Thorn Wilde

Before I started rewriting Nemesis, I plotted it out in detail, chapter by chapter, which is something I've never done before and which was very helpful. However, as I wrote the content of each chapter, parts of the plot that I'd so carefully constructed started to change, because the characters wanted to go in a different direction from how I'd set them to go. I know that some writers plot their novels in painstaking detail (Connie Willis can take two years on just that) and once they start writing they know exactly what's going to happen, they own the characters and everything goes according to plan. Not me, it seems.

Oh, I forgot to mention my first great love where anime's concerned, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Giant mecha with a bit of a twist. That was a truly awesome show!

I started writing Nemesis a decade or so ago. While the essence of the story was the same, so many things about it have changed. Back then, Dave's name was Leo. Leo was a far more aggressive, macho type of character than Dave. When I began to rewrite the story from the beginning, a bit less than three years ago, I found that Leo had changed so drastically as to be almost unrecognisable, and his name had to change. Dave just felt right, somehow. Nick has always mirrored me, to a certain extent. When I created him, at fourteen, his big interests were anime and Harry Potter. He wrote poetry and would, in some sort of dramatic gesture, recite the poetry out loud to himself. But the Nick I write now is a songwriter rather than a poet, his great passion is music and his favourite book is, just like mine, American Gods. He's also much better as standing up for himself, quicker and cleverer. I was always terrible at clever comebacks when I was in school, and if It hadn't been for my friends I wouldn't have made it through those years. But Nick doesn't have any friends. It was suddenly clear to me that he needed some more street smarts if he were to survive school without the safety net of friends. So, instead of being the sad loser that everyone picked on, Nick had to become a loner by choice. A non-conformist. Not good at making friends, but getting by without them. In the original story, Leo was very much superior in every respect. However, Dave meets Nick half-way. They're more evenly matched. The minor characters have also evolved. They were, originally, far flatter, and the antagonists didn't really have motivations. That all changed when I took a leaf out of Neil Gaiman's book, literally. Neil says in his introduction to American Gods that when he wasn't sure what was going to happen next, he wrote one of the Coming to America stories (stories about how people ended up taking their gods, superstitions and deities with them to the new world), and when he'd finished, he knew exactly what was supposed to happen in the main story. Whenever I wasn't sure who a minor character was or what their motivations were, I sat down and began penning a short story exploring that character's origins or an episode from his or her life, and when that story was finished, I suddenly knew exactly what that character would do in any given situation. I call the collection of these short stories Hubris. I shall leave you (if anyone is reading this at all) with the rather embarrassing first paragraph of the original Nemesis, exactly as I wrote it ten years ago: There are many small towns in this world, where everyone knows each other and no one's a stranger. If you would ask any of the residents of one particular suburban small-town who the two boys Leo and Nick were, this is the response you'd most likely receive: Whoever it was would get a faraway look in their eyes and chuckle slightly before turning to you and saying, "Don't even get me started on those two!" Because there wasn't a single soul in this town who didn't know the names of the two archenemies Leo Thomas and Nick Davies. Cheerio! Going to sleep now.

I'm at about 55,000 words at the moment, but I haven't written the epilogue yet, so it'll be a little longer than that. Maybe 56 or 57k. And thank you! <3

CHAPTER FOUR Bruise Pristine It had only just gone nine and Nick really didn’t feel like going home yet. Zoë was spending the evening at home with her boyfriend, Craig, and Nick didn’t want to be in the way, or walk in on something he’d rather not see. Besides, he didn’t want to come home drunk and his head was still spinning. So he just wandered around town for a while, trying to sober up. Windfield Green was almost entirely empty, though he could hear chattering and music fro

I only just discovered Soul Eater. One of my friends showed it to me a couple of weeks ago. I just LOVE Death the Kid! So funny! Cowboy Bebop is one of the ones I watched back in my teens. I loved it so much! Wanted to marry Spike.

Oh my god, it's been ages since I watched that! I absolutely loved it. I used to attend anime screenings at my local university every Friday when I was in my teens, I watched that there. Which of the ones I mentioned was your favourite, btw?

This was a lovely poem. I have a friend in Boston, but she was luckily not around when it happens. Scary, though...

Oh! How unexpected!

A piece of road walks into a bar, orders a drink and immediately starts mouthing off about how he's the toughest, meanest piece of road there is, he can kick every other road's arse. He keeps bragging until the door opens behind him, and in walks this tiny, skinny little piece of road, and sits down at the bar. The first piece of road goes completely silent. The skinny piece of road orders a beer, drinks it in silence and then leaves. The bartender turns to the first piece of road. 'You came in here bragging and mouthing off about how badass you are, and when this guy walks in, you shut your mouth. What gives?' The first piece of road says, 'I may be the meanest, baddest piece of road there is, but that guy? He's a cycle path.' Two atoms walk into a bar. One says to the other, 'I think I just lost an electron!' 'You sure?' 'I'm positive!' A panda walks into a bar. He sits down and orders a sandwich. He eats the sandwich and then pulls out a gun and shoots the waiter dead. He gets up and heads for the door. 'Hey, you can't do that!' says the bartender. 'You just shot my waiter and you haven't paid for the sandwich!' 'Mate, I'm a panda,' says the panda. 'Look it up!' The bartender pulls out a dictionary and looks up panda. The entry reads: 'An asian mammal of the bear family, recognisable by its distinct black and white colouring. Eats shoots and leaves.' A Higgs Boson walks into a church. The priest says, 'We don't allow Higgs Bosons in here!' The Higgs Boson says, 'But without me, how can you have mass?' The prime minister of Great Britain, the president of the United States, an elderly preacher and his daughter are the only passengers on a plane. The plane's engines fail, and they have to evacuate the plane, but there are only three parachutes on board. The prime minister says, 'Since I'm the most important man in Britain, I should have a parachute.' He straps one on and jumps out. The president says, 'Because I'm the most important man in the world, I should definitely have a parachute.' He also straps one on and jumps out. The preacher turns to his daughter. 'Take the last parachute, my child. I'm an old man, I've lived a good life.' 'Oh, don't worry, dad,' says his daughter. 'The most important man in the world just jumped out with my backpack.'

Thank you so much for all your support, Circle! <3

You probably have a point with that, but Mel's commentary is important in a different respect. You'll see soon enough. Thanks for reviewing again! <3

Playlist (YouTube) Playlist (YouTube) Playlist (YouTube) Alan Matt Craig Hubris reading order: Alan - after the final chapter of Nemesis: Because I Want You. Matt - between chapters 4 and 5 of Nemesis: Soulmates Never Die. Craig - after chapter 8 of Nemesis: Soulmates Never Die. Alan & Matt - after the final chapter of Nemesis: Soulmates Never Die. Patrick - after chapter 12 of Nemesis: Loud Like Love. Devon - after the final chapter of Nemesis: Loud Like Love (can well be read before the epilogue).

Huge fan of this story! It's what brought me to this site. One of my readers on Archive of Our Own recommended it to me. I feel for Dan so much. It's not easy to come to terms with both your sexuality and a more or less alien culture at once.

I second Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi. Very good boy's love anime. It's been subbed by aarinfantasy. It's a spin-off of another series called Junjou Romantica, also subbed by aarinfantasy. They overlap occasionally. Both are great. Another very cute one is Gravitation. For the slightly more explicit, Winter Cicadas is great. Historical setting. Yaoi. Ai no Kusabi is also good, and the remake of the same is even better, but it's an OVA and only four episodes have been released. As for non-gay anime, if it's at all interesting to you: Beck Mongolian Chop Squad is a coming of age story about a young boy who starts to play the guitar and joins a band and is one of the best anime I've seen in a long time. The English dub is better than the original Japanese. Soul Eater is a bizarre, hilarious and oddly intelligent anime about death gods and weapons who turn into people and eat souls. Abenobashi: Magical Shopping Arcade is equally bizarre and wacky and very nerdy, full of references to games, films and fandoms, so if you're into that you'll enjoy it. Cowboy Bebop is about outer space bounty hunters. Colonies on Mars, Venus, Jupiter's moons... Fun characters, intelligent stories. Planetes, very good science fiction. Slightly political. Very clever. Haibane Renmei is about people who are somehow reborn as a sort of angel-looking creatures and no one knows where they come from but they all live in this town that's closed off from the world around them. Slightly strange, very beautiful. Entirely devoid of romance. Now & Then, Here & There is a post apocalyptic science fiction about child soldiers and just a little bit of magic. Grim and dark, very good. Serial Experiments Lain is about computers and a virtual world inside them and people committing suicide to become part of the net forever. Dark, grim, very freaky, total mind-fvck. Oh, and Hellsing. Because vampires. Both the original and Ultimate Hellsing are quite good.

I have a MacBook Pro, a MacBook Air and an iPod. I'll probably end up getting an iPhone at some point, but I like my dumb phone, don't really want a smart phone till it dies. What I like best about Mac is without a doubt Garage Band, which is the most powerful user friendly music recording software out there, and it comes for free included on all Mackintosh computers. I adore it.

I like stealth, so ninjas are awesome. But there's something to be said for the whole Samurai honour code thing, and the upper class culture of ancient Japan is quite fascinating. I wonder, have you read Shogun? Really quite brilliant book, if you don't mind them epic. Also, there's a really fantastic three-episode anime OVA called Winter Cicadas, about two samurai, each on different sides of the fight during the Meiji revolution, who fall in love. Well worth a look if you're into that sort of thing. Contains some nudity.

I collect pretty boys. Whenever I see one—slight and effeminate, with long lashes and rosy lips—I want to own him. I want to make him want me. Adore me. Love me. I collect them in my mind, all the boys whose faces are like angels, whose voices quiver as they say my name, I collect them all, and remember them, and live off of those memories. I take the shy and timid ones, and the ones who are insecure in their sexuality, uncomfortable in their skins. I take them and mould them and blow life int

'I collect pretty boys. Whenever I see one—slight and effeminate, with long lashes and rosy lips—I want to own him. I want to make him want me. Adore me. Love me.' A rather odd young man's life, summed up in less than 2000 words.

I'll most likely be posting daily, or at least semi-daily. Yeah, someone else was confused about the Dave/Davis thing, too... First time anyone's mentioned that, though. I'm afraid the names are staying. Thank you for taking the time to read and review! It means a lot.

Thank you! <3

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!

Thank you for your suggestions! I'll keep them in mind in my rewrites. And thank you for taking the time to read in spite of your busy schedule, I really appreciate it! <3

I'm glad you're enjoying it! Thanks so much for your continued support!

I intend to update pretty regularly. For the most part, the story is already finished, so I'll most likely be able to update with a chapter per day. Thanks for reviewing, I'm so glad you're enjoying it!