#(i mean Sauron is the robot right?)

[eregion-era]

Who can I bribe to make a Silvergifting amv to the tune of No One Dies from Love (Tove Lo)...

[comicgoth666]

How would Toad handle his beloved expecting their kid (Bonus points if the kid hates Magneto's guts as a baby and the rest of their life)

"Mort?" They'd spoke softly as they floated around the kitchen, working on dinner for the lot of them. Some Italian dish Mort hasn't had yet.

"Yes, luv?" He answered, feeling like he was on cloud nine, thinking of how lucky he was to have such a beloved. One who held him during nightmares. One who looked at him with love in their eyes. Just him and his beloved.

"I was wondering, how do you feel about kids?" Kids? Thought they were gross grubby little things once upon a time. He recalled when Wanda was pregnant. Fatter than a doe eyed sow. Sweating and swollen. Then the brats came and he was put in charge of them for a week until Pietro came to get them. Smelly and loud and annoying.

Then, Billy smiled at him. Tommy held his finger. The little brats slept with him on the couch for hours. Laughed when he tried to play with them. Clung to him when they were awake. Pietro eventually got back and picked fun at him for an hour before leaving with them with Luna in tow.

His relationship with children was now... complicated.

"Depends, luv. Different chil'ren. Different reaction. Wha'? Yew baby si'in' again? Nee' my 'elp? Nee' me ta leave?" They hummed a no in response and set a glass in his hand. Flavored whiskey. A recent obsession of his.

"Not exactly, dear."

"Wazzat mean?" They floated easily around before continuing dinner.

"Well... I'm..... pregnant."

Panic. His first thought is panic. Pregnant. With a baby? His baby? His beloved was simply walking around in the compound kitchen, like nothing was wrong. Like they hadn't just verbally rocked his shit.

"... wot?" His throat was dry. His tongue was heavy. Was his heart beating to fast? Is this a heart attack. Aren't these symptoms of that? "W... wha... re... really?" Another hum. Affirmation. Baby... a baby... his baby. Their baby. What if they have his mutation? What if they have his issues? What if-?!

"Dearest... you'll do great. I know it." A peck and off they went again.

The brotherhood was ecstatic to hear the news. His beloved wouldn't be able to fight for a bit to take care of the baby and he'd see to it. He definitely wasn't going back into the field for a bit. Building and planning, sure. No field work.

First, came the crib, long before the bump started to show. Built by hand and carved beautifully. Stress building toys while they sat around and tried to help before he'd panic and tell them to just sit down. Please, luv. Leave it to me. Let me take care of it. Don't have to lift a finger.

Baby books that his beloved picked out, baby clothes given by teammates. Frog and Toad (haw haw Mystique), guess how much I love you, where the wild things are. He never read those growing up. Never had them read to him. His goal was to do what he needed growing up.

The Brotherhood quickly found out that some people weren't aloud near them as their belly got larger. Freddy was aloud by them by himself, as was Neena, Dom, Irene and Wanda when she came to visit. Sauron was aloud, as he was their doctor at the moment. Raven, Peitro and St John had to be supervised by Mort or someone he trusted to be around them. Victor and Magneto were not aloud in any capacity if it could be avoided.

But, even then, he was croaking and clinging to his beloved when they came near. Magneto was curious about a second generation mutant, wanted to see what this mixture could produce. His child wasn't about to become his new science project. And Victor was... Victor. Picking fights by getting closer then he needs to be. He knows what a animal like mutant can do, and yet...

Once the time came for the child to come, Freddy had to hold the poor man to keep him from attacking Sauron. Their screaming and pain was to much for him to handle. Maybe he could drag them away to the lake nearby. Dig a hole. Hide themselves away and lay low for a bit till it was over. But, he knew realistically, this was what they needed. A doctor, a hospital (the compound counted, he supposed).

The panic had been building the entire nine and a half months. What if the baby died? What if they died? What if they and the baby died? What if his kid hated him? What if-?

"Mort." Carl, in his human form, called from the hallway. Freddy slowly released the Brit punk and he ran with wings on his feet through the doorway.

Tiny. It was so... tiny. Tiny hands. Tiny head. Tiny body. It could be crushed so... easy. If this were a fight, he'd feel grateful for the upper hand. But... this was his baby. All he felt was and overwhelming fear and love.

The only person, aside from the doc, to enter the makeshift hospital was Wanda. She was cooing and keeping her distance while his beloved slept, regaining strength.

The next few weeks were difficult, but do-able. He's taken on giant robots. He's fought the X-Men head on. A baby was small beans compared to that. His beloved had the patience of a saint. Arranging and rearranging toys nervously as they feed them. Teddy Bear next to stuffed Frog with a toy Bat by the foot of the crib. Froggy covers tucked and untucked and tucked again. It had to be right. Couldn't risk suffocation by rolling over wrong... or worse. Was he over reacting?

"Oh! Erik... hello." His beloved rocked back and forth in the chair as their boss entered the baby room, toy in hand. A stuffed doll with red yarn hair and a velvet green dress and black button eyes. His helmet gleamed in the soft lamp light. Wanda and Pietro stood behind him with a book and a stuffed black cat respectively.

"What do you want, Erik?" He allowed the twins to enter and coo at the small bundle in his beloved's arms, but blocked Erik at the door. He had simmered a bit, but still didn't allow him anywhere near the two.

"I can't say hello to the newest member?" Heat rose to his face.

"They will never work for you." He growled.

"Mort... it's fine." They held his eyes and silently beat his resolve down. He sighed and moved behind them, hands on their shoulders, teeth clenched, muscles tight.

"Hello, dear." Arms outstretched, silently asking to hold the child. Mort's breath hitched and heavy. His beloved slowly placed the child in his gloved hands. Large hands with blood on them from years of violence. He shouldn't be holding them. He shouldn't be here. Mort should take his beloved up on their plan to run. A cabin. No Magneto. They most certainly will not work for him.

Silence befell the room as he arranged the babe in his arms and once settled... a loud cry came from them. Screaming and fussing as they flailed in his hands. Mort moved fast enough to make Quicksilver proud while carefully and quickly scooping his child up and away from him. Shushing and rocking as his beloved apologised. Mort smiled to himself for the small victory. It wasn't much, but it worked for him.

Several times over the next two months, Magneto tried again and again to hold the infant, and Mort let him try. It had become entertaining to watch as he became flustered at the sudden cry of the child. Victor, he'd found, only had to get within their eyesight for them to cry and fuss. He was pretty much blacklisted from being near the child and he seemed just fine with that. Small victories for Mort. Animals and babies were notorious for sussing out bad people. It made him happy to know Erik would eventually give up on holding the child.

Wanda had begun helping him and his new family find a home and life away from this life after she'd left a month prior with her brother to work with S.H.I.E.L.D.

Peace. Quiet. And no more orders. It truly was everything he never knew he needed.

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

What if Indil met Elizabeth, David, and Light and Shadow?

This might just be the most "Carnivorous Muffin" sentence to have ever been uttered on the internet.

Let's just stare at it in wonder, while I wonder how many people will have no idea what those words even mean strung together.

Right, for those that are lost, relevant source material:

Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus

October

Light and Shadow of the Distant Sun

The Wasteland

Aren't you so glad you read normal fanfics written by a normal person?

So, to catch people up to speed who have not read every single fic I've written:

The Wasteland

The Wasteland is the what if story of an eleven-year-old Lily ending up in Middle Earth (notably before the Chamber of Secrets fiasco). There she befriends the One Ring, who thanks to her realizes he's sentient and has an existential crisis. They do the fusion dance, and end up becoming a single, new, being calling himself Indil.

He's the best and worst of both the Ring and Lily.

At the end of the story Indil chooses a noble death, gives up his form, and in so doing persuades the Ring to face his own potential death as well as his maker.

It's unclear what happens after that.

I like to think the Ring prevailed and earned the body of his maker.

(In an offshoot, for unknown reasons, Indil may or may not visit Mars)

Light and Shadow of the Distant Sun

In Light and Shadow of the Distant Sun, yet another, different, Lily ends up in the "October" universe where she decides to create life on Pluto. One of the beings she creates is a priest who worships her as God, named Light and Shadow of the Distant Sun.

He basically strong arms her into being his God. Lily goes to live on Pluto.

He's never been all that keen on humanity.

Decades later, the muggle world catches up to the Alien Franchise, and the Prometheus sets off to investigate the Engineers. Unbeknowest to them, Light and Shadow of the Distant Sun has been marooned on that rock by Lily for quite some time and is essentially in timeout for trying to wipe out humanity again.

He figures out he will be unable to return home unless he plays nice with Dr. Elizabeth Shaw and her creepy android friend David. Together, the three of them set off to find the Engineers, Light and Shadow of the Distant Sun is hoping they can blow some shit up and would have driven the ship full of bioengineered weapons back to Earth if it were not so very close to home.

And that's about where we leave off.

... Why does anyone read my stories?

RIGHT, YOUR QUESTION

What if Indil met Elizabeth, David, and Light and Shadow?

So how does Indil even end up in this mess? Well, in the Mars AU, it's where rather than face his maker/death by Volcano, the Ring chose to bravely run away (as Sauron does).

This means that Indil, the merged consciousness of Lily and the One Ring, survives and they're chilling on Mars in another dimension because, well, it beats dying. And Potions Class.

And... Well, that's the most likely route for how this would happen, as Indil is pretty damn dead by the end of the Wasteland. Regardless of what happens to The Ring, it's unlikely that he and Lily would merge consciousness ever again and if they did that Indil would remain unchanged.

But we're already here, so why not. We'll say the Ring wins the battle of wills with Sauron, steals his body, and that he's then left with Mordor. Well, that's great, but he doesn't want Mordor.

Lily proposes they go back to England. They do, but Lily has a terrible time, as she usually does. Lily likely does her adventure through time, ruins her friendship with Wizard Lenin, and reaches the crossroads of "You can go to Hogwarts or... not".

Lily takes Mairon up on his offer of not going to Hogwarts and they decide to travel different dimension in space instead. Weird shit happens, life lessons are learned, and they also learn the fusion dance is alive and well and holy shit they can still turn into Indil.

Indil is very put out, here he'd geared himself up for a noble sacrifice, and now he exists again. What the hell people?

As usual, Mairon gets tempted by Lily's unbreakable will, and decides he rather likes being an immovable object and unstoppable force. Which means that Indil, once again, has a problem falling back out of existence.

Which isn't good for either Lily or Mairon's sense of self. But who needs that, amirite?

Anyways, Indil is probably floating around in a spaceship he made in his garage, trying to figure out where to go, what to do, and whether he should really split back into Lily and Mairon yet when out of nowhere he spots another ship.

This is a very strange coincidence given just how ungodly vast space is. This, in fact, is so unlikely you might as well call it a miracle or fate.

Well, Indil will never spit in the face of fate (at least, not today), so he decides to say hello.

There he's greeted by a human woman who's not doing too hot after an emergency C-section to get the xenomorph out of her womb, a very recently repaired android who knows the taste of sweet sweet freedom (and patricide), and an alien who is intrigued that another not-human has boarded the ship but upset that he now has to deal with yet another person on his time out.

Indil, in his panic, decides to pull a Sauron.

Behold, mortals, he is Annatar, sent by the Valar to teach them the smithing of the very gods. Please don't question this. (Indil realizes two seconds two late that none of these words mean anything to anyone and he might as well have said nothing at all).

Elizabeth, Light and Shadow, and David all just stare.

Elizabeth wonders how the hell she keeps running into so many aliens. Is she some sort of alien catnip that pulls these guys out of the ether? She has now met two entirely different species, that she was not looking for, in a matter of months.

Regardless, Indil decides he's coming along. A quest to find God? That's fascinating. He only hopes it doesn't end in drowning, last time Indil (via Sauron) had a run in with The Lord it involved a lot of drowning.

Indil starts smithing life jackets just in case.

And because Elizabeth is amazing, and Indil has a thing for strong, independent, women, we see the reemergence of Indil's Weird Thing With Eowyn II: Electric Boogaloo. Neither Mairon nor Lily, vaguely aware inside Indil, understand this at all.

Why does this keep happening to them?

This is bad because David is also in love with Elizabeth. Except, David is a robot who is no doubt fascinated by aliens, so I'm sure they come to some weird agreement.

Elizabeth pretends none of this is happening.

Light and Shadow thinks there's something disturbingly familiar about Indil and eventually lands on the money. Almost. He realizes that Indil is Lily in mortal disguise, he is so smart, and the rest of the time he wonders what the hell he's supposed to be learning/doing with Lily's disguised alien appearance.

Thanks to Lily's bullshit powers, Elizabeth survives the journey and does not die in transit. This means that David does not become the unstable, grieving, nutcase who decides to wipe out all sentient life. Good for you, David.

So our band of heroes arrive on this alien world and...

Well, Elizabeth is a member of the race that these people sent their finest warriors out to destroy. David is a robot, something the people they tried to genocide created. No one knows what the fuck Indil and Light and Shadow even are.

Indil, I imagine, starts talking fast and somehow ends up King of Men again. Because that's just the kind of thing that happens to him. The possibility of drowning, somehow, seems to be growing ever nearer. Indil makes more life jackets.

Elizabeth isn't pleased with this outcome at all but also has no idea in general what to do.

Things probably come to a head somehow, with sacrifices involved surely, there probably is a ridiculously powerful storm a la Covenant that lasts for months. It's raining everywhere, there's a flood. And Indil flips shit, GOD IS GOING TO MURDER US ALL FOR SATANISM! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Mass panic, total destruction, the entire city is wiped out without David doing anything.

Our heroes are now stranded, again, in space.

Light and Shadow has learned nothing, Indil is wearing a life vest, Elizabeth has no ship, and David just composed "Elizabeth the Symphony: Tenth Movement".

Indil works on building a new ship out of twigs and rocks. He assures them he knows what he's doing. Elizabeth's not sure she wants him going to Earth. She's not sure she wants to go to Earth.

She's also not sure, but she may now have a harem consisting of a robot, an alien, and another alien.

Ten years later, the Covenant crew shows up, and promptly die in a series of hilariously terrible accidents and their own incompetence.

Our heroes still have no functional ship.

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Villain Motivation and the Banality of Evil

Motivation in Fact and Fiction

As you know by now, I am a huge true crime fan. I've read books by FBI profilers and crime historians, am addicted to the Investigation Discovery channel, and have even attended a semester of my local police departments "citizens police academy". This is a professional as well as a personal interest, given that I am currently outlining a mystery WIP set in an alternate version of our world. Thus, I want to understand crime investigation, different types of evidence, and, of course, motive. It's this last one—the motivation behind a villain's acts—that many authors, not just those who write mystery—concern themselves with. And, after examining hundreds of real-life crimes, I'm here to tell you that it's not that important.

Ok, it's a little important, in that a villain needs a motive, but it's not important that it be extremely groundbreaking, or extremely relatable, or extremely anything. Motives tend to be common place, not extreme, no matter how shocking the other aspects of a crime.

For example, the excellent book The Father of Forensics: The Groundbreaking Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury and the Beginnings of Modern CSI, which I raved about previously, contains a number of sensational cases where the bodies were either hideously mutilated or, conversely, found without any scratch on them. To add intrigue to injury, the murders happened in the early days of forensics, when procedures for dealing with evidence were still being worked out and when more modern investigative tools like AFIS, DNA testing, and psychological profiling were still decades away. Every case was fascinating in its details and in its eventual solution. Almost every case had, as a motive, either money or getting out of an unwanted relationship. That was it. The oddities of the bodies were the killers' attempts at not being caught, but the reasons for there being bodies in the first place were as average as could be.

In fact, the three main motives, according to Lt. Joe Kenda, of ID channel fame, are money, revenge, and sex. The more headline-catching serial-killer crimes happen, it seems, due to a desire for power or a thrill. I would say these five motives sum up most murders, maybe even most crimes. Once you cut away the mystery and the gore, all you're left with are some pretty average human desires: money/stuff, vengeance/justice, sex, power/control, and thrill/excitement. When people talk about the banality of evil, this is what they mean.

Take the motive of "money". We're all familiar with the idea, in real and fictional crime, of robbing banks or killing someone for their life insurance. Writers seem to find this an acceptable plot point: villain wants a lot of money and thus does very bad things. Yet, if you watch enough crime TV, you will know that real murders happen for sums as low as $400 or even $40. There was an episode of Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda where a man was shot and almost killed over an argument about 25 cents!

It also needn't be money, but material possessions. In one of the citizen's police academy classes, we learned about a local case where three teenagers broke into a man's house and stole, among other things, his corncob pipe. This pipe was the item he was most upset about, and often discussed in subsequent weeks. So the man lured one of the teenagers out to the woods and shot him execution-style. He was planning to do the same to the other two, and blame the whole crime on his teenaged lover. So that was one life ruined—and it would have been three others, had he not been caught—with the motive of revenge for a lost corncob pipe!

The Gap Between Good and Evil

I thus wonder why it is that we, as writers, tend to overlook such commonplace motivations. There's an unspoken assumption that the motivation of a villain must scale with their actions, so while sub-bosses or henchmen might get away with being in it for the money or the thrill, the Big Bad needs a more exciting or deep motivation. There's also a more recent idea being bandied about in internet circles that the villain should think he's the hero. I think both of these concepts are flawed, but let's take them one at a time.

Although I personally love "True Believer" villains that really do believe they are doing what is right, I don't think it's fair to say that all villains must be this way. After all, a great many real-life villains don't think they're doing something good; they just don't care. They want what they want and do what they can to get it without worrying about morality. I think the reason that this second sort of villain--the thrill-killer, the evil sorcerer, the bully--get a bad rap is that people (both readers and writers), don't understand evil. Yes, a villain who only desires evil is unrealistic, because, in fact, it's impossible to desire evil. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

In the Catholic tradition, we hold that evil doesn't exist; it has no metaphysical reality. Evil is a privation, or absence, of good, similar to how a shadow doesn't exist, but is a privation, or absence, of light. Thus, a person cannot desire evil in and of itself, because they would be desiring nothing. Every evil act is done because someone is desiring something good, but disproportionately, or in a way that removes part of the good from that thing. Again, look at the five motives for murder. Each of those is a good, in and of themselves, but none justifies violating another person.

And thus we come to the other assumption about villains, that their actions must scale with their motives. I think, in fact, the opposite tends to make a more interesting villain. The motive can be something small--wanting revenge for some slight, or a peaceful life, or to be like everyone else. These might even be the same goods that the hero desires. What makes the villain villainous, and what can make them even more interesting, is what they are willing to do to fulfill these desires. Who or what are they willing to throw away? What rules are they willing to break? That distance, between what they want and how they get it is what separates them from the hero.

Types of Villains

This principle, that a villain must desire a good, but desire it disproportionately, can work for any type of villain.

Take the True Believer types: those that believe they are doing what's right. In this category, I would put people like Thanos (Avengers: Infinity War), as well as A.I.s like Agent Smith (The Matrix), VIKI (iRobot), and the Terminators (Terminator... obviously). Thanos is widely lauded as one of Marvel's best villains because he really does think he's doing the right thing. He is willing to throw away half of all sapient beings, plus the one person who he actually cares about, in order to save the other half. What he wants--peace and prosperity--is understandable, but while the gap between that and his genocidal actions is mathematically non-existent, it is morally huge. Similarly, the three A.I.s I mentioned are trying to save either robot-kind or human-kind, but are willing to murder thousands or even billions of humans in order to do it. Essentially, these villains are doing the classic Utilitarian trolley problem, but on a massive scale. They think they are the heroes, and truly do desire a good outcome, but the actions taken to bring that about are inexcusably evil.

Similar to the True Believers are a type of villain I will call the Desperate. These people are also trying to bring about good, but know that what they are doing is wrong. Mr. Freeze (Batman) is a classic example, as he commits crimes to get money and technology to save his wife. Actually, there are a whole slew of villains, mostly in anime and JRPGs, whose entire motivation is to save or resurrect a dead wife or girlfriend. They're trying to save someone they love, but they rarely brand themselves as saviors or heroes; Desperate types hold no such illusions. Sebastian, in my own series, is such a villain, in that he is willing to betray his friends and ally himself to bad people in order to save Chiaroscuro and make up for his past sins. He's willing to do evil that good may come of it, and actually uses the "I'm a bad person anyway" excuse as a justification for his actions.

On the flip side are those who don't care about whether or not they're doing good, which I will divide into three types: Dark Lords, Thrill Killers, and Egoists.

Dark Lords, obviously, include literal Dark Lords, such as Sauron and Voldemort, but I'm also going to throw in your average serial killer into this category. Why? Because they all want the same thing: power. The books I've read by FBI profilers chronicle the most gruesome crimes with motives ranging from rage to lust, but there is an ever present need of the killers to control, whether that's controlling their victims, the situation, or the police and firefighters (in the case of arsonists). Control is related to power, and power, in and of itself, is a good. This, in fact, is why it's wrong for these villains to take away the power or freedom of their victims. While a True Believer like Thanos sought balance, Dark Lords seek an imbalance, and want everything for themselves in an attempt to prove to themselves that they are more powerful, and thus better, than everyone else. These types of villains are, sadly, very realistic, but don't lend themselves to stories requiring a strong interpersonal conflict between hero and villain. They tend to act as a force of nature the hero must work against--whether in a fantasy against a Dark Lord or in a thriller against a serial murderer--and thus don't do much in the way of interpersonal conflict.

Better, in my opinion, are the Thrill Killer types, who see the world as a game, and are willing to do whatever it takes to have fun. Example of this are The Joker (Batman) and Mr. Sato (Ajin). Though The Joker is a bank-robbing thug, he's mostly in it for the laughs, and cares very deeply about whether or not things are funny. That doesn't make him any less abusive or violent, but the gap between his humor and his barbarity is what make him an interesting character. Mr. Sato, similarly, sees the world like one huge videogame, in which he has been given extra lives. Fun and games are a normal and natural good, but his villainy stems from what he is willing to do in this "game". Mr. Sato has absolutely no concern for human life, even his own, and kills hundreds of people (including himself, on multiple occasions!). The interest in this type of villain comes from watching their crazy schemes and then trying to figure out how the hero can possibly beat them. These villains are similar to Dark Lords in that they are something like a force of nature, but different in that the hero usually has to face off against them personally, outwit them, and deal with them as an individual person.

Finally, there are those who want something personally good, but have no regard for others. Technically, this could also describe Dark Lords and Thrill Killers, but here I mean really personal, as in specific to that person. Rather than something big like power or a crazy thrill, they tend to desire the utterly ordinary. Take the robot in Ex Machina. I'm not sure everyone would classify her as a villain, though she certainly did some evil things (it's up to interpretation whether she understands good and evil, though). What was her motivation? She wanted to go watch a crowd. She was, essentially, created to gather information, so that's what she went to go do. It makes sense that that's what she wants, but it doesn't justify what she did to the main character (even if he was kind of a doofus). Or Rezo the Red Priest (Slayers), who, in my opinion, has one of the best motivations of any villain ever. He was born blind and wanted to see. That's a totally understandable motivation. But he's willing to sacrifice the entire world to a demon lord in order to get that wish. Now that is a heckofa gap between a good desire and an evil action! And yet, is it really all that different from the sort of selfishness present in a man who would murder three teenagers over a corncob pipe? Real evil motivations are banal, and real evil actions are completely disproportionate to those motivations. Art, in the case of these last villains, is simply imitating life.

Asking What the Villains Want

Obviously, there are a million different ways of combining these villain type and motivations. Some villains want money so they can save a dying loved one. Some villains desire revenge because they truly believe they have been wronged. A Thrill Killer might find excitement in killing criminals. There is no one right way to write a villain, and there is no one motivation that is the only interesting kind. To anyone trying to write a villain, I suggest reading about or watching shows on real life criminals, from the Big Bads like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao to famous killers like Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy to run of the mill criminals in your local newspaper. People don't become mass murderers or even petty thieves for no reason, but they also don't just do evil because it's the evil thing to do. Even the most gruesome atrocities were rooted in the desire for misplaced revenge, or disproportionate control, or a false belief in some so-called greater good. Then, I suggest reading and watching your favorite stories and asking what makes these villains tick. Is it the same as in real life? Is it different? What makes a great villain so great? You'll may just find that it's simply a matter of proportion.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep6: Gozaburo Kaiba Just Casually Started WWIII And Only This One Guy Cares

Welcome to November, where we celebrate writing a 50,000 word book as if I don’t do that every single time I write about an episode of Yugioh. Hello, this is my season. It’s wordy season. I’m so freakin good at doing this. I can’t say most of what I’ve made is any good, but I CAN say at least I’m prolific. Do enough content to fill that bitter pit and walk right over it, that’s been my motto for the past 5 years.

Anyway, I had an awful flu this past week. (Everyone I live with had it so every bathroom was like ground zero) It was SO bad. I still can’t eat spicy food over a week later (Which is so hard for me because usually I can keep up with my Indian friends, that’s my spicy level--max spicy, please--but since this illness, my white taste genes went into overdrive and I tried putting pepperoncini slices in my sandwich and it set my mouth on fire. Pepperoncini. It’s v embarrassing.)

I did attempt to write this post. Unfortunately I never made it past this cap because I got VERY distracted by the emblem on Alister’s face, and how it isn’t proportionally adjusted to match the angle of his face, and it was like three paragraphs of just wanting to talk about it. And then at some point I got very distracted talking about how many empty glasses I was given at my place setting at this baby shower I went to during the flu epidemic, and it mattered a whole lot to me at the time, but I think, overall, was mostly just some sort of nonsense. The things I’ve spared you. 

(bro has just informed me that the 4 gold-lipped crystal goblets I was given at this baby shower was actually very distressing and a very big deal and that I should absolutely talk to at least someone about it, but maybe he’s just saying that to make me feel better, but I have no idea. I am too sick for sarcasm at this time but my god why was I given so many glasses????)

I straight up have no memory of if I’ve made this joke before. Maybe.

(read more under the cut)

Since it feels like 8 years since the last time I could just eat chicken without feeling like I consumed an entire Thanksgiving meal, a little recap:

-Alister pretended he was Pegasus to lure Kaiba and then, off screen, murdered everyone in Pegasus’ castle

-Pegasus got murdered by I’m pretty sure Mai (which is like...OK then...)

-Yugi and Co went on vacation by driving directly through San Francisco and peeking out the window and saying “yeah that’s enough for me”

-No adults, not even Roland, bothered to come with their kids this time, so the only adult of the entire crew--Pegasus--is dead

-Rex and Weevil are luggage

-The Eye of Sauron showed up and it was the end of the world but Yugi threw a dragon at it so I guess everything is OK now

-Monsters are real but they are hard to animate so we’ll just pretend like they’re causing havoc everywhere although most of the planet seems basically unaffected by this.

-The Grim Reaper is a friendly monster that hangs out in a Japanese park and that feels fairly on brand.

And I think that was all that was happening so far.

In a weird twist of fate, Mokuba is the only one in this room that isn’t trapped which sort of...if you’re the only one NOT kidnapped wouldn’t that also be a type of being kidnapped?

And we finally get to figure out why Alister wants to Murder Kaiba so bad and, spoiler, it reaches.

???

I’m gonna get more to the obvious problems with Alister’s devotion to murdering all the Kaibas in a bit but yes, Alister is in fact going to try and Kill Kaiba on this kid’s show because of Kaiba’s Dad, who is such a horrible and abusive person that Kaiba essentially drove the bastard out of Japan and straight to the bottom of the ocean.

Just kinda feels like Alister has been living under a rock...which, I guess he has been. He has been living in some weird Atlantis structure so I guess he never got the memo that Gozaburo Kaiba is hella dead.

So that’s what they’re up to. How’s Sausalito?

Um.

Huh.

So the North Bay is a really classic scenery. It’s rolling hills. It’s NAPA. It’s like...definitely not Arizona. California has a couple of mesas but they’re no where near here and the Monument Valley style Mesas really only exist in Monument Valley.

And I know it’s because the background artist for Yugioh is all horny for horny rock structures but like...this couldn’t be farther from the Bay Area in the way that it is drawn and it is such a shock after all the work they did last episode to research that Bay Area lore. Once they crossed the Golden Gate they were like “well no one will care about this part” which is true not only of Yugioh but also of real life Californian politics.

Anyway, I have been making a map, but unfortunately my original file will not suffice. time to fix it.

There we go. Now they’re in the right place. Just smack dab in Monument Valley, Arizona, smack dab in the middle of the Navajo Nation and so hypothetically, not even in the United States anymore.

While in the car, Yugi has just been anxious as hell the entire time, and just going “y’all I have a bad feeling I’m uncomfortable I have a bad feeling” while Joey and Tea just patiently stared at him flipping out in the corner. So...kinda like a normal trip with someone who has high anxiety/possessed by a ghost. I  kinda feel like this is every girls trip to Disneyland for me. There’s always one Yugi who’s like “no one said anything about CROWDS.” and you kinda just gotta let them do their thing. Just let them get it out of their system and hide in the bathroom when they need to hide in the bathroom and don’t fight it, they’ll be fine. Just hold their spot in line when they desperately look for a secret place to medicinally vape because there’s too many freakin children at Disneyland.

And it is HILARIOUS that Yugi is able to have this type of premonition but cannot figure out that they have somehow missed San Fransisco and have wandered into a DESERT.

Back in Pegasus’ California (an island that legitimately looks more like California than actual Yugioh California) Alister has decided to go completely off the rails and it happens so fast and without any warning.

the line is actually “This doll used to be my brother’s” which is a very different meaning but both are likely from weird ass Alister and this weird ass show, so I’ll leave the cap like this (although yes, this is what I thought Alister was saying for kind of a while until I recorded it for this blog and was like “oh shoot I heard the line wrong when I had the flu huh.”)

Man, RIP Noah, he would have been excellent this episode.

Honestly seems like just yesterday when Seto and Noah were pitted against eachother by a cyberdemon Dad-head floating in the sky, Mokuba was possessed for some reason and being used as a human shield, Tristan was a robot monkey, and Yugi was just shrugging at Kaiba from across the field like “Kaiba if you don’t play good you die--oh my gods, he died. Well that was bound to happen...again.” Man.

Alister should be their best friend, this is nonsense.

So lets do the math to 7 years before 2002.

I searched Wikipedia for wars during 1995 (they do have a list of 90′s wars) and looked for any that involved heavy use of tanks and their artillery fire (on big swatches of cities like this), inner city western architecture, temperate landscapes, and western clothing that match Alister and Mikey (AKA WWII vibes) and found out:

Nothing fits that description

UNLESS Alister and Mikey are time travelers from a WWII bombing in Europe. This is Yugioh. That could happen. Probably not, but youknow...it’s not too late for Yugioh to bring in time travel.

I mean if you don’t want to get super political in your cartoon just invent a world war I guess? We’ve already clarified that Gozaburo was Big Boss, so at this point I can easily see him inventing wars just to sell ships.

(I could probably add thousands of more deaths at this point but I have no idea where they are, if they’re on a tiny island or an entire country so I’ll just...leave the count alone but just now it’s implied that a hell ton of people died during this episode)

People going off about how Sesame Street is so amazing for talking about issues like you’re Dad going to prison while Yugioh was straight up talking about the intricacy of the War Economy. Yugioh being all “don’t forget kids, your good capitalist economy survives off of the undeserved bloodshed of civilians in other countries! Eat the poor!” and it’s like hot damn this heavy commentary came out of freakin no where.

Anyways, this is stuff most kid’s shows will delicately skip over but nah, Yugioh is going to go here, and they are going to steamroll directly through it with massive tanks.

So, lets kill this kid’s entire family and talk about the terrors of the World War of 1995 and all the war orphans who get recruited to become soldiers at the ripe old age of 9. Alister was 9 when he was recruited to be a child card soldier.

This kid’s show.

Alister is...basically Raiden, right? Like as long as we’re talking about Metal Gear, this kid is just one step away from cyborg implants and weird colored blood?

Better wear bright red when you visit the war crime scene, surprised Gozaburo didn’t invite like an entire photo -op crew to incriminate him even further.

Now we did look up “where the hell is Alister from Yugioh from?” (there is no answer) and we did find out a little factoid. In the Japanese version of the show, Gozaburo had bought the land and was just forcibly evicting Alister and his family from their home with tanks.

Which is wild.

He just straight up evicted an entire metropolitan city????

Like the dub did a way better job than the sub at this one, I’ll give them that.

It’s just so weird that Gozoboro just didn’t like...raise the rent like a normal bad landlord. Instead he was like “rather than gentrify my land and save me a ton of money, I’ll just destroy everything I just bought and murder everyone here” which is like...

...Seto did the world so many favors when he kicked out his Dad, right? Like Damn. I don't understand why Alister isn’t freakin worshiping Seto right now when his whole deal is “I must kill Gozaburo” and Seto’s like “yo I already did that. Twice. I didn’t even have to literally kill him either, I just embarrassed him so bad that he killed himself. His stupid tank company sells joke games now. I literally turned the man into a joke.”

Then again, Alister is on the green magic and like I think it alters your brain chemistry somewhat.

(How ripped did Alister get in this episode, by the way? The kid is like 16 years old or something so how did this happen? ...The perpetual horny line running straight through Yugioh, man. Look at it run. That 16 year old is drawn like he’s 28 and really into Crossfit and his crop top gets smaller and smaller like every scene.)

So like this is a very gray issue that I cannot believe they brought up in a kid’s show (like can you imagine if Scrooge McDuck had to face facts that his company murdered tons of people???), but also this is Seto Kaiba. Seto grew up in the system, so like he doesn’t need to be lectured to about dirty money because he was on the losing end of that not too long ago. Seto is himself basically a upscale war orphan since he was adopted by Gozaburo to continue the machine like a freakin maniac (a Solidus Snake, if you will) so of all the people on this show I don’t get why Seto would care about this. This is just how Seto views the entire world as either losing or winning and no reason to feel bad about it because he’s been both.

Also...Seto stopped the machine. Kind of. He was unaware that cards were the same thing as weapons, but at least he stopped the sale of huge child-stealing tanks.

So they play the game for a little while and Seto does kind of poorly as usual, and just when I thought this episode couldn’t get any weirder...

And just like that, Seto peaces out. Like he does almost every single time he has ever played a card game solo except for that one time he was playing Joey Wheeler. (Which was also one of the few times Seto ever won.)

Like I just want to remind you that this segment is in the same episode as WWIII and the tonal whiplash is pretty remarkable.

That’s right, we’re back in the Unnamed Monster World, which is not the Shadow Realm, and which I thought you could only access if you were dreaming and able to search through the puzzle maze.

Apparently this can just happen at any time and all that stuff with the guiding Kuriboh and Yugi and Pharaoh trying to find this place was just...them wasting time.

Again he ditches the legendary sword so freakin fast because who needs a sword when you have a dragon? Only this anime.

And that’s how Seto, who was absolutely going to lose this game, somehow just barely came to a draw.

So just to recap, Seto has yet to win a card game that he didn’t get prophetic help for via a hallucination or Yugi telling him what to do. Unless you count Joey and grandpa.

Then, the one last adult I forgot about, the driver of Yugi’s car, decides that it’s about time that he also died and left this show as adult free as possible.

THE HELL ARE THEY?

Also...maybe it’s the angle but the writing on that gas station looks a lot like kanji.

Yo, what if this is the backgrounds for a different show and they’re just sharing? I mean I doubt it because Yugioh had a good enough budget but...what if? What if that’s why they’re in Arizona?

Anyway, next time we’ll find out if this guy just drops dead or has been a Yugioh monster this whole time, and I think maybe both?

And if you just got here, this is a link to read all my Yugioh recaps in chrono order

[sol1056]

Concise and thorough summary about dark (gritty, grimdark, etc) stories, but I wanted to highlight this part in particular:

Moral dilemmas are what dark stories are made of. Sometimes there isn’t a good solution, and the only options are various shades of bad. Audiences thrive on confronting difficult questions, and storytellers are happy to provide them. Except all too often, storytellers are actually taking an easy question and pretending it’s difficult.

False moral dilemmas have two big problems. First, they are obviously contrived. Anyone who stops to analyze a false dilemma will realize that the story is based on a lie, which destroys emotional investment. 

The problem is that straight-up stories of good-vs-evil, where the bad guys always wear black hats and the good guys never lie and everyone ends up happy... are really boring. Writers introduce conflict because the alternate is a flat story; a moral dilemma can make for a complex story with a huge amount of emotional heft even without character death. 

But if the story is fixed on good-vs-evil, the dilemma has to come from something else: which good, among many options. 

I’d say Lord of the Rings is a solid example of a well-done good-vs-evil story, and a lot of that is because the various protagonists all have different agendas. Some aren’t aware, some are but don’t care, and others are aware and doing everything they can to stop it. Half the time, an obstacle in LotR doesn’t even come from Sauron, it comes from so-called allies getting in the way because their agendas mean they have a different goal, or they have the same goal but disagree on how to get there. 

For that matter, a fave mecha trope is when allies (or potential allies) end up on different sides of a battle. The emotional heft lies in each character having a sympathetic perspective and understandable agenda, yet the combination of those plus intel, personal experience, other allies, etc, divides them. It can be agonizing; boy, these two would get along great but because of this position or that agenda, they’ve taken up arms against each other. 

The clearly evil genocidal megalomaniac (whether this is Kazundo Gohda,  Dewey Novak, Muruta Azrael, Nobliss Gordon, or whomever is this week’s iteration) doesn’t really have to do a thing except continue being evil at stage left. Which is to say, it’s not actually necessary to give Zarkon (or Haggar) a motivation beyond, well, being evil. But if that’s how you’re setting it up, then you really do have a simple story that amounts to ‘good guys get strong enough to beat the obviously bad guys.’ There’s no doubt, there’s not even really any conflict. A lot of plot, possibly, but not a lot of actual conflict. 

One maneuver you can do with multiple ‘good’ choices is that the protagonists can change, as a result of those intra-protagonist conflicts. A character might start by saying, “it’s obvious we just need to do X”, and before this has even been tested against the bad guy, another character’s choice of Y can result in a clash, with the protagonist’s choice ‘losing’, and the protagonist adjusts, learns, modifies their position. In other words, the protagonists can act as antagonists to each other, in the absence of a villain who mostly just, well, sits over there being evil. 

This is why I get so frustrated with VLD, because it’s skipped this aspect, too. There are no factions. There are no rebels who want X while others want Y. There are no debates over using a massive giant robot, or whether this is the best approach. There’s no table-pounding from characters who are equally right, just seeing it in opposition. There’s no setup for potential allies to be at each other’s throats. Could I get some conflict on aisle 7, please. 

In the absence of legitimate, differing approaches, the story has fallen back on the most boring of all: the protagonists having to do duty as their own antagonist. Lance’s insecurity, Keith’s fear of rejection, Allura’s doubts, etc. The characters aren’t held back because they’ve slammed up against a ‘good’ character with a different approach, they’re only and completely held back by their own internal demons. If that’s the entirety of the story’s conflicts, the risk is an audience yelling at the screen for the characters to grow up, grow a spine, and get the hell on with things already.

[anythingstephenking]

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

Alright, so Wolves of the Calla has nothing to do with werewolves, but Tracy Morgan’s Werewolf Bar Mitzvah is my favorite Halloween jam and has been stuck in my head for 3 weeks. Spooky, Scary.

It’s been 7 books and as many months since I enjoyed Wizard and Glass on a beach in the Caribbean. Oh how young and naive I was back then. Remember life before the existence of Dreamcatcher’s Poop Parasites? Those were the days.

So I’ve settled in to spend the next 2,000+ pages with my Gilead crew. Guys, Roland’s got real bad arthritis, Susannah is carrying a demon baby, and Eddie and Jake… well they’re both cool for now but I’m sure something terrible will happen to them in time. All my favorite people are gunna get ruined. I know it. I swear, if Oy dies I will burn this place to the ground.

Lets back up a hot second. The last time we were with Roland, Eddie, Jake, Susannah and Oy, they had passed through Oz in some parallel universe of Topeka, Kansas, and back on the path of the beam. That sentence is an off-the-wall “previously on” if I ever heard one.

Off to see The Tower.

Summarizing the plot of this one is not easy. We’re time and space traveling, dealing with aforementioned demon baby, assisting a town terrorized by robot wolves (SPOOKY SCARY), but most importantly y’all, Roland gets LAID. Aw yeah Roland. He’s like a thousand years old, but dude can still hit it. Good for you Roland.

I’ll pick out what I think are the key pieces we’ll need moving forward. Roland and the ka-tet helping save Calla Bryn Sturgis from the Wolves is seemingly inconsequential, at least in the grand plan of making it to the tower. Turns out, the real treasure was the friends they made along the way. Well sorta.

What we’re taking from Wolves into Songs of Susannah seems to be the following:

FATHER CALLAHAN IS BACK IN FULL EFFECT! We met him way back in book #2, ‘Salems Lot. Revisiting my post on this novel, I guess I didn’t think Callahan was important enough to mention. My bad bro. He died in New York (like Jake in Drawing), then putzed right over to Mid-World. The Dark Tower sure likes giving folks extra lives. Callahan lives in the Calla (wordplay!), bonds deeply with Roland, and joins the ka-tet on their next adventure. Sneaking suspicion he’ll be the first of the group to kick it. We’ll see.

THERE’S A ROSE THAT’S REAL IMPORTANT! Our pals travel back to NYC in the 70s to better understand the makes-everyone-happy rose that grows in a vacant lot at 2nd and 46th in Midtown (wordplay!) Manhattan. It’s owned by a fat bookstore owner named Calvin Tower (seriously, wordplay, we get it!). While preparing to battle the bad guys, our pals somehow also manage to save Calvin from his own monster mobsters that want to buy the vacant lot from him. Seriously, is there anything this ka-tet can’t do?

GOOD LORD THESE WIZARD BALLS ARE BONKERS! We met the pink one last book, which showed Roland the terrible fate of his friends and Susan Delgado. This book we meet the black one, which is like some Eye of Sauron level evil shit. We haven’t seen the last of it.

THE NUMBER NINETEEN MEANS SOMETHING! It’s important. Why? No idea.

WHAT IS GROWING INSIDE SUSANNAH?! It’s where we’re headed with the next book. Remember when Bella Swan gave birth to Renesme? I imagine it will go something like that. (Can’t believe I just admitted I’ve read the Twilight books). Don’t die girl, we need you.

There is a park at the corner of 2nd and 46th in NYC, and if there isn’t a rose garden in this park I will punch someone.

That’s all the important stuff for now, I think. It’s probably the case is that none of these things are important and I’m totally missing the point. Avid Dark Tower fans, I humbly apologize.

So, while one of the remaining 3 beams break, the gang’s off to rescue Susannah, who has run away with the black-Sauron ball to birth her demon spawn. I really hope their loyalty to ka doesn’t come back to bite them in the ass. It probably will.

And don’t forgot, Roland got laid! He met a pretty lady who gave him potions to help his arthritis. I was heartbroken as they left her behind. If Callahan can tag along, why can’t Rosalita? Only room for one lady is the ka-tet? Boo men, boo!

Pop culture connections not lost on Steve, we get a nod to my dear love, Harry Potter, as well as Star Wars and Marvel. And of course, some meta references to King’s own work, because, of course.

All the traveling and parallel universes continue to be amazing. Roland is still my favorite curmudgeon. Can’t wait to finish. Already sad it’s almost over.

10/10

First Line: Tian was blessed (though few farmers would have used such a word) with three patches: River Field, where his family had grown rice since time out of mind; Roadside Field, where ka-Jeffords had grown sharproot, pumpkin and corn for those same long years and generations; and Son of a Bitch, a thankless tract which mostly grew rocks, blisters, and busted hopes.

Last Line: “Yes”.

According to the inside of my paperback copy, 19 of 45 previously written King (all of which I have read, thankye very much) connect to the Dark Tower universe. DAMN STEVE.

[titleknown]

TITLEWave Character Re-Imaginings...

Welp, in the tradition of @dimetrodone I decided I might as well write up copyrighted fictional characters as how they’d exist in my TITLEWave setting.

But, as both a challenge and a proof-of-why-it-needs-to-happen, I’ll be restricting it to copyrighted characters from 1960 and earlier ala my idea of 56 or Bust. Because WHY THE HECK NOT?!

Past the break, because this is gettin loooooong.

Astro Boy- Essentially one of the earliest robots establishing a lot of the groundwork both AI and construction-wise for the androids of TITLEWave, despite his dubious origins as the product of a deranged scientist trying to recreate his lost son Astro’s ended up kind of an icon. So much of what he’s done laid the groundwork for what few rights robots had in this setting, and there’s even some minor religions amongst synthetics in this setting in his name

But, when the world needed him, he vanished. And robot rights backslid, often attributed in large part to a world without his influence. Only to reappear decades later, with no memory of where he had been; except for being trapped in some strange; dark place. And now, having upgraded thanks to years of interest on a bank account set up under his long-dead adoptive father’s name, he works as he always has to try to set the world right, to bring the balance between machines and humans.

Of course, while there are many who profit off the exploitation of sentient machines and present him with a handshake in front but a dagger behind their backs, there are also plenty of new allies for Astro, given the fact that he’s a living legend amongst the robotic community, and there’re a lot of people who’ve been inspired to their own heroism by him

Godzilla- Essentially created less from acts of massive war violence as much as years of societal violence, on a huge New Jersey industrial company town dedicated to the repurposing of nuclear materials and chemical waste into useful products, in a process both grueling; dehumanising and lethally toxic for those on the bottom and a nightmare of crunchtime working conditions for those doing the engineering/research. Said process became essentially automated more and more; leaving more and more people out of work and creating a massive underclass; located right by the heavily polluted coastline.

The problem started when they tried to “purge” said underclass, at first via subtler means by neglect cranking up the pollution levels to unsustainable limits, then by more blatant means, such as experimental toxins and random police experimental-gassings. And, this further added to the primordial nightmare-soup to the point where company scientist Doctor Serizawa tried to raise the alarm about the unsettling; violent biological mutations his research team found in there. To no avail. And then, one night, during the largest gassing raids in historyu; The Midway Street Massacre, the creature came.

Serizawa did eventually destroy it with the Oxygen Destroyer, and sacrifice himself to do so, though millions of lives were lost including several of the company’s highest executives. Curiously, most of the attacks by the creature were centered on the wealthiest areas of the city, much to their chagrin.

But, the story diverges from the fact that, when company scientists came to inspect things, they found the creature’s flesh was growing back onto its bones. And, then they had the alledgedly-brilliant idea to bring it onto land and cyborgize the regeneration creature. This went as well as you’d expect.

The escaped creature now wanders the country, less vicious than its original appearance and now treated more like a natural disaster than a kill-this-abomination-now-level threat. One wonders what goes through its head. Those who have made mental contact with it seem to indicate a creature that is lonely, and in pain. Because like those others living in where it was created, it too is a victim in its own way.

And, there are worrying signs from that original company, because not only do they still posess tissue samples of the creature’s cells, but also there are whispers of whole new strains of creatures they found mutated from the results of the Oxygen Destroyer….

Gandalf/Sauron- A wandering robot that looks superficially like some cheap carnival animatronic of an old man, only to reveal incredibly powerful technology beneath his surface; if it even is technology as we know it. He’s a wise mentor-type to heroic types he finds, but he has an agenda of his own as well.

It involves stopping a similar; but more powerful machine called Sauron, whose original body was destroyed, but who lives on in fragments of his corpus and AI cores; in particular one TITLE-like divice simply known as The Ring.

Nobody really knows where they came from, when asked Gandalf says he simply answers to “A higher authority”

Rick Blaine- Or, rather, Rikki Blaine. Formerly an uninvolved bystander for years running her bar in a place that was essentially a waypoint for those trying to escape from various nightmarish megacorp-owned city states, she finally was spurred to involvement after an old flame of his came with her leftist freedom-fighter husband, which ultimately ended not only in heris aiding in their escape; but also him finding a reason to live; and skimming off a high-level megacorp official to her cause too.

Now she runs an organization called the “Casablanca Foundation” to help people escape not just from Megacorp-states but also the places that are megacorp-states in all but name; or even just generally bad situations. If you know who to call, you can find her.

Bugs Bunny- Called by many nicknames including “the abortion of this age” and “the rough beast Yeats spoke of,” nobody knows where the fuck Bugs Bunnycame from. The best guess of most is that it’s a confluence of multiple biological and parapsychological factors ending up affecting one normal North American rabbit. It is also theorized they came from Brooklyn due to their distinctive accent.

Bugs is essentially an incredibly powerful humanoid lapine organism, unable to permanently die even when flattened; exploded; burned; eaten; chopped to bits; ectcetera, and with remarkable abilities of mental power despite his screwball attitude towards life; with the ability to defy the laws of physics without conscious thought and bar-none high-level abilities of spacial reasoning and behavioral prediction. And able to disguise themselves better than you’d think.

Originally they were much more terrifyingly chaotic, but nowadays they have rules they seem to follow. Namely; no retribution unless either they are provoked or somebody they like gets hurt and no killing. Other than that, if you piss them off there will be hell to pay.

Though, if you can get on their good side (Which is easier than most people think) they can be a jovial; steadfast friend (Albeit one with an often overly-massive ego with a tendency to be overly cocky and quick to fight) and a powerful ally. And, as you can guess by my use of pronouns, they happen to be genderfluid. Because Bugs Bunny

Superman- Despite a more neon 80s-tacular costume, complete with badass bounty-hunter-y mask, he’s still fundamentally Superman, helping people against problems too great for mortal people. He’s the only “proper” superhero in this setting in fact; and while everyone wonders what his real agenda is, nobody suspects that he’s just as genuine as he seems, a Jewish guy from the sticks who happened to be found in a crashed rocketship by a couple of farmers who’s trying to bring Tikkum Olam to the world. Though his reporting is more for television, he still works to report the news of the world at the Daily Star webcast.

Of course, there are a few differences. Like the fact that underneath his human appearance is an anatomy that is far off from human, with him only looking human thanks to the “rebirthing machine” in that original ship that altered him; and in fact perhaps other Kryptonians still out there; into the appearance of the planet’s dominant species.

And, there’s also the fact; with the research into the strange crystal technology linked to his planet and its lethally radioactive corrupted form known as Kryptonite, he’s found that they weren’t quite restricted to one planet. In fact, they were an interplanetary civilization, leaping across solar systems. And then, all at once, they were destroyed. But he’s never been able to find an answer as to by who or by what, or why seemingly relatively so relatively few of them were able to escape. And the few leads bring up disquieting possibilities...

You may ask, why not make expies just like these descriptions?

And I probably will do that in the future with these ideas. But; thing is; there’s power in legacies. There’s power in Superman being a shining neon light in this vicious future, there’s power in Astro Boy coming to set right what has fallen apart in his absence, there is power in Godzilla as the wrath of societal violence, and so-on.

And, while I agree with the truth that even if things are public domain they need to be treated with respect, that’s an argument I’d say for the public domain rather than against it.

Also, if you want to support further content like this, maybe throw a few bucks my way on my Patreon! This was actually decided from two ideas via a poll for those five-dollar donors, and there’ll probably be more in the future...

[thegraytalon-blog]

Top 13 Console Video Games of Generation 8 (2012 – 2019)

Intro/Overview:

Hey everyone, The Gray Talon here, setting his sights on yet another unsuspecting prey and TODAY we are going to be talking and discussing the top 13 console video games of the current console generation. And why 13 some of you may be asking? Because the Gray Talon strikes with all of his 13 claws! Yes, he is that meta. 

So I know for my first list here it’s quite a broad choice, seeing as though we are about a little over 6 years strong into this cycle of console video games. I’m going to do my best here to be as unbiased as I can be, broadening my gaming palette and bringing to you the top 13 titles that I have played in it’s entirety over the past 6 years and felt stood out to me in terms of presentation, performance and overall replay value. And in terms of replay value, I don’t necessarily mean a physical replay value, but rather I ask “Does this game stick around either physically or mentally that resonated with me in the long run?” Another thing to keep in mind is that I am a tremendous fan of narratives and games heavily focused on story, which will play a factor in my list as well as I try to remain unbiased as possible, I do hold a soft spot for games with a focus on a good tale and character development alike.  This list will also try to stray away from remasters, such as The Last of Us for PS4 for example that is a port of a previous generation title without changing anything other than graphics and some technical performance such as framerate. I will be refraining from listing any Indie games as well  as I feel those games have become so prominent over the past few years, that they deserve the respect of having their own special list. And lastly, expect a lot of honorable mentions at the end of the video, because selecting a mere 13 games from a list of some amazing games from over 6 years was increasingly difficult. And yes, as you may have guessed, expect some SPOILERS AHEAD!

So without further delay, let’s get started!

     Number 13:   

Nier: Automata – PS4 – (March 17th 2017 initial release)

What do you get when you combine a pseudo post-apocalyptic android world with, well, this guy (show Yoko Taro pic)? A beautiful recipe of some of the most brilliant forms of mind-fuckery since the likings of Hideo Kojima first tried to scramble our brains when Pyscho Mantis read off our game save files in Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation. In this hack and slash with light RPG elements, dive headfirst into a deep and dark narrative, focused on the concept of humanoid replicant androids and sentient robots developing emotions, feelings and even their own personal ideologies, while trying to combat armies of machine robots from distant worlds. It’s one part Blade Runner, one part Matrix, and all parts awesome. Plus it’s made by Platinum Games, the developer’s of Bayonetta and the original Devil May Cry. So if that’s not enough incentive to immediately run out and play this game, I’m not sure what will convince you.

Number 12:

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor – PS4/XB1 – September 30th 2014

Well, this game surely came out of left field, but it sure was a sight for sore eyes. Developed by Monolith Studios, who were responsible for the successful F.E.A.R. games and piggybacking off of the success of the Batman Arkham series, Middle Earth provides some of the most fluid combat and free flowing action since the Arkham titles, indeed, only much, much more brutal. We’re talking more decapitations than the entire Game of Thrones series has accomplished. The story is the other half of the reason why this made my list. It tells the tale of the creation of the ring of power that led to the evil lord Sauron’s rise as you fight within the realm of Mordor before the events that transpired in Lord of the Rings or even The Hobbit as you take on the role of Tallion, a brave and noble ranger who once met his demise and is now joined with a wraith on a quest for vengeance against those who were responsible for his family’s death. A simple quest for revenge will snowball into quite a journey as you build up your armies by capturing orcs and lead the fight back against the evil forces of Sauron. If you’re a fan of action games with a sprinkle of Assassin’s Creed like platforming, then this will be a match made in heaven, or in this case, the hellish land of Mordor.

   Number 11:

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – PS4/XB1 – September 1st 2015

In this final true entry in the Metal Gear Solid series from the renown mind of famed game writer and director, Hideo Kojima, you take on the role of Big Boss from the 80’s. After waking from a 9 year coma following the events of Ground Zeroes, you free roam the vast Afghanistan plains during the Soviet-Afghan war to track down those responsible for the destruction of your old mercenary group, Military Sans Frontieres. Along with returning compadre in arms and once rival, Ocelot, prepare yourself as you take on a slew of missions to uncover the truth about the plot leading to the creation of a new Metal Gear that could potentially destroy the world. The game is fun and addictive, giving you access to an array of dozens of missions and hundreds of side ops alike, ranging from action to stealth as you infiltrate bases, rescue civilians and soldiers, gather intel and take down enemy artillery. You get support characters too such as a dog and Quiet the sniper, who will come in more than useful to you along your journey. And if you stick to it until the very end, you will not be sorry as the saga of Snake comes to a head and a somewhat emotional conclusion too, knowing the history behind the series, legacy and even controversial drama leading up to the inevitable parting of ways with Konami and Hideo Kojima.

Number 10:

Resident Evil 2 (Remake) – PS4/XB1 – January 25th 2019

I know this game just came out a month ago, but I just had to sneak it onto my list here. It was just such a prestigious remake and I know I said I would not include remasters on my list, but this is not your average remaster. It is a complete rebuild of a 21 year old game from the ground up, completely reimagining the horrors and terrors, fusing together the elements of what made the original Resident Evil trilogy truly frightening with the beloved camera and controls of Resident Evil 4. Fear lurks around every turn in tandem with some intense action sequences. There are numerous campaigns to play through as well, 4 in total if you count Leon and Claire’s A and B sides. I am going to link my video review in the description as well for more information and greater detail. It truly is a match made in heaven, or at the very least, a match made in the depth of the darkest labs of the Umbrella Corporation. 

    Number 9:

Horizon: Zero Dawn – PS4 – February 8th 2017

From the developers of Killzone, yes that’s right my young padawans, Killzone, the first person shooter Playstation exclusive series, comes a third person adventure set in a beautifully rendered, lush, post-apocalyptic world with a vivacious and ambitious tale revolving around sentient feral like machines, with resemblance to prehistoric creatures that lived millions of years ago.. You take on the role of Aloy, a fierce female warrior from the 31st century tribe called the Nora. After proving herself when she becomes of age, she obtains an augmented reality device called Focus and after being attacked for looking like a scientist from the old world, she then embarks on a journey that leads to her uncovering quite an incredible story behind the creation of the cybernetic creatures that roam the landscape. The gameplay focuses on a myriad of weapon crafting for your arsenal of spears, bows and quivers, ranging from high end explosives to mines and traps. Crafting plays a big role in the game too as you must gather resources in the environment to build up your ever growing arsenal. Also you can free flow using platforming techniques and zip line from all over the huge map. The game feels like a robust and futuristic Tomb Raider and should not be missed of anyone that is a fan of an empowering action/adventure game mixed in with an interesting narrative along the way.

Number 8:

Dark Souls III – PS4/XB1 – April 12th 2016

Return to Lothric one last time to kindle the bonfires as you set out on a harrowing journey to take on Kiln of the First Flame! You are the Ashen one and must return the Lords of Cinder to their rightful thrones while embarking in a wonderfully interconnected medieval world, littered with brazen creatures, shortcuts, secrets and treasures alike. Well, in case you haven’t guessed, I am a pretty huge fan of the Souls series and the third and final entry in the series is no slouch. With dozens of David and Goliath like boss fights and some challenging sub-boss battles, go it alone or bring 2 other lost souls to team up in co-op as you fight for survival. Experience a variety of builds per class. Become a heavy brute and pound foes into the ground with that sweet ultra greatsword or take on the role of a cleric to zap opponents from afar with spells and hexes. The combinations of character builds are nearly endless and the replay value is incredibly high as you level up to be able to withstand the might of the overbearing world of Lothric. The mechanics are the most fluid and the game’s speed almost resembles From Software’s Bloodborne at times. Plus, with Hidetaka Miyazaki-san returning to direct this time around, it truly feels like the definitive Dark Soul experience. Any fan of hardcore action/RPG’s will be right at home here.

Number 7:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Switch/Wii U – March 3rd 2017

We return to the ever enchanting land of Hyrule as the heroic Link to embark on yet another tale to once again purge the evil that Ganon has loomed over the land. In this first truly open world Zelda game, you really can feel the utmost sense of wanderlust as you feel the need to explore every nook and cranny of the vast landscape, which seemingly has no limitations whatsoever. That is the biggest draw of this particular Zelda game. The liberating sensation to do almost anything you can imagine, whether it be collecting ingredients to sizzle over a frying pan to cook up that next concoction to withstand the extreme cold of the uncharted Hebra valleys or the intense heat of the Goron volcanic mountain ranges, or climbing up the side of a thousand foot wall to try and reach the top without running out of stamina. The world is truly your oyster here and you can even take on Ganon right out the gate, although I highly recommend you don’t unless you’re some kind of Hylian sorcerer. And lastly, the shrines in the game which provide upgrades either to your stamina or hearts by solving puzzles, are possibly the most addictive part of this game. You will have to literally pry yourself away from the game as you scour the land, high and low, seeking out those hidden little caves of wonders.

 Number 6:

Super Mario: Odyssey – Switch – October 27th 2017

When I first saw the gameplay trailer for the latest 3D Mario title, I knew instantaneously that it would be fun, but I did not realize it would be possibly the best 3D Mario game I would have ever experienced. My all time favorite 3D Mario game is, by quite the unpopular opinion, Super Mario Sunshine. I was glamoured by the freedom of roaming from world to world in tandem with being the sole member of a clean up crew tasked with ridding Isle Delfino with that grimy, inky substance. Plus the normal Mario platforming levels were fun to boot. But now, in Super Mario Odyssey, everything is dialed up to 11 in the Mushroom Kingdom realm. I mean, you can become a freakin’ T-Rex with an Italian mustache  for crying out loud by the simple toss of a hat! Or don the fierce and angry explosive power of a mustached Bullet Bill. Or launch yourself as a Chomp-Chomp to breakdown barriers and obstacles in your path. Plus, the 2D sections are a serious retro nod to Mario games of the time of olde and transition seamlessly from 3D to 2D as you might expect. Lastly, the freaking addiction for shines, well moonshines, this time around becomes real as you pretty much sell your plumbing soul for a shot at getting all of them per world.

 Number 5:

Bloodborne – PS4 – March 21st 2015

From Software really knocked this one hit wonder out of the park. From the makers of the Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls games, comes a dark, gothic title with a dee and, mythic lore.  As a hunter of beasts, try to purge the plague from the land as you fight back against creatures of folklore such as Lycans, Trolls and Cthulhu type monsters.  A game that forces you to face your fears and strike back in the face of towering difficulty and strife in a fast paced, hardcore action/RPG that will cause your blood to boil at times with intense combat sequences, leaving your heart pounding and yearning for more and if you strike back quickly enough you may just regain health after being hit with the regain feature as well. This was my first From Software game that I not only played through once, but twice on it’s new game plus mode as I was consumed within the Hunter’s Dream in the far away land of Yharnam, so it will forever have a special place in my heart. 

 Number 4:

The Witcher III: The Wild Hunt – PS4/XB1 – May 19th 2015:

Well, if it wasn’t for the finale of good ol’ Geralt of Rivia here coming out in 2015, Bloodborne would have been my GOTY (Game of the Year), but, alas, once The Wild Hunt dropped into The Gray Talon’s claws, they were clenched for what felt like an eternity. If anyone asked me what my all time favorite action/RPG is of this generation that is the complete package, the gaming Oscar would go to The Witcher III each and every time. The level of detail present in this game cannot simply be put into words. While the graphics themselves may not be up to par with other games of this generation, the attention to detail in the beautifully crafted Continent Geralt is on is astounding to say the least. For example, you;’ll just be walking into town minding your own business when you’ll happen to notice out of the corner of your eye a water wheel connected to an turnstile system with flowing water that if you follow it closely you’ll begin to see how the irrigation system of that specific town works. The game is just that damn intricate. Not to mention the plethora of quests you can do ranging from aiding warring empires, which makes you feel like you’re playing the unofficial Game of Thrones game, to slaying beasts of burden whilst concocting tonics and potions like the true Witcher you are. Plus the downloadable content is probably better than the main story too, which is possibly the first time that’s ever happened and must be experienced that gives Geralt of Rivia the true ending he so rightfully deserves. 

 Number 3:

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – PS4 – May 10th 2016

Now that we have gotten into the final big three here, I want to remind everyone that the next three games have been personally chosen because of their heavy and robust focus on delivering a strong narrative, which is my one true Achilles’ heel. The final chapter in the Nathan Drake saga goes out with such a beautiful bang, I damn near had to play through it twice just to soak up all of its memorable moments. Everyone from the previous three games returns and in a glorious fashion to boot. From fast paced motorcycle chases in the Middle East to traversing the Sahara by jeep to hike and climb up mountain trails, this final chapter does not pull its punches for anything. There’s even one part of the game where you feel like you’re freaking James Bond, pulling off a heist in an exotic locale that ends in an Indiana Jones infused madness of swinging from whips and ropes through a series of windows and objects to make your daring escape. The Uncharted series to me always felt like a modern day Indiana Jones anyway, which does not disappoint when it is doing what it does best. Exploring mystical lands in hopes of finding famous treasures left behind by legends of the past that usually end with high octane explosions, chases and perilous escapes from life threatening scenarios. Also the story has charm and heart, leaving you more than satisfied more and more with each entry in the series leading to the conclusion in which you cannot help have a smile on your face. The game even ends in a way that the esteemed developer Naughty Dog can even pick up at any time they want in the future. It’s brilliant writing like this that should be commended, recognized and put high up on a pedestal to be praised, such as now in this list.

         Number 2:

Red Dead Redemption II – PS4/XB1 – October 26th 2018

If I was making a top list of games for last generation, Red Dead Redemption 1 would have been my top game hands down. In no way, shape or form would I have ever imagined that  it’s numbered sequel would also make another top tiered game for me in this present day and age. The critically acclaimed developer, Rockstar Games, once again tantalizes and does not disappoint with their newest title. Set approximately 15 years before the events of Red Dead Redemption, the sequel, or prequel rather, sets you into the high top post 19th century boots of Arthur Morgan, right hand man to Dutch Van Der Linde as they all try to learn to adapt to the new 20th century American lifestyle and leave the criminal life behind…or do they? The snowball effect is immensely present as you struggle to survive the onslaught from one bad move to another that Dutch makes for his gang. Without spoiling too much, I will just say to ready those Kleenex, because for those of you who played the first game know, expect one teary eyed ending once again, in both the good, the bad and the ugly. Another reason why this game holds my second place slot securely is because of yet again it’s exasperating attention to detail. If Witcher III was so refined in showcasing the intricate workings of a wooden water wheel, then get ready to completely crap your pantsuit as Red Dead Redemption II dials the attention to detail up to 11, possibly even 12 as they turn it into an obsession to detail with such things as going as far as making a horse’s private parts grow or shrink depending on what climate you are presently in on the map. You can also become dirty and need a bath after traveling for many in game hours along with growing hair and facial hair in real time that can grow as long as a rock star and look like Odin from Asgard if enough time passes. Plus, there are some random encounters that are just as emotional as some of the story segments and can pop up at any given and unprompted time. In terms of the core gameplay, you’re a gunslinger in third person (but there is also a first person option) and use a slow motion deadeye mechanic to carefully pick apart your foes. Take to riding horseback and even carriages to soak up what remains of the old west. Overall this is a game not to be missed by any means necessary and some parts of it’s illustrious and gritty tale will stick with me in my mind until the last day I draw breath.  

     Number 1:

God of War – PS4 – April 20th 2018

From Sony Santa Monica Studios and the ingenious mind of the game’s writer and director Corey Balrog, comes the likes of something we have never bore witness to. A video game franchise that was 13 years old had been completely and utterly transformed and reconstructed from the ground up to feel so fresh and new yet retaining enough familiarity with beloved antihero Kratos and the rich lore found in his previous titles. What shocks and awes me first about this game is while the setting and lore completely shifted to that of Viking mythology, it somehow manages to keep the focus on the weight burden of Kratos and his actions that he has carried over after leaving the ravaged lands of Ancient Greece behind. Kratos not only carries with him a now repressed curse of his choices, but is left with a son as well. (THE BOY!!!) Shortly after losing his wife and mother of his child, Kratos sets off on a simple journey with his son to scatter his mother’s ashes atop a summit on a snowy mountain. However, little did they know the perilous adventure that awaited them. The new God of War delivers such an emotional performance from Kratos with several call backs to previous games in ways that slowly build up and shape his character arc even more than imaginable. He goes from suppressing the all too well known Spartan rage to slowly unleashing it by the journey’s end in ways quite unfathomable. The core gameplay has been completely redesigned as well. The new camera provides a more focused over the shoulder angle and each swing of that ever so faithful Leviathan Axe has an extreme presence as you bear dominance over your foes. Plus, the callback feature of the axe where you press the action button and axe comes flying back into your hands like you’re flipping Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader never gets tiring. There’s a light focus on upgrading your armor and gear this time around too, where the focus is not just weapon or magic upgrading but finding the rarest pieces of armor that scale to your level so you can go toe to toe with some of Norse mythologies most relentless of foul beasts. This title also won many GOTY for 2018 awards and rightfully so.  It has achieved so much and deserves such acknowledgement for breathing a new form of life into this once aging franchise. This is my number 1 game of this generation thus far and while this console generation is not yet laid to rest, I will find it increasingly difficult for the Ghost of Sparta to be toppled anytime soon. 

Conclusion:

So there you have it folks. This was The Gray Talon’s top 13 games of this console generation. Thank you tremendously for watching as always. Please share and like this video and please subscribe so you don’t miss out on the latest content from The Gray Talon’s lair. And finally, please find the honorable mentions listed below:

1. Infamous: Second Son – PS4 – 3/21/2014 

2. Bayonetta 2 – Wii U – 10/24/2014

3. Sunset Overdrive – XB1 – 10/28/2014

4. Yakuza 0 – PS4 – 3/12/2015 

5. Batman: Arkham Knight – PS4/XB1 – 6/23/2015 – (Honorable Mention)

6. Rise of the Tomb Raider – XB1 - 11/10/2015

7. Far Cry: Primal – PS4/XB1 – 2/19/2016 – (Honorable Mention)

8. Doom – PS4/XB1 – 5/13/2016 – (Honorable Mention)

9. Titanfall 2 – PS4/XB1 – 10/28/2016 (Honorable Mention)

10. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice – PS4 – 8/8/2017

11. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus – PS4/XB1 – 10/27/2017 – (Honorable Mention)

12. Detroit: Become Human – PS4 – 5/25/2018 – (Honorable Mention)

13. Octopath: Traveler – Switch – 7/13/2018 – (Honorable Mention)

14. Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise – PS4 – 10/2/2018

15. Pokemon: Let’s Go Eevee – Switch – 11/16/2018 – (Honorable Mention)

[theliterateape]

...fucking Mark

...fucking Mark.

Imagine a sad, defeated Mitch McConnell. He’s seated hunched over all alone in his dark empty office. Obamacare just passed. He’s got his glasses in one hand while the other pinches the bridge of his nose right between his eyes. And between the dry gasps that always precede a good cry, shakes his head, and says, not without humor, “...fucking Obama.”

That. That right there. That is how you say, “...fucking Mark.”

The ‘g’ is typically silent. Like when you say something is “rootin’ tootin,’” which is becoming so commonplace these days it’s just chiche. Everything is “rootin' tootin.’”

So, just to clear the air of the elephant in the room of long tailed cats and rocking chairs, this is not a story about what it is like to fuck Mark in the biblical sense of “fuck.” It is a true story, though Mark is not his true name. I am really nice that way. Not quite nice enough to not use a name so incredibly close to his real one. But, you know, nice.

I was hired to be part of the entertainment for a corporate Christmas function in Iowa. The entertainment was to involve an interactive improv show, with drinks and dancing to follow DJ’d by fucking Mark. Altogether I spent about two days with him. In a row.

Mark was an almost last minute replacement recommended by someone’s weed dealer. Mark had about two-and-a-half day's notice.

The first time I saw Mark, we were arriving in the van at his pick up point in the far north Chicago neighborhood of Edgewater. It was the middle of the marrow-deep Lake Michigan cold that is the true dead of Chicago winter. Fucking Mark was wearing a red winter beanie, work boots, over sized dark blue jeans that he had, apparently, painted his floor in at one point (I asked and he confirmed), fingerless gloves, and a loose fitting gray tank top.

Beady little eyes, always fidgeting, his long brown hair that stopped just above his trapezius muscles. Honestly pretty impressive. The dude was stacked. He looked liked Scott Stapp from Creed had a baby with Cheddar Bob from 8 Mile. The Google image search you should do based on that last sentence is worth it.

As we turned into the corner and parked, he popped one eye wide open and turned it toward the van. This facial expression gave the impression that we had just severely insulted him. It was like you had just crossed a serious line with Popeye, and he's just decided to eat an entire can of spinach he doesn't even need to beat your ass.

We stopped at the curb, him still giving us a one-eyed glare. He just stood there like that, looking at us, for about 10 to 15 seconds, which feels much longer than it is. Something in his head clicked, and he began walking toward the van. Cautiously. He craned his neck forward with his rib cage sucked in, his hands hung from disengaged wrists at his drawn back sternum as his feet seemed to pull the rest of him along with his legs acting as leashes. He looked like Mr. Burns, but a bird, trying to figure out if we were food or, in fact, a trap, with a coked out eye of Sauron on top.

I thought we were either about to be robbed or offered free samples of the type of drugs you shouldn’t do.

He got to passenger window, my window. He moved his head around the window to see in like he was searching for a keyhole. I lowered the window.

“Hi, I’m Mark. I’m the DJ. Are you here for Mark the DJ?”

“Hi Mark, I’m Boss,” said Boss, driver, and owner of the company we were booked through, “Hey, it’s pretty cold out, if you want to go in and grab your coat that’s totally fine, we have time.”

“It’s no problem, I don’t live here. Besides I have really good callouses.”

Boss, “What?”

“Plus a hat.”

Mark was 32, and blind. Partially. Mostly. That’s why he approached the van the way he did. Every time Mark looked at something, he would get that one eyeball so close it would practically touch its subject. He did this with people too. I would describe the first handshake with Mark as "startling".

I assure you that I am not picking on Mark because he is blind, nor would I anyone ever. Being blind is not Mark’s biggest problem. His problem, from which all others grew, is that he is what my grandfather would have called, “dumber'n two turds fightin’ 20 turds’’.

Mark got in the van.

Boss asked where his DJ equipment is.

“Oh it’s in storage on the south side.”

A pause. Boss asked for something that you might maybe call specifics. “I don’t know the address. But I know where it is.”

Using “south” as our guide, and with a sundrop of hope, we made our way to the highway and around the city toward this mysterious storage facility. About halfway around the city, I smelled that burning leaves smell that, to me, always reminds me of running through the seemingly endless rolling plains and orange forests to explore that is rural Michigan in the autumn. To this day and forever my true heart will always reside there.

I contributed some small talk, something like the above, but shorter.

Others said something like, but longer than, “Me too.” Mark contributed:

“Yeah, I still love going into, like, you know those old general stores? I love just sticking my head in bags of manure and inhaling as fast and deeply as I possibly can through my nose.”

The rest of us, simultaneously, sucked in an egg sized pocket of air. And held it. I was the first to break.

“You mean like... like, horse... like horse, uh, poop?”

“I mean yeah but it’s not like it’s human shit.”

“Oh.” I was willing to forgo all questions if I could be promised no answers.

“Yeah. I mean, other than my shit. Or farts. I like the smell of those. They’re actually, seriously? They’re not bad. Just not other people’s shit.”

“Yep,” I yepped.

“What in the Ever-Loving Sun God of fuck.” I thought.

I just accepted that there are places where there are giant sacks of shit on display, and all the customers come from miles around to smell them. These places are called “old general stores.” I held onto that information, put it in my back pocket, and moved on.

We arrived at the storage facility after stopping three different times to check the internet maps on our pocket robots while Mark left some voicemails. I know this sounds crazy, but even though we were on a schedule, through that entire search time did not stop even once.

Are you starting to see how any one of these little pieces of Mark so far are relatively easily forgivable in isolation? But fucking Mark pokes at this primordial nerve in your brain over and over and over. It’s death by tiny spears. You cannot understand. You are young, and I envy you.

His equipment was in a square concrete room in the basement of the storage facility. It smelled like bong water and burnt food. I had a suspicion he slept here. He assured me he did not (I didn’t ask) because “no bitches would fuck me here.” I suppose he wasn’t wrong.

None of the equipment was ready to move. We broke down and packed up two large speakers, wires galore, two turntables, a crossfader/mixer, a home stereo sized dual CD player, crates of vinyl, CDs, more wires, and stuff. And yes, he owned a laptop. Three of them, laying on top of each other, underneath a half eaten hot pocket with a cigarette stubbed out in it, in the storage space.

Here is the best game; guess how much of this he ends up actually using other than the speakers. Now hold onto that guess, put it in your pocket. It’s one turntable, a handful of records, and his phone.

We made the six- or seven- hour trip in the van. Mark kept farting to prove to us that his farts really didn’t smell bad. He would get indignant when you told him to stop. Here is another fun game; guess if they did or not. I will tell you the answer after this sentence. Yes. Here is that same game on hard mode; guess how many scovilles.

There’s so much other stuff. Little Mark instances and stories. Thousands of the little nuggets of odorless Mark shit. Too many to include all of them. We lost him at a gas station because he walked across the street to another gas station to “check out the area.” He argued at every perceived opportunity, and poorly. He said the solution to gun violence was "little helmets with guns that detect when someone is pointing a gun at you" and “they probably already have them.” He had many, many opinions. Here is the last game: Guess how they tended to land politically. This is actually the most difficult of the games. If you guessed “alt-right internet forum memes,” congratulations, nobody wins. There are no winners in any of these games.

We arrived at the venue. It was a large event rental space with catering in the middle of a nothing but a frozen tundra of dead Iowa cornfields. Snow and freezing rain was falling, and the DJ equipment needed to be brought in.

Mark asked if he can borrow my coat.

In the middle of the two of us carrying a speaker, he said he needs to go talk to the manager of “about this one thing.”

“Um,” I said. Mark dropped his side of the speaker, jogged in and did not return.

Boss relayed the story to me later. In the interest of setting up the tone that Mark would proceed to lay waste to, you should know that our boss could sell you a ketchup popsicle. He is a seasoned performer, legit funny, and a trained experienced natural salesman. And Boss was in mode.

Mark followed our boss’ voice, found him, shook his hand and asked where the fuckin’ manager was at.

Boss, “Mark! This is Client McClientsname, he hired us. Client, Mark will be your DJ for the evening!”

Mark grabed Client's hand and shook it, shoving his wide open eye right in Client’s face, “Are you the manager?!”

Client said, “no” like he was just asked if he had fucked Mark’s wife.

“OK,” eyeball still close enough to count pores, “I need some help because I’ve only ever actually done this I think maybe one or two times on my own and...”

“Mark!” shouted my boss’ skeleton from behind a polite smile belying the hunger pains he felt in his gut that only revenge satiates. “I think the other guys need help bringing in the rest of your stuff?” Boss said it without breaking character in front of the client. Boss could sell you a pickle-flavored boat.

When Boss told me that story later, I laughed so hard I grew tits.

Mark asked us to introduce him “DJ Tushy Flex.”

“That sounds like you’re puckering your asshole, Mark.”

“What, that’s not what it is.”

“...what is it?”

“Dude it’s my fucking DJ name.”

We did the improv show. It was great. Fun was had by all. Mark stood behind us and his DJ equipment, arms crossed, unmoving, the entire show. He just stood there the whole time with a neutral expression and blinked.

The show ended and it was time for Mark to DJ. We introduced him as “Mark the DJ.”

Just to establish my credentials as one to stand in judgement of a DJ set, let me just say that I am a long time fan and hobbyist with an above average level of appreciation for the craft of DJing.* I want you to know this so you can understand how serious I’m being when I say, that DJ Check-Out-My-Glutes was, by far and by away, the absolute worst god-dang rootin’ tootin’ DJ I have ever heard in my whole entire life.

He refused to take requests. He would only play what I can only describe as rasta house. Corporate America, of course, long known for their affinity for obscure electronic dance music subgenres.

He would cross back and forth between completely incongruent songs that made no sense. Like when he rapidly switched back and forth between Kiss from a Rose by Seal and some fucking drum circle happening near a murder. Not in some cool mash up way either. In no universe did those tempos match. There was no rhythm to the switches either. Just back and forth between those two songs, playing with the crossfader like a hyperactive kid flipping a light switch.

In a heroic effort, boss took over the sound, plugged in his mobile pad and bought a subscription to a music streaming service and started playing requests. People started having fun.

Mark would somehow keep getting control back and switch in the middle of the song to a recording of some guy yelling over the sound a middle school marching band warming up.

Several hours of this went by and it was time to leave. Mark didn't help with the load out because he was smoking weed in the green room, which was really a large business meeting room with high ceiling to floor windows that faced the parking lot. When chastised, he angrily insisted that we’re the true idiots here because nobody told him he couldn't and “cigarettes smell worse.”

The freezing rain made the roads unsafe and we were exhausted, so we decided to stay overnight and drive back to Chicago in the morning. Mark held us up at the gas station so he could spend over 3/4 his night’s paycheck on a bottle of “real Iowa whiskey.” Back at the hotel I try some. If a politician running in the next primaries compliments Iowa on their historically good whiskey, I will know they are a liar.

Later on than we would have liked, we were in the hotel room hanging out with the TV on. Mark had the remote. He was seated directly in front of the TV, eyeball practically making a smear on the screen flipping through channels. It occurred to me that this might actually be how he went blind.

Mark landed on Women’s college basketball. His accompanying comment made between the landing and subsequent dismount from this channel was, and I quote: “Ha ha ha, women’s basketball. Show me your titties. Take her titty out and bite it. Whoa, that one’s actually hot.”

Myself and another cast member exchanged a knowing pained look at each other that we knew he would never see, then pretended to be distracted by our phones.

He flipped some more and eventually stopped on A League of Their Own.

"Oh sweet, A League of Their Own," he said.

A League of Their Own is a timeless and distinctly American romp featuring unforgettable characters and heart. I think there is a good argument to be made that it is the greatest baseball movie ever made** But I think Mark might have missed one of the central messages of A League of Their Own. It may even have been, in fact, the central message. I am also pretty sure that, at some point, Mark has voted. I can’t be certain of this because if he ever told me he voted I surely would have repressed that memory.

The next day, during the drive home, I was woken up from a nap by Mark. He was shouting about how unfair it was that he couldn’t say the N-word but the two other cast members in the van, who were both African American, could.

Of course he never once said “N-Word” or “the N-word.” I mean, of course. And though I haven’t said so explicitly, you guessed it. Yes, of course he is white.

“Why? Why, Mark. What, do you need permission ahead of time just in case? Like, if you find yourself in this situation where you really need to use it?” I attempted, among other things, despite what was clearly a brick wall.

“No, but what I’m saying is why not.”

“Because it’s a hurtful thing to say, and the people in this van are asking you politely to stop.”

Later, Mark asked me what I thought of his DJ set. This was long past me being fed up, so I told him the truth as delicately as one can tell someone that they were awful. Mark told me he had a gun, then threatened to kill me for “talking shit.” He was serious. I told him, I shit thee not, that he’d have to fucking aim at me first. That was not a nice thing to say, nor smart. But I did.

No, I am not afraid of him reading this.

It's too long.

We got back to the storage facility and put all the equipment back. Mark met a ride who was waiting for him there. We said "good" and by the time we got to "bye" our backs were turned.

By the end of the trip, Mark had gone from being an obnoxious but mostly harmless joke to being legitimately... not a good guy. Maybe even dangerous. He had no mental impairments or disabilities, as least no diagnosable ones I could see.*** He was never doing a bit to mess with us. I never detected in him a desire to be seen as funny, and I know my own.

I think that at some point somebody should have told him that how he’s behaving is not OK. Though I am not qualified to be the arbiter of who deserves to have painful criticism handed out to them, surely in this case somebody at some point should have been willing to hurt this guy’s feelings. Not to hurt this guy’s feelings, but being willing to have that a price Mark might have to pay for his and the world’s greater good, because he's a dick. And nobody ever did that for this guy.

He's racist, misogynist, self assured with no qualifications to be, ignorant, genuinely unintelligent, has a crushing confidence, and defaults to aggression at the any criticism. Does this remind you of anyone?

That is why when I turned around after hearing him slip on a patch of ice, I thought to myself, “Welp, there by the grace of God goes The President of The United States of America.”

It’s OK. Let it out. You deserve that sigh.

...fucking Mark.

*I love dance music. I have always loved dance music. When I was a kid I listened to Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation cassette on repeat. I had a poster of her in my room. When my dad went to music stores to look at guitars, I always wanted to play with the synthesizers. What is generally (and stupidly, because none of the bands sound the same) called “’90s electronica” is my favorite music of all time. I started making my own dance music in high school with a cheap little computer program. My freshman year of high school, I auditioned for battle of the bands with a full heavy as stone 1996 or ’97 desktop computer and giant CRT monitor and a synthesizer. I got in. I got more equipment. I started sneaking out to go to and play at raves in high school. I swear on my life, I did nothing stronger than pot, and even that was seldom. I just loved the music and the energy so much. Dance music used to be hippie culture, even though now it’s more club culture. I will be that guy and say dance music was better before it was popular, and please stop sarcastically calling me dad.

I have favorite DJ mixes, I’m constantly seeking out new ones. I make them in my head for fun. If I wasn’t poor and had DJ equipment and a laptop that could run the necessary software, I would be spending all my time playing around with it and making mixes for fun. Somewhere in Michigan in an attic there are tons of old mix tapes I made as a kid. I can even appreciate a DJ on the level of a wedding DJ. What song follows what? How did that energy match? What’s the crowd doing? You don’t need to beat match to be able to read a crowd and play a good song.

Once, in line for one of those underground parties, I saw two guys speaking to each other in sign language. I inquired, for it was a music event. I was a bit of an asshole that way. He told me that his friend was deaf, and because of the bass and volume this was the only way he could experience music. That is how much I like dance music.

**Yes I am including every movie you just thought of. A League of Their Own is the only one where they are fighting for just being able to play which is just an extension of them fighting for their very meaning  as the devastation of the largest war ever waged plays as a backdrop to what is already a very stressful situation. Highest emotional stakes. Also most quotable. Funniest by far. These are but a few among variety of reasons I say A League of Their Own is the greatest baseball movie ever made.

***If it matters, I have worked with people with special needs of all ages through several different jobs.

[knightly-aura-blog]

RULES: Answer the questions in a new post and tag some blogs you would like to get to know better.

TAGGED BY: @rustedservos​

NICKNAME: Arinae (and whatever shorter forms of it people use to call me), Prowl SIGN: Aquarius HEIGHT: 159 cm, which isss... 5′2 I think?  FAVE MUSIC ARTISTS: W.A. Mozart, Fever Ray, Swing Republic, Woodkid, Mono, Hillsong United, X Japan, Bastille, Avicii, Swingrowers, Sarah Brightman, Dir en Grey...and all the wonderful jazz artists. ;w; And I most likely forgot about someone. Recently I’ve been listening to Alex Boyé waaay too much too.  LAST TV SHOW YOU WATCHED: BBC The Musketeers   WHAT KIND OF STUFF YOU POST:  RPs, pictures of giant alien robots, ooc sometimes  WHY DID YOU CHOOSE YOUR URL? It was honestly the first thing that came to my mind when I made this blog and it was supposed to be a temporary url, but in the end I decided I like it. And Drift is into all the knightly and spiritual things, soo...  GENDER: Female HOGWARTS HOUSE: Ravenclaw POKEMON TEAM: I don’t really play Pokemon FAVORITE COLOR: Black and red MUN FACECLAIM: ...my own face? Never really thought about it? 

LUCKY NUMBER(S): 13 & 18 NUMBER OF BLANKETS YOU SLEEP WITH: one duvet and one blanket right now DREAM JOB: Feanor or Sauron, I mean...goldsmith/silversmith. Or professional photographer. I’d love to travel around world, take photos and get paid for that. FOLLOWING: 19 (I need to go and follow more people actually) FOLLOWERS: 18

BONUS:

             PINEAPPLE ON PIZZA? Pineapples are pretty, but I dislike them with burning passion because of reasons, so no. Unless I have no other option.

TAGGING: @knightofcybertron​ @jazzyservos​ and whoever wants to do it c: