T.M. Shannon

I’d like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land I’m on, the Cabrogal people of the Darug nation, and all Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders, and I pay my respects to Elders past, present, and emerging.

Australia is a land with over 50 thousand years of history, and I support all efforts for reconciliation and correcting the past wrongs of colonisation.

Hi everyone,

For me, it’s been a rough couple of months from no content for May, not being bothered for June, and too busy on Three Ways to punch out a short story or read a book. Throw in a relocation and the conditions churning me around, and you’ve got my recipe for disaster.

But as you can see from the post pic, I have a new toy that cost me a pretty penny, and so far, none of my games have stressed the CPU or even caused the GPU fan to spin—long live liquid cooling and old games! Seriously, I need to buy something to stress this beast out.

Ultimately, I’m a mixed bag right now, and on that note, it’s time to delve into the bad news, the end result of a movie that hit me right in the nostalgia, and finish off with the good news, and I don’t mean the Good News Bible ads with the old-school shepherd and his little sheepies.

A Dose of Conditional Bother

As mentioned above, I’ve been circling the drain for the last few months, part of it due to forgetting to take one med, then settling back to the low state after a few days of balance, and losing my routine and internet access didn’t help.

But, “For those who came in late,” that line thanks to The Phantom comics, here’s the context. I have Type 1 Bipolar and ADHD, a background in PTSD and Psychosis, and a resulting addiction that’s the quintessential unhealthy survival mechanism. And yes, it sucks.

The hardest part of it is taking the 6 meds I take to balance different aspects out to arrive at functional, but it’s not a rosy picture and there’s a lot where I have to push a bit harder, or accept my limitations—mostly in the writing.

As you could imagine, getting the news that I have a weak heart with a 10-20% chance of heart failure at 44 years old hit like a truck, and that meant another 5 meds to add to the rotation. I also feel like the sacrifice every time I go to the clinic, and I had to cut back on coffee.

This isn’t doctor’s orders either, this is the Professor of Heart Failure speaking, and while I’ve broken the rules here and there, I’m having as much decaf as I can, and suspect part of my downs are withdrawals.

Throw in the few meds for the Type 2 Diabetes, and I’m not surprised I’ve been forgetting meds. But I cottoned onto Bipolar depression yesterday—though the ADHD depression hits when the Ritalin dose runs out—and knowing that, it’s “Take it serious” time.

As rough as it is, I’ve laid the groundwork to betterment, and made a long consult appointment to get a mental health care plan done, but it’s a week and a half away, so I’m worried about what happens between now and then, and who knows how soon I’ll get a psych appointment.

Then there’s the added bonus, getting nowhere in my 12-Step, and I’ve dropped off from my sponsor. Coupled with living further afield, that makes getting to evening meetings harder, and I need to take my night meds dead on 7pm or I’m having a rough night.

There’s two parts to this.

First, it’s a 30-question rush to Step 3, and the first time I did it, I got such manic energy from it I thought was things working as they should be. Then came the Step 4 drop off, and I was bouncing around sobriety busts for over a year.

This time, the questions didn’t sink in, it doesn’t feel deep enough, I’m answering well but I feel it’s more me trying to impress my sponsor or that innate downplaying that comes with masking. Plus, for the life of me, social anorexic and all, I really don’t want to make outreach calls.

“The phone is like a lifeline,” the program says, but either I’m playing on the good points, or I’m too embarrassed about the bad points, or else it’s really just not for me. What are you supposed to do when you know it’s isolation talking, but that isolation kept you safe your whole life?

Second, I feel 12 Step is treating the symptom—the coping mechanisms—and not the disease, which cuts deep and nasty. Facing that reality, it’s part shame and part disdain blocking progress. And I don’t know where I’m at or what I’m meant to do next.

It’s likely the question is answered when I can push past whatever’s driving me not to wake up on my first alarm. At the moment it’s wait to see the doctor and the psych, and I’m not sure how that’ll pan out.

A Dose of Flopped Nostalgia

I’m not a big movie goer. Superheroes aren’t doing it for me. And I picked the wrong time to go given my meds needs. But I gave into nostalgia and dragged the darling partner to Masters of the Universe.

I wasn’t expecting the world to move, at least not rushing out to see a Michael Bay’s Transformers ad and witness Starscream turn into an F-22, but just seeing the Mattel logo after decades hit the spot.

It took a bit to warm up to it—Dolph Lundgren’s cameo to be precise, a great nod to the previous Masters of the Universe movie—but once I did, I knew it was made by people who grew up on He-Man, and watched the hell out of it before getting to work.

Honest admission, I’d long forgotten Ram-Man, Fisto, Mekaneck, Roboto, and Trapjaw, but I was a kid with the Castle Grayskull playset, a light-up Sword of Power, spin on the floor Orko, and yes, that roided-up gym junkie in bondage gear and the cat he rode in on.

It was dumb, camp, moralistic, the writing wasn’t the best—they had a conversation when they were meant to be running from Beast Man—and the plot existed to get to the next fight or Skeletor monologue.

Skeletor was just called, “Bad.” Skeletor was just bad. No Oscars nominations are forthcoming here. But I gotta say, Jared Leto just owned the role and had a tonne of fun, and I’m not a fan of his.

My score? 7/10. Teela friendzoning He-Man with Monty Python’s 16 Ton weight? 13/10. I’m so glad they derailed a romance sub-plot–why you’d think that a great idea with someone not seen in 15 years is beyond me

But as all things nostalgic hit, no matter how much you got a hit from the hands on hips, lean back and laugh end-joke, there’s a flop risk, and He-Man, sadly, does not have the power.

For an adaptation, it fulfills the source material request. The lean back laugh, Orko’s lesson at the end, Skeletor getting the crap beaten out of him? This happened every episode.

The moralising? Every other cartoon I watched as a kid or knew about–Transformers, TMNT, G.I. Joe–all did the same thing.

The cultural longevity? Four Non Blondes’ “What’s Up” plays at one point, used in one particular He-Man meme. And who doesn’t get a chuckle out of, “Until we meet again!” Skeletor memes.

Yeah, the chuds weren’t happy with the product, not toxic male/rugged individualist enough even though He-Man worked with his friends.

I’m sure they’re all, “Go woke, go broke,” chuffed about the flop.

But I guess redoing the 80’s/90s doesn’t translate to the Marvelverse world, doing another Marvel with the end credits was, “Seen that already,” and paled versus modernised Transformers. Losing a potential She-Ra follow-on, too, brings on the, “Aww, sorry mate.” Vale, I guess.

But I had my choc-top, drank my Sprite, munched my popcorn, and left immensely satisfied, not least for gym-rat Skeletor curling while mocking Prince Adam. It might’ve flopped, but, “Good journey,” for the faithful adaptation.

A Dose of Satisfying Conclusion

All the above aside, I did it. I got to the point where I leant back, took a breath, and borrowed the Jesus line, “It is accomplished.”

After three months of dwindling motivation, pecking at chapters across a week, fighting when I’d forgotten to take my meds, and being generally blocked, I put that final full stop down at 89.8k words, 325 pages formatted with front/back matter. Three Ways is finished.

Of course, I wasn’t happy with chapter 43 and had to revise it last week, and now I’m at 89.2k words, where the target from my humble pie manuscript assessment was 100k words. And from a base of 200k words of wish fulfilment and the saviour complex, that’s a huge step.

And with a copy sent to the darling partner, and her blasting through my first 5 chapters and saying how smoother things are, how improved my writing is, truly hit the spot in an otherwise dreary time.

As to what I’m doing in the aftermath? Well, making my manuscript assessor proud and reading, which fell off through developing then re-developing Three Ways—ADHD focus to the detriment of all else for the win.

What did I kick off with? Well, on Dov James’ advice, I’m 5 chapters into Emily Brontё’s Wuthering Heights, and my goodness what a read it is. And having downloaded it, my Amazon Book Recommendations this week included Charlotte Brontё’s Jane Eyre.

And besides proving my bet I’d get Jane Eyre recommended, I guess I’m finally into the classics now.

And for a classic, despite the semi-archaic language that bogs down a bit but is survivable—except for Scrying-Is-A-Hard-Word person being discussed this last few weeks—, it’s crisp, quick, deep, frightening, and if not the product of a crazed mind, a knowledgeable study of darkness.

So far, the characters are miserable and guturally cruel, things cut like a 19th Century episode of The Twilight Zone, and now we’re up to a dose of crazier the deeper you go psychospicy of Apocalypse Now: Redux, itself the adaptation of Heart of Darkness.

I’m not going to spoil it, but having moved from just a guy going to meet his landlord then imposing himself as the arrogant tosser he is, to impending doom in 5 very short chapters is astonishing. And you best believe I’m aching to see where this goes.

One thing’s for sure, this isn’t a romance, and anybody who thinks Heathcliff’s obsession—which screams he needs a psychiatric hold, Noah from The Notebook paling in comparison—is a sign of how deeply he loves Catherine, they need their head checked.

Seeing this cracking pace and a no-holds-barred Welcome to the Whacko Ward narrative from 1847 hits with a gut punch, and begs me to say, “Challenge Accepted.” Having just cut back to more happening in fewer pages, I feel my writing’s onto a very good thing indeed.

Three Ways might not stand up against what some believe is theorise is maddenned genius, but going into its own darkness and showing the end results of it, and doing this deftly and quickly is a chuff-induced feeling.

And yes, I’m going to Jane Eyre next, and might get to Anne Brontё after that. Besides, I’ve gotta send my WIP to an editor, I have time.

A Dose of Au Revoir

Yep, it’s that time again, and I’m not up to regaling you with my Skyrim build woes where I have to keep switching between Adept and Novice difficulties to survive some dragon fights, or how much I’m hating a lack of a Horse Here quest marker in Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

But it was good to get this post out after two months away, plus having the content to explore, though I want to get back to Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical because there’s a lot about human unity in the AI times ahead.

Anyway, whoever, whatever, and wherever you are, I hope you have a good one or have the support to help you through if it’s a bad one, and don’t forget to catch me on Bluesky!

Take care,
T. M.