Gender Blind

Every punch and kick Rachel Gustafson threw at her practice pads was dedicated to her haters. The right hook was dedicated to Battle Born President Raymond Katz, who put this intergender match together to solve his “Rachel Gustafson problem”. The flying knee was for every fan who didn’t believe she could do battle with a man, let alone win the fucking match. The elbow strike was for the protesters outside the arena who never wanted this match to happen. The spinning back fist was for Sting Masters, who thought this match was going to be a cakewalk. Lost in her rage, Rachel threw enough rapid fire punches and kicks to accidentally knock over her trainer, to which she apologized and helped him back up.

The knock on her door followed by a voice shouting, “It’s fight time!” prompted Rachel to crack her neck in both directions and march out of the locker room with fists tightened and muscles tensing. The PA system had already queued up her walk out theme of “One of These Days” by Pink Floyd. Groovy bass guitar solo aside, the grunting voice of “One of these days, I’m going to cut you into little pieces!” perfectly described how Rachel felt about everyone in this arena.

Once she walked down the aisle, she could hear the boos reverberating off of her muscles of stone. The occasional shouts of, “You suck!” made those audience members ideal candidates for a hard right hook to the face. But they were the ones sweating like pigs, not her. Even from the middle of the aisle, she stared bullets into Sting Master’s smug British face. He was already in the octagon waiting for her with his arms folded and his red Mohawk looking as silly as ever. “Cakewalk my ass!” she said to herself upon reaching the entrance to the cage.

Rachel stripped off her hooded sweatshirt and athletic pants to reveal her sports bra and baggy shorts with various business logos on it. At least she didn’t have “Condom Depot” printed on her ass like a lot of fighters these days had. After getting her face greased up with ointment and being searched by the referee for weapons, Rachel stomped up the steel stairs and bolted inside the cage, running circles around the structure and giving the middle finger to her booing audience. She would have given one to Sting, but a flying knee would have been more appropriate for someone of his arrogance.

Once both warriors stood in their appropriate corners behind the black line, the seven foot tall referee stood behind the ring announcer as he got this main event going. Speaking with passion and fire into the microphone, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are live from the sold out Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington for Battle Born 57: Eye for an Eye! This event is sanctioned by the Washington State Athletic Commission. When the action begins, our referee in charge of the fight is Bill Dash. If you’re ready for some violence tonight, make some noise!”

The audience did make noise, but none of their cheers and boos were enough to take Rachel’s sniper sight focus off of Sting. The announcer continued his oratory with, “Three rounds in the Battle Born Promotions first ever intergender lightweight division match! Introducing first, fighting out of the red corner! This man is a striker who holds a professional record of twenty-six wins and six losses. He stands five feet seven inches tall and weighed in at 155 lbs. Fighting out of Manchester, England…STING…MASTERS!” More boos from an audience who clearly wanted this match to end in a double knockout.

“Introducing his opponent, fighting out of the blue corner! She is also a striker, but holds a professional record of nineteen wins and four losses. Standing at five feet eleven inches tall, weighing in at 153 lbs.. Fighting out of Denver, Colorado, ladies and gentlemen, she is the former Battle Born Promotions Women’s Lightweight Champion of the World…RACHEL…”GUTSY”…GUSTAFSON!”

Referee Bill Dash took center stage and brought both fighters toward his position. With the announcer holding the microphone in Bill’s face, he gave his instructions, “Okay, you two, I want a good clean fight. We’ve been over the rules in the locker room. Protect yourselves at all time. Obey my commands at all time. When I tell you to stop, you stop. If you want to touch gloves, go ahead and do it and then go back to your corners.” Not a damn fist was raised, only deadly steel-eyed stares. “Good luck to both of you and may the best fighter win,” said Bill before both fighters marched back to their corners.

The ring announcer and other unnecessary personnel vacated the cage and all that remained were two intergender warriors who wanted to smash each other’s faces in. Rachel saw red and only red. She remembered the interviews Sting gave in which he said he was going to, “Make her [his] bitch” and “Put her in her place.” All the laughing. All the booing. All the fake outrage going on outside with enhanced security. All the times Raymond Katz wanted to get rid of her for whatever reason. Those lava-like emotions bubbled towards the surface and she almost jumped the gun before the referee started the match.

“First round, are you ready, Rachel? Are you ready, Sting? Let’s get it on!” shouted Bill Dash and both warriors met in the middle of the octagon. No feeling out process, just throwing caution to the wind. Both fighters threw heavy punches and created wooshing sounds as those hits never landed. Rachel threw a kick at Sting’s hamstring and caused him to slightly wince, but otherwise suck it up. Another kick to the hamstring and a deep purple bruise formed on Sting’s pasty white leg.

Sting threw kicks of his own to Rachel’s midsection and she could feel the tiny bit of oxygen leaving her stacked body. The jeers from the audience intensified, but they weren’t the ones in this match and Rachel easily blocked them out. She threw more kicks to Sting’s legs and slowed him down considerably.

And then the wily Brit went for broke when he stormed towards Rachel with a series of hard rights and lefts. He missed the first two strikes, but the third, a stiff jab, caught her on the chin and sent a dot matrix of lights scattering across her field of vision. Another punch caught her on the bridge of her nose and her eyes watered like a raging river of hot tears. And then Sting used his good leg to throw a high kick and caught Rachel behind the ear.

The feminine fury wobbled and staggered about as she was being dissected by this brutal bully. He threw an elbow to her forehead and knocked her down while opening a gusher of a cut. The boos and outrage intensified even more, but all Rachel could hear were birdies tweeting in her head. Sting was little more than blur to her, obnoxious red Mohawk aside. She threw her feet upwards to try to keep him from mounting her and getting more vicious offence in.

Sting got overzealous and went for the mount anyways, but was met with an up-kick to the bridge of his nose, knocking him flat on his ass and busting him wide open with a waterfall of blood. Both fighters, bloodied and beaten, stood on their knees and punched the shit out of each other. Rachel’s vision was darkening with every knock she took on the face while Sting’s gusher poured like a busted fire hydrant.

Bill Dash was awfully close to stopping this fight when out of the corner of Rachel’s vision, a fan leaped over the cage and was immediately tackled to the floor by the seven foot ref. But then more fans jumped the fence and swarmed in on Bill Dash. The booing audience who hated this idea of an intergender match came rushing it all at once, even knocking one of the sides of the cage down.

Sting got up from his dazed kneeling position and was actually protecting Rachel with fists and feet towards the zealous fans. Bill Dash and other security members tossed around fans like sacks of potatoes. Meanwhile, a pair of husky arms grabbed the fading Rachel under her pits and dragged her out of the arena. She didn’t resist due to her weak body even though she wanted to. All she could hear was cussing, screaming, and riotous violence surrounding her. One fan even stepped on her ankle on the way to the cage and she didn’t even flinch. She huffed in exhaustion and closed her swollen eyes (or at least tried to) on her way to wherever the hell she was going.

By the time Rachel Gustafson opened her black and blue eyes and wiped away the crusted blood from her black ponytail hair, she actually thought she had woken up in a different time period. Was she an old lady by this time? Was this place a nursing home? No, it was a medical facility located far away from the Tacoma Dome. She recognized the plain white walls, the dull florescent lights, and the ultra-comfortable bed snuggling up to her spinal cord. Opening her eyes hurt like a motherfucker, but she did so anyways and caught a certain chubster in a cheap suit with horseshoe hair and a cheesy moustache standing over her bed.

“You’ve got a lot of balls coming here, Raymond. What the hell do you want?” asked Rachel in a weak, but angry tone.

“Miss Gustafson, I am so sorry for the way things turned out,” begged Raymond with his hands folded together. “This was supposed to be a special night for all of us. A revolution was unfolding before our very eyes. I didn’t think it would come to a full on riot.”

“Where’s Sting?” asked Rachel.

“We have no idea where he is. He could have gotten lost in the riot for all we know.”

“…So in other words, I’ll never get my win back from the man who stole it from me…because you wanted a fucking revolution?!”

“Rachel, I’m sorry, I really am.”

Having no more of Raymond Katz’s bullshit answers, the battered, bruised, and sore Rachel burst out of bed and held the CEO against the wall by his throat with both hands. “Don’t give me that crap! You knew from the very beginning this was going to happen! You wanted to get rid of your so-called Rachel Gustafson problem! So what do you do? You have a fucking riot in the middle of my fight! A fight, which by the way, I should have won by TKO!”

After listening to her boss wheeze and hack for hair, she finally let go of his chubby neck and let him plop to the floor on his giant ass. As he desperately caught his breath, Rachel kneeled down next to him and asked, “So what is the problem, Raymond? Is it because I asked for a raise? Is it because I asked to be promoted properly instead of getting pushed aside like a commodity?” She leaned her battle tested face towards his and said in a deep whisper, “Or is it because I tried to use the company’s health benefits to have an abortion when I needed one the most? If I had that baby, I would have died and you knew that!”

Once he had a sufficient amount of oxygen in his raspy lungs, Raymond threw his hands up defensively and said, “Trust me, Rachel, any problem I had with you has flown out the window. You’re important to me. I honestly didn’t believe this match was going to end in a riot. I’m sorry. I really am. I’ll give you whatever you want.”

Rachel stood up and asked, “Anything?”

“Anything you want. You fought like a trooper tonight, against a man, no less. You deserve something special for that.”

“If I can really have anything I want…then I want to be released from Battle Born Promotions.”

“What?! You’re kidding me!”

Rachel punched a hole in the wall above Raymond’s head and caused him to flinch and yelp. “I’m serious, you fat fuck! No amount of money can ever make me forgive you. You put my life in danger that night and I should do the same to you. But I’m not going to…unless you don’t grant me my release.”

With nothing more to say to her now former boss, Rachel stormed out her semi-private room and collapsed on the floor. She needed nurses and doctors to help her stand up. Out of her still painful vision, she saw a man in a wheelchair covered in bandages except for his eyes, which were swollen and purple just like hers. The man gave a thumbs up and said in his signature British accent, “I’ll see you again someday. We’re not finished by a long fucking shot!”

“You’re damn right we’re not, Sting!” shouted Rachel as she was being dragged away by medical personnel.

Violet Smith

NAME: Violet Smith
AGE: 28
OCCUPATION: Mixed-Martial Artist
CANON: Choice


Abortion is a sensitive topic no matter who you talk to. The mixed-martial arts community are not known for their sensitivity. So why then would I in 2012 write ten-page long story that combines both of those things? The MMA community is the same group of people who went bat shit crazy when Fallon Fox came out as a transsexual woman. How do you think they’re going to handle news of a female fighter having an abortion so that she can continue her career? They’re going to handle it the same way conservative wing nut and MMA fighter Violet Smith handled it: with hellfire and fury.

In the story known as “Choice”, the main character and fellow MMA featherweight Rachel Gustafson dispels pregnancy rumors at a press conference by sugar coating the fact that she had an abortion. Violet Smith, another featherweight and a religious zealot, screamed at Rachel and almost got in a fight with her right there at the conference. Somewhere down the line, Rachel and Violet would meet inside the eight sides of steel. Not only would Rachel win in the first round, but she would steal Violet’s abused boyfriend Neil Hahn afterwards.

I’ve always envisioned Violet Smith as being the conservative version of fellow female villain Colleen Owens. Violet is loud, obnoxious, in-your-face, crass, rude, and egotistical. To show you how much of a crazy bitch she is, in “Choice”, she compared Rachel Gustafson to kid rapist Phil Garrido in the sense of how they treat small children. If that doesn’t get your blood boiling, nothing will. That’s the kind of sick joke that causes PTSD in a lot of people. Violet Smith was the clear villain of that short story.

But did she need to be THAT much of a villain? Did she need to achieve Complete Monster status by not only traumatizing women who’ve had abortions, but also abusing her boyfriend at the time Neil Hahn? The poor guy had a 1-4 MMA record and thought he could jump start his career by hanging out with a woman who was 12-3, a former Women’s Featherweight Champion, and a multiple time post-fight bonus money winner. Neil shed the blood, sweat, and tears it took to be an MMA elite, but only because he was being slapped in the face and screamed at by Violet, criminal that she was.

As a writer, it’s my job to invoke emotions within my readers. Extreme anger may not be the best choice, which is why Violet Smith is currently in my unemployed pile. I actually had an idea of what I could do with her. I could Clockwork Orange her ass! Yeah! If she wants to go around beating up helpless women and downtrodden men, let her pay the same price as Alex De Large.

She could be shown films of anti-abortion and other Christian crusaders committing violence while a Demon Hunter, Skillet, or We As Human song is playing in the background. And then afterwards she can confront the ghosts of those she hurt in a sensory deprivation chamber, but that’s not Clockwork Orange, that’s Tales From the Hood’s fourth story Hardcore Convert.

But if I put Violet Smith through a Clockwork Orange storyline, will she be as defiant as she was when she was free or will she break down and have a moment of clarity? Can she really look a hallucination of Rachel Gustafson in the eyes and ask for forgiveness? Can she do the same thing to real life female MMA fighters like Liz Carmouche and Raquel Pennington, who are both openly lesbian and probably offended by Violet’s zeal?

But since this is an MMA fighter we’re talking about, maybe instead of confronting the hallucinations and giving them a bunch of false answers, we could have an actual match. Yeah! If Violet is really as remorseless as she says she is, let’s see if she can put Jessica Andrade in a rear-naked choke or TKO Fallon Fox into oblivion. If that’s the case, she won’t be winning any major championships. She’ll be showing the prison guards that she’s far from ready for normal society.

The Clockwork Orange angle is just one possibility that I’ve thought about. There are so many other things she can do. She can be a Dungeons & Dragons cleric for all I care. And since she’s good at unarmed combat, she can probably be a cleric and monk homebrew class. She can tell people to “Choose life!” while throwing a flying bullet kick a la Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat. But no matter what role she took, she will always be a villain due to her obnoxious Complete Monster mentality. In the case of D&D, she would be a level five lawful evil cleric/monk. Violet, have you met my good friends Deus Shadowheart and Brutus Warcry? They’re dying to get to know you! Hehe!

　

***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“I apologize, you son of a bitch!”

-Vince McMahon to CM Punk-

Picklebee's Legacy

The word Picklebee has a lot of sentimental value to me, which is fucked up if you read the rest of this blog post. When I first introduced it to my bestie Susan and niece Reina as a nickname for our cat Smokey, the two of them were unanimously against it. They felt it was too creepy for a cute critter like Smokey. I thought to myself, “How could a cute word like Picklebee have any creepy connotations?”

I still wonder that to this day. Pickles is an actual pet name that’s been used before. Bees are cute and cuddly (whenever they’re not stinging you). Put them together and you have a loving nickname. Susan and Reina weren’t sold on it. So one day during a yard sale, I wrote “Picklebee” on the sidewalk with pink chalk, scaring the crap out of any customer who saw it.

With all of these people taking note of how scary a simple affectionate name could be, I figured I wasn’t going to win the cuteness battle, so I might as well roll with the creepiness of it all. When I first introduced the name Picklebee to the internet, it was in the form of a short horror story I wrote for Good Reads called “Picklebee, God of Death”. If you’re not scared shitless already, you will be when you learn that Picklebee was an indestructible demonic cat who slashed the shit out of anybody she deemed unworthy.

She turned a psychotic pizza delivery guy into her own personal slave and slashed the throats of the cop and landlord who tried to evict that same guy. There was blood everywhere, and that was just the decorations of the guy’s apartment before the fight took place. To put it in more relatable terms, “Picklebee, God of Death” was Pet Cemetery on crack. It was so violent that I constantly worried about disqualification from that week’s contest. I wasn’t disqualified. Instead I ended up in last place with zero votes.

That short story will see the light of day one way or another. But what about the other creative connotation I gave the name Picklebee? In the WWE, the divas division is all about good looks and bad wrestling. I’m honestly frightened at the idea of an NXT diva not being able to clean house in that division, especially considering how underrated Paige was on the main roster. And then my prayers were answered within the confines of my own imagination.

The ultimate unholy alliance of female martial artists, each member a present or future subject on Garrison’s Library. You’ve got the vengeful mixed-martial artist Rachel Gustafson, the pissed off referee Devon Spirit Wolf, and then there’s Picklebee, the name that should be given to Fallon Fox if she ever wants to transition from MMA to pro-wrestling.

An Amazon, an Indian, and a transsexual walk into a bar. It’s not the start of a bad joke; it’s the precursor to a dominant barroom brawl for all three of these women. If these three could keep a hospital full of bar patrons, imagine what kind of Armageddon they could put the WWE divas division through. Sorry, Natalya, but you too are going to be a victim of this onslaught.

If the name Picklebee can’t be cute and cuddly, it’s going to be disastrous and apocalyptic. She is the God of Death. The skies will rain blood. The oceans will be covered in green slime. The roads will be paved with powdered bones. The mountains will be kicked over. The forests will be burned to ashes. Those who survive will live their lives as the God of Death’s slaves. Whether she’s a cute kitty cat, a brutal mixed-martial artist, or Cthulu with a vagina, nobody is safe from this hellfire wrath. That is, unless you feed her Temptations kitty treats at 3:00 in the morning.

　

***PROVERB OF THE DAY***

Whatever you do to your children, your children will do to the world.

　

***BY THE WAY***

This will be the first of many posts detailing my socially awkward behavior. That’s going to be a brand new category alongside reviews and character profiles. Be afraid. Be really fucking afraid!