Garrison Kelly's Blog, page 19
December 30, 2021
I Don't Belong Here
Rodger Hyde had no damn clue what a Snow Moon Village was…even though he was smack bang in the middle of one. He looked around with glazed and puffy eyes at the wonders around him: gnomes running and playing in the street, bearded wizards in pointed hats selling potions, barbarians in furs laughing it up and chugging beer together, and green elves sharpening their blades with whetstones. The architecture of each building had that old-timey English medieval look, whether it was the cobblestone streets or the wooden structures of the Restful Wishes Inn, Dragon Blade Weapons Shop, Hellforge Armory, or Ogre Tears Tavern. The sounds of flutes and harps glided through the air as half-elf bards played their whimsical tunes, dancing in the streets as they were doing so.
This entire setup jumped straight from the pages of a Dungeons & Dragons handbook. And yet, all Rodger could whisper to himself was…”I don’t belong here.” To his credit, he stood out like a nun at a porn convention with his Crossfade T-shirt, messy brown hair, green khakis, and green marijuana radiating from his clothing. His self-hating mantra was confirmed even further as passersby gave him strange looks, ranging from sorrowful concern to smelling something suspicious.
“I don’t belong here,” he whispered to himself again. Even with all of his experience playing Dungeons & Dragons as a teenager, all the monster-slaying adventures he put his paladin through, all of the seas he crossed with his wizard in toe, all of the pockets he picked with his half-orc thief, the only words that rang true to him at that moment were…”I don’t belong here.” Somebody in his head was saying that to him, but the weed he smoked that morning ensured he wouldn’t have any clear answers.
He was snapped out of his zombie-like trance when a muscular barbarian slapped him on the shoulder and squeezed it. “Hello there, little laddie! Where’re you coming from?”
“I…I don’t know…”
“Well, where’re you going?”
“D…Denny’s…”
“Denny’s! A worthy quest if I’ve ever heard one! Perhaps we can venture together, laddie!”
“I…I don’t…I don’t think so…I, uh…” Rodger wandered off as another barbarian made a weird comment about how awkward he was. That barbarian was right, but the words he really meant to say were…”I don’t belong here.”
Just a few more agonized, cringey steps and he would be out of the Snow Moon Village, on his way to a Moons Over My Hammy with French fries and diet soda. That was his favorite meal as a kid, which he was surprised he remembered so vividly considering the rest of his mind was just as scrambled as the eggs in his would-be sandwich. A few more strange looks, minor giggles, and offers for potions later, Rodger finally made it to the edge of this LARPing convention. Over the hill was the Bastion of Breakfast itself: Denny’s. Maybe the Moons Over My Hammy would have to be scrapped in favor of a rib eye steak. Or a stack of pancakes a mile high oozing with maple syrup and drowning in butter. Or French toast with even more syrup and butter. And then…the realization hit him: “I don’t belong there either.”
What would the other patrons think of him, his wardrobe choices, and his disheveled appearance? Surely, Denny’s had that kind of clientele on a regular basis…but not him. There was something too awkward and flimsy about him. How did he know? The mysterious voice in his head told him so: “I don’t belong here.” And with that, he sat on the sidewalk with face in his hand. How defeated he was to not belong to a place that only cared whether or not he paid for his meal.
Somewhere in his lost thoughts, Rodger overheard a barbarian saying, “Murphy! Miss Witherspoon! I believe that young man over there needs some help.”
“Oh, no…”said Rodger silently to himself, anticipating more awkward interactions ahead from this Murphy Witherspoon person. As sure as the sun shone brightly enough to fuck up his eyes, a light blue elven lady with long red hair, a white puffy shirt, and black baggy pants sat next to him on the sidewalk. No doubt this was her.
“Guess what?” she said in an Irish accent. “Our bards don’t know how to play Crossfade songs.” She chuckled at her own joke while Rodger could only give a weak smile, which in her mind was probably better than none. “Share a story with me?”
“About what?”
Murphy giggled and hung her head. “Your story, of course. Everybody has a story to tell.”
“Well…I, uh…I got out of bed…smoked a roll of weed, and…just wandered here, I guess. I don’t know.”
“That…sounds exciting. Very adventurous.”
“Look, I know I don’t belong here, okay? You don’t have to tell me, because I already know.”
Murphy placed a hand on Rodger’s shoulder. “Nonsense, of course you do. The Snow Moon Village welcomes people of all kinds.”
He made a flat tire noise. “Tell that to the people who were giving me funny looks today.”
“Oh, don’t mind them. They’re worried about you, that’s all. You came here looking like you got mugged by some ogres and spit out by some dragons. It’s only natural that they’d want to know more about you.”
Rodger raised his voice. “I don’t even know about me, okay?!” Murphy edged backwards a little bit. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“No worries, my friend. I’ve faced horrors much worse than an angry pothead. I’ve ventured into fiery caves and blood-covered mountains. If you ever decide to come on an adventure with us, bring lots of potions, like this one.” She held a bottle of red liquid underneath his nose.
Rodger pulled the cork and smelled it. “It’s fruit punch.”
“All that weed must have stunted your imagination, laddie.”
“More like my mom’s boyfriend.”
And just like that, Rodger’s eyes grew wide with the realization of where he heard that familiar phrase before. He let it slip. It all came back to him in an instant. His shouting matches. The shoving. The tears from his own mother pouring down her red cheeks. He suddenly remembered the pettings she gave him on his fluffy hair in order to calm him down from a yelling session. The hugs that were as warm as a thick blanket and much more comfortable to be wrapped around in. He could fall asleep during one of her comfort sessions if not for the nightmare that awaited him when he woke up, hence the reason he smoked so much pot to begin with.
“Are you okay?” Murphy asked, probably noticing a small tear pouring down Rodger’s face.
“…I told him I didn’t want to get a STEM degree…I just wanted to write stories and play D&D…but he kept telling me to man up. He said that real adults don’t play with that kid shit. He said that money was more important than my dreams. We argued like this for hours and…I’m sorry, I don’t mean to dump all of this on you…What was I thinking?” He wiped the tear from his eye.
“So he’s the one telling you that you don’t belong here?”
“…Yes…wait a minute…how did you know I was saying that?”
“Have you seen the concerned faces of everyone around you? Of course they heard you.”
Rodger shook his head. “Who says those things? Why would anybody…it makes no sense…It’s just stupid shit…”
Murphy scratched her fingernails along Rodger’s back. “That says more about your mom’s boyfriend than it does about you. Imagination and creativity should never be suppressed in favor of capitalism. That piece of horse garbage has no idea what he’s talking about.”
“I can deny him all he wants, but it doesn’t make the pain go away.” He wiped another tear from his eye. “Look, I appreciate you trying to help me, but I really just want to eat myself to death at Denny’s, okay?”
“We don’t eat Moons Over My Hammies here in the Snow Moon Village. We eat dragon stew with extra chunks of meat and potatoes.”
“I told you, I don’t belong…”
“Yes, yes, I know what you said! Your mom’s boyfriend said you don’t belong here! I get it! But…I’m saying you do. You belong everywhere you go. Do you understand? If you’re worried about the Crossfade T-shirt and not fitting in, then…” She smiled. “I’m sure we can find some nice wizard robes to dress you in.” Rodger’s eyes started to light up behind his puffy sadness. “Or if you’re more of a fighting man, we can get some splint mail. Or demon-skin boots. Anything you’d like.”
Rodger breathed heavily. “Thank you…thank you so much.”
“The name’s Murphy. Murphy Witherspoon.”
“Rodger Hyde. Nice to meet you.” They shook hands.
Before his grin could fully form, the same barbarian from before slapped his shoulder again, jarring him out of his skin. With a hideous fanged smile, he asked, “What’s your mom’s boyfriend’s name?” He held up a battleaxe. “I’d like to have a word with him!”
NOW was the right time for Rodger to smile. Of course, murder was still illegal, but the sentiment was all that mattered. Belonging in the Snow Moon Village was all that mattered. Belonging anywhere at all was all that mattered.
This entire setup jumped straight from the pages of a Dungeons & Dragons handbook. And yet, all Rodger could whisper to himself was…”I don’t belong here.” To his credit, he stood out like a nun at a porn convention with his Crossfade T-shirt, messy brown hair, green khakis, and green marijuana radiating from his clothing. His self-hating mantra was confirmed even further as passersby gave him strange looks, ranging from sorrowful concern to smelling something suspicious.
“I don’t belong here,” he whispered to himself again. Even with all of his experience playing Dungeons & Dragons as a teenager, all the monster-slaying adventures he put his paladin through, all of the seas he crossed with his wizard in toe, all of the pockets he picked with his half-orc thief, the only words that rang true to him at that moment were…”I don’t belong here.” Somebody in his head was saying that to him, but the weed he smoked that morning ensured he wouldn’t have any clear answers.
He was snapped out of his zombie-like trance when a muscular barbarian slapped him on the shoulder and squeezed it. “Hello there, little laddie! Where’re you coming from?”
“I…I don’t know…”
“Well, where’re you going?”
“D…Denny’s…”
“Denny’s! A worthy quest if I’ve ever heard one! Perhaps we can venture together, laddie!”
“I…I don’t…I don’t think so…I, uh…” Rodger wandered off as another barbarian made a weird comment about how awkward he was. That barbarian was right, but the words he really meant to say were…”I don’t belong here.”
Just a few more agonized, cringey steps and he would be out of the Snow Moon Village, on his way to a Moons Over My Hammy with French fries and diet soda. That was his favorite meal as a kid, which he was surprised he remembered so vividly considering the rest of his mind was just as scrambled as the eggs in his would-be sandwich. A few more strange looks, minor giggles, and offers for potions later, Rodger finally made it to the edge of this LARPing convention. Over the hill was the Bastion of Breakfast itself: Denny’s. Maybe the Moons Over My Hammy would have to be scrapped in favor of a rib eye steak. Or a stack of pancakes a mile high oozing with maple syrup and drowning in butter. Or French toast with even more syrup and butter. And then…the realization hit him: “I don’t belong there either.”
What would the other patrons think of him, his wardrobe choices, and his disheveled appearance? Surely, Denny’s had that kind of clientele on a regular basis…but not him. There was something too awkward and flimsy about him. How did he know? The mysterious voice in his head told him so: “I don’t belong here.” And with that, he sat on the sidewalk with face in his hand. How defeated he was to not belong to a place that only cared whether or not he paid for his meal.
Somewhere in his lost thoughts, Rodger overheard a barbarian saying, “Murphy! Miss Witherspoon! I believe that young man over there needs some help.”
“Oh, no…”said Rodger silently to himself, anticipating more awkward interactions ahead from this Murphy Witherspoon person. As sure as the sun shone brightly enough to fuck up his eyes, a light blue elven lady with long red hair, a white puffy shirt, and black baggy pants sat next to him on the sidewalk. No doubt this was her.
“Guess what?” she said in an Irish accent. “Our bards don’t know how to play Crossfade songs.” She chuckled at her own joke while Rodger could only give a weak smile, which in her mind was probably better than none. “Share a story with me?”
“About what?”
Murphy giggled and hung her head. “Your story, of course. Everybody has a story to tell.”
“Well…I, uh…I got out of bed…smoked a roll of weed, and…just wandered here, I guess. I don’t know.”
“That…sounds exciting. Very adventurous.”
“Look, I know I don’t belong here, okay? You don’t have to tell me, because I already know.”
Murphy placed a hand on Rodger’s shoulder. “Nonsense, of course you do. The Snow Moon Village welcomes people of all kinds.”
He made a flat tire noise. “Tell that to the people who were giving me funny looks today.”
“Oh, don’t mind them. They’re worried about you, that’s all. You came here looking like you got mugged by some ogres and spit out by some dragons. It’s only natural that they’d want to know more about you.”
Rodger raised his voice. “I don’t even know about me, okay?!” Murphy edged backwards a little bit. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“No worries, my friend. I’ve faced horrors much worse than an angry pothead. I’ve ventured into fiery caves and blood-covered mountains. If you ever decide to come on an adventure with us, bring lots of potions, like this one.” She held a bottle of red liquid underneath his nose.
Rodger pulled the cork and smelled it. “It’s fruit punch.”
“All that weed must have stunted your imagination, laddie.”
“More like my mom’s boyfriend.”
And just like that, Rodger’s eyes grew wide with the realization of where he heard that familiar phrase before. He let it slip. It all came back to him in an instant. His shouting matches. The shoving. The tears from his own mother pouring down her red cheeks. He suddenly remembered the pettings she gave him on his fluffy hair in order to calm him down from a yelling session. The hugs that were as warm as a thick blanket and much more comfortable to be wrapped around in. He could fall asleep during one of her comfort sessions if not for the nightmare that awaited him when he woke up, hence the reason he smoked so much pot to begin with.
“Are you okay?” Murphy asked, probably noticing a small tear pouring down Rodger’s face.
“…I told him I didn’t want to get a STEM degree…I just wanted to write stories and play D&D…but he kept telling me to man up. He said that real adults don’t play with that kid shit. He said that money was more important than my dreams. We argued like this for hours and…I’m sorry, I don’t mean to dump all of this on you…What was I thinking?” He wiped the tear from his eye.
“So he’s the one telling you that you don’t belong here?”
“…Yes…wait a minute…how did you know I was saying that?”
“Have you seen the concerned faces of everyone around you? Of course they heard you.”
Rodger shook his head. “Who says those things? Why would anybody…it makes no sense…It’s just stupid shit…”
Murphy scratched her fingernails along Rodger’s back. “That says more about your mom’s boyfriend than it does about you. Imagination and creativity should never be suppressed in favor of capitalism. That piece of horse garbage has no idea what he’s talking about.”
“I can deny him all he wants, but it doesn’t make the pain go away.” He wiped another tear from his eye. “Look, I appreciate you trying to help me, but I really just want to eat myself to death at Denny’s, okay?”
“We don’t eat Moons Over My Hammies here in the Snow Moon Village. We eat dragon stew with extra chunks of meat and potatoes.”
“I told you, I don’t belong…”
“Yes, yes, I know what you said! Your mom’s boyfriend said you don’t belong here! I get it! But…I’m saying you do. You belong everywhere you go. Do you understand? If you’re worried about the Crossfade T-shirt and not fitting in, then…” She smiled. “I’m sure we can find some nice wizard robes to dress you in.” Rodger’s eyes started to light up behind his puffy sadness. “Or if you’re more of a fighting man, we can get some splint mail. Or demon-skin boots. Anything you’d like.”
Rodger breathed heavily. “Thank you…thank you so much.”
“The name’s Murphy. Murphy Witherspoon.”
“Rodger Hyde. Nice to meet you.” They shook hands.
Before his grin could fully form, the same barbarian from before slapped his shoulder again, jarring him out of his skin. With a hideous fanged smile, he asked, “What’s your mom’s boyfriend’s name?” He held up a battleaxe. “I’d like to have a word with him!”
NOW was the right time for Rodger to smile. Of course, murder was still illegal, but the sentiment was all that mattered. Belonging in the Snow Moon Village was all that mattered. Belonging anywhere at all was all that mattered.
December 20, 2021
Get a Hobby
VERSE 1
Get a hobby! Any kind will do
Go for a jog underneath the snow moon
Slow it down to a walk if you’re too heavy
Or go for a ride in your old school Chevy
There’s a world out there beyond it all
It can’t be separated by border walls
When you stop obsessing over nunya business
You just might feel some lovey-dovey kisses
VERSE 2
Get a hobby! Any kind you like
Put it down, pick it up like riding a bike
Read epic fantasies across several novels
Or write them yourself ‘til you become a fossil
Play videogames, swing axes at dragons
Go on more adventures than Bilbo Baggins
When you curl the finger you point so much
You’ll find there’s nobody left to judge
BRIDGE
Get a hobby! You don’t have to get a life
Make friends! You don’t have to get a wife
Make memories! You don’t have to get a knife
Unless you’re cooking dinner, chop those onions right
VERSE 3
Get a hobby! Don’t hurt nobody else
Ain’t nobody in sight that needs a living hell
Keyboards are for chatting with buddies
Not for slinging shit so goopy and muddy
Get a hobby! I don’t care what it is
Don’t declare yourself the King of the Cis
Crowns are for cosplay at the Comic Con
Not for telling people that their culture is wrong
FINAL VERSE
Get a hobby, little Bobby
Have fun, you son of a gun
Create anything but hate
Get a hobby! Get a hobby!
Get a hobby! Any kind will do
Go for a jog underneath the snow moon
Slow it down to a walk if you’re too heavy
Or go for a ride in your old school Chevy
There’s a world out there beyond it all
It can’t be separated by border walls
When you stop obsessing over nunya business
You just might feel some lovey-dovey kisses
VERSE 2
Get a hobby! Any kind you like
Put it down, pick it up like riding a bike
Read epic fantasies across several novels
Or write them yourself ‘til you become a fossil
Play videogames, swing axes at dragons
Go on more adventures than Bilbo Baggins
When you curl the finger you point so much
You’ll find there’s nobody left to judge
BRIDGE
Get a hobby! You don’t have to get a life
Make friends! You don’t have to get a wife
Make memories! You don’t have to get a knife
Unless you’re cooking dinner, chop those onions right
VERSE 3
Get a hobby! Don’t hurt nobody else
Ain’t nobody in sight that needs a living hell
Keyboards are for chatting with buddies
Not for slinging shit so goopy and muddy
Get a hobby! I don’t care what it is
Don’t declare yourself the King of the Cis
Crowns are for cosplay at the Comic Con
Not for telling people that their culture is wrong
FINAL VERSE
Get a hobby, little Bobby
Have fun, you son of a gun
Create anything but hate
Get a hobby! Get a hobby!
December 9, 2021
Go With Them...I Guess
“I’m going off on an adventure!”
“I’m going to seek glory!”
“Garrison, what are you going to do?”
“…Go with them…I guess…”
Ah, yes. When every D&D session is a holiday season in the sense that players should give their all, my specialty in large groups was hitching my wagon to the other players. Don’t contribute any meaningful character information, just…you know…”Go with them…I guess…” But then again, what else was I supposed to do? Walk away from the group and do my own thing? That would require an extra DM just to deal with my bullshit. The easier answer would be to just assume that I’m following my fellow party members around everywhere they go. In which case, I wouldn’t be an elf fighter or a half-orc wizard anymore. I’d be a dog. A loyal golden retriever who couldn’t get enough pets and love, as long as my fellow party members had beef snacks ready. Dogs don’t have to worry about serious character development since their histories amount to chasing squirrels and rolling in mud. Not much complexity there!
Even from my very first session as an elf warrior, it should have been assumed that I’d follow my party members everywhere they went. But that wasn’t how D&D worked in those days. I always assumed that it would be like Final Fantasy games where the party goes everywhere together and would only become active characters during a battle. Not the case at all, it seems. Super Nintendos can’t ask for the player’s opinion beyond a yes or no question. Dungeon Masters can and will. So imagine my shock when the DM, my brother James, asked everyone in the party what they were going to do once they got to a town. The two players before me knew exactly what they were going to do: explore. But when James asked me what I was going to do, I froze like Sub-Zero’s opponents in Mortal Kombat. I thought we were just following each other around. Nope! I actually had to make a decision independent of my party members. And I couldn’t do it. So my elf hunter jumped down a manhole and was never seen again.
All these years later, what is the right answer to the, “What are you going to do?” question when you’re in a group of two or more adventurers? Should Dungeon Masters just assume that party members are just going to follow each other around like dogs and do nothing until they’re specifically called upon? While that is a convenient answer, it would certainly get weird after a while, wouldn’t you agree? Wouldn’t the other party members wonder why these strangers are following them around without saying a word? The easy answer would be to say, “We’re on the same team. Live with it.” But are you? What makes you all a team? Are you just there for the hell of it? Do teams really get together because it’s the right thing to do and nothing should be questioned?
And this is where the all-important character development comes into play. As it turns out, it’s not enough to have a half-orc barbarian with bulging muscles and a battleaxe that can cut through the Golden Gate Bridge. Why is this half-orc barbarian running around with a Halfling thief and a half-elf wizard? How did this half-orc barbarian come into existence other than having a full-orc and a human fuck each other’s brains out? Why does he have all of these muscles other than he’s a barbarian and it should be a universally-accepted truth? What are the stories behind his scars? What are the stories behind his actions? What are the stories behind his blind loyalty to his party? When a character’s motivations and goals are explored beyond being a shallow drone, that’s when the fun really begins. After all, mindless drones aren’t nearly as much fun to read about as fleshed-out three-dimensional characters. Isn’t that right, Stephenie Meyer? How about you, E.L. James, do you want to weigh in on this subject? Didn’t think so.
Let’s go back to the example of the elf hunter who got so confused that he jumped down a sewer hole without giving a second thought. Could he have just hitched his wagon to the other PC’s and went along with them wherever they went? But why would he do that? Well, that’s where a “session zero” comes into play. It’s a D&D session designed to get the characters introduced to each other before the campaign officially begins. So what are the elf hunter’s motivations? Does he want revenge on someone who killed his parents? Does he want to earn enough money to pay for his sister’s heart transplant? Does he want to earn enough money so that he can go on a vacation to a sandy beach paradise? Does he want to earn enough money to go to school and learn more about the world around him? These are all reasonable motivations to have as a character. They may have been done to death by other authors and PC’s, but not you. You as the player have all the power in the world to fashion these motivations into something tangible and unique. So maybe the answer isn’t to hitch your wagon to a bunch of mindless drones.
But what if there’s a reason for being a mindless drone? What if all of the party members are part of a cult that just goes around doing whatever their higher power tells them to do? What if the higher power tells them to murder everyone they come across as a worthy sacrifice? What if the higher power tells them to steal enough money to make the cult richer than Scientology ever could be? In that case, while the players are still mindless drones, they have motivations beyond two-dimensional character work. But even if this were the case, the players who own those characters still have to put in the work when it comes to developing back stories and mythologies. If you’re going to, “Go with them…I guess…”, then at least have a reason for doing so. I hate to use the phrase, “Everything happens for a reason”, but in the case of D&D characters following each other around, it definitely does.
Even the elf hunter has a reason for falling down a sewer hole (not just because the player didn’t know what the fuck he’s doing). Okay, so he’s exited the party under weird circumstances. Now what? Are there creatures lurking in the sewers? Does the shit-scented water have a dark secret buried beneath? Does the sewer serve as a passageway to another world? How about a secret entrance into a castle full of riches and sorcery? Now the question becomes, does the elf hunter keep all of his findings to himself or does he share them with his party members if and when he returns to the surface? Hopefully, he’s had a nice bath beforehand and not in a river of shit and piss. Otherwise, they’re going to think he’s a lunatic and have him locked in a madhouse.
But what does the elf hunter do while he’s confined to a padded cell filled with other crazy people? Does he share his secrets with the crazy people and get into even more trouble than he’s already in? Does he meet someone there who could bust everyone out and flood the streets with whack-a-dos? Does he meet a corrupt nurse who’s beating the shit out of the patients for no reason other than to satisfy their sadistic urges? If you look hard enough, everything has an angle behind it, everything has a story that can be exploited for creative fodder.
Here’s the thing with me as a middle schooler: I didn’t give a shit about developing back stories and looking at life through multiple angles. I just liked the shallow aspects of the characters I created and the places I went to. Does my character have skulls decorating his entire body? Does he carry an axe with a long enough shaft to double as a wizard’s staff? Does he have a drill bit on top of his head? Is his metal armor so thick that it can protect him from nuclear missiles in a medieval fantasy setting? For me back in those days, looking cool was more important than being cool. My characters could have the flattest personalities and the agendas of mindless drones as long as they looked cool doing it. I could get away with it back then, but not today as an author telling my own stories.
One thing I’ve learned as an author is that nobody cares if your dark knight carries a chainsaw into battle with him. Nobody cares if your dragon-born barbarian breathes ice instead of fire. Nobody cares if your goblin electromancer shoots bolts of lightning out of his ass. Surface-level character development isn’t development at all. Having thick armor isn’t a personality trait. Having trident heads for fists isn’t a relatable flaw. The audience doesn’t want chainsaw-wielding dark paladins if those same warriors don’t have an inch of depth or personality behind them. Ever wonder why we like one-line zingers? It’s because a mindless drone could never come up with them. Ever wonder why we like edgy dialogue? Because it takes a special kind of character development to come up with those sound bites. Characters are more than their swords, axes, and lightning breath. They have flaws. They have dreams and goals. They have styles of speech. They have reasons behind their actions that extend beyond Captain Evil territories.
So…do you want to know what the right answer to the, “What are you going to do?” question is? Well, if your only solution is to hitch your wagon to your party members whilst contributing nothing in the way of character development, your D&D session is going to be boring as hell and so will the stories you write as a professional author. It is somewhat surprising to hear me of all people say that, the same guy who struggles with character development because my characters are either too nice or too mean, too extreme or too bland, too smart or too dumb, or too good or too evil. I couldn’t find the middle ground with a map and a compass.
But that’s why we have character profiles and character sheets: not to keep track of how many muscles our ogre barbarians have, but to keep track of all of their personality traits and why they act the way they do. Coming up with three-dimensional characters is a lot of work, but it’s work very much worth doing. Even out the extreme tendencies and make shit happen for a reason. Think beyond the shallow. Get in your character’s head like a schizophrenic voice. Ask yourself: what makes this character tick? But when you’re figuring this stuff out, take all the time you need. You don’t have to get three-dimensional character work right the first time, but you should get it right eventually. It’s a skill, one that takes patience. Do you have it in you? Of course you do! Otherwise, you wouldn’t have a D&D character sheet or a novel idea in the first place.
“I’m going to seek glory!”
“Garrison, what are you going to do?”
“…Go with them…I guess…”
Ah, yes. When every D&D session is a holiday season in the sense that players should give their all, my specialty in large groups was hitching my wagon to the other players. Don’t contribute any meaningful character information, just…you know…”Go with them…I guess…” But then again, what else was I supposed to do? Walk away from the group and do my own thing? That would require an extra DM just to deal with my bullshit. The easier answer would be to just assume that I’m following my fellow party members around everywhere they go. In which case, I wouldn’t be an elf fighter or a half-orc wizard anymore. I’d be a dog. A loyal golden retriever who couldn’t get enough pets and love, as long as my fellow party members had beef snacks ready. Dogs don’t have to worry about serious character development since their histories amount to chasing squirrels and rolling in mud. Not much complexity there!
Even from my very first session as an elf warrior, it should have been assumed that I’d follow my party members everywhere they went. But that wasn’t how D&D worked in those days. I always assumed that it would be like Final Fantasy games where the party goes everywhere together and would only become active characters during a battle. Not the case at all, it seems. Super Nintendos can’t ask for the player’s opinion beyond a yes or no question. Dungeon Masters can and will. So imagine my shock when the DM, my brother James, asked everyone in the party what they were going to do once they got to a town. The two players before me knew exactly what they were going to do: explore. But when James asked me what I was going to do, I froze like Sub-Zero’s opponents in Mortal Kombat. I thought we were just following each other around. Nope! I actually had to make a decision independent of my party members. And I couldn’t do it. So my elf hunter jumped down a manhole and was never seen again.
All these years later, what is the right answer to the, “What are you going to do?” question when you’re in a group of two or more adventurers? Should Dungeon Masters just assume that party members are just going to follow each other around like dogs and do nothing until they’re specifically called upon? While that is a convenient answer, it would certainly get weird after a while, wouldn’t you agree? Wouldn’t the other party members wonder why these strangers are following them around without saying a word? The easy answer would be to say, “We’re on the same team. Live with it.” But are you? What makes you all a team? Are you just there for the hell of it? Do teams really get together because it’s the right thing to do and nothing should be questioned?
And this is where the all-important character development comes into play. As it turns out, it’s not enough to have a half-orc barbarian with bulging muscles and a battleaxe that can cut through the Golden Gate Bridge. Why is this half-orc barbarian running around with a Halfling thief and a half-elf wizard? How did this half-orc barbarian come into existence other than having a full-orc and a human fuck each other’s brains out? Why does he have all of these muscles other than he’s a barbarian and it should be a universally-accepted truth? What are the stories behind his scars? What are the stories behind his actions? What are the stories behind his blind loyalty to his party? When a character’s motivations and goals are explored beyond being a shallow drone, that’s when the fun really begins. After all, mindless drones aren’t nearly as much fun to read about as fleshed-out three-dimensional characters. Isn’t that right, Stephenie Meyer? How about you, E.L. James, do you want to weigh in on this subject? Didn’t think so.
Let’s go back to the example of the elf hunter who got so confused that he jumped down a sewer hole without giving a second thought. Could he have just hitched his wagon to the other PC’s and went along with them wherever they went? But why would he do that? Well, that’s where a “session zero” comes into play. It’s a D&D session designed to get the characters introduced to each other before the campaign officially begins. So what are the elf hunter’s motivations? Does he want revenge on someone who killed his parents? Does he want to earn enough money to pay for his sister’s heart transplant? Does he want to earn enough money so that he can go on a vacation to a sandy beach paradise? Does he want to earn enough money to go to school and learn more about the world around him? These are all reasonable motivations to have as a character. They may have been done to death by other authors and PC’s, but not you. You as the player have all the power in the world to fashion these motivations into something tangible and unique. So maybe the answer isn’t to hitch your wagon to a bunch of mindless drones.
But what if there’s a reason for being a mindless drone? What if all of the party members are part of a cult that just goes around doing whatever their higher power tells them to do? What if the higher power tells them to murder everyone they come across as a worthy sacrifice? What if the higher power tells them to steal enough money to make the cult richer than Scientology ever could be? In that case, while the players are still mindless drones, they have motivations beyond two-dimensional character work. But even if this were the case, the players who own those characters still have to put in the work when it comes to developing back stories and mythologies. If you’re going to, “Go with them…I guess…”, then at least have a reason for doing so. I hate to use the phrase, “Everything happens for a reason”, but in the case of D&D characters following each other around, it definitely does.
Even the elf hunter has a reason for falling down a sewer hole (not just because the player didn’t know what the fuck he’s doing). Okay, so he’s exited the party under weird circumstances. Now what? Are there creatures lurking in the sewers? Does the shit-scented water have a dark secret buried beneath? Does the sewer serve as a passageway to another world? How about a secret entrance into a castle full of riches and sorcery? Now the question becomes, does the elf hunter keep all of his findings to himself or does he share them with his party members if and when he returns to the surface? Hopefully, he’s had a nice bath beforehand and not in a river of shit and piss. Otherwise, they’re going to think he’s a lunatic and have him locked in a madhouse.
But what does the elf hunter do while he’s confined to a padded cell filled with other crazy people? Does he share his secrets with the crazy people and get into even more trouble than he’s already in? Does he meet someone there who could bust everyone out and flood the streets with whack-a-dos? Does he meet a corrupt nurse who’s beating the shit out of the patients for no reason other than to satisfy their sadistic urges? If you look hard enough, everything has an angle behind it, everything has a story that can be exploited for creative fodder.
Here’s the thing with me as a middle schooler: I didn’t give a shit about developing back stories and looking at life through multiple angles. I just liked the shallow aspects of the characters I created and the places I went to. Does my character have skulls decorating his entire body? Does he carry an axe with a long enough shaft to double as a wizard’s staff? Does he have a drill bit on top of his head? Is his metal armor so thick that it can protect him from nuclear missiles in a medieval fantasy setting? For me back in those days, looking cool was more important than being cool. My characters could have the flattest personalities and the agendas of mindless drones as long as they looked cool doing it. I could get away with it back then, but not today as an author telling my own stories.
One thing I’ve learned as an author is that nobody cares if your dark knight carries a chainsaw into battle with him. Nobody cares if your dragon-born barbarian breathes ice instead of fire. Nobody cares if your goblin electromancer shoots bolts of lightning out of his ass. Surface-level character development isn’t development at all. Having thick armor isn’t a personality trait. Having trident heads for fists isn’t a relatable flaw. The audience doesn’t want chainsaw-wielding dark paladins if those same warriors don’t have an inch of depth or personality behind them. Ever wonder why we like one-line zingers? It’s because a mindless drone could never come up with them. Ever wonder why we like edgy dialogue? Because it takes a special kind of character development to come up with those sound bites. Characters are more than their swords, axes, and lightning breath. They have flaws. They have dreams and goals. They have styles of speech. They have reasons behind their actions that extend beyond Captain Evil territories.
So…do you want to know what the right answer to the, “What are you going to do?” question is? Well, if your only solution is to hitch your wagon to your party members whilst contributing nothing in the way of character development, your D&D session is going to be boring as hell and so will the stories you write as a professional author. It is somewhat surprising to hear me of all people say that, the same guy who struggles with character development because my characters are either too nice or too mean, too extreme or too bland, too smart or too dumb, or too good or too evil. I couldn’t find the middle ground with a map and a compass.
But that’s why we have character profiles and character sheets: not to keep track of how many muscles our ogre barbarians have, but to keep track of all of their personality traits and why they act the way they do. Coming up with three-dimensional characters is a lot of work, but it’s work very much worth doing. Even out the extreme tendencies and make shit happen for a reason. Think beyond the shallow. Get in your character’s head like a schizophrenic voice. Ask yourself: what makes this character tick? But when you’re figuring this stuff out, take all the time you need. You don’t have to get three-dimensional character work right the first time, but you should get it right eventually. It’s a skill, one that takes patience. Do you have it in you? Of course you do! Otherwise, you wouldn’t have a D&D character sheet or a novel idea in the first place.
December 2, 2021
Stop
Holiday season
A good reason to sleep in
Fever dream demons
STOP!
Tell me I’m no good
In case it’s misunderstood
Quit because I should
STOP!
Play the same damn song
Like it’s ninety minutes long
Hangover’s so strong
STOP!
“What’s the matter, dude?
Don’t be such a little prude
Have some more fast food”
STOP!
“We ain’t stopping soon
We can do this until June
Happy Birthday, loon”
STOP!
I have no more words
For the ones who give me burns
None of your concern
…Stop…
It’s called thought-stopping
My blood pressure is dropping
Brain isn’t popping
…
I can breathe again
No longer have to defend
Round came to an end
…
Until the next time
When you mock my little rhymes
Tell me I should die
…Stop…
Never-ending war
Everything becomes a chore
No choice but to snore
…Stop…
A good reason to sleep in
Fever dream demons
STOP!
Tell me I’m no good
In case it’s misunderstood
Quit because I should
STOP!
Play the same damn song
Like it’s ninety minutes long
Hangover’s so strong
STOP!
“What’s the matter, dude?
Don’t be such a little prude
Have some more fast food”
STOP!
“We ain’t stopping soon
We can do this until June
Happy Birthday, loon”
STOP!
I have no more words
For the ones who give me burns
None of your concern
…Stop…
It’s called thought-stopping
My blood pressure is dropping
Brain isn’t popping
…
I can breathe again
No longer have to defend
Round came to an end
…
Until the next time
When you mock my little rhymes
Tell me I should die
…Stop…
Never-ending war
Everything becomes a chore
No choice but to snore
…Stop…
November 17, 2021
Breathe Again
VERSE 1
It’s like deer hunting, with a camera, not a gun
Learning again that life should be fun
For every shadow that darkens your sunny day
There’s a candle that lights the rest of the way
Gratitude is underrated, but no less important
Even the smallest details cure you of boredom
Rock song, kitty cat, RPG, more of that
Eat candy, grow fat, home run with a bat
CHORUS
Just breathe
Breathe again
Just breathe
Make the world your very best friend
VERSE 2
Finding magic in the most ordinary
Finding strength for the burden you carry
Finding a way through life’s obstacles
Finding solutions for the impossible
Finding a world beyond death itself
Finding a reason to live in good health
Finding a path that leads out of your bed
And never forgetting the sweet words said
EXTENDED CHORUS 1
Just breathe
Breathe again
Just breathe
Make the world your very best friend
Just breathe
Breathe once more
Just breathe
Spread your angel wings and soar
VERSE 3
It’s not rock bottom if it has a foundation
It’s not death if you still rise to the occasion
It’s not failure if you gained an education
It’s not over even after life’s expiration
It’s not hell if there’s no damnation
It’s not prison if there’s clear exoneration
It’s not hatred if it’s beyond infatuation
Let’s do it all again like it’s reincarnation
EXTENDED CHORUS 2
Just breathe
Breathe again
Just breathe
A new beginning is not the end
Just breathe
Breathe once more
Just breathe
Ask what else life has in store
Just breathe
Breathe again
It’s like deer hunting, with a camera, not a gun
Learning again that life should be fun
For every shadow that darkens your sunny day
There’s a candle that lights the rest of the way
Gratitude is underrated, but no less important
Even the smallest details cure you of boredom
Rock song, kitty cat, RPG, more of that
Eat candy, grow fat, home run with a bat
CHORUS
Just breathe
Breathe again
Just breathe
Make the world your very best friend
VERSE 2
Finding magic in the most ordinary
Finding strength for the burden you carry
Finding a way through life’s obstacles
Finding solutions for the impossible
Finding a world beyond death itself
Finding a reason to live in good health
Finding a path that leads out of your bed
And never forgetting the sweet words said
EXTENDED CHORUS 1
Just breathe
Breathe again
Just breathe
Make the world your very best friend
Just breathe
Breathe once more
Just breathe
Spread your angel wings and soar
VERSE 3
It’s not rock bottom if it has a foundation
It’s not death if you still rise to the occasion
It’s not failure if you gained an education
It’s not over even after life’s expiration
It’s not hell if there’s no damnation
It’s not prison if there’s clear exoneration
It’s not hatred if it’s beyond infatuation
Let’s do it all again like it’s reincarnation
EXTENDED CHORUS 2
Just breathe
Breathe again
Just breathe
A new beginning is not the end
Just breathe
Breathe once more
Just breathe
Ask what else life has in store
Just breathe
Breathe again
November 15, 2021
Bone Popping Good Time
The Eastern European Chihuahua known as Ren shivered and trembled as he stepped into the waiting room, his feline friend Stimpy guiding him by the arm. Stimpy patted his bestie on the head, which did very little to stop the fearful convulsing. “There there, Ren. You’ll be okay. It’s just a little adjustment to help you out. You’ll feel nothing at all.”
Salt water welled up in Ren’s puffy red eyes. “I…I don’t want to go the chiropractor!”
“It’ll be okay, Ren. He even works with little children.” Stimpy waved his hand across the room to reveal small children who were shaking as hard as he was while their Karen moms read magazines and ignored the red flags.
Ren and Stimpy took seats in the lobby with the rest of the patients, Stimpy picking up a copy of Playboy magazine and picking his nose while “reading it for the articles”. The red flags were already a darker shade than Stimpy’s fur and nobody but the children and Ren seemed to care.
And then…the waiting room shook harder than any fearful patient ever could. Thunderous footsteps crunched and crashed behind the main office door. The children tried to get up and run, but most of them were on leashes held in place by the willfully ignorant mothers. Ren clung onto Stimpy’s arm for support and only let go when he realized his friend was still reading the copy of Playboy (in a family practice).
The door swung open and a hulking monster of a man stared out into the waiting room arms akimbo. His medicine ball muscles were barely able to be contained by his tight polo shirt and yuppie khakis. His military crew cut and square jaw caused the color to fade from Ren and the children’s faces, giving away a Navy SEAL drill sergeant vibe that had no place in the world of chiropractics.
He thudded and tromped across the floor, making kids cry along the way, still to the concern of nobody, least of all the parents. The chiropractor towered over a curled up Ren, held out his hand, and introduced himself. “Howdy, little guy! I’m Dr. Dennis Hanover! Nice to meet you!” Ren reluctantly accepted the handshake, which produced the sound of glass shattering as Dr. Hanover squeezed like he was making orange juice. When he let go, Ren’s now much bigger pink hand throbbed and pulsated. “Right this way, buddy!”
The ogre-like Dennis and the twerpy gnome Ren headed back to the office together, Stimpy smiling and waving like it was a final goodbye of sorts. Ren gulped as the door was slammed and bolted shut behind him. The chiropractic table looked comfortable enough with vinyl padding, but the skeletal models surrounding the room looked like something from a horror franchise. Ren’s knees knocked together as a rumbling in his tummy sounded like it could shoot off ammunition out of the wrong end at any moment.
Dennis patted the table and waved Ren over. “Come on, it’ll be fine. I promise you’ll feel like a million bucks afterwards.” The tan Chihuahua crawled to the table as though he was dead long before any adjustments took place. His once clear complexion was now icy blue. And then Dr. Hanover gave him gentle karate chops across his spine, playing him like a glockenspiel of sorts. Ren started to relax and the color was coming back to his face. Dennis kneaded his back like pizza dough and his patient nearly fell asleep on the table.
“Breathe in…and out…” After Ren did as he was told, Dr. Hanover pressed down on his spine and made his office sound like a war zone complete with bombs and machineguns going off.
The hard adjustment caused Ren to jump up and scream his head off, the background morphing into spotted colors with each successive yell. One long scream, two short ones, and one long one again until he was almost out of breath. Ren rushed to the door trying to escape while Dennis held onto his ears. The Chihuahua even pounded on the door with his fists and begged, “Let me out of here! Open the door! Please let me out! Somebody! HELP!”
Dennis finally detached Ren from the doorknob and the door wiggled like a piece of rubber. Dr. Hanover then held his patient down with skin-reddening force and duct taped his mouth shut. Ren used both hands to try to regain his first amendment rights, but the tape was too strong and all he could do afterwards was surrender and shake some more.
“Hold still, little guy. We’ve still got more work to do. It’ll only take a second.” Dennis clutched Ren’s head and snapped his neck in both directions. The Chihuahua’s muffled screams still managed to echo off the walls and knock over some artwork. His neck pulsated and thumped on both sides like a dying heartbeat. And then Dr. Hanover pulled Ren’s fingers, making his joints sound like a pistol duel. His toes sounded like those pistols were upgraded to AR-15’s. His wrists sounded like his chiropractor walked on a snowfield of broken glass.
“One more adjustment! You’re doing great!” As Ren continued to try to free himself from the gag, Dennis pulled out a black leather Y-strap and secured it around Ren’s head. The Chihuahua could do nothing but shake his head as his final plea for help. “Relax your shoulders, and…” Dennis yanked on the Y-strap and every single bone in Ren’s body popped and crackled with deafening volume. The duct tape could no longer muffle Ren’s screams, for he did it so loudly this time that the gag floated through the air into the garbage can. After his last rallying cry, Ren did a literal cry as his entire body melted into a slimy tan puddle.
“There we go! All set! You did great, little buddy!” Dennis patted Ren’s head a little too roughly, nearly giving him a concussion and almost liquefying that part of his body too.
Ren slithered and slimed back into the waiting room while his chiropractor got the table ready for his next patient. The children watched him make his defeated reentry with wide tearful eyes themselves. Stimpy finally stopped picking his nose long enough to notice. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing….”
“How come you’re sad?”
“I’m fine….”
“You don’t sound fine….You look like you’re about to cry…”
And cry he did. The pain was so horrible and so fiery that Ren thought he had died and gone to hell. In reality, hell was already on earth and Dr. Hanover was the devil. The square-jawed military nut marched out into the waiting room and sat next to Ren on the floor. “There there, little pup. I know just the thing that’ll help you. When my dad caught my crying like a girl, he gave me some words of wisdom I still carry to this day. ‘You know, son…Japan had an earthquake…Haiti had an earthquake…Australia had a wildfire…California had a wildfire…and you’re sitting there whining about life?’”.
“Hey, that’s mean,” said Stimpy with saucer eyes.
“Mean? Nah, that wasn’t mean. I gave your boyfriend a bone popping good time back there. He’ll man up in no time at all.”
“B…boyfriend?”
“Yeah, boyfriend! I knew you two were Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell violators the minute you walked through the door. You looked like you were taking him to the prom with your arm around him.”
As Stimpy and the subsequent children cried at the remarks, Ren’s slimy puddle form started to bubble like a pot of spaghetti, though his regenerating limbs were anything but spaghetti. For the longest time, he didn’t feel like his old self, which was why he came to the chiropractor to begin with. He was too scared to be the villain Stimpy knew and loved (in whatever way he wanted to). But that anxiety turned to skin-purpling anger. Steam blew out of his ears. His body returned to its strong roots. He smiled for the first time in his many depressive weeks, but not out of happiness. This was pure psychosis fueling him like diesel.
“Uh-oh…” said Dennis the minute he realized he knew he fucked up.
Ren jumped on his chiropractor’s back and twisted his neck in a direction it was never meant to go, an obvious mockery of that genre of medicine. Dennis screamed while Ren taunted him. “JAPAN WAS HIT WITH AN EARTHQUAKE!” Ren bent Dennis’s legs into reverse L shapes. “HAITI WAS HIT WITH AN EARTHQUAKE!” He bent Dr. Hanover’s fingers off to the sides. “AUSTRALIA HAD WILDFIRES!” In his final “therapeutic adjustment”, Ren popped Dennis’s penis and testicles, which weren’t supposed to have joints in the first place. “CALIFORNIA HAD WILDFIRES! And you’re bitching about life?”
Gone were the days of macho muscles and towering ogre presences. In their place was a broken heap of screaming sticks with a garnish of waterfall tears, still known as Dr. Dennis Hanover, a name which was probably going to be carved into his tombstone sooner or later. The children’s sprinting momentum dragged the chairs their Karen mothers were sitting in by the leashes. Some mothers held on for dear life while others fell on their butts. Those that did the latter chased after their children with whiny demands and shaking fists.
Now it was Stimpy’s turn to convulse in pants-wetting fear. But since he was a cat who didn’t wear pants, the biological sludge stained the floor and mixed with Dennis Hanover’s broken remains. Ren patted his friend on the back and said, “I feel great, Stimpy! You were right! We should come here more often!” Stimpy swallowing a lump in his throat and out of his ass was the surefire sign that Ren was back in all of his glory. Chiropractic medicine was truly the stuff of gods, provided that god was one who worshiped destruction and war. “Let’s go home!”
Salt water welled up in Ren’s puffy red eyes. “I…I don’t want to go the chiropractor!”
“It’ll be okay, Ren. He even works with little children.” Stimpy waved his hand across the room to reveal small children who were shaking as hard as he was while their Karen moms read magazines and ignored the red flags.
Ren and Stimpy took seats in the lobby with the rest of the patients, Stimpy picking up a copy of Playboy magazine and picking his nose while “reading it for the articles”. The red flags were already a darker shade than Stimpy’s fur and nobody but the children and Ren seemed to care.
And then…the waiting room shook harder than any fearful patient ever could. Thunderous footsteps crunched and crashed behind the main office door. The children tried to get up and run, but most of them were on leashes held in place by the willfully ignorant mothers. Ren clung onto Stimpy’s arm for support and only let go when he realized his friend was still reading the copy of Playboy (in a family practice).
The door swung open and a hulking monster of a man stared out into the waiting room arms akimbo. His medicine ball muscles were barely able to be contained by his tight polo shirt and yuppie khakis. His military crew cut and square jaw caused the color to fade from Ren and the children’s faces, giving away a Navy SEAL drill sergeant vibe that had no place in the world of chiropractics.
He thudded and tromped across the floor, making kids cry along the way, still to the concern of nobody, least of all the parents. The chiropractor towered over a curled up Ren, held out his hand, and introduced himself. “Howdy, little guy! I’m Dr. Dennis Hanover! Nice to meet you!” Ren reluctantly accepted the handshake, which produced the sound of glass shattering as Dr. Hanover squeezed like he was making orange juice. When he let go, Ren’s now much bigger pink hand throbbed and pulsated. “Right this way, buddy!”
The ogre-like Dennis and the twerpy gnome Ren headed back to the office together, Stimpy smiling and waving like it was a final goodbye of sorts. Ren gulped as the door was slammed and bolted shut behind him. The chiropractic table looked comfortable enough with vinyl padding, but the skeletal models surrounding the room looked like something from a horror franchise. Ren’s knees knocked together as a rumbling in his tummy sounded like it could shoot off ammunition out of the wrong end at any moment.
Dennis patted the table and waved Ren over. “Come on, it’ll be fine. I promise you’ll feel like a million bucks afterwards.” The tan Chihuahua crawled to the table as though he was dead long before any adjustments took place. His once clear complexion was now icy blue. And then Dr. Hanover gave him gentle karate chops across his spine, playing him like a glockenspiel of sorts. Ren started to relax and the color was coming back to his face. Dennis kneaded his back like pizza dough and his patient nearly fell asleep on the table.
“Breathe in…and out…” After Ren did as he was told, Dr. Hanover pressed down on his spine and made his office sound like a war zone complete with bombs and machineguns going off.
The hard adjustment caused Ren to jump up and scream his head off, the background morphing into spotted colors with each successive yell. One long scream, two short ones, and one long one again until he was almost out of breath. Ren rushed to the door trying to escape while Dennis held onto his ears. The Chihuahua even pounded on the door with his fists and begged, “Let me out of here! Open the door! Please let me out! Somebody! HELP!”
Dennis finally detached Ren from the doorknob and the door wiggled like a piece of rubber. Dr. Hanover then held his patient down with skin-reddening force and duct taped his mouth shut. Ren used both hands to try to regain his first amendment rights, but the tape was too strong and all he could do afterwards was surrender and shake some more.
“Hold still, little guy. We’ve still got more work to do. It’ll only take a second.” Dennis clutched Ren’s head and snapped his neck in both directions. The Chihuahua’s muffled screams still managed to echo off the walls and knock over some artwork. His neck pulsated and thumped on both sides like a dying heartbeat. And then Dr. Hanover pulled Ren’s fingers, making his joints sound like a pistol duel. His toes sounded like those pistols were upgraded to AR-15’s. His wrists sounded like his chiropractor walked on a snowfield of broken glass.
“One more adjustment! You’re doing great!” As Ren continued to try to free himself from the gag, Dennis pulled out a black leather Y-strap and secured it around Ren’s head. The Chihuahua could do nothing but shake his head as his final plea for help. “Relax your shoulders, and…” Dennis yanked on the Y-strap and every single bone in Ren’s body popped and crackled with deafening volume. The duct tape could no longer muffle Ren’s screams, for he did it so loudly this time that the gag floated through the air into the garbage can. After his last rallying cry, Ren did a literal cry as his entire body melted into a slimy tan puddle.
“There we go! All set! You did great, little buddy!” Dennis patted Ren’s head a little too roughly, nearly giving him a concussion and almost liquefying that part of his body too.
Ren slithered and slimed back into the waiting room while his chiropractor got the table ready for his next patient. The children watched him make his defeated reentry with wide tearful eyes themselves. Stimpy finally stopped picking his nose long enough to notice. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing….”
“How come you’re sad?”
“I’m fine….”
“You don’t sound fine….You look like you’re about to cry…”
And cry he did. The pain was so horrible and so fiery that Ren thought he had died and gone to hell. In reality, hell was already on earth and Dr. Hanover was the devil. The square-jawed military nut marched out into the waiting room and sat next to Ren on the floor. “There there, little pup. I know just the thing that’ll help you. When my dad caught my crying like a girl, he gave me some words of wisdom I still carry to this day. ‘You know, son…Japan had an earthquake…Haiti had an earthquake…Australia had a wildfire…California had a wildfire…and you’re sitting there whining about life?’”.
“Hey, that’s mean,” said Stimpy with saucer eyes.
“Mean? Nah, that wasn’t mean. I gave your boyfriend a bone popping good time back there. He’ll man up in no time at all.”
“B…boyfriend?”
“Yeah, boyfriend! I knew you two were Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell violators the minute you walked through the door. You looked like you were taking him to the prom with your arm around him.”
As Stimpy and the subsequent children cried at the remarks, Ren’s slimy puddle form started to bubble like a pot of spaghetti, though his regenerating limbs were anything but spaghetti. For the longest time, he didn’t feel like his old self, which was why he came to the chiropractor to begin with. He was too scared to be the villain Stimpy knew and loved (in whatever way he wanted to). But that anxiety turned to skin-purpling anger. Steam blew out of his ears. His body returned to its strong roots. He smiled for the first time in his many depressive weeks, but not out of happiness. This was pure psychosis fueling him like diesel.
“Uh-oh…” said Dennis the minute he realized he knew he fucked up.
Ren jumped on his chiropractor’s back and twisted his neck in a direction it was never meant to go, an obvious mockery of that genre of medicine. Dennis screamed while Ren taunted him. “JAPAN WAS HIT WITH AN EARTHQUAKE!” Ren bent Dennis’s legs into reverse L shapes. “HAITI WAS HIT WITH AN EARTHQUAKE!” He bent Dr. Hanover’s fingers off to the sides. “AUSTRALIA HAD WILDFIRES!” In his final “therapeutic adjustment”, Ren popped Dennis’s penis and testicles, which weren’t supposed to have joints in the first place. “CALIFORNIA HAD WILDFIRES! And you’re bitching about life?”
Gone were the days of macho muscles and towering ogre presences. In their place was a broken heap of screaming sticks with a garnish of waterfall tears, still known as Dr. Dennis Hanover, a name which was probably going to be carved into his tombstone sooner or later. The children’s sprinting momentum dragged the chairs their Karen mothers were sitting in by the leashes. Some mothers held on for dear life while others fell on their butts. Those that did the latter chased after their children with whiny demands and shaking fists.
Now it was Stimpy’s turn to convulse in pants-wetting fear. But since he was a cat who didn’t wear pants, the biological sludge stained the floor and mixed with Dennis Hanover’s broken remains. Ren patted his friend on the back and said, “I feel great, Stimpy! You were right! We should come here more often!” Stimpy swallowing a lump in his throat and out of his ass was the surefire sign that Ren was back in all of his glory. Chiropractic medicine was truly the stuff of gods, provided that god was one who worshiped destruction and war. “Let’s go home!”
November 7, 2021
Tiger Uppercut
VERSE 1
Striking a nerve like a glockenspiel
Is not how the world is supposed to heal
Of course it matters how your audience feels
They’re the ones who pay for your meals
They didn’t pay to see you spin your wheels
Shouting slurs with a Klansman’s zeal
Bigotry and anger weren’t part of the deal
Your jokes are older than slipping on a peel
CHORUS 1
Tiger uppercut to the billionaire giants
Sho-ryu-ken to the fascist tyrants
Machinegun punches to the royal crown
Punch all the way up, not all the way down
VERSE 2
You’re not dead yet, got millions of dollars
And an army of defenders who hoot and holler
They’re the Twitter trolls and radio callers
Your ego gets bigger, but your dick gets smaller
CHORUS 2
Tiger uppercut to the cardinals and popes
Sho-ryu-ken to abusers of bad jokes
Machinegun punches for the evil frowns
Punch all the way up, not all the way down
VERSE 3
You’ve never experienced living on the streets
You’ve never had to worry about when you’ll eat
You’ve never had a cop pound your face like meat
You’ve never been your uncle’s favorite tasty treat
Not all of your victims have a dinner table seat
Think about that when you’re feeling the heat
They’re not chewed gum stuck underneath your feet
They have their own dreams, march to their own beat
CHORUS 3
Tiger uppercut for the ones with bullwhips
Sho-ryu-ken for the sellers of bullshit
Machinegun punches for conspiracy clowns
Punch all the way up, not all the way down
Flash kick for the gods who rule from the sky
Spinning bird kick when they refuse to die
Rising dragon kick with a Bruce Lee sound
Kick all the way up, not all the way down
Striking a nerve like a glockenspiel
Is not how the world is supposed to heal
Of course it matters how your audience feels
They’re the ones who pay for your meals
They didn’t pay to see you spin your wheels
Shouting slurs with a Klansman’s zeal
Bigotry and anger weren’t part of the deal
Your jokes are older than slipping on a peel
CHORUS 1
Tiger uppercut to the billionaire giants
Sho-ryu-ken to the fascist tyrants
Machinegun punches to the royal crown
Punch all the way up, not all the way down
VERSE 2
You’re not dead yet, got millions of dollars
And an army of defenders who hoot and holler
They’re the Twitter trolls and radio callers
Your ego gets bigger, but your dick gets smaller
CHORUS 2
Tiger uppercut to the cardinals and popes
Sho-ryu-ken to abusers of bad jokes
Machinegun punches for the evil frowns
Punch all the way up, not all the way down
VERSE 3
You’ve never experienced living on the streets
You’ve never had to worry about when you’ll eat
You’ve never had a cop pound your face like meat
You’ve never been your uncle’s favorite tasty treat
Not all of your victims have a dinner table seat
Think about that when you’re feeling the heat
They’re not chewed gum stuck underneath your feet
They have their own dreams, march to their own beat
CHORUS 3
Tiger uppercut for the ones with bullwhips
Sho-ryu-ken for the sellers of bullshit
Machinegun punches for conspiracy clowns
Punch all the way up, not all the way down
Flash kick for the gods who rule from the sky
Spinning bird kick when they refuse to die
Rising dragon kick with a Bruce Lee sound
Kick all the way up, not all the way down
November 1, 2021
A History of Violence
MOVIE TITLE: A History of Violence
DIRECTOR: David Cronenberg
YEAR: 2005
GENRE: Thriller
RATING: R for violence, language, and sex
GRADE: A
A story about a diner-owner saving his establishment from a robbery would have been thrilling enough on his own. But where exactly did Tom Stall get his fighting skills from? It wasn’t just blind luck. He didn’t take martial arts courses. Maybe he was ex-military, but why would an ex-military guy suddenly have mafia goons calling him Joey when his name is clearly Tom? He’s hiding something, not only from the town that praises his actions, but also his own family. The growing tension between Tom and his family is a focal point of the story’s drama. The more that comes out about him, the more isolated he becomes from the one he loves. I was going to dock this movie a point for a sometimes slow pace, but that slow pace actually helps intensify the drama. Tension needs time to build. In the case of the audience, they’re going to feel all the hate and anger that Tom and his family feels towards the ones who wronged them…right before they implode on each other. If you have a history of violence, the cycle will eventually repeat itself. Building tension and sending anxiety through the audience are this movie’s strong suits.
But of course, you can’t call the movie A History of Violence and not have a good deal of violence in it. Tom Stall’s punches, kicks, and limb breaks are so brutal that they’re satisfying to watch as they happen to everyone who messes with his family. But the cherry on top of the blood-covered sundae came from Jack Stall, Tom’s son, who had been bullied all year at school by a redneck named Bobby and his friends. Jack just absolutely wrecked Bobby and it was so delicious to watch. As a former bullying victim myself, I love watching these kinds of scenes. Of course, Tom isn’t happy with how Jack handled it, because that’s not how his family solves problems…but Tom totally does as he slaps his son for smart-mouthing him. Pot, meet kettle. But that just widens the divide between Tom and his family, so blatant hypocrisy adds to the building tension that the movie does so well.
I won’t spoil the ending for everyone, so I’ll speak as vaguely as possible. By the time all is said and done, we don’t know if the main problem is solved. We don’t know if Jack will face repercussions other than suspension for the pounding he gave Bobby. We don’t know if Edie (Tom’s wife) can carry on with her marriage. We don’t know if Sarah (Tom’s daughter) will stop seeing monsters at night. But most importantly, we don’t know if this cycle of violence will continue or if everything falls apart. Normally, this kind of open-ended storytelling is ideal for producing a sequel, which I wouldn’t be against. But even without a sequel, this is effective storytelling because it leaves the audience with anxiety-inducing questions long after it’s over. They’re free to exercise their imaginations. It’s not even confusion they feel. It’s a genuine interest in seeing the story beyond its ninety-six minutes. By renting space in the audience’s head long after it’s over, A History of Violence truly did its job of telling an effective story.
Everybody played their roles to perfection. The violence was satisfying whenever it happened to the bad guys (Bobby included). The drama was never in a cool state even after those bad guys get their comeuppance. It started off slow, yes, but that’s something I’m willing to forgive since the rest of the movie kicked it into high gear with the action and drama. If you feel like your patience is being tested, keep watching it all the way through, because you’ll get everything you want and more…even if the ending leaves you with more questions than answers. A History of Violence gets five out of five stars.
DIRECTOR: David Cronenberg
YEAR: 2005
GENRE: Thriller
RATING: R for violence, language, and sex
GRADE: A
A story about a diner-owner saving his establishment from a robbery would have been thrilling enough on his own. But where exactly did Tom Stall get his fighting skills from? It wasn’t just blind luck. He didn’t take martial arts courses. Maybe he was ex-military, but why would an ex-military guy suddenly have mafia goons calling him Joey when his name is clearly Tom? He’s hiding something, not only from the town that praises his actions, but also his own family. The growing tension between Tom and his family is a focal point of the story’s drama. The more that comes out about him, the more isolated he becomes from the one he loves. I was going to dock this movie a point for a sometimes slow pace, but that slow pace actually helps intensify the drama. Tension needs time to build. In the case of the audience, they’re going to feel all the hate and anger that Tom and his family feels towards the ones who wronged them…right before they implode on each other. If you have a history of violence, the cycle will eventually repeat itself. Building tension and sending anxiety through the audience are this movie’s strong suits.
But of course, you can’t call the movie A History of Violence and not have a good deal of violence in it. Tom Stall’s punches, kicks, and limb breaks are so brutal that they’re satisfying to watch as they happen to everyone who messes with his family. But the cherry on top of the blood-covered sundae came from Jack Stall, Tom’s son, who had been bullied all year at school by a redneck named Bobby and his friends. Jack just absolutely wrecked Bobby and it was so delicious to watch. As a former bullying victim myself, I love watching these kinds of scenes. Of course, Tom isn’t happy with how Jack handled it, because that’s not how his family solves problems…but Tom totally does as he slaps his son for smart-mouthing him. Pot, meet kettle. But that just widens the divide between Tom and his family, so blatant hypocrisy adds to the building tension that the movie does so well.
I won’t spoil the ending for everyone, so I’ll speak as vaguely as possible. By the time all is said and done, we don’t know if the main problem is solved. We don’t know if Jack will face repercussions other than suspension for the pounding he gave Bobby. We don’t know if Edie (Tom’s wife) can carry on with her marriage. We don’t know if Sarah (Tom’s daughter) will stop seeing monsters at night. But most importantly, we don’t know if this cycle of violence will continue or if everything falls apart. Normally, this kind of open-ended storytelling is ideal for producing a sequel, which I wouldn’t be against. But even without a sequel, this is effective storytelling because it leaves the audience with anxiety-inducing questions long after it’s over. They’re free to exercise their imaginations. It’s not even confusion they feel. It’s a genuine interest in seeing the story beyond its ninety-six minutes. By renting space in the audience’s head long after it’s over, A History of Violence truly did its job of telling an effective story.
Everybody played their roles to perfection. The violence was satisfying whenever it happened to the bad guys (Bobby included). The drama was never in a cool state even after those bad guys get their comeuppance. It started off slow, yes, but that’s something I’m willing to forgive since the rest of the movie kicked it into high gear with the action and drama. If you feel like your patience is being tested, keep watching it all the way through, because you’ll get everything you want and more…even if the ending leaves you with more questions than answers. A History of Violence gets five out of five stars.
October 28, 2021
It Was All an Adventure to You
“He’s right this way, Princess. Watch your step. He’s been lying here all day, it seems.”
Princess Marle knew who that male pronoun was meant for, but she didn’t want to say it out loud. She didn’t want his name associated with the grape-scented wine wafting through the forest. She intentionally slowed down, not because she didn’t want to step on her royal white dress, but to prolong the answer. She could have moved at a snail’s pace despite the urgency of her squad of knights, but this part of her future was inevitable. As a former time traveler, she knew something about grim futures.
The knight captain raised a branch so that Marle could pass through. Some of the leaves got in her otherwise perfect blond hair, but hers wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the young boy lying against the trees in front of her. Defeated, drunk, disheveled, and demonized. Four D’s, one shell of a former human being. It was indeed Marle’s ex-husband Crono, his eyes glazed over, his clothes a stained mess, his spiky red hair even messier than usual. All life had left his once bright eyes, numbed by the genie lamp-like bottle dangling in his right hand.
With her knights firmly behind her, Marle tiptoed toward her ex and took a whiff of the offensive air that poisoned not just the forest, but an entire human body. “Did you bathe in Genie’s Delight, Crono?” No answer, just drool, tears, and snot. Marle yanked the bottle out of his hand and sarcastically took a sip. “Mmm! You have fine tastes…despite the fact that you’re not even old enough to drink alcohol. Still…you have very nice tastes.”
Marle threw the lamp-like bottle against a nearby stump, the shattering noise jostling Crono around a little bit, the only sign of life he was capable of showing. Not even his ex-wife’s scowling contempt was enough to wake him up from this depressive stupor. “Arrest him.”
“It was all an adventure to you…”
The knights couldn’t proceed any further as Marle held out her arms like a barricade, wanting to give her ex-husband a chance to speak his mind…or whatever was left of it. “Come again?”
Crono spit a wad of blood onto a nearby patch of grass, as if that would be more effective at deforesting this area than his alcoholic miasma. “Time travel is supposed to be fun, right? We were all having a good time going through all those worlds…all those dinosaurs…all those dragons…all those bony old men looking for something to eat in a fucking factory…” He spat again. “I’m glad you had a good time, Marle. I’m happy all those lighting bolts and fire bombs didn’t scar you in the least. I was worried being in constant battle would take its toll on all of us…” He hiccupped.
“Crono…let me make something perfectly clear. Those battles were not my idea of fun. Nobody was having fun. We fought all of those monsters because it was necessary. We saved the world. Isn’t that something to be proud of? Isn’t that something you want to be remembered for?”
Crono burped.
“Answer me!” Marle’s arms folded like she was ready to make her final judgment upon this poor bastard in front of her.
Crono burped again. “I’m sure it’d be nice to be remembered as a savior. But that’s not how I remember it. All I remember was being burned alive and slashed to pieces.” Tears welled up in his eyes, much to the dismay of his ex-wife. “I died, Marle! I literally died! And before that I almost had my head chopped off by your kingdom! They were going to give me the guillotine for a fake kidnapping charge! The guillotine! To a little boy! That’s all that capital punishment is, really: state-sanctioned murder.”
Marle calmed down somewhat. “I agree.”
“I don’t,” said the knight captain, who earned himself a slap on the arm from her highness.
“You were cleared of all charges, Crono.”
“Tell that to the townsfolk. You think I don’t hear them talking? They still think I kidnapped you. They don’t buy that time portal explanation. Nobody does.” He pointed at an empty field. “Even that guy won’t stop talking about it. He wants me dead, just like everyone else.”
“Crono, who are you pointing at? There’s nobody there.” The weight of what Marle just said caused her to suck in a deep breath. Almost holding her hand to her mouth, she whimpered, “Are you delusional? Are you…hearing voices?” Her only answer came in the form of a weak shrug. “Is that why you drink so much?” He nodded. “You ruined our marriage over a few bottles of wine for this? Crono, why didn’t you tell me?”
He laughed like the madman he was becoming. “How am I supposed to bring that up in conversation? Oh, honey, these mashed potatoes are delicious! By the way, I’m hearing things that aren’t there! Your knights would have given me the guillotine just for that. I guess there’s no better way to relieve head trauma, am I right?” He chuckled at his own form of gallows humor.
Marle’s breathing became more erratic and jittery as she fought back tears that she never wanted her loyal knights to see. “Crono, if you would have told me, I wouldn’t have judged you for it. I would have helped you through it. We all would have.”
“I wouldn’t have,” said the knight captain.
“SHUT UP!” yelled Marle, an order that was quickly obeyed. “Crono…we married each other…we shared moments…and you threw it all away with that disgusting wine! You could have told me what was going on!”
“Not even your healing magic would have done me any favors, Marle!” Crono snapped back. “You want to help me? Reach inside my head, pull the demons out one-by-one, and throw them away for good! Can you do that? Can anybody do that?!”
“…No…I can’t…” Marle’s tears were slowly eroding away her royal toughness.
“Look…if you’re going to arrest me, then do it already. I’m beyond help at this point. Those combat memories won’t go away on their own. Those chatty bastards won’t stop spreading rumors about me. And I’ll never get the taste of Genie’s Delight out of my mouth. Ah, who am I kidding? Everything tastes like blood nowadays. I’ve been stabbed so many times that I can taste it every day. I’ve been burned so many times that it tastes like crispy black scabs. Just arrest me or kill me, okay? I don’t care what you choose, just do something.”
Marle wiped her eyes on her arm glove before using her arm like a barricade once more to stop the knight captain from arresting Crono. “I’ll handle this. Take the rest of the day off, Captain. You’ve done enough.”
“But Princess, I…”
She lifted a finger to her lips. “Not. Another. Word. Let me handle this. Go.”
The knights hesitated for a while before marching back to the castle, leaving Marle to wrap Crono’s arm around her back and hoist him to his feet. His dizzy equilibrium made him harder to carry, but she was still willing to do it. He was so slippery that she just decided to carry him baby style in her arms. He seemed comfortable in that position from how easily he closed his puffy eyes. Marle didn’t even have to struggle that much to hold him, suggesting to her that he hadn’t had much food to go with his copious amounts of alcohol.
Marle carried the remains of her ex-husband through the dark forest, the one where they used to “level up”. The one where they escaped from the castle guards by traveling to the future, the future of broken down factories, skinny survivors, constant hunger, and dark skies. Maybe there was some validity to Crono’s trauma.
She carried him like the mother she originally wanted to be. She climbed many castle stairs, receiving dirty looks from the guards along the way. She didn’t care. She climbed more stairs. And more. And more. And then she introduced Crono to a room he thought he hadn’t seen before. “This doesn’t look like a drunk tank…”
“That’s because it isn’t. It’s our old bedroom. The bed is a lot softer here than in a drunk tank.”
A little bit of life returned to Crono’s eyes as he looked around the old bedroom he shared with his now ex-wife. Marle took it in as well. The stained glass windows, the bookcase full of knowledge and wisdom, the beautiful artwork that was a mirror image of the battles they fought together, and more importantly, the bed that felt like laying on a cloud of vanilla ice cream.
“I think you’d be more comfortable with your shirt off.” Sure enough, Marle stood him up and removed his wine-scented tunic, revealing visible ribs underneath. She elected to leave everything else on his body in order to keep it PG. She hobbled him over to the bed and laid him down on his stomach, face first into the silky eiderdown pillow. He was asleep almost instantly, snoring like a coffee grinder and snorting like a pig.
Marle gazed down upon her once beloved with watery eyes. She threatened him with arrest back in the forest, but she knew in her heart she could never carry out such an order. He was so irresponsible, but he was also hurting. She couldn’t leave someone like that alone in the forest at the mercy of conservative knights. He looked almost as pained as the starving twigs from the future. He looked like a corpse ready for his permanent dirt nap. He was drunk out of his mind, yet he clung to life all the same. She knew he wasn’t ready to surrender.
Knowing full well he was knocked out from the drunkenness, Marle climbed on Crono’s back and gave him a massage anyways. She didn’t want to squeeze too hard out of consideration for his visible bones, but she squeezed just enough to hopefully put some better memories in his traumatic nightmares. If the gentle touches weren’t enough, she leaned into his ear and whispered something she wanted to say, but couldn’t get through to him during their crumbling marriage: “Crono…I never stopped loving you!”
Princess Marle knew who that male pronoun was meant for, but she didn’t want to say it out loud. She didn’t want his name associated with the grape-scented wine wafting through the forest. She intentionally slowed down, not because she didn’t want to step on her royal white dress, but to prolong the answer. She could have moved at a snail’s pace despite the urgency of her squad of knights, but this part of her future was inevitable. As a former time traveler, she knew something about grim futures.
The knight captain raised a branch so that Marle could pass through. Some of the leaves got in her otherwise perfect blond hair, but hers wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the young boy lying against the trees in front of her. Defeated, drunk, disheveled, and demonized. Four D’s, one shell of a former human being. It was indeed Marle’s ex-husband Crono, his eyes glazed over, his clothes a stained mess, his spiky red hair even messier than usual. All life had left his once bright eyes, numbed by the genie lamp-like bottle dangling in his right hand.
With her knights firmly behind her, Marle tiptoed toward her ex and took a whiff of the offensive air that poisoned not just the forest, but an entire human body. “Did you bathe in Genie’s Delight, Crono?” No answer, just drool, tears, and snot. Marle yanked the bottle out of his hand and sarcastically took a sip. “Mmm! You have fine tastes…despite the fact that you’re not even old enough to drink alcohol. Still…you have very nice tastes.”
Marle threw the lamp-like bottle against a nearby stump, the shattering noise jostling Crono around a little bit, the only sign of life he was capable of showing. Not even his ex-wife’s scowling contempt was enough to wake him up from this depressive stupor. “Arrest him.”
“It was all an adventure to you…”
The knights couldn’t proceed any further as Marle held out her arms like a barricade, wanting to give her ex-husband a chance to speak his mind…or whatever was left of it. “Come again?”
Crono spit a wad of blood onto a nearby patch of grass, as if that would be more effective at deforesting this area than his alcoholic miasma. “Time travel is supposed to be fun, right? We were all having a good time going through all those worlds…all those dinosaurs…all those dragons…all those bony old men looking for something to eat in a fucking factory…” He spat again. “I’m glad you had a good time, Marle. I’m happy all those lighting bolts and fire bombs didn’t scar you in the least. I was worried being in constant battle would take its toll on all of us…” He hiccupped.
“Crono…let me make something perfectly clear. Those battles were not my idea of fun. Nobody was having fun. We fought all of those monsters because it was necessary. We saved the world. Isn’t that something to be proud of? Isn’t that something you want to be remembered for?”
Crono burped.
“Answer me!” Marle’s arms folded like she was ready to make her final judgment upon this poor bastard in front of her.
Crono burped again. “I’m sure it’d be nice to be remembered as a savior. But that’s not how I remember it. All I remember was being burned alive and slashed to pieces.” Tears welled up in his eyes, much to the dismay of his ex-wife. “I died, Marle! I literally died! And before that I almost had my head chopped off by your kingdom! They were going to give me the guillotine for a fake kidnapping charge! The guillotine! To a little boy! That’s all that capital punishment is, really: state-sanctioned murder.”
Marle calmed down somewhat. “I agree.”
“I don’t,” said the knight captain, who earned himself a slap on the arm from her highness.
“You were cleared of all charges, Crono.”
“Tell that to the townsfolk. You think I don’t hear them talking? They still think I kidnapped you. They don’t buy that time portal explanation. Nobody does.” He pointed at an empty field. “Even that guy won’t stop talking about it. He wants me dead, just like everyone else.”
“Crono, who are you pointing at? There’s nobody there.” The weight of what Marle just said caused her to suck in a deep breath. Almost holding her hand to her mouth, she whimpered, “Are you delusional? Are you…hearing voices?” Her only answer came in the form of a weak shrug. “Is that why you drink so much?” He nodded. “You ruined our marriage over a few bottles of wine for this? Crono, why didn’t you tell me?”
He laughed like the madman he was becoming. “How am I supposed to bring that up in conversation? Oh, honey, these mashed potatoes are delicious! By the way, I’m hearing things that aren’t there! Your knights would have given me the guillotine just for that. I guess there’s no better way to relieve head trauma, am I right?” He chuckled at his own form of gallows humor.
Marle’s breathing became more erratic and jittery as she fought back tears that she never wanted her loyal knights to see. “Crono, if you would have told me, I wouldn’t have judged you for it. I would have helped you through it. We all would have.”
“I wouldn’t have,” said the knight captain.
“SHUT UP!” yelled Marle, an order that was quickly obeyed. “Crono…we married each other…we shared moments…and you threw it all away with that disgusting wine! You could have told me what was going on!”
“Not even your healing magic would have done me any favors, Marle!” Crono snapped back. “You want to help me? Reach inside my head, pull the demons out one-by-one, and throw them away for good! Can you do that? Can anybody do that?!”
“…No…I can’t…” Marle’s tears were slowly eroding away her royal toughness.
“Look…if you’re going to arrest me, then do it already. I’m beyond help at this point. Those combat memories won’t go away on their own. Those chatty bastards won’t stop spreading rumors about me. And I’ll never get the taste of Genie’s Delight out of my mouth. Ah, who am I kidding? Everything tastes like blood nowadays. I’ve been stabbed so many times that I can taste it every day. I’ve been burned so many times that it tastes like crispy black scabs. Just arrest me or kill me, okay? I don’t care what you choose, just do something.”
Marle wiped her eyes on her arm glove before using her arm like a barricade once more to stop the knight captain from arresting Crono. “I’ll handle this. Take the rest of the day off, Captain. You’ve done enough.”
“But Princess, I…”
She lifted a finger to her lips. “Not. Another. Word. Let me handle this. Go.”
The knights hesitated for a while before marching back to the castle, leaving Marle to wrap Crono’s arm around her back and hoist him to his feet. His dizzy equilibrium made him harder to carry, but she was still willing to do it. He was so slippery that she just decided to carry him baby style in her arms. He seemed comfortable in that position from how easily he closed his puffy eyes. Marle didn’t even have to struggle that much to hold him, suggesting to her that he hadn’t had much food to go with his copious amounts of alcohol.
Marle carried the remains of her ex-husband through the dark forest, the one where they used to “level up”. The one where they escaped from the castle guards by traveling to the future, the future of broken down factories, skinny survivors, constant hunger, and dark skies. Maybe there was some validity to Crono’s trauma.
She carried him like the mother she originally wanted to be. She climbed many castle stairs, receiving dirty looks from the guards along the way. She didn’t care. She climbed more stairs. And more. And more. And then she introduced Crono to a room he thought he hadn’t seen before. “This doesn’t look like a drunk tank…”
“That’s because it isn’t. It’s our old bedroom. The bed is a lot softer here than in a drunk tank.”
A little bit of life returned to Crono’s eyes as he looked around the old bedroom he shared with his now ex-wife. Marle took it in as well. The stained glass windows, the bookcase full of knowledge and wisdom, the beautiful artwork that was a mirror image of the battles they fought together, and more importantly, the bed that felt like laying on a cloud of vanilla ice cream.
“I think you’d be more comfortable with your shirt off.” Sure enough, Marle stood him up and removed his wine-scented tunic, revealing visible ribs underneath. She elected to leave everything else on his body in order to keep it PG. She hobbled him over to the bed and laid him down on his stomach, face first into the silky eiderdown pillow. He was asleep almost instantly, snoring like a coffee grinder and snorting like a pig.
Marle gazed down upon her once beloved with watery eyes. She threatened him with arrest back in the forest, but she knew in her heart she could never carry out such an order. He was so irresponsible, but he was also hurting. She couldn’t leave someone like that alone in the forest at the mercy of conservative knights. He looked almost as pained as the starving twigs from the future. He looked like a corpse ready for his permanent dirt nap. He was drunk out of his mind, yet he clung to life all the same. She knew he wasn’t ready to surrender.
Knowing full well he was knocked out from the drunkenness, Marle climbed on Crono’s back and gave him a massage anyways. She didn’t want to squeeze too hard out of consideration for his visible bones, but she squeezed just enough to hopefully put some better memories in his traumatic nightmares. If the gentle touches weren’t enough, she leaned into his ear and whispered something she wanted to say, but couldn’t get through to him during their crumbling marriage: “Crono…I never stopped loving you!”
October 19, 2021
He Hates His Penis
He hates his penis and all that it stands for
He hates his tastes, wants to be a sad bore
If anybody knew what kind of shit he liked
He’d be locked in darkness without his rights
A broken lamp, but there’s no genie inside
No way to get rid of the parts he must hide
Take a razor blade and cut his dingus off
And the sack for which he turns and coughs
The thoughts don’t stop, he wants to drop
Before he gets his ass beat by the keystone cops
Throw the TV out of his window pane
Before a Huggies commercial drives him insane
No where to turn to, no one to talk to
Want to stab him to death? He won’t stop you
He never asked for his brain to be fucked up
Nobody would choose it, it’s just tough luck
Where does he go from his lowest point?
Does he just light up yet another joint?
Numbing his pain with drugs and food
He lived another day, stabilized his mood
He’s a monster without the claws and fangs
A warmonger without the guns and tanks
A devil without living in the hells below
That shit’s on earth, in case you didn’t know
He hates his tastes, wants to be a sad bore
If anybody knew what kind of shit he liked
He’d be locked in darkness without his rights
A broken lamp, but there’s no genie inside
No way to get rid of the parts he must hide
Take a razor blade and cut his dingus off
And the sack for which he turns and coughs
The thoughts don’t stop, he wants to drop
Before he gets his ass beat by the keystone cops
Throw the TV out of his window pane
Before a Huggies commercial drives him insane
No where to turn to, no one to talk to
Want to stab him to death? He won’t stop you
He never asked for his brain to be fucked up
Nobody would choose it, it’s just tough luck
Where does he go from his lowest point?
Does he just light up yet another joint?
Numbing his pain with drugs and food
He lived another day, stabilized his mood
He’s a monster without the claws and fangs
A warmonger without the guns and tanks
A devil without living in the hells below
That shit’s on earth, in case you didn’t know
