Thoughtnami™

 Reading all these articles and stories about Jason Arday. Yeah, this story hits hard. This story feels familiar. This story feels personal because I've had situations like that. I'm still going through situations like that. I understand why what happened to Professor Arday happened, but I don't. It doesn't make sense. It's so unfair. And once again, I don't like the bad guys winning. I don't like bigots gleeful and openly celebrating the death of a Black scholar.  And these monsters are just absolutely giddy and happy that Professor Arday is no longer alive, and they want to push other Black scholars, writers, and creatives to do the same thing.  I don't like that another voice has gone to the ancestors long before his time because racist assholes bullied him to the point that he felt that was the path he had to take. I hate bullies. I hate this. They broke this man.  They broke this man, cried crocodile tears to absolve themselves of their complicity i...

Back in the early 2010s, I started to write a story that took place in the Batman Beyond continuity. Essentially, I wanted to make a tale about how Terry didn't really have a Riddler or Mad Hatter-like villain. Spellbinder was the closest, but he was more of a stalker figure who used tech. So, i wrote a couple of chapters and just stepped away from it.  I wanted to focus more on my own characters and stories and felt I could rewrite parts of this into something involving my own worlds as opposed to playing in DC Comics' playground. Still, it was a fun story and after rereading it, it could work. Kind of funny looking at it in hindsight since the first chapter largely took place in a mall, and we all know malls are an endangered species in 2026 and probably wouldn't be around in the future Gotham. It felt fun, and I rarely look back at older things. Maybe one day, I'll finish the whole story.  Anyway, here's the first (lone) three chapters of Batman Beyond: Curious T...

When I was still a kid, all bright-eyed, super-optimistic, and not world-weary, and the one thing I loved to do was visit the local mall in my city, Tower Mall.  That retail oasis was a haven from a busy week of school, but since it wasn't somewhere I could visit unless I didn't have a little change in my pocket, those trips were few and far-between. But every now and then, my folks and I always made a trip at least twice a month. It wasn't a big mall, mind you. Military Circle, Greenbriar Mall, and Lynnhaven Mall were all much, much bigger at the time, but they were far from home and tended to be an all-day trip.  Tower Mall had everything you could get at most other malls. The mall was open Mondays through Saturdays because at the time, Virginia had "blue laws" that kept most retail businesses closed on Sundays and oddly didn't go away until Walmart entered the region.  The mall was anchored by Montgomery Ward, Rices Nachmans (later Hess's), Miller &...

My grandma was the best cook I’ve ever known, and a lot of people would agree with me. She used to fix meals for church and family functions from picnics to massive dinners. I don’t think there was anything she couldn’t fix, and everything she made was done with love and care. A few months ago, someone brought up regional foods on BlueSky, and I thought about her and something she excelled at: Yock. Yock is a regional noodle dish from my part of the world that has Chinese and Black culinary roots, and to be honest, I haven’t had a good bowl of it yock in ages. I just knew my grandma made it better than anyone I’ve ever known or ever will know.  Here’s a brief history about yock. Yock, sometimes called yock-a-mein (a box of noodles), originated with Chinese immigrants who came to the Tidewater region of Virginia back in the early part of the 20th century. The locals largely call the southeast portion of Virginia "Hampton Roads" nowadays, though there are some who still call i...

  The last week of January is always the coldest week of the year for me. Two women who were a huge part of my life passed away decades apart in the same week.  I think that's partially why I'm not really a fan of my birthday week because it comes so close to that cold week. People passing away suddenly never sits well with me, and that's why that coldness never really goes away.  Twenty-seven years ago, I lost the first person who really understood me, helped guide me into the person I am today, and never made me feel like I was weird.  My grandma was a saint. She was my mother's mother. A teacher, a helper, someone who would give her all to help someone else, even if it was a total stranger. She had this aura, this presence of peace and kindness that was just omnipresent. She was creative and encouraged my creativity, much like my mom does today. She had seen a lot of the world for what it was, endured the prejudices within it, but held on to her faith and empathy ...

"It all started out as a mild curiosity in the junkyard, and now it's turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure." - The Doctor, "The Sensorites" “Every great decision creates ripples, like a huge boulder dropped in a lake. The ripples merge and rebound off the banks in unforeseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences.” - The Doctor, "Remembrance of the Daleks" "We’re capable of the most incredible change. We can evolve while still staying true to who we are. We can honour who we’ve been and choose who we want to be next. Now’s your chance.” - The Doctor, "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" “ We’re all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? ” - The Doctor, "The Big Bang"  DISCLAIMER: The following is the ninth and final part of an alternate history series about the history of  Doctor Who  if it was an American-made production rather than a British production. ...

 I don't know how much time I have left on this small blue rock. None of us do, really.  I hope it's a long time, but today's not promised. I know they say tomorrow's not promised either, but you have to take it one day at a time, you know?  I just hope I made a good impression on folks in the end. I want to live a life where people will remember me fondly. I want folks to look back at how I treated them & others rather than what I've made or created, but if people dig what I did, that'd be pretty cool too.  I want people to think of me and say, "Hey, that Jeff Harris was a pretty cool dude." I'm just trying to be a decent person in this life.  I think I'm doing okay.  Some days... some nights, I feel I'm not doing enough. Sometimes, I think I'm just overthinking everything. I just know one thing. I want to create stuff that people will like. Stories, art, ideas... life's a canvas. Granted, it's a very expensive canvas, but ...

I've always wondered what my villain origin story was.  I have to think it began when I got my first "Where can you find the CNX channel on the cable dial in London?" all those years ago. When I began CNX: Toonami Revolution back in 1998, CNX was always a dream to create a Toonami network. From that dream, I created a webpage, started a community, built an inner circle with like-minded friends, joined a great group of fans who became my online family. I got noticed by Cartoon Network, befriended the creators of the block that inspired me, and ended up brainstorming with others at the channel, especially international locales, about what a Toonami channel could look like. Didn't know they'd actually do it.  Didn't know they'd take my name, something I built for years, either.  I rebuilt myself, created new names, but the damage was done. It was the beginning of a long trip that made me forever have trust issues with everybody. It scarred me for life. It...

Storytime, folks. Or, rather, dream time, folks. A rather weird dream, mind you. It's a bit rambling, but I had to write it down for prosperity and to understand it in full.  Try not to make something of it. Here we go: I had a dream last night about going downtown to get a pizza from a huge restaurant. I had called it in and expected to wait a while for it. Fifteen minutes passed. Then, 30 minutes. An hour passed & I kind of gotten impatient waiting for one pizza. I asked the lady who was the cashier in the parlor what was happening with my order throughout the day. She wasn't bad on the eyes, mind you, so I had to play it cool, but you had to understand my frustrations. The first 15 minutes, she was cordial and sweet. After 30 minutes, she was fine. An hour passed, and she was just belligerent, flustered, and angry at me for pestering her. She just told me that I had to wait a little longer for the one pizza. Did I mention that there were only two people in this parlor be...