Launch the Third Rock

When Armageddon’s come and gone, you’ll have nothing that you want

You’ll never get to heaven, ‘cause the Pearly Gates are locked

There’ll be no lake of fire for the sexual desires

Of men loving men, your Pastor Baiter is a liar

 

You want to flood the earth with a million little babies

But when they don’t show up for work, you label them as lazy

We didn’t stick around to be your economic plan

Fuck that Trickle Down shit, fuck it twice if you can

 

You created a world where the youth would die in failure

Either as a Devil Dog or a Navy SEAL sailor

You’ll never have to step up to the ones you call enemies

To keep all of your wealth, you’ll bomb anyone and anything

 

What will you do with all that big, big money

When you’ve drained the floating rock of its black, black honey?

There’s nothing left to buy, because it’s all in flames

Nowhere left to vacation, blow them up all the same

 

The last ones standing are the old farts in suits

Not even trees are left, ‘cause you sliced them at the root

All of this bravado to impress a phony prophet

A performance like this: how will you ever top it?

 

No time for an answer, because you’re going in the ground

Let the future generations put you in the lost and found

Oh wait, there’s nobody left to live this life

‘Cause you had to save some dollars, now society dies

 

Staring into nothing but an empty black screen

It’s a far cry from the fantasies of heavenly dreams

Born with a silver spoon, death by a shovel

The maggots and the worms are the only ones to cuddle

 

A civilization that drank its own poison

You ignored the warning signs, “Let the eyeballs moisten!”

No tears left to cry, because we’re all gonna die

Launch the third rock into the sun in the sky

Characters Without Aspirations

 If somebody is living a “normal” life, it’s seen as a positive. If somebody is living an “average” life, it’s seen indifferently. However…if somebody is living a “mediocre” life, then shame on that person. Normal, average, and mediocre all have the same meaning, yet their connotations are different across each word. Normal and average characters are relatable, but mediocre ones are looked down up with disgust. But when a critic is talking about a mediocre character, they’re not usually talking about the character’s upbringing, education, or work life. Mediocrity often means the character has no ambitions, dreams, or aspirations. Three-dimensional characters are the best kind and a character cannot be three-dimensional without at least one feasible goal or lifelong dream. That’s what we’ve been taught as writers because that’s what makes a story interesting to begin with.

But is that always the case? Do characters HAVE to have big dreams and aspirations? Commonsense would dictate that a character-driven story would mean having the MC pursue an end game. But what if the character had no dreams or aspirations at all? Sounds pretty boring, doesn’t it? Until you dig a little deeper into why that is. Maybe the character is so depressed that he can’t see a future for himself. Maybe he’s older and subscribes to the “don’t follow your passion” rhetoric that conservatives of his generation like to preach. Maybe he’s a younger child who’s been brainwashed by the school system into believing that STEM jobs are the only kind that matter. With the latter case, the brainwashed child in question has a goal, but not the one he originally intended. Does that count? Not if he’s going through the motions.

Mediocrity isn’t fun to read about, but the reasons behind it can be. In fact, the reasons alone could turn an otherwise dull character into someone to root for. Maybe the goal is to break the cycle of mediocrity and become his own person. Maybe the goal is to murder the people responsible for creating his dull situation. Wait a minute. Did that get a little too extreme for you? Is it really reasonable for a mundane character to go around stabbing people to death if they forced him into a life of boredom? Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. Either way, you’ve got a compelling story on your hand. 

Conformity through brainwashing or creative suppression can be a powerful thing. That’s why millennials and Gen Z people tend to dislike Mike Rowe, because he’s using his platform to encourage capitalistic conformity. Conforming to society will make you more presentable in the eyes of the CEO’s writing your checks. Okay, Boomer, enough is enough.

While most people do want to break the chains of capitalism and tell Mike Rowe to suck a big fat one, there are legitimate slackers in society. I’m sure you, my lovely audience, have gone to school with a few of these guys. They don’t do homework. They spend their time in class shooting spitballs and fucking around. They mouth off to the teacher when they’re receiving genuine criticism. While these students don’t make up an entire generation nor can they not be saved, they do exist and they can often be interesting characters to read about. 

It’s easy to tell this lackadaisical student to “get a job” and “stop screwing around”. But have you ever been inside the mind of one of these students? Maybe the sour attitude is a cover-up for suppressed trauma. Maybe he doesn’t feel like there’s any hope for him after all. Or maybe he just wants to play videogames and fuck the world. Even the latter of those choices can be made into three-dimensional character work if an author knows what the hell he’s doing.

You’re probably reading all of this and are digging into the recesses of your mind trying to find examples of mediocre characters that are fun to read about. You want to find the difference between being lost in a dream due to aspirations and lost in a dream because he doesn’t want to wake up and face the world. Not a book, per se, but the 1994 comedy Clerks is a good example of this. Dante works at the Quick Stop Convenience Store and has no plans of bettering his life, yet he constantly complains about the situation he’s in. His friend Randal works at RST Video Store and doesn’t mind slacking off every once and a while as long as he gets to anger the customers. 

Two mediocre workers, different clashing mindsets. They have little goals here and there. Dante wants to get back together with his ex-girlfriend Caitlin while still dating a superior woman in Veronica. He wants to play hockey on the rooftop. He wants to go to a funeral to say goodbye to one of his exes. But are any of these goals really going to get him out of his depressive funk? No fucking way. Even if he somehow achieves these goals, he’ll go right back to where he was the next day: tedium and shitty customers. Dante and Randal have painfully ordinary lives, yet Clerks is considered a cult classic and Kevin Smith’s best movie of all time.

But if you’re going to intentionally write a mediocre character and have him lead the charge, his uncaring attitude should mesh well with his environment. If the character is a humanoid dragon barbarian fighting for his life in a dark fantasy kingdom with demons, devils, and zombies chewing on his flesh, that MC cannot afford to be mediocre for even a second. Yes, Gary-Stus exist, but in a fantasy or sci-fi setting, they’re frowned upon. Speculative fiction is known for having colorful worlds where the author’s imagination runs wild. Crystal castles in the sky, fireball magic spells, temptress witches, electromantic dragons, sneaky goblins, they’ve got it all! If a character is mediocre in an above-average setting, then that’s a problem.

But…what if a character is mediocre in a BELOW-average setting? What if the fantasy world has turned to absolute shit and the character gives into his urges to give up all hope? It doesn’t even have to be a nuclear apocalypse, no, no, no. It could be worldwide blight. It could be constant darkness. It could be monsters and zombies overrunning everything. Or it could be an actual world of shit, because there’s nowhere else to go to the bathroom. Losing hope and giving up easily would be perfectly understandable in a below-average hellscape. At that point, the character has two choices: give up entirely and submit to the Lovecraftian negativity, or find smaller goals to achieve if only to make life a little more bearable than it was before.

By choosing the latter of those two scenarios, your characters cease to be mediocre. An example of this is a 2009 movie called Zombieland. As the title would suggest, zombies have taken over the world and are chewing on humans like bubblegum. Fuck hope, because it’ll never come back no matter how many shotgun shells are popped off at these undead cannibals. The world will never return to its normal state. So what do the characters do? They cope. They don’t solve everything. They cope. Woody Harrelson’s character wants to find Twinkies and eat them like he was a zombie himself. The two girls in the zombie-escaping team want to go to a theme park and party it up. The main character? He just wants to see his family again. By having these little goals to keep them company in an otherwise shitty world, a run-of-the-mill comedy has become a three-dimensional story that deserves all the praise it gets.

In case it wasn’t apparent by now, mediocrity itself isn’t good or bad (that’s the very definition of the word). It’s what an author does with it that counts the most. Hell, it can even apply to real life, even in a nonconformist setting. It doesn’t have to be all about brainwashing and Boomerisms. Sometimes those big dreams aren’t what they appear to be when examined further. I had lots of dreams when I was younger, but didn’t realize how damaging those pursuits will be until I grew older. I wanted to be a pro-wrestler, but that would involve exhausting exercise, injuries, tedious travel, and bullying from the higher ups. I wanted to be a heavy metal singer, but that would also involve tedious travel, along with clashing egos, heavy criticism, potential drug and alcohol use, meaningless sex, and yes, sometimes injuries. I wanted to be a screenwriter, but that would involve traveling to Hollywood and potentially being molested by Harvey Weinstein or someone just like him. 

After all of those options, the one I decided was least detrimental to both my mental and physical health was the life of an author. I can still indulge in my creative fantasies. I can still tell Mike Rowe to get fucked. I can still be a productive person. And above all else, no injuries! Have you ever heard about an author who broke his neck while typing a novel? No, and you never will. Maybe mental injuries could be more prevalent with worldwide criticism and general trolling, but that’s not enough to keep me from pursing my dreams of being an author. I live a normal life without submitting to mediocrity. I guess I could be a three-dimensional character in someone’s novel. Or I could just do a complete self-insert, one of the two.

Zombieland

MOVIE TITLE: Zombieland
DIRECTOR: Ruben Fleischer
YEAR: 2009
GENRE: Zombie Apocalypse Comedy
RATING: R for violence and language
GRADE: Pass

As of the year I’m writing this review, which is 2020, the Corona Virus is sweeping the world and killing everyone it comes in contact with. This disease is bringing out the worst in humanity whether it’s violent rage (a la the Michigan anti-lockdown protestors) or deceptive behavior (a la Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen). If this mess keeps up, our world could very well come to an end. Wouldn’t you like a nice fun-filled movie to distract you from it all? That’s where Zombieland comes into play. I don’t want to say this movie was a prophecy back in 2009…but yeah, it was totally a prophecy. Granted, we haven’t gone full-zombie just yet, but the other ramifications have come to fruition thus far. Economic collapse, swindlers, incompetent leadership, and a bunch of cowboys playing with their shotguns. Yep. I’m sure this movie was just a coincidence at the time it was made.

If you think creating believable characters is hard to do within a silly comedy, just take a look at who we’ve got in this particular movie. Columbus wants to find a sense of family whether his biological one still exists or not. Tallahassee wants to munch on Twinkies because he appreciates the little things in life. And he just wants to kill zombies left and right. Cutthroat sisters Wichita and Little Rock want to steal as many resources as they can so that they can party it up at an amusement park in California. What do you notice from all of these character descriptions? They’re motivations. They have something that they’re willing to kill zombies for. Therefore, this is a character-driven zombie story. Didn’t think that was possible, did you? Notice how they’re not scrambling to save the entire world from the zombie apocalypse. They just want to cling onto a sense of normalcy no matter how small or temporary that may be. Isn’t that what we’re doing now with the Corona Virus: looking for something to comfort us? Totally not a prophecy.

I have one tiny little critique for this movie. Why would Columbus continue to trust Wichita and Little Rock after they’ve betrayed him and Tallahassee over and over again? They’re grifters. Deception is all they’re known for. Do they stop grifting by the end of the movie? Who knows? That’s not just me refusing to give spoilers; I actually want to know the answer to that. I guess this could all go back to Columbus wanting a sense of family in his life, so he keeps hoping and praying that the sisters change their ways just for him. Then again, Wichita was a femme fatale and part of that moniker is being seductive, either through attractiveness or just playing mind games. Columbus always wanted to brush a woman’s hair behind her ears. If that’s the case, then this whole movie is just him thinking below his belt. Wichita could burn down an orphanage and Columbus would still want to give her infinite chances. Yes, this is a comedy movie. Yes, Columbus is a dorky college kid. But…come on.

You want clever dialogue from every character involved? You want bloody action and excitement? You want a lesson on how to make believable characters? Ask and you shall receive it all in the form of Zombieland. You’ll get more than a few chuckles here and there. You’ll get a few life lessons that may come in handy as the age of Corona Virus progresses onward. You’ll love Woody Harrelson’s performance as the gun-toting cowboy Tallahassee. You’ll love Jesse Eisenberg’s performance as the spineless dork Columbus. Try not to think too hard about Columbus trusting people a little too easily, especially if they’re overly attractive. This was an enjoyable movie for me and for that reason I’m giving it four out of five stars.

Shooting Star

Rachel Phoenix finally figured out why the structure she was climbing was called the Tower of Venom and it had little to do with the owner’s namesake. Even with a black veil over her nose and mouth, she still gagged and coughed at the fowl odor emanating from the barred windows. Feces, urine, vomit, and god knows what else assaulted her slender nose like a war hammer to the face. The heat waves from the oncoming shooting star in the sky baked this biological sludge like the ophidian tower was a gigantic oven. The elf rogue had no time to waste vomiting herself inside out. This mission had to be completed no matter how badly she wanted out.

Just a few more dry heaves in her ninja veil and a hell of a lot more tugs on her grappling hook and the winded elf in black rags rested on the top of the tower for a while. She could just drift off into dreamland no matter how horribly it reeked. In fact, this murderous odor would have been the perfect anesthesia if it hadn’t been for the raucous sound of a tornado fart echoing throughout the land. Rachel snapped out of her trance long enough to hold onto her rope with a death grip to avoid being blown off.

Once the literal shit storm subsided, Rachel couldn’t hold her lunch down any longer. She removed her veil spilled her guts off the side of the tower. The tidal wave of sickness left her light green skin pale and her muscles so weak that she could barely stand up. She was barely on her knees when she turned around and saw the source of the odor in its entirety. There he was: the ironclad dragon giant sitting on…a toilet. The Tower of Venom…was a giant fucking toilet…for a giant fucking man dragon.

Atlas Venom, as the giant was known, laughed so hard that he sent another gust of wind Rachel’s way. The tiny elf held onto her rope with the strength of someone ten times her size. Sickness or not, flying away in the barf-worthy breeze was an undignified way to die, especially when so many lives were at stake.

Once the giant’s obnoxious cackle ended, he leaned his rotten skull down to level with his intruder and asked, “Can I help you?” The elf rogue took the time she needed to catch her breath and settle her rumbling stomach. “Well?!” Atlas belted.

A few more heavy breaths later, the elf said, “My name is Rachel Phoenix. I’ve been sent here by the Order of the Forest to keep you from doing something incredibly stupid and potentially dangerous. Well, you do stupid shit all the time from what I’ve heard, but this is really going to get your attention.”

She pointed at the flaming star in the sky, which seemed to have grown tremendously since she last gazed upon it. “You see that? We all know you have the power to smash that thing to pieces. You’ve smashed everything else to pieces, why not a shooting star? But if you do that, neighboring villages will be affected by the blast radius.”

Atlas scratched his ass and belched a cloud of toxic sludge before standing to his full height and pulling his iron pants up. Rachel didn’t know what was more disgusting: the tower slash toilet or the fact that Atlas’s lesion-covered ding-a-ling had been hanging there this whole time. She tried to keep herself together by gently massaging her stomach.

“Listen, you dumb bitch,” burped Atlas. “I don’t hear you coming up with any great ideas on how to get rid of that thing. Last time I checked, I’ve got pubic lice bigger than you, so there’s no fucking chance you’re going to smash that thing away. If you’ve got any better ideas, then you’d better start flapping those gums or else you’re one dead little whore!”

Rachel folded her arms and said sternly, “Alright, if it’s ideas you want, it’s ideas you’ll get. If you have the power to smash a shooting star to pieces, you certainly have the power to catch one and drop it in the neighboring ocean behind you. You could break it up little by little and flush the pieces down that lovely toilet of yours. You could even have it as a snack if you wanted to. I’m sure whatever’s rotting in that gut of yours isn’t going to be too badly affected if you ate a giant flaming star.” She paced back and forth with her hand propped on her chin. “Let’s see, you can throw it in the sky and then break it up. You can…you know what? Literally anything else would be better than you scattering the pieces across the land with your reckless ways. Anything!”

Atlas gazed up at the shooting star and noticed that it grew once more. The scorching flames caused a few beads of sweat to trickle down his hairline. Rachel tapped her foot impatiently and said, “Well? We don’t have much time. What’s it going to be, big boy?” The remark caused the dragon giant to scoop her up in one hand and squeeze her already thin body into the width of a toothpick. No matter how pathetically she screamed or how many crunching sounds her body made, Atlas refused to take pity on her.

“Unlike all the filth swirling at the bottom of my tower,” he shouted. “I don’t give two shits about the other villages! They’re the ones who couldn’t accept me to begin with! They’re the bastards who laugh and throw stones at me whenever I show my face! You think my life is just one big fucking joke?! You think I choose to sit here on a giant fucking toilet?! That was the king’s idea! That’s what he calls comedy! I don’t feel one bit sorry for those pieces of dog shit! They’ll get what’s coming to them in short order!”

A tropical storm of sweat trickled down Rachel’s face as she felt the shooting star hurling closer to the tower. “Wait!” she squeaked, prompting Atlas to loosen his grip around her body. “If you put an end to this disaster, you just might be a hero to those people! Nobody would even think to treat a hero that way!”

“Hero?! You think these fucking people deserve a hero?!” roared Atlas while shaking Rachel in his fist. “Their idea of a hero is some rich snob who flaunts his money around without giving a drop of it to the poor! Apparently, those kind of fools work harder than the poor, or so I’m told! You, Rachel…you represent all of those people! All of those monsters! They don’t deserve shit!”

“I don’t represent anybody who casts judgment on others! I represent the innocent ones who will bear the brunt of your reckless ways!” squealed Rachel, who squirmed and struggled until at least her arms were free from Atlas’s grasp. “You’re painting my society with a broad brush, my friend! There are good and evil people from all walks of life! People should be evaluated as individuals, not as groups! If you’re too blind to see that, then you’re no different from the evil ones you claim are bullying you!”

Atlas peered up at the shooting star and then back at Rachel several times while contemplating everything the elf told him. The diminutive rogue took this time to catch her breath and collect her cracked bones. Even with sore ribs, she managed to burst out, “Hurry up and make your decision! That star’s getting closer!”

“You don’t have to rush me, you stupid bitch,” snarled Atlas. “I’ve already made up my mind.” His own eyes resembled shooting stars as they blinded Rachel with a hateful gaze. He could feel the elf quiver and vibrate in his massive lizard hand. He then grinned evilly at her and dropped her in the toilet. “Down you go with the rest of the shit!” he snapped before pulling the handle and watching her swirl.

Except the rogue didn’t swirl. She clung onto the side of the bowl with another grappling hook rope, the blades igniting little sparks as they struggled to keep her still. The swirling brown water dragged Rachel across the bowl while she kicked her legs and held on with a death grip around the rope. Adrenaline flowed even hotter through her veins when she heard Atlas laughing about this whole incident. She kicked harder and held on tighter. And then, the rope snapped like a twig and she was destined to spend eternity in a shit-covered hell.

As she swam through the toilet water whilst ignoring her injuries, she could hear Atlas’s monster laugh morph into a prolonged, “No!” followed by an explosion, a burst of fiery light, and crunching bones of his own. The Tower of Venom bottomed out from underneath Rachel and she went on a tidal wave ride throughout the land. She struggled to keep her head above the shitty current, but eventually sank beneath and swallowed the most vile substance ever to exist. Between heaving for oxygen and vomiting at the same time, Rachel’s lungs felt like she had swallowed the shooting star herself. The current jostled her around like a rag doll, giving her more bumps and bruises along the way. When she was ready to pass out, she landed with a thud.

Except that thud was cushioned by several bales of hay and the tidal wave of shit and piss had crashed upon the land below. Rachel coughed, gagged, and breathed heavily all in the span of a few seconds. Her ribcage ached as though someone fired a cannonball into her gut. Her legs couldn’t carry the weight of sickness and crumbled underneath her when she tried to stand. When she caught most of her breath back, she wiped the sludge away from her eyes and ears long enough to see what just happened.

Atlas’s gargantuan body laid strewn across a wheat field with the shooting star crumbled on top of his broken bones, shredded skin, and bloody organs. Instead of celebrating a staved off apocalypse, nearby farmers in overalls and straw hats laughed their asses off because of the literal shit storm that followed.

Rachel’s brows furrowed together and her teeth clamped down hard in anger despite the taste in her mouth. The villagers’ attitudes left a worst taste in her mouth than anything from the Tower of Venom ever could. Atlas had been right this whole time. The whole world did think he was a freak. While his mannerisms could have used some work, his spirit was in the right place. All of that mind-numbing, soul-crushing torment broke his heart like it would have someone a fraction of his size. Even the biggest and the baddest had feelings too, unlike the pigs who mocked his death.

Rachel slowly drew a knife from her sheath and jumped to her feet, her raging adrenaline allowing her to ignore the pain delving into her body. “Hey!” she shouted at the farmers, who now began trembling in fear and backing up carefully. Trembling herself (but for a different reason), Rachel angrily whispered, “If Atlas Venom was alive right now, he’d say…you’re welcome!”

"Benevolent Slayers" by Marie Krepps

BOOK TITLE: Benevolent Slayers

AUTHOR: Marie Krepps

YEAR: 2017

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy

GRADE: Pass

In a necrocosm swarming with evil beasts, it is the duty of the Benevolent Slayers to extinguish these threats and bring peace to the world. Although the muscular warrior Brock the Rock and the magic-wielding druid Saber share the same job title, they work together only out of necessity and not because they want to. The more adventures they go on together, the more they realize just how much they need each other. They’ve spent years closing their hearts off to everyone around them due to their painful pasts. Now that they have an ultra-powerful vampire to hunt down, freezing each other out is no longer an option. It’s kill or be killed in this post-apocalyptic nightmare and nobody does a better job of killing than Brock and Saber.

The themes of dead emotions and social barriers are what really got me into this story. I personally have struggled with shyness and keeping everyone out all of my life, which is why my social circle is limited to only a few people. In this story you have two badass warriors, Brock and Saber, who don’t want to be vulnerable around each other for fear of getting hurt worse than when they actually go into battle. But the more time they spend around each other, the more they begin to open up about their traumas. Reading about a character in a book is like having a relationship in real life: you can only care about somebody if you have a reason to do so. The more you know about a person, the less likely you are to judge them. Marie Krepps doesn’t just make you care about her two main characters; she holds your emotions hostage and squeezes those tears from your eyes like grapefruit juice.

Of course, where would a fantasy story be if there wasn’t at least a modicum of delicious violence? Here, you get more than a modicum. There’s no rest for the weary in this world of villainous demons. If you’re caught slipping, you’ll be a bloody mess before you can say…anything at all. Normally readers like to cheer for the average joe because that’s who they can relate the most to. This world weeds out the average joes in a big hurry whether it’s with a plague or getting ripped apart by savage warriors. Yes, the two main characters are battle-tested ass-kickers, but they’re far from Mary-Sues and Gary-Stus. They’re real people with a lifetime full of intense emotions (which they keep hidden from each other throughout the novel, of course). Not only will you root for them to get their ducks in a row, but you will also cheer like a stadium full of wild fans once they win their physical battles. And boy, do they have plenty of those!

You also have to admire the world-building Marie Krepps has done with her novel. You would think a post-apocalyptic world would be easy breezy lemon squeezy since it’s basically just one big rotten wasteland. Uh-uh! These towns vary wildly from each other whether it’s the ability to relax, the urgency of their problems, the hostility or friendliness of the citizens, and the political structure of those in charge. Even the outside world has a lot of uniqueness to it, mostly because of the strange creatures and bipolar weather systems that pass through. Somewhere near the beginning of the novel, Marie Krepps made room for a tanuki, which is a Japanese creature that’s a mix between a raccoon and a dog. Whenever I kept reading about him, I just wanted to rub his belly and play with his ears. Aww! Every place the Slayers go and every person or creature they meet is as colorful and vivid as a reader would want them to be, if not more so.

This novel is more than just an ass-kicking fairytale. It’s every bit as emotional and heartbreaking as it is violent and colorful. You have no choice but to actually give a damn about these characters and if you don’t, you probably don’t have a pulse. If you don’t have a pulse, you can always count on Saber to use her healing magic on you. I won’t say when she uses it or what the circumstances are, but when she does, your heart will explode with passion like an active volcano. This A+ author deserves yet another passing grade for her beautiful story!

Ancient Spirits of Evil

CHORUS
Ancient spirits of evil!
Souls of skeletal people!
This earth will not heal!
It’s all of theirs to steal!


VERSE 1
Death and decay is what they bring
To every hunk of land and living thing
In eternal pain and suffering we scream
Nightmare fuel for an innocent dream
Man, woman, child, it means nothing
To ancient spirits not known for loving
Lightning and shadows is their currency
The world is theirs for all damn eternity


CHORUS
Ancient spirits of evil!
Souls of skeletal people!
This earth will not heal!
It’s all of theirs to steal!


VERSE 2
They harvest the souls of those in power
Rain down on the poor with a fiery shower
Playing politics like it’s a game of D&D
Ripping the land from under you and me
This shit has continued for many centuries
Yet we look at each other like brutal enemies
What the fuck is happening to our dying world?
When will the ancient ones’ flags unfurl?


CHORUS
Ancient spirits of evil!
Souls of skeletal people!
This earth will not heal!
It’s all of theirs to steal!


VERSE 3
The ghosts of this earth will never rest
We constantly put this planet to the test
Smog, war, hunger, it’s all the same
This is what it takes to make us tame
Digging in the dumpster for a peach pit
Climbing to the top, you’ll never reach it
History teaches us that we never learn
Ancient spirits of evil watch us all burn


HOOK
This isn’t something you can teach at college
Nobody else gives a damn about knowledge
Wisdom has always been in short supply
We’re left to the vultures to feast and fly

"Warm Bodies" by Isaac Marion

BOOK TITLE: Warm Bodies
AUTHOR: Isaac Marion
YEAR: 2011
GENRE: Fiction
SUBGENRE: Zombie Romance
GRADE: Pass


Being a zombie is an endless cycle: eat flesh, fall down, wander around mindlessly, repeat. In the midst of the apocalypse, zombies are regarded as the enemy while the living are automatically revered as heroes. Little do these living humans know that zombies have their own thought processes and emotions as evidenced by those of R, the narrator of this story. As a zombie, R has no idea what the hell he’s doing half of the time nor does he have any recollection of his former life. His life regains purpose when he rescues a beautiful salvager named Julie and the two of them form an awkward, yet important relationship with one another. The more time R spends around Julie, the more human he becomes in his thoughts and emotions.

The first thing I’d like to applaud Mr. Marion on is the sheer creativity it took to write such a novel. The words zombie and romance don’t normally go together so easily, yet the author made them fit perfectly. R is a sympathetic character despite being a dingy zombie and Julie is the perfect friend for him since she doesn’t concentrate on any of his obvious flaws. Even though R only speaks a few syllables at a time, he makes more sense than most of the military officials who want to shoot zombies left and right without second thought. You know the apocalypse is on its way when a budding relationship between a zombie and a human seems more natural than going with their own kind. Breaking down barriers is the first step in healing this screwed up world. Love of all kinds will save us in the end, both in this novel and in the real world.

The second thing Isaac Marion deserves praise for is his system of rules regarding zombie behavior. They have no memory of their past lives, they walk around with a gimp, the only food they care about is human flesh (even though its tasteless and bland), they only speak a few syllables at a time, and their thoughts (though they do exist) are as limited as their speech. The author sticks to these rules all throughout the book and any surprises we do get come naturally instead of being forced. As an author, it’s good to have a set of rules your creatures can live by. Otherwise, the reader will assume the creatures can do whatever the hell they want without limits and can basically end the story anytime. If it wasn’t for the strict set of rules, we’d have flying zombies who could shoot lasers and fart lightning for all we know.

The final thing I have to touch on is the way this story is written. Because of the poetic and descriptive nature of R’s thought processes, the pacing is slightly taken down a few notches. But thanks to the present tense storytelling, it doesn’t have to be that way all throughout the book. When you’re reading “Warm Bodies”, you’re thrust into the moment and you can never leave until the author says you can. That is what I call true storytelling: showing the readers why R is a likeable person instead of shoving it down their throats. Trust me, you’re going to have enough problems with your throats after reading the painful descriptions of how necks and chests are eaten with such brutal violence. Yes, this book is romantic on so many levels, but let’s not get complacent when it comes to the fact that zombies are zombies and they crave human flesh and organs.

It should come as no surprise that this novel was made into a movie. The descriptions are picturesque and the youth of it all makes R and Julie into perfect movie stars. I don’t visit Rotten Tomatoes that often, so I wouldn’t know how well the movie has done in theaters. The book, on the other hand, no question about it: Isaac Marion is an A+ student of the literary game and he gets a passing grade for it.

Vote With a Flamethrower

VERSE 1
If you can’t stand the way this place is
Burn it down, douse the flames with piss
Mark the graves with a pile of ashes
Mark the living with fiery slashes


CHORUS
Vote with a flamethrower!
Vote! Vote!
Vote with fire!
Vote with a flamethrower!
Vote! Vote!
Pyrocratic justice!


VERSE 2
The glass ceiling is coming down on us
While the fortunate ones lick their lips with lust
Cash is worthless if it’s burning to pulp
Let’s torch this shit and get out of this cult


CHORUS
Vote with a flamethrower!
Vote! Vote!
Vote with fire!
Vote with a flamethrower!
Vote! Vote!
Pyrocratic justice!


VERSE 3
The apocalypse was a long time coming
There is no sense in turning and running
The rebel souls have fire in their hearts
They’d love nothing more than tearing shit apart
The rage was building up for hundreds of years
We tried to extinguish the fires with our tears
But in the very end, all ashes look the same
When they’re caught up in a whirlwind of flames


HOOK
Fear, hatred, zeal, and sorrow
There truly is no tomorrow
All they had to do was knock off the bullshit
Now all that’s left is a smoldering lava pit
Could things have really been different for us?
Depends on the voices we could actually trust
Insulting debates are no longer a must
The world we know is burning into dust!


EXTENDED CHORUS
Vote with a flamethrower!
Vote! Vote!
Vote with fire!
Vote with a flamethrower!
Vote! Vote!
Pyrocratic justice!
Vote with a flame thrower!
Vote! Vote!
Breathe in the smoke!
Vote with your heart’s desire!
Vote! Vote!
Watch the world catch on fire!

Obselidia

MOVIE TITLE: Obselidia
DIRECTOR: Diane Bell
YEAR: 2010
GENRE: Drama
RATING: PG-13 for language
GRADE: Pass

George is a librarian who moonlights as a cataloguist for obsolete and nostalgic items, all of which he hopes to document for a book he’s putting together. He even goes so far as to believe love is obsolete and therefore leads the lonely life of being single. When he meets a beautiful projectionist named Sophie, she tries to get him to come out of his shell as the two of them venture to Death Valley to interview a climate change scientist for George’s book. The ideas of love and the apocalypse collide in a debate about how we should spend our last minutes on earth if they truly are that. Will George live the rest of his life in isolation or will he believe in the power of love humans can give each other? Does he have anything in his heart for Sophie?

The three major themes of this movie (living life to the fullest, romance, and nostalgia) intertwine perfectly with each other as they try to bring George and Sophie together as a romantic couple. With nostalgia, they bond over how the past used to be a happy and simpler time, when technology wasn’t going berserk and people paid attention to each other. With living life to the fullest, they get hard hitting cynicism from the climate change scientist who believes all happy experiences will be erased because of humankind’s sins against the earth. With romance, it’s the classic tale of a socially awkward guy like George shying away from a flirtatious girl like Sophie. With the scientist feeding him all of this negativity, George has to struggle to believe in the power of love when Sophie tries to get in his social bubble.

Near the end of the movie, we ask ourselves if George’s struggle to suppress his inner negativity is worth it. While he does realize how the power of love can make someone happy, he also realizes how it can break his heart. While I won’t give away any spoilers, I will say that Sophie does break George’s heart in the end and he’s sobbing to himself in the comfort of his own home looking at pictures of their vacation together in Death Valley. That is such a powerful image that the audience watching has no choice but to question their own capacity for romantic love. This may not have been the message the movie was trying to send, but to my way of thinking, in this 50-50 bet between happiness and heartache, I was leaning towards heartache. I was so heartbroken and touched by the movie’s end that I spent the rest of the night listening to Seether’s cover of Wham’s “Careless Whisper”.

The best part about this movie is that it encourages the audience to ask questions instead of mindlessly conforming to a singular principal. If the world ends tomorrow, how will we spend our last hours on earth? Is romantic love worth all the struggles or does it lead to easy cynicism? Should we all love each other before it truly is indeed too late? Should we have as many experiences as we can despite the huge risk attached to them? Finding the answers to these questions takes a lot of courage and living with the answers is even scarier than that. Some people become so saddened by the answers that they resort to isolation or even worse, suicide. In the end, positivity will save us. It will get us through the hardships whether they’re in a personal relationship or part of a global crisis. If you’re going to attempt to answer these questions, make sure you do it without regret. Otherwise, temporary heartache will feel like permanent torture.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate.”

-Flyleaf singing “Again”-

Picklebee's Legacy

The word Picklebee has a lot of sentimental value to me, which is fucked up if you read the rest of this blog post. When I first introduced it to my bestie Susan and niece Reina as a nickname for our cat Smokey, the two of them were unanimously against it. They felt it was too creepy for a cute critter like Smokey. I thought to myself, “How could a cute word like Picklebee have any creepy connotations?”

I still wonder that to this day. Pickles is an actual pet name that’s been used before. Bees are cute and cuddly (whenever they’re not stinging you). Put them together and you have a loving nickname. Susan and Reina weren’t sold on it. So one day during a yard sale, I wrote “Picklebee” on the sidewalk with pink chalk, scaring the crap out of any customer who saw it.

With all of these people taking note of how scary a simple affectionate name could be, I figured I wasn’t going to win the cuteness battle, so I might as well roll with the creepiness of it all. When I first introduced the name Picklebee to the internet, it was in the form of a short horror story I wrote for Good Reads called “Picklebee, God of Death”. If you’re not scared shitless already, you will be when you learn that Picklebee was an indestructible demonic cat who slashed the shit out of anybody she deemed unworthy.

She turned a psychotic pizza delivery guy into her own personal slave and slashed the throats of the cop and landlord who tried to evict that same guy. There was blood everywhere, and that was just the decorations of the guy’s apartment before the fight took place. To put it in more relatable terms, “Picklebee, God of Death” was Pet Cemetery on crack. It was so violent that I constantly worried about disqualification from that week’s contest. I wasn’t disqualified. Instead I ended up in last place with zero votes.

That short story will see the light of day one way or another. But what about the other creative connotation I gave the name Picklebee? In the WWE, the divas division is all about good looks and bad wrestling. I’m honestly frightened at the idea of an NXT diva not being able to clean house in that division, especially considering how underrated Paige was on the main roster. And then my prayers were answered within the confines of my own imagination.

The ultimate unholy alliance of female martial artists, each member a present or future subject on Garrison’s Library. You’ve got the vengeful mixed-martial artist Rachel Gustafson, the pissed off referee Devon Spirit Wolf, and then there’s Picklebee, the name that should be given to Fallon Fox if she ever wants to transition from MMA to pro-wrestling.

An Amazon, an Indian, and a transsexual walk into a bar. It’s not the start of a bad joke; it’s the precursor to a dominant barroom brawl for all three of these women. If these three could keep a hospital full of bar patrons, imagine what kind of Armageddon they could put the WWE divas division through. Sorry, Natalya, but you too are going to be a victim of this onslaught.

If the name Picklebee can’t be cute and cuddly, it’s going to be disastrous and apocalyptic. She is the God of Death. The skies will rain blood. The oceans will be covered in green slime. The roads will be paved with powdered bones. The mountains will be kicked over. The forests will be burned to ashes. Those who survive will live their lives as the God of Death’s slaves. Whether she’s a cute kitty cat, a brutal mixed-martial artist, or Cthulu with a vagina, nobody is safe from this hellfire wrath. That is, unless you feed her Temptations kitty treats at 3:00 in the morning.

　

***PROVERB OF THE DAY***

Whatever you do to your children, your children will do to the world.

　

***BY THE WAY***

This will be the first of many posts detailing my socially awkward behavior. That’s going to be a brand new category alongside reviews and character profiles. Be afraid. Be really fucking afraid!

Kat Sexton

NAME: Kat Sexton

AGE: 27

OCCUPATION: Agent of the Flame

CANON: Fireball Nightmare

It happened yet again, folks: the alumni from Final Fantasy Hardcore couldn’t hold down a job after all. Deus Shadowheart, Dr. Scott Cain, Gail Reinhold, Rudiger Seran, all of those guys and more are out of work yet again. Kat Sexton was just making her literary debut in Fireball Nightmare and she wasn’t even around for a cup of coffee. How sad. How relentlessly sad. And by the way, Susan, her name is Kat Sexton, not Sexy Cat. And for the last time, those things on the end of her breasts aren’t called Cat Nips. Okay, that was my idea, so I’m pretty much talking to myself here.

In the first act of Fireball Nightmare, Kat Sexton was mentioned as the ex-girlfriend of the main character Deus Shadowheart. Deus was a loyal servant to the volcanic god Vahd (that rhymes), who threatened to destroy the world if his one singular forest was violated by land developers. Kat didn’t see the urgency in such a threat and decided to dump Deus. Kat wouldn’t be seen again until the second act, when Vahd really did carry out his threat after his forest burned to the ground at the hands of Dr. Scott Cain, one of my most popular villains.

The second act saw the world in fiery and lava-infested ruins. Red skies, red grounds, red rivers, and more importantly, red blood stains. Ironically enough, Kat joined a different religion from the one Deus was a part of. She signed up with a deity named Paladine and became the Agent of the Flame, which is one of the religion’s highest honors. Kat had one job: find the Lunar Crystal and drop it down Vahd’s blowhole, which will kill him and restore order to the world.

The entirety of act two was supposed to center around the romantic relationships of all seven main heroes. In Kat’s case, she was in a love triangle with Deus and Brutus Warcry, the latter of which was recycled from a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Kat desperately wanted to give Deus a second chance to right his wrongs, but Brutus was just the perfect guy for her. Two badass barbarians fighting over the same chick. Sounds like an episode of Cheaters: Dark Fantasy edition. The only difference is, neither Joey Greco nor Clark Gable III has the balls to get in between these three warriors. They know how fight and everyone around them will be dragged to their early grave in a pool of violence.

Unfortunately, the love triangle was never fully developed, because in the middle of act two, I decided to pull the plug on Fireball Nightmare. I thought long and hard about making that decision and it was still difficult to make. But it had to be done. The character roster consisted of Gary-Stus, Mary-Sues, and premature kamikazes. The only emotional quality to any of these characters was within their romantic lives, but the romance wasn’t believable, so it’s not much to hold onto. Kat was no exception to the Mary-Sue rule. She was a badass fighter and that’s about it. Not one visible flaw within or without her.

The other reason why Fireball Nightmare was a failure was because by the time the second act rolled along, there were seven heroes for me to baby-sit. I have a hard time getting into the heads of that many people. For future reference, I’m going to try and cut back on how many characters are in a given story. Watch You Burn, my current work in progress, has a three vs. three system of good and evil characters. Mario, Jessica, and Gryace are the heroes and Sage, Austin, and Cameron are the villains. Simple as that. No need for extra unneeded shit. If Fireball Nightmare was that simple, I might not have pulled the plug on it.

So what should we do with a girl like Kat Sexton? She can still be a martial arts badass with a cape, tank top, and cargo pants. She can still fight for the greater good. But if I can’t come up with any flaws for her, then she’ll have to be a side character and not the lead one. Ultimate badasses don’t have much to learn. Flawed characters do. Kat Sexton has a lot of potential in one of my future stories. But for now, she’ll have to keep her eyes glued to the want-ads.