Daily Archives: April 21, 2025

Black Clover #9

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I watched another episode of Black Clover a few days ago, and then tonight Freezing episode 8 and Toradora! Episode 1. Last year when I first got fascinated with Crunchyroll I had ambiguous feelings, the novelty of it all was very nice, but I moved on to other things. I had things going on psychologically that I can’t even describe and that’s the point of picking up the thread again, in the hope that stretching out this blog over months will draw out the layers of feeling that explain these phenomena.

I watched the episode in which Noelle Silva joined the Black Bulls and I was surprised that they turned her around so fast. They could have stretched that out for a few episodes. But at this point I’m still expecting all these introductory episodes to add up to some good depth when the action starts, so I don’t mind. I’m playing a game with anime now, patiently waiting through all the sentimentality so I can trick myself into having some deeper subconscious feelings later on. It’s the same with this blog, can I actually create a layer of this type of feeling in my life by writing about it for several months? I had amazing success with the Buffy Diaries…

How do I capture the feeling of anime immersion in words, the sprawling lines and colors, the palpable feeling produced by the culture? And what would I do with it if I could capture it? Is it supernatural? Is it some kind of psychic realignment?

Toradora! seems to have the most skilled direction of the shows I’m watching currently. It remains to be seen after I watch the whole season – will I have the promised feelings about the characters?

I have too many feelings about Freezing to articulate, but this is definitely an experiment in the subconscious manipulation of reality, peeling away layers of association to find the spiritual core of the Waifu Experience.

And I know that this blog will be a vehicle to articulate my disgust for Hollywood. Explaining these experiences is the key. Chipping away at it week after week, putting it together with my own experiences, material and magical.

Somewhere in my subconscious is the pressure point, the subtle difference between character identification and spirit communication, between public and private, fantasy and reality.

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So I watched another episode of Black Clover, they’re finally out on a mission so things are getting into full swing. I am completely into the pacing of it now, loving the smartass remarks between Magna and Noelle. I have hope for real character development in this. I’m so glad Asta is getting to do things without every scene being about how frustrating he is.

The question is, how do I use writing to enhance the emotional depth of the experience of watching Anime? Maybe by recording details I can cherish. I love Toradora’s use of music. I love the humor of Freezing. There is no way I would have guessed that Satelli would have one Pandora Queen. Is it possible that people will come to like her? The ride to Saussy on the Crazy Cyclone was the first moment I felt “immersed” in the ongoing lives of the Black Bulls, introductions over, I’m part of the crew.

Are there details of my life that will also enhance this? I can’t think of any at the moment, but it gives me something to look out for, ways to weave my personal life into this narrative. I’m thinking of the last Chi! Ka! Go! when I’d done readings all evening and I was just lying on the floor listening to the band play. There has to be some way to pull those imaginal frequencies together and open a door of perception.

It’s in the news today that Pope Francis died. I know he had heard of me when Lily Wachowski my message to him years ago. So tonight as I rejoin the psychic community of anime I also think of the psychic community he was a leader of, and is still a part of. Perhaps he’ll be a Saint, like John Paul. There are some ways to put those ideas together. I hope he will be my spirit guide.

I have great happiness that after starting this project a year ago I can come back to it and see that it was a successful idea.

Five Go Mad on the CTA part 3

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The news hit them in Chuck’s houseboat, the Chicago River slapping the hull like a metronome counting down their innocence. Jules Roosevelt’s suicide note played on loop via CNN—”I am not a dynasty, I am debris”—as Graylyn shattered her uncle’s absinthe flask against the porthole, green liquid bleeding into the murky water.

“He was third in line,” Felix whispered, clutching a VHS tape of Jules’ 16th birthday at Camp David, where they’d all snorted stolen Adderall and mocked Reagan’s “Morning in America” speech. The footage now read like a eulogy: Jules in J.Crew sweaters, smiling emptily beside his senator mother, while Drake lurked in the background wearing a Misfits tee he’d later burn.

Drake paced, his father’s NATO medal digging into his chest. “They’ll say it was drugs. Depression. Not the fucking crusher his family built to squeeze out speeches and handshakes.” His voice cracked—a rarity for the Wolf Pack’s fearless leader. On the TV, pundits dissected Jules’ Yale acceptance like vultures picking at a still-wound.

Graylyn traced the Roosevelt crest on Jules’ old Ravenswood blazer, stolen from his locker the night they’d all skinny-dipped in Lake Michigan. “Two heirs on the list,” she said quietly. “You’re next, Drake.”

The room stilled. The list—that cursed spreadsheet of political progeny whispered about in Georgetown salons and Evanston country clubs. Drake’s grandfather had helped draft the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; his father’s shadow loomed over Langley. But Jules? Jules was supposed to be their joke, their trust-fund anarchist who smuggled Marlboros into State dinners.

Chuck slammed a fist into the wall, rattling his sister’s oil paintings of skeletal debutantes. “It’s the superstition. Two heirs collide, the universe fucking vomits.” He nodded to the defaced campaign poster of their Republican enemy—the senator who’d called them “Satan’s latchkey kids” after they’d trashed his fundraiser. “They’ll come for you now. For all of us.”

Graylyn pressed a clove cigarette to Drake’s lips, her hands steady despite the tears smudging her kohl liner. “We’ll burn it down,” she murmured. “The list. The legacy. All of it.” Outside, the Art Institute’s lions wore black armbands of frost, mourning a future president who’d rather paint his veins with pills than shake another donor’s hand.

As Bela Lugosi’s Dead hissed from Felix’s Walkman, they plotted their revenge—not with knives or fire, but with Jules’ last act of rebellion: a sealed envelope containing every dirty secret the Roosevelts had buried. The Sickie Souse Club didn’t mourn; they corroded. And Washington’s gilded rot had never tasted so bitter.