The Undertaker: the Whole Reason the OK Boomer Meme Exists

 

Enjoy Prison

Uncle Sam taught you the way of the fist

And that murder is the answer when you’re mildly pissed

And that you can blame your crimes on war trauma

Give your own friends trauma, lead to courtroom drama

They describe all the pranks you pulled upon them

And how you told them to take it like they’re manly men

And how you called them every bigoted slur in the book

Lifelong sentence, now you’re on the fucking hook

 

Enjoy prison! It’s the closest thing to war

Being a civilian was just too much of a bore

You went stir crazy without your automatic

Now you can throw fists for free without causing any panic

The prison guards turn the other cheek

While your rape victims can’t shit right for a week

While their purple bruises show the cell block who loses

Their broken bones couldn’t hold partition phones

 

Enjoy prison! Your dinner tastes like diarrhea

It’s like every ration meal since the war in Korea

Maggots here, flies there, maybe some long hair

Taxes could provide better, but the state doesn’t care

But that’s okay, because it reminds you of war

You’re the baddest motherfucker in the whole damn Corps

All those pushups and burpees prepared you for combat

If a riot broke out, you’d get your ass right on that

 

Enjoy prison! What’re they going to do?

Bump it up to never-ever? You’re already screwed

You forgot about solitary, oops, you fucked up

Ask the warden for forgiveness, he’ll say, “Shut up!”

It’s just the darkness and what’s left of your mind

As it eats itself alive just like it did in wartime

Are those pills used to treat the worst parts of you?

No, they’re pebbles, but you can swallow those too

 

Enjoy prison! Because you’re never getting out

You’re a POW with not one escape route

SEAL Team Six ain’t coming to save you

Just be thankful for the medal Uncle Sam gave you

It could have been currency in the prison economy

But you killed all your trust with the bloody sodomy

All you’ve ever wanted was a license to kill

But all you’re killing is time, it stands perfectly still

Limousines and Lattes

VERSE 1

He rides the limousine from the holy mountains

He drinks like a camel from the youthful fountain

He rides the limousine over the mass graves

And tells the disenfranchised they need to behave

He rides the limousine to the enchanted forest

He runs over the faeries in the middle of a chorus

He rides the limousine to the spiral dragon tower

He meets up with his cult to consolidate his power

He rides the limousine

He rides the limousine

VERSE 2

A thousand dollar latte is warming up his hand

As he sits and listens to some elevator bands

He sips on his latte and it tastes like puppy blood

He tips the clerk enough to buy a suicide gun

A thousand dollar latte is sliding down his throat

As he is out at sea in his golden Viking boat

Kids drowning in the water are reaching for help

He tells them to get a job in the ninth circle of hell

A thousand dollar latte

He sips on his latte

VERSE 3

He rides the limousine into the gates of heaven

He sips on his latte at around half-past eleven

He rides the limousine over the angels’ wings

He sips on his latte as the dying cherubs sing

He rides the limousine over the godly throne

He sips on his latte sweetened with powdered bones

He rides the limousine under the lovely rainbow

He sips on his latte underneath his own halo

He rides the limousine

He sips on his latte

VERSE 4

He’s bored of his affluence, all his money is useless

He’s bored of all his power, the lattes go sour

He hates his limousine, wants to go to the other place

He was there this whole time, terror on his saggy face

He hates his limousine

He hates his lattes

He has everything he wants

But the devil is the boss

He rides the limousine!

Destroying the Earth

Whether you’re watching your Saturday morning cartoons or playing your favorite Super Nintendo game, sometimes you just have to ask to nobody in particular: “Why does the villain want to destroy the earth?” Doesn’t matter if the villain is a robot, an alien, a monster, or an ordinary human with extraordinary powers; chances are good he wants to destroy the world for no fucking reason other than to flex his muscle. You hear him cackle like a madman. You hear him barking orders at his minions even though he’s capable of doing a much better job. But that’s about all you hear. No motives, no thorough planning, and if he does have the latter, it’ll be explained in intricate detail to the protagonist rather than using that precious time to murder the motherfucker. All you know about the villain is that he wants to destroy the earth, but you don’t know why.

Do you realize what happens when the earth is destroyed? There’s a very real possibility that the main villain lives on planet earth, so if he destroys the whole fucking thing, where is he going to live? He’d better have a spaceship handy. If he does, what planet is going to take him in whilst being able to support human life? Even if the planet did support human life, why would they willingly want a genocidal maniac as part of their world population? Does the villain want to destroy his new home world too? Is that all this asshole does on his spare time? Just destroy worlds haphazardly without thinking about the consequences of mass genocide? At least Freiza from Dragon Ball Z had a motive. He wiped out the planet’s population and sold the planet to the highest bidder. He was a businessman. A ruthless businessman, but as we’ve seen with corporate America, that’s really a redundant phrase at this point.

I suppose any villain could use the CEO excuse to destroy random planets, but people who have seen Dragon Ball Z would know where the motive came from and accusations of plagiarism would be louder than a Super Saiyan screaming before he throws a Kamehameha wave…out of his ass…after eating a hundred dollars worth of Taco Bell food. Yes, I know, there’s no such thing as an original idea. Everything comes from somewhere. But surely there are more motives for committing genocide on a planet’s population than just dollars and cents, right? Yes, dollars and cents are very enticing to villains with a shallow point of view, or even a desperate debtor. But it’s hardly the only reason why someone would want to destroy a whole planet.

Destroying the earth seems to have lost its luster over time due to the backwards logistics of it all. But it doesn’t have to be. Part of the fun of being a professional author is spinning tropes on their heads. Maybe the threat of global destruction is part of an ultimatum. “Give me a gazillion dollars or I’m going to blow up a major world city every hour on the hour.” We’ve seen that in movies before, but why would a genocidal lunatic need a gazillion dollars? Climbing out of poverty? Buying a vacation home in somewhere other than a targeted city? Clinging to an expensive cocaine and hooker addiction? These are all solid reasons for world destruction. They’re shitty things to do, but as far as character arcs go, they’ll go a long way in giving villains all three of their much-needed dimensions. The audience will laugh at villains for being cheesy and one-dimensional. Why not make them blackmailers of the most disgusting kind?

But why is it just blackmail? Can a villain want to destroy the earth just for the satisfaction of watching the world burn? Dead bodies can be very satisfying to a villain with a constant Joker’s grin. But after one dead body, he’d have to keep achieving that high in order to maintain satisfaction. When the bodies run out, then what is he going to do? But maybe he will find satisfaction in worldwide genocide, because he sees his abusers in every person he meets. Or maybe he was raised with a Nazi ideology and sees himself as the purest human. Maybe the parents who gave him his Nazi ideology were abusive themselves. In the bloody war between nature and nurture, nurture wins hands down.

Can a villain be born evil, though? Certain genes could allow that to happen, like a predisposition for psychopathy, sociopathy, and narcissism. Maybe the villain is beyond help and can’t help himself when he kills large numbers of people. Maybe he legitimately doesn’t see the consequences of his actions and kills just because. But when he’s criticized or punished for his heinous crimes, he suddenly plays the sympathy card like a little coward. We’ve seen that in movies and TV shows before, because it continues to work. Hell, we see this shit in today’s world news with certain politicians, pundits, and bullies in general. I’m sure they’d love to watch the world burn just because.

What if a magical voice tells the villain to commit worldwide genocide and will only give him relief from his mind-fuck when he completes his task. Where is this voice coming from? The depths of hell? A sorcerer long believed to be dead? A bug implanted in his ear? A caterpillar that crawls up his nose and infests his brain? A psychoactive drug with micro-insects swimming through it? But if you as a writer choose to go down this route, you’ll want to remove it as far as you can from actual real world schizophrenia. Schizophrenics have enough stigmas attached to them as it is. The magical voice has to be purely from a magical or science-fiction standpoint. You can even take a page out of the Cyberpunk 2020 playbook and have the cyborg lose his humanity after overusing his mechanical limbs.

There are thousands of reasons why a villain would want to destroy the earth. Pick one and stick with it. You could have a laughing skeleton in a dark cloak carrying a fiery battleaxe, but unless you give him some reasons for doing the things he does, he’s going to come off as cheesy and clownish. Imagine if Darth Vader, one of the most iconic Star Wars villains of all time, destroyed worlds willy-nilly and had no real reason for it. He lusted for power, above all else. It’s a simple motive, but power is enticing to psychopaths who need to be in control of their environment at all times. Is the lust for power over-used? Could be. But if everything else about the villain clicks, whether it’s the dialogue, the presentation, or the power he already has, then the audience will forgive you if you use the power-hunger trope one more time.

I’m currently in the process of rewriting a fantasy novel called Beautiful Monster for the third time in a row. For the first couple of drafts, Queen Shelly Atwood had no real reason for being a sex-crazed rapist who wanted to get as much power as she could. But in this current draft, she likes having the power and influence of a queen because it turns her on. The money she makes selling brainwashed sex slaves affords her pleasures, comforts, and conveniences she wouldn’t have had as a poor peasant. Power is addictive and so is the one-percent lifestyle. She’s gotten so used to being powerful that she must have things her way all the time. She doesn’t want to lose even a smidgen of that power to anybody. Whether she gains it from raping a future sex slave or making shady business deals, she’ll take it where she can get it. With this much power and money comes possessions that she wouldn’t otherwise have. Scary artwork, pornographic novels, ice cream ingredients, fine wine, powerful drugs, she’s like a spoiled brat on Christmas, but every day is Christmas and every night is Halloween for the ones she steps on.

Any goofy character can be made into a convincing badass as long as there are layers and dimensions to their personality. Any atrocious act of genocide can be justified in the mind of the villain as long as that justification is made loud and clear. Evil for the sake of evil comes across as hokey no matter what the story is. Evil has a purpose. Evil has a background story. Evil has personality. The villains themselves might even insist that they’re the good guys of their own story. They’re destroying the earth to put the miserable population out of their respective misery. They’re committing genocide because the population is somehow responsible for shunning him from all forms of society. The villain is killing at random because he has a heightened sense of alertness that won’t allow him to be taken by surprise even by the most mundane human being or animal.

The table is set, fellow authors. Flesh out your villains, flesh out your stories, flesh out your worlds, and make sure your audience notices all the hard work you put into your craft. Even the most random occurrences happen for a reason despite the reason not being readily available to the victims. They should be available to your readers, though. They’re not stupid. They see right through laziness. You don’t want to be the author who gives them a whole lot of nothing, right? Show us why the villain is evil, don’t just say he wants to destroy the earth. Any clown in a spaceship can destroy the earth. But a true villain can haunt the minds of his audience while he’s doing it.

Shelly Craven

NAME: Shelly Craven

AGE: 24

OCCUPATION: Fetish Stripper and Criminal Informant

CANON: Abyss

I don’t go around advertising my sexual fetishes to everyone, but just this one time, I’ll make an exception. The reason I even have to make an exception is because my sexual appetites are, how shall I say this in a nice way…fucking weird! Well, they’re weird to the people who actually know about them. I have three different sexual fetishes: bondage, feet, and diapers (without bodily functions except orgasms).

If you feel like turning around and running away with your arms flailing in the air, I can’t really say I blame you. But if you actually have an open mind and would like to hear about Miss Shelly Craven, you can stay. Be warned: this blog post isn’t rated G. Or PG (unless there’s an I in the middle). Or even PG-13. Abyss, the canon Shelly was a part of, was rated R for, surprise, surprise, sexual content.

Before I was even dimly aware of how bigoted objectification was, I wrote a movie in 2007 called Abyss, where the main character was a 30-year-old man with a baby’s mind and a love for playing with toys. The main character, Angel, is on the run from police after he kills his father over a broken toy. Angel has no idea where the hell he’s going, so he absentmindedly pays a visit to Shelly Craven.

Shelly is the embodiment of all three of my sexual fetishes. When performing onstage for horny strangers, she puts duct tape on her own mouth, she wears a diaper (again, without bodily functions), and she massages oil into her bare feet. Seeing her perform is a very strange experience, I agree. But it’s also one you’re going to have in your spank bank for a long, long time. Admit it, you like her. You know who doesn’t like her, though? Angel. In fact, seeing as how he has the mind of a baby, he’s confused and overwhelmed by her performance.

What Angel doesn’t know is that Shelly, in addition to being the sexy lady of every man’s dreams, is also a snitch for the local police. She was warned ahead of time by Detective Jon Ball that a big man-child might be coming her way. So what does she do? Keep him “occupied” with her dance. Big mistake. Big, big mistake. Not only does Angel get away, but he inspires bouncers to attack him and kills them as well as his father. So now there’s a monster on the loose and Shelly is powerless to capture him.

And now here’s what I would have done differently with Shelly’s character if I was writing Abyss today in 2015 (or at least when this blog post was being written). Over the years, I’ve learned that although women are beautiful in nature, putting them in sexual situations can be the equivalent of making black characters eat watermelon or making Jewish characters greedy. In other words, it’s bigoted and it’s disgusting. It would be the same if somebody made a movie about a schizophrenic kid and turned him into a Complete Monster serial killer. As someone with a mental illness, that would offend me and I’d want to kick the shit out of the writer of that movie.

That’s not to say female characters can’t be attractive. They can retain their sexuality, but only if the audience sees that they’re more than just objects. They’re people with real emotions, real traumas, and real stories. Originally in the Abyss script, Shelly Craven was doing her fetish stripping as a way to keep her head above water. She had bills to pay ranging from basic rent to alimony to her deadbeat husband.

What I would do differently is make her into a character who rises above such adversity in an independent and tough-minded fashion. Maybe she wants retribution against Angel, so she grabs a shotgun and blasts his nuts off. Maybe she collects a reward on the monster’s head and uses that to not only pay her bills, but move into a better place. Yeah, Shelly Craven is sexy as hell, but if you mess with her, you’re one dead motherfucker. She’s a fetish stripper and a male fantasy second and a badass first. Angel, nobody’s going to take away your toys, just your right to live.

Three-dimensionality can exist within any character in any canon. It’s all a matter of being open-minded enough to want it and actually putting in the time to develop these even minor characters. If your Mexican character is running around in a giant nacho hat, he’d better have some fucking personality or you’re in deep shit. Shelly’s going to have personality and that will suffice.

　

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Q: What does Anonymous think of Kim Kardashian breaking the internet?

A: They don’t give a Fawkes.