Hello!

I thought I'd give you all useless information about me, but I think I'm just a bit more talkative in the Author Notes scattered in my stories. I'm not sure if I like A/N's up top or on the bottom, but I end up doing both. As a reader I really like reading these, but I've got a feeling that many people skip over them. Shame, really. People have such a great sense of humor.

Musings about HP and DTB

My first FFN love was Darker Than Black. And I got to thinking about the contrasts between DTB and HP. For one, the genres are completely different. DTB is a mystery with mind games. HP is a children's book series that tries to pack the weight of humanity and the meaning of life in just seven books. HP is a world which keeps expanding: you can explore pre-Hogwarts, during Hogwarts, post-Hogwarts, a Death Eater based story, a powerful Master of Death Harry story, a romance between characters, some sort of war time thing, a time travel fic, a next gen fic...DTB is a much smaller world in contrast. There's a small set of characters and those characters are all pretty similar in terms of high intelligence, powerful abilities, and a tendency to the shadows. HP is also already in novel form. DTB is an anime, and thoughts of the characters, action between scenes, and other things are simply lost or not explained. Characterization is mainly through action. Even dialogue tends to only reveal a little of who they are.

The evil force in DTB is the Syndicate which double-crosses their contractors/dolls in their employment. There isn't exactly a leader named and the Syndicate remains nebulous and hidden before, during, and after the series. Death Eaters, by contrast, follow Voldemort out of fear and a shared prejudice fueled by blood supremacy. But given a chance to save themselves or serve Voldemort, they often choose to save themselves. With DTB, I think there is a common goal of ridding the world of contractors, and though there isn't a head to chop off, even if the leader were beheaded, this common goal would keep the Syndicate otherwise in tact.

Many players are fragmented and, while many stories in HP revolve around a major kidnapping by Death Eaters to a Death Eater stronghold, the DTB universe doesn't have something similar. If Hei's captured or attacked, it is done with only a few people in the know. Intelligence is limited on purpose, and that makes it hard to define a neat villain that needs defeating. How do you defeat something so indefinable? How to you eradicate prejudice? That's why I think many DTB stories that focus on a peaceful resolution get involved with social justice, usually with Misaki leading a pro-contractor campaign. Changing minds in society isn't as simple as lopping off Voldemort's head. HP fics will sometimes choose to focus on the social science aspects of the world, often with Harry somehow winning over, infiltrating, or otherwise working with the Pure Bloods of society, but Hei's working in a different world. One forced to the shadows.

I struggle with writing any DTB fic because I am in love with the very unstable world portrayed in the series. Pick any time after the collapse of the Saturn ring and there's just too much logistical baggage to shove around to get the plot moving anywhere. (Kudos to those ffn authors who make it work!) That's partly why I don't like Season 2, you know, apart from the other million reasons. It's because Season 2 gets bogged down with all the world building details. Anti-contractor devices, ME squeezers, suddenly new rules and new powers. The relationships built in Season 1 were so meaningful and character development took up most of the story. I missed that in Season 2, which seemed to be one long story going nowhere with a very unsatisfying plot and conclusion. (Read the manga!) Anyway...I hope you appreciate my attempts at writing a new DTB fanfic which selfishly has all the scenes in it I would have liked to see in an AU. Best, BT.

RETURN OF EMERALD

8.14.13-6.23.2016

I Am Not I

by Juan Ramon Jimenez

I am not I.

I am this one

walking beside me whom I do not see,

whom at times I manage to visit,

and whom at other times I forget;

who remains calm and silent while I talk,

and forgives, gently, when I hate,

who walks where I am not,

who will remain standing when I die.

Happy Reading!

Bleu Tsuki