{"id":410,"date":"2016-09-20T00:01:47","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T06:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/?p=410"},"modified":"2016-09-19T21:17:13","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T03:17:13","slug":"chat-with-deryl-stephens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/chat-with-deryl-stephens\/","title":{"rendered":"Chat With Deryl Stephens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi, Aadi here. Today I’m chatting with Deryl Stephens about Mind over Mind<\/a>\u00a0by Karina Fabian.<\/p>\n

[Aadi] Let’s get started. Tell me about yourself. Who or what are you? What are your vitals?<\/p>\n

[Deryl] I\u2019m Deryl Stephens, known to some as the Ydrel, and I\u2019m human- Terran. Mostly, I think. I don\u2019t know who my father is, and unless you can show me another Terran with bona fide psychic abilities, I have to assume part of me is not.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whatever. The point is I am from Earth, I\u2019m psychic, and at least two alien species think I\u2019m going to save their worlds, probably by killing everyone on the opposing planet. And people wonder why I\u2019m messed up.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Aadi]\u00a0What part do you play in the story?<\/p>\n

[Deryl] I accidentally kidnap by best friend and strand us on an alien planet. I meet one of the aliens I mentioned who think I\u2019m going to help her kill everyone on the other planet. To give her credit, the Barin are invading her world. I fall in love with her, save her from losing her own sanity to a dangerous plant that can make you experience someone else\u2019s memories, and defeated the other alien who wanted to turn me into a psychic killer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Aadi]\u00a0How would you describe your book?<\/p>\n

[Deryl] I would describe it as biography. You would call it fantasy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Aadi]\u00a0Tell me about where you live? Who do you live with?<\/p>\n

[Deryl] At the time of this book? That\u2019s a little hard to pin down. I lived in a mental institution, but escaped to Kanaan, another world with people who are psychic like me. I wanted to live there, especially to be with Tasmae, but I didn\u2019t know if I was going to be accepted. They knew me as Ydrel, a kind of supernatural force that spoke to the Miscria from generations, over millennia. Like telepathic time travel, I was talking to Kannan who lived thousands of years ago. It wasn\u2019t so easy for anyone to believe, so the Kanaan thought I was some kind of imposter.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tasmae is a Miscria, and as such one of the most important people on her world. In fact, the survival of the Kanaan depended on her. And if I was an imposter trying to get into her mind \u2013 literally \u2013 then\u2026 Well, there were quite a few people who wanted to see me dead.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So I didn\u2019t know if I could stay, where I felt like I had a chance of belonging, or if I\u2019d have to escape back to Earth and figure out how to hide myself and keep my sanity in a world where no one can shield their thoughts from me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Aadi] What\u2019s the most important thing in your life right now?<\/p>\n

[Deryl] Finding a place where I belong, where I don\u2019t have to constantly shield myself from the thoughts of others, where no one thinks I\u2019m lying about my telepathic abilities, wants to study my abilities or use my abilities to hurt others. I want to find somewhere where I can relax, figure myself out, and live like a normal person, whatever normal means for me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And Tasmae. If I can do this and be with Tasmae, that\u2019s what I want.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Aadi]\u00a0What do you hope nobody ever finds out about you?<\/p>\n

[Deryl] \u2026and if I told you, people would find out. No thanks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Aadi]What’s the worst thing someone ever did to you?<\/p>\n

[Deryl] There\u2019s an alien, Alugiac. Traitor to Tasmae\u2019s world, warrior prophet to its enemies \u2013 and I was his Avenging Angel. I didn\u2019t know. He came to me in dreams and taught me to fight \u2013 swords and stuff. I was a kid. I\u2019d lost my mom, been taken away from my friends. I didn\u2019t have anyone. So I lapped it up. For a while, it was good. I grew in confidence as well as skill. I didn\u2019t notice how he was twisting my mind until I started feeling the bloodlust when I was awake.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then, he wanted me to kill. Even after all his training, I didn\u2019t want to kill anyone. That\u2019s when the torture began. No more sparring practice. Instead, I fought monsters, and if I refused or didn\u2019t fight well enough, they hurt me, and my wounds followed me to the waking world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s bad enough, but now that I understand more about my abilities and this dream world he trained me in, I can\u2019t help but wonder. What were those monsters? Were they really just figments of the imagination, or did they represent something \u2013 someone \u2013 else? How many people did I hurt, not knowing I fought real people?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Aadi]\u00a0What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?<\/p>\n

[Deryl] Tasmae. She\u2019s not beautiful in a conventional sense. Her features are too strong, but she has these deep, dark eyes, and her hair is amazing. And when you\u2019re psychic, there\u2019s a whole other level to beauty. Her mind is strong, and tangled, and focused\u2026and it fits so perfectly with mine.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Aadi]\u00a0What time of day is your favorite?<\/p>\n

[Deryl] There\u2019s those few moments, when you\u2019re first waking up, when you\u2019re not in your dreams and not in the real world. If you try, you can float there, not beholden to either, just existing. There were times when I was in the asylum that those were the only moments when I felt free.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Aadi] Thanks for stopping by and chatting with me.<\/p>\n

[Aadi] Oh shoot. I forgot to ask him who would play him in the movie. Maybe I can have him come back another time and I can ask then.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi, Aadi here. Today I’m chatting with Deryl Stephens about Mind over Mind\u00a0by Karina Fabian. [Aadi] Let’s get started. Tell me about yourself. Who or what are you? What are your vitals? [Deryl] I\u2019m Deryl Stephens, known to some as the Ydrel, and I\u2019m human- Terran. Mostly, I think. I don\u2019t know who my father […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Chat With Deryl Stephens","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chats-with-friends"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/MindoverMind_Cover.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7xtYd-6C","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}