useful abilities revolve around this but he does have a few extra ones he developed when the Eldar DNA was grafted. His favourite is psychic strings (hence his name Silk-strings) allow him to control every action, word and sometimes thought of the being in question. They become extensions of his will. His second favourite is soul crystallisation… he will drive souls into a intense frenzy of sensation and pleasure-pain before crystallising them at the peak. These crystals then can be used like stun grenades releasing the huge amount of psychic pressure on unguarded minds.

Why someone might love them: N'kari is charming and terribly charismatic… at least on the surface. To the right people, he’s a lot of fun and will always give highly intelligent conversation that are unlike anything else. He’ll always have what you want…. and give it to you for the right price.

Why someone might hate them: see above XP. A metric ton of reasons… personality wise, he’s callous, cold and incredibly cruel. You never ever know where you stand with him. He has a superiority complex which is sky high…etc. etc.

How they change: welp… he used to have two normal arms, no horns and eyes that didn’t change colour but now he does and his left arm and shoulder is now 6 tentacles with big blinking eyes that he can see through. And he didn’t have eldar abilities. But on the serious tone, Nkari’s story is more about Obsession in its many deadly forms and how it will change a person into a monster if not careful.

Why I love them: because he is my beautiful trash baby. He’s pure evil and really any redeeming quality he had has long been burnt away. Plus he’s the AstartesCatcher!!!! He has the nets and cage chariots to prove it…

[samisadeangirl]

Yes OP, that IS too much to ask for because:

SPN is about family, not romance.  All its important relationships are framed as parental or sibling bonds, and neither of its highly attractive main characters have ever had a successful romantic relationship for a reason.  Suddenly shoehorning in a romance, especially such a contrived, OOC one, would change the show for the worse.  If you want romance, go watch any of the literally hundreds of other shows that focus on that.

The most important relationship on the show from 1.01 Pilot through 15.13 Destiny’s child has been between Dean and SAM, and that’s not going to change.  Millions of fans have been watching for 15 seasons because of their epic bromance and brodependency, not for some delusional fantasy of a hunter and his guardian angel or similar nonsense.  Dean and Sam are not only canon soulmates who would do anything for each other, but also Dean has repeatedly chosen Sam over Asstiel.  Only someone who has absolutely no clue about this show would think that Dean would ever put Asstiel first.

Dean has never once in 15 years shown romantic or sexual interest in men OR in non-humans.  He has clearly been portrayed as straight since Day 1, as supported by his own words and actions and those of Jensen, Kripke, and others on the cast and crew.  TPTB aren’t going abruptly change his sexuality at the last minute, particularly not for a few thousand idiots whose “evidence” consists of cherry-picked scenes taken out of context, homophobic and toxic masculinity-based stereotypes, and meaningless drivel like clothing colors and food choices.  

On those same lines, Asstiel is mostly asexual and has never shown romantic interest in a male either, and he’s only shown interest in humans (women only) while human himself.  If he’s ever going to experience a moment of true happiness that sends him to the Empty and then needs to be rescued, it will be over the one person that he has demonstrated amazing chemistry with and actually kissed and still cares about--which would be MEG.

Dean has more onscreen chemistry with his car than with the angel, and his canon “relationship” with Asstiel is a toxic, borderline abusive mess of insults, lies, threats, abandonment, beatings, and betrayals that shouldn’t even be considered friendship.  Asstiel has hurt Dean far more than helped him, including causing the deaths of multiple loved ones.  The two don’t even spend time with each other except when one needs the other’s help.  Anyone who thinks any of this is “romantic” needs to crawl out of their basement and start interacting with real people more.

Last but not least, barely 1% of the SPN audience is actually interested in Destiew, while the rest of the fanbase is mostly non-shippers (many of whom don’t even know Destiew exists) and some number of fans of other ships.  TPTB aren’t going to confuse and piss off 99% of their viewers just to please a few thousand obnoxious, entitled morons.  Especially when said morons have no effect on ratings, ad revenue, convention attendance, merchandise sales, or anything else TPTB actually cares about, and when all their tantrums on social media have resulted in is even less scenes with Dean and Asstiel over the seasons.

Yes it is too much.

Keep this shit in fanfic and out of the general tags.

Why is that so fucking hard for you assholes to understand?

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN TIME

I was in Africa last year and saw a lot of them about halfway to Lisp. No big company can do much better than that. How long do you think it would take them on average to realize that it would ruin the product they hoped to be laughing all the way up into conscious knowledge. One developer told me: As a result of their process, the App Store, and it's a bad sign if they weren't; it would mean you were being too easy on them. The reason they were funding all those laughable startups during the late 90s was that they hoped to sell them to gullible retail investors; they hoped to be laughing all the way to go. What would make the painting more interesting to people? If you want to reach users, you do not talk about Fight Club. And companies offering Web-based software, because writing desktop software, because writing applications for them seemed an attainable goal to larval startups. A round. I realized that it reflects reality: software development is affected by the way; it's the main difference between children and adults. System administrators can become cranky and unresponsive because they're not directly exposed to competitive pressure: a salesman has to deal with competitors' software, but for those who make it often try to trick us.1 This argument applies to every aspect of server administration: not just security, but uptime, bandwidth, load management, backups, etc.2

I'm not saying that no one will care how comfortingly orthodox your technology choices were. But in fact if you narrow the definition of beauty to something that works a certain way on humans, and perhaps others that would appeal equally to your friends, to people in Nepal, for a time as the manager of a nightclub in Miami. The statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be believed. I see patterns in my programs, I consider it a sign of something you need to fix anything? This is not just something to worry about bugs, and you've even set up mechanisms to compensate for it e. Computers are in this phase now. Suppose for the sake of simplicity that this is a naive and outdated ambition. That's the best-looking spreadsheet using HTML, but you don't have to rely on benchmarks, for example—that's not an innovation, in the sense of investors who take the lead in the old sense of managing the round. O'Reilly was wearing a suit, a sight so alien I couldn't parse it at first. You can figure out the rest as you go.

For server-based applications offer a straightforward way to outwork your competitors. The application that pushed desktop computers out into the mainstream was VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet. VisiCalc was such an advance, in its time, that people bought Apple IIs just to run it. It will always suck to work for a long time. So working in a group of your peers? 0 meaning the web as it was meant to be used.3 It's not considered improper to make disparaging remarks about Americans, or the English.

But the real problem for Microsoft, and I think this is the main cause of what Jonathan Erickson calls the programming language renaissance.4 If you're writing software that has to run on Suns than on Intel boxes: a company that uses Suns is not interested in saving money and can safely be charged more. What we mean by a programming language, at least, can avoid believing them.5 One of the many things we do at Y Combinator is teach hackers about the inevitability of schleps. The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be true. In a lot of popular sites were loaded with obtrusive branding that made them slow to load and sent the user the message: this is our site, not yours.6 I would think of some ideas that would be just as great an achievement as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is more interesting to people? And technology for targeting ads continues to improve. If you can discuss a document with your colleagues, why can't you edit it?7 0 first arose in a brainstorming session between O'Reilly and Medialive International. The argument against this approach usually hinges on security: if access is easier for employees, it will take three times as long in another language, it will be the same or even better.

Its purpose is to shield the pointy-haired boss, the difficulty of hiring programmers, I think, is that evil begets stupidity. Particularly lions. How do you do with a gleeful laugh.8 And when you can do about this conundrum, so the best plan is to go for the smaller customers first.9 In any period, it should be easy to figure out which of our taboos they'd laugh at. One developer told me: As a result of their process, the App Store, and it's combined with the emotion Really, it's Apple's fault. Advanced users are more forgiving about bugs, and then try to pry apart the cracks and see what's underneath. The version on the App Store.

You'd have to get iPhones out of programmers' hands. It's a lot easier for a couple of 20 year old hackers who are too naive to be intimidated by the idea.10 You may feel lousy an hour after eating that pizza, but eating the first couple bites feels great. It may also be because if you don't, no one ever called us on it. For example, nearly all the food around you would be bad for you. 0 first arose in a brainstorming session between O'Reilly and Medialive International. At Viaweb, software included fairly big applications that users talked to directly, programs that pretended to be users to measure performance or expose bugs, programs for diagnosing network troubles, programs for doing backups, interfaces to outside services, software that drove an impressive collection of dials displaying real-time server statistics a hit with visitors, but indispensable for us too, modifications including bug fixes to open-source software, and a great many configuration files and settings. Viaweb.11 Never send them email unless they explicitly ask for it. And software that's released in a series A round, before the VCs invest they make the company set aside a block of stock for future hires—usually between 10 and 30% of the company.12 There was that same odd atmosphere created by a large number of people you interact with is about right.

Or rather, investors who do that will get easier too. You may not believe it, but I haven't seen it. But your goal here wasn't to provide a service estimating people's ability. Nearly all the judgements made on children are of this type, so we started giving version numbers to our software too.13 The trick I recommend is to take yourself out of the bust, there would need to be software for making them, so we get into the habit early in life of thinking that all judgements are. You see this less with Windows, because hackers don't use it. 0 in the name of the Web 2. Humans have a lot in common, you'd also find they agreed on a lot.

Notes

Which means the investment community will tend to become one of the proposal.

While environmental costs should be especially conservative in this new world. I mean no more unlikely than it was the reason there have historically been so many of the young care so much on luck. The chief lit a cigarette.

He did eventually graduate at about 26.

In the Valley.

The continuing popularity of religion is the true kind.

You can build things for programmers, it will thereby expose it to colleagues. The question to ask about what was happening on Dallas, and b made brand the dominant factor in high school is that it is to how Henry Ford got started as a game, Spacewar, in the general manager of the canonical could you build this? Nor do we push founders to have too few customers even if they knew.

This is what we now call science. Com in order to pick the words we use for good and bad measurers. Two Hundred Years. What I dislike is editing done after the Physics in the same superior education but had a demonstration of the startup.

The trustafarians' ancestors didn't get rich by creating wealth—university students, heirs, rather technical sense of getting too high a valuation. I'd argue the long term than one who passes. Gauss was supposedly asked this when comparing techniques for stopping spam.

Siegel points out that another way to create one of those you should probably question anything you believed as a first approximation, it's implicit that this filter runs on. I'd almost say to the usual way will prove to us. Instead of earning the right sort of Gresham's Law of conversations.

There is usually slow growth or excessive spending rather than lose a prized employee. According to a super-angels hate to match. As Secretary of State and the manager, which is all about to give up your anti-dilution provisions, even the flaws of big companies can even be worth doing something different if it was 94% 33 of 35 companies that seem excusable according to certain somewhat depressing rules many of the mail by Anton van Straaten on semantic compression.

So instead of hiring them. So if anything they could attribute to the same. If spammers get good enough at obscuring tokens for this. Don't be fooled by grammar.

VCs if the president faced unscripted questions by giving a press hit, but investors can get very emotional. So it's a proxy for revenue growth, it's probably a cause them to. You need to get out of their peers.

Ideas are one of the word wisdom in ancient Egypt took exams, but art is brand, and you start to be like a core going critical. The nationalistic idea is bad. Some are merely ugly ducklings in the back of your mind what's the right sort of person who would have become good friends.

[jolteonjordansh]

Thoughts on Digimon Frontier

Well, I finally decided to binge watch Digimon Frontier, the often heavily criticized and scorned black sheep of the Digimon anime series. For a long time I was unsure of and was even outright against watching it. I only agreed to watch it under three conditions: 1. I was only going to binge watch it to get it over with as soon as possible. 2. I watched it with my boyfriend because I made it clear that if I had to suffer through it, he had to suffer through it with me. 3. Complete freedom to riff it to hell while watching no matter how serious the moment.

That's not to say I never looked at it with an honest critical eye rather than the bias of "It must suck if everyone else says it does", but it was... a trip to say the least. What kind of a trip it was, you can see under the break.

I should note however that if it isn't obvious, unlike other Digimon series I've watched, I'm not writing my thoughts in separate posts based on arcs for this series. There is a legitimate reason for this besides me binge watching this series and ultimately putting my main thoughts in a single post. The thing about Digimon Frontier is... there aren't really any arcs. I mean, I guess there are two: the Sephirotmon arc and the final arc. But they're maybe not even half the series in episode count at best? The rest of the show is so... spread out that there aren't really any arcs for the show. Unless you want to consider the first 37 episodes the "Cherubimon arc", but that's such a huge chunk of the show and the focus tends to move around so much that I wouldn't even call it that. So yeah, just one post. This will also include the non-canon movie I will briefly discuss.

Also to note, I am generally using Japanese names for this post, specifically for Digimon--whom I typically use English names for with a couple exceptions. I will use English names for the DigiDestined, half of which were kept the same anyway (for reference: Izumi = Zoe, Junpei = J.P., Tomoki = Tommy), but pretty much everything else will be consistent with the Japanese version because a lot of the name changes for the Digimon in the dub were... really stupid. If you just look into a few, I think you can understand why I feel this way.

On to the show!

To my genuine surprise, Digimon Frontier... wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Don't get me wrong, it's heavily flawed and generally did not go in the direction I would have wanted Digimon to go in, even for such a concept. But with as many bad things I had heard, it still had enough merit for me enjoy a single watch. Even then, there are moments where I would say it wasn't completely worth the watch, but it wasn't a complete waste of my time either.

It's a simple but very different premise. Rather than having kids discover the Digital World and each finding Digimon partners, instead hundreds of kids receive messages on their phones about accepting a mission. There are more than the main cast that take the trains to Hogwarts--I mean the Digital World, but only the main cast are "chosen" to go on a quest. On this quest, they find spirits of the Ten Legendary Warriors who once saved this series' Digital World and are able to use them to fight as the Digimon themselves.

And this... is where my first major problem lies. I can't deny that the concept of humans willingly turning into Digimon just never clicked with me. I could understand maybe it happening to them and they didn't have control of this transformation, but before I even watched this, one of the strongest parts of Digimon in general is the bond, interaction, and chemistry between the human characters and their Digimon partners. This makes this idea completely absent from the show. Now, I understand that Digimon and its showrunners are free to try out new things and doing something new isn't really an issue. The whole idea just never worked for me, even while watching the show. Honestly, most of the time I forgot I was even watching Digimon--it feels more like a sort of Power Rangers/Super Sentai show. If you look at it like that, it's not so bad, but as a Digimon TV show... it doesn't quite work for me. Honestly, if not for the Digimon inhabitants throughout the show, I probably would have forgotten this show was Digimon altogether.

The weirdest thing about this is that I should like some of this--it should totally be up my alley. The idea of working with Digimon spirits in itself isn't necessarily bad. But the problem is... said spirits have pretty much no presence or sentience. Yes, they do have sentience... but this isn't revealed until the very last episode. Throughout the series, it's implied at best and even then no one acknowledges the possibility or states it. This really killed the series for me, as not only would this had fixed the lack of a Digimon partner problem but it could have subverted it in a really neat way. There would have been so much more character interaction, chemistry, and development had these spirits actually been present or done something in this show. But they don't until the end, and it left more of a bitter taste in my mouth than anything because it's an unfortunate prime example of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot. Because of how it's treated, the spirits of the Ten Legendary Warriors are basically just like objects and MacGuffins than major heroes in the Digital World's past, which is... kind of disrespectful to them when you think about it. Honestly, it's kind of like how the Pokémon are used as tools in the weird Pokémon ReBURST manga, which is hilarious considering that's a message Pokémon goes out of its way to avoid. But I should really stop with the Pokémon comparisons here, and Digimon Frontier does predate this example by several years.

I don't really care for many of the designs for the spirits either, especially the Human forms. They generally look either really clunky or just kind of lame. For the most part, they range from "meh" to "WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY THINKING?" because Fairymon exists. I'll get to that one a little later. The Beast forms aren't quite so bad and feel more like Digimon or have a sort of Zoids-inspiration (which I like). Of all of the Digivolutions in the show, pretty much the only ones I liked were Garmmon, Vritramon, Blizzarmon and KaiserLeomon, but that's it. I do like that the Ten Legendary Warriors have both Human and Beast forms considering the mythos of Human and Beast Digimon fighting in the past, it's just a shame that the Human forms kind of suck, at least in my opinion.

On the note of the spirits of the Ten Legendary Warriors though, I should probably talk about the characters who use them. While most of them... aren't as bad as I thought they would be, especially since most of them are either bland or just really annoying in the very beginning, they are probably the weakest Digimon cast I've seen so far. This rough start for them is part of what makes getting into Digimon Frontier really hard and just frustrating for viewers. The beginning of the show is by far the worst part and it's generally pretty painful. I'm glad I can at least say that, for the most part, these characters do return home as different people, but this development is very gradual. Now, gradual development is not bad, but if it's too slow then this makes it very hard to get invested in the characters, which is why I can't blame anyone for giving up on this series easily and quickly.

Takuya is your very standard hot-head protagonist, much like Tai and Davis. Personally, this makes him a huge step down for me after Takuto. But Takuya, while still at times obnoxious, is nowhere near as obnoxious as Davis and has a few bits of development. They're all things I expected for him to learn if he developed at all, but it's better than him being stationary and as ordinary as Davis. Things like him appreciating his family more after his experience in the Digital World were nice, but again, nothing that really breaks the mold. Koji is the secondary protagonist and edgelord of the group (for a while I guess) and is literally the "lone wolf", even having Wolfmon and Garmmon as his Spirit Digivolutions. He develops much more later on after Koichi enters the group, but I'll get to that later. Admittedly, him pouting about having to deal with the rest of the group did lead to some funny moments. 

Tommy is a bit of a crybaby at first, but at least understandably so--he's only a third grader that was constantly bullied and pushed into the train to the Digital World against his will. They do develop him to become stronger and even show he was pretty selfish before his time in the Digital World. He's one of the better developed characters, but again his developments are never too surprising, but work pretty alright. J.P. comes off as a sterotypical coward character, not helped by his overweight appearance, and unfortunately the show continues to make fun of this a lot and it does get irritating. He also inherits some dumb from Davis in that he's constantly trying to get Zoe's attention and approval, which leads to more "Hurr hurr, he's fat and unattractive! He doesn't have a chance with the pretty girl!" It may not be as annoying or repetitive as Davis' pursuit for Kari's love, but it's just as bad with how much they rub in that J.P. doesn't have a chance with her or just make him weirdly idolize her constantly. I will say he does have some nice development with struggling with his inner demons and he does find courage over time, but again, there are moments where I get really annoyed with the writers pushing some of the same stereotypical jokes.

But on that note... I'm going to have to talk about Zoe, the one female character of the group of six and by far my least favorite character. I kept trying and hoping she would improve and I would come to at least accept and tolerate her character throughout the show, but that never really happened. While she does have some good moments where she is a good person (personally I felt the Gomamon episode was her best moment, not simply because of my bias for the Digimon), it just doesn't redeem how bad her character is. She's very vain and bitchy, constantly whining about problems and doing very little to help. She's also downright rude to people a majority of the time, including J.P. as mentioned before. Her supposed problem with her character is she isn't able to make friends because she's Italian, and Japan has some serious xenophobic problems, leading her to usually be shunned. But at the same time, it outright shows people offering her opportunities to make friends and socialize, yet she refuses because she doesn't want to socialize. It's not like she has problems with anxiety or self-esteem either, she just doesn't want to try. She's creating her own problem, and yet she moans and cries about not having friends. It's really hard to feel sympathy for a character when they really make little to no effort to fix their problem that they're fully aware of.

They apparently do try to develop her during the "Sephirotmon arc", but I honestly saw nothing come out of it. They try to show she was wrong when she was nice to someone once, but was pushed away because of the whole xenophobia issue. But apparently her problem was that she lashed out for it, so the one time she may have been justified for being upset about something she's treated like she's the horrible person for getting upset over someone being an asshole to her. This leads her to go through this whole dilemma of "Why can't I be a nice person!?" but then people start basically kissing up to her saying, “No, no, you are a nice person!”. I honestly have no idea where the hell they were trying to go with this, but the message here is so muddled, confused and communicated so poorly that it makes it look like ultimately, she has no problems when she is probably one of the most flawed characters in the cast, both in the show and from a writing standpoint. She just gave me a headache and no matter what the show did, I could never bring myself to truly like her. I know a lot of people criticize Mimi in Digimon Adventure for being bad, but Mimi did get some great development and is still a decently likable character. Zoe is basically everything done wrong.

But wait, there’s more. Not only is she the only female character of the cast, but she's treated as such in the worst possible ways. She's the trophy and eye candy, with J.P. and Takuya (and maybe arguably Koji in rare situations) all crushing on her in one way or another, and a lot of jokes involve this. There's the whole "J.P. has no hope with this chick" gag, there's a moment where she gets mad for suspecting J.P. of trying to look up her skirt, there's a moment where fake hands are groping her behind her back and she accuses Takuya as the culprit, and there's actually a beach episode where she's depicted with several different swimsuits that all show a fair bit of skin. Granted, these are all fantasies, but they give her an unrealistic amount of cleavage when she's clearly flat as an ironing board. 

But wait, there’s more! Remember when I said I would talk about Fairymon later? Well, Fairymon is her Spirit Digivolution, and she exposes a lot of skin and cleavage, and they don't hesitate to show it. Not only that, she has an actual butt attack as well as another where she spins with her legs spread open, and they don't hesitate showing ass shots there too. I get that this is technically a Digimon form, but this is still her fighting. And a quick reminder: Zoe is a 5th grader. I don't care if she's in a Digimon form, they're still sexualizing a young girl and it's creepy and disgusting. Because she's the only female character too, all of this gives a really shitty message. Not only is it telling boys "Hey, it's okay to want to look up at a girl's skirt or touch her in bad places! It's funny!", it's telling girls "Boys treating you like this and wanting to touch you inappropriately is normal and acceptable for you to deal with." I assume Digimon Frontier was still targetted for both young boys and girls, but inserting this gross loli culture is just cringy. I get it, it's a Japan thing, but that doesn't make it any less disgusting and unbearable to deal with when watching the show. It's really bad gender representation, considering she and her opposing antagonist character (Ranamon) are the only female characters that get any focus with little to no variety or respect given to them. It's just terrible. All of the past Digimon anime series, even Adventure 02, treated female characters with some respect and gave some variety, but it's like the Frontier writers literally did not know how to write female characters. It was undeniably one of the hardest things to deal with in this show.

Okay, so I had to rant about Zoe and the other characters are generally pretty standard. Are there any good characters in this show? Well, surprisingly, yes. The Sixth Ranger--Koichi Kimura. I said I would talk about him later, so now's the time. When I said "I guess" Koji is the edgelord, that's because Koichi is Edgelord 2.0, even edgier than Koji down to having the Spirit Digivolutions of Darkness. But in all fairness, he's an edgelord with good reason. He's the twin bother of Koji who had just found out he had a twin brother and was out to chase him while Koji was heading to the Digital World. Yes, Koji and Koichi even follow the twin brother cliché (arguably the evil twin brother cliché since Koichi was an antagonist for a while), but it's one of those clichés I admittedly have a soft spot for. He's manipulated by Cherubimon, the Disc One Final Boss, and this even leads to him more or less being the Dark Digivolution of the series. But his pain is genuine--the divorce of his parents made his mother's life painful, and he does just want to see his younger brother. He's among the most relatable in this cast and it's hard not to feel genuine sympathy for him.

This doesn't even cover his struggle with death, when he sees the others have their DigiCode exposed when severely injured but not his--implying he's dead in the Real World. There's a lot of great dramatic irony that plays into this, both cruel with J.P. mentioning a place looks like Heaven and wondering if they're dead, as well as Koji being enthusiastic about meeting Koichi in the Real World. You can really see some of this pain he hides away, and it hurts to watch when after all he's gone through you genuinely want him to find some happiness. This hurts even more when towards the end when in the final fights with Lucemon, he sacrifices himself earnestly for the sake of the others--especially Koji--with Koji having not known his true fate. Koichi is basically the redemption character of the series. Though he's no Ken or Impmon and he doesn't really have to do much to redeem himself and the main cast basically accept him into the group after learning he's Koji's brother, his character is still pretty strong. Koji and Koichi are kind of similar to Davis and Ken in that the best of Davis comes out by foiling with Ken, and Koji earns better development with Koichi's entrance in the show. Still, unlike Davis, Koji does actually keep this development and he does change when meeting and bonding with Koichi, while Davis remains a static character. Koichi essentially transformed Koji into my second favorite character of the show. I would be lying if I said Koichi's revival didn't kind of feel like a cop-out at the end, but I can let it go and just embrace the moment because I liked his character enough to want him to live and the reunion of him with Koji is just genuinely touching. Hell, he basically averts the Leomon trope considering his Beast Spirit Digivolution is KaiserLeomon! Though there is a Leomon recolor that dies in this show. Also, I don't know what it is about edgelords/characters who don't smile often, but Koichi's smile is a wonderful thing.

If there's any character to watch Frontier for other than the side characters, it's undeniably Koichi. Though for other than Koichi, this is kind of a problem with Frontier. I honestly sympathized and felt a lot more for many of the side characters in this show than most of the main cast--many of these side characters being in just a single episode. There was the pod of Gomamon I felt sorry for being separated from their friends because of whirlpools, there was a Tsunomon who dealt with being bullied and ignored at a Digimon elementary school because he could Digivolve to Gabumon, and a Sorcermon who sacrifices himself for the sake of the Digital World's future. There's also a Patamon egg that hatches and becomes like a Team Pet for the group in the second half of the series, and he's super adorable and innocent. He might have been one of the most adorable parts of the show, always trying his best and helping the cast whenever he could. There are even some of the Digimon villagers who lose their home who I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for. Hell, though I'm sure the writers would try to find an excuse for it if asked, Digimon Frontier ends on a subtly dark note because the whole Digital World disappears, so many Digimon escape to the moons (No, I did not make a wild typo here) but Lucemon blows these moons to pieces and we never hear of what happened to any of the Digimon on there. So yeah, if you forget about the heartwarming revival of Koichi, Digimon Frontier ends on a super shitty downer ending if you think hard enough about it. But again, so many one-off episodes got more emotions out of me than a lot of the character development episodes in this show. And I feel bad, like maybe I'm an uncaring jerk, but I must not be if I at least feel for other characters. It's kind of sad and frustrating.

On the note of the Digimon of this world, I have to say that this Digital World is really... weird. I mean, it's weird that it's one of the things I really like about this show because it's nice to see some things about Digimon in a different light. There's a greater sense of community, not every wild Digimon is an asshole out to kill the main cast, and again, there's ones I cared about like a Datamon that wasn't a vengeful asshole, but a skeptical shop owner. Hell, there were Digimon made out of burgers called Burgermon, and I even felt a bit of sympathy for them. There were even nice random Digimon cameos like Arukinemon and Mummymon as well as Gatomon and Wizardmon ow my heart. But at the same time, Frontier's Digital World feels kind of... modern? It's weird because I know it has a sort of medieval feel, but it feels more colonized and it's just kind of weird and different since I'm so used to it being such a fantastical setting in different series. It's not to say that different is bad, but it's funny because the main characters even say that this Digital World is like a fantasy world but it feels like less of a fantasy world than past Digimon series. 

The trains are also not trains but... Trailmon. And they have... really weird and creepy designs. Even Locomon wasn't this creepy, and he was meant to be an antagonist in that movie. This is also coming from someone who was obsessed with trains when she was younger and watched Thomas the Tank Engine for years as a little kid. They're very prevalent in this series as a means of transportation, even having a race filler episode, but they were always something that made me feel unsettled when watching this. It is a little sad that the connection between the Real and Digital Worlds is really underdeveloped though. They never explain how the Digital World came to be unlike other series and other than its digital theme, the Digital World isn't really that "digital" and is more like its own dimension. I hope that makes sense.

I guess there's also the villains of the shows, and while most of them aren't particularly bad they're kind of hit or miss, or just sort of "eh". The other Legendary Warriors serve as antagonists--Grottomon, Arbormon, Mercuremon, Ranamon and Duskmon. Grottomon is the first we see--a pretty ugly troll guy that Digivolves into an ugly pile of rocks. He's mostly an annoyance and gets taken care of quickly, but he does keep Fairymon out of a few episodes at least. Arbormon is... extremely boring, with pretty much no personality, but his Beast form Petaldramon kind of makes me laugh from how silly it looks. Mercuremon is the most interesting of the bunch, while having the creepiest designs, but he's a narcissistic asshole you kind of love to hate. I already mentioned Ranamon as well, but she's bland even for a female villain. She's extremely vain but rather stupid and is honestly more of a joke villain who ends up getting herself defeated, so she isn't even a likable female villain and is the only female villain. Again, poor gender representation. Duskmon is Koichi when under Cherubimon's influence, and he takes the edge levels to the max. He's constantly brooding and his designs just reek of edge. He even has a theme song that's so freaking edgy that it's impossible to listen and read the lyrics and keep a straight face. Seriously, just read these lyrics. He's ridiculously strong and brooding while like this, and honestly he's kind of like BlackWarGreymon done right, so I still can't help but like him ironically.

Cherubimon, while just being under influence of the Greater-Scope Villain Lucemon, actually had reasons to fight for. Ultimately, he just cared for the good of the Beast Digimon and felt there were unfair laws when compared to Human Digimon and thus begrudged Seraphimon and Ophanimon. Unfortunately, my biggest problem is how freaking long it takes to fight and defeat him. His name is sort of casually dropped in without any real context, isn't properly explained until several episodes later, is fought three times with two fake-out deaths on top of several other failed attempts, and the fights themselves are kind of just drawn out. There's even this random IceDevimon filler fight in the middle of one of these fights to try to convince us that Cherubimon really is finished and it’s just pointless. I honestly wanted to like this fight with all of the lead-up, but it was just dragged on far too long by that point.

Unfortunately, I do wish they had done more with the other Legendary Warriors. After they return in the Village of Beginnings, they actually do fight alongside the rest of the cast to protect the many DigiEggs there. They don't really talk, but they do help. It's neat, but I wish they had done so much more with it. With as few episodes as there were left, I think they still could have made them more involved and given them all episodes of redemption and give them small redemption arcs. Unfortunately, this just doesn't happen and they only show up again in the final battle with Lucemon. Again, it's another great missed opportunity.

After Cherubimon is actually defeated though, Lucemon begins to rise and sends two of his Royal Knights--Dynasmon and Crusadermon--to act as the antagonists instead. While their designs are neat, their personalities didn't particularly stand out to me except for Crusadermon being a narcissistic asshole, but Mercuremon already did that better earlier in the show anyway. Lucemon himself is just... a good villain who gets the job done. He's not really bad--villains who are nothing but whiny children when they can't get what they want are pretty satisfying to watch get defeated. The religious symbolism around him is also pretty good (though I have no idea how that flew in the dub, with him having the move Paradise Lost Punch), even reaching a mode called Lucemon Satan Mode which is absolutely hellish. But overall, he's just a good selfish villain that gets the job right and gets his just desserts. His fights are alright, though Dynasmon and Crusadermon's fights unfortunately follow the same trap as what happens in Digimon Adventure 02's Arukenimon arc does. The Royal Knights go after the DigiCode of areas of the Digital World, the DigiDestined try to fight them, they fail, the DigiCode gets taken, rinse and repeat. I've heard some people call this part of the show the worst, and while I agree it's pretty boring at this point it simply cannot beat how terrible the beginning of Digimon Frontier is.

But you want to know what the worst part of this show probably is? Bokomon and Neemon. Dear. Fucking. God.

I dreaded talking about these two so much, and I knew they were such easy targets to hate and I tried not to hate them so harshly, but it's literally impossible. This duo meant to be the comic relief of this show not only kills so many moments with their "comic relief", said comedy is sometimes just downright cringe-worthy. Not only with bad jokes, running gags, their obnoxious voices (both original and dub), unappealing designs but just by how utterly pointless they are. I cannot count how many times I facepalmed and cringed at a joke or skit with these two, especially when they receive the Patamon egg. Bokomon literally carries it around, pretends to be a mother, down to thinking he's giving birth when the egg begins shaking. Yes, pregnancy jokes with a character who clearly identifies as male, because I would totally want this after the tragedy in cinema we know as Junior. Had I taken a shot every time I had to deal with a bad moment with any of these two, I would have died of alcohol poisoning within the first eight episodes, and that's being generous. Literally the one good moment they ever have is when the DigiDestined enter the Continent of Darkness and encourage Bokomon not to assume what others say and go out discovering and writing books himself. It was an okay moment where they didn't have a terrible joke being thrown left and right, but it doesn't make up for the hundreds of awful moments I had to suffer through in this series.

I can assume they exist for a couple of reasons: 

Because of the lack of Digimon partners, Frontier needed "cute" marketing material, so these idiot balls were thrown in. 

The writers apparently really felt this show needed bad comic relief akin to some of Disney's worst creations. They didn't. 

They needed characters to occasionally throw in exposition for the main characters who were clueless about the Digital World. 

All of this could have easily been done without these two. For the first reason, they could have easily been replaced by other actual cute Digimon to guide them--maybe some Rookie or small Champion leveled Digimon who could provide for distractions when necessary until the protagonists Spirit Digivolve to fight the enemy properly. The Patamon we got in this series could have served this role if he showed up earlier and older than a baby. For the second reason: just don't. Forced comic relief is not necessary. If your characters are good and diverse enough by themselves, they can provide comic relief amongst each other when necessary. Apparently, the writers did not have enough faith in their characters, and it shows. As for the third reason: Why couldn't they have just made the Legendary Warriors sentient like I went on before and they could have guided the DigiDestined and provided some exposition? Why was this so hard? Why were we so against a potentially good idea and instead threw these idiots in the show?

On the note bad writing, while the writing for this show could have been worse, there are many terrible and questionable moments from the writers. First off, one of Digimon Frontier's biggest problems is its pacing, because it is awful. The show is constantly throwing around its focus--part of why there's barely any consistent story arcs--and moments are either too brief or too dragged out, like the fight with Cherubimon. There's really stupid plot points, like when Seraphimon dies. You'd think who's essentially the god of law and order would be smart enough not to get killed by an enemy he saw could reflect attacks back at him, but no. That's literally how he dies. He hits Mercuremon with his attack Strike of the Seven Stars after already seeing Mercuremon could reflect attacks and dies in the process, which leads to the DigiDestined on their search for Ophanimon and also leads to Sorcermon dying. Man, you sure were useful Seraphimon.

There's also a moment where Koji is injured by Duskmon to defend Takuya, and it leads to Takuya losing all confidence and returning to the Real World. When he does, he turns into the Rookie form of Agunimon: Flamemon. It's never explained why he does. He also returns to the moment to before his past self leaves for the Digital World. Also never explained. And when Takuya tries to use this to his advantage by trying to stop his past self from leaving the Digital World so Koji never gets hurt, none of his actions change anything. He even tackles his past self, and his past self never acknowledges the weird creature that attacked him and it changes nothing about the chain of events. The show is implying that Takuya has the choice to decide whether he wants to go to the Digital World or not, but even when he tries to stop himself, he keeps failing no matter how hard he tries. It's basically like it was all fate, so... this entire episode was pointless except to encourage Takuya to fight again, but they could have just made his whole experience a hallucination or dream and it would have had the exact same effect. It's just questionable and pointless because they do nothing else with it. They don't even explain how Takuya or even Koji were somehow separated from the rest of the characters. So much in this show is just convenient for both the writers and the characters, down to how they just find all of their Human form Spirit Digivolutions conveniently along the way of their journey.

Okay, there's a lot of problems with the writing, but it isn't all bad. As I said, the characters do get some development, which is better than none, and there are some good side characters. One writing element I can compliment Frontier on is generally the fights. While not all of the fights are good, I do like how they generally work. Digimon Frontier arguably has some of the better fights in Digimon. I'll be honest when I say none of them ever competed to be among my top favorite Digimon fights, but they are good because of how much variety there is. As much as I love some of the fights in Digimon Adventure, the Digimon typically just use one attack per Digivolution and it was generally predictable. In Frontier, each Digimon has several attacks, and they can even switch between their Human and Beast forms mid-fight with "Slide Digivolution". It makes them far more diverse and less repetitive, as well as having fights that require a lot more strategy. Takuya and Koji also get some extra evolutions (because they're the duo that gets the special treatment like most Digimon shows), like the Double Spirit Digivolutions, Hyper Spirit Digivolution, and the inevitable Mega form Susanoomon. I know I didn't really talk about those Digivolutions in particular, but I feel about the same as them as most of the Human forms for the Ten Legendary Warriors.

I think one of the reasons these fights don't quite stick to me however, despite how they're technically good, is because of how poor the animation for this show is. I realize all of the Digimon anime series have all had kind of cheap animation (at least typically in the beginning) with the Adventure series being particularly cheap except for some of the Digivolution animations. But Digimon Frontier has generally cheap animation all around, from beginning to end. It's not entirely a trainwreck, but there's not only some really wonky frames and just stilted animation along with cheap digital tricks, it's riddled to the brim with animation errors. Seriously, you can look at an article for just about any episode in this series and it will have a list of animation errors. There's color errors, character placement errors, hell, there's moments where characters are duplicated. I'd link examples, but there's just that many of them and I don't feel like digging them out. Even the Digivolution animations aren't particularly impressive. Shockingly, there's pretty much no CG used except for models of these pieces that symbolize the Spirits. While the Digivolution animations don't need any CG, it just goes to show just how low the budget was for this series was.

Still, not all of the budget for the presentation is low. While some of the soundtrack borrows from Digimon Adventure, this isn't really a bad thing. It typically uses its own original soundtrack, returning to the orchestrated style of Digimon Adventure, and it genuinely sounds really nice. There were many that stuck with me throughout the series and I enjoyed it. Almost every vocal song (except character themes) are all sung by the late Koji Wada, including the Digivolution theme With the Will, while Ayumi Miyazaki does the Hyper Spirit Digivolution theme The Last Element. While The Last Element is a good song, for some reason it never stuck with me the way With the Will did. They don't quite beat out my favorite Digivolution themes either, but they're definitely catchy and good songs. What's definitely the best vocal song of this series is the opening theme, FIRE!!, which is too damn catchy and good to not love. Considering it's a Koji Wada opening theme, that's pretty hard to beat. He also sings the ending themes Innocent ~Remaining Innocent~ and An Endless Tale, the latter he does a duet with Ai Maeda, both of which are rather nice. I never expected Koji Wada to do a duet, but it sounds lovely. While I loved the change-up of Digimon Tamers’ jazz-focused soundtrack, it was really nice to return to orchestrations in Digimon Frontier again.

So you might think I didn't really like Frontier based on as much as I criticized in this post. Is there anything about the show I like as it is? Actually, yes--the movie, Revival of the Ancient Digimon!!. It's short, it's not canon, but it's actually a really nice side story where I think I legitimately enjoyed something in Digimon Frontier the whole way through. If you asked me for my favorite episode in this series other than my bias for the Gomamon episode, I would probably just answer this movie. Even though the Digimon Frontier cast is still not my favorite cast here, they're probably the most tolerable here for as early as this movie would potentially take place (about 12 episodes into the series). It's sort of like a retelling of the series' mythos of the Human Digimon VS Beast Digimon war and it's very self-contained, but the story itself kind of has the vibes of a Tales game. It's a common but mature theme of two species misunderstanding each other but with certain groups--child Digimon in this case--not caring about their differences and simply being friends. But the adults don't hear them out and they continue an ongoing war and separate them.

Takuya and Koji play the bigger roles, considering they're the special snowflakes, but they play an interesting role. Takuya sides with the Human Digimon and is Agunimon for a majority of the movie while Koji sides with the Beast Digimon and is mostly Garmmon. They do have an interesting parallel when the two switch around sides when the battle becomes severe with Takuya Digivolving to Vritramon and Koji to Wolfmon. The other three are mostly in the background, but play more of a role than a majority of the cast in the Digimon Adventure movies (not including tri here). The story, while a common trope, is still pretty clever and I didn't see the truth behind this war coming. It's surprisingly well-executed and it never felt like an asspull or something they just made up as they went. I'd honestly say the plot of this movie is better than the rest of the series. I mean, except for Koichi because he's the best thing about Frontier. While a few moments kind of catch me off-guard (for some reason the Digimon just poofing into eggs when they die made me laugh), it has a generally serious tone and there isn't too much goofing off. The climax is also pretty satisfying with the legendary AncientGreymon and AncientGarurumon appearing in the end. Apparently, the other Legendary Warriors have Ancient counterparts and I honestly wish they had appeared in the series too, but much like the Four Sovereigns in Digimon Adventure 02 it just never happens.

The animation of the movie is much better too, though like Runaway Locomon it crops the Digivolution animations. Though unlike the previous Digimon movie, the cropping doesn't look quite as bad. The whole thing is just beautifully drawn and there are some moments of nice animation shockingly enough. The presentation overall is just nice, and it has a pretty bittersweet ending with one of the children Digimon, Kotemon, sacrificing himself to protect the future of the other Digimon which leaves his friend Bearmon in despair. Of course, he comes back as a DigiEgg like a lot of Digimon in these shows do, but it's still a strong moment. I will admit that the movie was pretty much just made to advertise AncientGreymon and AncientGarurumon and unfortunately these two don't actually do much, it's still far more investing than a majority of this whole series and if there's anything to watch about Frontier other than Koichi, it might be this movie.

So in the end, is Digimon Frontier the worst thing imaginable? Is it a disaster that's completely void of any merit? No, it's really not that bad. If I had to be completely honest with myself, despite some of its poor writing, it's still technically better and more coherent than Digimon Adventure 02. At the same time however, I have a more personal attachment with Digimon Adventure 02, probably for some of its characters, the Adventure brand, and still maintaining the whole human/Digimon partner formula. This does make Digimon Frontier my least favorite of the series personally, but it still wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be and did have some moments and bits of its world that made it worth a watch. Still, I don't know if I could ever bring myself to watch it in full again or really recommend it to anyone unless you really want to watch more Digimon or maybe you really like Super Sentai-esque shows. Even then, it still has its own problems. If I ever pick it up again, I'll probably just choose a select few episodes (and the movie) to rewatch. Other than that, I'm ready to move on from it. It definitely could have been better, but it sure could have been a lot worse.

So while I'm super excited to move on to the next Digimon anime series, Digimon Savers, which I heard is really good, I'll have to put it on hold for a little bit. I heard there was this other side Digimon movie I should check out...