A to Z Challenge: A Review

First, I want to give a bit shout-out to all those who are involved in the running of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. It’s got to take a lot of time and dedication to keep track of so many participants, making sure that non-participants are removed from the list, and ensuring that participants get the attention they deserve. Kudos!

Second, a double-huge shout-out to all my fellow participants who made it (sometimes kicking and screaming) to the end of the challenge. Some of those letters were pretty difficult, but you did it! You rock! 😀

Third, a triple-huge shout-out to all those who stopped by my blog during April and commented on my posts. I had some great conversations this month, met some cool new friends, and gained a number of new followers. I hope you all stick close by, because it’s been a blast, and I’ve been truly happy to meet you all. 🙂

The challenge has been a great deal of fun, and I got a lot of great comments on my 26 posts, so as part of this review I present a list of links to each of my posts in case anyone missed anything or is just dropping by now and would like to check a couple of them out.

Day 1: Ariel (the Little Mermaid)Day 2: Buffy Summers (the Vampire Slayer)
Day 3: Castiel (the Monster-Fighting Angel)
Day 4: Deadpool (the Lunatic Assassin)
Day 5: Eric Northman (the Viking Vampire)
Day 6: Freddy Krueger (the Nightmare Demon)
Day 7: Gau (the Wild Orphan)
Day 8: Han Solo (the Cocky Starpilot)
Day 9: Iron Man (the Smarmiest Avenger)
Day 10: James T. Kirk (the Star Fleet Captain)
Day 11: Kefka Palazzo (the Magitek Monster)
Day 12: Lisse (the Child of the Dystopian Future)
Day 13: Magus (the Lost Wizard)
Day 14: Neville Longbottom (the Heart of Gryffindor)
Day 15: Other-Mother (the Other World Evil)
Day 16: Peter Parker (the Spider-Man)
Day 17: Qui-Gon Jinn (the Jedi Knight)
Day 18: Ryuk (the Shinigami)
Day 19: Sherlock Holmes (the High-Functioning Sociopath)
Day 20: Tyrion Lannister (the Exceptionally Clever Imp)
Day 21: Usagi Tsukino (the Sailor Senshi)
Day 22: Victoria MacKinnon (the Lost Princess)
Day 23: Winchester Brothers (the Monster Hunters)
Day 24: Xander Harris (the Lovable Sidekick)
Day 25: Yuki Miaka (the Girl from Other World)
Day 26: Zelda (the Hyrulian Princess)

In case you somehow missed it, my theme for the challenge was “Fictional Characters”. Each one of these characters, even the ones chosen out of duress of very difficult letters, holds a special place in my heart for one reason or another. The TV shows, movies, comics, cartoons, and video games mentioned were overwhelmingly a great part of my childhood, and in some cases an incredible part of my adulthood. If you’ve got the time, check some of them out. You totally won’t be disappointed.

And finally, before I sign off, I wanted to share with you a couple of the blogs that I’ve come across during this particular challenge. I came into contact with so many awesome fellow bloggers this past month that it’s impossible to mention them all, but these are a couple of the ones I fully plan to keep tabs on even now that the challenge is over.

A Scenic Route – Kirsten is a fellow writer who blogs about her “journey into noveldom”. This month she wrote a wonderful series of posts with the theme “Backstage at the Blog”, in which she gave some wonderful tips, hints, and ideas for fellow bloggers, in addition to sharing info about her own blogging journey.

Sophie’s Thoughts and Fumbles – Sophie is a writer of many genres who uses her blog as a place to talk about reading, writing, all the topics in between, and whatever else she so desires. She is also the brains behind the mini-challenge that a few of us participated in in addition to the A to Z challenge: the Supernatural A to Z Challenge. She wrote about ghosts and ghoulies this month, and while I didn’t often comment on her posts because my WordPress reader doesn’t make it easy for me to deal with other blogging websites, I still thoroughly enjoyed reading about all the creepy creatures that she posted.

Alex Hurst – Alex is one of my favorite new people because she is fun, bubbly, and friendly, and we apparently have a great deal in common. The fantasy writer spent the month talking about different aspects of writing and being a writer. Her post “J for Jargon” cracked me up because so many of the definitions she came up with were SO TRUE.

I would love to share some more blogs, and perhaps I will in the future, but this has been such a busy month that I simply do not have the time it would take to go through all the wonderful blogs I’ve found during this challenge. However, if you’re really, truly interested in finding some great new people to follow, check out the A to Z sign-up list and just start clicking. There are literally hundreds of wonderful blogs amongst that list.

And now, with all that aside, I must say adieu, and take a much-deserved nap. Cheers everyone! ❤

A to Z Challenge Day 13: Magus (the Lost Wizard)

If there was a game in my childhood that rivaled the obsessive qualities that Final Fantasy III instilled in me, that game is Chrono Trigger. Like it’s counterpart, I spent hours upon hours on this game, trying to find every item and get every one of the alternate endings (back in the days when we couldn’t cheat by looking it up on the internet). In fact, the first couple of times I rented the game I didn’t even realize that there was any more to the game than the Millennial Fair bit at the beginning. I was having so much fun with the little fair mini-games that I actually rented the game twice before I discovered that there was more game…a lot more!

I loved all of the characters in Chrono Trigger, but Magus was definitely one of my favorites. For one thing, he was an excellent addition to a party since he could use all four types of magic. For another, I simply loved his back-story. (SPOILER ALERT!) See, Magus’ real name was Janus, and as a child he was an inhabitant of the magical kingdom of Zeal. He had the misfortune to have a power-mad queen mother who decided to build a magical palace that would call forth the dread destructive creature, Lavos. She hoped to obtain its power for herself, but instead it destroyed her kingdom and warped time and space, creating a number of worm holes. One such wormhole sucked in poor Janus and sent him hurtling through time to the middle ages (many years in the future for him). He was “adopted” by monsters and eventually became their ruler, a magical villain who tormented the nearby kingdom of Guardia. Eventually Chrono and his friends take on Magus, only to discover that he has been trying to summon Lavos again, in hopes of destroying the horrid creature who decimated his life. Ironically he (along with the others) is then hurled back to the time of the kingdom of Zeal where he gets to watch the entire terrible thing happen all over again, unable to stop it, and eventually joins Chrono’s party in hopes of taking part in saving the world from Lavos’ eventual destruction.

It always struck me as this wonderful, terribly sad story. When we first meet Magus he’s a bad guy, no doubts about it, but as the story progresses we learn that he only became that way because his life and everyone he knew was taken away from him, and when it becomes clear that there’s no way he can ever change that, he decides to devote himself to ensuring that Lavos is stopped, one way or the other. Isn’t that just a great story? I always thought so, and it definitely added to the joy that was Chrono Trigger. 🙂