Barbarians and Wizards

***BARBARIANS AND WIZARDS***

My brother James and I have this running gag in our conversations where all of my thoughts revolve around barbarians and wizards. Am I writing a new novel? It’s about barbarians and wizards. Am I watching a TV show? It’s about barbarians and wizards. Am I taking Lego pictures? They feature barbarians and wizards. While my brother is technically not wrong, he’s also only half-right. Beautiful Monster’s main character is a warrior elf who lashes the shit out of his opponents with a chain whip. Is he a barbarian? In fighting style only. The main villainess of that story is a seductive sex trafficker who rapes him. Is she a wizard? Not physically, but she’ll put a spell on you anyways. Okay, maybe James is right more than half of the time.

Even my contemporary short stories and novellas have elements of barbarian and wizard dynamics. My most recent first draft, Incelbordination, features an angry, pugilistic dwarf as its main character. Is he a barbarian? Well, he can rage like one, especially when he’s being bullied or deprived of romance. So at the very least, he’s an emotional barbarian. But what about the main villain of that story? Well, he’s a cult of personality whose followers subscribe to the incel culture. He’s got his minions by the balls and he won’t stop until the main character’s mind belongs to him. Is the villain a wizard? If brainwashing is a magic spell, then yes, he could be a contemporary version of a wizard.

What about the contemporary novella that came before Beautiful Monster and Incelbordination? It’s called Silent Warrior and features an emo high school senior with an eating disorder and a head full of trauma. Is he a barbarian? Not physically since he’s a hundred pounds soaking wet while holding an anchor. Emotionally? He very well could be. He’s got anger and disrespect for authority down to a science. What about his social studies teacher? While not a leader in any sense of the word, he still has a negative, conformist influence over his students, much like the math teacher from Pink Floyd the Wall. Is he a wizard? Again, brainwashing could be a spell, so yes, the social studies villain could technically be a wizard.

Of course, my brother is clearly joking when he teases me for being obsessed with barbarians and wizards. We both get a good laugh out of it. But where did this obsession come from? Well, I’ve always liked the fantasy genre ever since I watched James play Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VI, and Chrono Trigger on the Super Nintendo back in the 1990’s. But my barbarian and wizard obsession didn’t start with those games specifically, although Ayla from Chrono Trigger and Umaro from Final Fantasy VI could fit the barbarian role to a fault. My obsession didn’t even come from playing Hero Quest as an even smaller child (because the main classes the player could be included the barbarian and the wizard).

I have Diablo II: Lord of Destruction to thank for my obsession, specifically with barbarians. As a lover of RPG’s, I’ve always enjoyed playing as the physical, in-your-face, melee range warriors. It didn’t matter if their mana was drained, because physical attacks didn’t require it and even if they did, the warriors could keep going and going in spite of it. Once a wizard runs out of mana, he’s fucked, because he’s not strong enough to go toe-to-toe with his enemies. Warriors, on the other hand, exemplify self-sufficiency to the nth degree. The barbarian in Diablo II was always lauded as an unequaled melee-range fighter. He could use two weapons at once, he could withstand a shit-load of punishment, and he could dish it out like nobody else.

Later in life, I would find out that the paladin was a nastier brawler than the barbarian. Paladins can strike multiple times in one sitting and they have magical auras that don’t cost a damn thing. My favorite aura to give the paladin was cold elemental, which froze my enemies and slowed them down to unbearable speeds. Plus, it added damage to my multiple attacks. The paladin actually did more damage than my dual-wielding barbarian. But if I had known this as a teenager, I probably would have developed an obsession with paladins instead of barbarians.

Without my barbarian obsession, there would be no Deus Shadowheart. Who is Deus Shadowheart, you ask? He was my Gary-Stu killing machine, that’s who. He had been the main protagonist of my stories long before I knew that Gary-Stu was a pejorative. He hacked off limbs, he ripped flesh like it was Christmas paper, and he bathed in blood with every swing of his axe. But unfortunately, this doesn’t make for a relatable character and if there’s one thing readers love, it’s someone they can relate to. As of today, he’s a character in a Poison Tongue Tales story called Deus Ex Machina, where being a Gary-Stu works to the story’s advantage. Be sure to pick up a copy of Poison Tongue Tales at your favorite online retailer! But seriously, I’m glad Deus found a home he can be comfortable with.

My barbarian obsession didn’t end with just story characters. I lived the gimmick as well. Okay, so I didn’t cannibalize and maim everybody in my path, but I’ve got the attitude down pat. I scream in anger whenever little things go wrong with my computer. I swear like a sailor whenever the phone rings and it’s for me. I eat every meal like a pig and get pieces of food stuck to my shirt. I burp and fart in public without saying “excuse me”. I used to watch professional wrestling religiously before it started sucking and the wrestlers themselves could be considered barbarians. Hell, the current WWE Raw Tag Team Champions are a pair of Viking warriors named Erik and Ivar. Even the Authors of Pain were barbaric in their fighting styles and muscular body types before they were relegated to bodily function jokes (AOP is short for Authors of Pain and can also be made fun of by saying AOPee-Pee).

The one part about barbarian life I will never agree with is the refusal to learn how to read and write. As a semi-professional author, knowing how to read and write is a part of my fucking job! Hell, this blog entry wouldn’t exist if I was illiterate. My college degree wouldn’t exist either. But yeah, because barbarians exist on the fringes of society, they don’t have the same access to education that the nobles would have. Would being educated hamper a barbarian’s ability to rage? Not really. Once a barbarian, always a barbarian. If anything, they’ll do what I did with my career and write crappy novellas about wrestling and, you guessed it, violent battles involving barbarians and wizards.

So why am I writing this blog entry to begin with if my barbarian obsession was already obvious to everyone here? Because even though I (allegedly) think about them 24/7, I need a reminder every now and then of where my creative fuel comes from. Whenever I have days where I’m bored out of my mind and mentally exhausted, I can feel my creativity dwindling away. I want to energize myself and beat the shit out of the mentally ill demons that hold me down, so this is what I have to do. Does it always work? No. Does my depression, schizophrenia, and litany of mental illnesses get in the way sometimes? Absolutely. It’s the reason why I can’t sustain an aggressive writing career, so I have to work from the shadows. It sucks. It sucks badly that my life is hampered by mental exhaustion and mental illnesses, but there’s not a whole lot I can do about it…except for energize my creativity through barbarians and wizards…and apparently orcish prostitutes, which was one James recently added to my list of obsessions. Hehe!

I’m Garrison Kelly! Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight!

***QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“I know not what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

-Albert Einstein-

***POST-SCRIPT***

Actually, a barbarian might feel at home fighting with primitive weapons such as sticks and stones.

My Influences

***MY INFLUENCES***

We all have our favorite books, authors, movies, actors, music and bands. But how much of that creative fuel actually changes the way we approach our art? I can safely say that even though Daniel Bryan is my favorite pro-wrestler of all time, he doesn’t make me want to adjust my writing style. In other words, even though I prefer watching Mr. Bryan over other wrestlers, he’s not necessarily an influence to me. An influence is someone you model your work after, not just someone who tingles your senses. Soulfly is one of my favorite heavy metal acts of all time, but they don’t change the way I write stories. So what does influence me? Who are the people and what are the mediums that make me want to become a better writer? I never gave much thought about this until now, and as of today, there are ten items on this list. Starting with…

***DIALBO II: LORD OF DESTRUCTION***

I’ve always credited this computer game with giving me a fascination in barbarians. I’ve always loved using melee-ranged warriors whenever I played RPG’s and the barbarian personifies that in Diablo II in a way no other class does. Actually, that’s not entirely true since the paladin’s fire and cold auras can jack him up like Brock Lesnar, but who’s keeping track? Bottom line, if it wasn’t for Diablo II, Deus Shadowheart, Brutus Warpath, Corey Darkside, and Magnus Warcry would never be possible. I’ve always considered Deus to be my honey child despite the fact that he’s an overloaded Gary-Stu. He finally found a story to be a part of and that short story is appropriately called Deus Ex Machina, a high fantasy tale that preaches teaching people how to do stuff as opposed to doing those things for them. Deus Ex Machina is one of the cornerstones of my soon-to-be published anthology Poison Tongue Tales. But it’s not just barbarians that held my fascination. Hannah Jason from “Bee Jay the Glutinous” is a sorceress, Marcus Edge from “Stardust” is a druid, Edwin Stryker from “Crossing the Line” is a paladin, so many characters were influenced by the dark magic Diablo II is known for.

***FINAL FIGHT***

More and more these days, whenever I’m riding in the car and I see a dilapidated neighborhood through my window, I always tell my brother James that said neighborhood looks like a stage from Final Fight, a beat ‘em up arcade game where most of the stages take place in ghettoized buildings. Ever since rekindling my interest in this game earlier this year, lots of Dungeons & Dragons campaign, novel, and short story ideas have come from those broken down buildings. I’m still waiting for the day when I can sit down with James, Reina, and Shara and guide them through an adventure that takes place on a shit-infested subway train. Stage backgrounds from videogames have always fascinated me, but the biggest piece of creative fuel I drew from Final Fight was Mike Haggar, a pro-wrestler who pile-drives, suplexes, and clotheslines Mad Gear gangsters into powder. When I wrote the first draft of “Occupy Wrestling” back in 2013, I wanted the main character Mitch McLeod to be a throwback to Mike Haggar in terms of body size and outfit, right down to the shoulder strap and the plated boots from the second Final Fight game. With thick rimmed glasses, pale skin, and puffy spiked hair, Mitch McLeod keeps himself from being a complete clone of Mr. Haggar while honoring how badass the Mayor of Metro City really is.

***WWE***

This one’s a no-brainer in so many ways. Where do I begin? Well, if I didn’t have such a zealous love for pro-wrestling, “Occupy Wrestling” wouldn’t be possible. If it wasn’t for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic award, I wouldn’t have a basis for how to build Keegan Day from the ground up since he’s supposed to represent everything wrong with the wrestling business. But what about the dark fantasy aspects of WWE wrestlers? The Undertaker is without a doubt the biggest one with his necromancer gimmick. Bray Wyatt as a sadistic cult leader will always be an influence on the creepy monsters from “Occupy Wrestling”. Stardust and Goldust? Well, if I ever decide to write the sequel to Occupy Wrestling and call it “The Black Widow”, Rosie Rogers will be a parody of the Rhodes brothers’ bizarre gimmicks and she’ll be called Angel Dust. WWE will always be my favorite form of violent entertainment. Ignoramuses who call it “fake” can say the same thing about other forms of fiction like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones.

***THE CLEANER***

Stephen King once famously said that if you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time nor the tools to write. In the summer of 2009, I finally got the wakeup call I needed when I read “The Cleaner” by Brett Battles, a fast-paced, exciting, well-thought-out novel that set the standards I now have for the books I read. My tastes have changed over the years, but “The Cleaner” will always be what I base my reading and writing on since that was the novel that set me on the right path. Jonathan Quinn really is a badass character and Brett Battles really is a badass author. Check out this book whenever you get the time.

***PINK FLOYD THE WALL***

I started listening to Pink Floyd on a regular basis when I moved to Chehalis, Washington in 1996. Back in those horrendous middle school days, I loved hearing Roger Waters say, “We don’t need no education!” I didn’t gain a full-fledged appreciation for The Wall’s message until I watched the movie version of it quite frequently in my sophomore year of high school. Seeing those faceless children plunge into a meat grinder made me fear conformity so much that I resisted everyone’s attempts to break me. If it wasn’t for Pink Floyd the Wall and its message of anti-conformity, lord knows where my creativity would have ended up. Maybe I wouldn’t have made it out of high school with my individuality intact. Maybe there would be no Garrison Kelly novels.

***KILLER BE KILLED***

Okay, so this super-group hasn’t been around for a long time, but their song “Snakes of Jehovah” is a huge part of the reason why Occupy Wrestling is a success (in my mind at least). After Keegan goes to a minimum security jail for corruption charges, he has his robe and snake mask-wearing henchmen, The Snakes of Jehovah, do his bidding for him to make sure the police don’t interfere with his behind the scenes work. These faceless minions are blessed with magical powers, creepy limbs, and the ability to put up a barrier just by forming a circle and speaking in tongues. Thank you, Killer Be Killed, for putting out such a badass album! Without you guys, Keegan would have to shell out even more money from his billion dollar bank account to keep the police at bay.

***GEORGE CARLIN***

With intelligent speaking abilities, a raunchy and dark sense of humor, and a disdain for politically correct policies, George Carlin gave me permission to be as wild and crazy as I want when it comes to my writing. Before watching my first George Carlin routine, I had to rely on comedians like Johnny Carson, Benny Hill, and Bill Cosby to be my creative fuel. Being as young and naïve as I was back then, those three comedians’ messages didn’t ring true for me the way that Carlin’s did. I feel so good about my comedic abilities that I currently have a novel idea sitting in my reserve stack called “Suck It, Double Dork!”, which is basically one long rehashing of Carlin’s joke about making rape funny by picturing Porky Pig sodomizing Elmer Fudd. They’re cartoon characters; nobody gives a shit what happens to them. Even at the age of 71, Carlin died too soon. Rest in peace.

***CLERKS***

When I reviewed Clerks and Clerks II, I should have given both of those movies five stars instead of four. A lot of the well-spoken dialogue from those movies is the basis for my characters’ dialogue and my writing was well-received because of it. I wish I would have known how to interpret creative fuel in a more mature way when I was a teenager and a twenty-something. Otherwise, my first movie script Pumping Filter wouldn’t be such a mess of racial and sexual slurs from Pulp Fiction. As I look up scenes from Clerks I and II on You Tube, I realize that it’s not enough just to copy a style of dialogue. It has to fit your story’s world and sound 100% natural too.

***DUNGEONS & DRAGONS***

It’s a pencil-and-paper role-playing game where my love for dark fantasy themes is rekindled and reenergized once more. Many of my player characters and villains from these campaigns went on to become major players in many of my stories. Brutus Warcry, my level eight human barbarian, had his last name tweaked to Warpath and he became the main character for a short story called “Stone Cold” about a barbarian who wants revenge for his fallen wife. Bob Rua, a tiger monk and MMA practitioner, was the main character from “Tiger Bullet Kick”, where he guards a tomb full of treasure from a necromancer and a newly awakened mummy king. Charles Goodhorn, a paladin with a dark past, will be the main character in a novel idea called “Barbaric Justice”, where three intergalactic barbarians hold a trade route hostage in exchange for the means to return home. So many characters, so many stories, so much fun!

***THE SHIELD***

Maybe this detective show was responsible for my teenaged works being so offensive and crass due to its blatant TV-MA rating. Over a decade later and it becomes central to a novel idea called “Silent Warrior”. Spoiler alert, high school introvert Scott George has sex with his vengeful history teacher’s daughter and says to him, “Your daughter’s pussy tastes like sweet butter.” Okay, so maybe Silent Warrior isn’t as extreme or brutish as The Shield, but the writing style and dialogue have a lot of similarities, especially when, spoiler alert, Scott gets put on trial for having sex with a minor while being 18 years old.

***CONCLUSION***

(Gnaws on a carrot) Meh…that’s all folks! Wait a minute, wrong Looney Tunes character. My bad! Hehe!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I’ve got the obligatory Hendrix perm and the inevitable pinhole burns all down the front of my favorite satin shirt. I’ve got nicotine stains on my fingers. I’ve got a silver spoon on a chain. I’ve got a grand piano to prop up my mortal remains. I’ve got wild staring eyes. I’ve got a strong urge to fly. But I’ve got nowhere to fly to. Oooo, babe! When I pick up the phone, there’s still nobody home.”

-Pink Floyd singing “Nobody Home”-

"Swamplandia!" by Karen Russell

BOOK TITLE: Swamplandia!

AUTHOR: Karen Russell

YEAR: 2011

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Magic Realism

GRADE: Mixed

In the Everglades-based theme park Swamplandia, Hilola Bigtree wrestles alligators for a live crowd of stereotypical tourists. The entertaining action is enough to keep the Bigtree clan financially stable. And then one tragedy after another strikes the family. Hilola gets cancer and passes away. Hilola’s husband, simply known as Chief Bigtree, ventures out to the mainland for a “business trip” (which feels more like crazy abandonment). Grandpa Sawtooth becomes senile and is confined to a nursing home. The eldest son Kiwi tries to earn the minimum wage at a rival theme park called World of Darkness. The middle child Oscela becomes obsessed with dark magic and runs off with a ghost to marry him. And now it’s up to Ava Bigtree, Hilola’s daughter and understudy, to bring them all back together and save Swamplandia from becoming foreclosed on.

If I could use one word to describe the mood of this novel, it’s heartbreaking. One moment of depression snowballs into several other tearjerking moments. Losing a mother is bad enough. But then the financial burdens stemming from her loss become all too real for any reader. We’re currently living in an economy where homes are being taken away, people are becoming broke from healthcare costs, and the only people who are hiring the new blood are minimum wage employers. Sometimes, working to exhaustion isn’t the answer no matter how many times the Republican Party says it is. In fact, exhaustion is what makes this novel so depressing, because we see the aftermath of trying to scrape together enough money and stay alive. It’s stressful to think about and I wouldn’t wish this kind of poverty on my worst enemies. In terms of putting together a realistic picture of economic worries, Swamplandia does that job perfectly.

I know the World of Darkness theme park is supposed to be a horrible place to work judging from how poorly Kiwi Bigtree is treated by everyone there. It is, after all, a hell-themed amusement park. The swimming pools are dyed red (to resemble fire), the merchandise has devil horns on it, the food is fattening (because gluttony is a sin), and all of the rides are basically comparable to being swallowed by a ferocious, fiery demon. While I condemn the working conditions of the World of Darkness, I praise Karen Russell for inventing such a place in her novel. I am a dark fantasy nerd and the diabolic themes of this place make me think of barreling through Diablo II: Lord of Destruction dungeons with a dual-wielding barbarian. But I know why Karen Russell had this theme park in her story: because she wanted to parody Disneyworld and hold a mirror up to their horrible working conditions. It tickles my dark fantasy urges and depresses me at the same time.

However, there is one thing that irks me about this novel and it’s the reason I’m giving it a three-star review instead of a four or five-star one. The pacing of Swamplandia feels like I’m dragging my eyes across sandpaper just to make it to the next chapter. In other words, it’s slow and it’s tiring. I don’t know if I should owe the exhausting pace to the purple prose writing style, the obscure references, the over-thinking and overanalyzing, or the constant dips into the past. I can’t quite pinpoint what makes this book such a slow read, but if Karen Russell wanted me to feel just as exhausted as the main characters after they work their fingers to the bone to protect their theme park, then mission accomplished. It may have been by design, but that doesn’t mean it’s an effective technique.

If you want to read a story about Murphy’s Law on steroids and have the patience of a saint, I would gladly recommend Swamplandia to you. A warning to the wise: if you manage to make it towards the middle and you haven’t figured out if this is a fantasy or modern day drama book, I don’t blame you. The only reason why I know it’s labeled “Magic Realism” is because I looked it up on Wikipedia. Maybe the genre confusion is all part of the suspense. That would have been a great tactic if the suspense wasn’t reserved for the near-end of the book. A mixed grade goes to Karen Russell’s debut novel. Will I ever pick up another Karen Russell book again? I haven’t decided yet.

Laya Murderspell

NAME: Laya Murderspell

AGE: 28

OCCUPATION: Sorceress

CANONS: Diablo II and Zeromancer

A dark fantasy novel wouldn’t be complete without a psychotic sorceress named Laya Murderspell. Any woman with “murder” in her last name has got to be trouble. After all, you wouldn’t want a woman named Laya Murderspell doing your taxes, would you? How about babysitting your children? Or taking you out for dinner and dancing at Taco Bell? I like a good burrito every now and then, but I love my life even more, which is why I won’t be romanced by Miss Murderspell anytime soon.

Laya is yet another dark fantasy character who got her start in a game of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. As I’ve said with another sorceress whose name was Audrey Chainsaw, magic users aren’t my cup of tea when it comes to playing videogames. They’re not known for going toe-to-toe with their blades by their sides, so their fighting ability is extremely limited. They use magic attacks that require mana points. And once those mana points deplete, what then?

The other problem with Laya as a Diablo II character was her element of choice, which was fire. Burning people alive in a videogame is one of my favorite pastimes. But in this videogame, fire attacks don’t have the same nasty side effects that poison and cold elemental spells do, poison quickly depletes HP and cold magic slows movement.

What can you do with fire? Damage. That’s about it. If you’re going to do damage to somebody, would you rather it be with a barbarian with an axe (which requires no mana) or a sorceress with a fireball (which requires more mana than she’s worth).

In a 2011 dark fantasy novel I wrote called Zeromancer, Laya wasn’t bound down by videogame limits. I even dare say that she was a likeable character. She was the best friend of an Amazon warrior named Fatima Runetooth, who needed a best friend in the worst way after being sodomized by a gang of barbarians led by the main villain of that act, Rinehart Blackwolf.

Laya was a great friend who would do anything for Fatima. She would braid Fatima’s hair, share secrets with her, chat with her at 500 words per minute, and throw a fireball or a lightning bolt at anybody who tried to take advantage of her bestie. Laya Murderspell, despite having a scary last name, was great to have not only in the high school cafeteria, but also in the trenches.

I know I’ve been joking about Laya’s last name throughout this whole character analysis. And not one time did I joke about Laya sharing the same name, but different spelling with the metal bikini-wearing sex goddess from Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. If I really wanted to play the fan service angle, I could do that with Laya.

But the last name of Murderspell makes her a character to be feared instead of trusted. If I want to make her into a realistic hero, the last name has to be changed. Otherwise, she’ll be misconstrued as a villain for the rest of her existence. If she does get taken for a hero, she’ll only be good for one thing and that’s being undefeated in combat, which would in turn make her a Mary-Sue. In short, Laya Murderspell has a lot of reconstruction to undergo if she’s going to be used as a reliable hero. But since I have a shortage of female villains in my archives, I think keeping her as is would be best for business. Problem solved!

Audrey Chainsaw

Okay, so chainsaws weren’t invented in the dark ages, but it’s still pretty damn sweet to see a sorceress with the name Audrey Chainsaw coming to Deckard Cain’s rescue. The name alone is enough to send shivers down the spines of imp demons (not that they don’t already have them as evidenced by their constant evasions). If my Diablo II: Lord of Destruction sorceress was named Audrey Periwinkle, her dead enemies would come back to life just to laugh at her. She would die of low self-esteem, which sounds nastier than some of the things Diablo’s minions did to the rogue soldiers with their torture devices.

Although Audrey didn’t carry an anachronistic weapon around like a chainsaw, she was still a deadly sorceress to play with in Diablo II. She was just like any other sorceress I played with in the sense she specialized in cold magic. Just one blast from Audrey’s mystic energies would either slow down or completely immobilize her opponents (the latter provided it wasn’t a boss enemy).

Once the enemies were frozen in place, Audrey whacked them relentlessly with whatever weapon she had until they turned into puddles of water. Puddles of water can’t be resurrected in the same way a fresh corpse can, which is bad news for an imp shaman as well as Blood Raven. Then again, it’s also bad news for any necromancer that might want to be in my adventuring party since they too can raise undead minions.

In a game where fast enemies can cause a fast death, slowing them down with frost magic is essential. Unfortunately, that’s where the fun ends with Audrey Chainsaw and any other sorceress using cold magic. Audrey became so dependent on her magic that she never had the chance to beef herself up into a legitimate warrior. And what was she supposed to do against an enemy with mana burn? Or what if she used her magic so many times and drank all of her mana potions? Limited mana is the one thing about magic users that pissed me off no matter what fantasy-themed game I was playing, which is why I favored warriors since they could take a beating as well as give a relentless one.

Audrey never made it past the first act. Every time she engaged in battle with Andariel, she was killed so easily that resurrecting her became a pain in the ass after a while. While it may be too late for Audrey Chainsaw to become a legitimate threat in a videogame, it’s not too late for her as a book character.

Seeing as how her last name is Chainsaw, she’d have to have powerful cold magic right off the bat. No learning, no sharing, no growth, just straight up cold magic. But if she’s not required to learn anything, then it means she can’t be the main character of whatever book I’m writing. Main characters grow and develop while side characters may already be there and villains weaken over time. I loved playing as Audrey in Diablo II, but if she has to play second banana in order to make a story believable, then so be it. I wouldn’t even be opposed to making her the main villain. We’ll just wait and see what happens.

　

***DOMESTIC DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

ME: Tomorrow in school, Reina is going to learn about the Norwegian deserts and the Mexican glaciers.

SUSAN: Why would she be learning about that? Wait a minute, you’re an asshole!

Marcus Edge

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction wasn’t just a videogame for me back in the early 2000’s; it was an influence. It was a digital drug. I killed the brothers of evil over and over again as time passed into the 2010’s. I used a variety of characters to do it, but my favorites were the barbarian and the paladin since they were both badass brawlers. Then again, any character class from that game can be a badass brawler if the right skills were chosen.

Which brings me to the druid class. Druids, like any other character, had a skill set sorted out into three categories. The ones particular to him were elemental magic spells, shape-shifting spells, and summoning spells. If you’re playing Diablo II and you want to turn your druid into a brawler, put your skill points into the shape-shifting category, particularly were-bear transformation and maul. How the hell are Diablo’s minions supposed to compete with a big ass bear who only gets stronger and hungrier with every blow?

The answer to that question is easier than you think, unfortunately. When druids transform into were-bears, their attack speed is significantly slower. Even when they’re armed with weapons with a very fast attack speed, the strikes still come slowly and awkwardly.

Now imagine if the druid was armed with something heavy like a great maul, which has a very slow attack speed. If he transformed into a bear, his new attack speed would be so slow his victims would look like Matrix characters with how easily they dodge the strikes. Now imagine if your ursine druid was frozen, which slows down running and attack speed. Duriel, the boss enemy for act two, has a freezing aura around him at all times. Do the math and you’ll see right away that tortoises don’t always beat hares.

This was the story for a druid I played with named Marcus Edge. If that name seems familiar to you, you were probably logged onto Deviant Art and reading a story called The Meaning of Laugh, which was about a raunchy comedian of the same name who has a heart attack on stage. That story won’t be published in any short story anthologies anytime soon due to the crappy writing style I employed in 2012.

The Diablo II version of Marcus Edge was a lethal warrior. His slowness, however, made it impossible to defeat Duriel and I ultimately deleted him from my archives. But this doesn’t mean his career in a creative field is over. Druids in general are fascinating to me. As an animal lover, I should know this, because druids specialize in summoning and transforming into these furry creatures. If I ever write another dark fantasy story and need a druid, I would gladly use Marcus Edge as my main character. Perhaps he can get notoriety in more ways than his name being used for a crappy comedian character.

　

***FACE BOOK POST OF THE DAY***

“When I was playing Final Fantasy videogames as a child, I’d always wondered what the hell a ‘phoenix down’ was. I knew what it did, but I didn’t know why it was called that. Turns out this whole time I’ve been sprinkling bird feathers on my unconscious warriors. Smelling salts would be more practical, but they probably wouldn’t conform to the magical element of Final Fantasy games.”

-Me-

Lego Ogre with a Tooth Hammer

Toys continue to be a part of my life even now that I’m well into adulthood and technically “too old” for them. While I don’t actually get them out and play with them like I did as a kid, I do have aspirations of using them as characters in either my short stories or my novels. My Lego ogre with a tooth hammer isn’t any different. He may look like dots and studs to you, but to me, he’s a hulking, destructive, demonic, badass fucking giant with a spike hammer that can drive telephone poles into the ground like nails. You’re damn right he’s going to be a villain one day.

I found this devilish beauty while vacationing in Canada as part of my WWU graduation celebration. Canada is already a lovely country to live in, but add to that a toy store with an affinity for Legos and I’m in heaven. The Lego set itself was $50 and came from the Creator series. If you’re not familiar it, every set in that series can be one of three different things. In the case of the one I bought, it could have been either an Asian dragon, a European dragon, or the one I chose, a big fucking ogre with a mountain-crushing hammer. Guess which one I chose.

I don’t have an official first and last name for this character, but he was at one point a protagonist in the first act of an all-dialogue novel called Toy Story Extreme. At the time, his name was Jinn Malakian and he was a finalist in a fighting tournament that took place all over Port Orchard, Washington from my bedroom to Quizno’s to the convenience store. The whole point of Jinn’s character was that he was being forced to fight for his master’s sick pleasure (at the risk of being sold to Goodwill or Ross). The master eventually went to jail for vandalizing all of the “battlefields” and Jinn Malakian quietly disappeared from the story.

As an artist, I’m my own worst critic. Nobody will ever be more critical of me than I am of me. You can thank Dave Batista for that sound byte. It’s because of my self-toughness that Toy Story Extreme will never be allowed to see publication on my Smash Words, Amazon, or Lulu accounts. The all-dialogue format sounds good on paper, but when my bread and butter happens to be hyperbolic descriptions mostly used by WWE commentators, then the novel suffers horribly, so much so it’s irreparable.

Because of a foolish writing style on my part, the ogre formerly known as Jinn Malakian is unemployed yet again. He’s my favorite toy. I’d even dare say he’s the face of whatever story he’s a part of (despite that face being hideous to look at with the elongated teeth and dense jawbone). In a strange way, I see a little bit of Diablo 2’s barbarian class in my Lego ogre. They’re both vicious, raging warriors who prefer the thrill of toe-to-toe combat over cowardly striking from afar.

Then again, anybody who went up against this monster could be considered a coward. An intelligent and wise coward, but a coward nonetheless. Someday he’ll be part of a story. I’m even considering using him in my current dark fantasy novel Fireball Nightmare, the same novel that stars Deus Shadowheart and Dr. Scott Cain. That’s how much he means to me.

　

***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“If I hadn’t left the WWE, nobody would know who John Cena was. He would have been buying boxes of Fruity Pebbles and eating them at home instead of getting paid to eat them.”

-Brock Lesnar-

Lisa Roberts

I’ve never been much of a John Wayne guy. I also never condoned the idea of cowboys shooting at Indians for no particular reason other than to be dicks. So why then would the western genre interest me enough to almost write a story about called Tombstone Technique? Because everything, and I do mean everything, can be made better…with magic! Cowboys shooting magic bullets at each other and Indians firing lightning arrows at their attackers. Bank robberies being done with shadowy skull staves and ten-pace shootouts being done with bone wands. My idea of a western story would be a sick hybrid of A Million Ways to Die in the West, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, and Harry Potter.

That’s where Deputy Lisa Roberts comes in. You want to know where I got the name Lisa Roberts from? I stole it from NCIS: Los Angeles. It was a cover name used by Kensi Blye when she was going undercover as a warehouse thief. Actually, that’s an episode I’d rather forget, because it ends with Kensi getting punched in the jaw to the point where she can’t chew her food.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time or patience to expand Tombstone Technique beyond a genre hodgepodge and a roster of names. That means of course we have a lot of work to do when it comes to developing Lisa Roberts. And no, the word “development” has nothing to do with her breasts, you sick freak. It simply means we know nothing about her. She’s a clean slate and we need a piece of chalk to create art.

First and foremost, I want Lisa Roberts to be tough and sexy at the same time. I want her to rock a pair of jean shorts and to kick the balls of any man perverted enough to stare at her legs. I want her to have a revolver in one hand and a skull wand in the other. Whenever she has assholes on both sides of her, she can pump some lead into one side and shoot lightning bolts, bone spears, poison daggers, and fireballs on the other. But what if she got the crazy idea of imbuing her bullets with magical powers? Fireball bullets. Lightning bullets. Ice bullets. How about bullets that contain all three of those mystic elements? I have to fan myself off for a minute and it has nothing to do with the summer weather.

But of course, if I made Lisa Roberts into a male fantasy sex machine, she wouldn’t do well with the female members of my audience (unless they were lesbians, but chances are, they’re not). What kind of likeable qualities could we give this woman to make her stand out as a super heroine of the wild west? Toughness, as I’ve said earlier, will go a long way in giving her popularity. A silver tongue might also do wonders for her. A take-no-shit attitude will sure as hell give her some staying power. I’m liking Lisa already! She reminds me of Wonder Woman!

It’s funny, because just a few weeks ago at the WSS Contest and Company group on Good Reads, I confessed to everybody that I didn’t know how to make likeable characters, that I just threw everything together willy-nilly. I’m still doing that with Lisa Roberts. The difference is, if I want Lisa to become the fully-developed badass she’s destined to be, I can’t put her in a short story contest entry. She has to go through a whole journey that can only be told within a full-length novel. And unlike most characters in my novels, Lisa Roberts will live to see the next novel, should she be a popular hit with my audience. She’s a survivor, damn it! Put her in the move “The Purge” and she’ll still come out smelling like roses and gunpowder!

　

***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“My wife Stacy is good at getting heel heat with the crowd at wrestling shows. Hell, she gets heat with me around the house.”

-Jim Cornette-

Mars Deathstyle

If you work in a creative field, you’ve probably heard the phrase “Inspiration can strike anytime” at least a million times. When it came to the creation of a character named Mars Deathstyle, inspiration was a handicapped match in which my opponents were Diablo II and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II. You see, Mars is a dual class character. He’s a barbarian (Diablo II) slash Jedi consular (Star Wars: KOTOR II). If we need an official name for his combined character class, it would be a shaman since they’re basically primitive wizards.

Mars Deathstyle was the voice of reason character in a 2006 dark fantasy movie script I wrote called City of Darkness. The movie was about an ongoing war between the light paladins (followers of Luther) and dark paladins (followers of Quinn). Apparently, being the voice of reason in this movie script is a 24/7 job, because the main characters changed alignment every five pages. There was one character who went from a light paladin to a dark paladin to someone completely neutral. The other characters were no more decisive.

When you’re a staff-wielding badass barbarian wizard like Mars Deathstyle and you have to preach a message to these indecisive bastards, how do you do it without going insane? You’d truly have to know something that the main characters don’t. That secret ended up being Luther and Quinn purposefully pitting human warriors against each other for their mutual amusement. The whole war was one big sham. Imagine that: war isn’t the answer after all.

Okay, so you have access to this very dark secret, now you have to get your message out to the participants of this war. The only problem is, the followers of these two “deities” are paladins and paladins are known for being devout zealots. Mars would have had a better time rehabilitating members of the Westboro Baptist Church. The stronger the zeal, the taller the task.

To do Mars’s job of convincing people they’re wrong, you have to have a certain set of skills. These skills include, but are not limited to powerful voice inflection, research of facts, natural charisma, and resources to spread this message where a booming voice isn’t always enough. To my surprise, Mars was actually able to put an end to this war with these things alone.

Ergo, the next time he gets used in a story of mine, he will be known as a wise peacekeeper. The only time when he’ll use his combative magic is if his life is being threatened. And trust me, with a last name like Deathstyle, you don’t want this crotchety old man throwing a fireball or a lightning bolt at you. Mars may be close to the retirement age, but his career is far from over.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking at the barrel of an ArmaLite. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days keeping out of trouble like the soldiers say. I don’t want to spend my time in hell looking at the walls of a prison cell. I don’t ever want to play the part of a statistic on a government chart. There has to be an invisible sun. It gives its heat to everyone. There has to be an invisible sun. It gives us hope when the hope is gone.”

-The Police singing “Invisible Sun”-