I've Been Watching Arrow. Have You?

Dear Wal,

I sat down this morning, completely prepared to write a post about fanfiction. I was proud of myself for actually coming up with something to write about, since for the past few...months, my posts have been more than rare. They're on the endangered species list. Anyway, I was about to let my creativity flow happily into a post about one of my favorite subjects other than Batman, and then I realized I had already posted on this subject. Twice.
It's a good thing that I searched my posts before I started typing. Otherwise I would be in big trouble right now. This is the problem with having written over a hundred posts now: I've run out of stuff to talk about.

That's when I realized that I did have something to talk about-something I could ramble on about until the end of the world. Superheroes-or, more specifically, the new Green Arrow tv show on the CW.
The story is decent. The actors are great. The premise is interesting. The potential is fantastic.
Since this is my only frame of reference for live action superhero TV, I've got to compare it to Smallville. Arrow is basically a much darker (and much better, sorry to those diehard Smallville fans out there), Oliver Queen version of Smallville. Except, we aren't being forced to live through Oliver's highschool years (thank goodness). Instead, the story of the five years Ollie was abandoned on a deserted island is told alongside Ollie's current exploits in Starling City (...why didn't they just call it Star City?). This style of telling the story is much more pleasant than the way Smallville was set up. We don't have to wait ten seasons to see Ollie in tights and a hood.
Oliver's father, Richard, leaves him a journal that contains a list of names and all the information Oliver needs to hunt down and kill the members of a secret organization (as yet unnamed) who have been controlling the criminal element in Starling City. These people have their hooks in everything-drugs, guns, you name it. And there's a Russian mob. And a Chinese mob. Plenty of gangsters for everyone. Oh, and Deadshot. And the Royal Flush gang. And Deathstroke (!!!). And Huntress. And Tommy Merlyn is Ollie's best friend. Dead giveaway.
It's pretty obvious what WB is trying to do here. It's been done before in the comics many times: Green Arrow (or just the dude in the hood, or the Hood, as he's called on Arrow) as a replacement Batman. Starling City is pseudo Gotham. The two characters are similar (the arrow car, please spare me), but there are some key differences. For instance, Ollie actually has a sense of humor. That's my main problem with Arrow: Oliver's personality. He's completely cut off to the point that even the audience has trouble connecting with him. With the introduction of Huntress, this started to improve a little, but not much. Me, I prefer the Oliver from Smallville.
Spoilers be here, so I suggest you evacuate if you don't want to know.

For those of you who read the comics, you know who Merlyn is: Green Arrow's archenemy. Obviously, this is going to play out like Smallville, except not quite as obvious (everyone knows Lex Luthor, not so much when it comes Merlyn). Now, whether or not it's Tommy or Tommy's dad (It's Jack! O:) remains to be seen. At this point, I'm thinking Tommy's dad, since he's the evil leader of the evil organization of Starling City's rich and famous, but anything could happen. Judging by the preview for tonight's episode, I bet we're going to find out pretty soon.

Okay. It's safe now. You can look again.

How does he do that?! D8

Let me just say, I'm excited about this show. I can't wait to see where it's going, and I hope it doesn't get canceled (like The Cape, and failed wonder woman show) because it's freaking epic. Stephen Amell can do the most badass pull ups ever.



/endrant

P.S. One of four college classes to go, and I've deteriorated to the point that I'm having all-day Queen marathons. Someone save me, please.

P.P.S. IT WAS THE FATHER. I KNEW IT.

The Black Dog

Dear Wal,

I realized just now that I've never told this story. It's a story about the first story I ever tried to write. The one that taught me everything I know about writing and revealed to me how insane my imagination (and, well, the rest of my mind) is. It started when I was eight years old, and I had this crazy dream about being chased by a clown. I was never afraid of clowns, so I don't have a clue where that came from, but he was wielding this sharpie marker thing that was supposed to smell good (but really it was the nastiest thing on the planet) that I used to have in real life. I hated that stupid marker. Anyway, he was using it as a torture device and terrorizing the whole town with it. I think the town was Spectre from the movie Big Fish. I think I had seen it for the first time recently.

How I imagined him before I could draw

Spectre's savior in my dream was an uncanny one. A big black dog. Think of the hound of the Baskervilles and Sirius Black, and you've got the effect it had on my childhood mind. I became instantly fascinated with this character, and the dream continued over several days. Kind of like watching episodes of a TV show. I don't remember what happened exactly, but in the end the black dog saved the day and everyone was happy, woop-de-do. Seems like a fairly simple story, right? WRONG.
I was too young and ignorant to realize this, but Black had seeded himself in my mind and he was growing like a cancer. I like to think of it like Mal from Inception, because that's exactly what happened. I got this idea, and it nearly drove me insane. I started trying to write down the story from my dream, but it was no good because by the time I figured out that was what I needed to do I had already forgotten most of the dream. The original story was lost to me, so I made it up. Or rather, tried to. I didn't realize what the ramifications of this decision really meant.
It started out to be fairly simple: Black was protecting the town from some kind of evil dude (I took out the clown because I thought that was stupid) and he went on all kinds of adventures to do so. At this stage, I was actually enjoying myself. It was fun. I had never done anything like this before. After that, however, things just went downhill. My first draft (which I can't find anywhere, sadly-although I'm not sure if I want a glimpse into my eight year old self) failed utterly. And so did the one after that. And the one after that. I didn't get it. I couldn't understand why I couldn't finish this story.

Sucky version of Ratanger's wolf form

Then Araucania arrived. Araucania is another as-yet-unfinished story of mine, about a fantasy world being taken over by winter. You see, the magic was based on the seasons, and the different kinds of magic had gotten out of balance for some reason. Black became the Chosen One who was going to bring balance to the Force once again. At first, he was still just a dog, but then I decided since he was surrounded by human characters he needed to be human to. But I didn't want to let go of him being a dog, so I made him a shapeshifter. Thus was born the Mirgans: a race of super strong shapeshifting warriors.
Black became Ratanger, a blind man who had taught himself to fight despite his disability, and who had vast magical power that had as yet been untapped. This story did have a villain: his name was the Ice Lord, and he was...well, the lord of ice. He was just sort of there for Ratanger to battle, there wasn't much dimension to him. Ratanger, however, became extremely complex. There were layers upon layers to this character, many of which I hadn't even tapped into yet. As my instructor Lynn would say, Ratanger was like an onion. Every time I peeled off and resolved a layer, it revealed more layers and more problems.
Araucania went through many, many more versions. I lost count somewhere around twenty, I think. I couldn't finish that story either. In the midst of all this, I started to genuinely believe I was going insane. I went  to my mom one day and told about all of it, and how crazy it was, and how I thought I was crazy (she later told me that when I came to her she thought I was going to tell her I was doing drugs or something-this was how bad the state I was in was). She explained to me that this was just what characters did. They drove you crazy. It was all perfectly normal. This revelation was a relief, but it still left the problem of my unfinished story unsolved.
After a few more turns on the "let's rewrite, again!" wheel, I decided it was time to bring Ratanger back to planet Earth and make him Black again. This seemed to help. I didn't have him rattling around in my head about the injustice of being transplanted to another world where he didn't belong anymore, but I still couldn't finish the damn story. Finally, I took a step back and seriously looked at what the heck was going on. I was eleven or twelve at this point, and I was tired of Black. Really, really tired of Black. I decided that the first thing that was wrong was that there was no villain. Not really, anyway. However much I wanted to, I couldn't use the Ice Lord as my villain because he belonged to another world. Thus was born Greyback. Greyback was a wolf, who hated Black and caused havoc for no apparent reason, but that was alright. Greyback didn't need a motive. He was an agent of chaos. Black and Greyback became my Holmes and Moriarty, my Batman and Joker. It was perfect. But I still couldn't finish the damn story.

Black & Moonlight
I don't know either, so don't ask

So I trashed Greyback and made a whole new villain: a human (for some reason, I thought turning my characters into humans would fix everything) who was this crazy serial killer person, and Black was trying to stop him from killing people. He was essentially the same character as Greyback, except in human form. I even carried over the name as his nickname. I had conflict, I had a villain. You might think this would give me the ability to finish the story. Nope.
So then I added romance into the equation, in the form of a golden retriever named Moonlight. That didn't help either. I think she only lasted one or two rewrites. And new problems were arising. Greyback was growing as a character, and competing for my attention over Black. Plus, Black was expanding as well. He had become a roleplay character in the various wolf-themed roleplays I participated in on the wild currents of the internet. Black had consumed every aspect of my life. There was no where I could go, nothing I could do, to escape from him.

Blackest of Nights-the RP version
(I didn't draw this, BTW, it was a gift)
Black went through many RP versions as well, not something
I want to reiterate here

Somewhere in all this, Greyback gained an actual name: John Burdock. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, here we have a very basic version of Tom Burdock, whom I consider my quintessential villain. He started to demand his own stories, too, and I was happy to oblige because it was a relief from Black. Plus, the whole group of characters I had made up to accompany Ratanger in Araucania started complaining about the way their story had fallen to pieces after I cruelly ripped Ratanger out and turned him back into Black. Then came Nanowrimo, my first year ever. I tried to write Black, of course, and failed utterly. That was it.
I gave up.
I quit.
I was too tired and too bewildered to handle any of this anymore.
I took a break, a well deserved break. I was nearly fourteen, I had spent six years on this story and nothing good had come of it. I had nearly lost my mind, spent about three of those six years despairing over something that wasn't even real and had nothing to show for it. The following summer was the year I applied to the VEC, and got in to my delight. I had spent enough time without Black driving me crazy to take another look at his story. Plus, I was in English 1 with a very good teacher (you rock, Miss Wright-yes, that's her name) and I had a better sense of what a story needed to be in order to be successful. For a while, I thought maybe I was going to have to try NaNo again with Black because the story wasn't getting anywhere. And then my mom said:

The final version

"Just write it!"
You go Mom.
So I did write it. And it ended up being a lot shorter than I had originally intended. Only about a page and a half. All of my original concepts were in it: Black was trying to save someone from Greyback, and it even had an entertaining twist at the end. And that was it. The end. Black never bothered me again after that. His story had finally been written, however short it was, and he was satisfied. For a long time I wondered whether or not I had done him justice, but eventually I decided that was enough. I had found a way to shut him up, and make us both happy.
But Black was the thing that launched me onto the wild roller coaster ride of this thing that I like to call my writing "career."

/endrant

P.S. Wow. That was long.

I Win.

Dear Wal,

This time yesterday, I was on the edge of glory, with 49,500 words and counting. I really didn't think I would make it through that last 500 words, but I did. But by no means did I reach an end. Jason's story is so vast and complex now that an end looks a daunting 100 or 200 pages away from the 120 pages I've already written. It's incomprehensible to me that I've come up with that much story in the past...what, two years? It feels insane and impossible and ridiculous. Just like the story itself.
There isn't any common thread of plot throughout the 120 pages I've written, except Jason (no duh) and there are so many gaps. But that's the only way I could make it through NaNo. Every time I got bored, I went back and started on one of the many stories I planned but never wrote. They exists as parts of chapters in what I've officially christened as a legit book. Which is weird, because few things that I've written I would consider books. Most of them are short stories, collections of short stories or novellas. About 90% of them unfinished, of course.
The thing is, I've got to finish Jason's story (or at least get caught up to where I am in my head) but it's going to be a very long ride. But that's alright, because-for the most part-Jason is a happy guy. He isn't going to go on tormented tirades and wreck my plot, or drown in the little evils of too many subplots. He's also a superhero, and that makes everything easier. Things in superhero land don't have to make sense to the readers, they only have to make sense to the superheroes. Over thinking superhero stories (unless you're a GENIUS like Frank Miller or Allan Moore or Grant Morrison) is where you get into trouble.
Anyway, I'm rambling. A lot. Which is funny, because this is a rant. So, technically I should be ranting. Here I go with the over complicating things again.
What do I think about my astounding accomplishment?
It was actually slightly...I don't know, easy. Easier than last year, anyway. The biggest problem I had to grapple with was boredom. I was going crazy with boredom. My writing ADHD was like: BUT I CAME UP WITH THIS AWESOME IDEA FOR TOM'S STORY...and I was like: NO. ONLY. JASON. DANGIT. NO. MUST. KEEP. WRITING! Writing has become like a switch in my head, I turn it on and I may or may not be able to turn it off. Or direct it where I want it to go. It's like that puzzle with the three light bulbs in one room, and the three switches in the other. You're in the room with the switches, and you have to figure out which switch goes to which light bulb, but you can only go in the room with the light bulbs once and you can't see that room at all from where you are in the room with the switches. It's like that, only I don't get to go into the room with the bulbs at all. I flip a switch, and I haven't got a clue what bulb turns on.
Yay for complicated analogies.
What am I going to do now that NaNo is over? Why, exams! What else? All my classes end on December 14th. Finally. And then my sister is coming home for Christmas on the 17th. I'm excited. I haven't seen her in over a year. Christmas is going to be fun this year, because my aunts and my uncle and my brother and my niece are all coming as well as my sister and her boyfriend. It's going to be awesome.
Furthermore, what am I going to write?
I honestly have no idea.
And you know what? That's exciting. I'm leaving the promised land of winning NaNo, and venturing out into a new frontier better armed and more fit than ever. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

/endrant

P.S. I've never eaten a twinkie. They look nasty.

40,000 Words And a Few Tips

Dear Wal,

I don't believe it. I almost can't believe it. It doesn't make any sense. How in the world did I end up here, with ninety pages of nothing but Jason before me on the screen? Just goes to show how much material I had sitting around in my head. I was afraid for a while after I hit 30,000 words that I was going to run out of material, but no end is yet in sight. Not that there ever could be an end to a story about a superhero. They just don't work like that. I'll probably end up giving one of those "And he fights on..." endings to Jason. Although, I couldn't think of a better way to do him justice than that.
This has been a very interesting experience, mostly because it's the first Nano where I haven't had to seriously struggle. It's like being in shape. Running four miles isn't so hard any more, and that stupid hellish hill isn't so painful. I mean, I've gotten into plot holes and I've dug my way out. Slowly, in some cases, but I made it out. And when the words didn't come, I just had to wait a little longer for them to come. Not days or weeks or anything like that, more like a few minutes. Writer's block has never really been a problem for me anyway, what was always the problem was that I got myself and my story into this huge snarly mess that no amount of industrial strength detangler could get me out of.
Even that has worked itself out. And that was a problem I never thought I would be able to kick. Granted, something awful might turn my story into crap in the next week (PLEASE NO D8) and prove me wrong on that count. But I doubt it. I've gotten to the point now where I'm not only committed, I've got a solid writing habit now. It's kind of an...amazing feeling. I'm winning. My crazy insane ridiculous writing and all of my crazy insane ridiculous characters are coming together to create something real-something that has weight to it (if I printed it out-I'm terrified of wasting that much paper, though).
I feel like a real writer now.
Not that I have any clue what that means, exactly.
Anyway, here are a few things that I've been doing to keep on going through this month of insanity:
1) Have a place. A spot where writing always happens. For me, it's this wonderful blue chair in my room, a Batman snuggie (yes, I have one of those) and a lava lamp. After a while, it becomes an automatic trigger. I sit down in the chair, I start thinking about writing.
2) Feel free to skip ahead or write things out of order. Jason's story has never been one that I think of in a linear way. It comes to me in episodes that are all out of order and disconnected, and then I have to figure out how to fit them all together in the right order. For instance, I started in the dark and stormy future-the epic final climax of my JLA arc, which is the final arc in everything I've come up with so far-and skipped back to writing about Catwoman and then back to the future and then back to Catwoman and then to Jason's origin. All out of order.
3) Turn off spell check. I know this sounds insane, and no self respecting college student would willingly do this. But I did, and it really helps. Those little wiggly lines get really annoying after a while, and they interrupt your flow of thought when you have to go back and fix them. (I'm terrified of turning spell check back on now. There are going to be little wiggly lines everywhere. Revision is not going to be a fun process.)
4) Immerse yourself in your genre. I've been reading comics, going on epic DC comics wiki safaris and playing DC universe online: absorbing as much superhero related media as I can. Not that I don't already do that...
5) Take a break. I don't mean stop writing. By no means stop writing. Just take your mind away from your novel for a while. I've been watching Doctor Who to get me thinking about something that isn't related to superheroes, and occasionally dabbling in a sci fi story I've been working on steadily since this summer.
6) Get some exercise. Go for a walk. Go feed your creatures if you have any. I've been running and working with my horses. It does wonders for getting all the junk out of your head.

/endrant

20,000 Words and My Writing ADHD

Dear Wal,

I've made it to 20,000 words, and with considerably less trepidation than I thought. Somehow, knowing that I can actually make it to 50,000 words has made this year much less of a struggle than NaNo was last year. It's like cross country, I know that I can run faster than this, but I don't figure that out until the next season. Just wait, I'll jinx myself and I won't make it to 30,000, but at this point I see no reason why I won't make it all the way to 50,000. I may not get much sleep in the process, but I will CONQUER this. And schoolwork. And work. And Buzzy. And running. Somehow, all these things will come together at the end of the month and make something wonderful. Or terrible, depending on the circumstances.
The only reason I've made it this far is because of something I've come to call writing ADHD. When I get stuck on one story or tired of that story, I move on to a different one. The only way this is possible for me to do and still have a cohesive, novel-like entity is through my fanfiction. It consists of many smaller interlocking stories, not unlike a comic book series (which was the point, alala). Anyway, when I get tired of writing about future Jason going back in time with a prophecy of Armageddon  I start writing about Tommy going on a quest for truth on the streets of Gotham, and when I get tired of that I start writing the hopelessly romantic (and tragic) love story of Jason and Selina.
I've been rewriting all of these stories, because I began then and never finished them in a fleet of notebooks (all of which happily live on my bookshelf), a few binders of random scraps, scattered word documents and a massive Celtx document of my failed attempt at turning this fanfiction into an actual comic book script (I'm the worst script writer on the planet). Going through all this various unconnected material, I realized how much of an idiot my younger self was. I didn't write any of the stories with Tom (he's the bad guy that escaped into his own original story) and I completely messed up the first installment of my Catwoman stories.  I rewrote that particular story in various notebooks multiple times, trying to work out the kinks, but all the while the solution was right under my nose. I can't believe I didn't see it before. I guess it helps to take a step back and then go back and re-read what I've written.
The problem is, I'm quickly running out of material that I've planned. I'm having to venture deeper and deeper into the foggy territory of: "Well, this is the point of the story, and this is what generally happens. You see, this guy goes evil...because, well, I don't know. He just does. I'll come up with that later." Then, when I get to that point: "Oh, he could do this! But this would be so much more awesome! I think this would work better thought." I finally pick something, and everything crumbles into plot-hole induced chaos: "THAT WON'T WORK! I need to go back to my original idea. Wait...what was my original idea? Aaaag!"
It's this whole lovely process that I'm afraid of falling into again. I need to learn to plan things better, but that sort of thing takes months for me to do. It would be even longer for this fanfiction, because all the stories are out of order in my head. I can't decide where to put Tommy (Tommy Elliot, if anyone's read Hush-in my parallel universe he becomes the vigilante known as Falcon-my original creation-and helps Batman protect Gotham, because Robin is annoying). I'm having to fill in the huge void left by Tom, and two other characters who were detectives on Jim Gordon's squad when he was still a captain and not the commissioner.
In the midst of all this, I found something that surprised me. Instead of individual stories told separately in Jason's life along a timeline, which is what I originally intended, there's a link between them all-other than Jason himself-that I could use to make into one mega novel thing. A really long one, most likely longer that 50,000 words and possibly multiple books.
I've never had the material for that kind of length before.
And you know what sucks?
I will never be able to do anything with it, because all the characters I'm using are copyrighted.
I'll probably post this novel in smaller chapters on fanfiction.net or deviantArt or something, but it's still slightly disappointing. However, writing about all my favorite superheroes is just too much fun for that to bother me too much. NaNo will at least make a dent in this fanfiction. Maybe I'll even finish it, but I doubt that. I think this is just going to be a life-long endeavor. Or at least, it will be an endeavor as long as I'm still obsessed with superheroes.

/endrant

Something I Will Probably Regret

Dear Wal,

I've decided not to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. Or at least, to be the person in the back of the room watching with longing as my fellow writers tap-tap away at their novels. I'll be tap-tapping away, but not on my novel. On my schoolwork.
Schoolwork this year has turned out to be especially intense. College classes were introduced into the population of juniors in the wild habitat of the VEC this year, and they haven't been taking very well. For all of us, I think. First of all, there's the amount of reading. The reading for one class-say, history-for one week dwarfs the reading for three high school classes in one week. It's pretty intense. For instance, this week we had about fifty pages to read for U.S. History, and thankfully nothing in Mythology. But last week in Mythology we had about 200 pages to read. The work itself is not that bad-one or two quizzes for history and occasionally a forum, a forum, a glossary entry and a quiz for mythology, and a daily moodle for biology (however, my copious note-taking impulse adds a lot of work) and several papers a week for English. We had five last week. FIVE. English is the only class I have where the work actually exceeds the reading.
So there's my first reason: simply not enough time.
Here's my second reason.
I don't have a story to write. Or rather, I do, but I started it a few months ago and it's already climbing steadily toward the twenty page mark. I have it planned out, thoroughly planned, and it would probably reach 50,000 words and beyond. But it's slow going. Very slow. I've had to employ all the patience I have to just simply wait for it to come to me, otherwise I'll go sprinting off in the completely wrong direction.
There's always Jason's story-which I have finally decided to return to prose, because writing a comic book is just way out of my ability to do with any kind of skill-but that comes in fits and starts. I've finally started writing my epic conclusion (you must realize that by 'conclusion' I really mean that I haven't figured out what happens next yet) of the JLA arc, which includes lots of timey whimey wilbly wobly fun, but it's a conglomeration of many smaller stories I wrote but never finished. I'm simply filling in the gaps and copying things from various notebooks.
But here's the real reason.
I'm kinda sorta TERRIFIED.
Why?
I have several stories going right now that I do not want to mess up.
I am conquering the major amount of schoolwork we have to do and I do not want to mess up.
But I really, really, really want to participate. This would be my fourth year. It's insanity, utter insanity, but I really want to at least try.

NaNoWriMo in a nutshell:
In the first week uplifts you with lies of: You can do this! You can! 50,000 words? That's nothing. I bet you could finish in less than a month if you really wanted to. Work? School? Life? Pssssh! Write on!
You're feeling pretty confident. Your brain is going so fast your fingers can't keep up. Then the second week hits, and you realize about half way through what you've gotten yourself into. Your life starts to fall apart around you. You start to shun your friends. You aren't sleeping. You are driven to write, but it isn't a good kind of drive. It feels like you're running top speed, screaming at the top of your lungs I CAN fly!, toward a cliff. By the end of the second week, you're teetering on the edge. You've decided maybe this wasn't such a good idea in the first place, but you can't turn back now. Halfway into the third week, you're falling. It's at this point where you somehow have to suddenly become Kryptonian, or die scattered and gibbering in madness on the rocks below.

Only those blessed with a will of steel and the emotional fortitude of a rock dare attempt this experience. Bravery has nothing to do with it. Starting is never a problem. It's the finishing that really murders you.
Yet, something deep down in my brain went click last week and my writing kicked into overdrive. I wrote/combined/whatever 12 pages on that JLA epic, more than I've written on any story since school began. It's like my subconscious knows what's coming. I keep telling it No and it keeps saying YES! 
I even bought extra pen cartridges today.
I don't know. I'll find out tomorrow whether or not I'm going to attempt NaNoWriMo. I'm going to get as much schoolwork as I can done tonight, just in case.

/endrant

P.S. I also got some pretty blue sunglasses today. :D Yay for payday!

P.P.S. HEY GUYS, I JUST NOTICED SOMETHING. THIS IS MY 100TH POST! CELEBRATE!

My Stupid Cat

Dear Wal,

Periodically, my cat loses the ability to jump. She regularly loses the ability to walk.Now, you must realize that my cat is the most wonderful, sweet cat you could ever meet. However, she isn't the brightest cat in the world. .She is prodigious at killing and mutilating small creatures (mice, birds, chipmunks, spiders: anything that is smaller than her and moves) but simple tasks such as recognizing that, yes, I have filled up her food bowl are totally beyond her.  The root of the problem is that she's never had to really work for anything. She has been the baby of the family since we first brought her through the door, which isn't much of a problem, because she is a cat, but her problem solving skills have suffered because of it. We've done everything for her, so she's never had to do anything herself. Case in point.
Jumping.
Her bowl is on my desk (because the dog will eat the cat's food if she can reach it), which means that she has to actually jump up to the surface of the desk. Now, this isn't a problem for her. I've seen her jump over five feet before. However, I've gotten frustrated with her too many times and simply picked her up and put her on the desk (she went kicking and flailing).
This morning I went out to the barn to feed the horses. She trotted out to meet me, and then promptly dropped down in the dirt and rolled. I'm not going to pick her up and take her inside when she's all covered in dirt. So, I walked back to the house with her squeaking and occasionally trotting in front of me and plopping down in the dirt again. I let her in, and then dutifully went to fill up her bowl. She just didn't get it. The entire exchange went something like this:
Cat: Eeeeeeh? :D
Me: I fed you. Look, food.
Cat: Eeeeeeeeeh? :D
Me: It's up there.
Cat: Eeeeeeeeeeh? :)
Me: Stupid cat. Look. *points at desk*
Cat: *looks at desk* Eh? D:
Me: LOOK. YOU HAVE TO JUMP. *points at desk again*
Cat: *looks at desk again* Eeeeh? D8
Me: Just jump.
Cat: Eh? D8
Me: You're an idiot.
Cat: Eeeeh? D8
Me: Fine. Stay there. *leaves*
And the sound of the cat finally jumping on my desk echoes through the house.

/endrant

What Happens When You Try to Kill Lex Luthor

Dear Wal,

I was watching Young Justice the other day. Speedy went after Lex like an idiot. So I made a chart.

Greensboro Adventures

Dear Wal,

I just had one of the best weekends of my life. It was fun, to say the least, and I completely blew my last time for this course out of the water. It was awesome.
The whole day Friday I was on-edge. I couldn't even recite a line from Doctor Who that I memorized for extra credit in English class (yes, my English teacher lets me use Doctor Who for extra credit). Although, I was somewhat on the spot because I got to school at 9:30. The farrier came that morning. I had to finish cleaning the Pout House. It was a busy morning. Anyway, I didn't have any work to do that day so I just meandered around on Youtube and vaguely tried to help with the yard sale. We're raising money for a camping trip the weekend after next.
Anyway, Coach Peoples finally came with the bus to pick me up, and off we went on a four hour ride to Greensboro. Talk about long and boring. I forgot my Kindle, so I didn't have anything to do. However, I brought all of my various notebooks and pens (I always do, wherever I go-I feel lost if I don't have a notebook with me at all times). I wrote for a while on the latest installment of my Batman fanfiction. It has Batman in it. And the future. And the apocalypse. Oh yes. (My new style of writing for the fanfiction is working. Woot!) However, when you ride on a bus with a bunch of highschoolers for four hours it can get pretty insane. For instance.
A bunch of people started a massage train across two of the seats. Every time someone fell asleep, they inevitably were sat on or poked or something. No one messed with me, because I'm the weirdo who goes to the VEC and never says anything. One of the reasons I don't talk to the people on the team very much is that it's far more amusing to just listen to them. Some of the craziest things happen around the cross country team.
Imagine a bunch of race horses cooped up in a dry lot all day and then set loose in a hotel, and you've got the idea.
When we reached the hotel, we goofed off in the hall for a while and then were chased into a room by Coach Peoples. We started a game of truth or dare (don't worry, the worst dare was that someone had to lick the floor). It was hysterical. I learned that I fail at dares, and I don't have any deep dark secrets to reveal..so I basically just sat there and watched the rest of the team goofing off. We were going to run the course the night before, but it was thundering and pouring down rain. Last year it was an absolute monsoon, during the actual race. It was awful.
The next morning we all piled into the bus again to go to the race, bleary eyed and groggy, and then we ran. It was awesome. It was drizzling, but not so much that you couldn't see where you were going. It was muddy, but it wasn't like running through a lake like it was last year. I didn't PR (get a personal record) but I kept up my time from my last race. I was absolutely covered in mud by the end of it. I think my shoes are going to be wet for the next three days.
Jacob, (the fastest on the team) fell and did something to his leg. No word yet on exactly what he did, but hopefully he'll still be able to run. Eli slid and fell in the mud, but he came out okay even though he was absolutely caked in mud.
Again, we all piled onto the bus. We stopped at a buffet on the way back and ate copious amounts of food. After everyone was fed, we all crashed. Everyone, except me, was stretched across the seats sleeping. The bus was absolutely silent for a few hours at least. I finally succumbed and curled up in my seat and went to sleep. We arrived home dry and safe. My parents came and picked me up, and we went to the Brick for dinner. I had a garlic knot. The buffet still hasn't worn off yet.

/endrant

P.S. In the near future, Jason may finally get a real, complete story. (Don't listen to me. I'm probably lying.)

Story Time (Late...)

Dear Wal,

My horse show was last week, I know, I know. I put things off. I got distracted. I got extremely busy. Very busy. Cross country, horse back riding, writing and school makes my life highly complicated and leaves me very little excess time for things like blog posts. Jason, Tom and the rest are much more urgent...sorry.
Anyway, on to the story.
First of all, everything was made so much easier by Lynn and Dania, my instructors at Transitions. They cleaned up Buzzy, helped me calm him down and coached me on the sidelines. It would have been much more hectic and difficult without them their to help.
I rode in three gaited classes, and did a halter class. In one of the gaited classes, there were only two riders including Buzzy and I, and in another one their were only three. It was a pretty small affair, but there were still a lot of people who showed up. The classes were fairly small, at least I thought they were. Who am I to say? I've never been to an actual horse show before this one. Anyway, obviously in those two classes I won second and third, but in the other gaited class and the halter class I actually came in the ranking before other people. There were at least fifteen people in the halter class, one of whom had a Friesian. No competition. Buzzy may be just as black...but he can't compete with the flash of a Friesian. Anyway, we won a sixth place ribbon in that class. In the last gaited class I came in third over some Paso Fino horses. They were ridden by some very nice ladies. I think they were all in a riding group or something. I need to find a group of people to ride with, but...there are very few people with Walkers who use natural horsemanship with their horses. I think it's catching on, though. People who ride Walkers are finally starting to realize how crazy their horses really are, on the inside, and what that can lead to. Trust me, I've lived it.
Anyway, Buzzy was completely freaked out, and so was I. Well...I was freaked out, and so he was as well. We had fun anyway, and when I got home I completely crashed. I tried to put one of the ribbons on his bridle in victory and he was all like: D8 WHAT IS THIS THING ON MY FAAACE.
Once again, I have no pictures because of the usual reason: my father. I really need to get better at getting to the camera before he does.

/endrant

P.S. I'm going to Greensboro tomorrow for a meet. Hopefully it won't pour like it did last time.

I May or May Not Die Tomorrow

Dear Wal,

I'm sorry my posts have been so splotchy lately. My life is splotchy.
Back on subject.
Why could I die tomorrow? The answer is quite elementary, my dear Watson. I've decided to take Buzzy to a horse show. Buzzy, who is obsessed with plastic. Buzzy, who is afraid of suspicious looking trunks and storm drains. Buzzy, who is fascinated with mules (I need to tell that story someday...)
Hopefully, this experience will be constructive and fun and ridiculous (at first I typed...ridididiculous *sigh*) and not a horribly-scared-for-life kind of experience. Both of my instructors are coming, and my parents...and so I won't be freaking out and totally alone. Plus, Buzzy and I have come through like champs in this kind of environment before. My 4-H camp experience this year was actually fun, instead of traumatizing and depressing like all the previous years, largely because I actually knew what I was doing for once. I wasn't the idiot who can't swim floundering around in the deep end. Don't let people tell you it's a good idea to just throw people who can't swim in the water. You have to teach them to float on their backs first...or else they might die. Anyway.
Tonight I did all of my show preparations, not entirely unlike my camp preparations, except that they would have started three days earlier. Unfortunately, school makes that impossible or near-impossible. It's times like these I wish I was Kryptonian. I would have been finished two hours ago. Anyway, I foolishly didn't wash Buzzy first and instead did everything else first, so that I was finishing up his clipping and giving him a bath in near-darkness. Florescent lights just don't measure up to a sunny day with horses. It just doesn't work. Another problem I had was that I had never clipped a horse, ever. In my entire life. I wish there was really a collective human consciousness, because then I could have sucked clipping skills out of someone's brain. Let me just say I did a really bad job, especially on his ears. Whoever came up with the idea to shave all the fuzz out of a horse's ear obviously never owned a horse in his entire life. Maybe he had a fake horse, that wasn't afraid of large buzzing things in its ears. (Maybe it was a robot horse...haha) Honestly, I can't blame them. I wouldn't want someone shaving the insides of my ears, if I had fuzz on the inside of my ears. Which I don't.
Anyway, it looks kinda bad...but who cares? I'll be too busy concentrating on keeping both of us emotionally sound to care about what his ears look like. I know all I really have to do is get him into a nice gait in order to got people looking at him. He's amazing.
Dad is going to take lots of pictures...but I don't know when I'll get them from him, so I may end up posting the followup to this post tomorrow with no pictures. So. Sad.

/endrant

P.S. I have kindle minecraft. Fear me.

Art Reboot

Dear Wal,

No, I'm not talking about rebooting this blog. It's only been around for a year, and if I've learned anything from the New 52, it's that reboots are a bad idea. What I mean by rebooting, is that I'm rebooting several things I've been either trying to work on, or just started and never finished, or that I used to do and don't do anymore. Case in point, drawing. I haven't finished a single picture in about a year. My deviantart account is sorely neglected. I used to draw all the time-mostly horses, because...well, I own two horses. It's kind of natural that I would want to draw them, and plus I've been around horses since I was brought into the world.  
My sister, Janine, is an official artist-if there is such a thing. She went to school for art-her stuff is amazing. She does all kinds of things-pottery, charcoal, oil paintings, book binding. We have a few of her paintings hanging (literally, haha...I'm funny) around the house, and she made a few books and pieces of pottery for us. The cup she made for Dad is his most favorite thing in the entire universe.
Books she made:

Dad's favorite cup:

(c) Janine Paris, by the way

Anyway, we are a very artistic family. I'm nowhere as skilled as Janine, but I can draw an anatomically correct horse like a boss. Next on my list is being able to draw an anatomically correct superhero. You've probably seen my pitiful attempts at doing this. I kind of...suck at drawing superheroes. However, I'm picking it up faster than I picked up drawing horses. I had to develop a lot of skills in order to draw horses that I didn't have, like how to use the tools available to me: pencils, pencils, and more pencils, and how to develop a drawing from a sketch... Drawing, like writing and pretty much everything else that I do, is not as simple as it looks. I have all those skills now, which makes learning to draw something a lot easier.
Where is all this leading? I seem to have lost my point somewhere in my rambling.
I decided this weekend that I was going to start drawing more superheroes. I.e., doing at least two pictures (however terrible) a week. That probably isn't going to happen, but at least it will get me more into the habit of drawing again. Here is my first attempt, with a brand-new sketchbook:

Unfortunately, you can't see him very well because my scanner doesn't pick up the pencil very well on this paper. It's special marker paper. It makes me happy. This picture is probably going to have several different versions of itself posted.














/endrant

P.S. I'm writing this at school. I'm so bad.

Running Adventures

Dear Wal,

I've finally figured something out that I've always frustrated over. On my cross country team, none of the coaches ever give directions for where we're supposed to run once we get to the course. It's always just "Okay guys, go run four miles! Bye!" I sit there thinking Where?! D8 I'm not fast enough to keep up with all the older kids who know where they're going, and I'm the oldest of the younger kids. So they assume that I know where I'm going, when really half the time I don't have a clue. It's getting better, because this is now my second year so I'm starting to understand where all the courses go from all the bits and pieces of directions I managed to put together from frustrated coaches.
Anyway, I've never understood why they won't just tell us exactly what we're supposed to do. They just leave us and expect us to know. While riding in the activity bus yesterday and watching some middle school kids complain about getting lost, I finally understood why. It's an initiation ritual. You have to get lost the first four or five days of practice and then still stick with the team to prove your worth.
But it sucks.
I get confused too easily with directions, and when I have no clue what I'm supposed to do, then I get even more horribly confused. This sports business doesn't come naturally to me. Most of what we do makes no sense to me at all. Not giving the team directions, especially.
For the most part, there are two parts to the highschool team: the fast kids, and me and the slow kids. The fast people all hang out together, and the slow people all hang out together. Last year, it was just me in the slow group. Most of the time I had to run by myself, but now I actually have people to run with. The problem is, now I'm getting faster but I'm not fast enough to keep up with the fast people, and I'm too fast for the slow people. So, in effect, I'm running by myself again. I don't really mind. Running has become my quiet time.
However, yesterday was not quiet. First of all, I was guiding the slow people on the big loop around fence (which I thought I knew, after nearly becoming lost the first time) but it turned out that I wasn't going the right way. Then when we got halfway up the trail we were actually supposed to be on, we found a couple of the guys stopped on the trail. Turns out they found I giant hornet's nest. They were considering running through it, and so way I because I wasn't tired yet and I thought maybe I could make it. However, one of the girls I was running with was deathly allergic to bees, so I was a good teammate and went back with her (she didn't get stung: don't worry) and the other slow people to make sure they didn't get lost. On the way back down the trail, I tripped over a rock and went flying. Skinned everything up like crazy.
And guess what, I did this last year too, but at a different course. What happened then was that I turned my ankle off the side of a paved road and went down on my knee. I learned to run well to the right of the edge after that. Yesterday we were running on really rocky trails, which usually I don't have any problems with. I live practically in the middle of a forest, and our trails are all rocky and uneven. I've been seasoned to that kind of terrain, so for the most part I can trust my feet. Apparently not when preoccupied with a hornet's nest.
Anyway, it was a very exciting day.

/endrant

P.S. Thoughts I think when running:
Every time I pass a speed limit sign: Don't speed Kathryn!
When I'm almost finished with the course: Almost home E.T.!

My Labor Day Weekend

Dear Wal,

It sucked in some ways and was awesome in others. For instance, some madman scheduled a meet in Spartenburge on a day when it was about 90 degrees at ten in the morning. My race happened to start at ten. The rest of the team was fine, because they live down in the 'flatlands' of the county where it's always hot. However, I live up in the mountains where it's usually about ten degrees cooler and a few thousand feet higher. I never do well in hot weather, doesn't matter where or when or what I'm doing.
Running in 90 degree weather was not fun.
I drank about five bottles of water, but that didn't help me much because it was just so hot. My body just gave up. I walked about a mile in the middle of the race. I wasn't going to be the person who threw up at the finish line from the heat. I'm not an idiot. After about a mile, I knew I wasn't going to even be able to keep up my normal pace. My muscles were not working out all the little stiff places and twinges I always get in the first half mile, and I felt like I was being baked alive in the sun.
When I finally got back (that had to be the longest race I've ever run in my entire life) Coach Peoples poured water over me and felt my forehead. I was seriously out of it. I just crashed next to the case of water for twenty minutes or so after I finished running. It would have been better if I had been able to run the course at full speed, but I just couldn't. This is me we're talking about, The One Who Never Stops Running. I may go really slow, but I don't stop jogging for anything. If I start walking, I stay that way, so I've learned to just keep going.
After the race was over we went to Olive Garden, which was nice because you can order lots of food, including a giant salad. Watson frequently accuses me of being a rabbit. I like salad, what can I say? Back to the story. My parents and I were amazed about Spartenburge, because you can find anything and there are so many options. There's a mall. There isn't even a mall in the town that counts as a 'city' compared to the town I live in. There's also a comic book store. We went there. I think I got about $25 worth of comics: Stormwatch #1-6, Earth 2 #1-2 and Smallville Season 11 #1. Yes, I got season eleven and I haven't seen season ten yet. It's not that big of a deal. Smallville is pretty predictable. There were very few things that surprised me in seasons one through nine.
After that we went to the mall, and my father sent me on a mission to get jelly beans. I got said jelly beans, but found myself abandoned in the middle of a strange mall. I knew they were going to be in Dillards, so I went and sat on a bench in front of Dillards and watched people walk around. I must've been a sight, in my warm up running clothes and with a bag of jelly beans and a Stormwatch comic book. My mother eventually came out and rescued me. When we got into Dillards, I discovered that my parents had bought an entire set of dishes and silverware. Sigh.
On Sunday, I cleaned the house. A lot. I re-arranged my room and cleaned out my closet, which took almost all day, and then realized that I didn't have my history book. And that meant that I couldn't do the assignments that were due that night. So, in a panic, I called Watson and we converged at McDonalds to study for history. We got everything done in two hours, like a boss.
Monday comes around, and I'm finally looking forward to getting the opportunity to relax. We took Watson home and then went over to Transitions so I could ride in the arena, just to practice. I ended up being out there for three hours, doing nothing but riding. I was very hungry by the end of it. I could've eaten a horse. (Ha..haha...see what I did there..)

/endrant

WHY CRUEL WORLD

Dear Wal, 

I officially hate DC comics.Why?For a variety of reasons.They were already on thin ice with me because of the undoing of Oracle and the taking of Martian Manhunter out of the JLA, and the JLA’s origin in general. Darkseid is not the right villain for the JLA to first encounter in a story. I mean, the guy is pretty much the comic book equivalent of Hades only ten times worse and combined with your worst nightmares. He’s a freaking god, he’s not a good first villain! He's meant for when the League is more seasoned and has defeated other formidable villains…slightly less formidable that Darkseid, of course. You know, invading aliens, Brainiac, beings from the fifth dimension, take your pick. My personal favorite origin of the JLA is the animated series version, where J'on comes to Earth to warn Earth of a coming invasion by an alien force (pseudo White Martians) that destroyed Marz, and the JLA ends up banding together to defeat the threat.
Now, I can deal with a little fiddling with my favorite characters. Honestly, I can deal with a lot of fiddling. I’ll read or watch anything DC related, no matter how terrible. I always manage to see the good in most DC comics. I can live with Oracle becoming Batgirl if it was done right, I can live with J’on being on a different super team if the team was ridiculously awesome, I can live with Darkseid being horribly misplaced simply because it’s the JLA, but I can’t live with not having access to the comic books themselves.Let me explain.DC took all their comics off the Kindle Fire, right after I finally got one and finally had access to any comic book I could possibly think of. JUST THE KINDLE FIRE. WHY? WHY? WHY? I have no other way to access DC comics. There are no comic book stores around where I live, and I can't buy the comics directly through Comixology. The Kindle Fire was the only way for me to access comics. They took my freedom away. No, they didn't just take it away: they ground it up and stomped it out and burned it before throwing the ashes into the sun.I don’t understand why they keep doing things like this. The New 52 is all about appealing to new readers, right? How can you appeal to new readers if you insist on selling through failing comic book stores? (Sadly, the comic book store is going the way of the dinosaur these days.) Stores are in limited supply anyway. The nearest comics store where I live is about an hour’s drive away. Digital comics is the only real option to carry comics into the future. (THE FUUUTUUUURE O:)I know there are other tablets besides the Fire, but at the moment I don’t care! I finally had a way to access comics without having to drive an hour away or pay overpriced prices for comics on Amazon itself and now it’s gone. I still have all of Marvel and Dynamite, though. Both of which show no signs of making any bird-brained DC moves.Another thing that has always annoyed me (and this doesn’t have to do with DC so much as Warner Brothers) is that you can’t watch any of the DCAU shows on Netflix, or Amazon Prime, or anything. You have to get them on DVD if you want to watch them. I haven’t been able to find any channels that show BTAS or JL anymore. I can deal with that. But this thing with the Kindle is about the last straw.If I wasn’t so addicted to the characters, I would totally boycott DC right now. But I can’t give up my precious Batman and JLA. Oh, and I just re-discovered the Question as well. Sigh. It never ends.At least I still have Daredevil, who’s actually looking up for once. Good old Daredevil.
 /endrant

P.S. The discovering that the DC comic store not working on my Kindle was actually permanent ruined my entire day. I called Watson up specifically to wail in despair.  

First Day of School

Dear Wal,

Yesterday was my first day of school. It started out pretty well. I got up really early so I could chill out and watch GMM and have time to wake up. I didn't sleep very well, though, or very long. I was too busy being worried, I guess. Anyway, I spent most of the morning being distracted by the DCAU while trying to work on an English project that was supposed to be due that day. I was almost finished with it-I only had a few chapters left to read in my book-but luckily my teacher extended the deadline because there were some people who didn't even know that there was a summer reading assignment. Fun stuff. Thankfully, it's an online class so I don't have to deal with all the drama that usually surrounds English class.
Then I went to Biology class, which wasn't very eventful. Austin and I finished about twenty minutes before everyone else, so we sat and made faces at each other across the table. He kept trying to steal my pen. We were really, really bored. I kept wanting to play with my pencil but putting it down because that sort of thing annoys Watson. (She wasn't in my class-but she has me trained anyway.)
After that I had lunch. Lots of fruits and vegetables, as usual. I tend to get cramps while running if I'm not careful about what I eat during the day. It took me about a month to figure this out. After lunch I finished my biology homework and German homework (yes, I'm taking German IV-this may or may not be a mistake.) and continued working on my English project. I finished it..and then started goofing off. I was pretty much brain dead at this point. Hence the creation of this and yesterday's post. Anyway.
After that we who have to ride the bus went over to the highschool. We ride the bus to the highschool, and then have to wait until the highschool gets out before we can go get on the bus again and ride home. Some of us have to change buses three or four times in order to get home. It can get pretty insane.
We sat in the cafeteria (I lead all the clueless freshmen through the highschool, Austin kept trying to get them lost) and played Uno until it was time to leave. Then I lead the freshmen back to where the buses were, and left for the cross country bus. I had a really good run that day (I ran four miles) but my knee started to hurt after a while. It's got me all freaked out. I don't know what I'm going to do if I have to quit cross country. I've become addicted.
Overall, it was a pretty good day as far as first days go. Tuesday really sucked, though. I was really tired all day. I need to start going to bed earlier....like that's ever going to happen.

/endrant

First Meet of the Year

Dear Wal,

On Saturday I went and did something most people would consider incredibly stupid. I went and ran a 5K race against 50 or 60 other girls. There was lots of traffic. I thought for the longest time while I was running that I wasn't going to make it all the way, and I really wanted to make it to the end. I hate having to stop and walk when I run, because I know that once I do, I'm done. I don't have anything left after that point, and I'm never able to drag myself back from the shame of having to give up because it was too hard, too hot, too painful: whatever it happens to be. So, I just keep running. And that's exactly what I did during this meet. I just kept running, and it was awesome.
First of all, I passed a bunch of people, which I never used to be able to do. It used to be that I was always dead last in every race I ran. I really sucked. It was depressing. I didn't improve very much because it was so depressing. This year, however, I've been running all summer so I'm more than prepared to race this year. I'm feeling much better about my speed, too. I ran the 5K this weekend in 32 minutes, a modest time for most cross country runners, but an absolutely amazing time for me. It was awesome.
I had to get up at about six in order to go to the meet-it was brutal. Six in the morning on a Saturday, not my favorite thing to do. I was grouchy the whole ride over to the place where we were running. When Jonathon (another runner on my team) got on the bus he moaned: "Why is the world up this early!" I think that pretty much sums it up. I had a really long time to wait for my race because it was last, and thankfully I had the wisdom to bring my history book so I would have something to read. I got a lot of weird looks. Most kids run cross country as an escape from having to do schoolwork in the evening. I'm a book worm, and besides I can't just sit and do nothing for three hours. It drives me crazy having to sit still and do nothing for more than ten minutes.
Anyway, I had a great time, even though Watson couldn't come because of an injury. (She thinks she pulled a muscle.) I don't know that many people on the team, because they all go to the highschool and I go to the Early College, but I had fun anyway.

/endrant

P.S. No pictures again because Dad takes a while to process them. I'll have to update this with pictures soon. Oh, and I sat on a banana peel.

Fence Update

Dear Wal,

Yesterday morning I went out to make sure the fence was working, because Buzzy got out again (of course). And of course, it wasn't working. I knew everything on the fence end of the circuit was working fine because I had been over it about sixty times. However, I hadn’t even looked at the charger’s end of the circuit. When I checked it, I discovered why it wasn’t working.

Both wires, the ground and the wire that’s supposed to electrify the fence, were connected to the ground. Everything was corroded nearly off of its connections, and to top it all off the wire leading from the charger to the fence had broken. I attempted to fix all of this, but then promptly gave up when I got to the part where I had to splice the wire. I can fix electric fence, but I can’t splice a normal insulated wire. It’s sad. I know how to now, at least.

Anyway, once Dad got home we went out and fixed all of the problems I mentioned above and made it so all the wiring and such wouldn’t get wet. The problem was, once we set all this up we discovered that the lightning arrestor wasn’t working either. It had been blown out. Probably in one of the numerous storms we’ve had over the summer.

So, now we have to get a new lighting arrestor and then I have to go around the circumference of the fence and make sure nothing is touching it/everything is a complete circuit. It’s actually kind of satisfying-in a cleaning-the-house kind of way. You’re proud of it when you’re done, but you still hate it.

I realize that for some people this is all gibberish. Let me explain.

The ‘ground’ I spoke of before is a wire that runs to a metal post that’s sunk into the ground. This is what keeps your wiring and your charger safe. The charge goes out from the charger, through the fence and into the ground before dissipating harmlessly into the earth. Another wire goes from the charger to the fence, and on that wire you have the lightning arrestor. It’s this funny looking thing that blows out like a fuse when the fence get’s hit by lightning, so that your charger doesn’t explode. And trust me, it will explode. From the other end of the arrestor goes the wire that connects to the fence.

You have to make sure however many strands of wire you have on your fence-two or three usually-are all connected to the wire from the charger. Then you have to make sure that the strands of fence aren’t touching the post/have sticks laying on them/have things growing on them or else your fence will ‘ground out.’ Meaning that the charge will go into the ground and not around your fence and into the ground next to the charger like you want it too. This is very scientific stuff.

/endrant

P.S. I’m a fencing nerd. D8

My Horse is Like a Toddler

Dear Wal,

Let me explain. It's impossible for him to concentrate on anything for more than thirty seconds, and he's deathly afraid of the weirdest things. Not as weird as some of the things Montana is afraid of (large, brightly colored objects) but still exceedingly strange. He is also wickedly smart. Take the fence.
Now let me preface this by saying that yesterday we had a huge crisis over him in the fence. He's too smart for it. He knows that he can just push through it. We have electric fence, exceptionally flimsy electric fence, and we also live in the middle of a thickly wooded forest. So the fence doesn't always work, even when you maintain it (which doesn't happen very often because it's such a huge pain) sometimes it just doesn't work. Anyway, Buzzy has discovered that the fence is flimsy and that even if it shocks him he can just keep going through it and it will break and no longer shock him. There was a very long process before we got to this point.
First, he got out a few times in a place where the line on the fence was just a wire that was pretty hard to see. I figured he just didn't see it and hit it full speed by accident (the fence wasn't working at this point), so I put up a visible cord on it so he could see it. Then he took that down too. At this point I knew he was doing this on purpose. This happened over about a week. I didn't want to have to go around and wack down all the things growing on the fence and fiddle and fiddle until it worked, because that takes at least a day, sometimes two. So, I just kept fixing it when he got out. I figured out that he wouldn't bother the stuff that was tight, so I did that to the place where he was getting out. A day or two passed. Then he got out again. By this point, school had come around and I was at my wit's end about what to do. I had to spend a day or two at school waiting for my textbooks to arrive for my college classes, and the situation detiorated. Parents became frustrated. Explosion followed...while Watson was over at my house. Talk about bad timing.
I even repaired the fence so that the part where he kept getting out was electrified, and there was still a huge argument, totally avoidable on both sides. I won't go into details. The electified part of the fence didn't even stop Buzzy. He still went through it. I don't know what to do. All I can think of is that the fence wasn't working when I thought it actually was. Next time I'll touch it myself and see...I kinda chickened out the first time.
Also, this time around I'm going to try and work on Buzzy psychologically. I know from his personality that he needs a job, he needs entertainment. So I'm going to try to ride him almost every day. Another thing that I've noticed is that he gets out around feeding time. I think I'm feeding them too late. I usually feed them around 8:30 in the evening. Probably too late. So I have to get them fed before cross country practice. I don't know how the whole riding and feeding business is going to work out when practice moves up to 4:30 instead of 6:00. Preferably, running is the last thing I like to do in the day, because I'm about dead by the end of it.
Anyway, I'm going to try and keep him entertained and child-proof everything. I have to make sure all plastic and tools and things are out of the way or else they will end up stomped around in his stall or knocked over. Sometimes I find his halter laying in his stall (it hangs right next to his door). What he does is he grabs it and twirls it around.
So as you can see, my horse is a pest. But he's very cute.

/endrant

Batman Fanfiction Continued Again

Dear Wal,

I promise this is the end. I realize I have been bombarding people with Batman related stuff..but, sadly, this is my life. Batman, horses and writing alternating is basically a fact of my existence. Also, yesterday’s post was the first post I presented to the public of google +, so that’s going to be an interesting experience. (I write these posts the day before I post them-so that’s why I’m saying it’s going to be an interesting experience. By the way, I got online today to find that it wasn't interesting at all. It was rather boring.) Anyway, I haven’t talked about the villains yet. Because I’m me and I like to mess with stuff, they aren’t the same as they are in the DCU. I haven’t me-ified all of them, but I have done some things with the first few that show up in Jason’s story.

The Scarecrow

I tried to make him cooler than he is in the comics…because, let’s face it. Scarecrow can be pretty lame. (I don’t know-maybe I just haven’t read the right comics. Suggestions?) Scarecrow in the DCU is a psychiatrist named Jonathon Crane who goes crazy and goes after Batman with fear gas. Because, when anyone goes crazy in Gotham City, they instantly dress up in a costume and go after Batman. It’s a law of the universe.

Anyway, I tried to make him better. It didn’t work to well. Let’s just say he’s still a work in progress. The first thing I did to make him better was re-name him Scream (and now I realize there are what, four of those movies?) because it’s a lot scarier that Scarecrow. Scarecrows are things you would be afraid of as a small child.  Then I took the little scene in The Dark Knight where Scarecrow was selling his fear drug as an actual drug on the street and expanded it. So in my world Crane came up with his fear gas and then promptly became Carmine Falcone before he went crazy and became a supervillian. As I said before, he’s a work in progress. At this point, his costume consists of a trench coat. It’s depressing.

The Joker

There is no Joker in my universe. (DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!) This operates on the logic that there isn’t much point to a Joker without Bruce Wayne as Batman. Think of Terry from Batman Beyond. It doesn’t work as well when Batman is hilarious and bouncy. Bruce just can’t take a joke-let’s face it. As Superman said in Public Enemies in reference to Bruce’s lack of a sense of humor: Do us all a favor and buy one.

But you see, Jason has to have some sort of arch nemesis. So I did some fiddling with the major differences that spawned all the other changes in my universe. As you should understand by this point, Batman didn’t exist to stop people like Scream/Scarecrow when they showed up, so the city fell into decay and spawned the supervillian crime wave. Oh, the irony. (Why is it ironic? Because in the comics there’s always been a theory that Batman’s appearance was what created the Joker and all the other supervillains. When you think about it, it makes sense.) That, basically, changes the entire story.

The second big difference is that there’s an extra character that isn’t in the DCU. A character of my own design. This character used to be Tom, until I took the leap of pulling him out of this fanfiction and putting him into his own story. Alright, Joker origin time. He was originally this guy called the Red Hood, and he got into a battle against Batman in Ace Chemicals. He ran out onto a walkway and became tangled in his cape, and fell over the railing into a vet of toxic waste. Batman wasn’t fast enough to catch him. And of course, no one knew who the Red Hood was (because…well, he wore a red hood) so no one knows who the Joker is. Ignore Tim Burton’s version. It’s wrong.

In my world there was a Red Hood, but when he was battling Batman (Jason Todd Batman-gosh, this is complicated) in Ace Chemicals he was shot by this cop before he fell in the toxic waste. Now, I know in the normal DCU that wouldn’t stop him from coming back to life and becoming the Joker. In my world you get superpowers/mutations if you fall in toxic waste, but if you get shot and then you fall into toxic waste, you’re dead. It’s a law of the universe people. Anyway, the cop who shot the Red Hood is my extra character. Somehow he is going to be involved with Jason’s arch nemesis. I haven’t decided yet.

Mister Freeze

I’ve always felt bad for Mister Freeze. I came to know of Mister Freeze through Batman: The Animated Series. A very good way to be introduced to Mister Freeze, by the way. He was a molecular biologist named Victor Fries who specialized in cryogenics, and his wife-Nora-had this terminal disease (it’s not really specified) so he froze her to keep her alive until he could find a cure. But everything goes wrong and there’s an accident (of course) in which he’s mutated so that he can’t survive outside of a special suite in anything but sub-zero temperatures. His wife is eventually shattered by the mob.

In the animated series, he’s a very tragic character. I’ve always felt bad for him. A victim of circumstance. So, naturally I made his life better. His wife survived her terminal disease due to a treatment developed by Wayne Enterprises (because, since Bruce wasn’t off becoming a ninja he actually had time to set up programs for that sort of thing) and they lived happily ever after. Victor Fries retired his molecular biology stuff and became a professor at Gotham University, where Jason happened to be going at the time.

Eventually something even more tragic does happen to him, and he becomes Mister Freeze, but I haven’t figured out what yet. There are so many gaps in this story that I haven’t decided/figured out yet. It’s sad.

Catwoman

Now, we all know about Catwoman. Catwoman-Selina Kyle, master thief. I think I may have messed up her character a little. Lack of research, what can I say. I need to explain Jason’s origin before I go on to her first, because otherwise this won’t make any sense. Just roll with it.

Jason is basically a science experiment-he can shapeshift, he has nightvision and telepathy. Woot. What happened was, he was in the process of stealing a tire off of as-yet-undecided supervillain’s car when the car’s owner showed up and got an idea. So, the supervillain took Jason and did experiments/ had experiments done on him to give him superpowers and teach him awesome martial arts/detective skills and things. He’s like Jason Bourne/Wolverine. I used the same experimentation concept for Catwoman. She’s actually a cat woman, or woman cat. Whatever. Everything else about her is essentially the same.

….And that’s pretty much it. I can’t believe I finally got to the end of this explanation.

/endrant

Batman Fanfiction Continued

Dear Wal,

Hopefully I will be able to finish explaining my parallel universe in this post and not have to write a third installment. Otherwise, this is going to be a very long three days for you poor readers. I have worked hard on this universe, and it has many levels of parallel-ness, hence why it's taking so long to explain. Not only that, but I also have to explain the original material. Well, I don't have to. But how else will anyone understand?

Anyway, I'm going to continue telling you about my little herd of superheroes. Alright, to start this off I have to tell you I used to despise sidekicks, with all my heart. Robin used to drive me nuts, I only learned stuff stuff about Robin because otherwise I wouldn't understand what was happening in the comics. Seriously, it gets confusing otherwise. I decided in my parallel universe there wasn't going to be a Robin, so instead I made up another vigilante character who's actually his own hero. His superhero identity is Falcon (not talking about the one with red wings and a pet bird) and his real name is Tommy Elliot. Now, who is Tommy Elliot in the normal DC universe, you might ask, because he has to be someone important.

In the DCU, Tommy Elliot is a childhood friend of Bruce who decided to get revenge on Bruce because he had the life Tommy never got. He tried to kill his parents as a child by cutting the breaklines in their car so he would inherit his father's money. His father died, but Thomas Wayne was able to save his mother. (Thomas Wayne was a doctor.) However, Tommy's mom goes crazy and drives him nuts for the rest of his childhood. She tries to cut him out of the will, and he kills her before she can make a new will. At this point he's pretty fed up with his life, and decides to go after Bruce because he's jealous of Bruce's parents dying and him having his parent's money, his freedom etc. Which is funny, because Bruce's life sucks. So, naturally, he takes up the identity of Hush and goes up against Batman. Of course, he loses.

I decided to try and resurrect him (same way I did Jason) and make him more realistic (which I didn't do with Jason)...I mean, a kid cutting the break lines of his parents car? Instead, I made it so he shot his dad (because his dad was a gambler and a drunk; he gambled a good bit of the family fortune away) to protect his mother. Because his dad went into a flying rage and almost killed his mom. And then after that his mom went crazy and he was tempted to kill her but didn’t. I think it makes for a better character. Hush (from the DCU) was unbalanced to me. I mean, a kid who’s smart enough to cut the brake lines of his parent’s car in order to shift the blame from him grows up to be an adult completely possessed by revenge who has to employ (SPOILER ALERT!) the Riddler in order to get his revenge. His brains must have decayed as he aged.

Anyway, Tommy ended up being Jason’s roommate in college (Tommy in my world is younger than he is in the DCU) and he found out Jason was Batman because Jason hit the wrong button on his speed dial.

Now I have to tell you about my JLA. For one thing, the whole world knows that Superman and Clark Kent are one and the same. He went out on his first day as Superman, and when he came to work the next morning with his glasses on everyone just recognized him. Not only does this make more sense, it makes for some interesting storytelling. What would a Superman who could literally never escape the public eye be like? (Well, there’s the Fortress of Solitude, but you get the idea.)

Next, there’s Green Arrow, or rather Green Hood in my world. In my story, the Green Arrow died, leaving his daughter to take up his mantle. I haven’t done Green Arrow research yet, so I don’t know exactly who Hood is going to be yet. Anyway, the first JLA story of mine is told entirely from her point of view. For once, the minor superhero gets to tell the story.

Then we have the Martian Manhunter, who’s one of my favorite characters in the DCU. He’s a Martian, what’s not to love? I need to do some research for him as well, but he plays a much bigger part in the JLA than he does in most of the comics I’ve read. It’s more like the way the animated TV show was set up, where his character actually has depth. Other than some costume changes, his character is pretty much the same in my world. I haven’t done enough research to do anything creative with him yet. However, I did actually give the JLA an origin.

For some reason, pre-new 52 DC comics didn’t have a definite origin for the JLA. (New 52-the most recent reboot of DC comics.) They actually did an origin for the new 52, but I don’t like it. For one thing, Martian Manhunter isn’t in the JLA anymore, which I don’t appreciate, and having Darkseid as a first threat to face is complete crap. (Darkseid is basically the equivalent of Hades in the DCU.) I’ll rant about that another day.

I used the animated show’s origin (because I came up with this before the new 52) because I’m very fond of that show, but changed it a bit. Instead of Mars being dead when J’on (J’on J'onzz-Martian Manhunter’s real name) came to Earth, it was still fighting against the White Martians and they’re trying to keep the White Martians from reaching Earth and trying to destroy it.

In the DCU, there are White Martians and Green Martians. The White Martians are the evil warrior race of Martians and the Green Martians are the ‘civilized’ Martians.

Anyway, they do this because they knew Earth didn’t have very advanced technology yet (i.e. force fields, plasma weapons etc.). Damage control, in other words. Plus, this is basically the very last thing they can do to stop-or at least delay-the White Martians. As you can see, there is a lot more going on here than just an alien invasion. The Martian Manhunter ends up having to play ambassador between Mars and Earth, and then the JLA goes off to save Earth and Mars in an epic battle in space. Well, most probably an epic battle in space. I haven’t made up my mind yet.

I’m going to cut this off now. This is going to end up being three parts long.

/endrant

P.S. Sorry I haven't posted in three days. Been very, very busy. 

Batman Fanfiction

Dear Wal,

Since I seem to be on a streak of Batman themed posts, why not top it all off with the best? It's finally time to reveal why I tout my Batman fanfic as being completely, ridiculously awesome. First some Batman lore, because otherwise you won't understand what in the world I’m talking about. You just won’t. I’ve experienced this before, many times. Anyway.

Everyone knows Batman was created when Bruce Wayne’s parents were shot before his eyes one dark night in the heart of Gotham City. If you don’t, then you’ve just been educated. If it wasn’t for that night, Batman would not exist. It’s upon this principle that my entire fanfiction hinges. Because, in my parallel universe, Bruce Wayne isn’t Batman. He isn’t Batman not because his parents weren’t shot that night (that would be too kind >D), it’s because he was shot too. Don’t worry, he isn’t dead. He’s paralyzed. (I’m evil, I know.) Now, I didn’t just make this up from my mind. This is a reference to a certain Killing Joke.

The Killing Joke is a book written by Alan Moore, where the Joker shoots Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) to get at Jim Gordon. She ends up in a wheelchair and becomes Oracle, basically totally awesome tech support for Batman. In my world, Oracle basically came first, because Bruce couldn’t go out and fight crime as Batman. How is this possible you ask? Oracle is essentially Batman’s super computer version of Wikipedia. She can use her tech to find out whatever Batman needs to know in his crime fighting, so he doesn’t have to run back to the Batcave every time he needs to google something. Plus, she’s a hacker and a genius with computers. Need a computer virus to take out the massive evil computer network being used by Brainiac to take over the world? No problem!

So, since there isn’t any Batman in my world at this point in the story, Bruce Wayne is Oracle for the police. And the police don’t fail at life in my story. They actually win sometimes. Now you may ask, where does this leave Barbara Gordon in this strange parallel world of yours? Barbara Gordon is police commissioner of Gotham City, after her father Jim Gordon, who died in the line of duty. Don’t ask me how he died, I don’t know. All I know was that it was in the line of duty. Presumably it was partially because Batman wasn’t there to save him. Barbara Gordon as Commissioner is much better than Barbara Gordon as Batgirl.

Onward. My world does have a Batman, and-as we’ve now established-he isn’t Bruce Wayne. He’s one of the Robins, and he’s not the one you might think he is. You notice I say ‘Not the ONE’ suggesting that there is more than one. There is. Four of them to be exact (not counting TDKReturns and other non-continuity stories).

Dick Grayson

Dick Grayson as Nightwing

He was an acrobat in a circus. He belonged to a family of acrobats, actually. And they were all murdered before his eyes. Someone tampered with the lines during a performance where they were doing flips and things without a net, and his whole family ended up falling to their deaths except him. Bruce Wayne happened to be in the audience, and took Dick under his wing in order to prevent him from ending up like Bruce. Don’t worry, I don’t understand it either. Anyway, Dick Grayson became Robin and then became Nightwing after that. Nightwing is cooler than Robin.

Jason Todd dies

Jason Todd

He was a street kid living in Park Row, and eventually became Robin after Batman caught him stealing tires off the batmobile. His mother was a drug addict, and his father was a Two-Face thug. He wasn’t Robin for very long. He was a pretty sucky Robin. Anyway, the Joker killed him. And then he was resurrected by Ras al Ghul and became the Red Hood. He turned evil. It was bad.

Tim Drake as Red Robin

Tim Drake

He’s the son of Jack Janet Drake, another rich family like the Waynes. He figured out who Batman and Robin (Dick Greyson Robin) were. He also noted how violently out of control Batman was after Jason died, and decided to do something about it. In this way he eventually became Robin. (The “Batman needs a robin” reasoning comes from Tim.) His father and his girlfriend died (one of the batgirls-although I understand she came back to life somehow, CON-TI-NU-I-TY!) This was after he became Robin, for a change. And eventually became Red Robin. I dislike Red Robin. How unoriginal can you get? At least Dick did something creative.

Damien Wayne as Robin

Damien Wayne

And this brings us to the present. Damien is actually Bruce’s son, in a very sort of convoluted fashion. Talia al Ghul stole Bruce’s DNA and genetically engineered a child with his DNA and her DNA. Then she trained him to be an evil ninja assassin and showed up with him one day. He became Robin because there really wasn’t anything else for him to do. It was either that, or go out into Gotham on his own and murder people. He’s pretty dark. He’s also very short.

There you go people. That’s the basic run down of the Robins. All the parts that’re important to my parallel universe, in any case. (Things get complicated after Damien. You don’t want to know.) So, who is my Batman? He’s not Dick or Tim or Damien (Damien doesn’t even exist in this universe), he’s Jason Todd. I’m going out on a limb here, because for the most part in DC parallel universe stories (at least the ones I’ve encountered) Dick Greyson is the only Robin mentioned or used in the story. Jason Todd is usually just ‘the Robin that died.’

I decided to try to resurrect his character so he wasn’t evil. This was around the time that I saw Batman: the Red Hood the movie. That first scene killed me. And I knew what the plot of the movie was already. Anyway, Jason Todd is my Batman. And that isn’t all. He’s a wise-cracking, swashbuckling (NOT silver age style, people) Batman. At one point (day before yesterday-I changed things) he had powers but then I changed my mind. I’m still working the kinks out. Anyway, he’s all the Robins combined into a Batman. He has awesome fighting skills and acrobatic skills and deductive skills and just plain awesome. Bruce is his oracle/mentor person. Sort of like Terry McGinnis off of Batman Beyond. 

However, I haven’t left Dick and Tim out of my universe either. Dick became a master thief, because he fell in with the mob after his family was killed (because Bruce wasn’t there to help him) and went straight to the Nightwing stage. Tim Drake figured out who Nightwing was and decided to try to bring him back to the good side of the force. Batman runs into them eventually, I haven’t figured that out yet.

Now you’re familiar with most of my Bat-fam. 

I think I might turn this into two parts because it’s becoming so long. I’m not finished yet. Not even close.

/endrant

P.S. There was something I was supposed to add at the end of this post. I thought of it last night and decided to remember it by thinking "Terry needs to ______." However, I can't remember what he needed to do now.