Mitch McLeod Puts the Death in Death Match

Clockwork Orange House of Fun. New Orleans Street Fight. No Holds Barred. Death Match. Hardcore Rules. In professional wrestling, there are thousands of ways to describe a match having no rules, where the only ways to win are by pinfall or submission. No rules rules, right? Well, as Mitch McLeod found out in a message board wrestling RPG, you still have to work within the limits of the law. You can’t shower your opponent with an AK-47. You can’t strap a dynamite vest to a random audience member to extort your opponent into quitting. You shouldn’t be able to do what Stone Cold Steve Austin did and raise a car that Triple H is in with a forklift before dropping it upside down from twenty feet high. Don’t worry about Trips, though, because he was back on TV the next night with only “contusions” on his medical record. There are lots of ways you can win a Death Match, none of which include murder. You can’t take the world championship to prison with you.

As a side note, Mitch McLeod shouldn’t be confused with Kentucky politician Mitch McConnell. One of them will inflict so much pain on you that you’ll develop an addiction to Oxycontin. The other is a hardcore wrestler. McLeod was OTT Wrestling’s version of Tommy Dreamer: the hardcore heart and soul of the company. Mitch would scramble your brains with a steel chair and deduct a hundred IQ points from your test. He would scissors kick a glass water pitcher over your head and deduct another hundred IQ points from your test. He would put a set of steel stairs over your head and leapfrog over the top rope onto them…there go another hundred IQ points. By the time Mitch McLeod was done fucking with your brain, you’d be more than qualified to vote for that Kentucky politician I mentioned earlier.

Unfortunately, none of those credentials would be enough to earn him a victory in his first OTT match ever against the seven-foot tall behemoth known as Yeti. No, I’m not talking about the toilet paper mummy from WCW in the 90’s. This version of Yeti was a legitimate powerhouse. He towered over everybody and made them look and cry like children. His breath reeked of human flesh and sour blood. His horns gave you the impression that the devil himself was standing across the ring from you. And those muscles…so many fucking muscles, but not the kind that belong on the cover of a cheesy romance novel. If Yeti wanted to hurt you, the National Guard would merely delay the inevitable…by about five seconds. He was the perfect first opponent for Mitch McLeod.

With Yeti already waiting to feast on the walking corpse that awaited him, Mitch McLeod’s music hit and the crowd went ape shit, no pun intended. Then again, how do you not go ape shit when “Wollt Ihr Das Bett En Flammen Sehen?” by Rammstein is blasting out of the speakers? German heavy metal for an American ass-kicker. You would think that Mitch would have all the (literal) tools necessary to beat Yeti like a war drum. But prior to joining OTT, he didn’t know that every match in this organization was contested under hardcore rules. Therefore, he did what every good baby-faced hero did in wrestling and attempted to cheat. What a great guy! Such a role model for the youngsters in the crowd!

The rules of the RPG were simple: each player would post a series of moves to perform in the match and whoever had the best writing and most impressive showing would be declared the victor by the GM/referee. At this point, the only thing that dwarfed Mitch’s opponent was my ego. I didn’t want to lose. I didn’t want to “do the job” as they say in the wrestling industry. Sixteen-year-old me didn’t make sacrifices for the good of the story. I just wanted to see Mitch be undefeated in everything he did, because I believed in my own hype. I was my own “mark”, to use another wrestling term. So when Yeti and Mitch locked up, it was game on, motherfucker.

While I don’t remember the exact choreography of the match, I do know that it started off with some actual wrestling maneuvers. Yeti hit a few body slams, suplexes, and clotheslines, each of them rattling Mitch’s bones like a Haitian earthquake that would surely be referenced in a Max Caster freestyle rap if given the opportunity. Max had already made fun of Simone Biles’s mental health, the Duke LaCrosse rape case, COVID testing, and Julia Hart’s vagina, why not a Haitian earthquake? You know what Max didn’t do, though? Put Yeti in a torture rack before slamming his spine across the knee. Mitch did that. He also spiked Yeti on top of his head with a brainbuster. He also hit a power bomb. And a spinebuster. And any other move that a man with Mitch’s size disadvantage had no right to use. Remember, I wanted to win and make Mitch look good, even at the expense of a much bigger star like Yeti.

Mitch would do anything to win at this point. Anything, even “accidentally” knocking out the referee so that using weapons (which was already legal) could be a thing in this match. He pulled a fire extinguisher from under the ring, sprayed Yeti in the eyes with it, threw it at his face, and gave him one final brainbuster onto the extinguisher. A normal man would have died from these wounds long before he had the chance to vote for unsavory Kentucky politicians. Not Yeti. He kicked out just as the referee was about to slap the mat for a three count. What kind of military grade weapons would it take to keep Yeti down? A Sherman tank? A nuclear bomb? Space lasers? Mitch could have used them all and Yeti would still no-sell everything and defeat him with a move called “The Heart Slam”, where he literally grabbed Mitch by his heart and slammed him to the mat before pinning him, one, two, three.

That should have been the end of it all. Mitch McLeod should have picked up his own carcass off the mat and gone back to the locker room to shower. It would actually take a lot more effort to do that considering Yeti gave Mitch another Heart Slam after the match was over, that cheeky heel. But instead of swallowing my pride and selling the injuries, I had Mitch throw the fire extinguisher at Yeti again and then lure him backstage with insults. Yeti, being an angry yeti, took the bait and got clobbered with another fire extinguisher for his troubles. Mitch then tied Yeti’s ankles to the back of his car and drove into town while dragging his big ass across the cement. A normal man would have died after thirty feet, the skin on his back shredded like Floydian beef. If that wasn’t bad enough, Mitch drove Yeti to a suspension bridge, tied cement blocks around him, and threw him into the ocean. Isn’t Mitch such a great role model? Dexter Morgan would be so proud of him! Wait a minute…

In the same way that Mitch no-sold everything Yeti did, Yeti in turn no-sold the attempted murder. I say attempted because Yeti was napping during the whole time he was being dragged. He woke up from his nap, jumped out of the water, and destroyed Mitch’s car so badly that it exploded in a climate change-like fireball. Yeti then advised Mitch to keep all the action in the ring, which would only be bad advice if the match was contested under Falls Count Anywhere rules, which is yet another form of no-disqualification rules. My never-ending ego would have taken this murder spree to the ends of the earth if the GM didn’t intervene when he did. He deleted all of the post-match violence and I was half-relieved that he did. Yeti then gave me a congratulatory “Good match” without a hint of irony, which meant we as players were still on good terms.

The one thing I would like to unpack from this story above all else is that good storytelling comes with sacrifices. If Mitch McLeod won all the time against all challengers in brutal apocalyptic fashion, yes, he would be elevated, but the story would be boring and he would be labeled a Gary-Stu. Flawless characters aren’t fun to read about because they’re not relatable to the reader. Even Hulk Hogan and John Cena, as big as their egos are, wouldn’t be able to relate to Mitch McLeod if he was an indestructible Gary-Stu. The role of the characters is to create a cohesive story through teamwork, and teamwork requires sacrifices. If the heroes have to lose every once and a while to make the stakes believable, so be it. If the villains have to look strong until the very last match when they’re finally defeated, such is life.

Mitch McLeod should have had flaws during his time in OTT Wrestling, but those flaws shouldn’t have been evil attempts to make himself an unstoppable god. In other words, he shouldn’t make himself so unlikable that nobody in their right mind would ever cheer for him. Baby-face heroes shouldn’t have “go-away heat”, or the kind of audience anger that isn’t born from good character work, but from a genuine desire to see them disappear forever, even if that means death itself. No-selling an opponent’s offence in wrestling is a big taboo in the industry, because it completely kills the illusion and undermines the team effort in building a narrative. 

After Mitch took his second Heart Slam, he should have stayed down. Let Yeti have his heel heat, let Mitch train harder and grow as a wrestler instead of turning into a whiny serial killer. When Mitch starts to win matches again and develop his skills, then maybe he can have another crack at Yeti and get even closer to victory this time. Mitch would look impressive as a plucky underdog who has to constantly overcome the odds by the skin of his teeth. Beat him down until he has nothing left, so that when he finally earns his big comeback, he will have worked for something he can be proud of. 

That’s what you have to remember not just with wrestling, but with every story you tell: the protagonist has to work for everything he has. Sometimes he has to work so hard that his body and mind fail him when he needs the energy the most. Sometimes he has to work hard enough to bring him to death’s door. But unlike in a capitalist society where unsavory Kentucky politicians hold the brass rings hostage, Mitch McLeod actually has a chance of having his hard work pay off. A theater teacher I had once advised us to, “Throw rocks at our protagonists and make them run up a tree.” In other words, make life difficult enough so that when those difficulties are conquered in a believable way, the protagonist will have something to be proud of. And so will you, fellow writers. So will you.

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.

Divas

Piper gazed at the butterfly-decorated Divas Championship belt in her paws with a sense of pride and joy. Holding this title was a dream of hers ever since she was a kitten. In her mind, dreams always came true and could never be taken away by oppressive forces. Her naivety was a source of sweetness for her adoring kitty fans as evidenced by the way they meowed and purred at her entrance. She did it all for them and she was determined not to let them down this evening during her title defense. With her black tank top, pink leather pants, and white boots snug against her white furry kitty body, she was ready to go. She kissed her Divas Championship belt for good luck before her music hit.

The arena darkened as the piano intro of “April Rain” by Delain caused the kitties and puppies in the audience to cheer and howl for their favorite wrestler. Once the intense guitars and drums sounded, Piper danced out to the isle to an even louder chorus of cheers. She high fived her tiny fans in the front row and gave a hug to an oversized Bassett Hound near the ring. Piper leaped on the apron and over the top rope with such athletic grace before prancing around the ring and parading her hard-earned championship. She even high-fived the Springer Spaniel ring announcer and hugged Willem the schipperke referee. Piper was certain this feel-good moment would last forever and showed it on her cute kitty face with a squinty-eyed smile.

And then the slow and sensual blue-eyed soul music of “Son of a Preacher Man” by Dusty Springfield echoed throughout the arena. The older dogs in the audience howled with lust while the tiny kittens booed their heads off. Coming out to the stage were three cats dressed in royal pink robes and little diamond-encrusted tiaras. Posing on the left side of the stage was the calico runt of the litter, Calypso. Posing on the right with her claws extended like a Marvel superhero was the fierce black and white Stitches. In the middle was the arrogantly strutting queen of the divas, Tori. Together this group was known as the Supermodel Kitties.

None of the boos in the arena could compare to Piper’s fiery stare down the ramp as the Supermodel Kitties pompously danced their way to the ring. For weeks leading up to this match, they called her “Piper-Diaper” and Photoshopped pictures of her in baby outfits. A tear formed in her eye at these traumatic thoughts and Calypso was sharp enough to catch it. She got up on the apron and flailed her paws next to her ears while sticking her tongue out at Piper.

The proud Divas Champion shouted, “Why, you!” before dashing to the opposite side the ring to deliver a drop kick. Calypso pulled the top rope down at the last minute and Piper crashed and burned on the concrete floor below. Calypso stayed on the apron and continued her nee-ner-nee-ner taunts while Tori and Stitches were scratching and biting the hell out of their victim. Willem barked and growled his warnings at a rapid fire pace, but the Supermodel Kitties refused to listen and resumed their taunting and beating of Piper.

Willem hopped over the top rope and did his best hyper barking while chasing the Supermodel Kitties to the other side of the ring. He gave a few more commanding barks at the now shaking cats before running back over to Piper and licking her wounds with his sloppy dog tongue. Willem spent the longest time tending to the cat’s wounds and she still wouldn’t wake up. It seemed as though the schipperke had no choice but to bark for paramedics on the ramp way.

The proud Supermodel Kitties wrapped their arms around each other’s necks and danced up and down chanting, “Piper-Diaper!” much to the dismay of the booing crowd. Calypso even had an animal diaper in her paws to illustrate such humiliation.

This charade would have lasted the rest of the night if it wasn’t for Piper nipping up to her feat and letting out a dreaded hiss. The Supermodel Kitties watched on with wide-eyed shock as Tori’s opponent leaped back into the ring and made a “come here” gesture with her paws. “You want some of this?!” Piper shouted. “Come and get it, you skanky hoes!”

A resounding “Ooo!” echoed throughout the arena while the stunned Supermodel Kitties’ jaws were on the floor. Cat wrestling was considered to be family entertainment, but Piper didn’t give a damn about her language at that point. She also waved off Willem when he tried licking her wounds again. With Calypso and Stitches slowly taking opposite sides of the ring, Tori was also in no hurry to get inside. But once she was, the ring announcer ran away without doing his job knowing how fierce this battle would be.

Willem barked five times at the ringside timekeeper, who rung the bell to signify the beginning of the match. Piper and Tori ran to the center of the ring and threw the sharpest claws they could at each other. Their violent hisses and howls added enough drama to this match to get the crowd to rise to their feet and cheer. The crowd really got going when Piper leaped in the air, wrapped her legs around Tori’s neck, and flipped the Supermodel Kitty on her back. Tori nipped up and got thrown by her arm across the ring for her troubles. This sequence of getting up and getting tossed continued for Tori until Piper applied a shoulder lock to her and kept the obnoxious brat grounded and howling.

It looked like Tori was going to slam her paws to the mat to signal a tap-out victory. And then Calypso got on the ring apron and mockingly cried at Piper. “Boohoo, I’m a big baby and I like to suck on pacifiers!” While Willem was rattling off his super-quick barks at the runty calico, Stitches reached through the ropes and swatted her knife-like claws into Piper’s butt. The champion howled in pain and jumped high in the air while holding her backside.

Calypso got down from the apron while Tori hopped to her feet and body slammed Piper to the mat. While the champ was down, Tori leaped off the middle rope and back flipped chest first into Piper, driving the air from the dreamer kitty’s already exhausted lungs. Tori then wrapped her arm around the champ’s chin and held her face in front of Calypso and Stitches for further humiliation.

The tiny calico pulled out a smart phone and recorded a video of Piper’s contorted face in what would be known as The Huh Challenge. Calypso mockingly said, “My name is Piper and I cry myself to sleep every night like a big fat baby! HUH?!”

Stitches giggled while taking the phone from Calypso and doing her own Huh Challenge. “My name is Piper and my favorite thing to eat is whatever’s in the litter box! HUH?!” The two outside kitties high-fived each other and giggled some more at Piper’s expense.

Meanwhile, a single tear dropped from Piper’s eye as she gritted her fangs and tightened her claws. This was the BS she had to put up with on live television for weeks now. She growled at the thought of her opponents acting like middle school children instead of legitimate wrestlers. She growled even harder when the audience tried to cheer her back into this match. Piper needed this victory. She needed to show that dreams always come true no matter how high the odds were stacked.

Piper slithered underneath the chin lock, grabbed Tori around her waist, and threw her backwards on her neck. The Supermodel Kitty flopped around like a fish as she was thrown backwards again. And again. And again. Calypso and Stitches weren’t even paying attention to the action going on in the ring as they were too busy taking selfies. Piper glared like a hungry tiger at them as she bounced off the ropes and flew over the top turnbuckle. She landed perfectly on Stitches and ripped her apart with her claws like a Christmas present while Calypso watched on in wide-eyed, shaky-bodied horror.

Piper turned her fiery glare to Calypso and gave her a leonine howl and an ophidian hiss. The champion chased the Supermodel Kitty around the ring multiple times. She didn’t care about the exhaustion in her body from the main event match. She was sucking down air like a whirlwind as she saw nothing but red when she gazed upon Calypso. The calico brat was getting tuckered out herself, so she slid underneath the bottom rope and drew the ire of Willem, who trapped her in the corner and gave off more rapid fire barks.

The champ slid underneath the bottom rope as well, and this time she was sure to dine upon Calypso’s pencil neck. She could already taste the blood like a shark swirling its prey. Even though Piper didn’t have as many teeth as a shark, she would make every vampire bite feel like a bloodlust chainsaw attack anyways.

And that was when she felt something sharp jam into the back of her neck. The intense pain and black vision suggested Tori used a foreign object to get the upper hand behind the schipperke’s back. Once Calypso dived out of the ring and curled in a corner, Tori finished the job with a high-impact kick underneath Piper’s chin, knocking her out just long enough to be pinned for three seconds.

Willem tapped the mat three times and the match was over. Piper’s championship reign, just like her vision, had faded away with quickness. The only dream she would be living was the one in her subconscious theater, which only played horror movies that day. When her eyes slowly opened, her bruised and battered body made her feel like road kill. The unending pain was just as emotional when she awakened to find an animal diaper fastened to her crotch. The Supermodel Kitties danced around on the ramp, celebrating with the title and mocking Piper with more nee-ner-nee-ner taunts.

The never-ending tears in Piper’s eyes caused her vision to fade to black once more. She didn’t remember being helped to the doctor’s office. She didn’t remember the stitches she would require. Her emotions were robotic as she tried to process being humiliated by the Supermodel Kitties. She stared into space not wanting to think about the future or how her diapered sorrow was broadcast not only for the television audience, but also the internet troglodytes.

The more she stared into those white walls, the less of a choice she had in what to think about. She tried to shove it down. She tried to hold back the tears. But the tears kept rolling down like whitewater rapids. Her depressed howling couldn’t be helped. Her childhood dream was shattered like a pot of dead roses. Piper had the innocence of a child for most of her life. Now she made the roughest of transitions into adulthood and realized that nightmares were the norm in this world. The tears poured like an avalanche of cold emotions as she laid there all alone in the doctor’s office. With such a humiliating defeat, she was more than just physically alone in this world.

But if her childhood innocence taught her anything, it was not to cry because it was over. It was to smile because it happened. She loved that butterfly-decorated championship. It gave her some warm memories of being adored by the crowd. All the hugs, high-fives, and cheers helped to dry her ultra-wet, ultra-red eyeballs. They were the only things that got her through the hard training and violent matches. And now that Piper was contractually obligated to a rematch, she couldn’t let those beautiful fans down twice.

As she wiped the last of her tears from her furry face, Piper reached her paw over and picked up a scalpel from the bench. Tori cheated by using a sharp object similar to this one, so why shouldn’t Piper do the same when she wanted to win her Divas Championship back? But what would her fans think of her if she did such a thing? Would they ostracize her if she sunk to the Supermodel Kitties’ level?

In that doctor’s office, Piper had a decision to make. What was more important to her: the belt and all the money that came with it, or the fans that energized her every night and stayed loyal until the end? She had a long night of thinking ahead of her, but one thing was for certain her mind: “Those bitches are going to pay!”

Toy Trauma

Every careful step downstairs to the kitchen sent a thunderstorm of pain across Marty Hunt’s head. He held his temples and whined “Ouch!” the entire way down. It was a slow and laborious process, but reach the bottom floor he did. Wearing only plaid pajama pants and white socks, the pain-wracked father dragged himself over to the kitchen table and sat down with a quickness.

He leaned his head all the way back and breathed a sigh of relief. No more ouches, just a nice self-head massage with sinewy fingers. The coffee pot could wait a few more minutes. Marty wanted to milk this small moment of relaxation for all it was worth. He might have even fallen asleep at the table with his head in his arms if he wanted to.

“Morning, Dad!” yelled little five-year-old Kevin. The high pitch jolted Marty awake and the thunder and lightning in his brain was going batshit crazy. The single father rubbed his temples even harder while Kevin ran around the kitchen with his favorite action figure, the beefcake barbarian Deus Shadowheart.

“I’m going to eat your soul like a bowl of cereal!” yelled Kevin in his version of a manly barbarian growl. “I shall chew your flesh like bubblegum! And I shall drink your insides like Coca-Cola!” The little son shook the Deus Shadowheart action figure in front of his father’s face and roared some more.

“Please don’t do that to me this early in the morning, Kevin. It’s been a shitty couple of months with this divorce hearing. Cut Daddy some slack today,” said Marty as he continued to massage his temples.

“I shall enslave your people and force them to make bowls of Quaker Oatmeal for the rest of their lives!” said Kevin in his warrior growl.

“Is that what this is about? You want Quaker Oatmeal? Alright, I’ll get you a bowl…”

“Silence, peasant! You shall bring me a bowl of oatmeal and put extra brown sugar in it! Raaaaaaaaaaargh!” Kevin shook the action figure in his father’s face some more, causing him to clench his eyelids as tightly as he could. No matter how many times Marty rubbed his own temples, his head would always feel like it was under Deus’ mighty fur boots. The thought of his own brain popping out sent a shiver through his body.

“What’s the matter?! Do you not like that I am king of this wasteland? Too bad! I rule with an iron fist and a big bloody battleaxe!” yelled Kevin a la Deus. In between words, Marty kept pleading with him to shut up, but the overly energetic child said, “Bow to me and my big bloody battleaxe! You cannot win, mere mortal!”

“That’s it! I’ve had it with this shit! Give me that goddamn thing!” screamed Marty as he stood up and knocked his chair over. He and his son played tug of war over the mighty toy with the little guy screaming, “No!” repeatedly at the top of his lungs. The screeching voice to Marty was like having Deus’ meat cleaver go through his skull. He felt like his brain was a hand grenade ready to go off. His heart was pumping and thumping like a barbaric war drum.

In one harsh pull, Marty yanked the toy out of his son’s hands and yelled, “I don’t like this thing! And here’s what I’m going to do with this piece of shit!” Despite Kevin’s foot stomping and repeated “No!” screams, Marty ripped Deus Shadowheart’s arms and legs off before throwing the dismantled mess across the kitchen floor.

Kevin knelt down beside his toy and cried a tearful storm over the broken remains. Marty watched on with a sorrowful guilt over what he’d done, but remained strong in the face of having to discipline his son for his ballistic behavior. The father’s defenses were knocked down a few pegs when Kevin turned his tear and snot-covered face to him and said, “I want to go live with mommy! I hate you, Dad! I hate you!”

Headache and heartache were one in the same for Marty Hunt. Every pump of blood throughout his body made him groggy with depression, yet his face maintained its angry expression as a sign of strength against such powerful words. “You can’t go back to your mother, Kevin! We had a divorce and it’s been finalized! She cheated on me with another man! She cheated on us! She’s the one who’s tearing this family apart, not me!”

Kevin stood up and rushed over to his father to pound his tiny fists into his hairy stomach. “Stop it, Kevin, you’re hurting me! Knock it off, kid!” yelled Marty. The little spitfire wouldn’t listen. He pounded harder and harder until his father’s breath was completely drained from his system.

The old man collapsed to the ground and clutched his chest in pain. His breathing was raspy and shallow as he said, “Call 9-1-1, Kevin! Hurry!” When Kevin folded his arms and refused to move, Marty let down his authoritative guard in an act of desperation. “I’m sorry!” He wheezed. “I’ll buy you a new toy! You can have any one you want!”

As Marty’s vision was fading to black, he could hear his son’s voice shout “Daddy!” as well as little footsteps scurrying across the linoleum kitchen floor. Hopefully, those footsteps were on their way to the house phone to call an ambulance. Marty didn’t even know if Kevin was physically capable of making such a call. He lost hope as his breaths grew shorter and the peace he wanted at breakfast was finally obtained. Nothing but a dull gray screen clouded his vision. No tears, no angry words, no sorrowful thoughts, just the kind of grayness one could expect from an Emergency Alert System screen.

And then the father could feel his heart beating again. Little by little, the thumping and pumping was dominating his overly sensitive ears. His heart raced a little faster with each passing second. The gray screen before him became a field of blurry shapes and lights. He had a strange plastic mask over his face and the air pressure felt overwhelming to him. Soon the blurs and lights concentrated themselves into a clear picture. He was riding in the back of an ambulance with EMT’s by his side. Even more important to him was little Kevin staring down at him with a worried look on his chubby-cheeked face.

“Kevin…Kevin, dear god. I’m so sorry about this morning. I meant what I said about the toy. Come on, little guy, just give me another chance,” said Marty, his voice weak through the plastic mask.

Little Kevin Hunt held his father’s index finger in his tiny hands and said, “I don’t care about the toy. I just want my daddy back.”

Marty’s eyes began to well up with tears and his heart rate sped up. He cursed himself mentally for being “stupid” enough to not realize it was never about toys. He made enough money at work that he could buy the entire Hasbro catalogue if he wanted to, maybe even a few collector’s items. It was love that he failed to show at breakfast time, not finances. The whole divorce proceedings with his wife were all about who loved Kevin more and in the end, Marty ended up pounding the sides of his gurney in frustration that he became the world’s biggest hypocrite.

The EMT’s tried to pin Marty’s tight arms down in an attempt to slow his skyrocketing heart rate. It was Kevin’s voice yelling, “Daddy, don’t!” that finally subdued the hypocritical father. He collapsed into the gurney bed sobbing hysterically while his son hugged him around the waist. Hugging around the chest would have been ill-advised due to Marty’s heart condition.

“Hey, Kev…” said Marty with a little more conviction. “Have I told you lately that I loved you and that you’re the best son a father could ever have?”

“Do you mean it?” asked Kevin with dewy puppy dog eyes.

“Absolutely, little guy,” said Marty. “Me? I’m just a monster…” He took a while to catch his breath before he said, “I’m the monster who’s going to have the biggest battle with Deus Shadowheart this universe has ever seen!” His throat got more hoarse and villain-like, much to Kevin’s beaming delight. “I shall unleash hordes of minions upon the barbaric wasteland and I will burn everything to ashes! Nobody is safe, not even the big badass Deus Shadowheart!”

Father and son laughed together while hugging around the waist. In all of this legal mumbo-jumbo, the one thing all three members of the Hunt family forgot to do was laugh. How such a simple gesture could change a man’s heart rate and give his burning headaches a heavenly cure. Isn’t laughing and playing what action figures and families were all about? 

Sonya Jade

NAME: Sonya Jade
AGE: 18
OCCUPATION: Student
CANON: Beauty and the Barbarian


As humans looking for a loving companion, we owe it to ourselves and our partners to find a balance between romance and shallowness. We all have shallow instincts whether we want financial stability or physical beauty from our significant other. And then you have a woman like Sonya Jade, who recently got “fired” from a short story that was included in the now defunct anthology Dragon Machinegun, “Beauty and the Barbarian”. Her claim to fame would have been the fantasy genre’s most shallow woman if she actually rose to that level of notoriety.

Sonya was the beauty, obviously, and the barbarian was a super handsome gentleman named Ogre Bladefist. Sonya found herself in trouble no matter where she went. She was almost molested by a group of goblins after leaving a tavern drunk as a skunk. She was also bloodily spanked by a group of teachers and schoolmasters at a religious college. Who would rescue her from both of these brutal assaults? Ogre, no less. In addition to being easy on the eyes, he was also a vicious fighter who shattered bones with the laziest of efforts. A muscle-bound stud with ponytail hair and overly protective fighting skills? Cha-ching! Sonya scored big time!

Sonya would have spent the rest of the night in bed pleasuring herself if it hadn’t been for Ogre sneaking into her cottage and…(clears throat)…”giving her a hand with that”. The orgasm of the century was on the horizon until a bitchy old witch named Rose Lovelace tracked Ogre down and turned him into the most hideous monster she could think of. Brown razor teeth, shit-covered fur, constant green drool…basically, all of the things in a monster that gave Sonya nightmares and nausea fits. Could she still love her man after all of this?

Therein lies the question of the day. If she was really the deep thinking, three-dimensional character we all want to get behind (in more ways than sodomy), then she would have stayed with Ogre until the very end. But she didn’t. She immediately demanded that her man sneak into Rose Lovelace’s castle and abscond a cure for his ugliness. After an uphill battle with the nearly indestructible Rose, Ogre found the cure, but chose not to stay with Sonya after she showed her true colors. To be honest, I couldn’t blame him for the choice he made and my readers probably couldn’t either.

So there you have it: a harsh way of telling my audience to choose everlasting love and a beautiful soul over something as temporary as good looks and an oversized bank account. As someone with a round tummy and no employment history, I’ve been preaching this message for a long, long time. Am I biased? Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean the message can’t have any meaning. Unfortunately, due to the piss-poor writing style I used to write “Beauty and the Barbarian”, it never saw the fame and fortune it could have potentially had.

Besides, what could I truly do with a woman like Sonya Jade? Her shallow point of view doesn’t make her very sympathetic. But her beauty could be an asset to someone for reasons other than animalistic sex. She has long purple hair, milky white skin, rose red lips, and irises that live up to her last name. That, and she happens to be a passionate lover. I could see Sonya Jade being a seductive rogue character in a D&D campaign. She could use her beauty and passion to make men (and lesbian women) fall in love with her while Sonya steals their riches right from under their noses.

And then to really make her three-dimensional, she could donate her treasure to a worthy cause such as protecting animals from being abused or giving shelter to rape victims who want to run away from their own abusers. As my lovely beta reader Marie Krepps once said, “Talk dirty to me!” Of course, she wasn’t trying to come on to me; she was merely suggesting that my ideas were good. I hope she likes this idea as well!

　

***MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“There are millions of fine-looking women in the world. They won’t all bring you lasagna at work. Most of them will just cheat on you.”

-Silent Bob from “Clerks”-

Multiple Readings

Here’s something I may never understand: why is it that people like to say that they’re going to read a particular book more than once? They say things like “I like it so much that I can’t wait to read it again!” While lip service to a good book is admirable, I have to ask why someone would go to these extremes. You have to understand that while reading is an enjoyable hobby for a lot of people, it’s also hard work. It’s like a marine saying that he wants to go through boot camp again because he got such a great workout from the obstacle courses. While reading isn’t nearly as torturous as running an obstacle course at five in the morning, it still takes a great deal of effort and dedication to do. I loved reading “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, but I don’t need to read it twice in order to prove my devotion to the author or his work. Another issue I have with the idea of multiple readings is that once you read a book, you already know what happens and the element of surprise is spoiled. When I read a book, I’m already resigned to the idea that everything will be okay by the story’s end. For me, it’s not so much IF a happy ending occurs, it’s HOW. All of these problems have to have some kind of solution, preferably one I didn’t think of beforehand. If I was to read “Pipsqueak” by Brian M. Wiprud a second time, I would already know how Garth Carson and his kin defeat the cultists. For the sake of making you all buy your own damn copies of the book, I won’t spoil the ending for anybody. That’s one of the points of reading: to find out what happens. Sure, you could skip to the back of the book and find out that way, but where’s the adventure and sense of accomplishment in that? You know why we have a website called Good Reads? So that people can go online and brag about the books they’ve read in the past. How exactly are you going to earn your bragging rights if you skip to the back of the book like a cheater? And just so you know, Good Reads doesn’t have a place on your “To-Read” list for how many times you’ve read a book, so I guess it’s not that honorable after all. I have over 60 books on my “To-Read” list and they’re all sitting on my bookshelf here at home. How exactly are all 60 plus books going to get read if I’m stuck on “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” or “Pipsqueak” indefinitely? Seems like a waste of money to just let those books sit in queue like that. You want to know what I’m really trying to say here? Actually, I don’t have much to say, just something to ask. Why on earth would someone want to read a book more than once (aside from not completing it the first time and forgetting what happened)?

　

***CELEBRITY QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“There are two motives for reading a book. One, that you enjoy it. The other, that you can boast about it [on Good Reads].”

-Bertrand Russell-