Grand Adventure

I still suck at planning, which is weird and a little sad to say since at one point in my life I had imagined making a living from plotting.

In just about a week, I'll embark on what I referred to in my head as The Grand Adventure. When I first thought of this crazy scheme, I planned an entire tour across Asia: Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. Unfortunately, I can't swing that much money or vacation time, or I could but it would really cut down on the time and money spent in each country, or just splurge it all and extend it way past the amount of vacation time available. Plus, I'm not sure how my brain and body will react to not working for that many days in a row as I've basically hit a rhythm of working everyday. So, what The Grand Adventure transformed into is a week in Japan and one week one and a half weeks in South Korea, which seems like enough time to explore both places, if I knew what I was doing.

First off, the number one reason for this trip is for a reunion weekend with some of my dormmates from Plume IS from back when I studied abroad at Keio University

I really feel like I should have a better picture with everyone, but I can't find it

I've seen just about a dozen of them over the past 10 years (either here or abroad) but it's going to be really cool for a lot of us to be in the same place at the same time. I'm assuming from the silent Facebook stalking I've been doing over the years, everyone has something interesting going on with their lives and it'll be fun catching up and hearing all about it. Plus, you know, NOMIHOUDAI! (that is sadly the extent of my Japanese, besides "Toire wa doko desu ka?" and "Tabako wo sutte moo ii desu ka?") Luckily, for the most part, I'll be surrounded by friends whose Japanese is much, much better than mine, and who are also much, much better at planning than I am. I'm sure they've planned enough to the point that all I need to do is show-up and mooch off of their hard work. Thanks again. I guess in the one or two days after everyone leaves and I'm still in Tokyo I'll wander around ... I don't know, I haven't thought up that part yet ... I'll probably just catch pokemon I guess.

And then it's off to Korea ... where I'll ... umm ... I'll be in Korea. Really, the only thing I originally planned on doing in Korea was visiting my cousin who teaches English over there. And then, after setting up the trip, I remembered to ask her if it was okay that I didn't know any Korean. None at all. I managed to get by in Japan with very, very limited skills and some really good friends. Only after I got excited by this idea and booked my flight did I tell myself, "Hey moron, what the hell are you thinking?! You don't know any words, or even letters, and no one is going to be there to hold your hand through this. Are you insane?" Well, she reassured me that I should be okay without knowing anything, though I'm still not sure if it's because most people might speak English, or if she thinks that I survived Japan on some top-notch charade skills. She also dumped on me a load of places to check out in Seoul that I really should get around to looking over just so I can create some semblance of an itinerary, or at least look up activities to do.

If you've been following my newest obsession/addiction, then you may have guessed that I did look if any of my favorite Kpop groups were going to have a concert while I was there. I also checked if Scandal would have anything, but I'm pretty sure all the concerts were after I left Japan. Anyways, at first there weren't any so my cousin set me up with a tour website that'll let you into one of those live music programs on Korean TV that fill up my Youtube feed where you can watch the groups perform their songs. My biggest hope is that Dreamcatcher is still performing their latest song, though I doubt it since they released it about a month ago already. My silver medal hope is that Twice actually does release their new song while I'm there since it might mean that they'll perform that night as well. After getting my tickets to that, my cousin let me know that if I could extend my trip a bit, we could go to the Blackpink concert. I had to turn it down at first: I was already taking the longest vacation I've ever been on; I would need to reschedule 2 different flights and re-book my hostel stay; I would need to clear the extension with work where we are already short-staffed, etc. Then, when the second set of tickets went on sale and after a long, long mental debate, a couple nights of "gentle" encouragement from my friends ("Alan, what are you doing, just go to the concert!", "Quit your job and go to the concert", etc), and suppressing my travel anxiety long enough to make a rational decision it finally clicked, "Alan, this is Blackpink and it's probably going to be your only chance to go!" So, I re-booked everything I dreaded doing, informed work that I was going to be gone another couple days, and asked my cousin to make sure I don't charge the stage. "Alan, you can't reach the stage from our section on the 2nd floor." "I'll find a way." And so, thanks to the generosity of others, I now have one concert ticket, one music show pass, and a folded-up piece of paper with a bunch of words that I assume are places written haphazardly. It's looking like the start of a great trip.

I know I say this every trip, but this time was definitely worse. I really do suck at planning. Procrastination hit hard this trip as I left basically everything to the last minute. As I write this I've still yet to start packing, I still need to look up things to do in both Japan and Korea, and there are probably a bunch of things I'm going to discover I still need to buy. Also, my plane takes off ... tomorrow ... or right now depending whenever I finish writing this. I feel like the biggest reason is that things just tend to work out for me, that even with my poor planning skills (and even worse grasp on reality) nothing truly terrible has yet to befall me. I know that's a horrible way to think about it, but it's kinda true. I managed to survive hiking Mt. Fuji with just a hoodie and 2 t-shirts when I should've packed warmer. When our Spring Break Seattle to San Francisco trip was cut short, we were first in line and managed to get 2 rooms in a hotel and our flights rebooked to come back home. When I lost my passport within an hour of landing in Australia, someone turned it over to the ticket counter and I got it back as quickly as I lost it. When I got lost wandering around New York and Seattle, I randomly stumbled across the right train station, or got on the right bus, to get me where I needed to go. It's almost as if I'm waiting on something really, really bad to happen to me before I change my ways. [*last minute note: apparently the music program tv show audience I was supposed to go to got cancelled earlier this week, so I guess it was lucky I gave in to peer pressure and agreed to go to the Blackpink concert. So like I said, things tend to work out, so far.]

And finally, (you can skip this part if you want, there's nothing about my trip after this) the worst part of this whole thing has been that my anxiety coping mechanism - writing - seems to have been severed from me as I've forgotten how to write. For example, this entire post took me about two weeks to write. Yeah, TWO WEEKS to write about something I've been excited about for a couple months now. That should not happen. Typically, the words should just flow out and I would finish this in a day or two, and just taken extra time to find pictures and videos to link. I discovered this new disability earlier this month and still can't quite get over it. With all the time I've spent on this, I haven't given writing stories a try again, but the last time I did I was trashing everything after a couple sentences, if I could even get it started. It's frustrating and annoying and then I realize I'm wasting time writing anyways since there's other, more important, things to do right now, and then I get annoyed and frustrated all over again.

Books of 2018: Quarter 3

King's Justice by Stephen R. Donaldson

I just happened to come across this book while walking the shelves at Barnes and Nobles one day and just figured I'd pick it up since I haven't read Stephen R. Donaldson since high school. I enjoyed the first 6 of the Thomas Covenant series, never got around to the last 4 books. Anyways, this caught my eye since I assumed he stopped writing a while ago. This turned out to be 2 novellas and though it only totaled about 300 pages, it still felt long. It's 300 pages, I'm sure I should've been able to fly through that, which I might've, but it felt like it took a lot longer to read. I'm not sure if that was the style of the Thomas Covenant series, or if it's just because the pacing didn't move as fast as the other books I was reading at the time. A lot of time is spent in the characters' heads compared to other books I've been reading recently which were more action/movement oriented.
King's Justice: Black is the stranger riding into town to investigate a murder in a normally peaceful town, and to deliver the King's Justice. There he finds the murder is not as it seems, but luckily Black is no ordinary investigator. With him comes the King's Justice, something for which no one can prepare. A bit more philosophical but definitely in line with what I remember from the Thomas Covenant series, the climax of the story focuses on the balance of competing forces: Light vs Dark, Good vs Evil, and even the forces of nature themselves.
The Auger's Gambit: Mayhew Gordian, the Queen's Hieronomer, discovers doom comes for their island nation in the readings of sacrificial blood and entrails. Every reading he makes shows the same outcome no matter the choices he or his queen make. Knowing that enslavement or civil war await, he must learn all the secrets that make his people special to save everyone. The thing that I liked the most about this story is that the main character was a Hiernomer, a character typically depicted as a bad guy in stories due to the bloody work they do. It was a interesting change, as Mayhew's work is bloody and is given some imagery in the story.


An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard

"Ian bent his hands at such severe angles, it looked like they would snap. He spoke a phrase that scorched the back of his throat, that spattered blood across his lips and sent a dragon of flame rising into the air."

"'Magic, at its heart, starts with sacrifice. You have to give up something to get something, and because magic is big, with all that it allows you access to, what you give up has to be big. It has to be meaningful.'"

In New York City, the heads of the magical Houses are notified that The Turning has begun. The tournament to decide a new head of the magical community usually occurs just once a generation, however this one has begun earlier than expected, and in less than half the time. Some magical houses recruit contenders to fight on their behalf, others nominate one of their own, all of them looking to show their magical skill. What no one prepares for is newcomer Sydney, an unknown to their society but someone who is determined to change magic forever. 

I'm not sure where the influence came from, but the story definitely has a post-Harry Potter feel to it. Prior to the Harry Potter series, magic in other stories was easy: wave a wand and say some funny words and magic would solve your problems. In this story, magic is done with hand motions, no wands. The words are not just random nonsense phrases or butchered Latin. Instead when the characters speak, Howard never gives the said word (which can sometimes derail the flow of the reading) but describes the sound of the word typically in terms of what the spell is capable of doing. As I said, this helps to keep the flow of the reading because if you're like me, you could spend several minutes trying to figure out what you think is the correct pronunciation of the word, and if you're like 12 year old me, you'll waste more time trying to cast them hoping that it actually works. And, unlike Harry Potter magic that just always seems readily available to cast, magic in this book has a price to pay: pain.

Though I usually have some issues with it, remembering all of the characters wasn't as big an issue as it was with other books. I think what really helped was that the main cast was introduced in separate sections in the first chapter, establishing who each character was and their importance to the story.


Calypso by David Sedaris

Regarding his sister's suicide by asphyxiation : "I've always like to think that before killing myself I'd take the time to really mess with people... When you're in the state that my sister was in, and that most people are in when they take their own lives, you're not thinking of anything beyond your own pain. Thus the plastic bag - the maximizer, as it were - the thing a person reaches for after their first attempt at an overdose fails and they wake up sick a day later thinking, I can't even kill myself right."

Regarding doing good deeds: "You're not supposed to talk about your good deeds, I know. It effectively negates them and in the process makes people hate you. If there's a disaster, for instance, and someone tells me he donated five thousand dollars to the relief effort - this while I gave a lesser amount, or nothing at all - I don't think, Goodness, how bighearted you are, but, rather, Fuck you for making me look selfish."

I bought this book without any foreknowledge besides reading good reviews and that Sedaris has a dark sense of humor. Also, at the time, I was writing that 3-part (which turned into 4 unfinished parts) Eulogy series and I was having some trouble (still having trouble) getting it all down. So I was looking for something that could help me out. Plus, it was on sale (20% off I think).

Like most of his books (I'm assuming as I haven't read any of his other books) Calypso is a seemingly random collection of stories about his life. I honestly don't know if their was a common theme through all of them, maybe because I wasn't really looking that hard. I was just entertained by EVERY SINGLE STORY. Some of the stories are inherently funny, like when he talks about his Fitbit obsession, the entire chapter about his height, or learning about insults used in other cultures; but some of them get deep and dark, such as when he talks about his sister's suicide, his relationship with his father, growing up with an alcoholic mother, coming out to his family and friends. In all of these stories though, he always finds something about the situation to poke fun at or make a joke just as things might start to get really, really serious, providing a balance between the dark and the light. It was amazing to read and I'm definitely going to look for more of his books.

I understand that most people don't like reading, but if you've ever wanted to read something and you've been reading these reviews to look for something, this is the book you should read. I've been loaning movies to a co-worker of mine, and one of the rules she gave me was no Sci-Fi or Fantasy, which knocks out about 3/4 of my movie collection. So, I understand that a lot of the books I read fall into this category too, but ... I forgot the point I was trying to make. Oh, if you've been skimming these posts looking for a book that wasn't another fantasy book, this is the one you should get. I think that's where I was going with this, anyways.

note: it was really hard to find short quotes that I could use as the stories he tells are so connected and well put together that to just isolate a sentence here or there without its proper context would just be baffling and you'd have no idea what I'm talking about.


Red Sister by Mark Lawrence

"It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men."

"Flicked wrists, arms cracked like whips, and throwing stars take flight, possessed of their own fierce rotation, bound on twisted parabolas. No mother gave her child so much direction, or set them spinning along their course through the world with such care."

Nona Gray is rescued from the hangman's noose to be trained as a sister at the Convent of Sweet Mercy. The church, however doesn't just teach young girls to become nuns faithful to the Ancestor, but trained killers as well. The story follows young Nona as she goes through the first two classes at the convent (Red, during which the girls are trained in combat; and Grey, where they are trained in poisons), as well as discovers secrets about herself and the world. The first book in what I assume will be another trilogy, this book covers the first part of Nona's training, establishes the setting, as well as reveals intriguing aspects of their society that will probably play a bigger role in the later books. (note: Gray Sister is out but I'm waiting for the paperback version).

My favorite part of Lawrence's writing is the way he writes fight scenes, and, like his other books, this one doesn't disappoint. If you don't believe me, try it: watch an action movie then try to describe it in full detail with every single motion, and watch your audience's eyes glaze over. To talk about a fight scene solely on the character's actions is boring. Lawrence though manages it through pacing and word choice, making it feel real and exciting and even intimate as if you were involved in some way. It's something I've yet to learn to replicate in my own writing.

One of the hardest parts of this book was keeping track of the huge cast of characters. As I've said before with other books and, sadly, in real life as well, I'm terrible with names and it gets worse when I'm introduced to a bunch of characters. Though I think I remembered all of the trainees, I know for a fact that even by the end of the book, I couldn't remember who were all the Sisters.

Bank Heist: A Sovereignty Story

At 3:47pm, exactly on time, we began the mission, first shattering the front windows of the bank. Through the door strode a costumed man in a yellow and green suit with green leather-like wings, myself following right behind. "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a robbery!" Thunder Dragon announced as he let loose a bolt of lightning that tore a hole through the lone bank security guard. "Everyone move over to the other wall and put your foreheads against it. You better be kissing that wall!" Without hesitation, everyone in the bank ran to the other side of the building, leaving just Thunder Dragon and I striding through the bank lobby, as well as the tellers still behind the counter. Two of them, as planned, easy enough to for both of us to watch along with the hostages.

Well, not all of the customers ran. One or two others in the room made a move to stop him, some lowly D-rank Supers who had been standing in line to cash their paycheck or pay off some loan. Luckily, we already predicted there might be a couple of Supers hiding amongst the crowd. The Mystic, our own A-rank psychic supervillain, blending in with the other hostages, covertly slowed their movements. If I needed to guess, some sort of illusion making them think they were moving faster than they actually were. I moved toward them, focusing my copy abilities to mimic Thunder Dragons's powers so that I could send a tazer through them both and knock them unconscious.

Instead, Thunder Dragon stepped between me and the other two men. In the next second, Thunder Dragon electrocuted both of them, killing them before their lifeless bodies could hit the cold linoleum floor. Then he laughed.

I glared as he walked over to the teller stand. "You didn't have to do that," I said. It wasn't that I opposed killing, I was a supervillain after all and it was part of the job we were getting paid to do. I just hated that he took so much pleasure in it. Our bosses at The Sovereignty understood too that supervillains needed to kill, that way we could maintain a sense of fear in the general population. The Sovereignty, a group of powerful corporate leaders just wanted to keep the world the way that it was without the Supers, especially those in The League, trying to go about changing that. Best to keep them fighting other supervillains than toppling dictatorial governments or oppressive regimes or corporations that didn't give full refunds, especially those which hold value to their business interests. After all, who knows what kinds of changes a single man with the power to control the weather, or a woman who could bring down the moon would make to the world.

"Hey," Thunder Dragon said, shoving one of the tellers hard into the wall, "fill up the bag. No funny business." He tossed the duffel bags over the counter.

I jumped over the counter and began filling my own bag. One of the tellers looked to me and I created a cluster of sparks in my hand, lightning forming around my arm. Terrified, he started shoveling money into the bag, hands shaking. Unlike his, I had fast hands, fast enough to finish clearing my register long before him and to move onto the next, unoccupied register. Fast enough to ensure that only two tellers would be the only two working today by slipping a laxative in a coffee cup or puncturing tires on a street-parked car. Fast enough to pocket several stacks of bills into my own pockets.

"We're done," I said, grabbing the full bags and jumping back over the counter. When I'd gotten next to Thunder Dragon I emptied my pockets onto the floor and whispered, "You brought this on yourself." I backed away, lightning formed in one hand. "What the fuck is this! Did you really think you could steal from us!" I paused, turning slightly to make sure some of the braver hostages turned their heads toward us. I could hear some of them whisper as they pointed and got others to turn as well.

"What the hell are you talking about!" Thunder Dragon shouted back at me, empty hands in the air. Then he saw the money on the floor and the lightning in my hand. "Hey, no, wait." Before he finished, I put a bolt through his chest, making sure he couldn't reveal my own deception. The murmuring from the previously silent crowd was practically deafening as they watched one supervillain kill his own teammate for stealing from them. That would definitely keep them afraid of us.

Then came a loud Boom! and plaster rained down upon me. "I guess there's no honor amongst thieves," said Captain Shield, his blue cape fluttering as he hovered down, stopping inches above the floor.

"Oh no, it's Captain Shield," I said, trying to convey as much worry in my voice as possible, but finding that hard to do as well. This was part of the plan too, after all.

In an instant, his superspeed put him right behind me, one of my arms retched behind my back. "Surrender evil-doer, you are under arrest."

"I surrender! Oh God, please don't hurt me!" I said, again loud enough for everyone in the bank to turn and watch the show I was about to put on. With my copying ability, I channeled The Mystic's psychic abilities and reached into Captain Shields mind to find what angered him the most. Then I prepared for the beating.

It came quicker than I expected. Suddenly, everything went white as I felt the weight of a sledgehammer hit me from behind, sending me flying into the far wall of the bank. Then I was flying again, lifted airborne to the roof before crashing into the desks below. I'd managed to tap into some of Captain Shields super-strength as he pummeled me across the bank interior for what felt like an eternity. Though stronger than usual, I could still feel the damage already done, and the blows he continued to rain down, though not lethal, were going to hurt and bruise.

Then came a voice from across the room. "Captain Shield, what are you doing?" she said, bringing the crowds' focus onto the Super thrashing a man who had already surrendered. "What are you doing?" she repeated, her voice on the verge of crying. A psychic wave of sadness and disappointment ebbed through the bank and I felt myself dropped onto the floor. I had to smile, just slightly, as The Mystic worked her powers onto the crowd.

"No, no, I'm not sure what came over me," Captain Shield stuttered. He backed away several paces as the crowd continued to stare. Then he took off through the roof, leaving them silent and agape. I lay still on the floor, bruised, battered, beaten. Inside, I laughed as the mission couldn't have gone any better. A couple nights in jail and then I would be out on bail. A supervillain crime requiring a superhero response would keep the Heroes too busy to change other parts of the world. Thunder Dragon, that psychopath, had been taken care of. I'd maintained that sense of fear of supervillains in the general population. Doubt had been sown within the people for putting too much trust in their own heroes. Mission accomplished.



So, it's been awhile since I've written a story for, well, various reasons. Anyway, the other night I was looking to get back into writing so I started scouring Reddit Writing Prompts just to start diving into something, and what do I find right there on the front page but the prompt: "Superpowers exist, but the world is still controlled by money. Business moguls, oil sheikhs, etc. employ the world's supers." And sure, I found a couple of other interesting prompts to write stories on, but this one immediately stuck out as it reminded me of the superhero story I keep finding myself coming back to, "The Sovereignty." Though I never got too far with that story, there were several stories that I wanted to tell within that universe. This one is close to one of those stories: the main character goes on a heist job with another supervillain, during which they would be confronted by a superhero, and the main character would kill the other villain he is supposed to be working with. Obviously, there are some differences too, such as the main character being so confident in his plan (in the original, he is new to supervillainy) and the hero he would confront would be more of an asshole. Well, either way, here's another story, maybe I'll actually return to The Sovereignty, hopefully it won't be months again until I start writing stories again.

Books of 2018: Quarter 2

Umm... books?



Without Fail by Lee Child

Scene: Reacher is talking with the father of a dead Secret Service agent and explaining that he means to kill the ones who killed the agent. Reacher asks if the man is comfortable with Reacher getting revenge.
"Do you have a child?" he asked.
"No," Reacher said. "I don't."
"Neither do I," the old man said. "Not anymore. So I'm comfortable with it."

Another Jack Reacher novel. In this story, Reacher is recruited by a Secret Service agent to kill the Vice President. It all starts as an exercise until the threat proves real and Reacher must now help to keep the politician safe and figure out who is the would-be assassin. So, this makes the 6th Jack Reacher novel I've read and the second or third that I've written a review (I'm too lazy to go through old posts to count). Plus there's been 2 Tom Cruise movies already. If you don't know about these stories yet, well I really don't feel like going into a lot of detail anymore. There's really nothing that I could write that would be any different than what I've said about the other ones. Basically, it's all pretty formulaic: Reacher will drift into town, trouble will present itself, and Reacher, being the biggest and baddest guy in the room (in the books, he's supposed to be an ex-military cop/investigator standing at over 6ft tall and built like a wall) will solve the problem typically with all the bad guys dead, and then drift away down the road. And that's the main appeal of it all, which I think makes the books great. It's got that old spaghetti-western feel to it, like Pale Rider or ... movies like Pale Rider. So, if you like those types of stories, well, these are definitely for you. Some back story is required as the book does allude to characters from the first novel, but I think you could probably read this one as a stand-alone without any other prior information. Child does a good job of filling in some blanks if you're jumping into the Reacher stories for the first time.


The Magicians by Lev Grossman

"'For the true magician there is no very clear line between what lies inside the mind and what lies outside it. If you desire something, it will become substance. If you despise it, you will see it destroyed. A master magician is not much different from a child or a madman in that respect.'"

"'Can a man who can cast a spell ever really grow up?'"

Quentin Coldwater is a genius high school senior. He should be happy, he believes he should be happy, but he isn't. Not having outgrown his love for a particular series of children's books depicting the adventures of the Chatwin children in the fantastical realm of Fillory, he is ecstatic when he is invited to a secret magic college. At Brakebills, though, he'll learn that magic is nothing like he thought, and, eventually, that Fillory itself is a much darker place than depicted in the stories. If you've been watching the TV show, this book covers Quentin's magical schooling, post-graduation life, and their first trip into Fillory. Set in today's society (rather than in another realm or in entirely separate society), Grossman is able to make full use of other fantastical literature that has come before, characters making references to Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, and, of course, the Harry Potter series. One of the issues I think readers might have with the book is that, since it's told from Quentin's point-of-view (he's the main character after all), he does come off as sometimes whiny which might get on people's nerves. He's basically how he is depicted on The Magicians TV show on Syfy. So, whiny or, as other friends who watch the show have called him, "he's a bitch." I thought it was alright, as that's his character, he knows that what he has should make him happy, but there's something missing, or that he's always expecting it all to be swept away from him in an instant and he's just waiting for that moment he loses it all. But, I do agree, if the main character is an issue, it might be hard to get through the book.

I'm not sure how I picked this book up, but I'm guessing I was wandering around Barnes and Nobles one day and this just randomly stood out. After reading the back cover, I probably did think it was going to be like another Harry Potter copycat, which wouldn't be too bad. I was completely wrong. First off, just think of the differences between your teenage self, and your college self and you're beginning to understand the nature of this story. And though I've read and reread each book in this series, I've probably read this one about 4 or 5 times already. I really liked how magic was hard, that it was something to learn and practice, that it went into more detail than just saying a few words and flicking a wand, that it even depended upon things like phases of the moon and the weather. It kinda grounded it all into a more realistic fantasy (if that makes any sense).


The Magician King by Lev Grossman

'"There are things that a man must do, that a god may not. He who completes a quest does not merely find something. He becomes something.'
'What's that? What does he become?'
'A hero, Quentin.'"

"Julia squatted down on her haunches on the sidewalk, like a toddler, and put her head in her hands and laughed and cried at the same time. She felt like she was going to pass out or throw up or go insane. She had tried to walk away from the disaster, to run away from it, she really, truly had. She'd broken her staff and drowned her book and sworn off magic forever. She'd moved on and left no forwarding address. But it hadn't been enough. Magic had come looking for her."

As new Kings and Queens of Fillory, Quentin Coldwater and the gang set out on a quest to gather 7 magical keys for a purpose unknown, but entirely necessary to their very survival. Set roughly two years after the events of The Magicians, Quentin has settled into his life as king of Fillory and this has had a positive effect on his personality. He is more upbeat, hopefully, and that tone carries into his narration as they search for the keys, as well as a way back to Fillory when they are accidentally sent back to Earth. This time, Quentin knows what he has to do, which is be a hero, but this quest will teach him what a hero truly is. His newfound positive personality provides an excellent foil to the other half of the book, which is Julia's own magical journey to becoming a magician as well as Queen of Fillory after failing the Brakebills entrance exam in The Magicians. If you watched the TV show, trust me, it is so much more depressing and manic in the book. Unlike the other characters, Julia doesn't get the safe schooling route through Brakebills, but instead finds her own way through the underground magic scene, full of frauds and scarce information and magical entities preying on unsuspecting magicians. She's alone in the world chasing an entitlement that was unjustly denied to her. It's a completely different trek than the first book gave Quentin, and it's an interesting glimpse into what the magical world would probably look like in regular society: tucked away for only the truly determined to find, and the truly devout to obtain.

In an interview, Grossman mentioned that the character he felt most sorry for in the Harry Potter books was Dudley because he is so, so close to magic but knows that it will never be his. He asked J.K. Rowling if she felt the same way and her response was, "Oh, grow up." Although I can't agree with him on the Dudley comment, I do see how he extended that to Julia's character. Though the quest for the keys was a great adventure, I couldn't help but feel more drawn to Julia's journey to become the magician we find her to be at the end of The Magicians. We only get a glimpse of her as Quentin's unrequited love interest in The Magicians but in The Magician King, we get to learn about Julia in her own words.


The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman

'"I still have no idea what magic is for. Maybe you just have to decide for yourself. But you definitely have to decide. It's not for sitting on my ass, which I know because I've tried that"'

Kicked out of Fillory and back on Earth, Quentin Coldwater looks for a place to call his own. With nowhere else to go though, he finds himself crawling back to Brakebills. However, demons from his past come looking for him and once again, he finds himself on a quest to set things right. Back in Fillory, Eliot and Janet embark on their own quest to again save a crumbling Fillory. Their quests align and the group is once again whole on again on an epic journey. They'll travel through familiar places and eventually return again to Fillory, all the while revisiting old characters and meeting new ones as well. Since the story is clearly separated by the events on Earth and Fillory, Grossman provides several other characters to use as Point-of-View narrators. On Earth, an older, almost 30 year old Quentin now provides a sense of maturity and knowledge to the situation, while a newcomer, Plum, a recently expelled Brakebills student, provides the sense of wonder and asks the questions the reader wants answered. In Fillory, Eliot and Janet provide their own sense of wit and cutting side commentary to the situations they find themselves in. If you're watching the TV show, Eliot and Margo are exactly how they are in the books, so you know what I mean.

Just from the way The Magician King ended, I bought it at Barnes and Nobles the week the book was released. In hardcover. HARDCOVER. I can't even remember the last book I bought in hardcover. Actually, it might've been the last Harry Potter book, but even that one, I waited a couple weeks thinking that maybe I could survive until the paperback version came out. But for this book, I wanted it, needed it immediately, and it did not disappoint. The first part of the book gives an interesting glimpse into the illicit magical scene. Quentin, needing to get his hands on some money fast, signs onto a job with other magicians to steal a briefcase from a couple of other magicians. Like a heist scenario, all the members have a part to play and it's an interesting glimpse into what the magical society might refer to as "illegal" (we never actually meet any magical law enforcement agency, so technically it's never revealed what behavior/action is "actually" illegal). I also enjoyed that, being the last book in the series, all of the main characters we've been with from the beginning (Quentin, Julia, Eliot, Janet, Josh, even Penny) all get some sort of resolution made on their characters, whether finally healing from a past wound or growing into the person s/he was meant to become.



Also, as you might've noticed, I think I'm now going to start putting a quote or two from the book, something that I hope will either give a bit more information or that just sets the tone or is just a quote I really, really liked, in the hopes that it will give you a more intimate description, because, let's be honest, I really do suck at describing things. Hopefully it will get you to read the book, maybe just a book, get you to start reading again, and then drive you to reading my crap when you've got free time, or bored at work, or whenever. And yes, if you've figured it out, I do try to post/share new stories during the working day because that's when I'm typically bored and I assume everyone else is bored too.

Emberwilde Comes: The Cascade Badge part 2

"Wait" said Misty as Emberwilde turned his back to her, his flaming tail swinging, "I've got one more Pokemon." She pulled another pokeball from behind her back, this one colored blue and white, polished to a shine. "That is, if you want a real challenge."

Emberwilde turned back to the gym leader. Curious, I stood up to get a better view of the arena which was basically just a giant pool with several floating platforms, Emberwilde on the center-most one. Misty's other pokemon floated lifeless in the water, knocked out by Emberwilde in a five against one fight. Just fighting five Pokemon at the same time, even for a Lord of the Inferno Clan should still be tiring. I bet the average trainer didn't need to fight this many opponents to prove their strength. But what Pokemon was she holding back that could take on Emberwilde one on one when her other pokemon combined couldn't?

Before I could say anything in protest, the match started. Misty's defeated pokemon disappeared from the pool. Emberwilde readied himself, letting loose a roar that shook the building and sent a tremor through the water. "I choose you," said Misty as the pokeball flew from her hand, "Golduck!" Relieved, I let out the breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. Another Water Pokemon. Sure, it might have a little psychic abilities but nothing Emberwilde couldn't handle with pure brute strength. No pokemon out here in Kanto should even come close to the psychic attacks the Tartarus Isles pokemon train to defend against.

The red light solidified and the Golduck emerged. My body stiffened as I gasped, fear petrifying my body. The Golduck was a head taller than most, its skin a slightly darker shade of blue. It was the upper half of its body and the left half of its face that startled me though. Black lines of ash tattooed the upper-half of its torso and the left-side of its face. A marking of the Inferno Clan. "Char!" I shouted in warning, but it was already too late. Emberwilde was squared up and ready to fight.

"Golduck, use Water Gun!" Misty said, pointing at the Charizard, as if her pokemon needed any direction on who to attack. Instead, the water pokemon unleashed a beam of psychic energy, the red jewel on its forehead lighting up bright. A bright beam connected the two pokemon and Emberwilde roared in pain. The sight sent a shiver of fear through my spine, not only the sight of Emberwilde injured, but to see a typically invisible psychic attack in the Kanto region was unnatural.

"What are you doing, Golduck? I said use Water Gun!" Misty repeated. The Golduck's psychic attack continued. The beam intensified and the residual psychic energy radiating from the attack pierced into my skull like an ice pick. I clenched my teeth to try to fight it. I tried my best to stay focused by analyzing the situation. For a pokemon to openly defy its trainer, especially if they are a gym leader, it had to mean that the pokemon itself was too high a level, too powerful for the trainer to control. Powerful pokemon too strong for a gym leader to control with black tattoos covering its body. Yeah, it was definitely one of ours.

Emberwilde took the assault full-force, dropping to a knee and folding his wings over instinctively as if it would protect him. It was useless though, as if any physical defense could protect him from a psychic attack, especially from a pokemon of his own clan. How it got to Kanto was still a mystery, but one that we needed to solve later. Right now, we needed to win the match. I looked to the Golduck to find a weakness. The Golduck itself focused only on Emberwilde, its eyes never blinking as it continued the attack. Eyesight, or more importantly, Line of Sight.

In English, I shouted to Emberwilde, "Emberwilde, the water! Torch the water!" Emberwilde didn't move, continuing to cower to the psychic attack. I shouted again, "Flamethrower, now! Hit the pool!" Still nothing. Emberwilde dropped to both knees. It might be over. "Get up you stupid lizard and do what I say!" I didn't realize I spoke those words until they'd left my mouth. Bordering on blasphemous, not only to insult a Lord of the Inferno Clan, but the Champion I was chosen to bear across this land. Back home, I'd heard rumors that you could be eaten for saying such things.

My brazen words must've reached Emberwilde's ears. Either emboldened by my own courage, or enraged by my insults, he unfurled his wings and let loose a roar that rattled the arena and startled the Golduck for a second. With just enough time to lift himself into the air, he burst upward toward the ceiling and let loose a torrent of fire into the pool. In an instant, all the water in the pool emptied, filling the air with a thick steam. Several loud Booms! echoed throughout the stadium as the floating platforms hit the bottom of the pool. I stumbled and spent a second or two regaining my balance as the floor shook. I had no idea the platforms were that heavy. I could barely see my hand in front of my face through the fog, but more importantly, it should be impossible for the Golduck to establish line of sight with Emberwilde. Part of me hoped that its legs might break upon dropping 15 feet into an empty pool, but I knew we wouldn't be that lucky. The Golduck would search with its psychic powers. Without line of sight, it couldn't use its direct psychic beams or risk giving away its position. It would need to search with low-level psychic waves, sending out invisible psychic pulses like radar into the arena, waves of psychic energy to find their target. Though weakened, I knew Emberwilde could still win this fight with brute force. He still needed to see his enemy and I feared that the Golduck might find him before the steam cleared.

Soon enough, I felt a wave of psychic energy pass over me. Assuming the Golduck was at the bottom of the pool and Emberwilde was in the air, it was only natural that the psychic waves should find me first. I guess what I did next would be considered cheating if anyone else really understood what I was doing. I began to chant in my head an old battle prayer no one used anymore except as a training tool to teach us humans the language of the Chars. As mentally loud as I could manage, I shouted the words, dangling them like a lure. It worked! As I chanted, I felt the slightest of touches brush against my brain, an invisible hand gently passing over my mind. The psychic sensation made a couple passes, each a gentle brush as it locked onto its target. Then the Golduck struck. As if someone shoved my head in a vice and clamped it down in less than a second. Pressure began to build, but I continued the chant, holding its attention as tears started filling my eyes and streaming down my face. After all, as far as it knew, the only thing in this arena that could think like a Charizard was a Charizard. Technically now I could call for a disqualification as pokemon aren't allowed to attack trainers, but then Emberwilde would waste his time fighting another fight over again. No, I would hold its attention until Emberwilde could strike.

The psychic attack squeezed, pressure building on all sides of my mind as I dropped to all fours. Then came the fire, a burning sensation that worked its way through the inside of my skull. I ground my own fists into the sides of my head, a useless attempt to drive out the psychic fire. Blood dripped from my nose onto the tile floor. Every second of burning pain felt like an eternity, every moment ticked by slower and slower as I waited for Emberwilde to attack. Finally, unable to resist, I let out a scream, a high-pitched small child cry, a very human sound.

Realizing its mistake, the Golduck immediately released its attack. However, as were were taught in class, nothing hits that hard without letting the receiver of the blow know which direction the attack came from. It's true with punches, elemental blasts, and even psychic attacks. And, when you know the direction your enemy hit you from, then you can hit them back. After all, how can you sink your fangs or claws into an enemy if you don't know where his throat is? The Inferno Clan after all doesn't emphasize a lot of defense. If you want that lesson, go talk to a Blastoise. So as the pain eased, I reached out toward the direction it retreated. No way, I thought, as I realized I pointed directly in front of me, right were Misty released it. My only guess was that without water to submerge itself, it didn't feel comfortable it could escape in case Emberwilde caught it at close-range. "Emberwilde," I shouted, "it's in the same spot. Burn it away!"

In the next instant, hurricane winds gusted through the arena, blowing away the fog revealing the Golduck exactly where I predicted and Emberwilde still in the air, wings flapping. Showoff, I thought to myself as Emberwilde paused for a second, a fanged smile forming on its face while the Golduck's face turned to one of dread. Then the Charizard let loose and bathed the entire platform in fire.

Satisfied the match was over, Emberwilde swooped down and landed next to the defeated Golduck. "Char!" he roared, eyes shifting between Misty and the defeated Golduck as fire formed in his mouth as he spoke, "Char charizard chari!" He looked over to me and I made my way to the other side of the arena. By the time I'd reached the other side of the ring, Misty moved slowly back to the wall, the Golduck's pokeball still in her hand.

"Sorry, we've got some questions first," I said as I snatched the pokeball from her hand.

Putting up a brave front, Misty stepped forward, hands shaking. "What the hell do you think you're doing? I'll make sure the Kanto Pokemon League hears about this!" she said.

"Shut up, or I'll have Emberwilde eat you," I said as I moved toward the unconscious pokemon, "We're not from Kanto. The rules are different in Tartarus and we want some answers." I nodded to Emberwilde and he picked up the Golduck and shook him, roaring for answers. The Golduck just flopped in Emberwilde's claws, unconscious.

I headed over to the other side of the arena and filled a bucket of water. "Maybe this will help," I said when I returned. Emberwilde nodded and put the Golduck down, hard. I dumped the entire bucket onto the pokemon. It didn't move. Emberwilde must've really knocked it out. In the water though, black tendrils of ink swirled off the Golduck's skin and into a pool on the floor. I bent down and touched the ink.

"It's fake," I said, showing Emberwilde my blackened fingers, "not one of ours." Satisfied, Emberwilde nodded and pushed passed me, scratching my face with a single claw. Before I could say anything in protest, I remembered the "stupid lizard" comment. Instead I just lowered my head in silence and Emberwilde returned himself back to his pokeball. He understood that it wasn't our clan that sent another pokemon after him and that was all that mattered. I, however, was curious as it meant someone was brave enough to break the rules to actively work against a Clan Champion and its Bearer. I looked over the Golduck. The tattoos covered part of its face, chest and arms. Looking at those spots, I picked out small pockmarks, scared over as if something was violently torn out.

I put the Golduck back into its pokeball. Turning to Misty, her back against the wall but still holding that look of defiance in her eyes. "You got this in a trade. Tell me who gave it to you."

She glared at me for a couple of seconds, I guess deciding just how much information to give me, especially with Emberwilde returned to his pokeball and no longer threatening her in her own gym. "Some kid, about your age," she said, "same tactic as you, challenging all of my pokemon at once with just that Golduck. Then she offered to trade it to me for a Goldeen, just any random Goldeen I happened to have. Of course I was going to make the trade, seeing how strong that Golduck was."

I nodded, positive she wasn't lying. The point of course, wasn't to trade for a Goldeen, but to put that Golduck in our path. However, no subject of the Tartarus Isles was supposed to leave the island without consent from the leader of its clan. "I'm going to take this pokemon with me, back home," I said.

Misty nodded. "Fine with me. Honestly, that one gave me the creeps. Like it knew more than a pokemon should. I swear, at times it felt like it was trying its psychic attacks on myself." She then pulled something from her pocket. "Catch," she said as she tossed a shimmering blue pin toward me. The Cascade Badge. In all the excitement, I'd almost forgotten about the badge. I pinned it to the inside of my jacket as I turned to leave.

"Also," she said when I got to the door, "could we also forget about this Golduck thing? As an unwritten rule, more of a matter of pride really, Gym Leaders are only supposed to battle with Pokemon we've caught and raised ourselves."

I just shrugged my shoulders and walked through the door. "I don't care," I called back, my voice echoing in the almost empty gym, "Your pokemon, someone else's pokemon. The results will be the same. Emberwilde wins." Then I left the gym.




Welcome back to the longest running thing I've got here (currently at 5 episodes? though some do need rewrites). So, first off, no, you didn't miss a part. I was working on the next part, the arrival into Kanto (Pallet Town in near the ocean, right?) but then I got bored so I just skipped ahead to this fun idea. Actually, I seem to have a problem working linearly especially on something like this where I have so much I want to do, so I'm actually working on a bunch of different ... chapters? yeah, let's call them chapters at once. I have bits and pieces of different chapters being written at the same time because, when I'm writing one section, I'll have an idea I want to use later on pop-up and then all of a sudden I'm writing that part. Meeting Prof. Oak, Viridian forest, Brock rewrite, Team Rocket battle, etc. On a side note, I've been thinking about putting in some sort of picture to use, just so when I post this it'll have a picture associated with it, just in case you couldn't tell what it was from "Emberwilde Comes" but mostly to feed my ever-growing narcissism . The main issue is I can't draw and don't have the motivation to learn to draw, so that option is out. Also, I missed the Charmander Community Day for a chance at the Black Charizard so use as a picture. I meant to consult one of those artists booths at Kawaii Kon for some commissioned work. And I guess I should've gone to the NEET convention the other week. Oh well, I think there's still Comic-con or something coming up later this year, so I guess I'll try then.

Funeral Suit's Goodbye (Eulogy part 2 of 3)

Last week, I said goodbye to Funeral Suit. Several months ago, I started the engine and a hazy cloud spewed from the A/C vents for a couple seconds. Later that day, I found out that the A/C was no longer as cold as before. In fact, it felt like it was blowing air hotter than it was outside, which I believed should have been scientifically impossible. Turns out the A/C had just died, a crack in something or other as the mechanic explained (I don't really remember, I started to tune him out after he said it would cost $2000 to fix). Plus, the car had been making a weird, unexplained grinding noise for ... probably over a year. I tried to have it diagnosed, but no one could figure out a cause, so I just accepted and ignored it. So, after a month of procrastinating, and tolerating my increasingly hotter car baked by the afternoon sun, I began looking for a replacement car. After another month or so of actually searching, I finally said goodbye to Funeral Suit, traded-in for another car for surprisingly more than I thought anyone would pay. And now that I've said goodbye, how about some stories:

First off, Funeral Suit? I did choose the name after the band Funeral Suits (I think I'd been listening to "Colour Fade" a lot at the time). Plus, it also fit the car well: it's black; it covers my body; and, at the rate I'd been drinking and driving at the time, I legitimately believed I would die in it (along with whatever unfortunate souls that happened to be on the road).

As my co-workers told me within the first couple days of me getting the car, black isn't a good color. Unlike the way I choose clothes, black doesn't hide dirt but instead makes it stand out even more. And unfortunately, I didn't have the time to wash my car as much as I wanted. Eventually and reluctantly, I gave up and began taking it to the car wash instead of washing it by hand. On a positive note, I got to relive my childhood wonder of the car wash: your locked car rolling, not under your own power, through a darkened tunnel as water and foam cover your car, blinding you to the outside world, kraken tentacles slapping at the hull of your ship, banging to let them in, searching for any weak spot to exploit, and just when you see the light at the end, hope and escape close enough to touch, hurricane winds threaten to push you right back into the fray. Then the shame of sitting comfortably while some guy goes around the outside, giving your car a once over. Sometimes I feel like I should be getting out to help, after all, that used to be my job for several years.

One time, when driving on my way to work in the morning, a guy in the lane next to mine put on his blinker to cut into my lane. It felt like it was too early to be a dick, so I took my foot off the gas pedal and let the car slow on it's own to let him into the lane. I also needed to give my brake pedal a slight tap to slow down enough. Apparently, this pissed-off the guy behind me and he honks his horn to let me know just how mad he is about this slowing-down slightly situation. At the same time, the other guy had not only finished cutting into the lane, but also heard the horn honk. I guess thinking that I honked at him, instead of a wave or shaka, the guy decides to flip me off instead.

Funeral Suit also helped me to haul rock to fix our backyard/under the house. Candy, in an attempt to avoid the rain, decided to start squeezing herself over this short wall to get underneath the house. To give herself more room under there though, she started digging up the dirt, which also started exposing the stilts holding the house off the ground. So, I headed to Home Depot and started loading up a flatbed cart with bags of gravel as well as those large, smooth river stones. Well, 10 bags through the checkout line later, I'm pushing the cart through the parking lot and the worry finally hits. I'm driving a sedan, can it handle this much of a load? Well, doing some quick math (5 people at 200lbs is 1000lbs which is greater than the weight of 10 bags of rocks) I figure I should be okay. But then again, that weight is meant to be spread throughout the car, not all stuffed into the trunk and, at the time, I'd yet to determine just how many adult bodies I could fit into the trunk. So I put the first bag in the trunk and the car dropped. Then another bag and it dropped further. Finally, with all the bags inside, it looked like the car was barely an inch above the wheels. Deciding to tempt it, I started up the car, moving slowly at first, no problems, then a little faster, no problems, I slowed as I thought I heard a scraping noise going over the speed bumps, then just started going and I managed to haul it all home without incident though driving slow enough that I watched everyone cut around me the whole drive.

Living up to it's name, I did have a couple of memorable, intoxicated drives home (though not as many as you would expect). And by that I mean that I don't remember really driving home, just getting into the car and then being at home, with a very brief section in the middle that I spent arguing with myself about driving home. It was kind of like those "Don't Drink and Drive" commercials you know, the one with the guy arguing with himself in the mirror... except in reverse. I was the one saying that I was fine to drive home, and my haggard-looking reflection in the rearview mirror was the one telling me to stop. "We're going to jail," I vaguely remember him saying before I started the engine. I probably just laughed and drove away. Then I got home and everything worked out, though I did remember to check the front of my car for blood. It's the responsible thing to do.

Goodbye to that one pair of shoes and that shirt (Eulogy part 1 of 3)

I was out at a bar with some friends about two weeks ago when someone asked me about my shoes, and whatever happened to the Onitsuka Tigers I used to wear (I write slow). As you can probably guess, I don't own a lot of clothes so to have something go missing from my normal rotation stands out. I'd actually gotten rid of them awhile back, but never got around to giving them the proper send-off they deserve. I wrote them a eulogy of sorts at the time, though never got around to typing it out, but better late than never I guess:

Onitsuka Tiger shoes

These shoes I got as a gift from Michelle for my 21st birthday. Actually, as she explained, it was a requirement for getting into Tsukiji's back when it used to not only be around, but also turned into a club on Saturday nights. This was especially true because, and I'm not joking, up until my 21st birthday, I bought ALL of my shoes from Sports Authority (except for the shoes I wore for school). And most of those were running shoes, all of which would eventually become farm shoes once they were beaten up enough to be replaced. However, after putting these shoes on for the first time that night, I knew that they would never meet the same fate. They were too light, too thin, too nice to use for anything but wearing. And, for several years, they served their purpose gallantly, accompanying me many, many nights out and about. They fit great, in a way that said "I work best when just standing in the moment, the one article of clothing that does it's job of making you appear as a reasonably passable male of adult age, but if shit goes down, I'm light-weight and athletic enough to get you the fuck out of here... and to keep my form when we stride into the next bar." (At least, I think that's what they would've said, I'm not good at writing dialogue). That night I first got them we wandered back and forth from Tsukijis and Mai Tais and the parking lot smoking area, they crushed several chain-smoked cigarettes, and half-walked, half-dragged (okay, mostly dragged) my useless body back to Michelle's couch. My most memorable event involving these shoes, though, is the night I threw up on them after karaoke at Blue Ribbon. It was one of those nights that I didn't drive, so at the end of the night we all piled into a friend's minivan. I forgot that I get carsick relatively easily, especially after drinking what apparently qualified as "too much", so when we stopped I just jumped out, not caring if it was my stop or not, and started puking up everything. Apparently, it wasn't my stop, nor was I completely off the road, but rather in the thin strip of road marked as a "bike lane." I remember hearing someone say, "Alan, there's a car coming," before I saw the headlights right on me. What happened next is still a mystery. Everyone confirms there was a sound as the car passed by, a "Thwok" if I had to figure out a word for it. Now I can't say if it was car mirror whacking my arm and I was too drunk to feel it, or (more likely) if it caught part of my too-large t-shirt, or something to do with the wind as the car sped passed. The only thing I do know is that I threw up all over my shoes, which I washed the next evening as I ended up getting dragged to the farm the next day and didn't get around to the shoes until later, just in time to scrub the caked vomit, dried from spending all day in the sun, off of them. Before letting them go, it was kind of like I was just walking on the cement barefoot, with maybe an inch of cardboard between my feet and the ground.


Also, while I'm doing this, I'd actually written one for that one polo shirt I wore everywhere:

I'm still not sure where or when I even got this shirt, it just feels like one of those things that I've always had. For all I know, I could've had it since high school (it's not as if I've bought a different size of clothing since I turned 16). I do know that I didn't buy it, I assume it was probably a Christmas gift from a relative who wanted me to start dressing nicer (which honestly, may not narrow it down too much). In the beginning I hated it, which was basically my attitude toward anything that wasn't a t-shirt. It was just something I kept around in case I needed it/because it still fit. I'm still not sure how it got into my suitcase to Japan. But that's where I found it's purpose: as the one thing that I owned nicer than a t-shirt, but more comfortable than the one button-down shirt I owned. Because when you're nervous about going to someplace you've never been before, it's best to have something comfortable to wear ... so it's easier to run away in case the need presents itself. And that night it got me through, completely sober, for my first-time in a nightclub (drunken Alan wouldn't awaken until a couple months later). Since I'm not good at taking pictures, I needed to skim through Facebook to find a picture of me in this shirt (also because I dumped it before I remembered to take a picture of it for this piece) and, in my search I also managed to find an image from that night

And that reminded me of this story: We were hanging out at a bar before heading to the club. I was wearing that shirt. Everyone left the bar to go... someplace (I don't really remember) and so I started talking with two of our dormmates that had come with us that I didn't really know. Then they started talking to each other in Korean and I was effectively out of the conversation. Bored, I started watching the bar TV. A drunk, Japanese guy started talking to me. Honestly, at first I really thought he wanted to talk about the soccer game on the TV (it was a sports bar, sort of). Then he started leaning closer, which I thought was because it was loud at the bar and he couldn't hear me talking about the game. His friend managed to pull him away before he got his hand going any further down my back. Besides the shirt's role as Alan's one slightly nicer shirt, it also made it's way into the rotation of polo-shirts I wear for work (I was told the dress code was long pants and a collared shirt, and I've followed it to the minimum for the past 6 years). With it's weekly use though, I'm certain that's how those two holes started forming in the back of the shirt. Worst part, since I dress in the dark and typically wear a jacket all day because the office is freezing, I didn't actually notice the holes until I was turning it inside-out when my finger got caught in one of the holes (not the bigger of the two). Then I realized it was time to retire the shirt. Since then, I've yet to find a shirt to replace it. Sure, I've got a bunch of other polo shirts, but none like that one. It was oddly soft and comfortable (all the other ones I've got are heavier in material), and it fit exactly how I wanted it to fit, which is probably not how a shirt should fit, but I still liked it. You will be are missed.

#41 part 2

"That's not your wand," I said sternly as I stepped toward him, hand outstretched. With my other hand I motioned to the chaos around us, the growing destruction and death, the fear on everyone's faces. "That's not your wand. You might believe that it is, but do you know it is, feel it is? Does it call to you, sing to you, promise you anything and everything? A pen might be your wand, but not that particular pen."

He paused and stared at the plastic pen, the reverence he formerly held for the object slowly disappeared from his eyes. He dropped to his knees and tossed the pen aside, sending it clattering down the asphalt. "So what's happening to me?" he said, "I've never felt anything like this before, never had anything like this happen before. I'd always known I had magic, tingling just below the surface, but I'd never tapped into it until now. And now, I can't turn it off."

It was my turn now to shrug my shoulders. "That's magic," I said, "Most folks are just Tier 1 or 2, magical powers nowhere near as strong as yours. Hell, some Tier 1 don't even use their power because it's more draining than just doing the task manually. They can channel their power through random, everyday objects. At Tier 3 and 4 though, the 'wand' you need to channel your power needs to be a specific object, something you are drawn to or might hold a certain sentimental value. At Tier 5, the highest and most powerful magic users need a very, very specific object to channel their power, something like a family heirloom, passed from one generation to the next."

Slowly, I reached behind my back to reveal an old Colt revolver. Immediately, I felt the man's magic start to swirl faster, hostile. "Easy now. Let's take it easy," I said, holding the gun by it's barrel. "Do you have anything like this? I'm a Tier Five. This gun has been in my family for generations. It's my great, great, great grandfather's. He was an officer, too. Whenever they would talk about him, they would say that he served his entire career without firing a single shot. That his focus was on protecting everyone, that everyone could be saved." I felt the magic around us start to slow as he relaxed a little. I let out a short laugh, "I can only use it to control my power as long as the gun remains intact, bullets and all. I can't even shoot with it or it becomes useless."

The man stared at the gun, then shook his head. "We came here when I was three, my family and I. My mother brought us over to escape the war. I barely remember what home was like, or even where it was. We were refugees. We were poor. Moved around a lot. We didn't keep anything that we couldn't carry, couldn't help us to survive."

I let out a sigh. Without a wand, there was no way to control his power, to keep it from lashing out of control whenever he was tempted to use it, or whenever it might accidentally get away from him. I took a quick glance at my wrist and saw the screen was bright red, "Tier Five" printed in bold black.

Shit, I thought as I looked back to the man. His eyes reflected the fear that was growing in me. I put the gun back behind my back and quickly grabbed his shoulders, staring into his watery eyes. "Let's relax, we just need to figure out what your wand might be and where to find it and we can put this whole mess behind us. I want you think back on a happy memory, a memory that resonates strongly with you. The object is has to be hidden within that memory, I guarantee it."

Lies. All of it lies as I watched him hesitantly shut his eyes, his magic the encircled us starting to settle into a still haze. I almost didn't go through with it. I watched a smile spread on his face, the swirling magic slowing, almost disappearing. He opened his mouth, probably to describe what he was seeing. At least that's what the other one did, and I hesitated back then. But I learned my lesson from the last time. With 30,000 dead at my feet, I promised I wouldn't hesitate again. Before he could speak, I tapped the back of his neck twice and then dove to the side. With my revolver in hand, I unleashed my power in a wave, a torrent of red rising out of me and suppressing the remaining blue magic still in the air. I could feel his magic react defensively, attempting to rise back up to protect him from an unknown threat. I forced it back down, giving Lee a clean line of sight through my rifle's scope. The man opened his eyes just as the bullet passed through the base of his neck and the crack! of the gun echoed through the empty street. He was dead before he hit the ground.

I pulled my service pistol and pointed it at the dead man, waiting for the slightest twitch. A couple seconds passed before I got the courage to tap his feet with my boot. Limp. "Good kill, Lee," I said in the walkie as I holstered my weapon and motioned for the rest of the team to move in to contain the scene. Officers, paramedics, and other personnel flooded onto the scene as I stepped out of the way.

"Looks like that bastard got exactly what he deserved." I turned to find Officer Grant standing next to me, a bag of ice on his shoulder.

I punched him in the stomach, hard, doubling him over. I debated putting my boot to the side of his head, but I wanted him awake for this next part. "Don't be an asshole. It's not his fault that he turned out to be a Tier Five, especially in his situation. But the law is clear, especially after The Hobbs Incident: A Tier Five without a wand, without control, is a threat on the scale of mass destruction." I turned and walked away, furious at that asshole Grant, but mostly at myself, thinking about my heirloom and the legacy I wanted so much to follow. That next time, I hoped I would find a way.



Thanks to Reddit Writing Prompts: "Magic is available to everyone, and everyone has their own unique magical signature... The issue comes in finding the correct tool to channel it" Originally, this was just an action story, where the main character would somehow loose his tool to control magic, only to unleash it wildly and defeat his enemies. Then I got bored of that idea and started to think about what if you weren't able to find your tool to channel magic, what would life be like then? This is actually a lot longer than what I'm allowed to post on Reddit, and even that one needed to be shortened due to length. I went over it another time, making it more of what I wanted before deciding to split it into 2 parts so it's easier to digest. As for the title, "#41", after writing it, it reminded me of an X-Men story I'd heard about, where Wolverine kills a kid because he's too dangerous (I think you could probably Google "Wolverine kills kid"). Turns out its Issue 41 of Ultimate X-Men, so I thought I'd just use that as the title (plus I couldn't think of one).

#41 part 1

I set up the rifle on the ledge of the roof, seven stories above the street below. Next to me, Officer Lee set up with his binoculars. Up there, everything seemed normal: the air was still as a flock of birds flew by, people in floors above went about their business. Down below though, that was a different matter entirely.

"So what's the word, boss? Looks like terrorists, though I thought they said this was a bank robbery or something. Not much of a robbery if the guy doesn't take any money," said Lee as he looked through the binoculars at the street below, sweeping the street with his eyes to get a sense of what was going on down there.

I flipped open the caps on the rifle's scope and took in the street seven floors above it all. Cars parked along the sidewalk, at least 7 with some damage. An abandoned bicycle lying in the road, groceries scattered next to it. A city bus flipped on its side. I counted 17 people lying in the street, 3 possibly dead, the rest were at least still moving to some degree, though for how long I couldn't tell from my vantage point. And there was the one man standing in the middle of the street, blue magic leaking out of him like a cloud of blue dust in all directions, an aura of magic surrounding him. Most of it was just harmless light, passing and phasing through the rest of the world. The other ones, the rogue ones, those were the ones that did interact: swirling in tendrils around him like eels caught in an invisible current around him as it pushed objects out of its path, or sometimes just tore through them. "Might've started as a robbery, but it's something much worse now."

"Gotta be at least a Tier 3 magic user, with his power being visible and all," said Lee. He put down his binoculars and turned to me. "You ever see magic act like that? Streaking around as if it might be alive or something?"

"A couple of times. Unstable magic. We might have a potential Hobbs Incident down there," I replied. I turned my scope to the circle of officers enclosing on the man. Officer Grant stepped forward from the group, gun drawn. "Dumbass, put that thing away," I said to myself as I turned the scope to the man in the middle of the street. I watched him flinch, then whip his hand wildly through the air, as if trying to swat away a swarm of bees. Taking my eye out from behind the scope, I watched as blue magic lashed out like a whip, striking Grant and sending him flying through the air, landing hard on the pavement. A second later, a barrage of gunfire erupted from the street below as the officers fired on the male. The magic came to life and swirled faster than I could track, knocking aside every bullet and leaving the man unharmed.

"Dammit," I said as I fumbled for my walkie. "Everyone hold your fire! Hold your fire dammit!" When the bullets stopped, I handed the rifle over to Lee. "I'm going down there. Keep your eyes on me," I emphasized, staring him in the eyes as I handed over the rifle. He nodded as he took it. I headed toward the staircase and began my descent. In the building lobby, I paused for a second and looked at the device on my wrist. "Definitely a Tier 3, at least," I said to myself based on the readings the device was picking up. I pulled my old revolver from its holster behind my back, a relic from generations before, and gave the wheel a spin before tucking it back. Then I stepped through the doorway and into chaos.

I could feel the magical forces as soon as I stepped outside the building - it pushed at irregular intervals, sometimes as light as a breeze, sometimes as strong as a shove - the magic was a blue eddy swirling all around him. Immediately, I raised my hands above my head. "Sir, I'm a police officer. I'm coming over to talk. I can help you," I said, taking a tentative step forward. The man in the street turned his gaze upon me. Tears ran down his face as he gazed at me for a second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Finally, he nodded and I started forward to the middle of the street.

Even though he agreed to the meeting, it still didn't stop the constant swirling of magic around him, magic moving out of control, strong and oppressive it filled the air. At times, the force grew so strong that I needed to use my own power to press against it, repelling it as softly as possible as not to trigger another attack, like a bug trying to walk across a spider's web. I put a hand on the gun behind my back and my own magic, its signature red color slowly manifested around me, helping me to navigate my way to the man in the street, a barrier between his power and me. For the most part I kept it as a thin film, just strong enough to push my way slowly through the radiating magic. At times I did need to strengthen it, especially against the tendrils, pure magic pressed together and let loose. The trick was to not let out too much power to trigger his defenses.

He was just a kid, maybe a couple years out of high school, early twenties at the most. But no where near old enough to be letting loose with this kind of power. His clothes were frayed at the edges, holes in his jeans and jacket, hair disheveled and caked with dirt. Actually, it didn't look like there was an inch of him that wasn't covered in dirt. And, he was crying, tears running down his face, cutting streaks in the the dirt on his face. "I don't understand," he said when I'd gotten within arm's length, "I don't know why this is happening. I finally found my wand, I found it. Why won't it obey me?" He raised his right hand toward the sky and stared at it with reverence, as if it were the most sacred artifact ever discovered.

I stared at his hand, at the pen: a simple, black ballpoint with part of a silver chain still attached. The item stolen from the bank. Magic continued to swirl uncontrollably around us, lashing out at odd intervals, physically striking out at buildings, smashing windows, one tendril of power whipped at a fire hydrant and sent it flying into a brick wall and water spraying into the air. Out of control, unstable.


part 2... I don't know, probably tomorrow, I'm almost done with the edit and it was getting long

Books of 2018: Quarter 1

Another 3 months, another set of books. I do find myself reading less (or maybe just slower) these days, especially after Monster Hunter World was released (I'm still trying to catch-up) and just general laziness. I fell off on the writing, but I'll try to get that started back up too.


Echo Burning by Lee Child

In another Jack Reacher novel, Reacher finds himself hitchhiking through Texas where he is picked up by a woman with an interesting proposition: to kill her husband. She gives him a story that her husband was abusing her, right up until a year ago when he was sent to jail. Now that he's about to get out early, she's afraid that the beatings will start up again so she needs Reacher to kill her husband to protect her and her child. Reacher refuses and instead presents her with less drastic options, which she in turn refuses. But when her husband is killed the same night as he's released and the woman arrested for the murder, Reacher sets out to prove her innocence.

Another great Jack Reacher novel, Child keeps a good pace throughout the story, mixing together moments of action and moments of investigation (Reacher was supposed to be an investigator with the Military Police, after all). Giving the perspective of the bad guys spliced into the rest of the story was great to build the tension until they and Reacher come to a climactic gun fight, and honestly, one of the most thought-out gunfights ever put to the page. As much as I would like to see this book adapted into a movie (which, honestly, is one of the reasons I've been reading all of these books), which it probably could, I think it would lose something in terms of showing off Reacher's investigative prowess, especially in that particular scene. I'm not sure what else to write about as a review, as this is the 5th Jack Reacher book I've read (and I just finished another one), and the best part is that they are all basically the same: Reacher encounters a problem, Reacher solves a problem. Basically, if you want a mystery novel (I mean, there's a crime to solve so I guess it counts as a mystery novel) about Jack Reacher solving crimes and kicking ass, you'll like this book.


Gilded Cage by Vic James

Set in England, the Equals, armed with magical abilities known as the Skill, rule over the normal population as society's elites. To further reinforce their rule, they force the rest of the population to serve 10 years of slave labor, known as Slave Days. The story follows the Hadley family as they serve their Slave Days together at the Kyneston family estate, elite amongst elites. A clever idea set up by their eldest daughter, Abigail, to keep the family together as an individual can't serve their years until 18 years old, unless they are part of a family unit. Except the estate doesn't have need for Luke, their middle child, who is thus sent away instead to a slave town to serve out his 10 years doing manual labor, though he is still a minor. The story follows Abigail as she works at the estate amongst the Equals while trying to find a way to get her brother back to their family; as well as Luke as he struggles to survive, and keep from being broken, in the slave town.

One of the more terrifying books involving Magical Realism I've ever read. No, it isn't a horror novel, but it is scary to see magic used to rule so completely over people. Typically, in Magical Realism, the main character either has access or will have access to magic to level the power gap between him/her and the evil-doers and thus fight back at the moment the situation looks hopeless. Instead, the reader knows that Abigail and Luke will never have access to that power, that their enemies will always be stronger. I did like the little bits provided to show the reader how the world has changed with the rise of the Equals throughout the globe: in England, the Equals took over the country through regicide; in France, the French Revolution became a battle of the commoners against the Equals in which the commoners took back power in their country; and in Japan, the Imperial Family demonstrates it's power and right to rule by blooming all of the country's cherry blossoms at once.

As the first part to a trilogy, I will spoil that it does end on a cliffhanger, one that almost got me to go out and buy the next one in hardcover (at least I didn't see it in paperback yet), especially now that the third part is coming later this month. And buying something in hardcover, to me, is a big deal ... because I'm cheap, and there are literally only 2 books I've ever bought in hardcover, ever.


Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

First off, before I get to the plot, I do want to say this book was so, so much better than the first book. FitzChivalry, royal bastard and apprentice assassin, having recovered from his poisoning and own attempted assassination, returns to the kingdom to find things changed: King Shrewd a shadow of his former self; King-in-Waiting Verity beginning to show signs of his former self; Prince Regal schemes almost openly for the crown; Molly, the girl he though he had lost, returns a different woman; Master Assassin Chade begins to show his age. Fitz now takes a more active role in his kingdom, still assisting his king and the king-in-waiting in a role others may find dishonorable, but still very necessary. The kingdom is finally able to mount a defense against the Red Ship Raiders, but Fitz must still deal with the Forged, broken victims of the Raiders. He must use both Skill (an ability to link the minds of individuals) and Wit (a forbidden art to link the minds of a human and an animal) to fight against his enemies. And he must discover the truth behind the plot for the crown and rule of the kingdom.

As much as I liked this book more than the first, it still took me a month or so to finish (still not sure why it always takes me so long to finish high-fantasy stories). Basically, now that all of the set up was done, we are finally into the story. Fitz now takes an active role against the story's many antagonists rather than just sitting on the sidelines and learning about them. This new role finally makes him an actor in the story and not just an observer, a role that was missing in the previous book. Fitz battles physically against the Raiders, the Forged (victims of the the Raiders magic that have lost their humanity), and even his own people. He must outwit his opponents in the Kingdom's nobility, his every action and even inaction scrutinized by the rest of the court which could possibly undermine his position. Once again, the book ends in cliffhanger, but at least I'm now looking forward to reading the next one rather than just doing it out of obligation.


After a long, high-fantasy novel, I decided on some easy reading with some old comic books :

Nemesis by Mark Millar

What if Bruce Wayne decided to be a super-villain instead? That's probably the best way to describe this comic book about a bored billionaire that decides to go after a local police chief out of revenge for his parents. He's just as rich and brilliant as Batman, creating riddles to his next crime only for the police to figure them out after he's already carried out his mission. Unlike Batman though, he's lethal, killing anyone who gets in his way. Can the police chief catch him before he's completed his plan? Can anyone stop him?


Wanted by Mark Millar

What if all the superheroes were dead, and the super-villains controlled the world? Yeah, a lot different from the movie. Like the movie though, Wesley Gibson inherits his father's position in The Fraternity after his father's assassination: his wealth, weapons, and status within the group. Before he gets it all though, he must complete a training exercise to unlock his potential and change him from just another worthless human being into the greatest killer on the planet. Because, that, after all, is Wesley's superpower: the power to kill people.

So, just to get this out of the way, I've read this one many, many times before. I even delivered the final, 4th-wall-breaking monologue of the comic in English class one year (I mostly remember getting a lot of odd looks from the older people in the class). I think this was one of the first comic books I ever bought with my own money and it definitely changed my perspective of what the genre could be, not just stories about superheroes saving the day, but a re-imagining of a world with superpowers, and the consequences of it. Definitely an inspiration to any of the superpower stories I've ever written.