Garrison Kelly's Blog, page 119
May 9, 2015
Rachel Phoenix
NAME: Rachel Phoenix
AGE: 30
OCCUPATION: Elf Assassin
CANON: Tree Party Nation
With the way the 2010 D&D movie script Tree Party Nation was written, alignments were in multiple shades of gray instead of complete black and white. There were no good guys and bad guys and if there were, it would be hard to tell them apart. On one side of the battle, you have a group of environmentally conscious warriors called the Tree Party Nation, who have noble intentions of preserving their forest home, but go about it in a violent and sadistic way. The other side of the battle is Myles Blood’s Goliath Kingdom, where chopping down trees might seem cruel and unusual, but it does give his citizens good-paying jobs and develops his city. Two ambiguous forces of violence colliding and Rachel Phoenix happens to be on Myles Blood’s side.
But if you think this badass chick is a one-dimensional ass-kicker, think again. She also at one point had the capacity for love. In fact, she was the ex-fiance of the Tree Party Nation’s leader, half-elf ranger Barrett Croft. Rachel thought Barrett was too radical for her tastes, so she aligned herself with, in her mind, the voice of reason in Myles Blood, human cleric. However, just because she broke up with Barrett, it didn’t mean that she didn’t have any feelings for him remaining whatsoever. A very small part of Rachel wanted to be with him again.
By the movie’s end, she gets her wish. Barrett Croft broke out of a Goliath prison and held everyone hostage with a nail bomb detonator (yes, they have those in D&D somewhere). Barrett even had the device wrapped around Myles Blood’s chest to show the audience how serious he was. Brute force wasn’t going to put an end to such terrorism. Rachel’s love would. Both the Tree Party Nation and Goliath’s Army had lost a significant number of soldiers in this war.
Now Rachel must convince Barrett that it’s time to make love instead. She made him an offer he would never refuse: put down the bomb and run away to a faraway environmental paradise with her. They would never return to Goliath or have to deal with Myles Blood again. It’s just two love birds solidifying their romance. And it wasn’t an assassin’s prank either. This was true love. Barrett found it within his heart to put down the detonator and walk away in Rachel’s arms. That’s how the story ended.
Even as I write this plot down on a blank document, part of me is wondering why Tree Party Nation would be a dud of a creative project. There are three-dimensional characters everywhere, there’s plenty of fantasy violence to go around, and the ending is something everybody can be happy with whether you’re a diehard geek or a sucker for lovey-dovey ooey-gooey romance stories. I’d actually have to go back into my archives and reread Tree Party Nation to see why it would be a dud.
But then again, a part of me already knows why. First of all, it was written in the style of a movie script. Movie scripts matter…if you live in California. As I write this character profile, I currently live in Port Orchard, Washington, where the only things that matter are knitting, war stories, and loud vehicles. Secondly, the story was written in 2010, a time in my life where my writing was mediocre at best. In fact, I feel that way about anything I’ve written before mid-2013 when I joined the Weekly Short Story Contest and Company group on Good Reads.
It might be a prejudiced way of thinking, but that prejudice has oftentimes been completely justified. Canned dialogue, scattered story structure, undisruptive writing, these things make me afraid to reread Tree Party Nation. So if Rachel Phoenix is going to be used again, she will take part in yet another fantasy story whether it’s a novel I write or a D&D campaign I run. Where else would you find a woman named Rachel Phoenix who openly admits to being an elf assassin? There isn’t a whole lot of need for ninja stars and jagged daggers in a modern setting. Yeah, she’s definitely a fantasy kind of girl, in more ways than just the literary genre. Hehe!
***LITERARY QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“If Clue was played with Dungeons & Dragons rules, you could beat a confession out of Colonel Mustard with the lead pipe and have sex with Miss Scarlet on the table of the conservatory.”
-David M. Ewalt, author of “Of Dice and Men”-
AGE: 30
OCCUPATION: Elf Assassin
CANON: Tree Party Nation
With the way the 2010 D&D movie script Tree Party Nation was written, alignments were in multiple shades of gray instead of complete black and white. There were no good guys and bad guys and if there were, it would be hard to tell them apart. On one side of the battle, you have a group of environmentally conscious warriors called the Tree Party Nation, who have noble intentions of preserving their forest home, but go about it in a violent and sadistic way. The other side of the battle is Myles Blood’s Goliath Kingdom, where chopping down trees might seem cruel and unusual, but it does give his citizens good-paying jobs and develops his city. Two ambiguous forces of violence colliding and Rachel Phoenix happens to be on Myles Blood’s side.
But if you think this badass chick is a one-dimensional ass-kicker, think again. She also at one point had the capacity for love. In fact, she was the ex-fiance of the Tree Party Nation’s leader, half-elf ranger Barrett Croft. Rachel thought Barrett was too radical for her tastes, so she aligned herself with, in her mind, the voice of reason in Myles Blood, human cleric. However, just because she broke up with Barrett, it didn’t mean that she didn’t have any feelings for him remaining whatsoever. A very small part of Rachel wanted to be with him again.
By the movie’s end, she gets her wish. Barrett Croft broke out of a Goliath prison and held everyone hostage with a nail bomb detonator (yes, they have those in D&D somewhere). Barrett even had the device wrapped around Myles Blood’s chest to show the audience how serious he was. Brute force wasn’t going to put an end to such terrorism. Rachel’s love would. Both the Tree Party Nation and Goliath’s Army had lost a significant number of soldiers in this war.
Now Rachel must convince Barrett that it’s time to make love instead. She made him an offer he would never refuse: put down the bomb and run away to a faraway environmental paradise with her. They would never return to Goliath or have to deal with Myles Blood again. It’s just two love birds solidifying their romance. And it wasn’t an assassin’s prank either. This was true love. Barrett found it within his heart to put down the detonator and walk away in Rachel’s arms. That’s how the story ended.
Even as I write this plot down on a blank document, part of me is wondering why Tree Party Nation would be a dud of a creative project. There are three-dimensional characters everywhere, there’s plenty of fantasy violence to go around, and the ending is something everybody can be happy with whether you’re a diehard geek or a sucker for lovey-dovey ooey-gooey romance stories. I’d actually have to go back into my archives and reread Tree Party Nation to see why it would be a dud.
But then again, a part of me already knows why. First of all, it was written in the style of a movie script. Movie scripts matter…if you live in California. As I write this character profile, I currently live in Port Orchard, Washington, where the only things that matter are knitting, war stories, and loud vehicles. Secondly, the story was written in 2010, a time in my life where my writing was mediocre at best. In fact, I feel that way about anything I’ve written before mid-2013 when I joined the Weekly Short Story Contest and Company group on Good Reads.
It might be a prejudiced way of thinking, but that prejudice has oftentimes been completely justified. Canned dialogue, scattered story structure, undisruptive writing, these things make me afraid to reread Tree Party Nation. So if Rachel Phoenix is going to be used again, she will take part in yet another fantasy story whether it’s a novel I write or a D&D campaign I run. Where else would you find a woman named Rachel Phoenix who openly admits to being an elf assassin? There isn’t a whole lot of need for ninja stars and jagged daggers in a modern setting. Yeah, she’s definitely a fantasy kind of girl, in more ways than just the literary genre. Hehe!
***LITERARY QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“If Clue was played with Dungeons & Dragons rules, you could beat a confession out of Colonel Mustard with the lead pipe and have sex with Miss Scarlet on the table of the conservatory.”
-David M. Ewalt, author of “Of Dice and Men”-
May 8, 2015
Colleen Owens
NAME: Colleen Owens
AGE: 19
OCCUPATION: Eco-Warrior
CANON: Vampire On Fire
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody by now how I feel about environmental issues: I support them. Climate change is a real thing and we should all do something about it. Animals need our protection instead of getting shot at or abused. Habitats for those animals need our protection as well. Colleen Owens embodies every one of these beliefs. There’s just one problem: she’s billed as a villain and takes her alignment a little too seriously.
Being an eco-warrior isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but taking it to the extreme is. Pretty much any political belief has the potential to be polarized whether you’re a pro-lifer who shoots doctors or an anti-war protester who loots liquor stores during a riot. Colleen has good intentions, but she achieves her goals through vicious means, which is what makes her a convincing villain.
In Vampire On Fire, an oil tanker is pulling into the harbor of a nameless city (before I started calling every location in my short stories Paulson City). Three different creatures of the night want to attack this oil tanker for different reasons. Mario Grand, a vampire who doesn’t burn during daylight but has a fiery aura, wants victims to feast on and fill his blood pool. Derrick O’Brien, a werewolf who undergoes his transformation via rage, wants relief from his PTSD. Can you take a guess as to what Colleen Owens wants with the oil tanker? She wants to destroy the fucking thing, that’s what.
Armed with little more than a machete and a bitchy attitude, Colleen storms the oil tanker and slashes innocent people along the path to her goals. She even goes so far as to torture one of them while screaming in an annoying voice. That’s the key thing you have to remember about Colleen: her voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard. She could scream the lyrics to a Soulfly or Five Finger Death Punch song and still sound disgusting.
Combine this with the will to kill anybody over the smallest disagreement over environmental issues and you’ve got the makings of a terrorist. If you leave your lights on when you’re not around, she’ll tie your ass to the couch and burn your home. If you eat a 50 calorie beef stick, she’ll shove it up your ass like a dildo and pop your eyeballs out. At this point, calling her a bitch might not be enough. We might have to move one more letter down the alphabet to accurately describe this violent woman.
So I guess Colleen Owens can be labeled by TV Tropes as being a Complete Monster. Even hardcore liberals can’t identify with this woman and those on the right hate her even more. She’s doing more damage to her cause than good. Sometimes she doesn’t even have a clear game plan; she’ll just rape and pillage everything until this entire world is burning in her violence, which also goes against the environmental doctrine.
A villain who gets called the C-word on a regular basis and earns it every time should be a satisfying kill for someone like Mario Grand or Derrick O’Brien. Fear not, readers. After the two of them take down an ultra-powerful mummy and put aside their differences, Derrick ties and gags Colleen with duct tape while Mario throws a head kick and decapitates her in the process. If I hadn’t used so many hyperbolic descriptions while ignoring the “normal” rules of writing, then maybe Vampire On Fire would be a satisfying read. Unfortunately, the writing techniques I employed along with the Deus Ex Machina ending would make this story a weak contender for publication and therefore a candidate for being deleted from my archives.
If I ever have the need for a bitchy villain who demands conformity and is too violent even for an NC-17 rating, then I’ll be happy to call on Colleen Owens for help. But if I’m going to use her, then I can’t have her be TOO bitchy. Otherwise, people might put the book down and pick up a copy of something a little more heavenly, like “The Fault In Our Stars” by John Green or “Love Letters to the Dead” by Ava Dellaira. I’d include “Fifty Shades of Grey” on that list, but I’m inclined to believe that Colleen Owens and Christian Grey would make the ideal Complete Monster couple. That’s a scary prospect no matter which way you spin it. It sends chills down my spine and it should yours as well.
***JOKE OF THE DAY***
When Christian Grey wants to go to a rock concert, does he shop at Ticket Master?
AGE: 19
OCCUPATION: Eco-Warrior
CANON: Vampire On Fire
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody by now how I feel about environmental issues: I support them. Climate change is a real thing and we should all do something about it. Animals need our protection instead of getting shot at or abused. Habitats for those animals need our protection as well. Colleen Owens embodies every one of these beliefs. There’s just one problem: she’s billed as a villain and takes her alignment a little too seriously.
Being an eco-warrior isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but taking it to the extreme is. Pretty much any political belief has the potential to be polarized whether you’re a pro-lifer who shoots doctors or an anti-war protester who loots liquor stores during a riot. Colleen has good intentions, but she achieves her goals through vicious means, which is what makes her a convincing villain.
In Vampire On Fire, an oil tanker is pulling into the harbor of a nameless city (before I started calling every location in my short stories Paulson City). Three different creatures of the night want to attack this oil tanker for different reasons. Mario Grand, a vampire who doesn’t burn during daylight but has a fiery aura, wants victims to feast on and fill his blood pool. Derrick O’Brien, a werewolf who undergoes his transformation via rage, wants relief from his PTSD. Can you take a guess as to what Colleen Owens wants with the oil tanker? She wants to destroy the fucking thing, that’s what.
Armed with little more than a machete and a bitchy attitude, Colleen storms the oil tanker and slashes innocent people along the path to her goals. She even goes so far as to torture one of them while screaming in an annoying voice. That’s the key thing you have to remember about Colleen: her voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard. She could scream the lyrics to a Soulfly or Five Finger Death Punch song and still sound disgusting.
Combine this with the will to kill anybody over the smallest disagreement over environmental issues and you’ve got the makings of a terrorist. If you leave your lights on when you’re not around, she’ll tie your ass to the couch and burn your home. If you eat a 50 calorie beef stick, she’ll shove it up your ass like a dildo and pop your eyeballs out. At this point, calling her a bitch might not be enough. We might have to move one more letter down the alphabet to accurately describe this violent woman.
So I guess Colleen Owens can be labeled by TV Tropes as being a Complete Monster. Even hardcore liberals can’t identify with this woman and those on the right hate her even more. She’s doing more damage to her cause than good. Sometimes she doesn’t even have a clear game plan; she’ll just rape and pillage everything until this entire world is burning in her violence, which also goes against the environmental doctrine.
A villain who gets called the C-word on a regular basis and earns it every time should be a satisfying kill for someone like Mario Grand or Derrick O’Brien. Fear not, readers. After the two of them take down an ultra-powerful mummy and put aside their differences, Derrick ties and gags Colleen with duct tape while Mario throws a head kick and decapitates her in the process. If I hadn’t used so many hyperbolic descriptions while ignoring the “normal” rules of writing, then maybe Vampire On Fire would be a satisfying read. Unfortunately, the writing techniques I employed along with the Deus Ex Machina ending would make this story a weak contender for publication and therefore a candidate for being deleted from my archives.
If I ever have the need for a bitchy villain who demands conformity and is too violent even for an NC-17 rating, then I’ll be happy to call on Colleen Owens for help. But if I’m going to use her, then I can’t have her be TOO bitchy. Otherwise, people might put the book down and pick up a copy of something a little more heavenly, like “The Fault In Our Stars” by John Green or “Love Letters to the Dead” by Ava Dellaira. I’d include “Fifty Shades of Grey” on that list, but I’m inclined to believe that Colleen Owens and Christian Grey would make the ideal Complete Monster couple. That’s a scary prospect no matter which way you spin it. It sends chills down my spine and it should yours as well.
***JOKE OF THE DAY***
When Christian Grey wants to go to a rock concert, does he shop at Ticket Master?
May 4, 2015
Atlas Venom
NAME: Atlas Venom
AGE: 53
OCCUPATION: Dragon Barbarian
CANON: Zeromancer (both incarnations)
It shouldn’t be a secret anymore that my favorite character class in any RPG setting is the barbarian. It’s been that way since I’ve played Hero Quest in the early 1990’s, Diablo II in the early 2000’s, and Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition in 2010. I also happen to be a big fan of dragons. They’re big, they’re nasty, and they breathe fire. It wouldn’t matter if it was a real dragon or one in humanoid form, fuck it, I love them anyways.
What do you get when you combine a favorite class with a favorite race? You get Atlas Venom, Dragon Barbarian. He’s got the scales and fire breath of a dragon and the heavy metal armor and giant battleaxe of a barbarian. You talk about crossover heaven? That’s it, man. End of story. Atlas motherfucking Venom.
As you can tell from his canon, Zeromancer had two different incarnations. One of them was as a movie script in 2009, which served as a prequel to Tower of Heaven, Tower of Hell, and No Towers No Bullshit. Zeromancer explained the origins of the trench coat wearing and machete wielding magi assassins as well as those of the Demonic family bloodline.
But more importantly, it had Atlas Venom as a side character. He was everything you could ever want in a heroic ally: big, strong, powerful, and capable of mowing enemies down while creating a thunderstorm of blood around him. Of course, this was before I knew what a Gary-Stu was. Atlas was very much a Gary-Stu since he just appeared out of nowhere without a background story and only his fighting skills to lend to the party.
The other incarnation of Zeromancer was a four-act novel, each act containing a completely different set of characters only for them to come together in the fourth and final one. Atlas could have just as easily created a storm of blood with his battleaxe prowess and fiery breath. But since he was billed as the main villain of act one, if he did this, we’d have no characters. I often wondered what would have happened if Atlas just went nuts and flattened an entire continent full of people.
The heroes of act one were no slouches, don’t get me wrong. Kento Bladecaptain was a robotic knight who was just getting the hang of feeling emotions despite warnings against it from his dark magic masters Calco and Tazz. The two wizards were so pissed off with Kento that they actually aligned themselves with Atlas Venom.
So now we’ve got a pissed off dragon barbarian and two dark wizards who team up to kick the shit out of the good guys. If it wasn’t for the hyperbolic writing style I employed throughout this story, I could have had an epic confrontation here. Why would I ever think hyperbole was an acceptable writing style? Maybe in comedies, but not if I wanted to be taken seriously as an action-fantasy author.
If I ever decide to use this overly powerful Gary-Stu in my novels again, he’ll definitely be a villain and he’ll need some personality. It’s not enough for him to be a pissed off dragon barbarian who rages through entire planets and slaughters everyone in his path. He needs a reason. He needs strategies. He needs minions. If he was just a mindless berserker, he wouldn’t need to be called Atlas Venom. He could just be a nameless force of nature. But I don’t want that for Atlas. I want him to be a respectable villain.
For a villain of that power to be believable, we have to go back to his barbaric roots. I know I mentioned Hero Quest as one of my influences, but Diablo II was the biggest influence I had when it came to my love of barbarians. And Diablo II had a pain in the ass mega demon for a final boss: Diablo himself. This guy would shoot flame circles and streams of lightning at the players and kill them off instantly. He could do it forever and ever since enemies don’t have a mana pocket.
What made him even more dangerous was Diablo’s motivation: bringing evil to the world. The middle ages were already a tough time for a lot of people, but with Diablo at the helm, it’s nonstop hell. What if Atlas Venom had a similar motivation? What if his form of hellish evil was his barbarian tribe of disgustingly powerful monsters? He might even be able to steal a catchphrase: “Not even death can save you from me!” It’s not enough just to kill someone; Atlas has to send chills down their spine. He can do that if I give him the breathing room to.
One of the ways I made Atlas creepy in the second Zeromancer was by giving him the facial features of a clown. He was still a hideous dragon, but he had clown features as well with white face paint, a goofy nose, and colorful hair. As if clowns needed more reasons to be scary, right? Perhaps it was overkill. Perhaps it was me trying too hard to make him an intimidating villain. If I actually believed the latter, then that’s basically me surrendering to the idea that we can’t have dragon clown barbarians. I say we can. It’s possible if you picture it in your mind. Pennywise and Ronald McDonald would shit their pants at the sight of Atlas Venom if he adopted a clown gimmick. Ooo, talk dirty to me!
If I reincarnate Atlas Venom, I’m going to attempt to have my cake and eat it too. He fits every archetype I could ever love in a dark fantasy character, dragons, clowns, and barbarians aside. With this many archetypes, he could actually be a believable villain with the creepy dialogue and disgusting facial expressions. I believe in him!
***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
RESTAURANT MANAGER: Quit being a hero! You’re going to get us all killed! Give him what he wants so we can all get out of here!
JULES: Shut the fuck up, fat man! This ain’t none of your goddamn business!
-Pulp Fiction-
AGE: 53
OCCUPATION: Dragon Barbarian
CANON: Zeromancer (both incarnations)
It shouldn’t be a secret anymore that my favorite character class in any RPG setting is the barbarian. It’s been that way since I’ve played Hero Quest in the early 1990’s, Diablo II in the early 2000’s, and Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition in 2010. I also happen to be a big fan of dragons. They’re big, they’re nasty, and they breathe fire. It wouldn’t matter if it was a real dragon or one in humanoid form, fuck it, I love them anyways.
What do you get when you combine a favorite class with a favorite race? You get Atlas Venom, Dragon Barbarian. He’s got the scales and fire breath of a dragon and the heavy metal armor and giant battleaxe of a barbarian. You talk about crossover heaven? That’s it, man. End of story. Atlas motherfucking Venom.
As you can tell from his canon, Zeromancer had two different incarnations. One of them was as a movie script in 2009, which served as a prequel to Tower of Heaven, Tower of Hell, and No Towers No Bullshit. Zeromancer explained the origins of the trench coat wearing and machete wielding magi assassins as well as those of the Demonic family bloodline.
But more importantly, it had Atlas Venom as a side character. He was everything you could ever want in a heroic ally: big, strong, powerful, and capable of mowing enemies down while creating a thunderstorm of blood around him. Of course, this was before I knew what a Gary-Stu was. Atlas was very much a Gary-Stu since he just appeared out of nowhere without a background story and only his fighting skills to lend to the party.
The other incarnation of Zeromancer was a four-act novel, each act containing a completely different set of characters only for them to come together in the fourth and final one. Atlas could have just as easily created a storm of blood with his battleaxe prowess and fiery breath. But since he was billed as the main villain of act one, if he did this, we’d have no characters. I often wondered what would have happened if Atlas just went nuts and flattened an entire continent full of people.
The heroes of act one were no slouches, don’t get me wrong. Kento Bladecaptain was a robotic knight who was just getting the hang of feeling emotions despite warnings against it from his dark magic masters Calco and Tazz. The two wizards were so pissed off with Kento that they actually aligned themselves with Atlas Venom.
So now we’ve got a pissed off dragon barbarian and two dark wizards who team up to kick the shit out of the good guys. If it wasn’t for the hyperbolic writing style I employed throughout this story, I could have had an epic confrontation here. Why would I ever think hyperbole was an acceptable writing style? Maybe in comedies, but not if I wanted to be taken seriously as an action-fantasy author.
If I ever decide to use this overly powerful Gary-Stu in my novels again, he’ll definitely be a villain and he’ll need some personality. It’s not enough for him to be a pissed off dragon barbarian who rages through entire planets and slaughters everyone in his path. He needs a reason. He needs strategies. He needs minions. If he was just a mindless berserker, he wouldn’t need to be called Atlas Venom. He could just be a nameless force of nature. But I don’t want that for Atlas. I want him to be a respectable villain.
For a villain of that power to be believable, we have to go back to his barbaric roots. I know I mentioned Hero Quest as one of my influences, but Diablo II was the biggest influence I had when it came to my love of barbarians. And Diablo II had a pain in the ass mega demon for a final boss: Diablo himself. This guy would shoot flame circles and streams of lightning at the players and kill them off instantly. He could do it forever and ever since enemies don’t have a mana pocket.
What made him even more dangerous was Diablo’s motivation: bringing evil to the world. The middle ages were already a tough time for a lot of people, but with Diablo at the helm, it’s nonstop hell. What if Atlas Venom had a similar motivation? What if his form of hellish evil was his barbarian tribe of disgustingly powerful monsters? He might even be able to steal a catchphrase: “Not even death can save you from me!” It’s not enough just to kill someone; Atlas has to send chills down their spine. He can do that if I give him the breathing room to.
One of the ways I made Atlas creepy in the second Zeromancer was by giving him the facial features of a clown. He was still a hideous dragon, but he had clown features as well with white face paint, a goofy nose, and colorful hair. As if clowns needed more reasons to be scary, right? Perhaps it was overkill. Perhaps it was me trying too hard to make him an intimidating villain. If I actually believed the latter, then that’s basically me surrendering to the idea that we can’t have dragon clown barbarians. I say we can. It’s possible if you picture it in your mind. Pennywise and Ronald McDonald would shit their pants at the sight of Atlas Venom if he adopted a clown gimmick. Ooo, talk dirty to me!
If I reincarnate Atlas Venom, I’m going to attempt to have my cake and eat it too. He fits every archetype I could ever love in a dark fantasy character, dragons, clowns, and barbarians aside. With this many archetypes, he could actually be a believable villain with the creepy dialogue and disgusting facial expressions. I believe in him!
***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
RESTAURANT MANAGER: Quit being a hero! You’re going to get us all killed! Give him what he wants so we can all get out of here!
JULES: Shut the fuck up, fat man! This ain’t none of your goddamn business!
-Pulp Fiction-
April 25, 2015
Finn Cosgrave
NAME: Finn Cosgrave
AGE: 28
OCCUPATION: Heavyweight Mixed-Martial Artist
CANON: It’s Just a Joke
I can be quoted as saying that people shouldn’t choose combative occupations for the sake of finding romance. If you join NCIS thinking you’re going to walk out with Ziva David as arm candy, you’re dead wrong. If you become a cast mate on The Ultimate Fighter, you ain’t leaving with Ronda Rousey. And if you join the FBI, the other half of your bed won’t be occupied by Dr. Temperance Brennan. Nobody knew this better than Finn Cosgrave. After all, he didn’t need distractions going into his match with Chris Johnson. Seeing as how Finn had lost three fights in a row, if he lost one more, he would be fired.
So if Finn Cosgrave is fighting for his career and making very little money doing so, why would a marketable female fighter named Zelda Lee want to flirt with him in the gym? She has championship gold around her waist and an undefeated streak to go with it. Shouldn’t she be chasing someone higher on the food chain? Maybe Zelda likes Finn for his “charming personality” even though they hardly know each other. Finn has the muscles and height to be a Gary-Stu, and yet he feels like he has a huge mountain to climb to deserve a woman like Zelda.
Even though the two of them are technically supposed to be cutting weight for their upcoming fights, Finn and Zelda eat at Subway anyways. While there, a horny fan asks for Zelda’s autograph and verbally abuses Finn. The newfound couple work together in verbally dismantling this loser fan and leaving him embarrassed and lonely. Somehow, this is all some sort of motivation tactic to Finn to train harder in the gym and eventually win his match against Chris Johnson, which he does and therefore keeps his job.
Here’s one of the things that made “It’s Just a Joke” so unrealistic in my eyes: so Finn fights his ass off to earn a knockout victory over Chris Johnson and keep his job. And then later in the evening, he quits. He quits because Zelda’s opponent for the evening, an Amazon lady named Cameron Gillespie, kills her with an illegal up kick. There’s no clarity as to whether Cameron will get suspended, fined, or even jailed for her actions. There’s even some blame being placed on the ref for not stopping the up kick earlier. Finn Cosgrave apparently doesn’t care where the blame goes, because he’s so disenfranchised with MMA that he wants to quit due to losing the “love of his life”.
Good for you, Finn. You’re standing up for what you believe in and you let the whole world know that you’re not to be fucked with. There’s just one problem: you’re unemployed and MMA is the thing you do best. So now what? What other options are there for Mr. Finn Cosgrave? Washing dishes? Pumping gas? Selling Little Debbie cakes? Or maybe he can go into professional wrestling where more people die there than in mixed-martial arts. And if Finn does live through it all, he’ll still have a permanently aching body, a relentless travel schedule, and weird ass storylines. He might have a little bit of a push due to his MMA background and his heavyweight build, but other than that, he won’t like the transition.
There are two routes I can go down with Finn Cosgrave should I decide to use him again in a short story or novel. One of them is to keep this background story and have his emotional profile made up ahead of time. The other is to give him a fresh start and have him be a typecast big guy such as a bouncer or a cop (because he’s technically a hero). Whatever role he has, he might have to take a backseat to someone else lest he be considered a Gary-Stu. He can be the Chewbacca to someone’s Han Solo or the Deus Shadowheart to someone’s April Farrow. I don’t know what Finn Cosgrave’s role will be in the future, but all I can say is when this emotionally charged train is on the tracks, you’d better move out of the way.
***ADVICE OF THE DAY***
If you’re unemployed or ashamed of your job, the next time someone asks you what you do for a living, tell them, “I work with underprivileged children in the Democratic Society of Who Gives a Fuck.” That’ll raise a few eyebrows, maybe get a few chuckles.
AGE: 28
OCCUPATION: Heavyweight Mixed-Martial Artist
CANON: It’s Just a Joke
I can be quoted as saying that people shouldn’t choose combative occupations for the sake of finding romance. If you join NCIS thinking you’re going to walk out with Ziva David as arm candy, you’re dead wrong. If you become a cast mate on The Ultimate Fighter, you ain’t leaving with Ronda Rousey. And if you join the FBI, the other half of your bed won’t be occupied by Dr. Temperance Brennan. Nobody knew this better than Finn Cosgrave. After all, he didn’t need distractions going into his match with Chris Johnson. Seeing as how Finn had lost three fights in a row, if he lost one more, he would be fired.
So if Finn Cosgrave is fighting for his career and making very little money doing so, why would a marketable female fighter named Zelda Lee want to flirt with him in the gym? She has championship gold around her waist and an undefeated streak to go with it. Shouldn’t she be chasing someone higher on the food chain? Maybe Zelda likes Finn for his “charming personality” even though they hardly know each other. Finn has the muscles and height to be a Gary-Stu, and yet he feels like he has a huge mountain to climb to deserve a woman like Zelda.
Even though the two of them are technically supposed to be cutting weight for their upcoming fights, Finn and Zelda eat at Subway anyways. While there, a horny fan asks for Zelda’s autograph and verbally abuses Finn. The newfound couple work together in verbally dismantling this loser fan and leaving him embarrassed and lonely. Somehow, this is all some sort of motivation tactic to Finn to train harder in the gym and eventually win his match against Chris Johnson, which he does and therefore keeps his job.
Here’s one of the things that made “It’s Just a Joke” so unrealistic in my eyes: so Finn fights his ass off to earn a knockout victory over Chris Johnson and keep his job. And then later in the evening, he quits. He quits because Zelda’s opponent for the evening, an Amazon lady named Cameron Gillespie, kills her with an illegal up kick. There’s no clarity as to whether Cameron will get suspended, fined, or even jailed for her actions. There’s even some blame being placed on the ref for not stopping the up kick earlier. Finn Cosgrave apparently doesn’t care where the blame goes, because he’s so disenfranchised with MMA that he wants to quit due to losing the “love of his life”.
Good for you, Finn. You’re standing up for what you believe in and you let the whole world know that you’re not to be fucked with. There’s just one problem: you’re unemployed and MMA is the thing you do best. So now what? What other options are there for Mr. Finn Cosgrave? Washing dishes? Pumping gas? Selling Little Debbie cakes? Or maybe he can go into professional wrestling where more people die there than in mixed-martial arts. And if Finn does live through it all, he’ll still have a permanently aching body, a relentless travel schedule, and weird ass storylines. He might have a little bit of a push due to his MMA background and his heavyweight build, but other than that, he won’t like the transition.
There are two routes I can go down with Finn Cosgrave should I decide to use him again in a short story or novel. One of them is to keep this background story and have his emotional profile made up ahead of time. The other is to give him a fresh start and have him be a typecast big guy such as a bouncer or a cop (because he’s technically a hero). Whatever role he has, he might have to take a backseat to someone else lest he be considered a Gary-Stu. He can be the Chewbacca to someone’s Han Solo or the Deus Shadowheart to someone’s April Farrow. I don’t know what Finn Cosgrave’s role will be in the future, but all I can say is when this emotionally charged train is on the tracks, you’d better move out of the way.
***ADVICE OF THE DAY***
If you’re unemployed or ashamed of your job, the next time someone asks you what you do for a living, tell them, “I work with underprivileged children in the Democratic Society of Who Gives a Fuck.” That’ll raise a few eyebrows, maybe get a few chuckles.
April 22, 2015
Brutus Knightwing
NAME: Brutus Knightwing
AGE: 31
OCCUPATION: Professional Wrestler
CANON: Giant Wrestling Federation
Brutus Knightwing is seven feet tall and weighs somewhere north of 325 lbs. For a man of his size, he is light on his feet and can perform wrestling moves cruiserweights normally pull off (spinning wheel kick, cross body block, and springboard elbow drop). In a wrestling promotion like GWF, his speed was a valuable asset in earning him three World Championships and five Tag Team Championships with fellow giant Andreas Rude. The Wrestling Observer Reading Magazine (WORM) rated Brutus the Most Improved Wrestler of 2010 and 2011. With this kind of impressive resume, Brutus should be a perfect fit in just about any promotion he goes to. Even Vinnie Mac & Cheese at WWE would drool over this mountain of muscle.
Unfortunately for Brutus, he never got to see the light of day beyond my computer folders. Wrestling RPG’s (good ones, anyways) are few and far between these days. The last time I took part in a wrestling RPG was when OTT Wrestling was still active on Play By Web dot com (obviously before I was banned from the latter). OTT (Over the Top) was where Occupy Wrestling hero Mitch McLeod got his start. He became so brutal and so popular that I had to make him the main character of my novel. But this was back in 2002. I didn’t conceive Brutus Knightwing until late in 2010, exactly five years after I was banned from Play By Web for not getting along with the admins.
When I say good wrestling RPG’s, I’m talking about games where the players get to act out the matches (objective) instead of just cut promos all the time and hope the admin likes them enough to let them win (subjective). Victory through promos is good in theory, but terrible in practice since admins tend to favor promos that are multiple pages long instead of actually good. Only by acting out the matches do the players have any control over their own destinies. Brutus Knightwing would have thrived in OTT, but drowned everywhere else.
And if he drowns in every RPG where talking is the key to victory, that means the only other option for Brutus is to put him in a novel of some kind. Because of his seven-foot tall stature and intimidating first and last name, he will obviously have to play a villain. As someone’s henchman, he could be a big dumb muscle man who throws people around like rag dolls. As a ruler, he could be vicious and quite possibly a conqueror. Yes, ruling would require some form of charisma that most seven-footers don’t have. But who says that the charisma can’t come from a tribal perspective. He could be a raging barbarian who screams his way through battle and rips everyone to pieces. He wouldn’t even need a weapon unless he was wrestling again, in which case he would use a steel chair.
Do you want to know why Vince McMahon prefers muscle-bound wrestlers over smaller ones? It’s because he believes they’re more marketable to the public. They look good when made into toys, printed on posters, and published in magazines. There is a little bit of truth to this. After all, Rey Mysterio on the cover of Muscle & Fitness doesn’t seem right. But here’s where the “internet dorks” clash with Vince: the smaller guys conquering the bigger guys is a more amazing story. Of course the bigger guy is going to win because that’s what we expect. If we get what we expect, the element of surprise is gone. But if a little runt like Daniel Bryan can get a hulking ogre like Kane to submit to the LeBelle Lock, then it’s a memory that’s going to blow everyone’s mind. Brutus Knightwing is a natural villain, and villains were meant to be conquered. Neil Gaiman said it himself: fantasy teaches us that not only are dragons real, they can be defeated.
***WRESTLING DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
BAD NEWS BARRETT: The last time Rob Van Dam was relevant, I was still in diapers!
MICHAEL COLE: So Barrett wore diapers as a teenager?
AGE: 31
OCCUPATION: Professional Wrestler
CANON: Giant Wrestling Federation
Brutus Knightwing is seven feet tall and weighs somewhere north of 325 lbs. For a man of his size, he is light on his feet and can perform wrestling moves cruiserweights normally pull off (spinning wheel kick, cross body block, and springboard elbow drop). In a wrestling promotion like GWF, his speed was a valuable asset in earning him three World Championships and five Tag Team Championships with fellow giant Andreas Rude. The Wrestling Observer Reading Magazine (WORM) rated Brutus the Most Improved Wrestler of 2010 and 2011. With this kind of impressive resume, Brutus should be a perfect fit in just about any promotion he goes to. Even Vinnie Mac & Cheese at WWE would drool over this mountain of muscle.
Unfortunately for Brutus, he never got to see the light of day beyond my computer folders. Wrestling RPG’s (good ones, anyways) are few and far between these days. The last time I took part in a wrestling RPG was when OTT Wrestling was still active on Play By Web dot com (obviously before I was banned from the latter). OTT (Over the Top) was where Occupy Wrestling hero Mitch McLeod got his start. He became so brutal and so popular that I had to make him the main character of my novel. But this was back in 2002. I didn’t conceive Brutus Knightwing until late in 2010, exactly five years after I was banned from Play By Web for not getting along with the admins.
When I say good wrestling RPG’s, I’m talking about games where the players get to act out the matches (objective) instead of just cut promos all the time and hope the admin likes them enough to let them win (subjective). Victory through promos is good in theory, but terrible in practice since admins tend to favor promos that are multiple pages long instead of actually good. Only by acting out the matches do the players have any control over their own destinies. Brutus Knightwing would have thrived in OTT, but drowned everywhere else.
And if he drowns in every RPG where talking is the key to victory, that means the only other option for Brutus is to put him in a novel of some kind. Because of his seven-foot tall stature and intimidating first and last name, he will obviously have to play a villain. As someone’s henchman, he could be a big dumb muscle man who throws people around like rag dolls. As a ruler, he could be vicious and quite possibly a conqueror. Yes, ruling would require some form of charisma that most seven-footers don’t have. But who says that the charisma can’t come from a tribal perspective. He could be a raging barbarian who screams his way through battle and rips everyone to pieces. He wouldn’t even need a weapon unless he was wrestling again, in which case he would use a steel chair.
Do you want to know why Vince McMahon prefers muscle-bound wrestlers over smaller ones? It’s because he believes they’re more marketable to the public. They look good when made into toys, printed on posters, and published in magazines. There is a little bit of truth to this. After all, Rey Mysterio on the cover of Muscle & Fitness doesn’t seem right. But here’s where the “internet dorks” clash with Vince: the smaller guys conquering the bigger guys is a more amazing story. Of course the bigger guy is going to win because that’s what we expect. If we get what we expect, the element of surprise is gone. But if a little runt like Daniel Bryan can get a hulking ogre like Kane to submit to the LeBelle Lock, then it’s a memory that’s going to blow everyone’s mind. Brutus Knightwing is a natural villain, and villains were meant to be conquered. Neil Gaiman said it himself: fantasy teaches us that not only are dragons real, they can be defeated.
***WRESTLING DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
BAD NEWS BARRETT: The last time Rob Van Dam was relevant, I was still in diapers!
MICHAEL COLE: So Barrett wore diapers as a teenager?
April 8, 2015
Vikki Colt
NAME: Vikki Colt
AGE: 25
OCCUPATION: Singer
CANONS: Vina’s Slaves and Fireball Nightmare
I’ve always been fascinated with female singers, particularly those in the rock genre. In 2006, I had so much of a crush on Tarja Turunen that I bought every Nightwish album she was a part of. For Christmas one year, I got Rachael MacFarlane’s lounge CD, even though I’m not a fan of that kind of music. How about we continue the tradition of beautiful songstresses with the fictional variety, Vikki Colt. Vikki can not only do clean and dirty vocals interchangeably, but she looks smoking hot in a dress and gothic boots. You think there might be a line of men waiting outside her door with wedding rings in their hands? I’d like to think so.
In 2006, I wrote a rap metal musical called Vina’s Slaves, about a band of the same name trying to make a living in Bozeman, Montana. Vikki Colt was the female singer of that band and an occasional guitarist. Things weren’t going well enough for the band, so the leader, keyboard player and singer Chase Lugar, decided to get themselves popular by spreading politically liberal messages through their music.
It might have worked anywhere else, but not in fucking Bozeman, Montana, a state so red it might as well be covered in the band’s blood. The original guitarist Johnny De Morgan left the band under duress and became a born-again Christian. Charlie Moore went to jail after catching his girlfriend, Vikki, cheating on him with Chase. Vikki was raped by a gang of drunken marines and sent to a trauma center while the only remaining members of the band were Chase and the bass player Slick Hanover. Things eventually got better for the band, but not in Vikki’s presence, which means she was cast to the side this whole time.
Because I felt like she didn’t get enough attention in Vina’s Slaves, Vikki would have been resurrected in Fireball Nightmare, my most recent failure. Before it became a dud, I had one act completed and the second one in the works. Unfortunately for poor Vikki, she would have appeared in the third and I never made it that far. It’s a shame, really. She would have played an elfish heavy metal guitarist who tried to steal Ronan Seran away from his wife Makoto.
She could do it, too. When I drew her for the second time in eight years, she looked like an elf version of Maria Brink from In This Moment. Think about what kind of charisma Maria already has and multiply her hotness by a million. Vikki could have been something big. But like I said, Fireball Nightmare was yet another dud in this long line of stories that never made it.
But now that I think about it, was Vikki Colt used for anything more than just relationship fodder? Yes, she could sing and play the guitar with the best of them, but that doesn’t mean anything if her main role was to satisfy my musical goddess fantasies. If nothing else, that would make her a Mary-Sue. Either that, or she would be on an episode of Cheaters. She deserves better than that. If I’m going to make Vikki into a rock star, she has to be more about her music and less about being boy crazy. That doesn’t mean she can’t have sex appeal. It just means she won’t be in whatever story she’s a part of for pornographic reasons.
Maybe if Vikki’s sex appeal does shine through, she can go by the Neko Case and Ronda Rousey Rule, as I like to call it: if she doesn’t show it off at the beach, she won’t show it off anywhere else. Maybe Vikki can do a few bikini shoots, but that’s about it. Women wear bikinis all the time at the beach and none of them have been arrested for public indecency. In the same way that Ronda Rousey wants to be remembered for her fighting, Vikki Colt wants to be remembered for being a damn good musician and putting out metal album after metal album full of hardcore shit. If anybody comes up to Vikki on the streets and demands anything more from her, they’ll get a swift kick in the balls and be able to sing at a higher octave than her.
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“I don’t care about the story. I don’t care about the myth. I don’t care how you see my life; you haven’t witnessed it. Use fear as a weapon and pity as a whip. Convince everyone around that I’m a piece of shit.”
-Nothing More singing “Friendly Fire”-
AGE: 25
OCCUPATION: Singer
CANONS: Vina’s Slaves and Fireball Nightmare
I’ve always been fascinated with female singers, particularly those in the rock genre. In 2006, I had so much of a crush on Tarja Turunen that I bought every Nightwish album she was a part of. For Christmas one year, I got Rachael MacFarlane’s lounge CD, even though I’m not a fan of that kind of music. How about we continue the tradition of beautiful songstresses with the fictional variety, Vikki Colt. Vikki can not only do clean and dirty vocals interchangeably, but she looks smoking hot in a dress and gothic boots. You think there might be a line of men waiting outside her door with wedding rings in their hands? I’d like to think so.
In 2006, I wrote a rap metal musical called Vina’s Slaves, about a band of the same name trying to make a living in Bozeman, Montana. Vikki Colt was the female singer of that band and an occasional guitarist. Things weren’t going well enough for the band, so the leader, keyboard player and singer Chase Lugar, decided to get themselves popular by spreading politically liberal messages through their music.
It might have worked anywhere else, but not in fucking Bozeman, Montana, a state so red it might as well be covered in the band’s blood. The original guitarist Johnny De Morgan left the band under duress and became a born-again Christian. Charlie Moore went to jail after catching his girlfriend, Vikki, cheating on him with Chase. Vikki was raped by a gang of drunken marines and sent to a trauma center while the only remaining members of the band were Chase and the bass player Slick Hanover. Things eventually got better for the band, but not in Vikki’s presence, which means she was cast to the side this whole time.
Because I felt like she didn’t get enough attention in Vina’s Slaves, Vikki would have been resurrected in Fireball Nightmare, my most recent failure. Before it became a dud, I had one act completed and the second one in the works. Unfortunately for poor Vikki, she would have appeared in the third and I never made it that far. It’s a shame, really. She would have played an elfish heavy metal guitarist who tried to steal Ronan Seran away from his wife Makoto.
She could do it, too. When I drew her for the second time in eight years, she looked like an elf version of Maria Brink from In This Moment. Think about what kind of charisma Maria already has and multiply her hotness by a million. Vikki could have been something big. But like I said, Fireball Nightmare was yet another dud in this long line of stories that never made it.
But now that I think about it, was Vikki Colt used for anything more than just relationship fodder? Yes, she could sing and play the guitar with the best of them, but that doesn’t mean anything if her main role was to satisfy my musical goddess fantasies. If nothing else, that would make her a Mary-Sue. Either that, or she would be on an episode of Cheaters. She deserves better than that. If I’m going to make Vikki into a rock star, she has to be more about her music and less about being boy crazy. That doesn’t mean she can’t have sex appeal. It just means she won’t be in whatever story she’s a part of for pornographic reasons.
Maybe if Vikki’s sex appeal does shine through, she can go by the Neko Case and Ronda Rousey Rule, as I like to call it: if she doesn’t show it off at the beach, she won’t show it off anywhere else. Maybe Vikki can do a few bikini shoots, but that’s about it. Women wear bikinis all the time at the beach and none of them have been arrested for public indecency. In the same way that Ronda Rousey wants to be remembered for her fighting, Vikki Colt wants to be remembered for being a damn good musician and putting out metal album after metal album full of hardcore shit. If anybody comes up to Vikki on the streets and demands anything more from her, they’ll get a swift kick in the balls and be able to sing at a higher octave than her.
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“I don’t care about the story. I don’t care about the myth. I don’t care how you see my life; you haven’t witnessed it. Use fear as a weapon and pity as a whip. Convince everyone around that I’m a piece of shit.”
-Nothing More singing “Friendly Fire”-
April 3, 2015
Shivo Black
NAME: Shivo Black
AGE: 46
OCCUPATION: Demonic Prison Guard
CANON: Tower of Hell
Prison can be a scary place for anybody, whether they’re a small time crook who forges checks or a heavy hitter who rapes children across the country. The Tower of Hell was no different, especially when Shivo Black was the head prison guard. It was a bad enough place with the fear of being raped by demons, beaten by orcs, forced to eat sewage that somehow passed for food, and stuffed in an tiny cell with someone who wants to beat the shit out of anyone he comes across.
And then you have Shivo Black: a seven-foot tall demon with bull horns, muscles, and a nasty attitude. You think he abuses his authority every now and then? You think he grabs people by the neck and pops their heads like pimples? You think he sits on people’s chests and snaps every bone in their bodies? You think he grabs five guys at a time at their necks and ankles and pulls them apart like flies? You’re damn right he does all of these things! You know why? Because he’s a sick evil fuck, that’s why! He’s a villain of the very worst kind! He does all of this under the guise of justice. Because as we all know, prison is a place where criminals can become better members of society. I rolled my eyes so many times on that one that I might as well go bowling with my brain cells.
When the warden, an even more sadistic fucker named Dr. Steve Naraku, had business to attend to, Shivo Black had the Tower of Hell all to himself. And when the real overseer, King David Said-Matrix, wanted to have an overview of what the hell was really going on in that prison, the noble king almost had a stroke. He had the entire prison converted to a REAL rehabilitation facility and Shivo Black’s fate was unknown at that point. He was the victim of Aborted Arc Syndrome, where he was eliminated from the storyline without the audience really knowing why. Then again, what kind of vicious warrior would ever try to get in the face of someone like Shivo and live to tell about it? Without a ladder, no less.
All of this deadliness got me thinking that Shivo Black shouldn’t be a supporting villain. He should be the main antagonist of whatever story he occupies. He has all of the qualities it takes to be a lead villain: overpowered, overbearing, ruthless, and dominant. There isn’t one person in the Tower of Hell franchise capable of taking this gigantic motherfucker out on their own.
Kevin Demonic and his necromancy? Fucking forget it. He’d be lucky to take one step into the battle and live for the next one. Kon Shou? Even an abominable undead warrior like him who’s the same height as Shivo can’t go far with a broken spine compliments of you know who. Minra Cottonmouth, some bounty hunter who doesn’t have his shit together, do you really think he and his chain whip can strike enough lashes into Shivo to knock his ass over? No chance in hell.
Taking down Shivo would have to be a team effort and that team would have to have a lot of people on it. It might take an entire army to weather the storm of Shivo Black’s fiery assault. And he just might be a prison guard in his next story. Prison is an evil place no matter what side of justice you’re on. Some countries do justice better than others, but if Shivo was a part of the American system, even jaywalkers would either turn to a puddle of blood and splooge or they would become mass murderers on their first day of freedom.
But suppose Shivo was randomly thrown into a modern drama story instead of a fantasy one like Tower of Hell was. Could he still be a demon? Probably not. Could he still act like one? Hell yes. Modern drama or fantasy world, if Shivo is allowed to guard a prison full of psychopaths and small time offenders, he will bend them into shape with little effort on his part and a lot of rage. But what exactly will those shapes be? Pretzels? Spirals? L’s? As an ultra-intimidating villain, he can do all of those things. I’ll have to be sure to put an M rating on whatever story he’s assigned, though.
***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Have you seen Luke Harper’s teeth? It looks like his tongue is in jail.”
-Jerry “The King” Lawler-
AGE: 46
OCCUPATION: Demonic Prison Guard
CANON: Tower of Hell
Prison can be a scary place for anybody, whether they’re a small time crook who forges checks or a heavy hitter who rapes children across the country. The Tower of Hell was no different, especially when Shivo Black was the head prison guard. It was a bad enough place with the fear of being raped by demons, beaten by orcs, forced to eat sewage that somehow passed for food, and stuffed in an tiny cell with someone who wants to beat the shit out of anyone he comes across.
And then you have Shivo Black: a seven-foot tall demon with bull horns, muscles, and a nasty attitude. You think he abuses his authority every now and then? You think he grabs people by the neck and pops their heads like pimples? You think he sits on people’s chests and snaps every bone in their bodies? You think he grabs five guys at a time at their necks and ankles and pulls them apart like flies? You’re damn right he does all of these things! You know why? Because he’s a sick evil fuck, that’s why! He’s a villain of the very worst kind! He does all of this under the guise of justice. Because as we all know, prison is a place where criminals can become better members of society. I rolled my eyes so many times on that one that I might as well go bowling with my brain cells.
When the warden, an even more sadistic fucker named Dr. Steve Naraku, had business to attend to, Shivo Black had the Tower of Hell all to himself. And when the real overseer, King David Said-Matrix, wanted to have an overview of what the hell was really going on in that prison, the noble king almost had a stroke. He had the entire prison converted to a REAL rehabilitation facility and Shivo Black’s fate was unknown at that point. He was the victim of Aborted Arc Syndrome, where he was eliminated from the storyline without the audience really knowing why. Then again, what kind of vicious warrior would ever try to get in the face of someone like Shivo and live to tell about it? Without a ladder, no less.
All of this deadliness got me thinking that Shivo Black shouldn’t be a supporting villain. He should be the main antagonist of whatever story he occupies. He has all of the qualities it takes to be a lead villain: overpowered, overbearing, ruthless, and dominant. There isn’t one person in the Tower of Hell franchise capable of taking this gigantic motherfucker out on their own.
Kevin Demonic and his necromancy? Fucking forget it. He’d be lucky to take one step into the battle and live for the next one. Kon Shou? Even an abominable undead warrior like him who’s the same height as Shivo can’t go far with a broken spine compliments of you know who. Minra Cottonmouth, some bounty hunter who doesn’t have his shit together, do you really think he and his chain whip can strike enough lashes into Shivo to knock his ass over? No chance in hell.
Taking down Shivo would have to be a team effort and that team would have to have a lot of people on it. It might take an entire army to weather the storm of Shivo Black’s fiery assault. And he just might be a prison guard in his next story. Prison is an evil place no matter what side of justice you’re on. Some countries do justice better than others, but if Shivo was a part of the American system, even jaywalkers would either turn to a puddle of blood and splooge or they would become mass murderers on their first day of freedom.
But suppose Shivo was randomly thrown into a modern drama story instead of a fantasy one like Tower of Hell was. Could he still be a demon? Probably not. Could he still act like one? Hell yes. Modern drama or fantasy world, if Shivo is allowed to guard a prison full of psychopaths and small time offenders, he will bend them into shape with little effort on his part and a lot of rage. But what exactly will those shapes be? Pretzels? Spirals? L’s? As an ultra-intimidating villain, he can do all of those things. I’ll have to be sure to put an M rating on whatever story he’s assigned, though.
***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Have you seen Luke Harper’s teeth? It looks like his tongue is in jail.”
-Jerry “The King” Lawler-
March 24, 2015
Obselidia
MOVIE TITLE: Obselidia
DIRECTOR: Diane Bell
YEAR: 2010
GENRE: Drama
RATING: PG-13 for language
GRADE: Pass
George is a librarian who moonlights as a cataloguist for obsolete and nostalgic items, all of which he hopes to document for a book he’s putting together. He even goes so far as to believe love is obsolete and therefore leads the lonely life of being single. When he meets a beautiful projectionist named Sophie, she tries to get him to come out of his shell as the two of them venture to Death Valley to interview a climate change scientist for George’s book. The ideas of love and the apocalypse collide in a debate about how we should spend our last minutes on earth if they truly are that. Will George live the rest of his life in isolation or will he believe in the power of love humans can give each other? Does he have anything in his heart for Sophie?
The three major themes of this movie (living life to the fullest, romance, and nostalgia) intertwine perfectly with each other as they try to bring George and Sophie together as a romantic couple. With nostalgia, they bond over how the past used to be a happy and simpler time, when technology wasn’t going berserk and people paid attention to each other. With living life to the fullest, they get hard hitting cynicism from the climate change scientist who believes all happy experiences will be erased because of humankind’s sins against the earth. With romance, it’s the classic tale of a socially awkward guy like George shying away from a flirtatious girl like Sophie. With the scientist feeding him all of this negativity, George has to struggle to believe in the power of love when Sophie tries to get in his social bubble.
Near the end of the movie, we ask ourselves if George’s struggle to suppress his inner negativity is worth it. While he does realize how the power of love can make someone happy, he also realizes how it can break his heart. While I won’t give away any spoilers, I will say that Sophie does break George’s heart in the end and he’s sobbing to himself in the comfort of his own home looking at pictures of their vacation together in Death Valley. That is such a powerful image that the audience watching has no choice but to question their own capacity for romantic love. This may not have been the message the movie was trying to send, but to my way of thinking, in this 50-50 bet between happiness and heartache, I was leaning towards heartache. I was so heartbroken and touched by the movie’s end that I spent the rest of the night listening to Seether’s cover of Wham’s “Careless Whisper”.
The best part about this movie is that it encourages the audience to ask questions instead of mindlessly conforming to a singular principal. If the world ends tomorrow, how will we spend our last hours on earth? Is romantic love worth all the struggles or does it lead to easy cynicism? Should we all love each other before it truly is indeed too late? Should we have as many experiences as we can despite the huge risk attached to them? Finding the answers to these questions takes a lot of courage and living with the answers is even scarier than that. Some people become so saddened by the answers that they resort to isolation or even worse, suicide. In the end, positivity will save us. It will get us through the hardships whether they’re in a personal relationship or part of a global crisis. If you’re going to attempt to answer these questions, make sure you do it without regret. Otherwise, temporary heartache will feel like permanent torture.
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“I love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate.”
-Flyleaf singing “Again”-
DIRECTOR: Diane Bell
YEAR: 2010
GENRE: Drama
RATING: PG-13 for language
GRADE: Pass
George is a librarian who moonlights as a cataloguist for obsolete and nostalgic items, all of which he hopes to document for a book he’s putting together. He even goes so far as to believe love is obsolete and therefore leads the lonely life of being single. When he meets a beautiful projectionist named Sophie, she tries to get him to come out of his shell as the two of them venture to Death Valley to interview a climate change scientist for George’s book. The ideas of love and the apocalypse collide in a debate about how we should spend our last minutes on earth if they truly are that. Will George live the rest of his life in isolation or will he believe in the power of love humans can give each other? Does he have anything in his heart for Sophie?
The three major themes of this movie (living life to the fullest, romance, and nostalgia) intertwine perfectly with each other as they try to bring George and Sophie together as a romantic couple. With nostalgia, they bond over how the past used to be a happy and simpler time, when technology wasn’t going berserk and people paid attention to each other. With living life to the fullest, they get hard hitting cynicism from the climate change scientist who believes all happy experiences will be erased because of humankind’s sins against the earth. With romance, it’s the classic tale of a socially awkward guy like George shying away from a flirtatious girl like Sophie. With the scientist feeding him all of this negativity, George has to struggle to believe in the power of love when Sophie tries to get in his social bubble.
Near the end of the movie, we ask ourselves if George’s struggle to suppress his inner negativity is worth it. While he does realize how the power of love can make someone happy, he also realizes how it can break his heart. While I won’t give away any spoilers, I will say that Sophie does break George’s heart in the end and he’s sobbing to himself in the comfort of his own home looking at pictures of their vacation together in Death Valley. That is such a powerful image that the audience watching has no choice but to question their own capacity for romantic love. This may not have been the message the movie was trying to send, but to my way of thinking, in this 50-50 bet between happiness and heartache, I was leaning towards heartache. I was so heartbroken and touched by the movie’s end that I spent the rest of the night listening to Seether’s cover of Wham’s “Careless Whisper”.
The best part about this movie is that it encourages the audience to ask questions instead of mindlessly conforming to a singular principal. If the world ends tomorrow, how will we spend our last hours on earth? Is romantic love worth all the struggles or does it lead to easy cynicism? Should we all love each other before it truly is indeed too late? Should we have as many experiences as we can despite the huge risk attached to them? Finding the answers to these questions takes a lot of courage and living with the answers is even scarier than that. Some people become so saddened by the answers that they resort to isolation or even worse, suicide. In the end, positivity will save us. It will get us through the hardships whether they’re in a personal relationship or part of a global crisis. If you’re going to attempt to answer these questions, make sure you do it without regret. Otherwise, temporary heartache will feel like permanent torture.
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“I love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate.”
-Flyleaf singing “Again”-
Tyler Cutty
NAME: Tyler Cutty
AGE: Immortal
OCCUPATION: Mummy Serial Killer
CANON: World of Darkness: Washington 2
You’re looking at Tyler Cutty’s occupation and are probably wondering if he’s goes around randomly killing mummies or if he’s a mummy who happens to also be a serial killer. The latter is what I was trying to imply. But why is an ancient Egyptian creature running around with the name Tyler? Cleopatra, Ramses, Xerxes, and now Tyler. Such progression, I know. Evolution couldn’t have come up with a better byproduct than a fucking American mummy named Tyler! With his invincible undead body and a sword bigger than he is, it’s more believable than it sounds.
Although the second installment of World of Darkness: Washington never came to fruition, the first one was a real thing at one point and now it’s digital dust. The idea behind each WOD:WA story is that three different kinds of undead creatures are tracked in three different cities in Washington state, my current home. In the first novel, mummies lived in Bellingham, vampires lived in Seattle, werewolves lived in Chehalis, and they all congregated to start life over again in Aberdeen.
In the second novel, which would have been Tyler’s home, mummies, vampires, werewolves, and hunters lived in Tacoma, demons lived in Port Orchard, and changelings lived in Purdy. Although Tyler is a mummy to the core, he would actually be a part of the third act in Purdy with the changelings.
If you’ve never been to Purdy before, don’t forget to bring your blanket and pillow; you’re going to need them in such a boring backwoods area. Purdy is so boring, in fact, that it’s a perfect place for a serial killer like Tyler Cutty to take residence. Nobody would ever think to look for him there. Granted, he has to actually go out and venture into the bigger cities to look for victims, but he’s more than capable of doing that, because he looks completely normal riding a city bus in his mummy wrap.
Unfortunately, because WOD:WA2 never got realized, Tyler Cutty never got developed past his name, race, and occupation. All we know about mummies from the first novel is that they become those creatures by allowing magical wrappings to snake around their bodies and turn their innards to dust. The only way to kill a mummy, as pointed out by Egyptologist Dr. Shawn Phoenix, is by cutting at their wrappings with a 12-inch knife. No more, no less. Only a knife of that length could ever possess the combination of strength and precision necessary to perform such a surgical strike.
Dr. Shawn Phoenix got the shit kicked out of him in the first novel, so those who actually know the 12-inch blade secret are few and far between, and they’re certainly not out in Tyler Cutty’s part of Washington state. Which means of course that Tyler is free to either slowly torture his victims by ripping their limbs off or slash them to bloody pieces with his oversized sword, which is far more than 12 inches, I can assure you that. If you’re a changeling, which is basically a kind of faerie in World of Darkness terms, how do you stop a guy with infinite strength and sadistic urges to back it up? You might be able to do it if you found out about the 12-inch secret, but even if you did, you still have to be a better fighter than a super powerful mummy. Good luck, little fairies!
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“Maybe I should let her go, but not until she loves me.”
-Slipknot singing “Killpop”-
AGE: Immortal
OCCUPATION: Mummy Serial Killer
CANON: World of Darkness: Washington 2
You’re looking at Tyler Cutty’s occupation and are probably wondering if he’s goes around randomly killing mummies or if he’s a mummy who happens to also be a serial killer. The latter is what I was trying to imply. But why is an ancient Egyptian creature running around with the name Tyler? Cleopatra, Ramses, Xerxes, and now Tyler. Such progression, I know. Evolution couldn’t have come up with a better byproduct than a fucking American mummy named Tyler! With his invincible undead body and a sword bigger than he is, it’s more believable than it sounds.
Although the second installment of World of Darkness: Washington never came to fruition, the first one was a real thing at one point and now it’s digital dust. The idea behind each WOD:WA story is that three different kinds of undead creatures are tracked in three different cities in Washington state, my current home. In the first novel, mummies lived in Bellingham, vampires lived in Seattle, werewolves lived in Chehalis, and they all congregated to start life over again in Aberdeen.
In the second novel, which would have been Tyler’s home, mummies, vampires, werewolves, and hunters lived in Tacoma, demons lived in Port Orchard, and changelings lived in Purdy. Although Tyler is a mummy to the core, he would actually be a part of the third act in Purdy with the changelings.
If you’ve never been to Purdy before, don’t forget to bring your blanket and pillow; you’re going to need them in such a boring backwoods area. Purdy is so boring, in fact, that it’s a perfect place for a serial killer like Tyler Cutty to take residence. Nobody would ever think to look for him there. Granted, he has to actually go out and venture into the bigger cities to look for victims, but he’s more than capable of doing that, because he looks completely normal riding a city bus in his mummy wrap.
Unfortunately, because WOD:WA2 never got realized, Tyler Cutty never got developed past his name, race, and occupation. All we know about mummies from the first novel is that they become those creatures by allowing magical wrappings to snake around their bodies and turn their innards to dust. The only way to kill a mummy, as pointed out by Egyptologist Dr. Shawn Phoenix, is by cutting at their wrappings with a 12-inch knife. No more, no less. Only a knife of that length could ever possess the combination of strength and precision necessary to perform such a surgical strike.
Dr. Shawn Phoenix got the shit kicked out of him in the first novel, so those who actually know the 12-inch blade secret are few and far between, and they’re certainly not out in Tyler Cutty’s part of Washington state. Which means of course that Tyler is free to either slowly torture his victims by ripping their limbs off or slash them to bloody pieces with his oversized sword, which is far more than 12 inches, I can assure you that. If you’re a changeling, which is basically a kind of faerie in World of Darkness terms, how do you stop a guy with infinite strength and sadistic urges to back it up? You might be able to do it if you found out about the 12-inch secret, but even if you did, you still have to be a better fighter than a super powerful mummy. Good luck, little fairies!
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“Maybe I should let her go, but not until she loves me.”
-Slipknot singing “Killpop”-
The Franciscan Death Scream
There’s been speculation among every psychic my mother has visited that in a past lives I was always a warrior of some kind. It could have been a barbarian in the dark ages or a marine in Vietnam. I’d say those assessments are true to the fullest extent, especially as they relate to battle cries. Well, these days, the only battle cries I let out are ones where I’m in an extreme amount of pain. You want to know how I define an extreme amount of pain? Stepping on a thumb tack. Banging my elbow against the wall. Banging my head on the roof of a short car. With the way I scream loudly and whiningly in pain, you would have sworn I’d broken a bone or had a limb amputated. But that’s the price of being autistic: high sensitivity to everything, including the most insignificant kind of pain.
My blood draw in 2006 at the Franciscan Hospital in Gig Harbor, Washington was no different. I had to have one because it was part of my physical checkup. Just because I had to have one, didn’t mean I had to particularly enjoy it. Needles are sharp. Sharpness creates pain. Pain creates death screams that make me sound like I’m being fed through a wood chipper or being cut in half crotch first with a chainsaw. I don’t know why people say that needles aren’t a big deal. They’re always going to be sharp and they’re always going to hurt whether they’re drawing blood or threading yarn through a piece of cloth.
My blood draw went exactly how I expected it would. I sat in a chair that looked like it belonged in a dentist’s office. The anxiety in my stomach builds. The nurse tied a rubber tourniquet around my upper arm. The anxiety in my stomach builds even further and now I start making little whining noises. The nurse tells me to look away as if that’s going to help ease the pain. It didn’t matter where I was looking, because the end result was having a bastard sword-like needle plunged into my arm.
As to be expected, I let out a blood-curdling death scream. It was loud. It was throaty. It was slightly girlish. It was like being a female lion in an extreme amount of pain. Apparently, there were frightened little kids in the waiting room who ran upstairs after hearing my shriek of agony and their parents ran after them. Any stragglers would have hurried up after hearing me cry, “Take the needle out! Take the needle out!” The nurse did and I let out another bellow of berserker pain.
Ever since that day, anytime I go to that hospital in Gig Harbor, the nurses and doctors always expect me to scream. They make no attempt to silence me, unlike my mother whose favorite line is always, “There’s no yelling.” Oh, but there is. There is and there always will be, dear mother. There was screaming when I had to have my big toes operated on for ingrown nails, there was screaming when I had to have my foot examined after a cat bite, and there’s even screaming at my eye doctor appointments in Port Orchard when he puts stinging drops in my eyes for a glaucoma test.
Unless my mother is considering a career as a dominatrix, there will be no silence anywhere we go. If we go on another horseback ride in Arizona, my groin and legs are going to hurt so badly that I’ll yell as if they’re being blasted with an AK-47. If my computer malfunctions at home or if a WWE pay-per-view on my Roku freezes up, I’m going to scream and swear at either one until my blood pressure is in the 300’s and my pulse is in the 1000’s.
Three things are certain in my mother’s life as well as the life of anybody who lives with me: death, taxes, and barbaric war cries. The only thing I’m missing is a horned helmet and a double-sided battleaxe. Of course, carrying such a heavy weapon would cause strain and strain causes even more shrills of extreme pain. I’ve got the barbaric ethos down to a science and I haven’t even swung my weapon yet (and I’m not sure I will be able to).
***COMMERCIAL DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
GUY: I’m eating right and staying in shape. I’ve been doing the Duck Dodger.
GIRL: What’s the Duck Dodger?
GUY: It’s like a triathlon, but with dodge balls.
GIRL: Do they leave a mark?
GUY: Not on the outside.
-Subway-
My blood draw in 2006 at the Franciscan Hospital in Gig Harbor, Washington was no different. I had to have one because it was part of my physical checkup. Just because I had to have one, didn’t mean I had to particularly enjoy it. Needles are sharp. Sharpness creates pain. Pain creates death screams that make me sound like I’m being fed through a wood chipper or being cut in half crotch first with a chainsaw. I don’t know why people say that needles aren’t a big deal. They’re always going to be sharp and they’re always going to hurt whether they’re drawing blood or threading yarn through a piece of cloth.
My blood draw went exactly how I expected it would. I sat in a chair that looked like it belonged in a dentist’s office. The anxiety in my stomach builds. The nurse tied a rubber tourniquet around my upper arm. The anxiety in my stomach builds even further and now I start making little whining noises. The nurse tells me to look away as if that’s going to help ease the pain. It didn’t matter where I was looking, because the end result was having a bastard sword-like needle plunged into my arm.
As to be expected, I let out a blood-curdling death scream. It was loud. It was throaty. It was slightly girlish. It was like being a female lion in an extreme amount of pain. Apparently, there were frightened little kids in the waiting room who ran upstairs after hearing my shriek of agony and their parents ran after them. Any stragglers would have hurried up after hearing me cry, “Take the needle out! Take the needle out!” The nurse did and I let out another bellow of berserker pain.
Ever since that day, anytime I go to that hospital in Gig Harbor, the nurses and doctors always expect me to scream. They make no attempt to silence me, unlike my mother whose favorite line is always, “There’s no yelling.” Oh, but there is. There is and there always will be, dear mother. There was screaming when I had to have my big toes operated on for ingrown nails, there was screaming when I had to have my foot examined after a cat bite, and there’s even screaming at my eye doctor appointments in Port Orchard when he puts stinging drops in my eyes for a glaucoma test.
Unless my mother is considering a career as a dominatrix, there will be no silence anywhere we go. If we go on another horseback ride in Arizona, my groin and legs are going to hurt so badly that I’ll yell as if they’re being blasted with an AK-47. If my computer malfunctions at home or if a WWE pay-per-view on my Roku freezes up, I’m going to scream and swear at either one until my blood pressure is in the 300’s and my pulse is in the 1000’s.
Three things are certain in my mother’s life as well as the life of anybody who lives with me: death, taxes, and barbaric war cries. The only thing I’m missing is a horned helmet and a double-sided battleaxe. Of course, carrying such a heavy weapon would cause strain and strain causes even more shrills of extreme pain. I’ve got the barbaric ethos down to a science and I haven’t even swung my weapon yet (and I’m not sure I will be able to).
***COMMERCIAL DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
GUY: I’m eating right and staying in shape. I’ve been doing the Duck Dodger.
GIRL: What’s the Duck Dodger?
GUY: It’s like a triathlon, but with dodge balls.
GIRL: Do they leave a mark?
GUY: Not on the outside.
-Subway-
