France comes to mind immediately.

I dunno. This is a silly question.

SILLY I SAY!!!

If you were a pony, what'd be your Cutie Mark?

...

Yeah, I'm a fanboy. Deal with it.

Last week. Washing everything in anticipation of moving out of my dorm room.

Dealing with the man, in so far as he kicks around my head, is my responsibility.

I'll say whatever I need to say to discourage others from getting involved.

"This" will never be over. Unless, of course, he finally wins.

But I appreciate the sentiment all the same.

So I will both have to decline...and refuse to give you a reason.

Don't think that you can save me. It's simply not a possibility.

I was doomed from the moment the man spoke his first word by my pen.

You should never, ever trust me.

With anything.

He is Negation. Destruction. The end of Universes.

I have the power to write. To Create. To begin Universes.

These forces are natural opposites. I believe it...hurts...him to be in my mind when I am crafting new Worlds...or building the ones I've already Created.

He cannot touch the power of Creation. It is anathema to him. As agonizing as the full force of his Light would be unto me.

I think that's why I've experienced such intense writer's block in recent months. I...I think he wants me to stop writing. Except about him.

I think...

I think...it's the one thing out there he might just fear.

There is...one more thing you should know.

I don't think he wants me to tell you, but he's not stopping my fingers from typing this either.

So either he doesn't feel that strongly about it...or he's amused by my meek attempts at rebellion. Probably the latter.

Ever since I was a little kid, to me the tulpa has always been the most terrifying concept in all of folklore.

A being, crafted with such care and such dedication from another's imagination, that they take on a life and a voice of their own.

A being who, once created, cannot simply be UNCREATED...because their voice is too insistent.

A being whose words do not need to be written, so much as transcribed.

A being who blurs the lines between things that ARE and things that are PRETENDED to be, until one comes to realize that such a line may in fact not exist.

A being who can turn to its Creator and say "No."

Perhaps the man in white was just a character in a silly little story I wrote on FF.Net. Perhaps he was far, far more than that all along. But either way...well, you know what he is NOW.

He's spread like a meme...like a disease. Through my words, my thoughts, my emotions - all recorded in my stories and my roleplay, and passed along accordingly.

To individuals like you.

I don't know whether I truly created him. I don't even know if that matters anymore.

Because I do know this. I cannot stop him.

In some ways...I created him. And as such am quite possibly the most despicable individual in human history.

In other ways, he created ME.

Both are true, and simultaneously neither are true.

I'm not sure I can explain it better than that, as I don't really understand it myself.

But I suppose, to start off with...have you ever heard of an entity called a "tulpa"?

Err...permission granted.

For what it's worth.

My winning humility.

While I'm on my phone a lot less than most people (I have a non-smart phone from 2007 and barely ever text), I still probably couldn't make it very far without my cell.

Well, if nothing else, Pomona College has now officially recognized me as the latter.

That's right, the three of you who actually care: I am now officially a college graduate.

Earlier today I received a Bachelor of Arts in Politics, graduated with departmental distinction, and was awarded the Edward M. Sait Prize in American Politics (whatever that is).

So...yeah. Happy days!

I'm well aware of that.

But that's still determining what you need, plot-wise, and then designing a one-off card specifically (and solely) to accomplish that goal. Which is lazy writing.

It's "New Powers as the Plot Demands" in truest form.

I guess the only decks that I REALLY found dull were both of Amelda's, as far as major characters went. So I'll concede that I might have overstated that point a bit.

But my wider issue with the duels was that often, they felt to me more like showcases for random, situational anime-only cards that would get a character out of a jam because the writers designed it that way, rather than clever implementation of strategy. Atem wins against Haga because "Berserker Soul" was designed for Atem to use it to win against Haga, not because he plays it well or cleverly.

To be sure, this is hardly solely the fault of the DOMA arc, which is why I stopped making such complaints in further "review" posts. But when it comes to making a duel entertaining for me, I definitely gravitate far more to clever combos and such over one-off original cards to solve a given dilemma.

Ultimately, it's more how a deck is played that determines my enjoyment as a spectator, than what the deck IS.

[Answer in the next post.]

47.