About

About the Gunlord:

I don’t want to reveal too much about myself yet, though I may in the future if I am so inclined. Suffice it to say that I’m moving here from Livejournal due to the decline and lack of activity on that platform. I considered Tumblr, and I may get one eventually, but I’ve heard too many bad things about it to join at the moment. I also thought about Blogspot, but I’ve also heard (and experienced) terrible things from it as well; an unwieldy interface, uncaring administrators, and unwieldy comment moderation do not make for satisfactory blogging. WordPress, on the other hand, has given me nothing but relatively positive experiences as a drive-by commenter over the past few years, and several of my friends have chosen it as well. Thusly, I decided to put my new roots down here.

Now that you know why I’m here, perhaps you’re wondering what you can find here. Well, this blog is not intended to replace my Livejournal entirely–remember, I just said I was coming here from LJ, not moving entirely. My little own journal will still remain a place for me to screw around with my friends and make irreverent, lulzy entries, even if few read them anymore. My LJ, however, is private, while this will be public. Thus, in general, most of the entries here will be a bit more serious. I don’t mean levity will be entirely absent, of course–in fact, you can expect quite the opposite! I’m just saying that I’ll try to keep my writing here more professional, well-researched, and well-thought out than typical of my livejournal fare. I aim to be provocative in the sense of “thought-provoking” rather than offensive, flippant, or offensively flippant, so to speak 🙂 I’ve written a few LJ entries in the past which have gotten me in some hot water (more on that later, maybe), and while perhaps my writings here will do the same, no-one will be able to accuse them of being poorly conceived.

So, what can you expect me to write about? Here’s a list, though keep in mind I won’t limit myself exclusively to it:

1: Posts on videogames in general

2: A few posts on Fire Emblem from the perspective of someone who’s losing interest in the series and plans to leave the fandom entirely in a few years. More on this later, perhaps, but I used to be a big fan of the FE series and somewhat prominent in the fan community, in fact. To this day I’m still active writing fanfiction for it, though as you’ll see in the next entry, I’ll eventually cease writing for it as well. I plan to talk about what brought me to the series, why I no longer find it as engaging, and what I’ve learned from Fire Emblem games and their fans over the years.

3: Relatedly, posts on fanfiction–the whys as well as hows of writing it. I’m the author of Wayward Son, which is, so far as I’m aware, the longest single Fire Emblem story yet published on fanfiction.net. Once I finish it, along with a few other shorter ones, I think I’ll be done with FE fiction, if not fanfiction as a whole.  Thus, before I make my exit, I’d like to write about why I write, the process of writing such a long piece of derivative fanwork, the challenges I’ve encountered along the way, and the things I’ve learned while doing so. I hasten to add that I’m a mediocre writer at best–I am blessed with obstinacy and determinacy, but not much literary skill. Even so, if my musings on the “epic” (note the quotation marks) author’s life are useful to my friends, other writers who might happen upon this blog, or even my enemies ( 😉 ), I think that’s good enough.

4: Posts on Vindictus and League of Legends, the two games I spend a particular amount of time on these days.

5: I have an affinity (and some professional experience with) history, particularly African-American and religious history. Expect a little bit on that!

6: Anime, particularly mecha anime! While I’m not as active and probably won’t be as active in the FE fandom anymore, I am quite busy in communities devoted to giant robot Japanese cartoons, such as the /m/echa image board and its related fansubbing group, /m/subs. While I am lamentably ignorant of the Japanese language, I have been honored to help those who actually can understand it create fansubs for some previously untranslated mecha gems, such as Armored Trooper VOTOMs and Da-Garn. I serve as a timer, making sure subtitles show up in the right places and at the right times.

7: Quotes from famous historical figures, friends of mine, or myself personally that I find amusing. XD

8: A sundry assortment of posts on my other interests, ranging from pet budgies to computer science and fitness.

9: Perhaps a handful of political posts, though not too many.

10: And, last but not least, pornography…Japanese and otherwise. In keeping with WordPress’ TOS, I will not post explicit pictures, movies, or otherwise NSFW material, but I will talk about “adult” matters at least occasionally. Still, I must make it immediately clear that I am very tolerant of pretty much all sexualities and fetishes–straights and gays, futanari fans and MILF conoisseurs, all are welcome here, and may find something that appeals to them. I’ll even tolerate bronies and furries, though I’m not generally fond of either group. As a result, I must warn those who take a dim view of alternative sexualities (for religious or secular reasons): I won’t mock your convictions, but I do not share them. If you are offended by such content, please do not look at entries marked NSFW. If that’s too much, don’t look at my blog at all.

This is, of course, not to say anyone can just go crazy here. Again, I wish not to cross the TOS, so while I welcome discussion, I would request you not post explicit material in the comments. Also, I must go out of my way to strictly deal with “extreme” stuff like loli, child porn, guro, and those sorts of things. Posting those will earn you a swift ban, of course, but even advocating for such things in real life may be cause for moderation from me. I don’t want to get into legal trouble.

So, what else can I tell you…well, depending on where you go, and when you’ve spoken to me, I can be either famous or notorious. A few years back, I used to be a Livejournal troll of some (dis)repute, constantly getting into fights and all sorts of trouble. These days, however, I’m much more laid back and have a much more positive outlook on life, largely due to gaining more experience (both IRL and on the Internet), and meeting wonderful people in the fandom for the Castlevania series. Another source of growth was, oddly enough, my friends on /m/ exposing me to several fantastic Japanese anime series and Western science fiction novels which taught me a great deal and very much improved my perspective on life. It may be strange to learn a lot from Japanese children’s scifi cartoons (though, in my defense, OVAs such as Legend of the Galactic Heroes–one of my primary inspirations–are very much not for kids, and novels such as Haldeman’s The Forever War are certainly “mature” enough for anyone), but hell, it’s better to find wisdom in strange sources than not find it at all, right? XD So…yeah, I may have been angry and offensive a few years ago, but nowadays I’m concentrating much more on being virtuous. Helping fansubbers and having good discussions with my fellow science fiction fans is much higher on my list of priorities than calling people names, and I actually go out of my way to avoid trouble these days. I hope my readers will assist me in that endeavor 😉

Well, that should be it for now. I hope you enjoy the blog!

P.S: I have absolutely no relation to the recent Dreamcast shooter “Gunlord,” which can be found here:

http://gun-lord.com/

It’s just coincidence that the game and I share a (screen)name. Please don’t get us confused…or accuse either of us of ripping the other off, I’ve been known as Gunlord since before 2004 and they had no idea I even existed when they came up with their game XD

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