Zune Koga, Megan's Barbaric Love Interest from "Beauty and the Barbarian"

 

C.C.H. Ground n' Pounder, Queen of Barbarians

 

Garrisimp

 

Barbarian Tears

When the demon inside reaches postmortem status

When the time comes to lay down your blood-soaked axes

When your war cry to the heavens is only a whimper

When your tree-trunk legs get limper and limper

Let the river of salt flow freely from your eyes

Let your inner war hammer crush Manosphere lies

Let your war-torn soul cycle through the emotions

So you don’t live day to day going through the motions

There’s nothing wrong with crying, regardless of gender

When you’ve spent so long being the strongest protector

When your deadliest attackers pass the gates of hell

When the smell of death leaves you nauseous and unwell

There’s no such thing as never-ending strength

There’s no such thing as a limited time length

When the burden you carry lives on forever

Unleash the thunderstorms and waterfall weather

The monsters and tyrants will laugh as much as they want

Even they have empty souls behind the violence they flaunt

Someday they will learn what vulnerability means

Even if their abusers never passed on those genes

Nobody leaves this life without a festering wound

That eats away at the flesh before they enter the tomb

That eats away at the mind like disease-carrying rats

The scars never get better, they only grow fat

Don’t take your pain to the other side of life

Don’t bottle the trauma that cuts like a knife

Your tears will grow the most beautiful plants

Leave behind a greener world when others can’t

You won’t be remembered as a laughing stock jester

But they’ll be remembered as angel molesters

You’ll be treated like a god for generations to come

Leave a legacy of love with your trail of blood

Magic

The thunderstorms of electromancy
Elven royalty dressed in robes so fancy
Pixies and gnomes dancing together
Underneath purple sunset weather
Ogres mourn the loss of beauty
Old witches still call them cuties
Orcish children play among dwarves
A fantasy world removed from war

But in today’s world of disgust
Wizards are met with distrust
The dragons don’t fly anymore
Gatekeepers make life a bore
It’s all about STEM and business
Calling the disenfranchised “idiots”
For daring to believe in a better place
Rebelling against the corporate rat race

The magic is gone, but will it ever return?
Or will the beautiful pages continue to burn?
It’s up to us to slay these hellfire beasts
To bring back childhood memories so sweet
Don’t let the overlords tell you to grow up
Be there for your army when they show up
Fight with swords, staves, and magic wands
Your barbaric war cry is your epic song

The magic didn’t die; it took a vacation
Now it’s alive in a world of devastation
Throwing fireballs and summoning gods
Electrifying the sky with a serpentine rod
Raising an army of skeletons and zombies
Shapeshifting into grizzlies, animal mommies
Our legacies will live on forever and a day
Let’s dance in celebrate in the gnomish way

The Crazy Ones

The background bickering should have been an obvious harbinger of things to come for Tai. But all that clouded his imagination was Mother Nature’s most beautiful features. Rolling ocean waves washed away the harsh noise. The mountain breeze cooled him off. The desert sun baked him like a batch of fresh cookies. An angelic harpist plucked her strings while her gorgeous voice haunted his mind. Tai could have stayed in this meditative trance forever had it not been for two cellmates who didn’t have gorgeous voices of their own.

“You are such a goddamn idiot!” yelled Electra Shadowwolf, her barbed voice snapping Tai’s eyes open. Of all the muscles on her barbaric frame she could have used that day, she decided her index finger was the most powerful one as she pointed at her partner in crime.

Diesel Reznor swatted Electra’s hand away with his dragon claws and snapped, “This is your fault, you dumb bitch! I don’t know why you’re pointing that ugly ass finger at me! You should be pointing that shit at yourself!”

Tai held his exposed skull in his hand as the dragon man and the barbarian’s conversation degenerated into a cacophonic mess. He couldn’t even tell what they were saying anymore. “Could you two shut the hell up for a minute?” he calmly said to no response, just more shouting. The way their voices echoed off of brick prison walls gave Tai an explosive migraine. He wished someone would smash him over the head with a club and give him a permanent route to peace.

When the throaty voices began to give him schizophrenia, Tai sat up from his cross-legged position and slowly approached his arguing comrades. Despite having a creepy skeleton in an orange kung fu robe staring them down, Diesel and Electra’s attention spans remained on each other and the screaming continued to give aneurisms to anybody who listened.

“Shut!” belted Tai as he snap-kicked Diesel in the stomach and doubled him over. “Up!” He did the same to Electra, causing both of his cohorts to cough and wheeze. Tai didn’t wait for them to catch their breath. He grabbed Diesel by his purple scales and Electra by her brunette hair.

“You two dimwits had one job,” Tai silently seethed. “One…fucking…job. All you had to do was guard the front entrance and you couldn’t even do that correctly. That’s why we’re in here and as far as I’m concerned, it’s both of your faults.” He gave them both a gorgon death stare and whispered, “Shut your asses up and let me meditate. If I have to tell you one more time, I’ll kick you in the head so fucking hard you’ll forget how to wipe your own asses! Are we clear?”

Electra’s fearful expression showed that she understood loud and clear. Diesel, on the other hand, shoved Tai to the ground with one clawed hand as soon as he regained his breath.

“You’re just as much to blame as we are,” Diesel argued while Tai glared at his opponent, unafraid. “If you’re that good at kicking somebody’s head off, why didn’t you do it to the goddamn guards?” Diesel burped, his saggy belly wiggling over his black trousers. “You’re supposed to be some kind of ninja samurai badass, right? Well, all I saw back at the bank was a skinny little prick! And why the hell was I the one guarding the door? I should be the one smashing heads and taking names!”

“You know…it’s not too late to give it a try, you fat bastard. Go ahead. I’m lying on the ground. I’m practically begging you to show me what you’ve got!” said Tai, waving a hand over to Diesel to summon him over.

“Speaking of idiots!” said Electra, her beefy arms crossed over her fur tunic. “If you morons keep this shit up long enough, the guards will throw us all on solitary! We need a plan! We need to talk to our fucking lawyers!”

“You really think some piss-ant public defender is going to get us out of here?” growled Diesel, his scaly nose inches away from Electra’s cavewoman visage. “We’re done for, Electra! This is the last hurrah! And besides, is it really that bad being in solitary confinement? I could use a vacation away from you two dorks!”

Tai nipped up and scowled at Diesel. “And how exactly are you going to benefit from being in a dark room all by yourself? You’d go crazy within the first five seconds. You’d have tears running down your disgusting face like a goddamn waterfall. At least I have my meditation to keep me at peace. You? You’ve got a whole lot of nothing going on in that thick skull of yours. Then again, thinking never really was your strong suit and if it was, we wouldn’t be in jail right now.”

“You little bitch!” snorted Diesel, throwing the first punch in this eventual battle. His heavy arm whooshed right past Tai’s ducking head. Diesel threw another punch and missed again. Then he attempted a kick to Tai’s ribs, but got his leg caught by the wily skeleton.

Tai wagged his finger at his opponent before laying backwards and cinching in a leg lock on Diesel’s thick calf. The dragon fell backwards and wailed in agony while Tai twisted and cranked on the leg. Diesel even tried tapping out, but Tai cinched tighter and tighter while Electra watched on apparently not knowing what to do or who to cheer for. A bone snapped and Diesel’s screams were even more obnoxious and annoying than when he was arguing with Electra, who stood in the corner with her hand over her mouth in shock.

Tai nipped up and gazed down at his writhing opponent, shaking his head in contempt. He then fixed his wicked stare upon Electra, who shook uncontrollably at what she’d witnessed. “You’ve got a problem?” asked Tai, who stepped on Diesel’s injury on his way to hunting down the barbarian woman before him. “I asked you a question, you ditzy piece of fuck. I said…is there a problem?!”

Electra’s breathing intensified and her eyes widened as she slowly dropped on her butt. “Guards! Help!” she cried out, prompting Tai to grab her by the throat and yank her back up to her feet. His skeletal fingers squeezed her trachea until blood leaked from behind her teeth. In one last desperate attempt at freedom, Electra threw a weak punch to the side of Tai’s temple, but he just smiled and shrugged it off.

“I love it when my favorite women scream for me. Maybe that’ll be something I can meditate on once this is all over.” Tai took a bite out of Electra’s face and chomped off her nose, causing blood and brains to spew out from the gaping hole. While she choked on her life juices, Tai grinned widely as he slowly masticated and swallowed Electra’s nose. “Delicious! It can’t be any worse than the food they serve here in prison, am I right?” No response, only chokes. “I said am I right?!” Too late. She plopped on the ground in a necromantic mess.

“Where are the goddamn guards?!” whined Diesel as he tried to crawl backwards to whatever safety he could muster.

“Funny you should mention that, Diesel. I’ve been asking the same question since you botched our bank robbery. I never did get the answer I was looking for. That’s okay. I don’t need one.” Tai stomped on Diesel’s broken leg repeatedly until it was completely detached from his body. Blood pooled out of the dragon’s wound and his screams became weaker and weaker. Tai smiled down upon his former friend and stomped on his sternum, rubbing his foot in the wound and exploding his massive, fat-covered dragon heart.

“What the hell’s going on in here?!” shouted one of the guards as they rushed in from behind their post. They stared with horror through the bars at the bloody scene: Tai smiling like a demon while Diesel and Electra laid on the ground mangled and obliterated.

The martial arts skeleton mockingly did backstrokes over the puddle of blood on the ground while asking, “Well, boys…are you going to take me to my special little room? Have I been a bad boy today?” Tai laughed like a savage as the guards unlocked the door in a big fucking hurry and yanked him by the arms to solitary confinement.

The darkness soothed Tai’s nerves and kept that hideous grin plastered to his bony face. “Ah…no more idiots screaming at each other. I can finally relax.” He did just that. He sat cross-legged on his bed. He dreamed of the mountain breezes. He bathed in the cool waters of the beach. He breathed in the cologne-like scents of the forest. Diesel and Electra argued about stupid shit. Again. And again. And again.

“No…no…NO! Stop it! Make them go away! Let me out of here!” shouted Tai as he clutched his skull in agony. He could scream all he wanted, but nobody would hear him except the darkness itself and the schizophrenic voices that haunted his mind. Electra and Diesel’s bellyaching grated against his ears. The vessels in his brain enlarged as if they were ready to pop at a moment’s notice.

Then the bank guards taunted him. Then the angel with the harp played the same annoying tune over and over again. If only somebody would smash Tai’s skull in and put a permanent end to his agony. But how does he look for a tool of suicide in such a dark place? Where were the walls? Where were the bars? Where was anybody? “HELP ME, I’M BEGGING YOU!” Nobody answered. Nobody cared.

Comedic Obligations

***COMEDIC OBLIGATIONS***

When you’re a writer and you feel obligated to include certain elements in your story, you can often find yourself not knowing what the hell you’re doing. For example, there’re a lot of TV shows, movies, and books out there that have shoehorned romances, so you feel like in order to stand a chance of being above average, you too have to have a romance despite not having the necessary experience or interest. The same thing is true with comedy. Although George Carlin remains one of my strongest comedic influences, not even his material is capable of making me into a carbon copy of him, which he wouldn’t want anyways because of his strong individuality. I can be funny sometimes, but when I feel obligated to make a joke in my stories, the writing suffers badly and I have to go through yet another round of editing. Tonight I’m counting down the three cringiest examples of jokes or cleverness gone badly in my stories. Why three? Because that’s three cringes too many.

I should go ahead and say that all three major examples come from Poison Tongue Tales, the first drafts at least. You won’t find the jokes there now, thank god. Let’s begin with the major money line from Stone Cold, a short story within that tome about a barbarian (surprise, surprise, surprise) who wants revenge on a warthog sorcerer and a female dark paladin for killing his wife. The barbarian wins the battle, but not without feeling like his heart is going to explode and a vein in his brain is going to pop like a balloon. While the female dark paladin is laying on the ground on her way to the afterlife, the barbarian leans down and says to her in a sexy voice…”Maybe I’ll get some practice on you before I meet my wife in heaven.” Practice doing what, you say? Well, if you can’t figure that out, I’m not going to tell you. Either way, you should be appalled at that, which is why that line no longer occupies my story.

And then the other two examples come from the same story within PTT. That story is called Streetwalker and that title alone should already have you feeling anxiety bubble up in the pit of your stomach. The main villain, another barbarian (what a goddamn shock), wants to buy the services of a wizard prostitute to celebrate a major victory in battle. The prostitute turns him down, so instead of paying the full price, he tries to get it for free by attempting to rape her. Being that she’s a wizard and that she’s using her prostitution money to fund her magical education, the hooker throws every kind of elemental spell at the barbarian’s way. Fireballs, lightning bolts, poison bubbles, shadow spears, glacial spikes, you name it, she’s throwing it. She thinks she’s won the fight, but the spells have absolutely no effect on the barbarian. So what does the would-be rapist say? He says…”In order to cast the spells properly…you need the world’s biggest magic wand!” In the words of my beautiful beta reader Marie Krepps, “Why doesn’t he just shoot her already? I’d rather get raped than listen to another one of his bad jokes.” You and me both, Babe-a-Licious Mondo. You and me both.

That Emmy Award-winning zinger should have been the end of it for Streetwalker, but it wasn’t. Instead the audience was treated to yet another “clever” piece of writing. It wasn’t really a joke nor was it intended to be misogynistic. It was just my obligations creeping through yet again. So what happens in Streetwalker (SPOILER ALERT) is that the barbarian has his way with the prostitute and leaves her bloody and bruised in a dark alleyway. Yes, she managed to knock is money bag loose (his actual money bag, not his testicles, you fools!), but even with all of that gold at her disposal, she still feels guilty for “allowing herself” to be raped in the first place. As part of this self-imposed guilt trip, I, the narrator, describe her ordeal as…(gulp)…I’m not sure if I should say this, but I’m going to if it means proving my point…the prostitute’s rape was…”a permanent part of her resume”. I can hear the dry heaves coming from miles away. Absolutely barferrific. No call for that. It got so bad that when Marie was writing her critique notes, she said, “Let’s keep this between you and me.” I couldn’t agree more, but here it is out in the open.

I didn’t count down those three examples because I wanted a laugh track to magically appear in my room. I counted them down because I wanted to be free from my obligations of putting comedy and/or clever lines in my writing. Yes, comedy is nice every once and a while, but only when done by a true master. Whenever I get into a heated argument with someone, my brain shuts down, so I can’t quickly access a savage one-liner to defeat my opponent. Why should I expect the same thing from my characters? Because Hollywood told me to do it? Because they do it so well in the WWE (which I still don’t watch anymore)? Why can’t two people just have a passionate conversation full of vitriol and curse words? Why does everything have to be funny all the time?

Now that I think about it, the funnier a movie or book tries to be, the more it comes off as bathos to an otherwise emotional moment. Bathos is defined as a descent from emotional highs and it’s usually achieved through comedy. Marvel movies have been accused of doing this a lot, especially with anything featuring Iron Man and his actor Robert Downey, Jr. When you rob your audience of an emotional high, you’re stealing a major part of the movie-watching experience. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I get hit in the feels, I don’t want my attacker to use kid gloves. That’s why I like books like The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Savior’s Champion. Sure, they have witty dialogue peppered here and there, but it doesn’t diminish the dramatic action of their respective stories.

I have not yet mastered the balance between (good) comedy and punches to the feels. I’ve been an amateur/professional author since 2001 and I still can’t do it. Is this something I should work on or should I abandon it altogether? Is comedy really that important or should I emancipate myself from the chains of obligation? See? Even that last line sounded too over-the-top to be considered comedic gold. I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like laughing at bad jokes, keep climbing the mountain!

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER***

Chapter seven of this ongoing rewrite is edging towards the horizon. Windham managed to free himself from the shackles and now he needs to not only escape Shelly’s castle, but beforehand has to draw blueprints from the inside and collect a handsome payday from Shadow Asylum. Can he keep his emotions in check long enough to not spoil his escape? Can he watch one of his own being sold to a paying aristocrat without snapping again? Whatever the case may be, I’m free from the chains of comedic obligations, so there won’t be any jokes about Nickelodeon Slime Cannons or some shit like that (some of Shelly’s sex slaves are teenagers).

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

If Fred Durst started his own airline company, would he call it Air Bizkit? It makes me worry about the cabbage and broccoli platters he’d serve to the coach passengers. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about the plane running out of fuel, although the weather would always be cloudy up there.

***POST-SCRIPT***

Okay, so I’m not completely emancipated.

I Didn't Know It Was Wrong

***I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS WRONG***

In addition to being a cardboard sign in Seether’s music video for “Fine Again”, you can also say the title of this journal whenever you create a piece of art that was unintentionally offensive. I can’t stress the word unintentionally enough. Sometimes all you want is to create a loving romance between two people and their relationship becomes hypersexual. Sometimes you want to show off the fighting abilities of a barbarian tribe from another culture, but they end up looking like stereotypes. Surely, you weren’t trying to be offensive, but that’s how it came across anyways, through no fault of your own. All together now…

I didn’t know it was wrong!

Yes, this is a reasonable defense against charges of unintentional bigotry, but there will always be that one smart ass who smashes you over the head with a hardcover book and then says…

Sorry, I didn’t know it was wrong!

You’re damn right it’s wrong! That’s assault, you moron! It carries a prison term of at least seven years! How about we save the phrase for people who actually need it? Wes Anderson, the writer and director of Isle of Dogs, could easily use this phrase and get away with it. As a white guy from Texas, his depiction of Japanese culture was frowned upon even though it didn’t deserve to be. There was nothing inherently offensive about it, at least not compared to Dick Tracy cartoons from the 1960’s where Joe Jitsu comes across as ultra-stereotypical (in case his name wasn’t obvious enough). Hey, Wes! Say it with me!

I didn’t know it was wrong!

I wish I knew this phrase when I was writing offensive shit back in the day. It could have helped me when I wrote a pornographic parody of “Stole” by Kelly Rowland. It could have helped me when I was swashbuckling with teenagers after they read “Class of ‘13”. It might have even helped me when I was writing the super-violent Zeromancer for my second multi-genre writing class in college. None of these scenarios would have been a cheap escape if I used that phrase, because I legitimately didn’t know they were offensive reads. I don’t know if I chalk it all up to being young and immature, growing up in Chehalis, watching TV-MA rated shows and not processing them correctly, but say it with me…

I didn’t know it was wrong!

You know what else I didn’t know was wrong? Incorporating a trope called the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. It’s a literary pejorative for any supporting female character whose main role in the story is to boost the self-esteem of the brooding male protagonist. Adrienne Simpson from “Silent Warrior” reeks of this trope, and in some ways, Tarja Rikkinen from my current WIP “Beautiful Monster” qualifies too. It was never my intention to make them this way, but you have to understand…

I didn’t know it was wrong!

I think I’ve given you guys enough examples that you’re adequately educated. Luckily, there is help for anybody who needs it. When you’ve finished writing your manuscript, you can send it to somebody called a “sensitivity editor”. This person will comb through your work and make sure nothing sticks out when it comes to potential offensiveness. Because they’re sensitivity editors and get this kind of work all the time, you can bet your ass that they won’t judge you even if your manuscript is glowing like a nuclear rod with offensive material. I didn’t even know these people existed until I started watching Jenna Moreci’s You Tube videos. Perhaps I should hire the services of one when I’m ready to get cracking on editing Silent Warrior. Hell, there’s probably more wrong with it than I thought and that extends beyond Adrienne Simpson being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

If you think for some reason I’m just bending to the will of the Social Justice Warriors and ignoring my own individuality, you’re wrong. There used to be a time in my life when being offensive was my bread and butter. I was young, immature, and had the sense of humor of an alt-righter despite being a hard leftist. Well, some things have to change because a bigot is not who I am nor would I be proud of being one. I want to represent the positive side of humanity, not the worst. I want to be on the right side of history and be a good role model for readers who look up to me. If that makes me an SJW, then fine, I’m an SJW. Fuck it, I don’t care. In fact, you can go ahead and call me the Social Justice Barbarian if you want. Barbarians appeal to me more than regular warriors since the former has the ability to rage out of control at a moment’s notice. Plus, I get to eat raw meat, howl at the moon, and swing a bloody battleaxe. How much fun is that?!

Sorry, guys! I didn’t know it was wrong! I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain!

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER***

In the interest of bouncing back and forth between the past and present of this novel, chapter four will feature a look into Windham Xavier’s captivity, where he’s strapped naked to a table and felt up by Shelly and Torger. Don’t worry, you won’t have to go all the way to Wattpad to read this, because no sex will take place (yet). Lord knows Deviant Art has enough nudity as it is, so a chapter of Beautiful Monster with a naked male elf won’t hurt the status quo too much. Look forward to it! And before you ask, no, I’m not gay and even if I was it wouldn’t be the reason why I write about naked male elves. Grow up!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“The world is precious, a gift to you and me. I suggest we treat her right, with love and dignity. Everybody’s looking for some peace of mind. If you seek the truth, then you will surely find. Everybody wants to have global peace, whilst the press of a button can shake the world to its knees. Some say might is right. I beg to disagree. I say we all unite and redirect our destiny. Everybody’s looking for a quick solution. Our lungs are choking from breathing in air pollution. I say put down the guns and stop the revolution. I say it’s time to make a restitution. Can you hear what I’m saying? There’s so much starvation, so much untruth, so much prejudice, so much liquidation. Oh, how long? How long?”

-Toto singing “Can You Hear What I’m Saying?”-

Backwoods Barbarian

***BACKWOODS BARBARIAN***

With American Darkness 3 suspended and Poison Tongue Tales 3 not even a possibility, I need something to work on to keep me busy and to keep my creative juices flowing. I originally wanted to do a modern day drama about fat-shaming called “Hulk Logan”, but I couldn’t pre-write it past the fifth chapter. I was hesitant to do the story I’m going to talk about in this blog entry, but then I realized something along the way. Though it could be categorized as fantasy, it’s actually a deconstruction of the violent messes Poison Tongue Tales, Demon Axe, and Occupy Wrestling have been. Yes, this new story will have plenty of fight scenes, but they’re not a means to an end.

I’m talking of course about Backwoods Barbarian, an environmental fantasy I’ve developed all the way to chapter twenty. Yeah, I know, everything has to be about barbarians. All barbarians 24/7. It’s all I ever think about, yada, yada, yada. What good is a barbarian’s rage if he keeps losing his fights and getting himself into trouble? This barbarian can’t win with brute force alone, because there are other fighters out there who are more powerful than him, particularly a dwarf monk named Sabin Rex and a werewolf assassin named Gray Miller (both characters I’ve used in past stories).

Who is this barbarian? Well, he’s not Deus Shadowheart. He’s not Brutus Warcry, either. In fact, if I reveal his name, it might be a tad upsetting to the originator of this character given how the barbarian was once used as a killing machine D&D character. His name is Agrusk Xis and he’s an orc who makes his solitary home in the woods.

He was once owned by an online friend named Timothy. He was also a former character in an attempted dark fantasy novel of mine in 2014 called Fireball Nightmare. I asked Tim if it was okay to use Agrusk in that manner and he said yes. Given Agrusk’s new role as a bumbling brute, Tim could possibly want to think twice about letting me use his character. If he wants me to withdraw Agrusk from Backwoods Barbarian, I’ll gladly do so and swap him out with another character.

If Tim should happen to say yes once again, then Agrusk will be a part of something greater than himself whether he uses brute force or not. As I’ve already established, Agrusk is an orc barbarian who lives in the woods hunting meat and picking fruit. His forest home is about to be chopped down for urban development thanks to the political strategy of Flora City Mayor Annette Cote. Agrusk just wants peace and quiet in his forest home, so he tries to muscle his way into keeping his solitary residence. Needless to say, he’s overpowered and outmanned.

Agrusk meets two environmental protesters along the way: an Amazonian Viking “singer” named Johnna Larson and a bagpipe-playing bard named Julie Piper. Throughout the novel, they teach him that using debate tactics and peaceful protest is more powerful at affecting change than anything he could do with an axe. The whole novel is one big internal battle between Agrusk and his conscience. Can he keep his temper under control or this hothead screw everything up with one moment of impatient rage?

I’ve tooled with the idea of an environmental fantasy before where the plot centered around the government cutting down somebody’s forest home for urban development. I wrote a 2010 D&D-style movie script called Tree Party Nation, where the forest was an eco-terrorist group’s base of operations. As I’ve mentioned earlier, in 2014 I wrote Fireball Nightmare, where the often-recycled Gary-Stu barbarian Deus Shadowheart protected the forest under the command of a living volcano. It’s 2018 and the third time will be the charm. Backwoods Barbarian will be the one that gets this concept right. Watching a “Terrible Writing Advice” You Tube video on environmentalism helped me figure things out.

So that’s it for now. Backwoods Barbarian is officially my next long-term project. It’ll be a departure from what I usually do (barbarism aside), especially considering that I’m shooting for 2,000 words per chapter instead of 1.500 like I normally do. At twenty chapters, that’s an even 40,000 words, which is the generally accepted minimum for a full-length novel. Wish me luck, guys. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

JERRY: Hey George, ask that guy what street we’re on.

GEORGE: Excuse me, where are we?

STRANGER: Earth.

JERRY: Hey, we’re on the phone with the police!

-Seinfeld-

Social Justice Warriors

***SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS***

You’re in no way obligated to get in political discussions with people who don’t want to change. But if you do, a common slur you’ll hear a lot in those discussions is SJW, or Social Justice Warrior. This gets tossed around by people who think their opponents get offended by everything or are too politically correct. If you ever get called a Social Justice Warrior, don’t be offended. Say thank you. You know why? Well, all you have to do is take a look at the last word in that slur: warrior. Sounds badass, doesn’t it? When I think of warriors, I think of big muscle men with battleaxes and spears. Or it could be a fierce and tough-minded woman with a bow and arrow that doubles as a striking blade. Either way, there’s nothing wrong with being called a warrior. Dungeons & Dragons characters hear this all the time and they give their thanks.

And while we’re on the topic of warriors, suppose you’re a D&D player who prefers another character class. Okay, no problem. You can be an SJB (Social Justice Barbarian). Barbarians sure as shit have enough rage to care about their causes. What about SJC’s (Social Justice Clerics). Since clerics have the ability to heal their party members, they could easily be useful for when a protest goes awry. And don’t forget about SJP’s (Social Justice Paladins). If you’re too laidback to be a barbarian but you still want to be a warrior, be a paladin, the bringers of truth and justice. But maybe SJW can mean something else entirely: Social Justice Wizard. Some people would rather use magic than engage in close quarters combat. Maybe the wizard specializes in pyromancy, which is bad news for any Nazi marching with a Tiki torch. Maybe the wizard specializes in cryomancy, which means the only snowflakes you have to worry about are the ones freezing your balls off. So many possibilities!

Okay, so you’ve seen all of those different character classes, but you still want to be a Social Justice Warrior instead of anything else. No problem! You know who else wanted to be a warrior? WWE Hall of Famer The Ultimate Warrior. He wanted to be a warrior so much that Warrior became his legal name. No kidding! And now his wife and children have Warrior as their last name. Call me crazy, but I’d love to see a big muscle-bound wrestler in tassels and face paint called The Ultimate Social Justice Warrior. The only difference is, The USJW can actually wrestle. And his promos make sense. And he’s not a racist. Or a homophobe. Or a guy who’s happy about Bobby Heenan having cancer. Or a…you know what, you probably get the picture by now.

Maybe professional wrestling isn’t your cup of tea, and quite frankly, there are times when I’m watching WWE and I can’t blame you for that. How about some videogames instead? If you want to see some real Social Justice Warriors in action, look no further than Final Fantasy VII, everybody’s favorite in the series and a true classic. The main characters in that game were part of a pro-environmental faction called Avalanche and their goal was to stop the evil mega corporation Shinra from draining the planet of its spiritual energy to make a profit. Yes, you heard me right: Barrett Wallace, Cloud Strife, and Tifa Lockhart were all a bunch of tree-hugging hippies. And they won! Of course, with Barrett’s arm cannon, Cloud’s big ass sword, and Tifa’s martial arts abilities, the writing was on the wall for the Shinra Corporation.

If somebody calls you a Social Justice Warrior in conversation, say thank you and be on your merry way. And while we’re at it, what does that make Keyboard Warriors? I could imagine that it takes a lot of power to smash a keyboard over someone’s head without breaking your damn weapon. You know who would make good Keyboard Warriors? Going back to my wrestling examples, the entire roster of old school ECW. Those guys would hit each other with trash cans, steel chairs, cookie sheets, and cheese graters (holy shit, that was brutal!). If you gave Tommy Dreamer, the Sandman, or Bubba Ray Dudley a computer keyboard, do you think they’re going to smash it across their opponents’ backs? You’re damn right they will! If it’s not nailed down, they’ll use it in a hardcore wrestling match. Hell, they could probably beat people to death with rolled up copy of Hustler, right?

Of course, as tempting as it may seem, beating the shit out of people during political activity is not recommended. I know, I know, you’re going to call me out on this because I have a bunch of violent political songs in my two poetry books Confessions of a Schizophrenic Savage and Necrograph. Those poems are fantasies, but political violence in the real world is much more dangerous. Separating fantasy from reality is what’s going to get you by in this world more than anything. Okay, so you can’t show up to a protest riding a warhorse while carrying a bastard sword. You don’t have to. You can still be a warrior in many other ways. Fighting the good fight doesn’t always mean throwing fists (unless you’re defending yourself in a life or death situation, which is a whole different story entirely).

You can’t ride on a fire-breathing dragon, but you can lift your head as high anyways. You’ve got this. You can win the big one. All you have to do…is BO-LIEVE! Goddamn it, another wrestling reference! Well, I suppose it’s better than doing all of your warrior business on a pay-per-view called Great Balls of Fire. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Going back to the topic of Final Fantasy VII and their environmental stance, I wrote a first draft novel a few years ago called Filter Feeder which is basically the same thing, but with clam fishing and the Materia are magical clam shells. Filter Feeder’s Sheila Victor is a dead ringer for Final Fantasy VII’s Scarlet, so that’s how I’m going to draw her. You know what I’m hoping for? I hope when I eventually go back and have Marie Krepps beta read Filter Feeder, she won’t find too many similarities between the two stories. Maybe some, but not a lot. Well, I can always wish in one hand and shit in the other to see which one fills up first!

***AMERICAN DARKNESS 3***

Remember how I said that real world violence is a bad thing? Well, it doesn’t get any closer to the real world than this next story idea I have for American Darkness 3. It’s called “Belts and Welts” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Owen Hall, Angry Father

2.      Valerie Hall, Lenient Mother

3.      Leila Hall, Bratty Teenaged Daughter

PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.

SYNOPSIS: In the Hall family, Valerie spoils Leila and gives her everything she wants, including the right to back-sass Owen and completely disregard his authority. Over a lengthy period of time of being disrespected, Owen has his breaking point. During a family dinner, he and Leila get into a heated argument in which the bratty daughter mocks everything her father says. Having finally snapped, Owen does something to Leila that has never happened to her before: he beats her severely with a belt and promises more beatings if the disrespect continues.

OOC: You know what? This might actually be more controversial than Puberty X Piracy.

***TELEVISION QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Tell me, Brian, how does it feel to be the least cultured guy at a bus station?”

-Stewie Griffin from “Family Guy”-

Lionize

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Lionize Entertainment’s fiftieth anniversary of the Lion Cup Tournament! My name is Andrea Lovell and I am the CEO of Lionize Entertainment! We’re going to have a fucking fun night of blood and death tonight!”

Hearing his boss echo those words throughout a coliseum full of roaring fans made Dargoth Destroyer sick to his stomach and set his aching brain on fire. The barbarian warrior firmly believed Andrea only had her job because she looked like a million bucks in a short skirt and high heels. She was easy to fantasize about, but hard to love.

Dargoth was too busy loving his own wife and kids back home. He loved them so much that he would rip the limbs off of any opponent who dared stand in the way of a paycheck and beat them to death like little bitches. With his wrecking ball muscles and volcanic temper, he could do just that to pretty much anybody.

Then again, so could Dargoth’s opponent for the evening, Zeal Cottonwood. The rotten-smelling, blue skinned zombie towered over the barbarian with a skyscraper height and muscles that might as well be registered as deadly weapons (even the small and insignificant ones). Zeal stared down into Dargoth’s eyes with neon-colored madness and smiled with rusty-nail teeth.

The barbarian, having already had visions of blood and brutality locked forever in his brain, refused to give even an inch of trembling to this undead beast with greasy long hair. The two opponents were so laser-focused into each other’s menacing eyeballs that they tuned out the crowd and Andrea Lovell’s nails-on-a-chalkboard voice completely.

It wasn’t until Miss Lovell, who sat at her golden throne in a skybox above the coliseum, snapped into the microphone, “HEY!” that the two combatants gave her their undying attention with wicked glares. “Are you two ready to put on a hell of a show for these rowdy animals?! Give ‘em hell!” Rowdy animals became the understatement of the year when the beer-drinking, T-shirt and jeans wearing crowd’s cheers bored into the combatants’ eardrums like a power drill. Even Zeal Cottonwood couldn’t help but grunt lightly at the sudden explosion of volume.

“Ready to get your ass whipped, little buddy?” growled Zeal in a monstrous tone. He leaned his sour milk-fragranced face in closer and whispered, “Between you and me, I wouldn’t worry too much about that wife of yours. I hear she’s banging the shit out of a hotter version of you. That lucrative contract of yours is going up her nose and in her G-spots!”

Zeal’s demonic cackle prompted the angrily trembling Dargoth to head butt his opponent in the nose. Both men clutched their noggins in pain and groaned minimally, but Dargoth was the only one between the two who staggered after such a brutal move. Zeal chuckled, “Is that all you got, little man? No wonder your wife’s sleeping around. That spaghetti dick of yours couldn’t satisfy a bitch like her anyways!”

Dargoth’s fiery adrenaline was smothered in kerosene, causing the hefty barbarian to spear tackle Zeal’s gut so hard that the seven-foot zombie flipped in the air like a pancake and flattened to the ground like one too. The barbarian’s muscles tightened as tough as steel with every brick-like punch he threw at the zombie’s already decrepit face. Teeth flew everywhere, pimples popped like grenades, blood splattered across the dirt floor, but through it all, Zeal never lost his smile and Dargoth’s hands reddened with electrified pain.

Zeal Cottonwood pushed Dargoth Destroyer in the air with his booted feet and nipped up in time to catch the smaller warrior in a military press. The audience “oooed” and “ahhed” like a herd of sheep while Zeal did strength training repetitions with Dargoth’s 300 lb. body. The barbarian tried to rake and punch at his opponent’s eyes, but the zombie wouldn’t relent. He tossed the smaller opponent across the dirt arena and caused him to bounce up and down along the way, forming bruises the size and disgustingness of rotten tomatoes.

Everything in Dargoth’s body felt as though he had been stepped on by Godzilla and rubbed across the asphalt. Yet the mental images of his beautiful wife and his two sweethearted daughters sent a rush of hot lava through his veins. This kind of money would keep them fed forever.

It would give the daughters an education they wouldn’t have dreamed of having in the ghetto neighborhood. It would give his wife a life of happiness and stability. If he didn’t get up and fight at this very moment, they would think of him as a failure and they’d most likely die from hunger in such a downtrodden economy. It was such a distasteful way to make money, but in Dargoth’s mind, there was no such thing as too much hard work.

By the time the barbarian heaved his clumsy ass off the ground, he peered up through bloodshot, dirt-covered eyes to find Zeal had a live chainsaw roaring to life in his hands. There were weapons scattered everywhere on the bloodstained ground from staves to swords to axes. Dargoth picked up an axe in his sore hands and then in a surprise move broke it over his knee to send a message: “Weapons are for pussies! If you want to fight like a pussy, I’ll treat you like one, Zeal! Come on, bitch!”

The gargantuan zombie rushed towards Dargoth swinging his power tool like a deranged samurai while Dargoth egged him on with a “come at me” hand gesture. The chainsaw blazed and buzzed all around the barbarian while the muscly warrior dodged and cartwheeled to safety despite losing a lock of his own sweaty hair.

Dargoth saw his opening when he ducked a decapitation attempt and went for a hard uppercut to the jaw. Zeal staggered backwards in dizziness and dropped his weapon. The barbarian continued to pummel his opponent with hard-hitting, rapid fire strikes that connected with thuds, cracks, and explosions. The primitive warrior tucked his head underneath Zeal’s crotch and hoisted the hefty warrior on his shoulders before slamming him down on his back with a shotgun blast thud. Even more cracks and bursts echoed throughout the arena as did the obnoxious cheers of both the audience and Andrea Lovell, who sat at her throne mockingly clapping for her independent contractor. “Finish him, Dargoth! Finish him now, you sick son of a bitch!”

The barbarian stared at the scantily clad, leggy CEO with cyanide in his eyes and iron in his gritted teeth. Winning the Lion Cup Tournament would guarantee him all the money he wanted for his family, but he would still be locked in a contract that put him in danger with every match. His body ached twenty-four-seven. He threw up his meals nightly. If he got the chance to go home at all, he would look like a monster to his family and scare them off. Maybe Zeal’s harsh rumors of infidelity would be completely justifiable at that point (if they were true). Surely, there had to be other ways of making lucrative money with his skills. Maybe there was…

Dargoth’s iron will wouldn’t be broken. One more death to go. Just one more. His target was in plain sight. The Lion Cup and everything that came with it would be his forever. He glanced at the live chainsaw and heaved the heavy machinery over his head with the intent to rip and shred. The audience roared and bellowed for Zeal’s bloody and disgusting death. He was just laying there ready to be dissected. Dargoth smiled a sadistic smile and approached Zeal with slow movements while the zombie rolled around and groaned in horrific pain. And then…the barbarian tossed the chainsaw like a boomerang.

But instead of grinding zombie meat, he chucked the whirring blade at Andrea Lovell so many feet in the air. The CEO gasped in horror before tucking and rolling out of the blade’s path. The audience gasped as well at the sight of the chainsaw embedded in the golden throne still buzzing.

After straightening her hair and fixing her skirt, Andrea stood back up with a queen’s posture and glared with hellish hatred at the menacing barbarian. She picked up the microphone and sneered, “So that’s how you plan on getting out of your contract, huh? By killing me?” Dargoth nodded and the audience booed him with plenty of bass in their voices.

The CEO scolded, “It’s a good thing your children are being well-educated with all of this money, because their daddy is the biggest dumb shit to step in my coliseum! Sure, you can kill me and rob me of the rest of your earnings, but you won’t be solving a damn thing, my friend. Ever heard the phrase power vacuum? Without me, all of your worst enemies will be gunning for my position. If you thought fighting to the death for my entertainment was bad, try fighting for the power I wield on a day-to-day basis. You already know what ISIS looks like. Try and picture the Lionize Entertainment version of ISIS! My corporation will last until the end of time, but your misery will be forever, just like your contract! You didn’t think this one through very well, did you?!”

Dargoth clenched his fists so tightly that his bloody fingernails dug into his palms and he didn’t give a shit about the pain. He didn’t want to admit it, but she was right: cutting off the head of the snake would create a hydra, not a corpse. A contractual slave like him couldn’t even dream of the power it took to run a whole corporation. What havoc had he brought upon himself? What danger did he put his beloved family in?

As he contemplated the consequences of his “easy way out”, Dargoth felt a tight presence squeeze around his torso until his body was pencil thin. His head turned purple, his veins grew to the size of tunnels, and his ribs were cracking like Rice Crispies. He peeked up and saw that Zeal Cottonwood was the one squeezing like a motherfucker, much to Andrea’s laughing delight. She even chimed in, “Squeeze harder! Pop him like a pimple! Make him suffer!”

Listening to that wasp-like voice sent Dargoth into rampage mode when he stomped on Zeal’s foot with the force of a jackhammer and head butted him in the jaw. The barbarian staggered around in dizziness and rasped for oxygen, but the zombie had released his grip and stumbled backwards himself.

As soon as Dargoth’s lungs no longer felt like he swallowed a battleaxe, Zeal went for an overhead strike. Dargoth ducked underneath and transitioned behind the zombie with an arm choke. The barbarian squeezed with enough force to pop more pimples and blood vessels on Zeal’s face. He even loosened a few rotten teeth. But the minute the zombie’s eyeballs popped out of his head, his brains leaked onto the floor and he was limp as Dargoth’s “spaghetti dick”.

As soon as Zeal plopped over dead, Dargoth Destroyer raised his fists to the sky to declare victory. The audience roared like jungle cats in approval and high fived each other while chanting Dargoth’s name. Even Andrea gave him a little golf clap while saying into the microphone, “I hope your wife is watching!”

Indeed she was watching. From the comfort of her soft, silky-sheeted bed, Mrs. Destroyer watched the violence with a satisfied, teary-eyed smile on her face. “Thank you so much, my dear! Thank you!” The other man who was grateful unwrapped the towel from his muscular waist and climbed into bed with her with a silver tray of cocaine in his hands. The wife smiled lovingly at her paramour before rolling up a dollar bill and snorting sweet candy right up her slender nose. The paramour snorted some too before the lovers got it on underneath the sheets.

Little did they know that from the crack of their bedroom door, two teary-eyed girls watched the whole thing. The daughters hugged each other tightly and smeared their salty eye fluids across their Winnie the Pooh pajama sleeves. “I miss daddy,” one of them whispered to the other while a night of hot cocaine-laced sex was unfolding before them.

My Feelings

***MY FEELINGS***

I got to see Jason Mewes (Jay from the View Askewniverse) perform a hilarious Q&A session the other night in Tacoma. Lots of sex jokes. Lots and lots of sex jokes. So many sex jokes that I laughed like a James Bond villain because of them (much to Jason’s delight). As much fun as I had that night and as awesome as it was to meet Jason Mewes and take pictures with him, that’s not what this journal is about (though yes, my brother and I had a great time that night).

During the car ride home, my brother James asked me a very profound question that I blew off as being asinine: “What goes through your head when you have a certain experience?” He elaborated by saying that I respond to even the most amazing things in life by saying, “It was fine” in a monotone voice. Part of his comedic rant was that I could be at the bottom of the Himalayas or having sex with a younger version of Cameron Diaz (or doing both at the same time), and all I would have to say is, “It was fine.” James then talked about the time he worked hard cooking a salmon steak with the right amount of herbs, spices, and sauces and all I said once I was done eating it was, “It was fine.”

There are many reasons why I don’t talk about my true feelings. One reason could be that it’s a male thing and since I have a penis and two testicles, I fall under that category. The other reason is that talking about my feelings leaves me exposed to whoever I’m talking to. Sure, I could just give James the proper critique for something as simple as a salmon steak, but even that moment of positivity could open the door for him or other people to ask about the darker parts of my emotions.

Talking about the darker side of my emotions isn’t easy for me because, as a schizophrenic, I have to relive those moments again and feel like shit afterwards. Living with my mom’s ex-boyfriend Art, getting bullied in high school, and being lonely at Western Washington University are all off-limits topics for me. The less I talk about dark emotions, the better I will feel mentally.

For the sake of this journal, I will talk about an emotional experience I had that was more than just “fine” or “whatever”. Consider this your one and only invite into my mind. If you see me in real life and you want to talk about it some more, forget it. Not happening. Even now, I have butterflies in my tummy, and this is just writing about it.

In 2016, I went to see Slipknot in concert for the second time in my life. One of my favorite songs that they played that evening was “Killpop”. If you Google the lyrics, you’ll see that they contain themes of psychotic love and sexual frustration (even though the song is about something completely different).

I loved this song so much that I sang along with it in my loudest, most passionate voice possible. In that moment, I could forget all about being a sexual has-been and a 30-something virgin. In my senior year of high school, I looked like a goddamn stud muffin with my leather jacket, sunglasses, thin body, and badass haircut. I had women flirting with me from all angles and even had cyber sex (yes, I know it’s just masturbating to a computer screen, but it was still enjoyable, so shut up). And then I had schizophrenia. The disease itself made me act crazy and the medication made me gain over a hundred pounds. Goodbye sexy Garrison, hello Uncle Creepy.

It seems shallow-minded to have that be a source of pain for me, especially since people are willing to give you the worldwide disaster argument over and over again (“people in Africa have it worse than you do, there are hurricanes everywhere, blah, blah, blah”). I’ve had a taste of love and I want it again, but I’m also aware that this 300 lb. body isn’t fit for such things. Therefore, when I sang “Killpop” in my most passionate voice, I could forget all of that and give a metaphorical middle finger to anybody who doubts my likeability. Ironically, when the song was over, a sexy lady in a dress and a cowgirl hat kissed the back of my hand in approval. I never got that girl’s phone number or email address, but it was probably for the best.

There you go, folks. That’s my emotional experience. Now I’m locking the doors in my mind and you’re never getting back in. If you want to know how I’m doing today, I’m doing just “fine”. Today was actually a good day for me. The past four days have been exhausting because I was angry about mopping up my dog Maggie’s shit and piss. Today I didn’t burst into a hodgepodge of swear words and I was able to use that energy to write a short story called “Witch Hunt”, read 30 pages of “Paper Towns”, and draw a picture of Fatima Ruiz (a gangster from another short story called “How Could You?”). Imagine that: fiery anger can be tiring as hell! We’ve got ears, say cheers!

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

As I just told you, Witch Hunt is in the books, so now it’s time for another short story. This is another old one called “Lionize” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Dargoth Destroyer, Human Barbarian

2.      Zeal Cottonwood, Zombie Giant

3.      Andrea Lovell, CEO of Lionize Corporation

PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.

SYNOPSIS: Andrea’s corporation specializes in deadly arena combat as public entertainment. Dargoth and Zeal are in her latest pay-per-view main event after both of them went undefeated for such a long time. All combatants who work for Andrea are locked in an ironclad contract with promises of a high payday and threats of a lawsuit if they’re in violation. Dargoth, who desperately wants to get out of his contract, attempts to assassinate Miss Lovell during his match with Zeal.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

And now that we’re on the topic of Lionize, my next Dark Fantasy Warrior will actually be a fantasy-themed fighter! Imagine that! He’s Dargoth Destroyer and he’s, you guessed it, another beefy barbarian! He won’t be a Gary-Stu, though. Maybe. I’m not sure yet.

***DOMESTIC DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

REINA: What did you do productively today?

ME: Stuff.

REINA: What kind of stuff?

ME: Just stuff.

REINA: Garrison! That’s not a real answer!

ME: (Whiny groan.)

Average Joes vs. Beefy Warriors

***AVERAGE JOES VS. BEEFY WARRIORS***

When I first started out in the amateur writing business in 2001 (back when I told people my favorite author was Jack McKinney and they’d scratch their fucking heads in confusion), I always made sure that my main characters were super buff war machines capable of slashing and pounding everything into shit. My first attempt at a novel was a Starcraft-esque sci-fi adventure where the main character, Deljack, had muscles the size of cannonballs and an assault rifle bigger than his body. And then I moved onto a videogame idea called Final Fantasy Hardcore, where my protagonist was the ever popular Deus Shadowheart, a dual-wielding barbarian with a suit of power armor and even thicker muscles underneath in case he had to stop a nuclear missile from penetrating his skin.

Back in my teenage years, I didn’t see the problem with having such overpowered warriors as main characters. Videogames at the time had plenty of them with all the Akumas and Mike Haggars of the world. And then it wasn’t until the 2010’s when I started learning about Mary-Sues and Gary-Stus. They are literary slurs for characters who are devoid of flaws and therefore don’t garner a lot of sympathy from the reader. After all, when you know in your heart of hearts that the Gary-Stu barbarian is going to win all the fucking time, it’s no fun to read about him. As a writer, you want your battles to be back and forth affairs where the protagonist loses every once and a while. For all of you rasslin’ buddies out there, more Daniel Bryans, less Hulk Hogans.

I didn’t start using average joe characters until I wrote my 2015 rough draft novel Watch You Burn. The lead character in that novel is Mario Bryan, a schizophrenic college student who spends more time watching cartoons than he does exercising. He’s socially awkward and sometimes dickish, but he’s well-meaning and has a good heart. Do you think a dork like Mario Bryan can overcome a nasty ogre who carries war hammers with the ease of pencils? Of course you don’t, which is why Mario has to work his ass off if he wants to achieve his end game.

Another first draft novel I’ve written, Demon Axe, also has a protagonist with an underdog story. Yes, Daniel Mercer a.k.a. the Lord of the Pit is a world famous rock star, but what does he really have as far as advantages go when he has to fight the ultra-powerful terrorist Roger Zee? Daniel’s only been in a handful of bar fights in his life, he’s easily traumatized, he’s also kind of dickish at times (like Mario Bryan before him), but Daniel has a heart of gold that will lead him through the dark times of politically-motivated violence.

Occupy Wrestling, I must confess, has a Gary-Stu as one of its main characters and his name is Mitch McLeod. He’s beefy, he’s badass, and he’s got a mean streak a mile wide. Rehabbing this character into something a little more sympathetic wasn’t easy, but hopefully the end result as you see it has paid off. Occupy Wrestling is currently on Amazon and other online retailers (not a shameless plug at all).

At first I thought writing about average joes instead of badass warriors was going to suck badly because I couldn’t think of any solutions to the average joes’ problems. But that’s what writing is all about: you’ve got to constantly think about how your story is going to play out. Sure, there are advice columns out there that will tell you to pour word vomit all over your page and let your beta readers and editors do the hard work. But even then, after all the word vomit is spilled, the job is far from over. It won’t be over until everything is polished and sparkling, part of which is owed to coming up with believable solutions to your characters’ problems. If you’ve read Occupy Wrestling and think I’m a hypocrite when I make these arguments, that’s a debate victory you can have all to yourself.

I’d like to think that beefy warrior stories are capable of being written without making the characters into Gary-Stus and Mary-Sues. I haven’t figured it out myself yet, but I know it can be done. The Wonder Woman movie that recently came out is a huge example of that. Yes, she’s a superheroine with badass powers, but she’s also a feminist icon with a female following worldwide, so she’s not much of a Mary-Sue. This is why we study characters at depth: because we want our audience to sympathize with our protagonists and therefore stay emotionally invested in our works. If your readers aren’t invested, why are they reading? We’ve got ears, say cheers!

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

My story for the WSS has been submitted, so now it’s time to work independently (or when the next contest starts up, whichever happens first). This next PTT2 story is called “Witch Hunt” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Sonya Jade, Devon’s Best Friend

2.      Devon Cross, Accused Witch

3.      Random Group of Witch Hunters

PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.

SYNOPSIS: In the middle ages, Sonya is at home cooking a delicious meal when her best friend Devon rushes in her house looking for a place to hide from witch hunters. Sonya believes Devon when the latter says her witch accusations are false and agrees to hide her underneath the master bed. Witch hunters show up at Sonya’s door with pitch forks and torches wondering where Devon is. Before the hunters have the chance to set fire to the house, Devon uses magic powers to fight them off, thus revealing she really is a witch and that she lied to Sonya about it.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

With this new crop of American Darkness 2 characters parading around in my drawing collection, I’ve been contemplating changing the name of this series from Dark Fantasy Warriors to something else. Not everybody who gets a drawing is part of the dark fantasy genre, much like Fatima Ruiz, who’s next on the chopping block. Fatima comes from the AD2 short story “How Could You?” and plays the role of a cartel boss’s daughter. She has no magical powers, just a bad attitude and a sexy mystique. I’ve certainly got my work cut out for me on this one. Wish me luck!

***CROSSOVER MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

CHILDLIKE EMPRESS: Why won’t you do what you dream?

CRAZY K: ‘Cause I don’t give a fuck! I said I don’t give a fuck! I don’t give a fuck!

CHILDLIKE EMPRESS: Please! Save us!

CRAZY K: I don’t give a fuck! I don’t give a fuck! I don’t give a fuck! I don’t give a FUCK!

-Tales from the Hood X The Never Ending Story-

Shooting Star

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wal-Martians

“Tell me again how this is different from any other day at Wal-Mart?” asked the metal-armored Amazon Alexis Lee as she stamped the butt of her spear into the pavement.

“You’ve been making that joke for hours, Alexis. Knock it off. Yes, we’re well aware that Wal-Mart has been taken over by these…creatures, if you want to call them that. We know how ironic it truly is. We still have a job to do whether you think it’s hilarious or not,” said the aura-covered paladin Micah Fireborn as he swung his sword in the air to warm up his muscles.

“Can we just get in there and rescue Lady Sakura already? This place gives me the fucking creeps,” said the muscle-bound, kilt-wearing barbarian Cain McLeod, who sharpened his double-edged axe with a stone. “Not one more joke out of you, Alexis!”

“Please? Just one more? What do you call a bunch of zealots who will die for a supermarket? Wal-Martyrs!” chuckled Alexis while her two companions sighed and held their faces in their free hands. “Come on, you have to admit that was good!”

“The hell I do!” belted Cain. “Can we please just start the damn mission and get that fucking religious nut out of there?”

“Fine, fine, you guys win. I guess killing will be funny enough,” frowned Alexis.

The three warriors marched their way through the parking lot knowing the fun and games were over and the ass beatings were about to commence. They pounded their weapon handles, let out short roars, and slapped their own faces to psych themselves up. When they reached the automatic double doors, they gagged and wheezed at the sight of green alien goop sealing the hinges together. “I got this,” said Micah Fireborn as he ignited his sword with an aura of fire and chopped through the slime with ease, splattering some on Alexis and Cain.

Alexis could barely tolerate the rancid stench, but Cain spewed his dinner all over the pavement while the Amazon giggled and the paladin shook his head at him. Cain wiped his mouth off with his leather gloves and pointed at Alexis before commanding, “Don’t you start with those jokes again! I mean it!”

“Okay, okay, Jesus, I won’t make anymore puns. You happy now? God!” whined Alexis. The three warriors kicked down the glass doors and chopped away at any remaining slime paste. Cain nearly emptied his bowels yet again when he saw that a drained human was underneath one of the slime piles. Micah grabbed him by the arm and jerked him into the store.

“See? What did I tell you guys?” asked Alexis rhetorically as the three fighters took in the surreal scenery of the invaded superstore. Skeletons and green slime decorated the floors, walls, and ceiling while the actual food items had mushrooms growing out of them. Legos were scattered across the floor and had blood sprinkled over some of them, most likely due to somebody stepping on them in bare feet. The assault rifle rack was useless since the barrels were dripping with this awful snot-like substance.

The warriors treaded lightly around the store and made sure to huddle together so they didn’t get separated. So far, no sign of the enemy, just lots and lots of snot, shit, and urine flooding the store. Just a tiny drop of this viscous substance landed on Cain’s nose and he immediately dropped to his knees dry heaving his guts out.

“For the love of God, Cain, get it together!” snapped Micah. “If you don’t like the smell of this stuff, why did you agree to this mission to begin with? You’re a barbarian, for shit’s sake! Suck it up, buttercup!”

“Trust me, Micah, he won’t be sucking that stuff up anytime soon,” joked Alexis, who afterwards raised her hands defensively when Micah and Cain scowled at her.

The stomach juices were really going haywire when the slime moved across the floor to various clothing items, whether it be ‘Murica T-shirts, jorts with holes in them, or Make America Great Again baseball caps. Micah, Alexis, and the newly recovered Cain backed up against the wall with home improvement tools and stood strong as the goo filled up these clothes until they were in the shape of alien creatures. Their whip-like tongues and tentacles swung from side to side in anticipation of their human meals.

Cain wasn’t vomiting anymore, Alexis wasn’t cracking jokes anymore, and Micah…well, he was the only serious one around. The three warriors stood their ground while Cain used his free hand to signal the aliens forward. “Come on, you fucking Wal-Martians! Let’s make ass-kicking great again!”

The aliens swarmed on the three heroes and were treated to high speed and high power chops, slashes, and pierces from each of their weapons. Alexis stuck her spear into one giant tub of goo and slammed the creature into others, creating a tidal wave of sick fluids in her wake. Cain spun around like a buzz saw with his axe and cleaved through hordes of aliens, turning their bodies into puddles of gelatin. Micah’s fiery sword cut through even more hordes of aliens and melted them to the point of boiling and steaming over the already thick Wal-Mart air.

“Is that all you got?!” taunted Cain while an alien wrapped its massive tentacle around Alexis’s legs and dragged her screaming across the filthy floor. When she dropped her spear and yelled for help, the barbarian shouted back, “I’ll save you, Alexis!” and dove after her. His end result was getting tackled in the ribs and sent flying across a shelf full of Lego sets.

Micah stabbed his flaming sword into the aliens repeatedly until they melted into a river of trash. His back was turned for one small second and an alien wrapped its tentacle around his throat before dragging him across the floor kicking and gurgling, leaving his blade behind. In the midst of his capture, he could see another tentacle wrapping itself around Cain’s body and pulling him as well.

The mass of alien humanity melded into one gigantic squid-like being, complete with more tentacles, more razor-sharp mouths, and more sickening slime that had Cain sticking his tongue out and heaving once again. Through this pool of disgust, not one warrior could get a good look at who was commanding this gigantic creature. All they heard was a raspy voice command, “Join us! Join my army and let us ride into heaven together!”

“You call this heaven?!” shouted Alexis. “I’d rather have the devil himself shove a fiery trident up my ass than go to your version of heaven!”

The tentacles squeezed harder around her legs and caused her to shriek in mind-blowing pain. The creature said, “So you must be the funny one of the group. You’re the one who likes to laugh at other people’s beliefs. You’re the one who likes to laugh at the prayers of the holy ones! I will not have such blasphemy in my church!”

“Church, my ass, you sick freak!” shouted Micah as he pulled some of the slime away from his neck. “Sakura Divine is more of a priest than you’ll ever be! She’ll be the one who guides us to heaven! Last time I checked, heaven didn’t look like a big ass used Kleenex!”

“You’re absolutely right!” belted the creature as she cinched the tentacle tighter around Micah’s neck. “Sakura Divine is quite the leader. She has the answers for us all. You’ve been listening to them the whole time!”

The faces of the warriors grew sullen as they realized what had just been revealed. Cain murmured, “No…no, it’s not true! You’re Sakura Divine?! You’re the one we came to save?!” After a demonic laughter from the slimy creature, Cain roared at Micah, “This is all your fault, you fucking altar boy! I told you we shouldn’t have trusted this religious whacko!”

Insulted by the “blasphemous” display, Sakura squeezed her tentacle around Cain’s ribs even harder than before while other tentacles joined in to squish him like a grape. Alexis screamed and hollered for mercy, but Cain’s body exploded into jelly once the constriction became too tight. “You sick little bitch!” Alexis shouted. “How could you do this to us?!” She too was squeezed by multiple tentacles until her body went kaboom like a nuclear warhead.

“No!” Micah shouted while struggling to break free from Sakura’s grip.

“Don’t fight it, Micah!” ordered Lady Divine. “You’re a noble paladin, a warrior of the light. You should know better than anybody how good heaven will feel once you walk past the pearly gates. End the struggle, my dear friend. Let the magic of heaven flow through your veins.”

“I’ll never join you!” shouted Micah.

“Don’t think too hard about your decision, paladin!” mocked Sakura. “I crushed your two friends because they were not worthy of such a trip into space. But you, Micah, you were destined for greatness. As of right now, you have two options: you can rot here forever in your own personal hell, or you can join me in my spaceship and we can rule over heaven together!”

Micah stopped struggling for a moment and actually had to think about this decision. He replayed both of his friends being crushed into gelatin in his head like a nagging schizophrenic vision. His mind went numb, his eyes became teary, and his body was relaxing. Being pasted to the ground of an already joked-about store like Wal-Mart was the true definition of hell. What if Sakura was right? What if heaven was waiting for him in that space ship?

“You know what, Sakura? I’m with you on one thing. I don’t want to go to hell tonight. But you will!” roared Micah as he activated his fiery aura to melt away the tentacle around his throat. Sakura screamed while the rancid goop melted down Micah’s nose and throat. He coughed and vomited several times, but he could feel the flame surge through him. He could feel his insides burning with passion and holiness. He stood up and shined his flaming aura even brighter until the entire store was covered in it. Sakura’s gelatinous form liquefied like butter…but only because that was what happened during hallucinatory trips.

In reality, Micah’s insides were burning for a much different reason: he swallowed the acidic mess. His brain cycled through different parts of the slimy battle whether he was in danger or fighting alongside his friends. His head was pounding with agony so badly that it felt like he was being smashed with a sledgehammer. His chest and stomach felt like he was going to through up so badly that he would turn himself inside out.

This was what it felt like to betray his religion and follow his own path. He was going to hell no matter what. But even with all of this pain wracking his body, he felt like he was already in heaven since he would be joining Cain and Alexis soon. They could crack all of the jokes they wanted and nobody would break them. Sakura may have shredded their bodies, but their souls were free. Was it worth the pain? Always. Even in death, Micah, Cain, and Alexis would make the afterlife great again.