Disturbing Tropes

***DISTURBING TROPES***

Yes, I know we’re two months removed from Halloween and this particular topic’s expiration date has passed. But then again, I don’t fucking care! I see a lot of Author Tubers counting down lists of their favorite/worst tropes depending on what the genre is. Jenna Moreci did a Worst Family Tropes video and the final item on her list reminds me too much of Jeff Foxworthy’s “You Might Be a Redneck” jokes. And then you have Erin Kinsella being as sweet as can be when listing off her favorite romantic tropes. I don’t have a You Tube channel, but I want to list off tropes of my own, so that’s why we’re gathered here today, my dearly beloveds. Today I’m listing off my top six most disturbing tropes in any genre. If you agree or disagree with anything on this list, I’d love to hear it.

***LOSS OF INDIVIDUALITY***

Our minds are the last safe havens for us as human beings. Without our individuality, we are nothing. In high school, I was very protective of my individuality and I have Pink Floyd the Wall to thank for that. The school kids in that movie lose their individuality and that’s why they all wear creepy putty-faced masks: because they all look and act the same. In this case, the teacher is responsible for their conformity because he’s a bully. He reads Pink’s poetry out loud and humiliates him in front of the classroom. Therefore, every time he writes poetry, he’s going to think of that traumatic moment and not want to do poetry anymore, hence why he wears a putty-faced mask. School is just one place where a child can lose his individuality. It can also happen in church, in cults, and even in their own homes. When you lose the ability to decide for yourself, you give up what makes you special.

***ANIMAL TRANSFORMATION***

When I say animal transformation, I’m not talking about shape shifters who willingly change into other species. I’m talking about when it happens to somebody against their will. When you transform into an animal, you lose all credibility as a human being and your individuality goes up in smoke. We saw this with Disney’s version of Pinocchio when the kids were all transformed into donkeys after partaking in “sinful” behavior. Believe it or not, I can find an even more disturbing version of this trope. In Cowboy Bebop’s fourth episode, Gateway Shuffle, an eco-terrorist group creates a virus that transforms ordinary human beings into primitive monkeys. They decide to use the virus on one of their own, Harrison, after he makes a mistake during an attack. Watching Harrison locked in a small cage and transforming into a monkey was easily the most disturbing moment in Cowboy Bebop. Yes, he’s a bad guy, but even I had to have sympathy for him.

***FALSE IMPRISONMENT***

Prison by itself is a scary place to be. The guards are bullies, the prisoners are bullies, and there’s no reprieve from the constant assaults. The US has the highest prison population of any country, but that’s not what I’m talking about today. What if the imprisonment of another person was because of a civilian and not the police? What if it’s a pedophile holding a child hostage for decades at a time? What if it’s a drug cartel holding someone’s wife hostage in exchange for money or information? What if it’s a deprogrammer holding a non-brainwashed person hostage and forcing him to lose his individuality? Jaycee Dugard’s story of being raped for eighteen years straight by a complete stranger will always disturb me, so much so that I wish there was a hell just so her attacker could burn in it for all eternity.

***SPIDERS, SCORPIONS, AND SNAKES***

The three S’s, ladies and gentlemen. The three motherfucking S’s. They’re tiny, they’re creepy, and they love to bite and sting humans for virtually no reason. One of the three S’s is bad enough on its own. But just imagine the horror of being trapped in a room with hundreds of these disgusting creatures. Crawling on your walls, crawling on your body, eating you alive as you struggle to get them off. It’s the reason why I’ll never watch Something Wicked This Way Comes or Eight Legged Freaks ever again, as they both have spider scenes. What about that Indiana Jones movie where Indy is trapped underground with a bunch of snakes? Fucking forget it, man! Yuck!

***HEAD VOICES***

As a schizophrenic, I have personal experience with this. Disembodied voices telling you negative things? Creepy! Now imagine responding to them out loud in a public place. Not only will the voices grow more aggressive the more you fight them, but those who share the public space with you will either give you funny looks or they’ll back as far away from you as they possibly can. Even with those head voices, you’re the loneliest motherfucker on planet earth. Luckily, I’ve never had to be institutionalized, but if I was, that’d be yet another example of false imprisonment. Mental hospitals are prisons for the psychologically ill. They committed no crimes, yet they can’t leave whenever they want to nor do they get freedom or rights of any kind. That’s a prison in my eyes.

***HEAD SHAVING***

When I say head shaving, I’m not talking about my bimonthly visit to Hair Masters to get a buzz cut. I’m not even talking about cancer patients having their hair fall out after chemotherapy. I’m talking about when head shaving is done to an unwilling person as a way to humiliate and dehumanize them. We saw this in V For Vendetta when Natalie Portman was captured by the totalitarian government and had her head shaved completely bald. We see this in prisons all the time when newbies get their heads shaved for no other reason other than the fact that the guards are assholes. And going back to that theme of loss of individuality, yes, head shaving can be yet another way to make a large group of people look exactly the same. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being bald, but against your will at another person’s hands? Not cool. And definitely creepy as fuck.

***CONCLUSION***

So what about you guys? Do you have any tropes that you find disturbing? Let me know in the comment section. I’m Garrison Kelly! Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight! Hey, there’s another disturbing trope: the theme music from Tales From the Dark Side!

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER***

Over the past few days, I’ve been working on getting Beautiful Monster in tiptop shape for yet another round of editing. I’ve written a new prologue where Queen Llewellyn Xavier gives a Magetan sermon to her flock and I’ve edited the newly minted chapter one where her brother Windham Xavier has a traumatic episode prior to his stealth mission. Both chapters have something in common: the main protagonists don’t act like overdramatic babies anymore. Crying was such a common thing in my most recent draft, so much so that the characters came off as drama queens rather than people who are actually in pain. That’s something I intend to change as I’m going through these chapters. That way, when Windham finally does cry near the story’s end, it’ll be special and warranted. Wish me luck!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Before you judge me, take a good hard look at yourself. You don’t know me, but you’re draining me of mental health. A lie based on popular opinion. I want to die, ‘cause I can’t be forgiven. The world is caving in all around me. I see myself as a vulgar monstrosity. My mind collapsed into a technical mess. I can’t deal with the guilt I have to ingest. Locked in a room void of humanity. I’m in a black hole suffering endlessly. Opening my eyes is worse than death. That’s why I keep on holding my breath.”

-Alien Weaponry singing “Holding My Breath”-

My Cloudland Has a Sense of Humor

***MY CLOUDLAND HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR***

I’ve spoken candidly about my weird ass dreams before and I’m going to continue the tradition on this lovely Wednesday evening. I believe even the weirdest of weird dreams can serve as creative fuel. Marie Krepps, my beautiful beta reader, will definitely stand by my side on this one since she too has some weird ass dreams. Granted, these two I’m going to talk about make no fucking sense whatsoever, but that’s the beautiful thing about having a whacked out mind: it doesn’t have to. We’re going to start with dream number one.

　

I don’t remember too many of the details from the first dream other than it was a nightmare that made my heart race when I woke up at 11:00 in the morning. What I do remember was that it was about the clown from Brave Little Toaster and how he wanted to cut me up into little pieces. I tried to get away from him, but the only place where I could find refuge was with the Dust Witch from Something Wicked This Way Comes. Tarantulas scare the shit out of me, so I accepted my fate of being chopped up by the demon firefighter clown.

I had every intention this morning of getting out of bed and getting a buzz cut at Hair Masters. It didn’t happen. My hair is still shaggy and my dream world is still knocking at the door. I fell back asleep and started my second dream, which wasn’t necessarily a nightmare, but it was really goddamn weird.

I was doing research at the Western Washington University campus library, probably on graphic novels. I’m waiting for my study buddy to show up and when he finally does, he turns out to be French-Canadian WWE superstar Kevin Owens. He doesn’t try to beat me up or harass me like he usually does to his opponents in the ring. He does, however, offer to walk me home after the studying is over.

By the time we walk outside the library, we’re not in Bellingham, Washington anymore where WWU is supposed to be. We’re in Victoria, Canada, a favorite vacation spot of mine, but somehow different this time around. The Armenian Mafia was patrolling the streets of this normally crime-free city looking for people they could beat up. I guess Kevin Owens was supposed to be my bodyguard, because I was able to make it to my hotel room without being mugged.

Outside the hotel, there’s a large group of fat people doing exercises and being tired after the first few seconds. One of the exercise students was a woman so fat her entire torso was covered with a tool shed. She was sitting on a horse doing nothing and suddenly fell off to the side. The irony wasn’t lost on me when the class of exhausted fat people were laughing at her. But then they found it disgusting when a pair of disembodied legs wearing jeans walked by.

Me and my family minus Kevin Owens left the Canadian hotel and went down to the ferry terminal to catch a ride. We’re sitting on the dockside and there are these two cute British lesbians sitting across from us holding hands and being happy. Even though I know a relationship will never work between the three of us, I started feeling nervous around them anyways. So what did I do? I listened to Three Days Grace’s song “I Am Machine” on my MP3 player and picked my nose. When it doubt, be socially awkward. My social awkwardness has gotten me through everything in life.

The ferry arrives and we all get on to presumably go home. Except we didn’t go to Port Orchard, Washington. We went to London, England, where a horse and carriage was waiting for us. We’re on a two-way cobblestone street and somehow the different positions in the road lead to different countries. The right side will take us to Norway, the middle will take us to Germany, and the left side will take us to France. We get on the French side of the road and the carriage takes us there at a lightning fast pace.

Our destination ends up being a sandy beach with a lot of pollution and ducks in the water. I pull something mysterious out of my mouth and it turns out to be a baby black duck, which I throw into the water with its family. Reina asks me if this is a great vacation and I steadfastly agree.

I woke up at 1:10 in the afternoon and got on the computer to check my messages. No, this isn’t part of the dream, this is real life. When I was trying to read my Good Reads messages, the lines of text were all blurry, probably because I was still tired. I went back to bed and didn’t officially start my day until 2:20 in the afternoon. Still, no buzz cut at hair masters.

　

We’ve got ears! Say cheers!

　

***TELEVISION ISSUES***

Last night as I was watching NCIS: New Orleans, my flat screen TV burned out and stopped working. Prior to that, me and Reina kept smelling plastic and rubber burning, but we couldn’t figure out what it was. It was the TV this whole time. My other electronics work just fine, but not the flat screen TV. I originally wanted to review a wrestling match from WWE NXT Takeover: London, but without a TV, that’s not possible. I could watch it on my computer, but my internet connection isn’t always reliable. I’d have to find a way to download it onto my hard drive. Or I could buy another TV, that’d work too. Either way, I’ve already looked up the results online and I was genuinely surprised by them. Baron Corbin defeated Apollo Crews, Bayley made Nia Jax submit in order to keep her NXT Women’s Championship, and Finn Balor overcame Samoa Joe to keep his NXT Championship. I’m definitely going to have to find a way to watch this show.

　

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

The last entry into this series was Debra Winter, a hero from Occupy Wrestling. The next entry will be Cameron Gillespie, a villainess from Watch You Burn. For my reference picture, I Googled TNA wrestler Awesome Kong, who is a 6’1”, 295 lb. black woman with a nasty attitude and a hard-hitting repertoire of moves. I originally wanted Cameron Gillespie to be tall and lanky, but Awesome Kong’s massive frame will do just fine. Be afraid, bitches!

　

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

RANDAL: Do you know how much money the average jizz mopper makes per hour?

DANTE: What’s a jizz mopper?

RANDAL: They’re the guys who clean up the nudy booths after each guy jerks off.

DANTE: Nudy booth?

RANDAL: Yeah. Haven’t you ever been inside a nudy booth before?

DANTE: Guess not.

RANDAL: Aw, man, it’s great. You go into this booth and there’s this glass between you and these chicks and they put on a show for you for like ten bucks.

DANTE: What kind of a show?

RANDAL: Think of the weirdest, craziest shit you like to see chicks do. These chicks do it all. They’ll insert anything into any opening on their bodies. Any opening.

DANTE: Can we not talk about this right now?

RANDAL: The jizz mopper’s job is to clean up the nudy booths after each guy shoots a load. Everybody does it right on the glass. I don’t know if you know this or not, but cum leaves streaks if you don’t clean it right away.

-Clerks-