The title and the broken mask
The title developed from Spectrum: Unmasked through JLD: Unmasked to Justice League Dark Spectrum. The announcement concept paired the cover with an explanation of masking in relation to autism.
From the writer’s notes
It also gives a great solo run BN/BD name: Spectrum: Unmasked with a killer cover: the mask lying on the office floor (I always imagine it broke in two distinct pieces down the middle vertical, with a small chunk from the top broken and to the side… and the shadow of Soecs walking out the door as Chief Dick and Deputy Dildo stand in the office looking smug sending emails in their phone… it’s a shadow form at the door cause approaching the door is bright light, white, with edged tinge of colors
The writer imagines eight episodes, three movies, and a shorter wrap-up film. Comic and print images remain ways to describe moments that might later become animation.
From the writer’s notes
2) I’ve realized what I’m creating is really a cartoon - a 8 ep run (likely an hour), 3 movies, and 1 wrap up short movie. This is happening because a) I LOVE the DCAU and it’s lineup and I think this story fits in it really well as a way to make more without them reopening that storyline… if this is only ever for me, I’m creating it in a way that a DC exec could go “yeah, he taken liberties, and he’s made up things and connections we hadnt… but at the end he wipes it out and if wanna use it we can always just figure it out… hehe it’s”Gold”” and B) I think it’s the best medium… that being said, I’m writing it with detail enough to go animated… but I want to make sure I’m using correct language at all times, even if it’s not going to be written… but also, like that overlap echo, I want to make it clear that if/when printed, I know what it looks like too.
From the writer’s notes
another reason I’m doing it this way: sometimes I can explain it best in print form than on screen or vice versa… that’s okay, I can translate that later… the goal is the moment and right now, it’s all in print, so words are good. The other reason is content allotment: I can much, much better determine content and pacing within the constraings of an animated movie way more easily than trying to figure out how much can go in a single “issue”… so, I’m making eps and movies… and sometimes I’ll use comic talk to get thee idea accross, but ultimialy, I’m making a movie and someone else can turn that into the actual comics.
Memory and the writer’s own magic
The personal memories belong to the writer. This account explains the difference between that lived experience and Specs taking form.
From the writer’s notes
JLD 1-3 are the “here’s where it began, here’s where we left off… we’re off to even bigger” , so JLD1 starts with the unmask moment… the intital dreams… the things we didn’t give “origion” in 1-8. (I want to note: 1-8 shouldn’t feel like we just jumped in and it’s beeen going for years.. it’s important to understand, there’s iittle to Specs story before the unmask… reality: Specs didn’t exist before then and when he did, he’s based on me (the writer) but after that hes just inspired by (like any character) - from a meta standpoint, that we’ll hint at, maybe in the helmet. (those images passing by can also include alt reality varaions of Specs, which would include The Writer)…. the start of 1-8 picks up after solo time recovering from the unmask and adapting to these hues… magic, from Specs perspective is both just something he can do and something he’s alwawys done…. for Specs, it’s like a third arm, he doesn’t think about using it, he just does (the hardeest question and one that tends to leave Specs a spinning beachball trying to parse all his own (and otherworldy) data is: could you use magic before the unmask - it feels like a simlpe question, and after a while, he finally would say: I know the answer is a firm and solid “yes”, but I also know it isn’t… wasn’t… the same (this is my way of saying I, J, have always had magic in my life, I’ve always studied it… Specs gets the flashy version, but basiclaly, he’s not casting any spell in his day to day that I (J) honestly don’t beleive that, with enough WHATEVER in this (my) reality could be done (again, not talking Zatanna or Constatnine magic… though I suppose he could do that if trained, it’s just a lack of /active/ knoweldge … but notes, open the book to the page we need, a little truth, a bit of rain, a “I can guess your favorite flower…” and then it grows for them kind of thing…. not world shaking, just life assisting. ..
From the writer’s notes
Oh, the memories were/are real - they’re just mine, the writer. His life diverged from mine in the moment the mask dropped, I suppose I could tweak and have that actually be the moment Specs was given form in that reality. The mask itself might be a great starting point - I could see this being Fates seeing the story - perhaps, I’ll think on that - I do still need to define Fates role in the play. A conversation that ends with Metatron warning “Order says you don’t get to remember all this … but as always, you play your part well… Fate always guides Life’s hand” or something like that.
From the writer’s notes
Also, the White, the Entity of Life: The Ever
The plants and the awakening
The writer’s account connects the awakening to the plants and to the personal experience of discovering the hues.
From the writer’s notes
Things Specs doesn’t know: Swamp Thing, working with the parliment of trees and in conjuction with The White’s parliement, actaully designed and directed the plants used in the Munchies Specs acquires and lead to this spectral awakening… he had known the lantern corps (everyone remebers Blackest Night and Brightest Day … and most of what came after….but somewhere along the path, indca shifted to Blue… and hybrid shifted to Green … Sattiva Well, that made Red and StarS get a little vocal (and for the first time in what felt like 4 years, a cum shot worth a damn… and even the desire to do it again… and the exlporation opened the door… and then he tried on the other hues as they came, learned who he was in them… let himself feel okay with the United States of Tara of it all (see: same name).
The fallen journal opens to an old prophecy. Its words return amid the later echoes.
From the writer’s notes
The journal lands on a prophecy long ago made by Fate… Fate(Z) reads it alloud (before Boston arrives): What is time to an immortal… a dead man and a grey ghost…
From the writer’s notes
that’s why, when in the helm, amongst the noise (that Specs can make words out in)… Fate can hear that line… he heard it before… when? When he wrote the prohecy in his journal. When was that? Fuck off, don’t matter… see last page of seires.
Kid Flash, the survivor being ignored
Kid Flash supplies the audience’s obvious answer to the question of who could wear the Helm and live. Attention goes to Khalid instead. The deliberate failure to acknowledge Kid Flash makes the joke, followed by his “don’t tip the taxi driver” departure.
Entering the Helm lets Zatanna participate as herself after the exchange of bearers. The initial “try it on” idea developed into a visit with two anchors.
The room becomes a visualization of memory, with Specs both observing and present in the remembered action. The ReRunt exchange exposes one of the gaps in what he wrote.
From the writer’s notes
the joke, the helmet comes off and is given to K, “tell us more” says FateK “I guess I should have brought my journal with me” Z’s spell, after the spell montage (I visualize it like they’re on a holdback and when the spell starts going, the room changes and we see Specs in duplicate (one observer/narrator who’s standing with the JLD and the one in the “memory” .
From the writer’s notes
When the spell ends “Impressive. he nods way better than a rerunt” “Huh?!” Chimes, Boston “never mind.” Specs replies. IT’s here that Specs realizes to himself that he left out a lot in his journal… he never explained ReRunts or the ability. Just a comment.
From the writer’s notes
The journal spell: another thing I’m keeping in mind, we’re seeing a visualization of the spell itself… but not all of the spell… the bottom line is if it’s in the journal, they know it… the unknown question (till I make the full thing) is what was… or wasn’t, in that journal.
His unplanned arrival, irritation with the sound, and interest in Orchid give him his own experience of the visit.
From the writer’s notes
Boston points out Orchid, following her around as he floats, swooning at the sight till she couldn’t be seen. Boston gets more annoyed with the sounds and comments “Why did you drag me in here anyway? Felt like a NY car being sucked down a gutter after a storm” Specs notices the trail from Boston, other’s don’t, but he doesn’t know that anymore than he knows Boston himself… he assumes whatever that is is just a part of whatever he is… but visually, it catches his eye and he does take note, just not out loud.
From the writer’s notes
part of being in the Helm is trying to understand what happen… they discover Was… Deadman is in the Helm too, he didn’t mean to be and wasn’t meant to be by the spell its like he “just got sucked in like a rat in a ny gutter after it rains” - “I… I don’t even know how to descibe what you are, Boston… let alone how I’d start to get you in our out of here…”
The images are already there on entry. The developing visual concept also considers additional figures from connected worlds.
From the writer’s notes
the moment they enter the helm the images are there (’ve just realized the light entities need to be there… Z and Boston and Fate might recognize some… “that’s Adara!!!” Specs says with a smile, point upward…. “And Ion!!” When he says Ion, a single note pierces for a moment (and F Sharp, of course) it fades quickly back to the building sounds around them, it bothers Boston most for some unknown reason (or maybe he’s just Boston) he keeps wiggling his pinky in his ear.
From the writer’s notes
More and more “That’s Swamp Thing, protector of The Green” “I know that guy!” Boston butts in “and that one” he points to Ever, glowing White like a moon in the sky, cocooned and curled tightly, like he’s sleeping and waiting for what’s already happened (will happen/will happen again/and so on) Z points to Sam “I think that that’s an air elemental” (she doesn’t have details so she doesn’t think to assume, it looks like an air elemental)… then the horn…. It bugs everyone, but Specs … looking around, without thinking, sings “blow, Gabriel, bloooow…. Go on and blow, Gabriel, blow….” And then the echo words stackking, building up, those who can make out words make them out, till… Spectre stands close, Fate says “The Wrath of God” “No thank you!!!” And BAM! They’re out of the helm.
From the writer’s notes
okay, so Fate’s Spell… two anchors because someone has to host the helm and another who knows the helm must guide the way… effectivly, we’re being invited into Fate’s mind … but not just FateK, the echoes of past bearers, or even just Nabu… but Nabu’s connection to Order… and that’s why we see those other flashes: Spectre, Angles, Phantom Stranger, stranger glowing lights that are obviously “forms” without body (I’d want to do a fun cross reference with all DC or DC-connected IP for anytihng even close and any cool thing that’d make a fan go “OMG!! LOOK!” and the person beside them go “yeah, who’s that one” (cause the exicted person loves that one and most forget them)… “I’ve seen that one… somehwere….I think” - when Rapahel (big guy, six wings) is seen… the Angel of Air is for sure the one he’d likely dreamt of and most likely to hear…they don’t see Gabriel, the hear a horn *they look around in the dark space filled with no sounds, but all these images, ghost illusions of … whoever, whatever they are… so the horn is suprising, but not alarming… what’s important is that to Z “sounded like a growl” to Specs “no, that was a horn” … hearing is fading, but The Voice can hear clearly.
From the writer’s notes
Expanding what we see in the helm… Entities and Avatars as well… somoe current, some form the past, some we know, some we don’t… they’re less transparent, not soild, just more visible … here Orchid passes (but at this point we don’t know why, just Boston getting a chance to smile and “my lady” as she passes), Swampy… Grundy… even Despair and Destruction … Despair, awfully close to Specs (“how is this one looking at me?!”) and Destruction very very close to The Butcher (see Red Entity) and simliar such things… the “higher ones” so to speak, are more ghost, further away, harder to reach… Fate inists it’s Order clamaing a new charge… and insists this be played out… and charges Z with the next step (this is a JLD story - not Spectrum’s… his books are over… This is Justice League Dark Spectrum… that last word isn’t a reference to a character.
The moving image links their positions in one fluid beat. The dialogue-and-spell passage is an earlier concept from when the journal spell followed the discovery of Was inside the Helm.
From the writer’s notes
Grundy is just behind Was, nearby, but not directly behind (Grundy already is a one, he’s closer, more visible than others cause he’ll be a two)
From the writer’s notes
if this were live/animated, it would be a 1-2-3 beat: peek for surpise, Was appears, turn to Was (Specs going downward with chin, Despair smiling and fading out all at same time, fluid motion, connected)
From the writer’s notes
“that was me”…. Specs, quckly, explains sliding… “that that felt like… nothing.. like I just”Was”. … “This would go faster if you knew everytihng. I guess I should have brought my journal” … Z -“If you’re here, then you’re journal is! laeveR eht shturt ni smurtcepS lanruoj, tub ton eht yllaer lanosrep snap” Boston, FateK and Z all understand all that Spec has learned thus far… that he thought to write down… that didn’t require information that the spell conisdedd “personal” … which has made what they know feel like swiss cheese al a Quantum Leap (cause, Specs undetrsands, its’ all connected and what you call personal a Martian would call dull information and anything but news (see: Miss Marsian/Manhunter/that time Conner kissed Megan while she looked like Canary and what Marsian said)
Overlapping sound on the printed page
Each echo occupies one unbroken line, printed over the others until the accumulation approaches a black line. Recognition depends on the listener.
From the writer’s notes
and then the echoes… every echo we heard before or will hear in the series is heard here… all at once and on top of each other (in comic, it would be the lines, single line no return, but each line printed on top of itself, so almost a straight black line because it’s done that to itself.
From the writer’s notes
It’s reverburating in the Helm, Fate exists in a single linear time… Specs (or rather, The Voice eventaul) doesn’t… so those things are bouncing around as they happen, cause they’re always happening, allways will be happening, and so on…. after the horn, the group just hears loud Static… but Specs can make out the occisional word… “Gold” “well” … it’s like being in a crowded room and you can lock onto hearing your name… but it’s getting louder… if we get out of this helm… will we be ready ?
From the writer’s notes
And that means Z hears them too, because she too, when in the helm, is Fate (visaully, in teh black of the Helm, we see FateK, Boston, Z and Specs (and all those reflections)
From the writer’s notes
Boston is the outlier… he just hears noise and his tired of sticking his pinkies in his ears. They don’t understand them, more than enough to just go with it quietly “fate helps, okay” (like they’re Grundy)… but more important, it gives clear signal and direction: Fate - help em out!!! So say.. you!!!! lol… so the instance later that Z continue (Z, who will again be Fate as part of the magical rotation agreement) can go in Fate’s stead.
The earlier Spectre encounter
An earlier version places the encounter with Constantine after the Helm. It retains the Red/Green reaction and the joke about a future colleague.
From the writer’s notes
for later much later, when Specs is alone with Constantine, after having been in the helm: Standing next to John as he tucks things he “may need” in his coat from drawers and shelves, Specs is suddenly in a black space, in front of him stands The Specte… Specs: hey! You!!! he points and backs up Why have I been seeing you?!! That helmet called you the wrath of god?!!! NO THANK YOU!!!!” he steps back more “Intersting.” says The Spectere, no moving, just looking at/through/into “yeah, sure. Here every Wendsday, tup the waiters” says Specs says looking around anxiously “It seems suprising He didn’t name you The Mouth” Specs snaps his head towards Spectre, Slinding into Red, powered up” “THE FUCK YOU SAY?!” and instantly he’s in the room, slinding into Green and spinning his arm around like a well trained GL “where… where’d he go” he asks, realizing there’s no one but John, lowering his arm and sliding back to Specs, like exhaling “What ya on about?” asks John, “that … that .. guy, the helmet guy, Fate or whatever, called him the fucking wrath of god… he was just here!!!” he looks around frantically* “Oh, him… don’t mind him mate, he’s always got a stick up his bum about something… I’m sure he’ll take it out on me later”
The last line is followed by a pullback and a fade. The next book opens with the answering shout and the hug that makes the Gold of the Helm shine. The swamp’s familiarity also gives Specs his Yelp-review line.
These early accounts explore Metatron’s relation to time, the favors, and the memories. Their earlier mechanisms include Fate seeking Specs and placing the Helm on him.
From the writer’s notes
Fate doesn’t just make a joke… all he remembers is Boston showing up and telling him about this guy… along the way he figured out the signs… but this story, this tale that’s spn of talking plants and faries… why,clever little Ai, that’s sounds like magic anf fairy tales… next you’ll tell me that angles exist outside of time and withing time, as if they’re everything, everywhere, all at once… and all at the same time… and I mean, that’s nutty cause, I mean, Metatron is the voice of God and even Specs can zoom out enough to see the Engine… you think by the time Metatron is, was and always will be he won’t have figured out which gearts to pause, which springs to snap… which whiffs to let linger with unspoken workds, that trigger trances and actions unknown even by Fate, all the mouth waters for… strawberries. I mean, that’s like Word of God shit, bro… who would ever say something like that… oh, yeah 😉 it’s not spoken, its sung.
From the writer’s notes
Metatron is, because the engine requires it… Matatron will be an angel, The Voice; he will be the Spectrum; The Magus; he will be because he is and ever was and will be, infintitly, in many realities and all of them and none of them… and he can see every tick of the gear, every rotation of the sprokect… he can write his own history, even when he can’t read the map… even when he’s blindly, unknownlgy walking the path he was meant to walk, would choose to walk, would never walk will walk forever and never again… he’ll even, briefly, on a dark day, on a bright night, find his way to be a singular entity, a vesel for Life, the Word, the Voice made form to support the Light. Fate was a mindless actor, Order in action wthout knoweldge there of… the others Grundy, Swampy and the like…they all have lived so many lifetimes themselves… even Swampy, his got the memory of the trees… they’re lives have as elements have been so long and their memories so many that that small thing, that message delivered and action carried out by them, a message from an old friend… or, new friend… or… The White… this message has long been on the wind, since before Grundy was Grundy, Swampy was Swampy and not quite latnerns had lost loves… they just repaid a long forgotten debt, they’re sure… it was a small thing, after all, nothing major from their point of view… just doing a thing for another in the The gang (The Red, White, The Clear, etc). Maybe one day Fate will figure out his real part… but for now, he remebers a vagues story about a Deadman meeting a grey ghost… and something about some prohecy he found later on… he felt like the handwriting belong to one of the Fate’s bearers, but just can’t seem to figure out who. (I’m not answering, but what was that damn voice saying?!!! and why WAS that prohecy he found written in his own journal, fingers stained with ink, but not his writing… yet, still familiar… “what is time to an immortal”
From the writer’s notes
Also, let’s cover “the favors”: Sam is saved and made avatar - the wind will tell him what to do. Sam seeks Swampy and explains: you’re going to need a ring…that ring will need a dead guy…that dead guy has to deliver a message — tldr: grow this pot to my specifications and I’m gonna have some pixies rig delivery. Swampy goes “uh, I think you’ve had enough pot… looks like you forgot to pass when ya puffed; bruh”. Fates role when he whiffs Boston is to recruit his old friend Grundy (my version of history has JL/U’s Fate/Hawkgirl/Grundy/Amazo connections like in that seties) who he asks, upon seeing this vision of a fated moment, the gathering of the avatars, to take him to their meeting place as Grundy’s guest (“It’s a Monday.” Grundy grunts). Grundy’s presence is required because his part to play, as told by Sam, is ask The Rot to hold - to not overtake what greatly desires it so - let time play out and pause and rest (this is Sam saying: The Rot can’t move Was to The Black, he needs to linger - let connections be witnessed as emotions run deeper and deeper - basically Was’ exile). Fate, from there, seeks out Specs - Fate is a most fucker, but he also assumes based on what he’s witnessing (and he is Fate) that Specs is Order yet to be (so he thinks) … when he finds him, battle happens (this is a side story on that story run we haven’t flushed out) and the helm goes on Soecs (ooh!!! Bonus!!! This is how Specs meets Zattana - I was trying to figure that out!!! Was her turn in the helm (see: Young Justice) and she doesn’t have to be the one to put it back on (so she and Specs can chill and swap magics!) - Specs time in he helm is when Metatron out that message there (well, was there the moment Specs got there - he assumed it was a helmet thing - the voices of the helm (Nabu, the bearers inside) all just kept doing a version of “what is that!” As they poked their ears with their pinky fingers.
The favors and the later Avalon scene
The arrangements matter across stories even when their participants experience them as small favors.
From the writer’s notes
Grundy granting The Rot’s pause while Was is busy being (and not being pushed along by The Rot); Grundy didn’t care if he was there or not, he was meant to be and was, but when Sam says something about being late/o time Grundy’s response really reads “whatever, we doing something. Cause whatever” - again, Fate asked him to go, Grundy brought a plus one (or more; not that he noticed), Constantine recruited Blood to get them there and the favors laid
From the writer’s notes
where we’re watching Sam of The White tell Swampy to grow some green (Specs: Can I get in on that? - more joke than he knows) and ask Grundy to grow the ring and to hold The Rot back in the Grey when the time comes (this is the kind of thing that Grundy of The Grey/Rot can agree to and it happen even without knowing all the details, because speaking on behalf of binds to)… he doesn’t comprehend, he looks Z and remembers Bucket Head and says “Not Monday” (is that agreement, statement, delcation of it won’t be when the time comes? who knows, it’s “not Monday”)
From the writer’s notes
lets jump ahead… we know we leave Grundy Of The Grey/Was/of the Grey/of The Ro/GrundyWas in the Grey where he’s been letting The Void/The Black/the Black (the thing that Boston by this point is the entity of) pull him around time and space watching all his memories… including the good ones… they’re not as many, and he’s seen them all on loop… but … what is time to an immortal (I’ll take this moment to point out that those words orignated on a ship off the shores of Avalon (see: Gargoyles, Weird Sisters, Archmage arc)… if you’re an immortal, if time has no meaning, then all time has value: a second of joy is as valuable as a decade.
From the writer’s notes
What’s happening now that’s different than when Specs was Was… is Specs/Was wasn’t also The Grey… Specs/Was was just trapped in the Grey (the Despair that is the color Grey), The Rot would have taken him but not for the deal … GrundyWas needs no such deal, this is his place… The Void/The Black/the Black wouldn’t take Specs because it just wasn’t the time for him, but it did what it does in the Grey, it shows you despair… it’s doing that to GrundyWas too, but the difference is: Grundy has always lived in that… here, the Grey is his too now… so he can tweak it… he can negoatiate with The Void that can’t force him to pas through to one side or the other… he can see the good memories too.
From the writer’s notes
The Void/The Black/the Black… the Will Be (Boston) doesn’t have to understand an agreement anymore than Grundy did when he made the deal on behalf of The Grey/Rot… nor does Boston need to be there for the unvierse to work how it’s supposed to… just because it’s his domain doesn’t mean he has to be there all the time… I mean, the first ten yeas of marriage are important… this is the kind of “voice over” The Voice is offering us in Grundy’s book… Grundy isn’t a narrator… not is this story overly long… it’s a 45 minute movie maybe? A way to say “remember”.
From the writer’s notes
GrundyWas is in more control than he realizes but if oyu think that matters you’re missing the point. But maybe he can teach it to you… it’s Monday.
Dreams and a possible later special
The dreams use other eyes and other moments. A proposed later special returns to the blue moment in front of Boston.
From the writer’s notes
Notes: before it all began, shortly after the mask fell: dreams. POV dreams of forgotten times and dimensions, seen through the eyes of the moment… a whale finds Will… another dream, his vision: through the eyes of a bird taking flight… the lust for another and the greed to want and take… the eyes of a many armed creature who just understands…. “What’s time to an immortal?” it’s Ion… The Butcher…Paralax… and so on… it’s “moments “ lived as a thing that connects, is connected to, will connect to all things… it’s the long memory of an infinite time of a voice that can echo slide along a spectrum singing all the parts his Conductor arranged.
From the writer’s notes
“What’s time to an immortal? It’s a rock with googly eyes” - Metatron the last line of the final panel of the special post-run issue…just before returning to that moment of blue in front of Boston.
The records give Specs leads, fragments, and assumptions rather than everyone’s complete history.
From the writer’s notes
Gaze was used heavily and infiltrated many many systems to so that Spectrum could learn as much as he could about anything connected to what he was/is going through… he read every bit of info any system he could get into on the lanterns, the war of light, anything, anyone who was conncted to what he thought was/is connected to him, he investigated… This is how he knows about who became a clone-ring deputy, what powers they have and things about them… but, only about what he could get … mostly governnment stuff… not like it was Batmans records or The Watchtowers… so records are incompolete in some places, redactions here he couldn’t track sources on and so (makes you undertand why he goes so hard in Unrequited Amendment) … this is why, for example, he may or may not been extra shcoked to see Boston… he might have just seen a pic of him and not read something, or so much might have been ommitted that he doesn’t recognise and connect… but the point is: he knew Wonder Woman had the odd ability to talk to animals… and he knows that’s not typically what a Star Sapphire can do (as a power set thing) but that he can when he’s StarS… so he makes that connection and we hear him bring it up that one time…. but this girls night gives another moment, that he doesn’t know to connected but it does connect… (see: Wonder Woman and how Steve calls her angel)
The Color of Magic at the doorway
The visual description connects the cover to Magic’s near-white appearance.
From the writer’s notes
lets try and define The Color of Magic, it’s near white, meaning its made of of all the lights… but we see it near blue easily… and UV has to be near it too… it’s like the full spectrum gets squished together… but not so much that it ever completely totally goes White… instead, it’s white, with edges of color… like… well, I’ll be… how did you describe the door on the cover of Unmasked? Bliding white with colors creeping from the edge… why, that’s almost as if Magic always gets it’s own way.
Boston and Fate — an early opening concept
The encounter begins with Boston’s preference for visiting Constantine and Orchid, and Fate sensing the lingering White. The attached temporal mission belongs to an earlier conception of the journey.
From the writer’s notes
Now, Boston meets Fate (incoplete, just beats): Immediatly finding Fate Boston wasted time by saying how he likes to visit Constantine more cause Orchid has a “chosen body”… meanwhile, Fate immediatly “gets a whiff” of the The White… and White… and… he reads the lingering “whiff” off Deadman…. “Magic always gets its own way… and so, it seems, does Fate”. Fate, a Lord of Order, understood the assignement, and began… he traveled that passages of time and met with Swampy and communed with The Green and The White and The Clear and all the others… they called the standing Avatars, Swampy, a fallen love of another not-quite-lantern (times and space and realitties mean nothing to the likes of he) now speaker of The White, even Grundy showed, despite it being a Monday… and they shared the sight, the “whiff” Boston had brought to Fate… and they agreed, it is in this time, this now, that it’s soon to happen… the mask will fall, the spectrum light will fracture… Swampy and the Fay will make and deliver The Green that will help guide the way and open the doors… Fate, and Magic, always get their own way…. and, so it seems, really fcuking good pot… or whatever is legally available via mail to central NC.
The initial account describes an apparently continuous hum whose component cries gradually become recognizable.
From the writer’s notes
more on Fates Helm: when wearing the helm, Spectrum, non-stop, hears all the various echoing cries that have come or will come of his oown making: Nothing gold can stay, All will Be Well, other and most booming, the voice of MEtatron yet to come, the words so booming that you can’t make them out and you’re unsure if you should… so echoing and omnipresent that it’s not till towardss the end of the trke through Fate and hues that it’s realized that it’s a voice at all… it sounded so much like a non stop hum… but it’s chords ring outside of time, notes land outside of space and reality… only the highest of chorus can sing that song, only that which hears the whsipers of The One, The Many direcetly and speaks them for them thusly.
Ignorance and the open-book test
His hostility to deliberate ignorance concerns choosing to avoid or refuse fact, truth, and shared reality. The intensity is connected to people whose rights have been fought for and remain under threat.
“the world is a fucking open book test now!!! You don’t even have to rely on the old phone-a-friend! Google that shit and shut up!!!”
A spell idea for Once and Future Kings
Developing Zatanna’s entry spell also prompted a proposed comic fight in the next book, using Miraculous Ladybug as the unexpected inspiration.
From the writer’s notes
the spell to get int he helmet also has to be perfomred by the person not wearing it… so I get to write a fun Zattanna spell which has already given me an idea for a fun use during Once and Future Kings (there’s going to be a fight, almost comical cause it’s the Disney Gargoyles book lol… where at some point Specs cast “ekam revetahw I deen thgir won raeppa” al a Zattana … after it’s results, when asked “what was that spell?!” “A Zatanna inspired spell… it was all I could think to do, I’m shocked I managed to say it” “Yeah, but what was it” “literally: make whatever I need appear right now” *he says with a “I know, it’s nuts, but worked” look… “What on earth made you think of that?!!” He shrugs with shy smile that only shows on one side of his mouth: Miraculous Ladybug? )
The role list and the experience of Is developed alongside the distinction between Specs/Was and Grundy/Was.
From the writer’s notes
- Ever - Entity of Life/the White, the Beginning & End - Was - Entity of Despair/the Grey, the Echo (not The Echo)/the Transition (Echo/Transition are interchangeable like Grey/Despair, they mean the same in that one is representation and the other is cause) - Is - the Unchanging - Will Be - Entity of Death/the Black, The Void (which would stand between Order and Chaos in that trio), the End & Beginning
From the writer’s notes
Was, as we established late last night or early this morning (perspective), is also a representation of that quartet spectrum… the twin to Is (the Now), lol I can imagine them fighting over who has it worse, the one who can move but but is surrounded by no moment/progress or Was locked in the Grey (as we’ve only seen it) seeing things moving but unable to find the strength or desire or need to move and just hovers, blinking around space/time seeing mostly their own life moments, the dark ones, which occasionally let good ones slip in ..
Journal pages and interludes — developing form
Whimsy and Tom have background to be revealed through the journal and inserts over time, including filler pages. The form allows character knowledge to emerge between the main story scenes. Particular entries and their order remain open.
