Don't even click this One Piece theory unless you're a complete One Piece manga nerd.

So. One Piece. It's easily my favorite anime/manga I've ever experienced; it certainly far outshines the other two members of the 'big three.' Hunter X Hunter and Cowboy Bebop come close, but thus far, One Piece is the king.

With that out of the way, if you don't follow the anime or, further, the manga, this probably isn't going to make any sense to you.

With that out of the way, a word on my lack of credentials. One Piece is notoriously hard to predict! Captain Oda is very good about keeping us on the edge of our seats. There is only one time ever that I made a prediction that came true, and I'm pretty proud of it.

When Blackbeard showed up at Impel Down, I knew Whitebeard was a dead man and I knew Blackbeard was the man who would kill him. I didn't expect him to take Whitebeard's fruit, and I thought for sure that Ace was going to escape, but the fact remains: I knew Whitebeard was sailing to his death, but it wasn't the marines that were going to claim his head.

Thus far, that's just pointless bragging. The only reason I'm proud of it is that I'm hoping my own novels become good enough to publish one day, and to be able to understand the web that Oda was weaving, even in such an incomplete fashion, makes me feel like I might succeed one day.

Now to the new theory. This begins during the Fishman Island arc, and the first time it occurred to me was when Robin and Neptune were discussing Princess Shirahoshi inheriting the ability to control sea kings; essentially, she is one of the three great weapons, 'Poseidon.' The reason I think the way I do is routed in facts revealed before this point, but this is where the theory occurred to me.

By now, you might be guessing at my theory, and you might think I'm insane, but let me take you through the motions before you pass judgment =P.

1. Madame Sharley, Arlong's sister and the mermaid famous for predicting the dawn of the great pirate era, saw a man in a straw hat in her crystal ball. She saw this man destroy fishman island. Madame Sharley assumed it was Luffy. It was explicitly stated that she had no way of knowing when her predictions would come to pass, only that they definitely would. It is also important that she said she saw a man in a straw hat destroy the island; when she described her vision, it's important that she didn't say 'I saw Straw Hat Luffy destroy Fishman Island.' She assumed it was him, but I believe she was mistaken.

So, to summarize bullet point number one: I believe Fishman Island will still be destroyed by a man wearing a straw hat. As a conversation between a fishman child and his father revealed, straw hats are about to become a hot fashion item on Fishman Island, and most of the population seems to have forgotten about Madame Sharley's prediction. http://www.mangapanda.com/one-piece/653/15

2. We still don't know what purpose the giant boat Noah serves, but we know it's very important to Fishman Island. While the story of Noah's ark is obvious to all of us who live in prominent Christian countries, it may not be obvious to the Japanese fans. Still, I think most of us have quietly assumed that the boat Luffy nearly destroyed was intended to bring the Fishmen to a new home one day.

I believe Noah will be repaired and used when the man in the straw hat destroys Fishman Island. I doubt the way Noah was supposed to be use will surprise any of you, but it's important!

3. This may be the most important point of my theory. Wet-hair Caribou overheard Robin and Neptune discussing Shirahoshi's identity as Poseidon. This is why he tried to kidnap her. Obviously, Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji stopped him, but after he reawakens and begins searching for the treasure that Luffy took from him, he says this: "If I bring back the secret of the mermaid princess(...) to you know who, then maybe I'll gain bonus points with you-know-who!" http://www.mangapanda.com/one-piece/652/9

I believe that whoever "you-know-who"  (or whoever Caribou ends up telling about Poseidon, since Drake captured him, maybe it's whoever Drake's working for? +Andrew Lastrollo, you know who I'm talking about) turns out to be will be the man in the straw hat who destroys Fishman Island, and I believe this person will destroy Fishman Island in their attempt to take Poseidon for themselves.

4. As discussed during Robin and Neptune's conversation, Joy Boy predicted that a fated man would one day fulfill a broken promise 'Joy Boy' made to 'Poseidon' or 'Fishman Island.' You can probably guess where my theory is going now. http://www.mangapanda.com/one-piece/649/16

5. Jimbei has promised to join the Strawhat pirate crew when he has fulfilled his obligations to Fishman Island and cut his ties to Big Mom. Those are his stated reasons, but I believe Oda delayed his joining of the crew because he needed Jimbei to be on Fishman Island when it was destroyed. Because:

I believe that, when the island is destroyed, Neptune and the princes will focus on evacuating the Fishmen to Noah, delivering them to their new home (wherever that may be). But no matter where they go, the Fishman Kingdom will never be safe so long as Shirahoshi lives there. Even the dreaded Straw Hat name, becoming more famous every day, won't be enough to keep the people who want Poseidon from attacking again. So,

I believe Neptune will ask Jimbei to take Shirahoshi with him to the Strawhats and protect her while Monkey D. Luffy fulfills the promise that 'Joy Boy' made to 'Poseidon' or 'Fishman Island.'

So there it is. This is a mess as it stands, and I'll likely edit it later (and if you like the theory and want to add to it, I'll be happy to include it and credit your addition!) If I'm an idiot, tell me so, and tell me why!

Why men don't deserve a second chance with their ex

     Yeah, the subject is phrased in such a way as to elicit the "them's fightin' words!" response. Would you be less likely to punch me if I told you the reason you don't deserve a second chance with your ex is the same reason I don't deserve one with mine?

Some exposition is in order. Typically, I don't like to talk about this in public places, particularly in places she could easily see it, but honestly? I doubt the contents would leave her with a bad feeling.

My name is Richard Jordan Bishop, I'm 28 years old, and the only real relationship I've ever had ended 10 years ago this month. Luckily, I'm not creepy enough to remember the exact day...

Anyway, I dreamed about her last night. In my waking hours, I'm not even sure if I could pick her out of a crowd anymore, but last night, she was here, and she was dating one of my best friends. His name is Hasko, and the dream makes zero sense because he's been married for years.

But that's how the dream went, and somehow, it hurt like hell. Even in my dream, I was lucid enough to tell Hasko that it was none of my business who either of them dated, that it was not fair of me to be hurt by it, but I was.

It's been ten years. I have no idea what she's doing or where she's at in life, but I can picture her married and successful and the thought makes me smile while I'm awake. It really does. But in dreams, sometimes we're our old selves, and I guess I was still 18 in this last dream.

Like all bad writers, I feel the need to give you more exposition. As I implied above, I haven't had a true girlfriend since; I came close once, and there were other opportunities. Part of me believes I should have tried harder, because I suspect it would have been a big relief for her to know I was dating someone else. You see, she somehow managed to be the shoulder I cried on during our breakup, and I imagine nothing could give her closure like knowing I've moved on. As it stands, it might look like I'm holding out for her... but I believe she remembers that I didn't have any girlfriends before her, and if birds of my feather flock anywhere, it ain't here. I don't think it's unreasonable to reckon my relationships are bound to be extremely few and fart between, particularly while I remain in this community.

It would have been easier to get over her if I found someone else, yes, but I believe I've managed move on without such a catalyst. I hope she agrees.

I haven't even touched the point yet, have I? This is why exposition is horrible, class!

We don't deserve second chances because we don't deserve first chances. How bad rejection hurts is no indication of how much we deserved acceptance. When rejections hurts, it isn't the rejector that's hurting you. YOU are hurting you. They don't owe you anything. Even if they did, affection isn't a reasonable thing to expect when someone owes you something.

All the time and good memories you've had with someone may never come back. It's very unlikely they will, and just because someone enjoyed you before doesn't mean they have to enjoy you now.

Just like Bieber will break millions of hearts when he settles down (prolly with a dude, because saying so is in no way appropriate!), none of those broken hearts have any right to feel cheated by his choice. It's fine to hurt, but you can't pretend the subject of your unrequited love is what wronged you.

Never try to extort someone into loving you, because that's not what you'll be getting. Even if you 'succeed,' it's actually just their pity keeping them near you, their guilt over the misconception that it's their fault you're hurting. Don't do it, because by resorting to such cheap tactics, you are proving that you were never worthy of them in the first place. If she gave you a chance, you need to realize you weren't entitled to it, and treat it like the undeserved gift it is.

If it helps you, promise yourself you'll become someone so great that it's THEY who weren't worthy of YOU, but by the time you realize how stupid that idea was, you'll have gotten over them. Then, you'll both have won.

I wonder if this makes sense to anyone but me. Long story short, guys: know when to man up and bear the pain. Because if you don't, all the time you're about to spend not really loving one another is wasted. If you'd just loved her enough to let her go, both of you might have found better relationships by now.

The longer you threaten to kill yourself or whatever you're doing to keep them near you, the harder it will be to get over your ego and declare an end. But you need to. Because if you can, you'll have proven to everyone, including her, that you weren't a mistake.

They might pretend they like being the center of your universe at first, the kind of idea that makes "if you leave me, I'll die!" seem plausible, but whether they realize it or not, that responsibility would be a tragic burden. They need you need to be able to live without them; otherwise how can they expect to count on you when they really need it? If one person is the rock your relationship stands on, then you both drown when something shakes them.

I suppose I'm not at a place in life where I can give advice; I rather like where I'm at and what I'm doin', but I don't expect many people out there want to walk the path I have. They'd probably find it really dull. All the same, I think this is the sort of thing that can help you move along any road you choose to take. At least give it some thought.

And, if YOU are reading this, I'm sorry if this doesn't sit quite right with you. I really do hope you're happy, and all the better if it's because you're with someone who makes you that happy!

On the ACA and me (Obamacare, in demagogue's tongue)

Guess I was wrong about the idea the health care law wouldn't affect me. My rates went down a bit! (that's ARUP's (love you!) explanation for the decrease, anyway) Neat. Don't think this is my final judgment on the law, though; I was fine before the law and it's neat that I'm a little finer after, but it's not me I have in mind when it comes to health care legislation.

I want health care legislation to help people who WEREN'T fine before the law. Does this law do that? HellifIknowyet. I suspect it could have been much more, but with the amount of pressure from people who think the old way was the best way, I guess a compromise might be the best I could have hoped for?

HellifIknowyet. All I know is I won't fight a step in the right direction, because it seems to me it's more progress than not taking the step at all. Just because the stride might have been longer doesn't mean we abort the sub-optimal one?

You guessed it. HellifIknowyet.

My dreams are invalid.

To be clear, by dreams, I mean the kind I have when I sleep. My hopes, wishes, and aspirations are all valid, as far as I can tell. We call those things dreams too, but again, they aren't the subject of this particular post. It's the stuff my subconscious does that's invalid.

I'm a different person in them, and almost always either weaker or just worse. For instance, the dream I just dreamt involved going back to High School at 28. In the dream, I never graduated, and I'd been technically enrolled in High School since 2000; but I was never going to class, and they moved me back a grade every few years. I was about to be sent back to middle school (junior high).

In the real world, I graduated. In the real world, it never mattered that I wasn't an excellent student. I get by as I always have, performing a bit better than people expect of me, but rarely so much better that anybody really takes notice. It's a path without much resistance, which I like, because resistance is troublesome.

So why am I dreaming that I'm stuck in High School, and more to the point, why am I dreaming that High School causes me so much trouble? I suppose there's some sort of poetic irony in there, because there were definitely classes I quite literally slept through, but that surely can't be why I'm dreaming of it now.

I've heard that psychologists who study dreams say there are certain templates to dreams, or dreams that most of us have at one time or another, and those dreams mean certain things. When you dream you've lost your teeth, it's because you're afraid of losing control; I've had that dream, I confess. When you dream of falling from a really high distance, it's supposed to mean something else; I've had a dream similar to that, a long, long time ago, but I was walking along a street and was suddenly launched high up into the air for no reason before I fell. It wasn't like I started on an airplane or cliff or something, it was more like an ACME springboard was hiding under a sidewalk panel and I was the first unlucky idiot to step on it.

Getting back on track, I've also heard that dreaming about standing at the front of the class, like when you're reading your paper aloud or whatever, and then it turns out you were naked the whole time, is supposed to mean something about vulnerability. I've had dreams of leaving the house without pants on, but again, those were teenage dreams, and these are different. I'm just in High School and I know I'm way too old for it. That's pretty much it.

So what am I to think when I wake up? Is it a sign that I'm ashamed of my life, that I didn't jump on the right opportunity at the right time? It seems like a really stupid notion, because trying to apply the metaphor to reality doesn't seem to work.

Tuition was climbing as I was going to school, and it spiked really high during the years I was 'supposed' to be in college. All these experts are saying people need to wait 'til their 30's to go to college because they're going to have to work until they're 70 or 80 (because they're going to live to be one-hundred and ten), and if they start as early as we're used to, they might find that they're degree will become outdated before they can retire. Most of the lessons I've learned in my life seem to have a similar theme: pace yourself. Everybody talks about 'seizing the day' and rushing to success because it won't come to you, yet a lot of the people who said that were married by 21, had two kids by 23, and were divorced by thirty. They're already in such debt, they may never pay it off in their lifetime. They're burning themselves on their own passion.

I'm not in any hurry, and I think that's healthy. It may come to be that I grow old without ever accomplishing some great thing, but I'll grow old without impregnating some girl I didn't love because we got drunk and didn't use protection, I'll grow old without ever going bankrupt, and I'll grow old without regretting some gamble I lost. Because I didn't gamble. I was methodical and safe, and I enjoyed watching the scenery as I drifted down the slow stream.

So why the dreams at all? Why do certain ones linger, when most are forgotten immediately? I couldn't tell you for certain, but I could tell you my guesses. My subconscious is kind of stupid. Sleep is there to help you sort through all you learned that day, to blend it together and let it settle through the wrinkles of your brain so you can make good use of the knowledge later. Dreams could be illusions created by the absorption process, incidental shapes that my subconscious sees and interprets like ink blots in a Rorschach test. Your mind either sees what it wants to see or sees the monsters it fears might be looking in the darkness. The subconscious is where emotions live, so fear and regret and insecurity get to play the game too.

 We all have to dream, because we all need to sleep, but we can't fool ourselves about blots of ink on card stock. The reason we have society and technology and culture is because we have that part of our brain that sees a black shape on a piece of white paper and knows it's just a bunch of ink that soaked in where it happened to fall. Logic is our best feature, so we need to be careful about when we let mindless emotion take over. Dreams aren't signs that it's time we make changes to our lives. Dreams are just blots of ink that stain a bit too long as our brain tries to soak it all up.

 Enjoy the pretty ones, but do your best to forget the others. Because the only way that unpleasantness can become real is if devote yourself to making it so.

A need for brutality

I had a brutal review of Winkle² on Book Country. The most honest and disapproving ever. I had already decided the manuscript would be reworked by the time I saw this, had already decided it would not serve, but all the same, it was useful.

He wasn't entirely right; I can use elipses, I can and should use italics, though he's right about never bolding things. Something I've done, in error and often.

He's right about not explaining who Rip van Winkle is, he's right about the sheer amount of exposition, but there's an implication about how far he thinks it should all go. There will be some drifts in that direction, but I need to account for who the advice is coming from, and for how far I want to go in his direction.

Luckily, much of what he said is in line with my own doubts, and support of one's doubts can often be as heartening as support of one's hopes. I need to be strong to be in this business, and strength means finding middle ground in the advice of people who haven't found much to love about what you've done.

So I need to read the review again and again, because this guy has the brains to lay some truths out as they are, intelligence evident by the ego such brains develop. I need to know when the ravaging is justified and when the complaint is simply born of a pet-peeve, a dislike that serves a purpose irrelevant to my own.

That will be the most brutal part of all. I'm a submissive creature; contrary to most people, I tend to find most advice safe and easy to follow. Rather than getting so huffy and and entrenched that I'm in danger of ignoring the valuable bits, I'm so convinced I've always been doing it wrong that I'm in more danger of letting people shake convictions I should be more certain of.

So I need to remember both sides of the coin and read this, the most scathing and professional (as unpalatable and laughably too-strong that word is in this situation) review I've had yet and separate the useful from the insulting. I need to let it hurt and learn how to shrug the pain off and remain pragmatic.

I've rarely tackled anything so difficult because I've never HAD to in my life. Everything about being an American has been made so easy because it's the maximum difficulty many (most) people can handle. We're born into accepting the flow around us, so if I find that flow too easy, it's up to me to seek out a better one, to set my own and stick to it, so that I might emerge into something more than I would have been. On the rare occasion when someone subjects me to something harsher, I should be thankful someone took my burden upon themselves for once. And I am.

I've got some hard pills to swallow, but I've got a thing or two to prove, as well. It may be just the combination I need. The first million words are practice? Even if Winkle² is as amateur as I fear, I'm still ahead of schedule.

I've got no business in this business

Inaugural stuff is often inaugurated with combusting blood, ignited by flinty heartbeats. I'm on fire, right this second, in spite of how lame this whole metaphor is! Inspired, motivated, and with the faint vapors of what talent I possess, we're going to restart and condense Winkle².

The biggest obstacle to its success is my tendency to burn out, so let's see if we can slow the burn into sustainability. Challenge accepted.

My name is Richard Jordan Bishop, colloquially known as Gordo, and when playing megalomaniac, I am The Almighty Gord! If there's something special about me, anything that would warrant a readership, it's not something I can convey in a basic hook. For simplicity's sake, I'm just going to say: there's no such warranting!

So this is written with the full knowledge that nobody's gonna see it. If they happen to, then it's written with the knowledge that they're not going to care. I possess knowledge, acceptance, and approval of that reality.

 My name is Richard Jordan Bishop, and I want to tell you some tales. If you liked them, then you may have arrived here: so welcome, and thank you.