#heartwarming. local disappointment disappoints past what was thought possible

[skeleton-monarch]

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[meowsaidmayaanime]

2016 Monthly Watches and Top Picks

An amalgamation of links to my personal watches and top picks, that being said there are a lot of anime I have not watched. If there is an anime that you think I should watch, recommend it to me in my Suggestions page or in the respective comments sections of my posts.

NOTE: I do not have any monthly watches or top picks from January to April, because I started this site in May of this year.

Links To My Monthly Watches (New links will be added soon)

My Monthly Top Picks

May Top Pick

Tokyo Ghoul

Only a few minutes before my 21st birthday I finished this series. Which means that I was an emotional wreck crying out ‘he knew!!’ while also being super excited to go out and buy my first drink; a Bloody Mary, approximately 17 minutes after officially being 21. Anyway, Tokyo Ghoul is so good. I loved it because it did not follow the path I expected it to, every event and conclusion ended up surprising me but in a good way! Without spoiling too much or going into a full review, the main character never became a ‘Mary Sue’ and the way it ended was not typical in the least. I have so many things to say but they all contain spoilers, anyway I’m glad I wasn’t deterred from the anime because one of my friends said he didn’t like the manga because of his assumption about the character. Dude, you were way off, I haven’t read the manga, but the anime is so different and so amazing. 5 out of 5 would recommend!

June Top Pick

Blue Exorcist Movie

The movie has nothing to do with the plot of the anime at all, and takes place after the events in the series. Atleast I’m fairly certain it does? There’s an important (and spoiler-y) thing that happens at the end of the series, that is never addressed or acknowledged in the movie which I think is really weird….. Either way, the movie itself is simply a completely stand alone story from the series. And it was absolutely stunning! Sooooo much detail went into all of the backgrounds and items. On top of that its very well scripted, and the plot flowed incredibly well together without being convoluted, which is surprising since a number of movie sequels to tv series’s tend to go overboard by stuffing too much information into an hour and a half.

It was amazing. Its possible that someone could watch the movie without watching the single season anime, just because of how it was written. However you would not know the relationships or the back story of the main character, which helps to explain a lot of the terminology and setting. Especially the part about demons ect ect.

Either way, I LOVED this movie. I didn’t even know that there was a movie at all until just now. I’m going to re-watch it with a friend when she gets back into town and I am soooooo excited because I KNOW she will love it too. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. I RECOMMEND THIS SO HARD.

July Top Pick

Haikyuu!!

I have boarded the sports anime train, and I don't think I'm ever getting off. This is the fifth sports anime I'm watching and I think it may be my favourite. It's funny too because I only recently started watching sports anime when I watched Free! last December.

This anime is fabulous! I know I say that a lot, but it is so true! Haikyuu!! is about Hinata who joins his high school Volley ball team. The rest of the show is about the developing relationships between the team, the development of their characters and skills, and their relationships between the teams they play against as they try to make it to the Nationals.

I love so much about this anime, every character is different, has their own reasons for playing, their own personalities, their own skills, and their own developmental journey. The characters are amazing!! On top of all that the animation is great, they animate the games incredibly well, and whenever someone does something that's particularly fast or strong they do a fabulous job of showing it through the art style and movements. Ah, I could watch this show for days, well, more days than I already have. (Click the image to view the gif, cause for some reason it won't automatically play...)

Look at the smooth animation!!

Speaking of the art style, It's different than whats common in anime, feeling a little more like a manga, but that's what makes it so great. The style allows them to make fabulous faces/expressions and movements. and Oh man the faces are great, I LOVE an anime that's able to use such a variety of expressions on so many different characters. Look at these faces!

Its such a feel good anime, its so light-hearted, and bright, and funny, and intense! There are only two season out right now, but the third season is to air this fall! I'm so excited!! so, So, SO excited!!! AAAHHHHHH~

This is a must watch. It doesn't matter what genre of anime you like, everyone should give this one a chance.

August Top Pick

Hyouka

So the first thing i need to mention is that this show is first and foremost a slcie of life that happens to include a lot of mystery. Not a mystery that happens to be a slice of life. I originally thought it was the latter which was why I was disappointed that it didn't end the series with a mystery arc, but instead the way a slice of life would.When you acknowledge the show for what it really is, a natural slice of life, it is amazing. For numerous reasons.

First the artwork is so incredibly detailed and beautiful. Second the visuals are distinctly different for each thing ti tries to convey, and completely succeeds in doing so. The audio is amazing, the music is beautiful, the animation is so smooth and they even animate things that aren't necessary to the plot but are animated anyway to make it all feel so REAL. Not to mention the episodes and mysteries are so well written!

look at the incredible amount of detail they put into EVERY SINGLE SCENE.

even when the background is blurred even people who we never learn about or see again have details in their clothes, faces, and expressions. I checked, we NEVER see these people below actually interact with the main OR minor cast.

I almost forgot, this show is about Houtarou a high schooler that sees the world in 'gray'and whose motto is "If I don't have to do it, I won't. If I have to do it, I'll make it quick." Convinced by his already graduated sister, he joins the classics club which was endangered to be disbanded because there were no more members. He meets a girl named Eru who also joins the club and discovers that he has a knack for solving mysteries. That is, only when Eru earnestly goes to him and yearns for him to solve the mystery because her curiosity cannot be contained. From there they quickly discover that the classics club has a past shrouded in mystery.

Its incredibly well done, I love slow the pacing myself, because it fits the flow and nature of the anime. However I do have a number of issues with it myself (some reveal content spoilers so I won't state those here).  I admit that the way they ordered large mystery arch and single episode mysteries was not handled well at the very end. Don't get me wrong the ending fit the characters incredibly well and was very good and realistic, however considering the quality of the larger mysteries that were prevalent through the rest of the anime, I feel that they should have ended the series with a multi-episode arc and then one final single episode arc, rather than many single episode arcs strung together.  The anime was an adaptation of a light novel, which covered 4 out of the 5 published novels. I've taken a look at the titles of the chapters and it seems that the 5th book is quite the elaborate story. One I would have liked to have seen in the anime, though would clearly have gone over the 22 episodes the anime ended at. Perhaps since this write up for the episode is already so long, I will create a post just about this anime. It definitely deserves more talking about!

Anyway, I do recommend it to veteran-ed anime watchers. It has a wonderful pace that does not push by quickly, great character development and insight, and fascinating mysteries and dialogue regarding such. Its perfect for anyone who loves natural slice of life. Those who enjoy mysteries would also enjoy this, as long as they understand that it is mostly a slice of life, and thus will follow the format of slice of life and not the format of a mystery anime. Its a stunning anime.

September Top Pick

Natsume's Book of Friends

This is an incredibly adorable show. Its heartwarming and has a 'feel good' movie feel to it. If anything taking into account the art style and how good it makes you feel it reminds me a lot of Fruits Basket. Don't get me wrong, its nothing like Fruits Basket in terms of story, but its got the same 'feel'.... if that makes sense.

Anyway, the premise is that Natsume is the only one able to see yokai (Japanese monsters/spirits/gods). After moving into a new town with some distant relatives, Natsume finds out that is deceased grandmother could also see yokai and made quite the reputation among them. She would take the names of local yokai and put it into a book called the book of friends, with their names she could control the yokai. Now yokai are coming after Natsume either to ask him to return their names or to take the book of friends for themselves.

The majority of the show is about Natsume steadily coming to understand both humans and yokai more clearly than he has before. Making friends, learning about the lives of others, learning about his grandmother, and finding out what it really means to be apart of a family and not be ostracized by others because of his ability.

This show is wonderful, its not as gripping or super emotion/action driven as some other shows are, but its very well done. The character are great, the stories are so heartwarming, and it breaks a number of the stereotypical cliches that are often found with anime about a character who can see something that others cannot. An example that I particularly love is how other characters who come into the mix who are also able to see yokai are not automatically 'evil' or an antagonist. So rather than causing mroe trouble for Natsume from the 'get go' they are actually there to help develop him into a better character. Which I love~ Any actual antagonist that shows up are antagonists for a real reason, rather than just for the purpose of having one.

If your into exorcism anime or anime that focuses on traditional Japanese monsters/spirits/gods you will love this one. It is slower paced and focuses more on story than action so keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that there are only 4 season out right now as of this post. Season 5 will be coming out with this falls simulcasts and I'm super excited for it

[bakaiju]

Survival at Mount Massive Asylum chapter 15

Female Ward (part 3)

She was feeling nervous. But seriously, who wouldn't? It was her wedding day! Kirigiri was wearing the beautiful white dress Maizono and Asahina, her maids of honor, made her try out and literally cried over its beauty.

Everyone was there, their old classmates and friends. Even some senpais. Her grandfather was there too, even Jin. Makoto convinced her to invite him. There was also Makoto’s heartwarming family. And aw, is Komaru-chan really crying?

She was walking down the aisle towards the altar where was waiting the priest and next to him was her soon to be husband: Makoto Naegi. He was just dazzling in his wedding suit and he even combed his hair back that made him look more mature. She couldn't help herself but blush.

He really knew how to make her heart flutter.

She stood next to him and they shared a look before turning towards the priest who started the ceremony.

“You look beautiful, the girls made a great choice.” He said sheepishly, his cheeks red.

“Thank you. You look good yourself too, Makoto.” She smiled.

“Th-Thank you, Togami chose it for me. But I’m sure you must have already guessed it.”

“Obviously”

The both chuckled. And followed the ceremony, exchanged vows and rings,

“At this time, I’ll ask you, Makoto Naegi, and you,Kyoko Kirigiri, to face each other & take each other’s hands.” The priest said and they obeyed.

“Makoto Naegi, will you take Kyoko Kirigiri to be your wife, your partner in life and your one true love? Do you promise to be faithful to her in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love her and to honor her all the days of your life?”

“I do” he answered with a determined smile.

“Kyoko Kirigiri, will you take Makoto Naegi to be your husband, your partner in life and your one true love? Do you promise to be faithful to him in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love him and to honor him all the days of your life?”

“I do” she smiled back.

Then the end of the ceremony...

"By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride"

Naegi smile widened as he leaned forward and slowly pressed his lips against hers. The feeling of warmth was… just relaxing and marvelous.

But suddenly a sharp sound echoed in her ears and the soft lips of her now husband felt metallic… that’s not normal. She stopped the kissing and took a step back only to see Naegi spitting blood as bone shears were poking out of his chest.

Naegi looked with terror and confusion at the blades but a hand grabbed his hair and pulled him up before he could collapse.

“What’s the matter, buddy? You really thought I'd be satisfied with only two fingers?!” Trager mocked as he waved Naegi’s right index and left ring fingers in front of his terrified eyes. His wedding ring fell from the finger into a pool of blood.

Kirigiri couldn’t move as she was staring in horror at the gruesome scene in front of her. The once church turned into a dark bloody room and the priest turned out to be Father Martin as he just looked down in disappointment.

“Well that’s not all but the big guy over here have something to say to you.” The crazy doctor said before letting go of Naegi with the weapon still skewering his body.

Chains and heavy footsteps were heard as an enormous hand reached for Naegi’s neck then grabbed it. Slowly lifting the brunette in the air and without warning, a wet ripping sound echoed around the room as the male detective’s body got his head ripped off. His eyes rolled back as his mouth hung open, blood not stopping pouring out of his mouth.

She finally screamed and cried, her hand grabbed the side of her head. Her vision blurred by the tears that never stopped to flow. She didn't see nor hear Chris Walker approaching her. Then pain attacked her neck, then just like Naegi, the big guy lifted her up and grabbed her around the chest. It hurts a lot.

And her last vision was her own bloody body now between Chris’s fingers, his arm at the side of his body. His white eyes glaring at her as her vision turned red then black…

Then she opened her eyes …waking up… and was greeted with darkness all around her.

Naegi stared at the hole by which Kirigiri fell. He quickly got up to his feet and started to perambulate in worry. He’d done that for less than twenty seconds when he already slapped himself on the forehead.

“Stop being an idiot and go already!” he scolded himself, “You must go save your fiancée, moron!”

With determination, he jumped down to the floor below and looked at the hole again. It was pure darkness down there. He couldn’t see anything! And the hole wasn’t large enough for him to jump down and be sure not to land on where she might have fallen… There was a chance that she’d already gotten up, but there was also the chance that she’s unconscious… There’s no time to see the different possibilities! He needed to get down there and help her!

He looked at the open door behind him. The more prudent thing to do was to find a way down safely. Kyoko would kill him if he injured himself even more for her… But again, it’s normal to-

“AAAH! Stop it! You’re wasting time!” he shouted to himself, feeling that he’s starting to lose sanity in this damned place.

He walked through the door, the next room was dark but just there’s enough light for him to walk around it. He must only walk in the light. Never walk in the darkness since without the camcorder and its night vision, he wouldn’t see the dangers lurking. As he followed this rule, he reached a locker room with showers. One of them was broken and with water pouring down to the floor.

Naegi looked around to see another exit leading downstairs as this room was the only one with light around, but his luck was against him.

“Damnit!” he growled as he hit one of the stalls, the impact opening it and presenting to the detective a large hole on the floor, leading to the floor below, “..Oh!”

Well looks like his luck might be with him finally.

“I’m coming Kyouko!” he said with determination as he jumped down the hole.

Kirigiri woke up in a dark room. Absolute darkness. She couldn't even see the tip of her nose. She wanted to move but the sudden noise of a can being kicked stopped her. It wasn't her and it echoed all around the room, making it impossible to localize the source.

She eventually turned around and saw some light. She could tell computer screens emitted it but they were facing away from her. She slowly and cautiously walked toward the light.

But more noise were heard, noise of metal hitting each other. She couldn't localize the source but knew what it was: cutlery. So she could guess she was either in a cafeteria or a kitchen.

Maybe.

Anyway, she reached the light and the screens were static but illuminating the desk they were set on, and more importantly: the camcorder. How on Earth did it fall there? No. It was put there in purpose. She grabbed it and examined it.

She gasped when she saw that the screen was cracked.

“It’s broken…”

But thank god, it didn't affect the others functions. And the screen still worked, there just was a big crack on the bottom left corner.

As she looked around with the night vision, she noticed that she was indeed in a cafeteria and the doors were open, she must go back upstairs and rejoin Naegi. He must be very worried.

A movement on the left caught her attention. She turned around and jumped as she saw three armed Variants that were staring at her. She started to run toward the doors. She must find Naegi and escape those Variants.

“Uh? She can see us?”

“Get her!!”

“KILL HER!!”

She ran through dark rooms and hallways, she could hear the three men yelling at her as they gave chase.

There was a big room behind the next busted door and- uh?

Is that…?

Naegi jumped down the hole and landed on top of a stack of lockers. It was another shower room but with lockers this time. He jumped down again and left the room. The hallways were dark but some candles were lit.

And as he walked down, thunder suddenly roared and illuminated the hall just for a split second. Just the perfect amount of time for Naegi to see a patient running the way he must go as it had some light and all the doors were barricaded.

Then a second thunder roared when he reached the corner where the patient disappeared. He walked down cautiously and fists clenched. He knew that he have no chance to beat one of those crazy patients but he must keep going. Kirigiri was in trouble!

And just as he finished giving himself determination, a patient jumped out from the darkness and reached for Naegi’s neck and grabbed it.

But before he could tighten his grip, the brunette swung his arm back.

“Let me GO!” He shouted as he punched the patient square in the face.

The man fell back but quickly got back on his feet and ran past Naegi, whimpering.

“Wow… no one would believe me if I told them that I pushed one of these creeps away with a punch.”

He chuckled but quickly got serious as he kept walking down the dark hallway. He entered a large empty room illuminated by the moonlight outside. Well it wasn’t empty as there were two Variants inside. One was sitting on a table, staring at Naegi when he came in while the other had his face glued on the window, looking for something.

Naegi looked for another door that could lead him where Kirigiri fell and found it. He walked towards it.

“You’ll never leave this place alive… hehehe…” said one of the Variant, he didn’t know which one said it.

He did his best to ignore whoever said that and kept walking until he saw a shadow running towards him… it was…

“Kyoko!” he said, his face showing happiness but it quickly turned into a worried face when she saw her frightened eyes and most importantly: the right side of the face soaking with blood.

“RUN!” she ordered, and he understood why when she grabbed his wrist and when he saw the three Variant pursuing her.

“Follow me! I know the way up!” said Naegi with confidence, as it was now him leading the charge.

In less than a minute, they were at the locker room. Kirigiri closed the doors behind her as Naegi jumped over the locker and extended his hand for her to grab.

“Come on! I got you!” he said with determined eyes.

She grabbed the hand and got pulled over the locker. Then they climbed up the hole and reached the second floor’s showers. The danger was gone now. The Variant gave up and walked away. And there they were, both in each other’s arms under the broken shower getting wet. Naegi said that they should huddle away from the water as getting a cold would only make their condition worse. Kirigiri blushed and agreed as she helped him stand up.  They walked back to the room where she fell and there she hugged him and made him sit down.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you when you fell…” he apologized.

“It’s not your fault. But everything turned alright, I’m fine and I got back the camcorder. The screen is broken though.”

“Forget the camcorder, I almost lost you…” he kissed her cheek and brought her closer.

“...Makoto… Let’s rest for a bit…”

“Sure…” He whispered as she laid her forehead against his shoulder, and he rested his head on hers.

They stayed quiet, like that for at least five minutes. But footsteps brought them back to reality; it was coming their way! They stood up and climbed up the platform where they’ve gotten separated. They walked down the dark hallway following the collapsed room and then, next door to the left, they reached the second collapsed room where Father Martin was waiting for them. But not anymore. He was gone again.

The only way to reach the other side of the room was by shimmying against the ledge on their left then jumping down to the platform. Thankfully, this time everything went well. The doors lead to a tight corridor, where a Variant was waiting for them. But he didn’t moved as he looked at them. He even told them to come quickly as Father Martin was waiting.

“Only one way out, only one way.” he said as he gestured for the couple to go through the gridded door next to him.

It was the only way they could go so they did as he said. But as soon as they crossed the doorframe, he closed the door behind them.

“How do you know you’re not a patient?” he concluded before locking the door and leaving his post.

No choice then but to keep going.

But the corridor they were in was familiar. Very familiar.

“Wait… Is this?”

“I think it is.”

“We’re back to the Administration Block!”

“Where everything started.”

“And where everything will end! Kyoko! We’re almost out of here.”

Naegi shouted in delight as he hugged her.

But the nightmare isn’t over, it continues…

To be continued…

In the next chapter of Survival at Mount Massive Asylum…

“Oh God, no.”

“Little pigs!!”

“So he really is alive…”

“The key to the house of God is in the theater. Behind the light. In the theater, behind the light”

“Shh. Can you hear that?”

“Only a test subject who witnessed enough horror was capable of activating the engine.”

[ihfsttinuf]

Screw It, I’m Making a Webcomic

So, as I made it abundantly clear on Twitter mere moments ago, I have a real honest-to-Glob New Year’s Resolution for 2017.

I am going to create a webcomic.

I am going to write a sequential art narrative which I will draw and provide various artistic accoutrements to and post it on the Internet. This is going to happen by the end of this year. I am doing this.

Perhaps this sudden outburst and declaration of artistic intent seems a bit out of left field, both in its overtones of grandiosity and relative lack of context given what most of you guys know about me. So let me provide some of that much needed context, both to show you why I am doing this and what I am really saying, which is probably even more ambitious (and maybe pretentious) than you think it is.

I’ve been writing weird little stories and drawing accompanying illustrations for them since I was a wean, as most of us did at that age, but since that point I’ve never really stopped. At a very young age I encountered not only excellent children’s books ranging from the charming and heartwarming to the downright mind-bending—Peter Sís and Henrik Drescher were big in my household—but also illustrated works whose contents and subtext were far too old for me yet entranced me nonetheless, particularly the works of the great New England illustrator and satirist Edward Gorey. By the age of six or seven, I had memorised “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” and would recite it with morbid glee to anyone who would ask (or didn’t). I discovered books through Gorey’s cover illustrations, first accidentally discovering the alternate history genre through his work on Joan Aiken’s Dido Twite series, and was only drawn deeper into John Bellairs’ junior Gothics when I discovered that Gorey had provided the frontispiece and dust jacket to every one of the entries in the series he’d written up to his death—which I mourned, with a mix of vague incomprehension, sorrow, and creeping disappointment. I was eight at the time.

Parallel to this, I spent a lot of time at my town’s local art centre, which provided free classes in all sorts of artistic endeavours. I took most to theatre and improv in particular—I was a wee ham; now I am a large ham—but what stuck with me was drawing and, to a lesser extent, animation. As I fixated on Gorey’s superficial techniques and aesthetics, the simple sunken eyes and odd little triangular noses, I’d also more subtly acquired his less obvious techniques: The way he used cross-hatching and simple, intense linework to suggest different textures entranced me, and indeed still does. I am told that a very strict art teacher, who I thought disliked me and of whom I was somewhat afraid, freely admitted that a sketch I’d done of a horned figure playing a flute on a rooftop by the light of the moon had taken her breath away.

Which is not to say that I was, or am, some prodigy of form, or that I lacked for more prosaic influences. The former, I will get to, but the latter is best expressed in the fact that a recurring scene which I have since revised and transfigured many, many times began life as... well, thinly veiled Darkwing Duck fanfiction, minus the duck part, given a sound twist of Lovecraft’s “The Statement of Randolph Carter”. I was maybe eleven or so at the time.

It was in one of these classes that this weird little scene deep beneath a ruined graveyard was born. It was also there that I made plans for an elaborate series of beast fables, set in a world quite unlike our own.

It is perhaps worth noting that one of the handful of these early sketches which sticks in y mind to this day was a tale of two young male lizards falling in love only to be torn apart by a disapproving society. Even at an age when I was functionally unaware of homosexuality and bemused or outright repulsed by what I knew of sex, a queer romance was perhaps the most emotionally intense thing that I had conceived of up to that point. But I digress.

The setting in question and certain characters in it would perennially re-emerge in my other writing, which I was quite certain would be my career path throughout late elementary and middle school. In seventh grade, I was part of an experimental programme where middle and high school students were allowed to enrol in a creative writing course at a nearby university. Only two students wound up attending: Myself, and a classmate of mine who had skipped a grade and would later become known in my high school as something of a mad and insufferable genius. (We got on pretty well.) After several semesters of studying poetry and short fiction, there was a presentation. One of the selections I made for my reading was a list-poem, from the perspective of an older character trying to live day by day with the memory of his deceased wife hanging over him, with the distinction that the final entry was a reminder to keep his claws neatly filed.

It was around that time that I began to come under the influence of Thomas Ligotti, and it was with this exposure to the refiner’s fire of such elegant horror—the kind that brought the same sort of visions into my mind that Gorey brought to the page—that I realised what form my true opus should take, at least in plot. I took it with me into high school, and beyond into the wilderness of these past six-and-a-half years of confusion. The polestar of this mad endeavour formed here.

I had been thinking a lot about epic high fantasy at the time—I was eleven when The Return of the King hit theatres, and I had read enough in the genre and in styles adjacent to it to be aware of the tropes—and it occurred to me that the moral framework and cosmology of a lot of such works rang a bit hollow to me, not because right and wrong did not exist, as certainly people do good and bad things to one another all the time, but because there was always this sense of certainty that the side one was meant to root for was indubitably in the right and some great objective force of Good deemed it so, blessing their struggle against a force similarly ordained by some great objective Evil. It was that last dimension which particularly irked me. It felt reassuring in the most painfully reductive and philosophically trite way possible. And so often the battles were so... literal. I never much cared for war films to begin with, and by putting such struggles in a fantastical framework, you subtracted the one thing that made war films kind of neat: The recognition that these were people doing the fighting and the killing. Not symbols, people.

Very middle school analysis, yes, and unfair to some things I quite enjoy, Tolkien included, but the ultimate conclusions were the important part.

Which is where Ligotti comes in. Much has been made of his non-fiction opus The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, but in terms of his philosophy and its influence on my thinking at the time, I’d rather stick to his fiction, as that was what I was reading and that is what made me. In brief, Ligotti is not a reassuring writer. The universe of his stories reflects his views of our own, which are, in essence, a wholesale rejection of the commonly held notion that human consciousness and life in general are good things that we should all be even remotely enthused about, instead proposing that the very idea that we are aware of ourselves and that we should think of ourselves as individuals for whom some higher power might just be watching out is more likely an obscene and sadistic joke on that hypothetical power’s part or else, more likely, a horrible accident. His stories are filled with personal totems and surreal motifs, the fates of his characters determined by blind chance or the detached malicious prankstery of a party with whom they cannot bargain or reason, the sadistic frenzies of Poe’s maniacal villain-protagonists writ large, often on a cosmic scale. There is the feel of a nightmare and yet also of the sleepless hours after, alone in the dark, thinking, where wakefulness and dream bleed between one another and all the world is a nightmare to which the hells of sleep might well be preferable.

If I’ve lost you, well, I’m sorry; but you and I probably have something to talk about if your first reaction to all this was, “I’ve certainly had *those* days.”

And if you’ve had enough of those days, the rest probably follows easily enough.

Wouldn’t it be interesting, I thought, if one took that quest narrative key to so many epic fantasies, and put it through a world where the rules of the game were so utterly reversed? If our well-meaning hero—of course, as in Tolkien, basically some poor backwater schmo, by no means stupid nor necessarily naïve but very, *very* far from the classical man of virtue—were to bear with him some artefact of power that could, perhaps by its very existence, rend the veil of normalcy that should keep all of the sane and happy citizens of this world from confronting what writhes beneath all that they see, what might he choose to do with it, particularly if he were, say, by some inexplicable invisible bond, *tied* to it?

Now, what makes a fitting antagonist for such a tale? What sort of character provides the ideal foil for a kind-hearted soul confronted with all the horrors of what may be in a neat little package? Rather than some cosmic sadist intent on throwing us all under the bus, why not something a bit scarier: Another kind-hearted soul. Someone who has seen behind the veil their whole life. Someone who has seen the truth and the agony of this world and seeks nothing less than perfect closure

And there it was.

And then it began to get complicated.

For every character that I created to flesh out the story, another came into being, and I wanted to know more about them. A side-plot salvaged from some other silly project merged seamlessly into the new whole, and suddenly there were whole new plots, full of new characters with motives that I wanted to understand. Characters grew, changed, lightened and darkened as my thoughts steeped. Exposure to other writers through classes and forums and variably disastrous shared writing projects made me realise what I did and did not know, what I could and could not do.

It was also in high school that I began taking music seriously, first toying around in Garageband and singing in the school choir and then as part of a band with several close friends. I wrote a lot of poetry, and I sang a bit, so we had lyrics; I still drew sometimes, so we had art when we needed it, although we rarely needed it. I was always ambitious with my lyrics: One of our most successful songs was structured to simulate one character murdering another during a snowstorm in a glade where they had played and hidden as a child. Morbid character studies were common; I was always taking grim little vacations in people’s heads, my own or otherwise. Informed by my middle school studies of haibun and my lyrical adventures, my prose grew more experimental, collapsing into poems or switching into strange persons and tenses. My mind was full of images, yet where to go with them?

My path to sequential art was an odd and rocky one. As mentioned, I loved picture books and illustrated stories as a child, and while I failed to touch upon them earlier (mea culpa!), Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side were pretty important in their own right. I even attempted to create something of a running series at around the time I was in that poetry programme, mainly for the amusement of myself and a very affable art teacher who found the premise amusing. It was only a year or two later that I would read Doom Patrol—the first superhero comic that I would ever admit to liking, and still one of the chosen few—and realise that Grant Morrison, the bastard, had stolen my idea before I’d even been born: Of killing one’s own imaginary friend, only to be tormented by their vengeful spectre years after the fact at the least appropriate of times.

But the comic idea sort of fell by the wayside for the longest time, for the simple reason that I am, to my own mind, an atrocious draughtsman. I cannot reproduce figures to save my life. Hilarious, seeing as I can draw you a teeming alien cityscape, or a perfectly detailed mosquito in flames, but in terms of doing the same thing twice, I’ve spent years hanging my head in shame and self-loathing.

The secret is, though, not that I couldn’t learn this, but that for such a long time, pride had kept me from allowing myself to be bad at things until I was good. As someone to whom a lot of fairly complex ideas just come naturally, someone who just absorbs information like a souped-up Dyson vacuum, the idea of having to draw the same damned thing ten thousand times just to get decent at drawing that same damned thing was a horrifying prospect. It still is.

I got pushed into it. My own fictions put a knife to my throat and told me, “This is what needs to happen.” But it took two different interconnected experiences to understand how, both courtesy of my boyfriend being a huge dork.

The first was his recommendation that I read LAMEZINE 02, at that time the latest salvo from the wonderfully deranged comic artist Cate Wurtz, then going by the moniker Partydog; the second was his use of a Bec Noir avatar on a forum we’re both on, which got me to finally bite the bullet and read Homestuck.

Wurtz��� Lamezone comics are a trip. Her art style is by most technical standards fairly primitive, but it’s a very *refined* jankiness, part and parcel to her overall embrace of scuzzy punk ‘zine aesthetics, immediately recognisable and all-around immediate. Her approach to story and tone is just the same, at once surreal and ridiculous and incredibly emotionally potent, ranging in tone from giddy B-movie absurdity to crushing Carver-esque sorrow, composed of as many little side-stories that flesh out what sort of world these characters live in as of its “meat” and all the better for it. The way that her comics are often framed only adds to the ambience: DVD menus of hit TV series that never existed, tales from the everyday lives of people living on the precipice of madness (and/or suburban Kansas), the wild Lynchian adventures of a man who talks to the spirit of the good ol’ USA through Twitter while traipsing through other people’s comics and the comment sections on furry porn sites. She was even working on a video game at one point about a woman trying to battle her way through deformed iterations of her past selves while maintaining a sufficient ganja supply. I have no idea if that’s still happening. It looked awesome.

Homestuck has already had much said about it, so I’ll keep it brief. Comparisons to Pynchon are not unwarranted. It takes the hypertextual potential of the webcomic to the next level, and is longer than many novel series. The art is, quite intentionally, all over the place, and uses collage surprisingly effectively. The story is a beautiful mess that is, fundamentally, about the process of storytelling and how “things that happen” become “stories” in the first place. It’s very oblique about this, and generally quite funny.

And so I looked to the story I was writing.

I looked at the multiple plotlines growing out of one another, intersecting, snakes devouring their tails, thematic parallels on parallels, spirals of mental imagery with bits of torn wallpaper making the fabric of waistcoats and cathedrals made out of lines of scripture and trees bearing watches like fruit, and I went: “This should be a comic! A hypercomic, in fact, McLuhan-style! This should be a wondrous blend of visuals and text and...

“I...

“I can’t draw. Fuck me. I should stick to prose, like a good loser. Get rejected that way instead.”

So I waffled. For months. And then for years.

But you know what?

I’m done waffling.

Limitation is power in its own right. Ever since I learned of Oulipo in that long-ago three-person poetry class, I’ve been fascinated with the idea of innovation through defining what you cannot do, or what you must do, no matter what. Of forcing yourself to start from a set place or end at one, no ifs, ands or buts.

I am limited. Within that, I am omnipotent.

I am going to draw this comic. I am going to write it and I am going to draw it even if it starts out looking like total shit and the process drives me half-insane. If things that I love, in sequential art but also in music and painting and writing and animation and all sorts of other forms, can make a perceived deficit into a key strength, I can do it, too. Even if I can’t be a classical master, I can be the best at that crazy thing I do.

I guess this is also my grandiose way of saying “fuck last year,” where I made so much progress that felt so thwarted by external circumstances and my own failings, and where so much went wrong for so many of us. So I’m embracing this year as a year of progress. Even if everything else sucks, I’ll be running up that hill.

And just so there’s no mistaking it, I will still be making music and probably writing at least a smidgen of prose fiction and poetry on the side. In the former category, I might even start a band.

Oh, wait. We’re not doing half-measures any more.

I’m starting a band, too.

Tell your friends.

Happy 2017, everyone, and have a lovely rest of your night.