Garrison Kelly's Blog, page 22
July 18, 2021
Cutthroats Love Unemployment
With Hustle Culture constantly in everyone’s faces, it’s hard not to come to the false realization that capitalism loves you as much as you love it. Rise and grind! Work, work, work! Breaking every bone in your body means more money! Meanwhile, you have next to nothing in your bank account because the surgery needed to fix those bones…that’ll cost you a small fortune. But if you’re a mercenary for hire in my 2002 home brew RPG Cutthroat, broken bones and small fortunes are just another part of the job. In which case, capitalism loves you so much that it’ll give you a kiss on your owie when you get shot in the chest or stabbed in the leg.
The year 2002 was one where I gave less than a shit about politics. I knew I didn’t want to conform to society. I knew that people should be treated fairly. I also used to believe in the death penalty because I wanted it to apply to my high school bullies. As someone who didn’t give two fucks about politics, let alone someone who was old enough to vote, it showed in my world-building techniques when I put together the rules for Cutthroat. In the distant future, every continent on planet earth not named Antarctica waged war against each other. Why? Fuck if I know. Maybe war is just fun for these autocrats. Maybe there is some growing tension between North America and Africa because of…reasons? Maybe Europe and Asia want to start lobbing grenades at each other because…they’re bored?
If I had more storytelling skills back in 2002, coming up with a reason for intercontinental war would have been easy-breezy-lemon-squeezy. Maybe South America wants revenge on North America because of an assassination or terrorist attack. Maybe Africa wants revenge on Australia because the latter has resources that Africa wouldn’t otherwise have without taking them by force. Maybe Asia wants to bomb the shit out of Europe because superpower flexing is more important than perpetual peace. There are lots of reasons to go to war. Pick one, damn it!
Throwing together a bullshit reason for intercontinental war wouldn’t have been that hard. But even if the guns for hire weren’t believers in each continent’s political ambitions, money will always be a motivator for anybody who wants to eat and have a roof over their heads. Which is why when I ran this RPG in 2002, I was baffled by the reactions of my players when their characters were approached by job recruiters. One character (we’ll call him Clyde) ran away and tried to hide in a shadowy alleyway. Another character (we’ll call him Ninjo) slaughtered his recruiter in the bathroom. Cutthroats must really love unemployment! Either that or they’d rather work at Burger Monarch or Taco Hell and get emotionally scarred instead of physically. So how about we take a look at these two scenarios and try to determine why Clyde and Ninjo were so allergic to employment opportunities.
First, we have Clyde. He’s kicking it in England having a drink at the bar. He’s no doubt looking for his next paycheck so that he can have more alcoholic beverages to fuck up his liver. But when he’s approached by two trench-coat wearing men who call out his name, his first instinct…is to run away from them. Granted, the two men look incredibly suspicious in their trench coats. They could have been carrying weapons in their pockets. But if they were, they didn’t pull them out. Instead they were like, “Hey, come back! Wait up!”, begging and pleading for Clyde to slow down. But instead of slowing down and listening to reason, he runs into an alleyway looking for a nice hiding place in the shadows…on a hot sunny day when shadows won’t do shit to help you.
Surprise, surprise, the trench coat guys find him and explain that they were only approaching Clyde to give him a job. A nice, big fat contract that will guarantee him enough beer to keep him permanently pissing until the end of time. Clyde eventually saw the light, sunny day aside. I know now that trench coat guys who know your name will always look suspicious, but if you run away from your job recruiter and they have to blow out their lungs to hire you, you’d be lucky if you got the job in the first place. Imagine going into a job interview and then running out of the boss man’s office because you think he looks a little too weird for you.
Actually, now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense. Young people are starting to wake up to the fact that capitalism means more work for less money and maybe running away from the boss man is how they’ll gain any semblance of leverage. Not to sound passive-aggressive, but running away was definitely a genius move on Clyde’s part…mainly because accepting the job and sneaking onto a military base got him gunned down in a storm of bullets and lasers. He should have ran faster.
And then there’s case number two: Ninjo, an assassin for hire based in Japan. No doubt he needs work as well and he doesn’t want to serve cocktails in a pretty dress, so assassinating people is the avenue he wants to go down. There he was enjoying a nice meal in a restaurant when he suddenly had to move to the nearest urinal. Pissing in privacy would have been a heavenly request that he understandably should have been forked over. But then a Mexican in camouflage fatigues uses the urinal next to him and introduces himself as Jet Guile, Ninjo’s would-be employer.
To Ninjo’s credit, there are so many things wrong with this scenario that 16-year-old me didn’t pick up on before putting together this campaign. First of all, what is a Mexican mercenary randomly doing in a Japanese bathroom? Second of all, why is his name Jet Guile and not something…you know…a little closer to his nationality? Thirdly, and this is the most important question of all: why the fuck is he trying to give someone a job interview…in the bathroom?! What, is Jet observing Ninjo’s sniper skills by watching the piss hit the toilet? What if Ninjo had bad diarrhea from the sushi he was eating? What if Ninjo didn’t make it to the toilet on time? Would Jet refuse to hire him for failing to “deactivate a bomb” in his ass?
In hindsight, this was weird on so many levels. It should come as no surprise that the minute Jet Guile said Ninjo’s name, Ninjo beat the holy fuck out of him and left him a bloody and useless corpse on the bathroom floor. Ninjo may love unemployment, but he loves peeing undisturbed even more. Well, he didn’t get either; three more Mexican mercenaries hired him anyways in spite of what happened to Jet! That’s right: Ninjo got a job despite killing one of his employers. Turned out to be one of his tests, not because I had it planned all along, but because I pulled it out of my ass and made an even bigger mess than Ninjo’s piss puddle and Jet’s bloodbath put together. Imagine if Homer did this to Mr. Burns on an episode of The Simpsons. Work would be less stressful, for sure, but that’s only because scooping prison food is easier than handling nuclear rods.
So…why is it that Clyde and Ninjo were so reluctant to allow their employers to hire them for soldier work? Chasing someone into an alleyway and interviewing someone while they’re draining the lizard are reasonable enough answers to me. Or maybe there is something to be said about not feeding the capitalist machine…in a society where war is the main product. Or…maybe Clyde and Ninjo were supposed to keep their identities a secret and the minute their employers shouted their names, they bailed. And then it hit me like a sack of bricks: war isn’t always fought with soldiers gathering together on a battlefield and shooting at each other. It isn’t always about bombing the fuck out of cities and capitols either. Sometimes a little stealth is paramount to getting a job done. Maybe your enemy will be more easily defeated if they don’t know you’re coming. Keep the name a secret. Keep the employment a secret. Keep everything a secret. The less they know, the less they’ll see coming.
Undercover work should have been my first guess all the way back in 2002. Of course they’re running, because their cover was potentially blown. Of course they’re beating up employers because they could be assassins themselves. Trust and friendship are two of the rarest things you’ll find in war, because the object is to kill or be killed. Sure, you can trust your fellow soldiers, but a complete stranger? That’ll take a little more vetting. I guess the lesson to be learned here is to not lay all of your cards on the table so soon. They call it a poker face for a reason. They also refrain from wearing mirror shades to a poker game. Right, Kim?
Refusing to lay your cards on the table is not only necessary for succeeding in war, but in other aspects of life too. Suppose you do get a job interview that’s not in a bathroom or a dingy alleyway. Sure, you want to be open and honest, but do you really want to let your boss man know everything about you, be it mental illnesses, bad experiences in school, bad experiences with other employers, or divorces you’ve had? Same thing goes for any other activity, whether it’s dating, friendship, or playing a good old fashioned RPG. You want to give them just enough to get a good idea of you, but if you spill too many secrets, then you’ll never get passed the front door.
But that also depends on what secrets you choose to keep and how doing so will negatively affect the relationship. If you’re trying to keep abuse a secret from your peers, it’ll get out one way or another, especially in an argumentative setting. In which case, don’t get into the relationship at all and seek help before you spiral into an early grave. If you have murder-hobo tendencies and you’re playing an RPG where your character kills everyone around them, that’ll derail the game in a big fucking hurry. If you’re an alt-right nutjob and your paladin uses “stand your ground” laws as an excuse to kill innocent orcs to become an oathbreaker, then get some goddamn help!
Your GM doesn’t have to know everything, but they should know enough to decide whether or not they want to play with you. If you put yourself in a situation where it’s you or the GM, then the GM will pull a Clyde and Ninjo and run the fuck away from you. Or they’ll kill you in the bathroom while you’re interrupting their pissing session, one of the two. This is not an instruction manual for narcissists, because fuck them. But if you’re genuinely looking for new opportunities in life and you’re going to make the most of them, then getting your foot in the door is as easy as getting both feet out of bar on the way to a garbage-covered alleyway.
The year 2002 was one where I gave less than a shit about politics. I knew I didn’t want to conform to society. I knew that people should be treated fairly. I also used to believe in the death penalty because I wanted it to apply to my high school bullies. As someone who didn’t give two fucks about politics, let alone someone who was old enough to vote, it showed in my world-building techniques when I put together the rules for Cutthroat. In the distant future, every continent on planet earth not named Antarctica waged war against each other. Why? Fuck if I know. Maybe war is just fun for these autocrats. Maybe there is some growing tension between North America and Africa because of…reasons? Maybe Europe and Asia want to start lobbing grenades at each other because…they’re bored?
If I had more storytelling skills back in 2002, coming up with a reason for intercontinental war would have been easy-breezy-lemon-squeezy. Maybe South America wants revenge on North America because of an assassination or terrorist attack. Maybe Africa wants revenge on Australia because the latter has resources that Africa wouldn’t otherwise have without taking them by force. Maybe Asia wants to bomb the shit out of Europe because superpower flexing is more important than perpetual peace. There are lots of reasons to go to war. Pick one, damn it!
Throwing together a bullshit reason for intercontinental war wouldn’t have been that hard. But even if the guns for hire weren’t believers in each continent’s political ambitions, money will always be a motivator for anybody who wants to eat and have a roof over their heads. Which is why when I ran this RPG in 2002, I was baffled by the reactions of my players when their characters were approached by job recruiters. One character (we’ll call him Clyde) ran away and tried to hide in a shadowy alleyway. Another character (we’ll call him Ninjo) slaughtered his recruiter in the bathroom. Cutthroats must really love unemployment! Either that or they’d rather work at Burger Monarch or Taco Hell and get emotionally scarred instead of physically. So how about we take a look at these two scenarios and try to determine why Clyde and Ninjo were so allergic to employment opportunities.
First, we have Clyde. He’s kicking it in England having a drink at the bar. He’s no doubt looking for his next paycheck so that he can have more alcoholic beverages to fuck up his liver. But when he’s approached by two trench-coat wearing men who call out his name, his first instinct…is to run away from them. Granted, the two men look incredibly suspicious in their trench coats. They could have been carrying weapons in their pockets. But if they were, they didn’t pull them out. Instead they were like, “Hey, come back! Wait up!”, begging and pleading for Clyde to slow down. But instead of slowing down and listening to reason, he runs into an alleyway looking for a nice hiding place in the shadows…on a hot sunny day when shadows won’t do shit to help you.
Surprise, surprise, the trench coat guys find him and explain that they were only approaching Clyde to give him a job. A nice, big fat contract that will guarantee him enough beer to keep him permanently pissing until the end of time. Clyde eventually saw the light, sunny day aside. I know now that trench coat guys who know your name will always look suspicious, but if you run away from your job recruiter and they have to blow out their lungs to hire you, you’d be lucky if you got the job in the first place. Imagine going into a job interview and then running out of the boss man’s office because you think he looks a little too weird for you.
Actually, now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense. Young people are starting to wake up to the fact that capitalism means more work for less money and maybe running away from the boss man is how they’ll gain any semblance of leverage. Not to sound passive-aggressive, but running away was definitely a genius move on Clyde’s part…mainly because accepting the job and sneaking onto a military base got him gunned down in a storm of bullets and lasers. He should have ran faster.
And then there’s case number two: Ninjo, an assassin for hire based in Japan. No doubt he needs work as well and he doesn’t want to serve cocktails in a pretty dress, so assassinating people is the avenue he wants to go down. There he was enjoying a nice meal in a restaurant when he suddenly had to move to the nearest urinal. Pissing in privacy would have been a heavenly request that he understandably should have been forked over. But then a Mexican in camouflage fatigues uses the urinal next to him and introduces himself as Jet Guile, Ninjo’s would-be employer.
To Ninjo’s credit, there are so many things wrong with this scenario that 16-year-old me didn’t pick up on before putting together this campaign. First of all, what is a Mexican mercenary randomly doing in a Japanese bathroom? Second of all, why is his name Jet Guile and not something…you know…a little closer to his nationality? Thirdly, and this is the most important question of all: why the fuck is he trying to give someone a job interview…in the bathroom?! What, is Jet observing Ninjo’s sniper skills by watching the piss hit the toilet? What if Ninjo had bad diarrhea from the sushi he was eating? What if Ninjo didn’t make it to the toilet on time? Would Jet refuse to hire him for failing to “deactivate a bomb” in his ass?
In hindsight, this was weird on so many levels. It should come as no surprise that the minute Jet Guile said Ninjo’s name, Ninjo beat the holy fuck out of him and left him a bloody and useless corpse on the bathroom floor. Ninjo may love unemployment, but he loves peeing undisturbed even more. Well, he didn’t get either; three more Mexican mercenaries hired him anyways in spite of what happened to Jet! That’s right: Ninjo got a job despite killing one of his employers. Turned out to be one of his tests, not because I had it planned all along, but because I pulled it out of my ass and made an even bigger mess than Ninjo’s piss puddle and Jet’s bloodbath put together. Imagine if Homer did this to Mr. Burns on an episode of The Simpsons. Work would be less stressful, for sure, but that’s only because scooping prison food is easier than handling nuclear rods.
So…why is it that Clyde and Ninjo were so reluctant to allow their employers to hire them for soldier work? Chasing someone into an alleyway and interviewing someone while they’re draining the lizard are reasonable enough answers to me. Or maybe there is something to be said about not feeding the capitalist machine…in a society where war is the main product. Or…maybe Clyde and Ninjo were supposed to keep their identities a secret and the minute their employers shouted their names, they bailed. And then it hit me like a sack of bricks: war isn’t always fought with soldiers gathering together on a battlefield and shooting at each other. It isn’t always about bombing the fuck out of cities and capitols either. Sometimes a little stealth is paramount to getting a job done. Maybe your enemy will be more easily defeated if they don’t know you’re coming. Keep the name a secret. Keep the employment a secret. Keep everything a secret. The less they know, the less they’ll see coming.
Undercover work should have been my first guess all the way back in 2002. Of course they’re running, because their cover was potentially blown. Of course they’re beating up employers because they could be assassins themselves. Trust and friendship are two of the rarest things you’ll find in war, because the object is to kill or be killed. Sure, you can trust your fellow soldiers, but a complete stranger? That’ll take a little more vetting. I guess the lesson to be learned here is to not lay all of your cards on the table so soon. They call it a poker face for a reason. They also refrain from wearing mirror shades to a poker game. Right, Kim?
Refusing to lay your cards on the table is not only necessary for succeeding in war, but in other aspects of life too. Suppose you do get a job interview that’s not in a bathroom or a dingy alleyway. Sure, you want to be open and honest, but do you really want to let your boss man know everything about you, be it mental illnesses, bad experiences in school, bad experiences with other employers, or divorces you’ve had? Same thing goes for any other activity, whether it’s dating, friendship, or playing a good old fashioned RPG. You want to give them just enough to get a good idea of you, but if you spill too many secrets, then you’ll never get passed the front door.
But that also depends on what secrets you choose to keep and how doing so will negatively affect the relationship. If you’re trying to keep abuse a secret from your peers, it’ll get out one way or another, especially in an argumentative setting. In which case, don’t get into the relationship at all and seek help before you spiral into an early grave. If you have murder-hobo tendencies and you’re playing an RPG where your character kills everyone around them, that’ll derail the game in a big fucking hurry. If you’re an alt-right nutjob and your paladin uses “stand your ground” laws as an excuse to kill innocent orcs to become an oathbreaker, then get some goddamn help!
Your GM doesn’t have to know everything, but they should know enough to decide whether or not they want to play with you. If you put yourself in a situation where it’s you or the GM, then the GM will pull a Clyde and Ninjo and run the fuck away from you. Or they’ll kill you in the bathroom while you’re interrupting their pissing session, one of the two. This is not an instruction manual for narcissists, because fuck them. But if you’re genuinely looking for new opportunities in life and you’re going to make the most of them, then getting your foot in the door is as easy as getting both feet out of bar on the way to a garbage-covered alleyway.
July 7, 2021
Somewhere in the World
VERSE 1
Somewhere in the world, a wife is beaten
Her man calls it a crowning achievement
His woman covered in red, purple, blue
At least she’s someone you never knew
If she had a name, would you start to care?
Or is empathetic pain too much to share?
It didn’t happen in your US of A
So keep sipping your chardonnay
VERSE 2
Somewhere in the world, a woman loves you
Her smile can disarm, her eyes can hush you
Sooner or later, she’ll ask if she can touch you
To anyone with doubts, you say, “Fuck you!”
Hop on a plane and feel your butt go numb
Twelve hours of an engine’s obnoxious hum
When you finally land, you hold out your hand
Police cuff your wrists, fingerprints are scanned
BRIDGE
False realization, no lessons are learned
You simp for one while the other burned
Young, horny, and don’t give a fuck
The ones who need you most are shit out of luck
VERSE 3
Somewhere in the world, a dictator falls
Sledgehammers knock down the border walls
It’s closer to home, just check on your phone
Or you can open your ears to the angry tones
Do you feel your comfort zone getting smaller?
Do you want to be a Karen 9-1-1 caller?
Is it close enough when it happens to you?
Apathy still painted in red, white, and blue
FINAL VERSE
Somewhere in the world, kids are laughing
Somewhere in the world, kittens napping
Somewhere in the world, who knows where?
Do your fucking research if you deeply care
Somewhere in the world, a wife is beaten
Her man calls it a crowning achievement
His woman covered in red, purple, blue
At least she’s someone you never knew
If she had a name, would you start to care?
Or is empathetic pain too much to share?
It didn’t happen in your US of A
So keep sipping your chardonnay
VERSE 2
Somewhere in the world, a woman loves you
Her smile can disarm, her eyes can hush you
Sooner or later, she’ll ask if she can touch you
To anyone with doubts, you say, “Fuck you!”
Hop on a plane and feel your butt go numb
Twelve hours of an engine’s obnoxious hum
When you finally land, you hold out your hand
Police cuff your wrists, fingerprints are scanned
BRIDGE
False realization, no lessons are learned
You simp for one while the other burned
Young, horny, and don’t give a fuck
The ones who need you most are shit out of luck
VERSE 3
Somewhere in the world, a dictator falls
Sledgehammers knock down the border walls
It’s closer to home, just check on your phone
Or you can open your ears to the angry tones
Do you feel your comfort zone getting smaller?
Do you want to be a Karen 9-1-1 caller?
Is it close enough when it happens to you?
Apathy still painted in red, white, and blue
FINAL VERSE
Somewhere in the world, kids are laughing
Somewhere in the world, kittens napping
Somewhere in the world, who knows where?
Do your fucking research if you deeply care
June 29, 2021
Mass Transit
The idea of chowing down on a Hawaiian pizza and BBQ chicken wings made Reese Lee’s mouth water. But in this Peter Pan bus station, it was only an idea and nothing more. It was something that would have to wait until she made it back to her college town. Considering that breathing air in this bus station was worse for the mouth and nose than giving a rim job to someone with a stomach virus, even the idea of getting potato chips from the vending machine was a taboo.
All she could do was sit cross-legged in a chair (preferably one without bubblegum stuck to it) and study for her final exams. Burying her nose in her text book was more appealing than allowing body odor and cigarette smoke to melt her face off like acid. It was even more appealing with new age music blasting in her headphones while she kept her hoodie up. Everything about her screamed “Do Not Disturb”. But who was listening? Certainly not the other patrons.
There they were milling all around the station waiting for their respective buses to take them to their destinations. Some of them had long greasy hair that hadn’t been washed since the Obama administration. Some of them burped loudly enough to jolt Reese out of her studying trance. A scraggly old man in a trench coat puked on the floor, the puddle resembling a prehistoric tar pit. A weary-eyed mother sat on the floor and attempted to rock her crying baby to sleep. A man in overalls and a MAGA hat lit up a cigarette and puffed like a diesel train.
This isn’t worth it…none of this is worth it, Reese thought to herself as she tightened the draw string on her hoodie. No matter how many times she pored over various psychological terms in her textbook like Gestalt and Jungian, they wouldn’t stick in her overcrowded mind. Her brain felt as though it had Novocain smeared all over it. Her eyes watered from the intense smells. Her jaw clamped down so tightly that she was getting a headache. She could just as easily step outside for fresh air, but that would mean potentially missing her bus back to college.
Then again, it might not have been a bad outcome considering that a man a greasy leather jacket marched up to her reeking of alcohol and trash. “Ten-HUT!” he shouted. “The purple monkeys are coming to take our brains! STOP THE STEAL! Blar-blah-BLAR!” He marched to the bathroom, but not without leaving Reese a quivering mess in her seat. Her eyes watered once again, but not from the pungent miasma.
It’s not worth it…it’s not worth it….none of this is worth it…
As Reese tried to steady her nerves with deep breathing exercises (the ones she learned from her psychology classes), the mother from earlier approached her, the baby in her arms fast asleep. With yellow teeth and chapped lips, she asked Reese, “Do you have a cigarette?”
“No, I don’t. Sorry.”
“Come on, just one cigarette! I’m stressed out!”
“I told you, I don’t have any.”
“I’ll kiss your feet if you give me one!”
Bile rose up from Reese’s throat. She threw her textbook to the ground and rushed for the ladies’ room. Unfortunately, time was not her best friend as she vomited on the ground before she could make it. Her stomach contents burned her throat while her eyes watered some more. A few droplets of nose pudding mixed with her biological swamp brew on the ground. Nobody said a word when the motor-oil substance from the old man hit the floor. But once Reese’s acids flew from her lips…
“Fucking gross, lady!” yelled the guy in the MAGA cap. “Is that what they teach you in that lib-tard school of yours?”
Reese wiped the sewage off of her face with the back of her hand before unnecessarily apologizing. The heavy breaths she took wouldn’t do much for cooling down her throat considering the air was thicker than that of a burning building. But heavy breaths she took anyways.
She took even more of them when an obese man in an American flag T-shirt grabbed her butt and squeezed as hard as he could. “Ow! Ow! Let go! You’re hurting me!”
“I bet that shit hurts real’ good, little lady!” said the pervert before hacking and laughing at the same time. Reese was able to pry his fingers off before dashing for the exit. The pervert laughed at her some more when she slipped on the black puddle from earlier. Her back collided with the cement ground and knocked the wind out of her lungs (not that it was good air to begin with). Her MP3 player and headsets broke on the way down, but not nearly as badly as her spirit.
She used the nearby arcade cabinet to pick herself up before (successfully) dashing out of the bus station and into the clean night air. The breeze gently blew against her white-hot face. Every shaky breath she took was pure heaven to her throat and lungs. In fact, it was the only thing about this night that could be described as being remotely close to heaven. She rested her sore back against a graffiti-splattered wall and sunk down to her butt, bursting into a full-on crying session.
The whole reason she went to college in the first place was to study psychology and become a licensed therapist. But even with this wealth of knowledge, she knew the people in that bus station were beyond help. The healthcare system failed them. The world failed them. But she had zero interest in helping them now.
If that whole bus station burns to the ground with them inside…I’d never be depressed ever again…
While she couldn’t find a gas can and matches with her blurry eyes, she did see something that was almost as destructive: a lead pipe lying on the ground. A rusty lead pipe with a little bit of moss grown over it, because of course it was. She wiped her eyes dry and picked up the non-moss end of the pipe. She could bash a lot of brains in with this weapon. Not that they had brains to begin with, but it’d be a nice visual for her healing.
“I’ll kill them all…I’ll fucking kill them…” she sniffled.
“What did you say? Hello?”
That familiar voice came from her smart phone, which thankfully wasn’t damaged in the slip and fall thanks to the case she bought for it. She must have pocket dialed someone during the whole kafuffle. That someone was her mother. Hearing her voice again was another factor in cooling down her aching lungs and throat.
“Mom? Are you there?”
“Reese, are you okay? Did I just hear you say you’re going to kill someone?”
“Um…” she sniffled. “No, I was just…I mean…Mom?...I can’t go back inside the station. I hate it there!”
“What’s wrong, honey?”
Reese had a hard time forming words through her tears.
“Do you need me to come pick you up?”
“But…I have my final exam soon…”
“That’s not what I asked you. I asked you if you wanted me to pick you up and take you home.”
“…Yes! That’d be wonderful.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Hang in there.”
“I love you, Mom!”
“I love you too, Reese. Bye.”
In all this time of studying psychology, Reese had forgotten the most important lesson of all: self-care. Even the most hardworking minds needed to rest. Even straight A students weren’t immune to mental health crises. If her professors didn’t understand these things, they had no business teaching psychology. In that case, studying at this college wasn’t such a good idea after all.
As for the lead pipe, Reese gazed at it for a while, feeling the rusty metal grate against her sensitive skin. She had thirty minutes before her mother got her out of this hellhole. She still had ample time to smash heads and drop corpses. But if she went through with her violence against the mentally-ill bus station customers, she had no business being a therapist in the first place. And if that was true, then learning psychology from these uncaring professors was like a toxic relationship that would never end.
Reese dropped the pipe and allowed it to roll across the sidewalk. “I hate this place. But I hate the system more…” She pulled her knees to her chest and sobbed into her legs some more.
All she could do was sit cross-legged in a chair (preferably one without bubblegum stuck to it) and study for her final exams. Burying her nose in her text book was more appealing than allowing body odor and cigarette smoke to melt her face off like acid. It was even more appealing with new age music blasting in her headphones while she kept her hoodie up. Everything about her screamed “Do Not Disturb”. But who was listening? Certainly not the other patrons.
There they were milling all around the station waiting for their respective buses to take them to their destinations. Some of them had long greasy hair that hadn’t been washed since the Obama administration. Some of them burped loudly enough to jolt Reese out of her studying trance. A scraggly old man in a trench coat puked on the floor, the puddle resembling a prehistoric tar pit. A weary-eyed mother sat on the floor and attempted to rock her crying baby to sleep. A man in overalls and a MAGA hat lit up a cigarette and puffed like a diesel train.
This isn’t worth it…none of this is worth it, Reese thought to herself as she tightened the draw string on her hoodie. No matter how many times she pored over various psychological terms in her textbook like Gestalt and Jungian, they wouldn’t stick in her overcrowded mind. Her brain felt as though it had Novocain smeared all over it. Her eyes watered from the intense smells. Her jaw clamped down so tightly that she was getting a headache. She could just as easily step outside for fresh air, but that would mean potentially missing her bus back to college.
Then again, it might not have been a bad outcome considering that a man a greasy leather jacket marched up to her reeking of alcohol and trash. “Ten-HUT!” he shouted. “The purple monkeys are coming to take our brains! STOP THE STEAL! Blar-blah-BLAR!” He marched to the bathroom, but not without leaving Reese a quivering mess in her seat. Her eyes watered once again, but not from the pungent miasma.
It’s not worth it…it’s not worth it….none of this is worth it…
As Reese tried to steady her nerves with deep breathing exercises (the ones she learned from her psychology classes), the mother from earlier approached her, the baby in her arms fast asleep. With yellow teeth and chapped lips, she asked Reese, “Do you have a cigarette?”
“No, I don’t. Sorry.”
“Come on, just one cigarette! I’m stressed out!”
“I told you, I don’t have any.”
“I’ll kiss your feet if you give me one!”
Bile rose up from Reese’s throat. She threw her textbook to the ground and rushed for the ladies’ room. Unfortunately, time was not her best friend as she vomited on the ground before she could make it. Her stomach contents burned her throat while her eyes watered some more. A few droplets of nose pudding mixed with her biological swamp brew on the ground. Nobody said a word when the motor-oil substance from the old man hit the floor. But once Reese’s acids flew from her lips…
“Fucking gross, lady!” yelled the guy in the MAGA cap. “Is that what they teach you in that lib-tard school of yours?”
Reese wiped the sewage off of her face with the back of her hand before unnecessarily apologizing. The heavy breaths she took wouldn’t do much for cooling down her throat considering the air was thicker than that of a burning building. But heavy breaths she took anyways.
She took even more of them when an obese man in an American flag T-shirt grabbed her butt and squeezed as hard as he could. “Ow! Ow! Let go! You’re hurting me!”
“I bet that shit hurts real’ good, little lady!” said the pervert before hacking and laughing at the same time. Reese was able to pry his fingers off before dashing for the exit. The pervert laughed at her some more when she slipped on the black puddle from earlier. Her back collided with the cement ground and knocked the wind out of her lungs (not that it was good air to begin with). Her MP3 player and headsets broke on the way down, but not nearly as badly as her spirit.
She used the nearby arcade cabinet to pick herself up before (successfully) dashing out of the bus station and into the clean night air. The breeze gently blew against her white-hot face. Every shaky breath she took was pure heaven to her throat and lungs. In fact, it was the only thing about this night that could be described as being remotely close to heaven. She rested her sore back against a graffiti-splattered wall and sunk down to her butt, bursting into a full-on crying session.
The whole reason she went to college in the first place was to study psychology and become a licensed therapist. But even with this wealth of knowledge, she knew the people in that bus station were beyond help. The healthcare system failed them. The world failed them. But she had zero interest in helping them now.
If that whole bus station burns to the ground with them inside…I’d never be depressed ever again…
While she couldn’t find a gas can and matches with her blurry eyes, she did see something that was almost as destructive: a lead pipe lying on the ground. A rusty lead pipe with a little bit of moss grown over it, because of course it was. She wiped her eyes dry and picked up the non-moss end of the pipe. She could bash a lot of brains in with this weapon. Not that they had brains to begin with, but it’d be a nice visual for her healing.
“I’ll kill them all…I’ll fucking kill them…” she sniffled.
“What did you say? Hello?”
That familiar voice came from her smart phone, which thankfully wasn’t damaged in the slip and fall thanks to the case she bought for it. She must have pocket dialed someone during the whole kafuffle. That someone was her mother. Hearing her voice again was another factor in cooling down her aching lungs and throat.
“Mom? Are you there?”
“Reese, are you okay? Did I just hear you say you’re going to kill someone?”
“Um…” she sniffled. “No, I was just…I mean…Mom?...I can’t go back inside the station. I hate it there!”
“What’s wrong, honey?”
Reese had a hard time forming words through her tears.
“Do you need me to come pick you up?”
“But…I have my final exam soon…”
“That’s not what I asked you. I asked you if you wanted me to pick you up and take you home.”
“…Yes! That’d be wonderful.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Hang in there.”
“I love you, Mom!”
“I love you too, Reese. Bye.”
In all this time of studying psychology, Reese had forgotten the most important lesson of all: self-care. Even the most hardworking minds needed to rest. Even straight A students weren’t immune to mental health crises. If her professors didn’t understand these things, they had no business teaching psychology. In that case, studying at this college wasn’t such a good idea after all.
As for the lead pipe, Reese gazed at it for a while, feeling the rusty metal grate against her sensitive skin. She had thirty minutes before her mother got her out of this hellhole. She still had ample time to smash heads and drop corpses. But if she went through with her violence against the mentally-ill bus station customers, she had no business being a therapist in the first place. And if that was true, then learning psychology from these uncaring professors was like a toxic relationship that would never end.
Reese dropped the pipe and allowed it to roll across the sidewalk. “I hate this place. But I hate the system more…” She pulled her knees to her chest and sobbed into her legs some more.
June 19, 2021
Feels Like Homework
CHORUS 1
Chowing down on food feels like homework
Being in a good mood feels like homework
Everything you do feels like homework
Feels like homework, feels like homework
VERSE 1
When getting A’s and B’s is all you’ve known
Getting anything less can make you feel alone
Ego takes a bruising, but not as bad as the brain
Every failure makes you question if you’re sane
Pop the pills like they’re Butterfinger BB’s
Eat every single pizza from the kitchen at Cici’s
No exercise today, because what’s the point?
Lay on the couch, watch the tube, smoke a joint
CHORUS 2
Playing videogames feels like homework
Remembering your name feels like homework
Doing more of the same feels like homework
Feels like homework, feels like homework
VERSE 2
Got an hour to kill before you hit the sack
Read a cheap romance from your library stack
Write a story or two about murderous goblins
Watch BoJack Horseman, get on with the sobbing
Every leisure activity comes with a final grade
Forever shamed for the lack of money made
Calling in sick starts to feel necessary
“Sorry, boss man, I’m ready to be buried”
CHORUS 3
Leaving the house feels like homework
Clicking the mouse feels like homework
Wearing Levi Strauss feels like homework
Feels like homework, feels like homework
Breathing in and out feels like homework
Asking what life’s about feels like homework
Disproving your doubt feels like homework
Feels like homework, feels like homework
VERSE 3
Tell the English professor as you leave her class
“You can take your D- and shove it up your ass!”
Tell the math department when you graduate
“You deserve every ounce of venom and hate!”
Tell the history department when you retire
“I hope this whole school gets set on fire!”
Tell the universe when it’s ready to take you
“Let me rest in peace or I’ll fucking make you!”
Chowing down on food feels like homework
Being in a good mood feels like homework
Everything you do feels like homework
Feels like homework, feels like homework
VERSE 1
When getting A’s and B’s is all you’ve known
Getting anything less can make you feel alone
Ego takes a bruising, but not as bad as the brain
Every failure makes you question if you’re sane
Pop the pills like they’re Butterfinger BB’s
Eat every single pizza from the kitchen at Cici’s
No exercise today, because what’s the point?
Lay on the couch, watch the tube, smoke a joint
CHORUS 2
Playing videogames feels like homework
Remembering your name feels like homework
Doing more of the same feels like homework
Feels like homework, feels like homework
VERSE 2
Got an hour to kill before you hit the sack
Read a cheap romance from your library stack
Write a story or two about murderous goblins
Watch BoJack Horseman, get on with the sobbing
Every leisure activity comes with a final grade
Forever shamed for the lack of money made
Calling in sick starts to feel necessary
“Sorry, boss man, I’m ready to be buried”
CHORUS 3
Leaving the house feels like homework
Clicking the mouse feels like homework
Wearing Levi Strauss feels like homework
Feels like homework, feels like homework
Breathing in and out feels like homework
Asking what life’s about feels like homework
Disproving your doubt feels like homework
Feels like homework, feels like homework
VERSE 3
Tell the English professor as you leave her class
“You can take your D- and shove it up your ass!”
Tell the math department when you graduate
“You deserve every ounce of venom and hate!”
Tell the history department when you retire
“I hope this whole school gets set on fire!”
Tell the universe when it’s ready to take you
“Let me rest in peace or I’ll fucking make you!”
June 12, 2021
Johnny Glass's Underage Beer Run
An elven thief named Johnny Glass walks into a bar. The bartender looks up at him and says, “Can I see your ID?” Sorry if you were expecting a cliché bar joke. To be honest, I was expecting one too when I played a lone session of Dungeons & Dragons with my brother James in Pennsylvania in 1999. What was I doing in Linesville, Pennsylvania at the time? A whole lot of fuck-all, that’s what. To be fair, that’s all there is to do in the super rural town of Linesville. Everything was so far away from my Aunt Ruth’s farm that finding entertainment was damn near impossible. So James and I had to create our own. Dungeons & Dragons was our escape from a place that couldn’t be escaped.
But what about the medieval town that Johnny Glass was a citizen of? Did that have a lot going on in the way of kicks and thrills? The closest thing to that answer was getting plastered at the bar. Or smoking a burned out cigarette until he had extra crispy Kentucky Fried Lungs, that could be done in a bar too. But let’s go back to the point where the bouncer (not the bartender) asks to see Johnny’s ID. It seems like a standard practice for any bar, but there’s actually a lot to unpack here. First of all, Johnny was an elf and the typical age for elves in a game of D&D is somewhere in the fifties and sixties. They’re an immortal race that doesn’t pass away from old age, but goes into isolation when they do. It’s like 2020, but forever. If an elf looks like he’s fifty or sixty, why would anyone question his maturity when it comes to chugging a stein of beer? The only reason I can think of is that the mostly human town holds a deep-seated bigotry against the elven race.
And while we’re on the topic of anti-elf racism, if I had the storytelling abilities back then that I do now, there might actually be a plausible reason why an elf would have an ordinary human name like Johnny Glass. Maybe where he’s from, his culture was suppressed by the conquering humans, so all the Legolases and Grimlords became Johnnies and Jackies. Names say a lot about a person’s cultural background. So when you see an ethnic minority with an ordinary white guy name, you know some ordinary white guys had major influence over the conquest. There’s a whole story right there! But alas, the only reason I chose the name Johnny Glass for my character was because it was convenient and it was all I could think of at the time. Little did I know or care that everything has a back story if you look hard enough.
Getting back to the ID check at the bar, how exactly is Johnny Glass supposed to produce a document that didn’t even exist in medieval times? The only way an ID would ever work is if photography was invented. That’s the whole point of it: to put a face with the name. There’s no photography in D&D. So what was Johnny supposed to show the bouncer? A painting? A magical seal? A doodle? Oh, god help him if he gets a doodle. The artist might actually make him look like a caricature goofball if racism was the true reason for this campaign. Maybe he’d draw Johnny with a massive nose, Dumbo ears, and a saggy belly, which is not only humiliating on its own, but it wouldn’t grant him access anywhere since that’s not what he looked like. He looked like any other elf: pointy ears, light green skin, blond locks, and a skinny build. He looked like any other elf because with a name like Johnny Glass, that’s what he truly was under the thumb of the dominant humans.
Naturally, Johnny didn’t have any ID papers on him, then again, who did since photography doesn’t exist yet?! The humans never had their ID’s checked, but Johnny did. And because he entered a bar where his age was questioned over and over again, he broke the law. Thieves breaking the law isn’t anything new, but at least said thieves stay hidden in the shadows when they commit their crimes. Not Johnny. He walked into a bar a (somewhat) free elf, came out with his hands and feet shackled by law enforcement. Johnny served himself on a silver platter to the racist humans. Not a good way to start a D&D campaign as a stealthy thief.
But don’t worry! Surely a trickster like him could slip out of prison and never be found again, right? Well, there’s a lot to unpack in that department as well. First of all, this was my first time ever playing a thief. Beforehand, I played loads of fighters, one paladin, and one wizard. I had more fun being a fighter and a paladin than any other class, because I could actually defend myself in a brawl and look badass doing it. If a wizard doesn’t have his spells studied and ready to go, he’s fucked since he can’t wear heavy armor or wield heavy weapons. Plus, wizards naturally have a low amount of hit points. Unless the goal was to try something new and exciting, why would I ever want to play a thief? If I ever got caught, I couldn’t defend myself against knights with gigantic battleaxes and claymores bigger than their bodies. Backstab wouldn’t do me any good, because that only works if I’m undetected.
But here I am in a prison cell with no chance of parole. No fair trial, either. Democracy and photography had a lot in common in D&D: they didn’t exist. The prison guards told Johnny they were going to lock him up for life. But that turned out to be a joke that Johnny would never laugh at in a million years (or however long elves lived). He instead was sentenced to five years. He could do five years standing on his head, given his elven immortality. But why would he want to unless he had an escape plan? You think I would have learned one by now given that my brother loved locking my characters in prison and using that as the main storyline. He did this a lot. I never got away once, but he still insisted on doing prison campaigns. Would Johnny Glass be the one to finally break the curse? Well…not exactly.
There he was shackled to the wall of his own eight-by-ten cell. In case the shackles weren’t enough, the prison cell had a barred door and there were guards on the other side of the cell block. It was time for Johnny to show what a master thief was all about…or at least until he failed a roll to pick the locks on his shackles. Then he failed a strength check. Then he failed a dexterity check. Then he failed pretty much every other roll in his arsenal. I can’t remember how exactly Johnny got out of his cell, but that just goes to show how unprepared I was for life as a thief. What to do next? Well, in order to simulate the idea of thinking fast, James, my DM brother, gave me only enough time until his fist dropped to his lap. Because I freaked out and couldn’t think of anything on time, the guards came through the door and threw me back in my cell before shackling me to the wall again. And then Johnny Glass was back to square one.
So I rolled a lock pick check and failed. I rolled a strength check and failed. I rolled a dexterity check and failed. Whatever rolling tactic I used to try to break free, it failed. And then…James mercifully pulled a Deus Ex Machina out of his ass. There just so happened to be another thief in the cell with me. He asked, “Do you want to get out?” I said yes, so he unshackled me and opened my door. That was it. I was a free man. All I had to do was wander down an underground maze and my freedom would be solidified. One drawback to all of this is that I got no experience points for what I went through. I figured I wouldn’t get them anyways since I wasn’t involved in any fights. But that’s not how thieves gain experience points. Fighters get them through fighting. Wizards get them through casting spells. Thieves get them by being sneaky as fuck. I don’t know how I would have gotten those points since I failed all of my rolls.
I wouldn’t get the answer until a few years later when James put me in another prison campaign, this time with a different character. He was shackled to the wall. His cell door was locked. There was a loony tune in the room with him who wet himself. The piss was traveling like a river toward my general vicinity. So what did I do? James gave me advice this time: use my surroundings to my advantage. There was a pile of stones next to where I was sitting. I smashed the stones against the shackles and evaded the slow-moving piss trail. That was somewhat satisfying. But I have to ask: wouldn’t the builders of this prison have foreseen this happening? What exactly is a pile of rocks doing next to shackled prisoners? That to me is even more of a Deus Ex Machina scenario than Johnny Glass being let out by a cell mate he never knew he had.
So…what can be learned from this experience now that I’m a storytelling adult? First of all, I should probably ask the DM what my surroundings look like so that I’m more aware of what the fuck’s going on. It feels like such a minor detail to ask for, but authors have to do this too when describing an unfamiliar setting. They don’t want to describe too much, but just enough of the relevant parts to create visuals in the reader’s mind. Okay, so Johnny Glass can’t pick his way out of prison. What else can he do? Provided there are no stones this time, he could hoot and holler until a guard paid attention to him. Then he can hide in the shadows to make the guard think he’s gone. When the guard investigates, Johnny could spring on him and strangle him with the shackles. He grabs the key and frees himself. Wah-lah!
There are lots of ways in which a thief can be clever. There are lots of ways in which a player can be just as much of a storyteller as the DM. The biggest lesson above all else…be prepared for the role you’re playing! Study your characters! Refine them! Develop them! Give your elven thief a reason for being called Johnny fucking Glass! Maybe it’s not racism from humans, but racism from within. Maybe he’s the Candace Owens of elven lore. Or maybe he just wants to blend in, like a forty-year-old woman named Karen. The more you know about your characters, the more solutions you can come up with for their problems. I wish I would have invested this much time into developing characters for my first draft novels. Fixing them would have been a hell of a lot easier! Thank you, Johnny Glass, for opening my eyes. You can open yours too since the bartender wouldn’t let you have that beer after all.
But what about the medieval town that Johnny Glass was a citizen of? Did that have a lot going on in the way of kicks and thrills? The closest thing to that answer was getting plastered at the bar. Or smoking a burned out cigarette until he had extra crispy Kentucky Fried Lungs, that could be done in a bar too. But let’s go back to the point where the bouncer (not the bartender) asks to see Johnny’s ID. It seems like a standard practice for any bar, but there’s actually a lot to unpack here. First of all, Johnny was an elf and the typical age for elves in a game of D&D is somewhere in the fifties and sixties. They’re an immortal race that doesn’t pass away from old age, but goes into isolation when they do. It’s like 2020, but forever. If an elf looks like he’s fifty or sixty, why would anyone question his maturity when it comes to chugging a stein of beer? The only reason I can think of is that the mostly human town holds a deep-seated bigotry against the elven race.
And while we’re on the topic of anti-elf racism, if I had the storytelling abilities back then that I do now, there might actually be a plausible reason why an elf would have an ordinary human name like Johnny Glass. Maybe where he’s from, his culture was suppressed by the conquering humans, so all the Legolases and Grimlords became Johnnies and Jackies. Names say a lot about a person’s cultural background. So when you see an ethnic minority with an ordinary white guy name, you know some ordinary white guys had major influence over the conquest. There’s a whole story right there! But alas, the only reason I chose the name Johnny Glass for my character was because it was convenient and it was all I could think of at the time. Little did I know or care that everything has a back story if you look hard enough.
Getting back to the ID check at the bar, how exactly is Johnny Glass supposed to produce a document that didn’t even exist in medieval times? The only way an ID would ever work is if photography was invented. That’s the whole point of it: to put a face with the name. There’s no photography in D&D. So what was Johnny supposed to show the bouncer? A painting? A magical seal? A doodle? Oh, god help him if he gets a doodle. The artist might actually make him look like a caricature goofball if racism was the true reason for this campaign. Maybe he’d draw Johnny with a massive nose, Dumbo ears, and a saggy belly, which is not only humiliating on its own, but it wouldn’t grant him access anywhere since that’s not what he looked like. He looked like any other elf: pointy ears, light green skin, blond locks, and a skinny build. He looked like any other elf because with a name like Johnny Glass, that’s what he truly was under the thumb of the dominant humans.
Naturally, Johnny didn’t have any ID papers on him, then again, who did since photography doesn’t exist yet?! The humans never had their ID’s checked, but Johnny did. And because he entered a bar where his age was questioned over and over again, he broke the law. Thieves breaking the law isn’t anything new, but at least said thieves stay hidden in the shadows when they commit their crimes. Not Johnny. He walked into a bar a (somewhat) free elf, came out with his hands and feet shackled by law enforcement. Johnny served himself on a silver platter to the racist humans. Not a good way to start a D&D campaign as a stealthy thief.
But don’t worry! Surely a trickster like him could slip out of prison and never be found again, right? Well, there’s a lot to unpack in that department as well. First of all, this was my first time ever playing a thief. Beforehand, I played loads of fighters, one paladin, and one wizard. I had more fun being a fighter and a paladin than any other class, because I could actually defend myself in a brawl and look badass doing it. If a wizard doesn’t have his spells studied and ready to go, he’s fucked since he can’t wear heavy armor or wield heavy weapons. Plus, wizards naturally have a low amount of hit points. Unless the goal was to try something new and exciting, why would I ever want to play a thief? If I ever got caught, I couldn’t defend myself against knights with gigantic battleaxes and claymores bigger than their bodies. Backstab wouldn’t do me any good, because that only works if I’m undetected.
But here I am in a prison cell with no chance of parole. No fair trial, either. Democracy and photography had a lot in common in D&D: they didn’t exist. The prison guards told Johnny they were going to lock him up for life. But that turned out to be a joke that Johnny would never laugh at in a million years (or however long elves lived). He instead was sentenced to five years. He could do five years standing on his head, given his elven immortality. But why would he want to unless he had an escape plan? You think I would have learned one by now given that my brother loved locking my characters in prison and using that as the main storyline. He did this a lot. I never got away once, but he still insisted on doing prison campaigns. Would Johnny Glass be the one to finally break the curse? Well…not exactly.
There he was shackled to the wall of his own eight-by-ten cell. In case the shackles weren’t enough, the prison cell had a barred door and there were guards on the other side of the cell block. It was time for Johnny to show what a master thief was all about…or at least until he failed a roll to pick the locks on his shackles. Then he failed a strength check. Then he failed a dexterity check. Then he failed pretty much every other roll in his arsenal. I can’t remember how exactly Johnny got out of his cell, but that just goes to show how unprepared I was for life as a thief. What to do next? Well, in order to simulate the idea of thinking fast, James, my DM brother, gave me only enough time until his fist dropped to his lap. Because I freaked out and couldn’t think of anything on time, the guards came through the door and threw me back in my cell before shackling me to the wall again. And then Johnny Glass was back to square one.
So I rolled a lock pick check and failed. I rolled a strength check and failed. I rolled a dexterity check and failed. Whatever rolling tactic I used to try to break free, it failed. And then…James mercifully pulled a Deus Ex Machina out of his ass. There just so happened to be another thief in the cell with me. He asked, “Do you want to get out?” I said yes, so he unshackled me and opened my door. That was it. I was a free man. All I had to do was wander down an underground maze and my freedom would be solidified. One drawback to all of this is that I got no experience points for what I went through. I figured I wouldn’t get them anyways since I wasn’t involved in any fights. But that’s not how thieves gain experience points. Fighters get them through fighting. Wizards get them through casting spells. Thieves get them by being sneaky as fuck. I don’t know how I would have gotten those points since I failed all of my rolls.
I wouldn’t get the answer until a few years later when James put me in another prison campaign, this time with a different character. He was shackled to the wall. His cell door was locked. There was a loony tune in the room with him who wet himself. The piss was traveling like a river toward my general vicinity. So what did I do? James gave me advice this time: use my surroundings to my advantage. There was a pile of stones next to where I was sitting. I smashed the stones against the shackles and evaded the slow-moving piss trail. That was somewhat satisfying. But I have to ask: wouldn’t the builders of this prison have foreseen this happening? What exactly is a pile of rocks doing next to shackled prisoners? That to me is even more of a Deus Ex Machina scenario than Johnny Glass being let out by a cell mate he never knew he had.
So…what can be learned from this experience now that I’m a storytelling adult? First of all, I should probably ask the DM what my surroundings look like so that I’m more aware of what the fuck’s going on. It feels like such a minor detail to ask for, but authors have to do this too when describing an unfamiliar setting. They don’t want to describe too much, but just enough of the relevant parts to create visuals in the reader’s mind. Okay, so Johnny Glass can’t pick his way out of prison. What else can he do? Provided there are no stones this time, he could hoot and holler until a guard paid attention to him. Then he can hide in the shadows to make the guard think he’s gone. When the guard investigates, Johnny could spring on him and strangle him with the shackles. He grabs the key and frees himself. Wah-lah!
There are lots of ways in which a thief can be clever. There are lots of ways in which a player can be just as much of a storyteller as the DM. The biggest lesson above all else…be prepared for the role you’re playing! Study your characters! Refine them! Develop them! Give your elven thief a reason for being called Johnny fucking Glass! Maybe it’s not racism from humans, but racism from within. Maybe he’s the Candace Owens of elven lore. Or maybe he just wants to blend in, like a forty-year-old woman named Karen. The more you know about your characters, the more solutions you can come up with for their problems. I wish I would have invested this much time into developing characters for my first draft novels. Fixing them would have been a hell of a lot easier! Thank you, Johnny Glass, for opening my eyes. You can open yours too since the bartender wouldn’t let you have that beer after all.
Other People
VERSE 1
Your bank account is birth control
Can’t make up for it with heart and soul
Love doesn’t put food on the table
And so ends the romantic fable
CHORUS
You can’t have love, it belongs to other people
No, not you, you could never be their equal
No, no, no, no, no
I said so
VERSE 2
If you complain, they call you an incel
The preacher man damns you to hell
Throw in the towel, you’re now MGTOW
You set fire to the whole damn town
EXTENDED CHORUS 1
You can’t have love, it belongs to other people
No, not you, you could never be their equal
No, no, no, no, no
I said so
You can’t move on, that’s only for other people
No, not you, you must always stay evil
No, no, no, no, no
I said so
BRIDGE
They’re unwritten rules, I don’t make them up
The one who did drinks from a golden cup
Blindly believe and shut your damn mouth
Smile and fake it, don’t bitch and pout
EXTENDED CHORUS 2
You can’t have fame, it belongs to other people
You’re to blame and there’ll never be a sequel
No, no, no, no, no
I said so
You can’t live life, that’s only for other people
Grab the knife, ‘cause you know your fate is sealed
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
The death blow
Your bank account is birth control
Can’t make up for it with heart and soul
Love doesn’t put food on the table
And so ends the romantic fable
CHORUS
You can’t have love, it belongs to other people
No, not you, you could never be their equal
No, no, no, no, no
I said so
VERSE 2
If you complain, they call you an incel
The preacher man damns you to hell
Throw in the towel, you’re now MGTOW
You set fire to the whole damn town
EXTENDED CHORUS 1
You can’t have love, it belongs to other people
No, not you, you could never be their equal
No, no, no, no, no
I said so
You can’t move on, that’s only for other people
No, not you, you must always stay evil
No, no, no, no, no
I said so
BRIDGE
They’re unwritten rules, I don’t make them up
The one who did drinks from a golden cup
Blindly believe and shut your damn mouth
Smile and fake it, don’t bitch and pout
EXTENDED CHORUS 2
You can’t have fame, it belongs to other people
You’re to blame and there’ll never be a sequel
No, no, no, no, no
I said so
You can’t live life, that’s only for other people
Grab the knife, ‘cause you know your fate is sealed
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
The death blow
June 1, 2021
Captain Brock
VERSE 1
He’s never had a cigarette a day in his life
But he smoked a whole football team in just one night
He’s the Captain of the Cougars, the team and the ladies
And every cheerleader wants to be his only sugar baby
Every freshman is trapped in their own school locker
He put them there and tape gagged the shit-talkers
He’s got an A in everything without lifting a finger
When it’s baseball or babes, he’s a home run swinger
CHORUS 1
His name is Captain Brock because of course it is
He’s the King of the Straights, the King of the Cis
But if he’s the King, then who’s the Queen?
Homecoming, no-homo is what he means
VERSE 2
He’s got bullycide and beef on his inflated resume
The boss man looked at him and said, “No way!”
So he sued the company for everything they’re worth
Wiped their NASDAQ symbol right off the earth
What’s next for Brock: President or Dictator?
He could stuff the lockers full of more freshman haters
Except they’re not called lockers after school
They’re called prison cells under the iron rule
CHORUS 1
His name is Captain Brock because of course it is
He’s the King of the Straights, the King of the Cis
But if he’s the King, then who’s the Queen?
Homecoming, no-homo is what he means
VERSE 3
And then the day came where karma fucked him over
His cancer just ensured that he never saw October
They buried his ass on Halloween night
All the beardos and weirdoes breathed a huge sigh
They can disco dance with the werewolves and vamps
At a Rammstein concert with ball gags and loud amps
The harvest moon never looked so beautiful
Keep the good memories, they’re forever reusable
CHORUS 2
His name is Captain Brock because of course it is
But you’d be forgiven if you forgot about his sins
Are you coping with trauma or was he just mediocre?
It’s a little bit of both, aren’t you glad this shit is over?
Cookie-cutter muscle-heads may write our history
But they don’t have a future with you or me
They can’t blame it all on the myth of Cancel Culture
They can blame themselves for being greedy vultures
He’s never had a cigarette a day in his life
But he smoked a whole football team in just one night
He’s the Captain of the Cougars, the team and the ladies
And every cheerleader wants to be his only sugar baby
Every freshman is trapped in their own school locker
He put them there and tape gagged the shit-talkers
He’s got an A in everything without lifting a finger
When it’s baseball or babes, he’s a home run swinger
CHORUS 1
His name is Captain Brock because of course it is
He’s the King of the Straights, the King of the Cis
But if he’s the King, then who’s the Queen?
Homecoming, no-homo is what he means
VERSE 2
He’s got bullycide and beef on his inflated resume
The boss man looked at him and said, “No way!”
So he sued the company for everything they’re worth
Wiped their NASDAQ symbol right off the earth
What’s next for Brock: President or Dictator?
He could stuff the lockers full of more freshman haters
Except they’re not called lockers after school
They’re called prison cells under the iron rule
CHORUS 1
His name is Captain Brock because of course it is
He’s the King of the Straights, the King of the Cis
But if he’s the King, then who’s the Queen?
Homecoming, no-homo is what he means
VERSE 3
And then the day came where karma fucked him over
His cancer just ensured that he never saw October
They buried his ass on Halloween night
All the beardos and weirdoes breathed a huge sigh
They can disco dance with the werewolves and vamps
At a Rammstein concert with ball gags and loud amps
The harvest moon never looked so beautiful
Keep the good memories, they’re forever reusable
CHORUS 2
His name is Captain Brock because of course it is
But you’d be forgiven if you forgot about his sins
Are you coping with trauma or was he just mediocre?
It’s a little bit of both, aren’t you glad this shit is over?
Cookie-cutter muscle-heads may write our history
But they don’t have a future with you or me
They can’t blame it all on the myth of Cancel Culture
They can blame themselves for being greedy vultures
May 30, 2021
Food-Mindedness and Body Horror
In case it wasn’t already abundantly clear from my 300 lb. belly, I’m very food-minded. Almost everything in my life reminds me of food in some way. Hell, the word Life will conjure images of the oat square cereal swirling around in milk. The word swirling will remind me of frosted cinnamon buns, keyword being frosted, as in enough frosting to cover the whole fucking thing. At least those words make a modicum of sense, but then there are names of people that remind me of food for no reason at all. Marcus reminds me of hotdogs and mustard. Brad reminds me of French bread. Rachel reminds me of apple juice. Erick reminds me of birthday cake-flavored milkshakes. How did this happen? Was it the constant advertising? Was there some trick of the brain during childhood I wasn’t aware of?
Already, my relationship with food is off to a rocky start. But then there are the things I find disgusting in life and how they find their way into my food. Not literally, but I imagine that they do and my imagination is powerful enough to make me vomit in some cases. For example, if you’ve ever seen the movie Clerks, the View Askew Productions logo at the beginning will serve as nightmare fuel to haunt you at every stage of life. There’s nothing wrong with men dressing in fishnet pantyhose, high heels, and leather thongs…even if they do have grotesque body hair. But it’s the unwanted sexual attention and creepiness of his flirtation that makes it such a traumatic logo. After seeing that logo for the first time, I kept involuntarily picturing his hairy disgusting body in pieces of my lunch meat. Every time I take a bite of ham or turkey, I imagine I’m taking a bite out of that man’s body. My stomach is aching and my fingers are convulsing just thinking about this.
But that’s just one example. If that was the only one, then I wouldn’t have been inspired to write an entire essay on it. What about the Calcobrena Puppets from Final Fantasy IV? You know, those creepy leotard-wearing dolls with buzzed heads, bloodshot eyes, zombie movements, and murderous intentions. They look like they could be Pee-Wee Herman’s children based on their buzz-cuts alone. Pee-Wee Herman once taught his audience how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on his show. Therefore…all of my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches will taste like the bodies of the Calcobrena Puppets. It’ll be like eating right off of their skulls, head lice, fleas, and maggots be damned. It’ll be like giving French kisses to each and every one of those dolls…while passing pre-chewed sandwiches back and forth! Again, my stomach is boiling and rotting while I’m typing this.
And what about the Simpsons from their Treehouse of Horror Episodes, particularly the ones where they turn into pale zombies. They chew flesh, they lose limbs, they groan like exhausted monsters, and did I mention that they have pale skin? You know what else is pale in color? Pasta covered in white sauce, whether it’s American cheese or Alfredo sauce. Every bite that I took of those macaroni shells made me believe I was eating pieces of the zombie Simpsons. I took a long time to swallow knowing that zombie flesh was going down my throat and was going to poison me to death. The macaroni turned to mush in my mouth, so when I finally swallowed, I gagged and brought up a little bit of bile with it.
If I rattled off every example of food-related body horror, then we’d be here forever and a day. I could talk about the faceless masks from Pink Floyd the Wall reminding me of melted cheese. I could talk about the diarrhea blasts in The Human Centipede reminding me of chocolate ice cream (that one’s too obvious, though). I could talk about dead flies reminding me of Butterfinger ice cream. How did this all happen? Why are these disgusting things finding their way into my every meal? Am I so linked up with food that every trauma will remind me of such? Suppose I was more inclined towards Legos instead of food. If I touched a Lego piece that had three holes in it, would it remind me of the Pink Floyd masks? What if I was geared towards clothing? Would the View Askew drag queen’s body hair remind me of a wool sweater that’s literally hugging my chest?
I can already hear fatphobic assholes using my food horror as motivation for me to lose weight…or is that just my schizophrenic voices? Nah, I’m pretty sure someone has thought of exploiting me at one point or another. To those fat-shamers, I say watch the Human Centipede and eat a bag of shit and then watch Pink Floyd the Wall and eat an entire McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese (there has to be cheese in it, no exceptions). Unlike drugs and alcohol, food is actually necessary to survive. A cheeseburger will carry you over into the next day. A pack of cigarettes will not. A pepperoni pizza will give you the nutrition you need, even if it’s bad. Alcohol will not. If I gave up all of my favorite foods due to the body horror I’ve witnessed over the years, I would die of anorexia. Imagine that: fat-shaming actually hurts people instead of helping them find motivation. It’s almost as if people are only fat-shaming to satisfy their sadistic urges and are just using motivation as a cover-up for their shitty behavior. Bullying never went away; it just adapted to the new world.
I could tell you all that I’ve found the perfect counter for body horror-induced trauma, but I haven’t. Yes, I’m still alive and eating like a pig, but that’s only because the trauma went away on its own. I eat ham sandwiches whenever I damn well please even though the View Askew drag queen lusted on me through the TV screen as a kid. I eat stuffed mushrooms despite the fact that it feels too much like I’m eating Phanto from Mario Brothers 2, the evilly-smiling little bastard. Trauma going away on its own is not a typical outcome for most people, especially if schizophrenia is a factor like it is for me. Sure, you can take away the stimulus and hope for the Law of Diminishing Returns to kick in, but it doesn’t always do that. I have no solutions for your body horror trauma. As a matter of fact, I may have given you some of that as I described examples of how they make their way into my food.
Sometimes I think I’m the only one who experiences things like this until I Google it and find entire communities full of people who share my problems. But that’s assuming I’m not too lazy on any given day to use Google. It’s such an easy thing, yet I find myself too lazy sometimes to type words into a search engine. If you’re out there and you’re as food-minded as me, I’m sorry I can’t provide solutions for you other than the occasional animal picture and some digital hugs. You know who can provide more than that? Your therapist. They can talk you through your trauma. They can encourage you to face your food-themed fears. They can be there for you when you feel like others would laugh at your plight. Yes, therapy can be expensive at times, but it’s worth every penny if it means you’ll be okay in the end. If you’re not okay, it’s not the end. Life is better alive. It’s a dumb thing to say, but the truth won’t wane away. Okay, now I’m just ripping off quotes and lyrics. I should stop doing that before I get sent to prison for copyright infringement and have my vanilla pudding remind me of my cell mate’s semen. Uh-oh! More body horror!
Already, my relationship with food is off to a rocky start. But then there are the things I find disgusting in life and how they find their way into my food. Not literally, but I imagine that they do and my imagination is powerful enough to make me vomit in some cases. For example, if you’ve ever seen the movie Clerks, the View Askew Productions logo at the beginning will serve as nightmare fuel to haunt you at every stage of life. There’s nothing wrong with men dressing in fishnet pantyhose, high heels, and leather thongs…even if they do have grotesque body hair. But it’s the unwanted sexual attention and creepiness of his flirtation that makes it such a traumatic logo. After seeing that logo for the first time, I kept involuntarily picturing his hairy disgusting body in pieces of my lunch meat. Every time I take a bite of ham or turkey, I imagine I’m taking a bite out of that man’s body. My stomach is aching and my fingers are convulsing just thinking about this.
But that’s just one example. If that was the only one, then I wouldn’t have been inspired to write an entire essay on it. What about the Calcobrena Puppets from Final Fantasy IV? You know, those creepy leotard-wearing dolls with buzzed heads, bloodshot eyes, zombie movements, and murderous intentions. They look like they could be Pee-Wee Herman’s children based on their buzz-cuts alone. Pee-Wee Herman once taught his audience how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on his show. Therefore…all of my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches will taste like the bodies of the Calcobrena Puppets. It’ll be like eating right off of their skulls, head lice, fleas, and maggots be damned. It’ll be like giving French kisses to each and every one of those dolls…while passing pre-chewed sandwiches back and forth! Again, my stomach is boiling and rotting while I’m typing this.
And what about the Simpsons from their Treehouse of Horror Episodes, particularly the ones where they turn into pale zombies. They chew flesh, they lose limbs, they groan like exhausted monsters, and did I mention that they have pale skin? You know what else is pale in color? Pasta covered in white sauce, whether it’s American cheese or Alfredo sauce. Every bite that I took of those macaroni shells made me believe I was eating pieces of the zombie Simpsons. I took a long time to swallow knowing that zombie flesh was going down my throat and was going to poison me to death. The macaroni turned to mush in my mouth, so when I finally swallowed, I gagged and brought up a little bit of bile with it.
If I rattled off every example of food-related body horror, then we’d be here forever and a day. I could talk about the faceless masks from Pink Floyd the Wall reminding me of melted cheese. I could talk about the diarrhea blasts in The Human Centipede reminding me of chocolate ice cream (that one’s too obvious, though). I could talk about dead flies reminding me of Butterfinger ice cream. How did this all happen? Why are these disgusting things finding their way into my every meal? Am I so linked up with food that every trauma will remind me of such? Suppose I was more inclined towards Legos instead of food. If I touched a Lego piece that had three holes in it, would it remind me of the Pink Floyd masks? What if I was geared towards clothing? Would the View Askew drag queen’s body hair remind me of a wool sweater that’s literally hugging my chest?
I can already hear fatphobic assholes using my food horror as motivation for me to lose weight…or is that just my schizophrenic voices? Nah, I’m pretty sure someone has thought of exploiting me at one point or another. To those fat-shamers, I say watch the Human Centipede and eat a bag of shit and then watch Pink Floyd the Wall and eat an entire McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese (there has to be cheese in it, no exceptions). Unlike drugs and alcohol, food is actually necessary to survive. A cheeseburger will carry you over into the next day. A pack of cigarettes will not. A pepperoni pizza will give you the nutrition you need, even if it’s bad. Alcohol will not. If I gave up all of my favorite foods due to the body horror I’ve witnessed over the years, I would die of anorexia. Imagine that: fat-shaming actually hurts people instead of helping them find motivation. It’s almost as if people are only fat-shaming to satisfy their sadistic urges and are just using motivation as a cover-up for their shitty behavior. Bullying never went away; it just adapted to the new world.
I could tell you all that I’ve found the perfect counter for body horror-induced trauma, but I haven’t. Yes, I’m still alive and eating like a pig, but that’s only because the trauma went away on its own. I eat ham sandwiches whenever I damn well please even though the View Askew drag queen lusted on me through the TV screen as a kid. I eat stuffed mushrooms despite the fact that it feels too much like I’m eating Phanto from Mario Brothers 2, the evilly-smiling little bastard. Trauma going away on its own is not a typical outcome for most people, especially if schizophrenia is a factor like it is for me. Sure, you can take away the stimulus and hope for the Law of Diminishing Returns to kick in, but it doesn’t always do that. I have no solutions for your body horror trauma. As a matter of fact, I may have given you some of that as I described examples of how they make their way into my food.
Sometimes I think I’m the only one who experiences things like this until I Google it and find entire communities full of people who share my problems. But that’s assuming I’m not too lazy on any given day to use Google. It’s such an easy thing, yet I find myself too lazy sometimes to type words into a search engine. If you’re out there and you’re as food-minded as me, I’m sorry I can’t provide solutions for you other than the occasional animal picture and some digital hugs. You know who can provide more than that? Your therapist. They can talk you through your trauma. They can encourage you to face your food-themed fears. They can be there for you when you feel like others would laugh at your plight. Yes, therapy can be expensive at times, but it’s worth every penny if it means you’ll be okay in the end. If you’re not okay, it’s not the end. Life is better alive. It’s a dumb thing to say, but the truth won’t wane away. Okay, now I’m just ripping off quotes and lyrics. I should stop doing that before I get sent to prison for copyright infringement and have my vanilla pudding remind me of my cell mate’s semen. Uh-oh! More body horror!
I Hate My Brain
CHORUS 1
I hate my brain, I hate my soul
I gave the ghosts too much control
I hate my heart, I hate my mind
Yet I carry on like everything’s fine
VERSE 1
The skies were blue, now they’re vomit green
The oceans were cool, now they’re boiling me
My pixies and gnomes turned to demon spiders
My love goddess has Bundy’s babe inside her
PRE-CHORUS 1
What happened to me?
Death pornography
Oh no!
The only cinema that I see
CHORUS 2
I hate my soul, I hate my brain
I fall asleep just to numb the pain
I hate my mind, I hate my heart
Too many beats will blow it apart
VERSE 2
My cats were soft, now their fur is barbed wire
My dogs loved life, now they’re graveyard tired
All of my favorite songs sound about the same
All of my heroes wallow in sewage and shame
PRE-CHORUS 2
What happened to me?
Warped psychology
Oh no!
Mourning loss of creativity
CHORUS 3
I hate my shell of my former self
All I love burns in schizophrenic hell
I hate the future, I hate the now
I broke my promise not to bow
BRIDGE
Don’t keep stringing me along
Don’t say nothing’s ever wrong
Don’t keep giving me false hope
Don’t make this torture slow
CHORUS 4
I hate my demons, the shit they say
Telling me to die and just fade away
I hate my monsters, they’re beautiful
Stockholm kisses and fucks are suitable
FINAL LINE
Don’t keep stringing me along
I hate my brain, I hate my soul
I gave the ghosts too much control
I hate my heart, I hate my mind
Yet I carry on like everything’s fine
VERSE 1
The skies were blue, now they’re vomit green
The oceans were cool, now they’re boiling me
My pixies and gnomes turned to demon spiders
My love goddess has Bundy’s babe inside her
PRE-CHORUS 1
What happened to me?
Death pornography
Oh no!
The only cinema that I see
CHORUS 2
I hate my soul, I hate my brain
I fall asleep just to numb the pain
I hate my mind, I hate my heart
Too many beats will blow it apart
VERSE 2
My cats were soft, now their fur is barbed wire
My dogs loved life, now they’re graveyard tired
All of my favorite songs sound about the same
All of my heroes wallow in sewage and shame
PRE-CHORUS 2
What happened to me?
Warped psychology
Oh no!
Mourning loss of creativity
CHORUS 3
I hate my shell of my former self
All I love burns in schizophrenic hell
I hate the future, I hate the now
I broke my promise not to bow
BRIDGE
Don’t keep stringing me along
Don’t say nothing’s ever wrong
Don’t keep giving me false hope
Don’t make this torture slow
CHORUS 4
I hate my demons, the shit they say
Telling me to die and just fade away
I hate my monsters, they’re beautiful
Stockholm kisses and fucks are suitable
FINAL LINE
Don’t keep stringing me along
May 22, 2021
Easy Kill
CHORUS
Everyone’s a badass ‘til they’re lying on their backs
Every Chad is beefy ‘til he’s eaten like a snack
Taking you out will hardly require any skill
In the end, you’re nothing but an easy kill
VERSE 1
You got your black belt in Brazilian jujitsu
From a guy who teaches class on French ninjitsu
You’re the master of the art of Mexican kung fu
But when you ask for a medal, they say, “Fuck you!”
The only ring that you’ve ever been inside
Was the one that made your cock stand up with pride
Your chin is made of glass, knocked out on your ass
You’re the same as every slacker in junior high gym class
CHORUS
Everyone’s a badass ‘til they’re lying on their backs
Every Chad is beefy ‘til he’s eaten like a snack
Taking you out will hardly require any skill
In the end, you’re nothing but an easy kill
VERSE 2
You have thousands of confirmed kills in the army
But you had a bazooka, they had rakes for farming
I bet if I melted down your precious combat medals
I couldn’t buy a candy bar or coffee for the kettle
I’d pay for your medicine, but you voted against it
Because you want to be a good Confederate descendant
What’re you going to do when your leg snaps in half
When you run a marathon from your problematic past?
CHORUS
Everyone’s a badass ‘til they’re lying on their backs
Every Chad is beefy ‘til he’s eaten like a snack
Taking you out will hardly require any skill
In the end, you’re nothing but an easy kill
VERSE 3
Your life is like an arcade continuation screen
You’ve got ten seconds to put more coins in the machine
But even with another life, fighting games don’t teach
All the macho manliness that you love to fucking preach
EXTENDED CHORUS
Everyone’s a badass ‘til they’re lying on their backs
Every Chad is beefy ‘til he’s eaten like a snack
Taking you out will hardly require any skill
In the end, you’re nothing but an easy kill
Everyone’s undefeated until they lose clean
From a head kick turned horror movie scene
Everyone’s a champion ‘til the belt is gone
An easy kill like you could never last long
Everyone’s a badass ‘til they’re lying on their backs
Every Chad is beefy ‘til he’s eaten like a snack
Taking you out will hardly require any skill
In the end, you’re nothing but an easy kill
VERSE 1
You got your black belt in Brazilian jujitsu
From a guy who teaches class on French ninjitsu
You’re the master of the art of Mexican kung fu
But when you ask for a medal, they say, “Fuck you!”
The only ring that you’ve ever been inside
Was the one that made your cock stand up with pride
Your chin is made of glass, knocked out on your ass
You’re the same as every slacker in junior high gym class
CHORUS
Everyone’s a badass ‘til they’re lying on their backs
Every Chad is beefy ‘til he’s eaten like a snack
Taking you out will hardly require any skill
In the end, you’re nothing but an easy kill
VERSE 2
You have thousands of confirmed kills in the army
But you had a bazooka, they had rakes for farming
I bet if I melted down your precious combat medals
I couldn’t buy a candy bar or coffee for the kettle
I’d pay for your medicine, but you voted against it
Because you want to be a good Confederate descendant
What’re you going to do when your leg snaps in half
When you run a marathon from your problematic past?
CHORUS
Everyone’s a badass ‘til they’re lying on their backs
Every Chad is beefy ‘til he’s eaten like a snack
Taking you out will hardly require any skill
In the end, you’re nothing but an easy kill
VERSE 3
Your life is like an arcade continuation screen
You’ve got ten seconds to put more coins in the machine
But even with another life, fighting games don’t teach
All the macho manliness that you love to fucking preach
EXTENDED CHORUS
Everyone’s a badass ‘til they’re lying on their backs
Every Chad is beefy ‘til he’s eaten like a snack
Taking you out will hardly require any skill
In the end, you’re nothing but an easy kill
Everyone’s undefeated until they lose clean
From a head kick turned horror movie scene
Everyone’s a champion ‘til the belt is gone
An easy kill like you could never last long
