Jon Moxley Is Done Talking and Internet Trolls Should Be Too

 

Ripley Verdugo (The Shield) vs. Todd Blanche (Department of Justice (LOL)): Hey, at Least He's Cooperating!

 

The Shield: David Aceveda vs. Juan Lozano a.k.a. the Award-Winning Meteorologist

 

David Aceveda from The Shield: Captain of The Barn, Which Is Full of Pigs

 

Judge Jeanine Pirro: Her Media Literacy Skills Are Sharper Than RFK's Heroin Needle

 

Vic Mackey from The Shield vs. Milo Yiannopoulos

 

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

 

Dutch Wagenbach from The Shield vs. Michael Knowles

 

"MOX" by Jon Moxley

BOOK TITLE: MOX

AUTHOR: Jon Moxley

YEAR: 2021

GENRE: Nonfiction

SUBGENRE: Wrestling Memoir

GRADE: B

Jon Moxley’s road to the top of the pro-wrestling world was paved in blood, both his own and his opponents’. He grew up in a poor neighborhood that could have served as the first stage of Final Fight. He trained in a wrestling gym so torturous that it might as well have been located in Guantanamo Bay. He developed a psychotic persona to go along with the level of violence required for death matches. He joined the WWE and became part of one of the most dominant trios in wrestling history: The Shield. Sick of the creative black hole the company became, he let his contract expire and reinvented himself in places like New Japan and All-Elite Wrestling. This is just a summary of what he went through, but to read about it through his words is a vicarious experience like no other. Every exhaustion he feels, you feel. Every splatter of blood he spills, you feel that too. Every burst of raw anger he feels, it tugs at your soul as well. Jon Moxley definitely has a fascinating enough story to justify a nonfiction book.

Because he’s not a professionally-trained author, it becomes apparent right away that he writes exactly how he talks. Swear words, pop culture comparisons, brutal imagery that could be read in his voice, it’s all there. Normally, an author would receive a lot of grief for this sort of thing, but he won’t get it from me. I for one enjoy this conversational tone, because he’s got a colorful personality to back it up. It would be one thing if he talked like an IRS accountant. But since he’s a violent brawler with a hard edge to him, that makes his writing style even more exciting to read. That kind of personality is necessary when describing the bloodshed he went through in his ultra-intense matches. Can you imagine if a comedic, lighthearted style in the vein of Carl Hiaasen or Sherman Alexie was applied to this kind of narrative? It wouldn’t make sense.

While this book was a master class in showing personality and being an all-around tough guy, it’s not without its flaws. Remember how I said that Jon Moxley isn’t a professionally-trained author? Well, that means he’s going to make a lot of typos when he writes and he’s not going to notice them. There are instances of question marks and periods being together. He swaps between using F’n and the actual curse word. Some of the misspellings make sense because of his rough personality, but it’s so inconsistent that no sane editor would let it slide. You know what else the editor wouldn’t let slide? Starting a sentence midway through it without typing the actual beginning. That’s how he introduces an interlude where he talks about one of his favorite songs: no capitalization at the beginning because there is no beginning, only a middle. Had the editor done a better job of cleaning up these discrepancies, I would have readily given this book a perfect five out of five. But the constant typos bumped it down a notch for me.

Okay, so MOX isn’t a perfect book. Not many people outside the wrestling bubble would get excited about it. Maybe the typos would be too much for them to handle. But you know what? I love the book anyways. I love it so much that I wanted it to win Best Pro-Wrestling Book of 2021 from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards. And guess what? I got my wish! And if you pick up this book wanting an exciting story, you’ll get your wish too! Four out of five stars! Maybe seven if it was written in the Tokyo Dome. I bet Meltzer’s heard that joke so many times that he just shrugs it off nowadays.

The House of Hathaway

Ah yes, the year 2003: a time in my life marked with bad mental health, suicidal thoughts, shitty education, and fights with online friends over inconsequential BS. So what’s the cure for all of this? Playing D&D with my brother James, of course! Whenever my mind wasn’t being bombarded with schizophrenic voices, I could put it to good use and guide my character through an epic adventure filled with magic and wonder! Or I could completely waffle it and confirm everything my head voices ever told me. Whoever said mental illnesses produce the best creativity needs to have their head mounted on a trident.

Speaking of tridents, guess what my character’s weapon of choice was! Everybody else in the campaign used a long sword because they had war in their bloodlines. I used a trident because I allegedly had fishing in my bloodline. Never mind the fact that the minimum damage on a trident cushioned every bad roll I could have made in combat. Nope! I’m just an angry fisherman named Regal. No last name, just Regal. My brother’s player character was named Riant, which apparently gave him a license to call my character Reg...which is short for Reggie…which rhymes with wedgie! Ugh…

But before we could get into the actual campaign, there was a mild disagreement between my brother and I over where in my bedroom we should sit. He sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor and I sat in my computer chair. He urged me to sit on the floor with him, but I refused. So our campaign began with Regal tending a barn full of animals during a thunderstorm. Weird, but okay. I moved the animals all over the place until lightning struck me and killed me. This was all an elaborate April Fool’s joke to coerce me to sit on the floor with him. I of course didn’t catch on, because, you know, schizophrenia and all. Plus, I had just argued with an online friend the night before and pretty much terminated our relationship, so there was that weighing heavily on me.

Now that I was cross-legged on the floor with James, the real campaign could begin. The House of Hathaway (very British-sounding name if I’ve ever heard one) put a bounty on some guy’s head because he stole something valuable from them. There was a poster on the city walls with his likeness and price printed on it. The poster said he was last seen out in the countryside. So naturally, my first move would be to go out to the countryside to look for this thieving bastard. Riant disagreed. He wanted to go to the local jewelry shop to ask a bunch of questions. Regal didn’t see the point of this, but played along nonetheless. He even asked, “Are you ready to go?” Apparently, this came off like an invitation rather than a demand, so Riant dinged Regal for that one.

So Regal goes over to the jewelry shop to interrogate the clerk. When I, the player, couldn’t think of any questions, James urged me to think like Vic Mackey from The Shield. How would he interrogate someone? What kinds of questions would he ask? If you’ve seen The Shield during its heyday in the 2000’s, you would associate Vic Mackey with ass-beatings galore. That’s how he got all of his information. Was James suggesting that I beat this clerk’s ass? Seemed unreasonable to me. Riant started the conversation with, “Any word of thievery?” I continued the line of questioning with a bunch of “personal questions” that got us kicked out of the shop when the clerk got offended. Why did he get offended? Why was he not cooperating with our line of questioning? My first guess would be because the clerk was a dick who didn’t respect our authority. But Riant insisted that Regal was “asking the wrong questions”.

So after that little kafuffle, Regal and Riant finally agreed to go to the outskirts of town where the real clues led. Regal went home to get an ox to ride on and Riant gave him a weird ass look for it. Regal also got weird ass looks from ordinary citizens for carrying a trident around with him. Never mind the fact that every weapon in the D&D franchise has a sheath and that’s what I was trying to do: put it in a sheath. James insisted that tridents didn’t have sheaths (they totally do), so this was the result: a bunch of crazy stares from the extras of the campaign. Oh, excuse me, the “background artists” of the campaign.

So as Regal and Riant make their way to the countryside (with no ox to ride on), Riant gives Regal a lecture about his poor performance in this bounty hunting mission so far. “Why am I always the one helping you? I wish you’d help yourself.” This would have been the perfect time to mount Riant’s head on a trident, but Regal held back and also held his tongue. The reasonable answer would have been to complain about everybody no-selling the seriousness of what Regal was doing. They treated him like a clown for reasons I would never understand. Then again, understanding everything isn’t in the schizophrenic’s arsenal, especially under heavy medication.

The two bounty hunters go out to the countryside to interview various farmers about the last time they’ve seen the House of Hathaway’s prized thief. Regal goes up to one farmer and says, “Excuse me, can I talk to you for a moment?” The farmer says, “We’re talking now, aren’t we?” Another example of NPC’s no-selling the gravity of the situation. We weren’t talking before, that’s why Regal asked the fucking question! I can’t remember what questions Regal asked after that, but the conversation took another steep turn when the farmer asked why he was being interrogated. Regal admitted to being a bounty hunter and the farmer lectured him about how that lifestyle could get him killed or arrested. To be fair to me, I had no idea bounty hunting was a sensitive issue since bounty hunters are on the same side as traditional law enforcement. But oh well. Can’t put the words back in my mouth now!

Regal and Riant go out to the forest to look for clues and they find a series of footprints in the dirt. Regal’s assessment of the situation was that there was a struggle taking place due to the awkward angle of the foot prints. Maybe a cult had gotten the thief. Was the thief even here? Who knows? Before I had the chance to find out more, our campaign ended when James and I were called away from the game by our parents.

This campaign was supposed to be a tribute to The Shield, but it looked more like The Three Stooges…except there was only one stooge and multiple straight men. That stooge was named Regal. He was a stooge because he couldn’t figure out basic detective protocol. To my young mind, The Shield wasn’t about nuance and politics. It was about ass-beatings and edginess. If Regal tried any of the tactics Vic Mackey used on The Shield, he would have been locked up a long time ago. Regal had no official authority; he was a freelancer and didn’t have any of the privileges of a traditional cop.

I don’t want you all to think that the House of Hathaway campaign was a microcosm on its own. My role-playing abilities suffered all throughout the 2000’s due to my mental illnesses and general naivety. You talk about NPC’s no-selling the gravity of the situation? That happened in pretty much every RPG I was a part of, including ones where I was the game master and had complete control. From 2010-2011, I took the role of Dungeon Master once more, but this time had better results. My players were actually being receptive to my awkward and insane ideas. It’s because of this newfound success that I decided to write fiction on a regular basis, not just movie scripts where the characters went along with each other despite the awkward writing.

To this day, I still have ups and downs when it comes to mental health. The one rule I follow to keep D&D campaigns and creative writing pieces from getting too weird is to not work on them while I’m having a bad mental health day. If the schizophrenic demons keep me boiling with anger or the depression keeps me tired and unmotivated, that would be the perfect time to take the day off. The other important rule I have to follow is to not shame myself for needing a personal day. I shame myself a lot and I think it contributes to my mental health being worse overall. Then again, mental illnesses depend on the victims cycling through negative thoughts. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be mentally ill in the first place.

I can look back on the House of Hathaway campaign and laugh about how silly it all was. Even if failing miserably hurt my self-esteem for a while, I think I’ve gained some of it back over the years and that’s why my writing career has picked up along the way. Come to think of it, writing novels is basically just playing D&D by myself. Or playing WITH myself, depending on the adult content of any one novel. Hopefully, I’ve come a long way from Regal in 2003 to Garrison Kelly in the present day. I’d like to think so. Maybe. Sometimes. I don’t know. Could you repeat the question?

Emilio & Marigold Suspended

***EMILIO & MARIGOLD SUSPENDED***

The deadline for submitting final drafts to Hollow Hills’s anthology “The Tales of the Siblings Not-So-Grim” is today, August 31, 2019. I’m sorry to say that Emilio & Marigold will not be able to make that deadline. Even after all of the rounds of editing it has been through, it’s still not ready by final draft standards. The characters are still two-dimensional, the world isn’t descriptive enough, and the prologue I wrote for the story to increase the word count is a rough draft in and of itself.

Marie Krepps, one of the CEO’s for Hollow Hills, assured me that everything will be okay since she’s already in talks with Aurora Styles about next year’s anthology, which will be animal-themed. Even with Marie’s comfort, I still feel like I let a lot of people and myself down. I’ve never missed a deadline before today. I was always a good college student who turned in my assignments on time without asking for an extension. Must be the Impostor Syndrome creeping up on me again.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Emilio & Marigold, it’s a Jack and the Beanstalk parody that stars my former kitty Emilio instead of a young boy. Emilio passed away back in June due to renal failure and I wanted to dedicate my story to his memory. Looks like his dedication will have to wait a little longer. Remember, this project is suspended, not scrapped. Suspensions are temporary and can be lifted anytime I damn well please. Emilio & Marigold will see the light of day, just not today.

So the question now becomes, where do I go from here? Do I continue to send Emilio & Marigold to paid beta readers? Do I start thinking about editing Beautiful Monster instead? Do I keep pumping out short stories for Poison Tongue Tales 3 and American Darkness 3? Is there another story that’s on my mind? I need some way of keeping my writing sharp until Emilio’s day in the sun comes.

Luckily, I’ve found just the Good Reads group for doing that. In addition to writing short stories and poetry for the WSS, I’m also part of a group called Character Therapy, a role-playing game where characters go through, you guessed it, psychological therapy. Any guesses as to which character I chose? Any pointy-eared, green-skinned elves come to mind? Hmm…

Character Therapy allows players to create more than one character, including therapists themselves. World? Meet Jerry Frost, an art therapist with an extreme case of Impostor Syndrome and a strong passion for creative development. Will Jerry become a permanent character of mine to be used in other stories? If I develop him far enough, he very well could be. He can’t be any more confusing than Tristan Jealous, whom I’ve written a poem about back in 2018.

So here I am, a man without a country, a ship without a rudder, wondering what’s next on my agenda. I suppose I could keep pumping out micro fiction. That’s basically what chapters of a new novel would be since they meet my 1,500 word quota. I know I should be more worried about editing the first drafts I already have instead of pumping out new ones, but keeping my writing sharp is essential to my success as an author.

I haven’t always been this zealous when it comes to my writing, though. The past three days in particular have been the worst mental slog I’ve been through in recent memory. Normally when I’m going through a slog, I can at least concentrate long enough on other forms of reading and writing, like answering Face Book questions or writing two-sentence horror stories. I couldn’t even concentrate for those things. That’s how fucked up things got. This mental slog happened just as I was getting prepared to put together the final Emilio & Marigold manuscript, which wouldn’t have been accepted anyways, but it still would have been nice to get that done.

The point of this journal is to let you all know that this isn’t the end of Emilio & Marigold. It’s merely a roadblock on the way to my final goal. Emilio will be remembered. He will purr at me from beyond the Rainbow Bridge. My love bug will be immortalized one way or another. He really was a love bug. He head butted me, climbed up on my lap, slept on my chest, and purred in my ear. Just talking about him like this makes me miss him even more. Gone, but not forgotten. I’m Garrison Kelly! Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight!

***TELEVISION QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“God creates all men equal, but once they’re out of the womb, he starts playing favorites.”

-Vic Mackey from “The Shield”-

***POST-SCRIPT***

As long as I’m talking about releasing micro fiction to the public for free, here’s the next short story on my agenda. It’s called “Balls to the Wall” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Shane Herman, Game Show Contestant

2.      Ambrose Kaider, Corpulent Space Mercenary

3.      Georgia Cushing, Shane’s Girlfriend

4.      Morgan Burch, Game Show Host

SYNOPSIS: Shane is competing on an obstacle course game show called “Balls to the Wall” and due to his lack of athleticism, he’s failing horribly. He’s ready to throw in the towel when Morgan introduces a new twist to this game: Ambrose is holding Georgia hostage behind one of the obstacles. If Shane doesn’t man up and complete the challenge, Ambrose will take his plasma rifle and blow Georgia’s head off. Questioning the legality of all of this is not an option since Shane signed a Hold Harmless agreement prior to the taping of the episode.

Double Dare, eat your heart out! Suck it, American Gladiators! Eat a big one, Finders Keepers! Okay, you get it by now.

Millennium X Otherwise: Beautiful Monster

***MILLENNIUM X OTHERWISE: BEAUTIFUL MONSTER***

Raise your hand if you at least have a surface level understanding of the 1990’s horror TV series Millennium. I didn’t watch it on a regular basis when it was on TV, but there was one episode in particular that disturbed the shit out of me. The title is creepy on its own: “A Room with No View”. Gee, I wonder what kind of room they could be referring to. No windows, no balcony, just walls and darkness. This wouldn’t be the kind of room where kidnapping victims are kept, would it?

After seeing news stories on TV about pedophiles kidnapping children and keeping them in captivity for decades at a time, you’d be right to think that kidnapping is a disgusting topic to approach. If a creepy guy kidnaps an innocent girl, there’d be no debate at all as to how sickening that is. We’d all be clamoring for the creepy guy to be locked up. But in “A Room with No View”, the gender roles are reversed. A drop-dead gorgeous young woman named Lucy Butler kidnaps a high school student named Landon Bryce.

The minute Lucy has Landon under lock and key, she goes right into lovey-dovey mode. She tells him she loves him, she cuddles with him, and “comforts” him after he tries to get away and is recaptured. Attempting to escape the compound and getting caught again is something that happens over and over in this episode. And who’s there to give him love and sugar when he returns? Lucy Butler, of course. Oh, and Landon also is told to believe that he’s mediocre and ordinary. So when the FBI eventually raids the compound and rescues him, not only does he have sexual trauma to deal with, but also self-esteem issues. How nice.

If a story is creepy on its own and that’s the only emotion it dabbles with, then we’ve got an open and shut case no doubt. But then this episode of Millennium fuses the creepy feeling with sexual desires and lovey-dovey romance. That makes the creepy feeling even worse. The more emotions you can mix with creepiness, the more intense said creepiness becomes. Landon Bryce is probably going to be fucked up for the rest of the Millennium canon. Society loves to judge male victims as “pussies” and “fags”, so it’s not like he can get away from that stigma after becoming free from the femme fatale known as Lucy Butler.

When I first saw this episode back in the late 90’s, the timing couldn’t have been worse for me. I was already a middle school kid who was turning down dates with girls left and right because I was in constant fear that they’d screw me over in court. My own father had divorce issues of his own and was paying out the ass for it, so that’s where my irrational fear of romance came from. And now I see this episode of Millennium and think, “Is that what relationships are really all about?!” Obviously, the answer is no. But at the time, it seemed reasonable to me.

I wrote this blog entry for two reasons and not one of them is so that Men’s Rights Activists could rejoice. I have lots of love for feminist culture and know full well that there’s only one Lucy Butler in the world (on top of that, she’s not even real!). Would you like to know what my two reasons really are? One of them is to announce that I’ve come up with a fantasy novel idea based on the motif of women kidnapping men. The other reason is because I’ve found the perfect song to go with this novel (should I decide to write it). It’s called “Beautiful Monster” by Otherwise and it’s my current favorite song from that hard rock band from Vegas. If you read the lyrics to the song, you’ll find out just how much Lucy Butler and the villainess of my own novel idea have in common with Otherwise’s beautiful monster in question.

VERSE 1

Something about the way that she makes me hate myself

I could run away but I don't want no one else

So say what you want, it's already done

It's Russian Roulette and love is the gun

You don't know her, you don't know her like I do

CHORUS

Looking like an angel so divine

You can see the devil in those eyes

She's a monster by my side baby

Taking me six feet down tonight

Cause dancing with the devil gets me high

She's a monster, a beautiful monster

(A beautiful monster)

VERSE 2

Something about the way that she tears me up inside

Is it wrong that I love it when I know she'll bleed me dry

So say what you want, it's already done

It's Russian Roulette and love is the gun

You don't know her, you don't know her like I do

CHORUS

Looking like an angel so divine

You can see the devil in those eyes

She's a monster by my side baby

Taking me six feet down tonight

Cause dancing with the devil gets me high

She's a monster, a beautiful monster

BRIDGE

A beautiful monster

I don't want to be saved

A beautiful monster

I don't want to be saved

A beautiful monster

I don't want to be saved

A beautiful monster

I don't want to be saved

CHORUS

Looking like an angel so divine

You can see the devil in those eyes

She's a monster by my side baby

Taking me six feet down tonight

Cause dancing with the devil gets me high

She's a monster, a beautiful monster

A beautiful monster

Are you scared yet? You should be! I’m Garrison Kelly and I’ll see you next time!

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

LEMONHEAD: We’re all going to crash and burn because of you! Amy’s not even that hot, man!

SHANE VENDRELL: Oh, thanks for the support, asshole!

-The Shield-

50/50 Booking

***50/50 BOOKING***

When you see the title of this blog entry, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Man, this guy can’t shut up about wrestling!” What can I say? We all have our obsessions. But it’s true: 50/50 booking is a wrestling buzzword. However, it can apply to any piece of fiction regardless of genre. 50/50 booking is when the hero and the villain have an equal number of victories against each other. In terms of wrestling, it makes the entire roster equal to each other and nobody becomes wildly popular. However, in mainstream fiction, it could mean something entirely different.

Most of the time, we’re resigned to the idea that the hero will win in the end and get his just rewards. So if you’re doing 50/50 booking in your novel, then you’re just telegraphing the hero’s victory. What’s one more victory going to mean? It’s even worse when the hero wins all the time and rarely loses, which is why a lot of readers prefer their heroes to be average joes instead of muscle-bound ass-kickers. How do you relate to someone with a constant string of victories?

To use an example from my own novella Occupy Wrestling, Mitch McLeod could technically be accused of having a Gary-Stu win-loss record. While he wins most of his fights, there are other ways in which he’s losing. His relationship with Debra Winter is falling apart, he can’t trust a neutral referee like Rosie Rogers, his allies are getting mauled left and right, he’s no closer to solving the mystery of where these monsters are coming from, and most importantly, his body is breaking down with every “victory”, if you can call them that. Does winning in one department and losing in several others constitute 50/50 booking? You be the judge. Buy a copy of Occupy Wrestling on Amazon today! Okay, that was pretty shameless, I agree.

But then you have scenarios where the villain racks up most of the victories and makes justice for the hero seem impossible. By doing this, you’re definitely giving your hero an obstacle worthy of conquering. But if the villain wins too often, then nobody’s going to believe it when the hero finally achieves victory. The villain could beat the shit out of the hero for an hour and a half, but are you going to believe it if the hero suddenly wins with a knife to the back?

Truth be told, there is no right or wrong answer to the 50/50 debate when it comes to normal fiction as long as the ultimate decision you make is believable and relatable to your audience. If there is a right or wrong answer, I’d love to hear what it is. Obviously, the answer is going to be different depending on who the hero is. Is the hero an average joe or a beefy warrior? Or maybe he’s somewhere in between those two extremes. Maybe while everyone around him has magical powers, he’s just a barroom brawler who’s only fought a handful of times. I’d love to hear your guys’ philosophies on 50/50 booking and how it relates to your personal stories. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

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

I’m only one story away from this collection being complete and ready to critique. After “Street Sleeper”, I’m moving onto another novel called “Puberty X Piracy” (whether or not I post those chapters online is up to the admins and their views on extreme sexual content). Until then, here’s the synopsis for Poison Tongue Tales 2’s final story:

CHARACTERS:

1. Johnny De Morgan, Human Busker
2. Link Rotunda, Orc Warrior
3. Debra Lynch, Elf Rogue

PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.

SYNOPSIS: On a snowy winter evening, homeless street musician Johnny is freezing and exhausted as he tries to play songs for cash on his acoustic guitar. His guitar case is shallow with money and his enthusiasm for music is dwindling fast. Link Rotunda, a prizefighter, has just won a massive amount of money during a championship match, so Johnny desperately tries to cater to him with his music. Link laughs at and bullies Johnny while telling him to “get a real job”, much to the anger of fellow homeless beggar Debra Lynch. Link is much bigger and stronger than both of them, but Debra won’t allow Johnny to be pushed around. Johnny still tries to beg for money seeing as how he feels it’s his only real chance at getting a hot meal and a bed that evening.

FUN FACT: Link Rotunda will be the next Dark Fantasy Warrior that I draw. He used to be a Dungeons & Dragons non-player character, but now he’s a short story character who will bring the PTT2 series home.

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

VIC MACKEY: Ronnie and I are going to have fed badges, you and queen bitch will be serving double life sentences, and I’ll have full custody of Jackson.

SHANE VENDRELL: You leave my family out of this!

VIC MACKEY: I’ll send you a post card from Space Mountain.

-The Shield-

"Fang and Claw" by Markie Madden

BOOK TITLE: Fang and Claw: Undead Unit 1

AUTHOR: Markie Madden

YEAR: 2015

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Paranormal Crime Drama

GRADE: Pass

In a future where undead creatures pass as everyday citizens, vampire detective Lacey Anderson has been assigned a new partner in the form of werewolf Colton Scarber. Vampires and werewolves are natural enemies, but Lacey takes it to an even more personal level seeing as how her family was murdered by a pack of werewolves when she was little. Lacey and Colton have a hard time seeing eye-to-eye, but they must learn to coexist when a string of assaults and rapes plague their hometown of Dallas, Texas. The two detectives agree that these crimes were committed by the same suspect, but proving it to a judge and jury is an uphill task where cooperation is paramount to success.

Markie Madden’s extensive knowledge of the law and police procedure is so evident in this novel that it resembles an episode of Law & Order, NCIS, The Shield, or any other cop drama on TV. Lacey Anderson has a striking resemblance to Olivia Benson from Law & Order: SVU when it comes to her professionalism and the tender way she deals with rape victims. Colton Scarber, on the other hand, resembles Vic Mackey from The Shield with his passionate outbursts and triggered anger, though Colton has slightly more respect for the law than Mackey ever could (even if procedure can be a pain in the ass sometimes). The DNA testing, the interview questions, interrogation tactics, and even something as basic as paperwork have all the intricate details of a well-crafted crime drama. My only question is, when will Dick Wolf or Donald Bellasario order a TV series for this novel?

Everything flowed so naturally in this book that Colton’s behavior in the early portions of the story took me off balance. Werewolves, by their very nature, have rage issues which prompted laws that required their race to take anger management classes. That part is understandable. What I don’t understand is why Colton has to whine and complain about doing menial tasks like internet searches, paperwork, or witness interviews. It’s not like Lacey is asking him to join a Bosnian death squad and slay children; she’s asking him to do basic police chores that will only take a small amount of time to complete. At this point, I chalk it up to immaturity rather than rage. But since this behavior doesn’t last long and more of Colton’s professional nature starts to reveal itself near the middle of the novel, this isn’t a huge knock against the book and won’t devalue the passing grade it receives. This flaw is just worth noting, that’s all.

As far as other details go, there are a few minor grammatical errors (she spells “did” without an I at one point), but not enough to take the reader out of the story. The calm way the police psychologist Marcell was portrayed is every bit as convincing as the police themselves. Lacey’s trauma of losing her family to a werewolf attack is also realistic since she has pent up anger and night terrors to go with it. Her fear of heights can be vicariously felt through the reader, especially near the end when it matters the most. Genre-wise, the police drama elements are more prominent than the paranormal ones. I would have liked to see the racism elements played up a little more, but that probably won’t happen since undead creatures are everyday citizens. Yep, that’s all I have to say for now.

All in all, there’s not a whole lot to complain about when it comes to Fang and Claw. If you do have any complaints, they’ll be quickly usurped by the intense and compelling story that’s unfolding before your very eyes. I highly recommend this book to anybody who loves both the paranormal and crime genres. The reading is easy on the eyes and will bring you to the edge of your seat as the story draws to its conclusion. A passing grade will go to a fine piece of literature like Fang and Claw! Congratulations on knocking it out of the park, Markie!

Violent Fantasies

***VIOLENT FANTASIES***

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

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

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

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

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

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

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

***MUSIC DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

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

-“Dear Diary” by The Moody Blues-

Where's Susie?

CHORUS 1
Where’s Susie? X4
Where’s Susie? X4
I need a hundred million bucks
If I don’t get it, I’ll scream like fuck
Where’s Susie? X4
Where’s Susie? X4


VERSE 1
Let’s make one thing perfectly clear
You won’t find Susie around here
I know you hold her dear and near
I know you have your greatest fears
But I’ve never been mister four-one-one
I’m not the man who will get this done
Ask me one more time and I’ll explode
Look elsewhere for your final hope


CHORUS 2
Where’s Susie? X4
Where’s Susie? X4
I need a place to put my penis
We’ll do it where no one will see us
Where’s Susie? X4
Where’s Susie? X4


VERSE 2
The smartest of smart phones continues to ring
Yet I don’t know a single goddamn thing
You can ask your questions under a heated light
You’ll still get nothing on this cold autumn night
Way to go, Dick Tracy, or should I say Vic Mackey?
Probably the latter with the way you still ask me
You haunt the internet with a schizophrenic passion
Isn’t this the time to be responsible for your actions?


CHORUS 3
Where’s Susie? X4
Where’s Susie? X4
I need a ride to planet Mars
Let’s take a trip in your rocket car
We can lose ourselves to foo-foo music
When it comes to gas, we can always abuse it


VERSE 3
Looking for Susie is like asking, “Where’s Waldo?”
You’re acting like it’s an answer we all know
If you’re so fucking scared about your little friend
Type up an Amber Alert and hit the link to send
Sherlock Holmes should be your new nickname
Yet all of your questions still remain the same
“Where’s Susie? Where’s Susie? Where’s Susie? Where’s Susie?”
Somewhere in the babble, you started to lose me


CHORUS 4
Where’s Susie? X4
Where’s Susie? X4
SHUT THE FUCK UP!!

The Shield

TV SHOW TITLE: The Shield
CREATOR: Shawn Ryan
YEARS ACTIVE: 2002-2008
GENRE: Crime Drama
RATING: TV-MA for violence, language, and sexual situations
GRADE: Pass


The city of Los Angeles is plagued with crime whether it’s gang-related, corporate, or the work of a sadistic serial killer. With Detective Vic Mackey and his Strike Team on the case, the justice may be worse than the crime itself. Vic is not afraid to break the rules when it comes to catching criminals. He’s not above torturing suspects or even killing and intimidating other cops if it means closing a case or saving his own ass. Even under the hawk-like eyes of Captain David Aceveda and the scrutiny of his peers such as Detective Dutch Wagenbach and Officer Danielle Sofer, Vic Mackey manages to stay one step ahead of everyone else and leaves a trail of blood and broken bones in his wake.

Unlike crime dramas such as Castle, NCIS, Bones, and Rizzoli and Isles, The Shield takes the viewers to a much darker place where the humor is raunchy and the violence is graphic. As I’ve mentioned in the opening paragraph, Vic often tortures his suspects to get a confession or information to a bigger arrest. Over the course of the show, he has whipped a suspect with a chain, burned a suspect’s face on a stovetop, stabbed a cop killer with his badge, and in the first episode shot another cop named Terry Crowley because Terry was a rat within the Strike Team. Vic Mackey and his team are like police brutality on steroids. The more people complained against him and his tactics, the more bruises and scars those people got. It’s an endless stream of graphic beatings and torture until the city is safe again, at least from the original gangsters, but not Mackey.

As vicious as Vic can be, the things he did on the show will never compare to what happened to David Aceveda in the third season of the show. David is investigating the home of a Mexican gangster named Juan Lazano. Juan jumps David from behind, binds his hands with a TV cord, and orally rapes him while Juan’s buddy is filming the whole thing with a smart phone. The sodomy was disturbing enough, but it was the ongoing trauma, family dissention, and blackmail David experienced afterwards that made The Shield hard to watch. When it comes to TV-MA-rated shows, I’m not a wimp by any stretch of the imagination, but even David Aceveda’s oral rape storyline was enough to shake me to my core.

If you strip away all of the torture, forced sex, limb chopping, burnings, and blood, you still have a well-written detective show. Yes, all of that hardcore and disgusting content is good for the Nightmare Fetishists out there, but The Shield isn’t just about violence and brutality; it has substance. It asks the bold question of whether or not the ends justify the means and how far we’re willing to trust the government to protect us when they commit questionable acts. Police brutality is an ongoing problem even in today’s world; just ask the families of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The Shield does what all forms of media should do: it holds a mirror up to society and shows everyone its ugliest features. The show doesn’t glorify police brutality; it questions it. And by the end of the series, everybody on that show gets what they deserve whether it’s for better or worse.

But sometimes all you want from a detective show is a solid series of cases where the police work is intelligent and the laws and techniques are well-researched. You’ll get all of those things with The Shield. Shawn Ryan wasn’t just putting together a montage of beatings; he was putting together solid cases that real police officers and detectives would have to solve using their sharp investigative skills. Even Vic Mackey and his Strike Team are capable of using smart investigative tactics; otherwise, they wouldn’t be detectives.

All in all, The Shield is the complete package that a detective show is supposed to have. The only things that separate it from other shows is its dark nature, it’s bold statements, and its TV-MA rating. The show was revolutionary in more ways than TV being allowed to use the word “shit”, which is why it deserves a passing grade.

　

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

VIC MACKEY: Do you want to catch this criminal or not?

DAVID ACEVEDA: Going undercover as dirty cops. You guys think you can pull that off?

VIC MACKEY: We can try.

-The Shield-

WWE Fast Lane: Roman Reigns vs. Daniel Bryan

MATCH: Roman Reigns vs. Daniel Bryan to determine the number one contender for Brock Lesnar’s WWE World Heavyweight Championship
PROMOTION: World Wrestling Entertainment
EVENT: Fast Lane
YEAR: 2015
RATING: TV-PG for violence
GRADE: Pass


The Samoan badass known as Roman Reigns burst onto the scene in WWE in 2012 as part of a faction called The Shield, alongside independent wrestling veterans Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. Together, The Shield had the gimmick of a paramilitary unit who would dominate matches and attack random superstars in the name of justice, using their superior teamwork. In mid-2013, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins would eventually win the WWE Tag Team Titles and Dean Ambrose would win the United States Championship.

The most valuable player in this faction was Roman Reigns, a Samoan giant of a man who had the most eliminations in a Survivor Series tag match and in the 2014 Royal Rumble match. In 2013, he caught the attention of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter when they voted him Most Improved and as part of the Tag Team of the Year alongside Seth Rollins. Naturally, Mr. Reigns would receive a huge push from the company into main event status.

Because of Roman’s lack of experience and perceived lack of verbal skills, many in the WWE Universe feel his push was undeserved. In 2014, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter voted him in second place for the Most Overrated award, the actual winner being Kane. But it didn’t end there. In 2015, Roman Reigns would go on to win the Royal Rumble match and earn a spot in the main event at that year’s Wrestlemania.

On that fateful night, the casual dislike of Roman Reigns turned into fiery hatred. Despite being a baby face, Mr. Reigns was booed out of the building while the fans in attendance cheered for his opponent at Fast Lane, Daniel Bryan, who was eliminated early in the match despite his rapport with the fans. To quell the “controversy” surrounding the 2015 Royal Rumble pay-per-view, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon put together a match for Fast Lane between Reigns and Bryan where the winner would face Brock Lesnar for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania.

The Fast Lane pay-per-view itself was a complete failure, but it was mostly the fans’ fault since they were dead throughout the entire thing. The matches were exciting, but with the fans acting like spoiled jerks, nobody would know it. The only match that would save the pay-per-view was the main event between Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan. Those two couldn’t just have a good match. They had to perform a necromantic ritual on the entire show. In other words, it had to be five stars, no more, no less.

And boy, did those two bring the fans back to life. Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan not only hit each other with everything they had and refused to quit, those hits were harder than hell. Daniel Bryan put on a kick-boxing clinic with his stiff roundhouse kicks and European uppercuts. He also twisted Roman Reigns’ body into a pretzel with his various submission holds, which included arm bars, surfboards, face stretches, if there was a way to rip apart the human anatomy, Daniel Bryan could do it and turn Roman Reigns into the human Fruit Rollup. Mr. Bryan’s hardest shot, however, had to be when he threw a kick-boxing strike to Roman Reigns’ surgical scar where he previously had hernia surgery. Roman Reigns would later describe that liver shot as the most painful thing he had ever experienced. He’s a tough guy, so that’s saying a lot.

But that’s not to say Roman Reigns didn’t put on a hell of a show himself. While Daniel Bryan is good at kick-boxing and jujitsu, Roman is good at just plain punching people in the mouth. He punched and superman punched Daniel Bryan so many times that it’s amazing the latter still had all of his teeth in his mouth. He also should have had black eyes the size of watermelons and broken ribs that shattered all over his body, but he didn’t. Bryan still had the energy to deliver his patented running knee finishing move to Roman, but Roman stood back up and delivered a thunderous spear tackle for a hard-fought victory.

After the match, the two bitter rivals shook hands, but not without Daniel Bryan telling Roman Reigns, “You’d better kick Brock Lesnar’s ass!” These two warriors beat the living crap out of each other. They made everyone in that dead arena believe that the two W’s in WWE stood for World War. That’s what this match was: war without machineguns and tanks. The wrestlers were sore, they were battered, they were bruised, they were bloodied, and they’d do it all again if they could. This deadly fight could easily be a candidate for Match of the Year. That, and maybe the Wrestling Observer Newsletter will think twice before calling Roman Reigns overrated again.

Ever since that show-stealing match, the careers or Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan took on slightly different paths. Roman did indeed challenge Brock Lesnar for the WWE Title at Wrestlemania, but couldn’t get the job done since Roman’s old tag team partner Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank contract in the middle of the match and pinned Reigns to win the title. Ever since that night, Reigns has struggled to get back in the championship picture time and time again.

Daniel Bryan’s career path would end with even more heartache than losing at Fast Lane. He competed at Wrestlemania in the seven-man ladder match for Wade Barrett’s Intercontinental Championship. Yes, it’s true Bryan won and became a Triple Crown and Grand Slam Champion, but weeks later after successfully defending the IC Title against Dolph Ziggler, Bryan had to surrender the belt due to injury. He swears he’s going to be back in action soon, but WWE management will probably be hesitant to push him like they did Roman Reigns. Before he returns to the ring, Bryan will fill the role of a judge on WWE’s reality series Tough Enough. That, and he has a DVD and book coming out, so don’t feel too bad for him.

At the end of the day, neither Daniel Bryan nor Roman Reigns can be considered overrated or less than five stars. They both deserve the spotlight despite their differences in skill set and experience. Is it any coincidence that I have action figures of both of them that I got for Christmas? Probably not. A passing grade goes to this badass wrestling clinic they put on at Fast Lane. A failing grade goes to the fans who attended that show and acted like they were bored out of their minds.

WWE Hell in a Cell: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

TITLE: WWE Hell in a Cell: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

GENRE: Professional Wrestling Match

RATING: TV-PG for moderate violence and brief language

GRADE: Pass

A Hell in a Cell match is more than a typical steel cage fight. In this case, the cage surrounds the entire ring and exposes the concrete floor. You can’t win the match by escape because there is no escape. It’s just you and your opponent inside a wire mesh cage with no rules or regulations to hold you back. As heel commentator JBL so appropriately puts it, the only limit to your attack is your imagination. Dean Ambrose has a wild imagination in case you couldn’t tell from his erratic behavior. Seth Rollins can be just as sadistic and crazy. The first Hell in a Cell match between John Cena and Randy Orton was…acceptable. But this main event match between Ambrose and Rollins was going to steal the show.

Normally a match of this caliber would start in the ring and the bell would sound off three times to start the battle. Dean Ambrose didn’t want that. Carrying a kendo stick like a samurai sword with him, he wanted to start on TOP of the cell. Seth Rollins along with his two stooges Joey Mercury and Jamie Noble were (kind of) happy to humor him. Mercury and Noble got kendo stick welts for their troubles and Rollins and Ambrose fell off the cage and crashed through the English and Spanish-speaking announce tables.

It could have been over before it started. Dean Ambrose didn’t want that ending. He got off of his stretcher and chased Seth Rollins down before throwing him in the cell to officially start the match. Once the bell rung three times, these two warriors brutalized each other. They used chairs, sticks, steel stairs, and wooden tables, all in an effort to achieve victory. Corporate Kane was outside the cell and interfered by blasting Ambrose in the face with a fire extinguisher. That didn’t cool off the fire in the Lunatic Fringe’s belly. He wasn’t just pissed off at Seth Rollins; he had a bloodlust for him. He wanted to torture and twist him in the most painful ways possible.

Dean Ambrose was so close to exacting his revenge when he put an unconscious Seth Rollins’ head on top of cinder blocks to set up for Rollins’ own finisher move, the curb stomp. And then the arena went black and strange tongues were being spoken with a lantern and a ghost in the center of the ring. The speaker of that tongues was none other than the hypnotic and frightening Bray Wyatt, who downed Dean Ambrose with a spinning face buster and allowed Seth Rollins to cover Ambrose for the 1-2-3 pin. The match is over, but the emotional scars bleed like waterfalls and the physical pains burn like hellfire.

And now for the actual critique. To put it shortly, this match was as violent and psychotic as anybody could ask for. The blood was minimal, but the pain was at its maximum with the creative use of weaponry and the multi-story fall from the start of the match. This wasn’t just a wrestling match; this was a fight for survival. Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins beat each other so badly after that fall it was amazing they didn’t have a hearse parked outside the arena. You’re damn right they were sore and bruised.

Believe it or not, the finish to the match where Bray Wyatt interfered didn’t bother me in the least bit. Yes, I wanted to see Dean Ambrose curb stomp Seth Rollins’ head into powder and slush. But then again, Bray Wyatt had been off of WWE television for a long time and needed a grand reintroduction. And now that the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view is in the books, we’re looking at a rivalry between Ambrose and Wyatt.

You know what that means? It means two crazies, two psychopaths are going to tear each other apart at some point. Dean Ambrose is like The Joker and Bray Wyatt is like Charles Manson. The two wrestlers have the mindset of serial killers and if they have to bleed each other out to get to the climax of their battle, well, let me put it his way: Seth Rollins is the luckiest guy on the planet. If these two loony tunes play enough mind games with each other for long enough, one of those minds will be running down a sewer drain while the other is bleeding with psychological trauma.

What you have to remember when watching WWE is everything happens for a reason. All you have to do as a fan is wait patiently for your favorites to triumph. It’s not an instant situation. It takes time for a climax to launch. Lots of time.

When Daniel Bryan was screwed out of the WWE Title at Summer Slam 2013, it took him until Wrestlemania XXX, which is an April 2014 pay-per-view to regain it. The point of this analogy is if you’re a fan and you want to see Seth Rollins get brutalized over and over again, but eventually for a final time, wait patiently. WWE waited patiently for Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins to climax and it paid off in the most violent way possible, which is why this match in particular gets a passing grade.

Jessica Harley

The similarity between the names Jessica Harley and Jessica Haggar are mind-boggling. Their back stories are similar as well. But I assure you with 100% conviction that Mike Haggar’s daughter from Final Fight was not the inspiration for Jessica Harley, so put away the fan fiction pre-writes for a moment.

Jessica Harley was from a movie script idea that never got off the ground called The Trauma Force. It was detective fiction similar to The Shield, brutality, leather jackets, sex, drugs, violence, and all. Jessica was the wife of lead character Shawn Harley and kidnapped away from him during a drug bust. Mrs. Harley wouldn’t be found until the end of the story, which smells of Final Fight logic, but trust me, it isn’t.

Jessica was the name of my online girlfriend from 2002-2005. Though we never kissed or made love, we were indeed in love with each other. Whoever said teenagers don’t know what love is never felt the magic between me and Jessica. The blood sugar sex magic started when the two of us were role-playing on a Final Fantasy-themed MSN group.

I was the bullheaded knight Sharry Seran and she was Mikoto Tribal from Final Fantasy IX. Our two characters got kidnapped by holier-than-thou paladins and we had to fight our way out together through thick and thin. An in-game marriage proposal was in the works despite the two characters not knowing each other. Fantasy and reality were extremely blurry at this time and we eventually became boyfriend and girlfriend.

The Trauma Force version of Jessica was a manifestation of my online girlfriend at the time. Both were so beautiful and so far away, the latter being for different reasons, obviously. I couldn’t distinguish the difference between losing her to kidnapping and losing her to life progression in another state. Call me needy, but when the real world Jessica didn’t reply to my letters for the longest time, I felt empty and cold. When somebody loses contact with you for a long time, you get worried. When you get worried, you get scared. When you get scared, you get angry at life.

After 2005, I officially recognized our relationship as over due to her not responding for long enough. I wasn’t going to save myself for somebody I couldn’t have. But Jessica Harley, the fictional character she’s based off of, well, I can certainly do a lot with her. Whatever I did with Mrs. Harley, I’d have to do with carefulness. I want to cherish the time we had together and not think bitter thoughts now that it’s over. I still want to use Jessica Harley in a romantic way, but I just don’t know how. Will she and Shawn still be together by the next story’s beginning? Will their story resemble Final Fight or heaven forbid Savages?

Maybe Shawn and Jessica don’t have to fight the world with their fists. Maybe they don’t need conventional weapons like guns or knives. Are there no other props that are more appropriate for a whirlwind romance? How about musical instruments? Nothing says love like a grinding guitar and Meytal Cohen-style drums. Maybe they can occupy the streets with megaphones and cardboard signs, protesting something that will earn them bullets to the chest. What if the loving couple fought the world with magic wands? Shawn could be Harry Potter and Jessica could be Ginny Weasley. Maybe their revolution will be quiet and all they’ll need is a library full of good books. Shawn could be Charlie and Jessica could be Sam. So many possibilities. No matter what I choose for these two, they won’t take being human for granted this time.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“You love me for everything you hate me for.”

-In This Moment singing “Whore”-