Dark Identity

***DARK IDENTITY***

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times (actually, that number is pretty accurate, to say the least): creative fuel can come from anywhere, and I do mean anywhere. There’s a fucking movie about emojis, for shit’s sake (which is also accurate considering there’s a poop emoji as one of the main characters). Back in the year 2004, a different kind of creative fuel flooded my mind: an X-Box game called Unreal Championship. It’s a first person shooter featuring sci-fi creatures, clowns, robots, giants, the works. The female aliens and clowns had raspy voices that reminded me somehow of Starscream from the Transformers cartoons in the 80’s. Thus, the seeds are sown for a one chapter novel idea slash pencil and paper RPG called Dark Identity.

Keep in mind, this was the year 2004, so I was five years away from being a serious reader and even further away from being a semi-pro. In a world of genetic engineering and stratified warriors, you had a badass motherfucker named Dujak Heil (nice last name; not racist at all). He went to a peaceful town armed to the tooth and got arrested for vagrancy in a scene laced with profanity and anti-Nazi references (from a guy whose last name was Heil).

This was the second and final story I submitted to my creative writing class at Olympic College (the same one where I went berserk after a kid named Patrick said my writing sucked). This second outing was much better than the Raggyd presentation. I had students tell me my story should be on Adult Swim. That’s a fucking compliment if I’ve ever heard one! And then I had a bearded troll named Alex tell me he wants Dujak to die a nasty horrible death. The feeling was mutual at the time.

Could Dark Identity have been something more than a one chapter cluster fuck? With some research on genetic engineering and serious commitment to the story, yes, it could have. Do I want to recreate this concept in the year 2017? Probably not. This whole story was centered around Unreal Championship fandom and hearing female clowns yell, “Enemy flag carrier is here!”

I officially beat Unreal Championship in February 2005 (just days after I was suspended from college for writing a nasty poem about my geology teacher). I’ve played it a handful of times with friends since then and that’s about it. So I guess it’s safe to say I’ve outgrown that game. I’d definitely consider playing it again to refresh my memory, but I must confess, the thumb stick sensitivity in that game makes it next to impossible to aim properly with anything but an automatic rifle.

Aside from outgrowing a popular X-Box game, maybe there was some truth to what Alex said about Dujak being a hate-worthy character. He betrayed his tribe, he brought weapons into a peaceful town, and he made wisecracks at the guards for trying to arrest him. Unless there’s some mustard behind those remarks, those aren’t likeable qualities in a main character. The best kinds of protagonists are the ones we can sympathize with. That’s why we have a lot of heroes as protagonists rather than villains: because most of us can relate to being good people with hearts of gold. Mitch McLeod needed a massive overhaul in his character in order to make Occupy Wrestling as polished as it is today.

Dark Identity is just another potentially good idea that got lost in the shuffle of other projects. It hasn’t aged well since 2004/2005, so it won’t be made into a novel or short story. The lesson of the day: not everything you touch will turn to gold. Knowing the difference between diamonds and coal is something all writers need to do. I once heard an internet personality call it a “crap detector”. We all think our crap detectors are strong until we’re proven otherwise, but even then some authors will fight that uphill battle until the end. Listening to your peers (the helpful ones) is paramount to success as an author. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***CREATIVE OUTPUT AND BOREDOM***

These days, I can’t really decide between having a lot of projects to do and having a small amount. I’m either bored out of my mind or overwhelmed to the point of chaos. I need to find a middle ground, but I’m no closer to finding it now than I was the past few weeks, where I had so little to do that I got bored easily. One of my solutions to this boredom is to write short stories for American Darkness 2 and Poison Tongue Tales 2 outside of the WSS. I did that for the first Poison Tongue Tales book back in 2015 during NaNoWriMo and it was a massive success. Perhaps I could do it again this time around, provided I have the energy for it. It turns out, though, that the next AD2 story I plan on writing fits in with the WSS prompt for the week, which is “Searing”.

***AMERICAN DARKNESS 2: WE ARE THE MACHINE***

Yes, you’ll notice that both American Darkness 2 and Poison Tongue Tales 2 have different subtitles than what I originally gave them. In the case of AD2, Black State could have so many different meanings that it could be misinterpreted. Now it’s called We Are the Machine. It sounds cool and nobody’s reading too much into its intended meaning. For this collection, the next story will be called “Street Warriors” (another title I’m considering changing) and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1. Samir the Skull Crusher, Indian Street Brawler
2. Crackers the Clown, Evil Clown
3. Kristen Miranda, Runaway Teen

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Kristen starts the story by searching for shelter.

SYNOPSIS: Kristen runs away from home and finds herself in the darkest, dankest part of Paulson City. When she tries to warm up next to a garbage can fire, she’s confronted by Crackers the Clown, who claims that she doesn’t belong in these streets and needs to get the hell out. The only way Crackers will let Kristen stay is if she agrees to have sex with him, to which Samir the Skull Crusher intervenes, claiming to be the one who gets to have her. The two scary characters brawl while Kristen is cowering in the corner wishing she was home right now.

***POISON TONGUE TALES 2: THE RIGHT TO REMAIN PSYCHOTIC***

Here’s the story I plan on working on independently. It’s called “Mine All Mine” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1. Chris Buyatt, Capoeira Fighter
2. Michael Tyoni, Pyromancer
3. Nina Thomas, Politician

PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.

SYNOPSIS: Chris and Michael’s race against each other leads them to the Black Dust Salt Mine, where videotaped evidence against Nina’s corruption is being secretly kept. Chris wants to bring the evidence to light while Michael wants to use his pyromancy to burn it and save Nina from embarrassment. The warrior and the wizard battle it out with Mayor Thomas watching in the background with a shotgun in hand.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

With new characters come new drawings. The first on the barbecue rack is Chris Buyatt from Mine All Mine. He was previously used in my Final Fantasy videogame idea from 2002-2005 as Gail Reinhold’s ex-boyfriend, but has since been scrapped until now. Gail is now a part of the Poison Tongue Tales story “Zombie” and Chris will make his official debut in “Mine All Mine”.

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

CRAZY K: Sensory what?!

DR. CUSHING: Sensory deprivation chamber. You will see nothing, you will hear nothing. Your mind will have nothing to feed upon but itself. It’s a tiny meal indeed. Hahahahaha!

-Tales From the Hood: Hardcore Convert-

Violent Fantasies

***VIOLENT FANTASIES***

Nobody will ever come out and admit to having violent fantasies about their enemies, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Everybody has that one person in their lives who they feel deserves double hand strangulation, a blast from a flamethrower, a Columbian Necktie, or any other savage means of torture or murder. Some fantasize about violence more than others, but it’s something we all do whether we’re open about it or not. Anybody who says otherwise is a goddamn liar. Even the most peaceful people have angry thoughts every once and a while. That’s what the mind is for: it’s the last sanctuary of privacy we have. If we actually had psychomantic powers (a.k.a. telekinesis), then we would all be shit out of luck.

Having violent thoughts doesn’t make you an evil person. Hell, it’s the sanest thing a human being can do without actually committing those acts. The moral crusaders like to complain that videogames make the youth of today violent people and we all know that’s serious bullshit. Videogames, martial arts cinema, horror novels, these things don’t promote violence, but they give the average human being a channel to release their most hateful thoughts. When I was in high school, my favorite form of violent entertainment was watching old school ECW (not the WWE revival of it, which sucked). Watching The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer smack their opponents with kendo sticks and suplex them onto barbed wire made me feel giddy inside. Did I actually do any of these things to my fellow classmates? No, I didn’t, because that’s considered assault and it’s highly illegal.

Being able to separate fantasy from reality is the most important thing a person with angry thoughts can do. There are kids who play Gears of War or Call of Duty on their X-Boxes and think they can go overseas and do actual military service. When you step on a landmine in a videogame, that’s okay, because there’s always a reset button. If you step on a landmine in the real world, you’ll either lose your legs or you’ll die instantly. And trust me when I say this: real life war has no reset button. The same thing is true when you are the aggressor and another person is the victim. If you think about shooting another human being with an AK-47 and that fantasy makes you smile on the inside, congratulations, you’re a human being. But if you actually shoot someone with an automatic weapon, it’ll fuck with your mind for the rest of your life.

There are plenty of ways to channel violent fantasies into productive and creative results. I, for example, wrote a heavy metal song last night called “Chainsaw Samurai”. Not only was it about a samurai who preferred a chainsaw over a katana, but that samurai was a murderous psychopath who left seas of blood everywhere he went. In the fictional world, a chainsaw-wielding samurai is cool to me. Hell, I’d even watch a movie, read a book, or play a videogame if that person was the lead character. But if someone like that popped up in real life, I’d be scared out of my mind. I might not even want to come out of my room for several months if I knew such a vicious person was coming to Port Orchard. Of course, violence in Port Orchard is about as unnatural as a fireball falling from the skies, so I don’t know why a chainsaw-wielding samurai would ever want to come here, but that’s beside the point.

So go ahead, ladies and gentlemen. Relax in your easy chair and visualize your worst enemies chained to wooden posts with tires stacked around their bodies and a blazing fire crawling up their soon-to-be corpses. As long as you don’t do it in real life, you’ll be just fine. That’s what made the 2000’s detective show The Shield so cool. We cheered like animals when Vic Mackey pressed Armadillo Quintaro’s face against a burning stovetop. If Darren Wilson did that to Michael Brown, however, the media shit storm would never end. It would just become a biblical flood of brown juices stinking up the entire country and making everyone sick to their stomach. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Speaking of violence and burning people alive, my next Dark Fantasy Warrior will be Debra Cameron from the “American Darkness” short story “The Pyrocrats”. Does it seem strange that a woman who burns everything to the ground for a living is considered the sensible one in that story? This is a violent fantasy at its most brutal level. I’ve already drawn a picture of her psychotic partner Eduardo Mendez, so Debra Cameron is naturally the next one to be featured. I probably won’t draw a picture of The Fire Marshal (because we never actually see his face) or Xavier Melanson (because he’s not a warrior; he’s a puss-bag).

***MUSIC DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

“Dear Diary, it was cold today. The sun came out later, so I strolled about looking at the shops. Didn’t see anything I liked, so I didn’t buy anything. On my way home, I posted a letter. It’s been quite a nice day. Somebody exploded an H-bomb today, but it wasn’t anybody I knew.”

-“Dear Diary” by The Moody Blues-

Dr. Pie

When I was writing a story for a videogame idea called Final Fantasy Hardcore, my idea of cage fighting wasn’t what you see today in the UFC. There were no referee stoppages, no judges scoring the fight, no padded gloves, no baggy shorts, no nothing. To my way of thinking, cage fighting was a lot like how it was depicted in the X-Box game Dead or Alive 3 with electrified barbed wire surrounding the ring. Herb Dean or John McCarthy wouldn’t be there to save your ass. The only way you’re getting out of these cage fights is in a hearse. I wanted the cage fights in Final Fantasy Hardcore to resemble this smash mouth way of life. And of course, every sport has its legends, which is why I want to use this blog entry to talk about Dr. Pie. Think of him as being a much more badass parody of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Dr. Pie had short dreadlocks, a wife beater shirt, baggy khakis, basically in terms of looks, he resembled a street thug rather than a caricature of The Rock. Where Dr. Pie begins to look like him is when he has microphone time. And if you’re going to give him a microphone, you’d better change the rating of whatever show he’s on to TV-MA. This goes beyond turning something sideways and sticking it up somebody’s colon. Dr. Pie will take it one step too far. “Dr. Pie says, he’s going to pull out a condom, put it on his dick, bend you over, pull your pants down, and stick it straight up your candy ass!” It didn’t end with the world’s most obvious sexual come-on. Try this on for size: “Do you smell what Dr. Pie is fisting?” A little more disgusting, but it’s an M-rated game, so he can get away with it. But if he does happen to transition to the PG-era of cage fighting, he can say something like this: “John Cena looks like a giant box of digested Cocoa Puffs!” Mr. Cena probably won’t be too happy about that and will want to challenge Dr. Pie to a match at Wrestlemania. Truth is, John might be able to get away with that when he’s up against The Rock. But if Dr. Pie gives John Cena a Rock Bottom, it won’t just shake the ring and bring the fans to their feet; it’ll snap Cena’s spine in two like a candy cane. It’ll burst his ribcage like a bubble. It’ll spill his innards all over the arena. The medical examiner will have to carry him out in a pickle jar. Don’t get me started if Dr. Pie goes for a People’s Elbow. There won’t be any running off the ropes or any other fruity theatrics. Those elbows will look more like they were done by the love child of Ricardo Lamas and Bad News Barrett. When Ricardo Lamas threw elbows at a downed Erik Koch at a UFC event, Mr. Koch bled out of his forehead like a fire hydrant and John McCarthy had to stop the match. And Bad News Barrett? A knockout elbow is his favorite finishing move. He even calls it the Bad News Bull Hammer to give you an idea of how badly it hurts to be hit with it. With all this nasty shit going on for Dr. Pie, it won’t be long before he finds a kick-ass story to be a part of.

　

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

“What’s disgusting to my audience is mundane to me.”

-Me-

Books Based On Videogames

It’s 2001/2002 and you’re a member of Playbyweb.com, a post-to-post RPG website. You try to establish an RPG based on a popular videogame only to be met with comments like, “Why don’t you just play the videogame?” Are you sick of those comments yet? Get used to them, because in 2009 when you officially solidify your status as a bookworm, you take an interest in books that were adapted from videogames. A few weeks ago, I went to Barnes & Noble and bought something that I look forward to reading someday: “Diablo III: The Order”. I’ve never played Diablo III, just the second one and the first one. Judging from how memorable Diablo II was, I figured that the third one in the series should be just as exciting and fast-paced. I expect the book will be just as action-packed as the videogames themselves. This will be the attitude I take with me whenever I go shopping for books at Barnes & Noble. There’s a whole sprawl of books and graphic novels based on videogames. I’ve seen ones based on Halo, Diablo (as I’ve said earlier), Sonic, and…those are the only ones my shitty memory will allow me to say. I’m sure there are others. Shit, just the other day, I was surfing Amazon and I purchased a copy of “Super Mario: How Nintendo Ruled America” by Jeff Ryan. It’s nonfiction of course since it’s in the style of a biography. I’ll look good on my shelf once it gets here. In the meantime, all this talk about books committed to videogames makes me want to see some novels based on other games as well. A Mario biography is nice, but how about a novel based in the Mario universe? Wouldn’t you like to see a story told through the creepily curled eyes of Phanto? I would, that’s for damn sure. Or how about a Final Fantasy IV novel told in a Calcobrena Puppet’s point of view? I’m sure that would sell. Hell, I’ll even settle for a Pac-Man book if it’s at all possible. I’m sure someone out there with a wild imagination could do it. Or if you’re into something a little more action-packed, let’s try some Street Fighter and Tekken books. There’s a whole universe of videogames out there that hasn’t been exploited yet. The only thing stopping authors like me from exploiting them is the anal-retentive copyright laws where corporations will literally sue over nothing. That’s part of the ongoing debate over fan fiction these days: internet postings and personal sharing is fine, but no official publication lest you be taken to court. If there are any authors out there who are more capable of getting a license to write videogame books than I am, I implore you, make these novels a reality. And no, I won’t just “play the videogame”, because I’ll get frustrated by the immense difficulty level. The last time I actually played a game was in 2010 when I kept getting my ass kicked by a lava dragon in Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS. It seems hypocritical that I would want videogame based novels after not having played one in three years. Maybe I’m just nostalgic since they were a huge part of my childhood. So how about it? Will we have that Donkey Kong novel or not? Anybody? Hello!

　

***CODY’S ARMY***

Whenever I’m not posting blog entries like the one I just did or writing chapters of Hardcore Hate 2: It‘s a Real War, I’ll be reading “Cody’s Army” by Jim Case. I’m 20 pages into it and it’s already an exciting thrill ride.

　

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Mickey Mouse is in Walt Disney’s office and Walt says, “I can’t just fire Minnie for being stupid.” Mickey says, “I didn’t say she was stupid. I said she was fucking Goofy.”