G.S.A.

We here at Lurking Rhythmically would like to take a moment to warn against the dangers of drunkenness on St. Patrick's Day. It can turn a normal, self-loathing goth such as this fine fellow:


And (shudder) loosen him up:


Thus turning him into this:


This is been a Gothic Service Announcement.

Aquaman, written so that he does not suck

Latitude 47 ° 9’ S, Longitude 126 ° 43’ W

This ship is The Flying Dutchman. Under her previous captain it was a fishing trawler. Now, under my command, she hunts something larger.

First Mate Marsh -- formerly Captain Marsh -- shambles onto the bridge, his weathered old pea coat clinging unkindly to his gnarled frame. "We be nearin' th' destinaseeun, sirrah." He gurgles the last word, as if caught between 'sir' and 'sire' and finding neither appealing. I allow his mild insult to go unpunished, for I have larger things on my mind.

I have everything on my mind.

Wordlessly I push past him, into the cool South Pacific evening. The stars are beginning to come out. The crew silently falls into step behind me as I make my way to the bow, the smell of the ocean heavy with salt and decay. I place my hands upon the railings and squeeze, feel the metal give slightly under my grip.

"Mr. Marsh," I command, looking not at him but at the ocean before me. "You are to return immediately to port in Massachusetts. You are not to make port anywhere else except to take on essential supplies. Under no circumstances are you to stop or tarry, nor is any member of the crew to embark or debark, excepting that the Law of the Sea demands it. Upon reaching home port you and your crew are to return to your homes until such time as I see fit to release you. There you will spend your days praying that I return alive, and your nights in thanks that I am merciful. Is this clear?"

A unison of thudding echoes behind me as the crew fall to their knees. "Yes, my king. My lord. My master," they blurble.

My own pea coat falls to the deck, and the last light of the setting sun sets my scale armor aflame. "Aquaman will suffice."

The sea welcomes me back as a mother embracing her son.

I plummet downward into the blackened, brackish depths of the Pacific trenches, the speed of my passage heating the frigid waters and sending boiling bubbles surfaceward. Like a meteor I fall, a one-man extinction-level event, for tonight I wage war against a nation, a species, a god. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn, said the cultists who became my crew. In his house at R'lyeh dread Cthulhu waits, dreaming.

Before me rise great squirming shapes, fifteen-foot spheres of tar and tentacles and eyes, like great cancerous leukocytes. Membranes the size of kettledrums convulse, churning the water with barely-subsonic throbs that echo Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! in my ears.

I scatter them with a telepathic pulse. Begone, say I, for I am master of all things of the sea and on the sea and in the sea. Serve me, or face my wrath.

The shoggoths choose to serve.

Like Lucifer falling into hell I continue downward, a host of broken angels as my honor guard. Down, to the corpse-city of R'lyeh, in whose great and putrid vaults waits Cthulhu, undead god of madness and the sea, inhuman source of the age-old human terrors of darkness, suffocation, tentacles. Tonight, the stars are right. Tonight, Cthulhu wakes and R'lyeh rises, bringing with it an age of holocaustic savagery.

Tonight, one of us dies.

As I enter the putrid sleeping chamber, a mountain of slime and tentacles rises to greet me. Eyes the size of nightmare, luminous and sickly pale, skewer me with their gaze. Insanity washes over me, through me, becomes me, and I am lost for eternity.

The Waterbearer hand pulses its healing magic, a draught of coolness across my fevered brain, and I am restored. I must act now, else all is lost, for already does R'lyeh begin to rise from its watery grave.

My consciousness spreads itself among the creatures of the sea. Every fish, every cetacean, every mollusk, even among the very krill does my mind expand. This vast spy network is mine to command. I see and hear everything that happens within my oceans. Tonight, though, it will serve a different purpose.

I draw upon every mote of psychic energy available. The trillions of krill lend me their strength. The large, powerful brains of the whales buffer me. The cunning minds of the dolphins lift me up.

And the savage thoughts of the shark drive my attack.

"Fall," I stab into its brain, the weight of the world's seas behind each thrust. "Fall before your master. Before your king."

I am vast.

I contain multitudes.

I am the sea's chosen son.

And this interloper thinks he can defeat me?

Fall before the ruler of this world, or be crushed by its weight!

Shuddering, squirming, broken, Cthulhu bows before me. Before his king. Before his master. As must all things in the sea, and on the sea, and under the sea.

On his throne in risen R'lyeh sits dread Arthur, ruling.


Edit: Some people are calling this a Lovecraft story. It isn't. If I had intended to emulate H.P. Lovecraft, I would have titled it "Aquaman, as written by H.P. Lovecraft." Also, there would have been words like "squamous" and "turgid" and "non-Euclidean" in it. Cthulhu != Lovecraft.

Also, Jack Zodiac can kiss my ass.

Ars Gratia Artis

This is going to be a mostly disjointed post where I talk about random stuff.

Logo
I don't like the logo I currently have. I'd like a picture up there (maybe the latex nun from yesterday?), maybe have the words in a nifty font. But I can't draw, and my HTML skills are poor at best. If any of my readers is either artist or codemonkey enough to design me a spiffy new logo, I will express my appreciation by doing a blog entry of entirely your choosing.

Hey Pretty
I haven't talked about it much, but I am a longtime player (33+ months) of the City of Heroes MMO. One of the most impressive things about this game is the unprecedented amount of control you have over your character's appearance. The sheer number of options available to a starting character is huge... and necessary, since we are talking about superheroes, after all, and their costumes are one of their most important aspects.

I seem to have a talent for making good costumes. I base this conclusion on the following facts:

1. I frequently get told by random passers-by that my costumes are quite awesome;
2. I have made the finals, if not won outright, every in-game costume contest I have ever entered;
3. People often ask me to critique and/or improve their costumes.

Sample time:

This is my friend Brownian's old costume. There's nothing especially wrong with it... until you learn that Brownian is a high-tech hero who uses Brownian Motion to generate fire and heat effects to immobilize, incapacitate, and capture criminals.

Light blue is a cold color. What's it doing on a fire hero? The red, on the other hand, is too dark, looking more like blood than fire. And the medieval armor plate, instead of creating a fashionably retro juxtaposition, simply looks out of place.

When I offered to help improve Brownian's look, I was given the following requirements:
1. No flame motifs
2. No reds or oranges

Some people would be annoyed with these criteria, but not I. Being restricted in this manner actually made it more challenging, and I do so love a challenge to my artistic sensibilities. I immediately went to work.

With a name like Brownian, who doesn't immediately think of the color brown? But this is also a fire character, so I went with a warm, rich orange-brown. This formed the "base" of the costume. Then, I chose a color "above" and a color "below" that brown to serve as contrasting elements. As in heraldry, contrast is very important to achieve a proper superheroic look. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that superhero costumes are modern version of heraldric coats-of-arms. For my "above" color, I chose a dark yellow, which is also a warm and firey color but isn't so clichéd as red or orange would be. For my "below", I chose black for its high contrast against the yellow and its association with charcoal.

Brownian is a high-tech character, so I went with a fairly standard techie bodysuit. I decided to use an intersecting line pattern to designate either power conduits or control circuitry, and so used the high-contrast yellow-on-black. By making the main suit black, I draw attention away from it and toward the more active parts of the costume, i.e. the hands, feet, and head. This gives the suit a feeling a motion, which is important since the character is named after Brownian Motion.

The gauntlets, with their exaggerated prongs, serve as amplifiers, since 90-100% of this character's powers emanate from her hands. They also draw attention toward this very key part.

The rings on the shoulders give the costume a retro feel, as do the fins and vents on the helmet. Fins help with the illusion of motion, the vents are "super-scientific sensors", and the rings act as heat sinks. If you look closely, you'll see that the rings are two-tone, going from cooler on the inside to hotter on the outside.

The silver chest device is something that came with the top I selected, and I wasn't able to alter its color, so I integrated it into the overall design. I achieve an "as above, so below" effect by mirroring the same color in the belt buckle and helmet chevron.

Brownian, of course, loved the finished product, and graciously allowed me to take these "before" and "after" screenshots. As an interesting aside, she later broke her own rules when she chose to add a cape to it afterwards.

I think it's a testament to the strength of my design that the addition of another element not only doesn't ruin the effect, but in fact works quite well. Capes are odd beasties; they need to appear related to the costume, but since they are more dynamic that the rest of it (what with the flapping and waving) they need to have an independent element to them. The choice of a fire motif here is particularly apt, as the fluttering of the cape seems to suggest flickering flames.


I'm mentioning all of this because, in honor of my birthday, I am offering costume consultations to those of you who play City of Heroes/Villains and who feel your current set of threads needs an upgrade. I am also quite handy with wordsmithing, as you no doubt have noticed, so if your character biographies are lacking, I can help with those as well.

I only ask this of you: don't make a boring request. Don't tell me "My character is Gun Guy, and he kills people because he is angry, and I want a costume that is black and red because black is death and red is blood." Eek. Boring. Give me something strange, something outré, or give me insane restrictions, like "My character is a sentient beam of light, and so he has to look ephemeral. You can only use shades of blue. Oh, and I have a Dick Van Dyke fetish, so work that in somehow."

Finally!
Someone has answered my creative writing challenge. Bridgecrew Dave has written two pieces: Punisher, by Bret Easton Ellis (the guy who wrote American Psycho) and the much shorter Daredevil by H.K.

Also, in an astounding display of precognition, Hitherby wrote what can best be described as "The Super-Friends, as written in the style of the Prose Edda" back in January of '04. Hitherby is one of the few authors that can make me feel humbled and talentless, and I'm pleased to have her work gracing my pages.

Confessions of Cyber-Nun

It's been over two years now since I've had sex. Which means, essentially, I have cobwebs up there. I believe my virginity has, in fact, re-grown.

Oh, I'm sorry. Was that too much information? Look, if you wanna to hang with the PalPal, you gotta suck it up sometimes.

Anyway, at this point, I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to be a cyber-nun for the rest of my life. This is different from a she-geek in that geekettes are always in high demand due to the male/female imbalance inherent in geekdom. A cyber-nun, on the other hand, is a woman who, due either to excessive baggage, issues, or health reasons, feels safer -- and is therefore more attractive -- in the anonymous online world.

Or, put bluntly, she-geeks have sex and cyber-nuns don't. Instead, like traditional nuns, we focus that energy inward, but instead of turning it to faith we turn to things like fanfiction, or MMO's, or... writing blogs. The computer becomes our altar. Checking our email is a sacrament. The toys of Legolas and Morpheus atop our monitors? Icons of worship. Our liturgy is quoting from any one of a dozen geekdoms.

No doubt some of you -- and God bless you, truly -- will write in and say, "No, Palette, we find you beautiful and smart and witty and sexy and we'd shag you right now if we could." And don't get me wrong, I truly do treasure those sentiments. But if you ever saw me, the real me, for just a second... you'd see why it would NOT work. And then there'd be several awkward moments, and we'd both feel horrible because I'd feel rejected and you'd feel superficial. So just... trust me on this, 'k?

A very select few reading this blog have seen my face and lived to tell the tale. No doubt several of you will chime in with "You have nothing to feel bad about, you look fine." At which point I say, "Most of you knew me in person before you met me online. Those who only know me from online have built up this fantasy of me as some Charisma 20 sex goddess (an illusion for which I really have only myself to blame, truth be told), and unless I was a supermodel I'd have absolutely no way of meeting that expectation."

The closest I come to a supermodel is "er".

Yes, I'm rather depressed today, but I think it's a highly realistic depression. I'm slowly coming to terms with the notion that I will be romantically alone for the rest of my life, and that I will die without having known the joys of raising my own children. Instead, I'll have an extensive collection of online friends who will never have met me, and wouldn't even know where to send flowers in the event of my death. Which doesn't make them any less real, any less valid, or any less my friends; but they, like so many things in my life, are pure abstraction and not concrete.

If I could have one selfish wish, I would wish that I could be the person you think I am. She's a much nicer, prettier, and overall better person than I could ever hope to be.

Sorry about the emo whining, folks. I needed to get that out of my system. And now, like a sorbet to cleanse your palate (pun intended), I leave you with this picture of a hot latex fetish nun:

Dr. Strange, as written by Hunter S. Thompson (or possibly Warren Ellis)

We were in the Sanctum Sanctorum on Bleecker Street when reality shattered like a cheap mirror dropped from the top of the Empire State Building by some bored tourist who wanted to see if he could dent the sidewalk with it, and the air was filled with the frenzied wailings of a thousands kittens wired to the gills on cocaine and LSD being shoved into a blender and set to "frappe". I was worried that the Master had summoned something beyond his ability to control before I realized that this was Greenwich Village and these kind of things are par for the course here.

My name is Wong. I'm the manservant for Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, which sounds like a plush gig until you realize that whenever a genuine shit-yourself event occurs, it's my job to clean up the shit afterwards. The problem with cleaning up after eldritch events is that there are no OSHA-approved mandates for it. Toxic waste is one thing, but a hazmat suit won't protect against the Crimson Crotchrot of Cyttorak. I try to take the long view regarding my situation; namely, if things ever get so bad that Master can't fix them, I will either die quickly or be in a key position to cozy up to the victor and trade Strange's secrets for a life of obscene comfort. So, there's that.

The only thing that really worries me is the theurgy, and I knew he'd gotten into the strong stuff when I opened the door to his chamber. The room was full of used grimoires; they were hanging everywhere, casually tossed aside like used condoms after a night of frantic, drunken sex with Clea.

But what kind of magick junkie would need all these athames and bolines? Would the presence of a theurgist account for all the uneaten manna? These piles of burnt incense on the bureau? Maybe so. But then why all this mandrake root? The Book of the Vishanti open to ancient Faltine invocations? The Orb of Agamotto being used to scry on sunken R'lyeh, where sleeps dread Cthulhu? and I sincerely did not wish to know what the Wand of Watoomb was doing there, in the corner with the Cloak of Levitation.

No, this was not the behavior of your typical power-hungry sorcerer. It was far too aggressive. There was evidence, in this room, of excessive consumption of almost every type of magick known to civilization since Lemuria fell. It could only be explained as a montage, a sort of exaggerated museum display, put together very carefully to show what might happen if twenty-two seriously disturbed arch-magi —each with a different magickal 'kink' — were forced to watch nonstop showings of "The Craft" and "Practical Magic" until, in an effort to Make It All Stop, used every mote of their power to smite Hollywood from the face of the earth using God's own cigar, with the L.A. Basin as the ashtray.

"Gone," came the slurred, shaken voice of my master. He was in the fetal position inside a sofa-cushion fort. "All gone... reality rebooted... Vishanti don't answer... the In-Betweener looks like Frank Gorshin... all gone... no more magick.... all gone..."

I sighed. There's nothing more disgusting and irresponsible than a Sorcerer Supreme in the depths of theurgical withdrawal.

Captain America, F#$K YEAH!

Mightygodking is The Man. He has photoshopped the entirety of Civil War and replaced the dialog with satire, thus crafting not only comedic gold but also telling a tale that makes a hell of a lot more sense. I mean, if 90% of your characters act like retards, it's only fitting to give them retarded motivations and retarded dialog.

Link orgy!

Civil War #1

Civil War #2

Civil War #3

Civil War #4

Civil War #5

Civil War #6

Civil War #7

Incredible, right? Don't you wish you had read these instead of buying Civil War? Because that way, you would have gotten the story while saving money and countless brain cells!

But this... this is brilliant. This is epic. This is ne plus ultra. This is the literal apotheosis of awesomesauce right here:

Frontline #11

I swear, I want to have sex with that dialog, it is so damn awesome.


... holy crap. When did this turn into a comic book blog??

Kill me now....

Birthday hangover. @_@

On the plus side, this puts me in the right frame of mind to write "Dr. Strange, by Hunter S. Thompson."

I just need to find my toenails first.

300: Beautiful Obscenity

300
117 minutes
Starring: Dhalsim, that guy who played Faramir,
and no one else whose name you'd recognize

Beautiful obscenity. No, really.

This is not something you want your parents to watch, unless they're extremely liberal. This movie has gore, graphic dismemberment, bare breasts, sex, rape, and LOTS of good ol' "a shitload of people die" scenes.

It is also one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen.

Some people are calling it "The Matrix with spears." This does a huge disservice to 300. A more apt comparison would be "combat ballet". If you've ever wondered if a man could be decapitated with grace and artistry, look no further.

This movie does not take pains to be historically accurate. It is a movie about a comic book written by Frank Miller, and that means ninjas. Yes, there are spartan vs ninja scenes, kiddies. I know it sounds silly, but somehow, it worked for me.

My one complaint? Awesome as their abs were (and my god... if that wasn't CGI, I pity the actors who underwent that training), I kept thinking "Where are your breastplates?" But then something awesome happened and I didn't care.

My score: 5 out of 5 hoplites.

Reader Appreciation Day

Dear Cochise: I love you because you posted a link to my "Batman by Palahniuk" post over at Something Awful. That's simply awesome of you to do.

Rkik Dnec: You posted the same link to Comics Haven. I love you too, even if you sound like a sneeze.

Stumpy: I'm glad to have you as a stalker, but you need to get in line behind....

Johnny Velocity: My original web stalker. You send me a love note after my first post and you've commented on nearly every single one after that. When I take over the world, I will dress you in Slave Leia's metal bikini and you may lounge near my throne. (P.S. for the humor-impaired: JV is a boy.)

And finally, my good dear friend En-Babel submitted some more ideas regarding my Literary Challenge:

I thought of a few more challenges to add to your blog list. I'm too swamped now to try these on my own, but they're fun to think about. I would love to see what you would do with them.

The Green Lantern, as written by J.R.R Tolkien
--- Very obvious, this one. The 'Lord of the Ring' pun has been done to death, true, but could be fun to draw parallels between the Guardians and the Maiar.

Aquaman, as written by Jules Verne
--- Also obvious. Aquaman as terrorist Nemo would be easy, maybe too easy.

The Phantom, as written by Joseph Conrad
--- Jungle hero + Heart of Darkness

The Fantastic Four, as written by William Shakespeare
--- I think I like this one the most, if only because Dr. Doom would make a wonderful Shakespearean villian. Consider: Dr. Doom is to Ben Grimm as Iago is to Othello. The Torch is obviously the comic relief character that Shakespeare puts in all his tragedies. Probably the hardest to write.

The Teen Titans, as written by Mark Twain
--- This just makes me giggle.

Giggle indeed. Now I have an image of Changeling and Cyborg poling a raft shaped like a "T" down the East River. "Mah name's Garth Logan. Y'all don't know me less'n you've read a book called Doom Patrol, but that don't matter none..." Hee hee!

Also: Tomorrow is my birthday! I will be coughmumblemumblety-four years old. All I desire are your birthday wishes.

And Eastern Europe.

Also, a pony.

Why I Do What I Do

Regarding Discordian Week, and printed with permission:

OK . . . interesting connections! Mal/Malaclypse, HEE!

Yep, I'm a Firefly fan.

This all makes WAY TOO MUCH SENSE.

Thanks for pointing me to your ranting. Good ranting. Hail Eris!

You want to know who wrote that email? Steve Jackson. STEVE EFFING JACKSON!

I am officially validated as a writer now.

And really, that was the entire point behind starting this blog. See, I've been an aspiring writer for quite some time, except that somewhere along the way, I'd convinced myself that I had writers's block.

And I had it for ten years.

Want to know the difference between an aspiring writer and an actual writer? The actual writer gets off her duff and practices her craft every day, because she realizes that without practice and exposure and a decent portfolio she'll never get published.

Getting published isn't validation, it's getting paid to do something you love. The validation comes from writing something heartfelt and having someone whose opinion you respect look at your work and go, "Yeah, that's good stuff."

I started this blog to stretch my writing muscles, to get back into the habit. I figured maybe, if I took it slowly, I'd have something decent three times a week. But once I got started, once I immersed myself in the joy and beauty of writing for the sheer pleasure of it, I discovered it was as addictive as coffee or City of Heroes. There are some days I find myself wanting to write more, more, more, and curse this feeble fleshy body for its demands of food and sleep!

I love writing. I want to do it for a living. Ideally, I'd love to write comics for Vertigo, supplementing my income with the occasional RPG game, while I slowly work on that Grand Novel that I know I have inside of me.

It's been a long time in coming, but I have found my dream. Now I just need someone who can help me achieve it.

If you are a role-playing game company looking for a writer to work on a chapter, contact me.

If you are a cartoonist who wants to start a webcomic but needs a writer, contact me.

If you are a publisher willing to gamble on me being the Next Big Thing -- please, please, contact me.

In Memoriam

Our flag has fallen.
How dare you let it touch the ground?
Pick him up, honor him, fear not the blood from his wound;
Even in death, he proudly bears the colors of his country.

Lift him high upon his shield
In the manner of the ancient Greeks;
This was his Thermopylae.
His blood shed to pad the egos
Of preening artists, for whom the desecration
Of a beloved symbol gives them erections.
Are you proud? Now that this man, this symbol, this hero
Has been mocked, made irrelevant, murdered?
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?
Joe Quesada! You have managed, like a cretinous baboon,
To fling your feces across that which I once loved.
You have shit upon the entire Marvel Universe.
In Dante's hell, there is room enough for you.

(Special thanks to BridgeCrew Dave for letting me use his picture)

Spider-Man , as written by Woody Allen

I'm hanging upside-down from the ceiling in my therapist's office, because when I was six I had a recurring fantasy about what would happen if gravity switched and we all had to live on our ceilings. Naturally, I refused to leave the house that summer for fear of falling into the sky.

"Mr. Parker," says my therapist, "I don't think we're going to make much headway if you continue to answer with non-sequiturs."

"Knish," I say back, but my heart's not in it. Dr. Goldstein's office has a hot dog vendor outside, and it's nearly lunchtime, so it's mostly my stomach talking. That, and the esophagus. The mouth, too, but then the mouth is always talking anyway. I have verbal diarrhea.

I get around that by having extensive internal monologues while brooding upside-down.

"Let's talk about your Aunt May," Dr. Goldstein tries.

"Oy! What is it with the always coming back to Aunt May? You're such a nudnik. Why all the tsuris about Aunt May? She's a nice old lady. Even if she is a pain in my tuchis about me settling down with Mary Jane. 'Why should you make trouble for yourself,' she says. 'Her name is slang for marijuana,' she says. 'Why chase after that shiksa, when you could be dating that nice Kitty Pryde,' she says. 'Ma,' I says to her, 'Kitty grew up in Dearborn, Michigan. She'd be a Tigers fan. I watch the Yankees. Ma, it'd be a mixed marriage.' "

"You do realize that you just called your Aunt May 'Ma'?" Through the open window, I can smell the knishes burning downstairs.

"So what?" I'm defensive now, and for a moment I wonder if Doc Goldstein has a set of mechanical arms in his closet. "She raised me since I was a child. She's like a mother to me."

"Have you ever heard of Oedipus, Mr. Parker?"

"Oedipus... wasn't he a Greek racecar driver? Got into a lot of wrecks?" I'm stalling for time now, hoping the session will end soon so that I can go out and buy one of those tasty slightly-burnt knishes. Unless it has tofu in it. I hate tofu knishes. I don't care if they are kosher, Moses would not be caught dead eating tofu.

"Let's cut to the chase, Mr. Parker. You started dressing as Spider-Man because you feel responsible for the death of your Uncle Ben. With him gone, your Aunt May -- your surrogate mother-figure -- is lonely, so you set yourself up as his replacement. Why else would you cover yourself head-to-toe in spandex? Even Daredevil has a cutout for his chin. No, you cover yourself so that nothing of yourself is given away, in the hopes that your Aunt will look at you and see her husband. And that, my friend, is Oedipal."

"Knish," I mutter again. I'm drooling slightly.

"And let's think about why you dress as a spider, Mr. Parker. Do you not see the Little Miss Moffett parallel? Your Aunt May: widowed, smaller than you. You: the spider that sat down beside her."

"What about the curds and whey?" I inquire, my hunger getting the best of me.

"Sometimes cottage cheese is just cottage cheese," the doctor explains, rising. "But sometimes a psychiatrist is The Chameleon."

Oy gevalt. That knish will have to wait.

The Gauntlet is Thrown

First, I'd like to thank everyone who responded so well to yesterday's blog entry. It was fun to write, and more than a little disturbing to realize I could produce that.

Second, for those of you who kept asking "Who the hell is Chuck Palahniuk?" He's the guy who wrote Fight Club before it was turned into a movie.

Third, given yesterday's success I got to thinking about other "What if X was written by Y" entries, and came up with some fun ones:

• Wonder Woman, as written by Camille Paglia
• Punisher, as written by Ernest Hemingway Not written by Hemingway, but 2 Punisher entries already
  
• Superman, as written by Friedrich Nietzsche
• Dr. Strange, as written by Hunter S. Thompson
• John Constantine, as written by Edgar Allen Poe
• Iron Man, as written by Tom Clancy
• Dream, as written by James Joyce
• Spider-Man, as written by Woody Allen
  

Of course, to do any of these well would require some significant research.

Thus I am issuing a challenge to comic book fans, blog writers, and anyone else who wishes to rise to the challenge and pick up the gauntlet: Pick one of these, or another of your own creation, and write something. Post it on your blog if you have one. If not, send it to me and I'll post it here, properly crediting you.

Bring your "A" game, bitches.

Batman, as written by Chuck Palahniuk

It's raining buckets in Gotham, like God left the water running in the cold bath where he slit his wrists, and his death throes are making the rain come down in blue-black sheets, drenching the buildings that are his tub's marble-clawed feet.

Stabbing into the sky like a mile-long phosphorescent penis is the Bat-Signal, my emblem embossed across the clouds like a serial killer's trophy mark. "Fetishistic" isn't the right word, but it's the closest that comes to mind.

I am Bruce's rampaging ego.

The Batmobile rips through Gotham's steel canyons, belching smoke as thick as my rage and and black as my mood, my foot permanently against the firewall. More speed, more power, more penetration of the murky streets. I have an erection as hard as iron and I can't satisfy it, so my Batmobile becomes my penis, plowing through moist and cloying alleys like a turbine-powered dildo.

It's always "a" dildo, though. Never "my" dildo. Have to watch how I think, or that mind-reading freak J'onn will narc me out to Clark, and then he'll have to spend several hours talking about "feelings" and "rage" and "psycho-sexual impulses" while I fantasize about bending Diana over that giant penny in the Batcave and taking her roughly from behind.

See also: Amazonian Bondage Fetish.

See also: Diana's recurring rape fantasy.

To get semen stains out, I have to soak my cape in cold salt water, then wash as usual. Same with blood. Anything organic, really.

I arrive at Police Headquarters, propelled to the roof by rage and a Batline. I expect to see Commissioner Gordon there, in a rumpled overcoat, but instead it's Renee Montoya. I appear behind her, my breath on the back of her neck her only clue to my arrival. She whips around, latino eyes blazing a mixture of fear and lust.

I am Bruce's psychological warfare.

She gives me some story about some scum somewhere that need cleaning in a non-police sanctioned way. But I'm not listening. I know where all the scum in this town live. I have a model of Gotham in the Batcave. Some days, when it all gets too much, I take off my shoes and stomp on Crime Alley.

I stomp and I stomp and I stomp until the headless miniature of Joe Chill is firmly embedded in the flesh of my heel.

To get bloodstains out of a fur coat, use cornmeal and brush the coat the wrong way.

To get crime out of Gotham, use Batman.

She tries to show me a file. I don't need it, I say.

How will you know who to bring in, she says.

I'll know them by my hate, I say.

You have to know who you hate, she says.

I know who I hate, and it's myself. But I love my hate, and I love to spread it. I spread it all over the faces of criminals.

"Bukkake" isn't the right word, but it's the first that comes to mind.

I am Bruce's Bukkake of Justice.

An Open Letter to Bikers

Dear Daytona Beach Bike Week 2007 Participants:

I hate you all. Please die immediately.

Um... wow, Palette. Isn't that incredibly harsh?

Not really. Barring a short 5 year stint up in Washington DC, I have lived in Florida since 1987. I wasn't born here -- I grew up in a military family, so as a child I got used to moving to a new continent every 3-5 years -- but I am a fully naturalized Floridian. I graduated from high school here. I went to college here. I am a Florida girl. This is my home, and I love it, hurricane season and all. I'm like a goth Superman, sent to the Sunshine State aboard a speeding U-Haul. Call me Fla-El.

(Did you know Florida natives are an endangered species? It's true. There are more New Yorkers and New Jerseyites than Floridians in Florida. Of course, I think the Italians are about to be supplanted by the Russians, who are busy carving a New Moscow out of Flagler County with the help of the Organizatskaia.)

Daytona is indisputably a tourist town: Bike Week, Spring Break, Black College Reunion, Speed Weeks, Biketoberfest, plus all the summer vacationers who come to see The World's Most Famous Beach. And let's not forget the snowbirds, those @#%^%! Yankees who come down here for 6 months out of the year to escape the punishing winters of their Great White Northern Abodes.

AND WE HATE YOU ALL.

I am completely goddamn serious about this. A common bumper sticker around these parts is, "When I retire, I'm going to go Up North and DRIVE SLOWLY."

Every year, you people come down here. And every year, you act like complete asses, like this is Las Fucking Vegas and we are here to cater to your every whim. And every year, dozens of you die horribly. I always laugh whenever I see the death toll after an event, because it reaffirms my faith in Natural Selection. Because, you see, you people are stupid, and stupid people shouldn't ever breathe my air.

How are you stupid? Let me count the ways:

1. Florida is not temperate. Florida is sub-tropical. That means it rains a fucking lot here. Rainy roads and motorcycles do not mix.
   
2. We are a hunting state. That means we have access to large-caliber weapons like rifles and shotguns in addition to the ubiquitous handgun. Starting shit with us will get your ass shot.
3. We are an undeveloped state. That, combined with #2 above, means we have access to multi-ton vehicles called Pickup Trucks. Now I'm sure you never took physics, or else you could wrap your puny brains around the concept of "A 2.5 ton truck cannot stop as quickly as a motorcycle." Cut us off and your ass gets run over. Ironically, with our off-road suspensions, we'll easily traverse your wreckage.
   
4. We live on a beach. We know what attractive is. Don't think you're sexy just because you drive a Harley. And please put your shirt back on.
   
5. We have 80-degree winters. You wear lots of black and drink beer, then pass out due to dehydration.
   

But really, what pisses me off most is that you think we love you. We don't. Oh, our businesses love you to death, but that's because you spend money like a shopper during Black Friday. But we who live and work here -- the store clerks, to continue the metaphor -- despise your asses, because you make more work for us.

You reduce traffic to a crawl. You divert precious police resources. And when you DO finally die, you do it in as dramatic a way as possible, frequently prompting lawsuits. As if it was the fault of the State of Florida that you decided to drive down I-95 at top speed without a helmet.

The worst of it is that you have spread, cancer-like, to outlying regions. Back in the 90s, I could just avoid going into Daytona and all would be well. Now, you've metastatized into the suburban areas of Ormond, New Smyrna, Holly Hill. I can't even get onto the interstate without sitting at a traffic light for 15 minutes. I think you won't be happy until you've taken over all of Volusia County, and then you'll probably set your sights on Flagler.

Enough, I say. Tomorrow, I'm buying a Humvee, mounting a cowcatcher to the front, and I'm going for a leisurely drive.

Please get in my way.

And now, a word from our sponsor...

.. new, non-prescription Fukitol! When you want the world to fuck off, take Fukitol!


Seriously, guys... I'm tired of discussing comics. I mean, I'm a geek and all, but I am just so over this line of discussion. I've actually been dreading this post like it was a homework assignment, and you know what? Fuck that. This is supposed to be fun for me.

Last week, I had about 40 pageviews. This week, I've had over 230. That's awesome... it strokes my ego immensely. I've enjoyed the activity on the comments page. But I never planned for "Talking about comics week" to last longer than.. well, a week. And I realize that some of you will stop coming here once I start talking about other things.

That's too bad. I'll miss you, my enormous pageviews. But this isn't who I am. If my awesome writing skills and Dennis Miller-esque subreferencing can't convince you to stay, then I can only conclude that maybe we're wrong for each other. Maybe we should see other webpages, and just be friends.

Baby, don't be like that. It's not you... it's me.

Behold, my official seal!

Jerusalem Syndrome

For a self-confessed conservative, I read some pretty goddamn liberal things. Case in point: Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan.

Meet Spider Jerusalem, the bastard offspring of Hunter S. Thompson and Doonesbury's Uncle Duke, shoved into a futuristic urban blightmare that would make William Gibson's Sprawl Series orgasm. Spider is decidedly not a nice person, preferring instead to live in a haze of drugs and righteous anger. He expresses contempt for all living things, yet within him burns a passion for truth, justice, and journalistic integrity.

He also has a fondness for making his opponents shit themselves.

Meet the bowel disruptor. This little beauty is completely nonlethal and has settings from simple diarrhea to complete rectal prolapse. It also leaves no trace of its use, which means that Spider gets away with using it on the President of the United States.

Yes, you heard right: Spider makes the President shit himself unconscious. Regardless of your political affiliation, I dare you to tell me that isn't the most awesome thing you've ever heard.

In the words of Chris Sims, "You are now FREAKING OUT."

Transmetropolitan is a work of utter genius. The first book of it I ever read was "Year of the Bastard," which is reminiscent of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972. In that book, Spider is instrumental in helping defeat a sitting president (aka The Beast), only to realize he's helped elect an even bigger bastard (aka The Smiler). The following books detail his attempts to ruin the Smiler, and the consequences of having an enemy who can command the resources of an entire government to smash a bothersome arachnid journalist.

Yes, children, this series is about consequences. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Characters die -- sometimes horribly. It's grand and epic and poetic and obscene -- sometimes all at once. And while it may be a satire, its author -- the blisteringly acerbic Warren Eillis -- treats the plot, and his characters, with utter and complete seriousness.

It is one of the the most fucking brilliant things I have ever read.

But don't take my word for it: see for yourself in this self-contained story.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a date with Spider.

Interlude 2: Eclectic Boogaloo

Dave Campbell agrees with my Dr. Doom hypothesis.

Go me.

Stay of Execution

Just a brief missive here to let you know that your daily fix has been delayed a wee bit.

Yes, my poppets, I know: you must have your PalPal fix. Your cries of agony and deprivation warm my bleak and shriveled heart. But it's your own fault, you know. After all, was it not you, my adoring public, who tripled in readership the moment I began talking about comics?

Alas, comics are a chiefly visual medium, and without suitable excerpts to "quote", the remainder of my posts shall be as bland as an American cheese sandwich with mayonnaise on white bread. And we certainly don't want that, no.

So I have retreated deep into my Fortress of Lurkitude to obtain scans of the highest quality for your optical consumption, my chirping birdies.

Oh, and fair warning: Auntie Palette is working blue tonight.

Prepare the F-Bomb shelters!

Interlude: a slight case of bombing

Because if Chris Sims jumped off a bridge, so would I:


Go on. Tell me you don't understand. I live to explain stuff like this.

Hell, earlier today I made a reference to Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and nobody got it. So ask.

I DARE YA.

The Hero With a Thousand Issues

Since we're talking about comics this week, I figure I'll share an epiphany I recently had concerning What Is Wrong With Comics Today:

They don't end.

You may think I'm being flippant here, but I'm not calling for the immediate cessation of all comics. What I am calling for is for comic series and/or characters to have definite beginnings, middles, and, most importantly, endings.

Think of the coolest story you know, regardless of whether it is a comic, a novel, a film, a TV series. They all have 3 things in common:

1. A beginning, where we meet our heroes, and the crisis they must face.
   
2. A middle, where the heroes struggle against incredible forces.
   
3. An end, where the plot is resolved, villains are defeated, and sacrifices are made.
   

Joseph Campbell called this the Monomyth. The Lord of the Rings. Babylon 5. Star Wars. Transmetropolitan. They all end. And that is what makes them special, because without an ending, stories lose their narrative "punch".

Look at the Dark Phoenix saga. Note how wrenching it is to see a beloved character fall to evil and then redeem herself through death. Note how this sacrifice becomes utterly pointless as Jean is brought back from the dead, gains the Phoenix Force yet again, dies again. Note how something utterly cool has been reduced to yet another plot element to be recycled every 5-7 years because it sells.

Characters who don't stay dead, plot elements that recur until you're sick of them, storylines that threaten to change everything yet, within a few years, have been forgotten as the status quo is reset: what else does this remind you of?

That's right: soap operas. Soaps don't have endings. They have a beginning, and a middle, and then nothing but middles for decades. And the reason for that is because when the series ends, so end the profits. Artistic integrity is defeated by the sultry crinkle of the almighty dollar.

I don't think it's unreasonable to have a middle ground, a continuous money-making series that neither cheats nor recycles plot elements. Here are my suggestions:

1. Have the characters age at a reasonable rate for their species.
   
2. When they are too old, or injured, let them pass the mantle on to a successor.
   
3. Have character death be meaningful.
4. If it is essential to the plot that a dead character return, make it come with a heavy price.
5. Above all, actions MUST have consequences that are not conveniently forgotten or return to the status quo.
   

Essentially, I am proposing that comic book characters have a beginning, middle, and end. Let us chart their rise and mourn their passing.

Because without death, immortality is meaningless.

Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads

Well, my first "theme week" has come to an end, and while I'd like to consider it an unqualified success, it seems like my throwaway post on Saturday has generated more controversy.

Damn you all.

Fine. We'll continue to discuss comics, specifically Civil War #7, for a bit longer, because apparently some people *cough JV cough* don't get it *cough BridgecrewDave cough*.

The summary, courtesy of Wikipedia:

The Secret Avengers break into the Negative Zone Prison, where Hulkling, who has been disguised as Hank Pym, releases imprisoned heroes from their cells to join the fight. Cloak teleports the combatants to New York City, where Namor and an army of Atlanteans fight alongside the Secret Avengers, and the Thunderbolts, the Thor clone, and Captain Marvel join Stark's team. As Captain America is about to deal a final blow to Stark, police, EMTs, and firefighters hold him back. Captain America realizes how much damage the fight has cost the people he says they should be fighting to protect. To prevent more bloodshed, he orders his team to stop fighting and surrenders.

Did you get that? Cap stops fighting a cause he knows is right because the ghost of 9/11 stops him. Are you telling me you can't see that? The living embodiment of our country is kept from defeating a fascist because of the NYPD and FDNY, aka the heroes of ground zero. And then he gives up because he sees property damage in a city that:

1. Has been attacked by Kree, Skrulls, Atlantis, demons from the Inferno, Godzilla, and Galactus his own bad self;
2. Has more super-heroes per square foot than any other place on earth, with the resultant property damage and astronomic insurance rates that come with that.
   

Give me a freaking break.

Now, let's look again at what Joss said:

I said looking around at the destruction of Manhattan didn't have much resonance -- these guys destroy Manhattan all the time! It was the personal act of putting his fist into the face of his powerless one-time friend that would Make Cap feel like a bully, a monster [...]

Cap got past Tony's armor and started beating the poo out of him -- thus becoming exactly what Tony had called them all: a superpowered guy taking it out on a powerless human. Cap realizes this and lay down his arms. (But he wins. Eat that, Stark.)

That is literally the tale.

This ending is so much different, and so much better, because:

1. Cap beats the snot out of Iron Man.
   
2. Cap stops fighting because he realizes he has crossed a line, rather than quitting because of thinly-veiled propaganda.
   
3. Property damage doesn't factor into his decision because Cap is a freaking soldier.
   

This entire fight -- probably the entire series -- could be boiled down to Patriotism vs the Military-Industrial Complex. In Joss' version, Patriotism wins, even if he surrenders afterwards, because he surrenders for the right reason. In Millar's version, the post-9/11 population of America sides with Iron Man and makes Cap stop.

Look, I don't care what your politics are, if you're an American you should be incensed by this. Hell, I'm a pro-war conservative and even I think Cap should have won, and yes I'm fully aware of what that means in this political cartoon we're calling a comic book. I'm sure that Tony's victory is supposed to be some kind of clever commentary about how, post-9/11, we've given up our liberties for a sense of security etc, and how in the months to come repercussions will be felt blah blah freaking blah. That's not the point.

This is the point: Captain America is all that is good and pure and RIGHT about the USA. When the man who fought Hitler stops fighting -- STOPS FIGHTING!! -- someone who puts unregistered superheroes into concentration camps, all because some buildings have been trashed, that's bad characterization. Of course, this entire series has been a poor excuse in getting beloved characters to act in uncharacteristic ways, so I really shouldn't be surprised.

Want to know how I'd have ended it? Cap would have taken Tony's head off (accidentally, of course), had his moment of fear and doubt and shame -- and then it would be revealed that Tony had, in fact, been replaced by a Doombot.

Yes. The entire scope of Civil War would have been masterminded by Doctor Freakin' Doom just to:

1. Compromise American heroes;
2. Sew distrust of said heroes in the minds of the people;
   
3. Screw with Reed.
   

Now that's super-villainy.

(Cartoons courtesy of the ISB)

Because I Feel Like Scooping Chris

As said by Joss himself at Whedonesque:

Hi and briefly: I walked into the infamous Marvel meeting, where they pitched me civil War. Cool enuf, sez I. Then they pitched the end they were currently going with, wherein the woman whose son is killed breaks up the fight between Cap and Iron Man, much like Joanne Dru in "Red River". Not cool enuf, sez I. If the whole thing rests on Cap and Tony's conflict, and they're gonna fight, I sez sez I, somebody's gotta win. I just pitched that Cap got past Tony's armor and started beating the poo out of him -- thus becoming exactly what Tony had called them all: a superpowered guy taking it out on a powerless human. Cap realizes this and lay down his arms. (But he wins. Eat that, Stark.) That is literally the tale. I said looking around at the destruction of Manhattan didn't have much resonance -- these guys destroy Manhattan all the time! It was the personal act of putting his fist into the face of his powerless one-time friend that would Make Cap feel like a bully, a monster, a Nazi and kiddies, I didn't say much else. (Except that a fight between titans broken up by the 'voice of reason' before it ends is a lame fight indeed.) I didn't know Civil War was gonna envelop the whole universe for a year. I didn't know the entire face of Marvel was changing, and though I heard pitches of what's to come, I don't know what stuck. I think I've been given too much credit for all this. Which is sweet, but I wanted to save you all endless speculation. Which I have done, and now back to work. -j.

joss | February 24, 14:36 CET

Bold text added to highlight relevant portions.

How I Found Eris, and What I Did to Her When I Found Her

I found Discordianism, and therefore Eris, in 1994. I had turned 21, and was in that awkward transition between "too old to be a teenager" and "too young to be an adult". Plus, it was the Nineties, so I spent most of my time wearing black, listening to Sisters of Mercy, and when I wasn't reading Anne Rice or playing Vampire: the Masquerade, I was depressed and wondering What Was The Point Of It All.

I'm not going to tell you that my life was instantly changed the moment I found a copy of Steve Jackson Games' Principia Discordia -- I had a lot of ingrained uptightness to overcome -- but it did take a turn for the weird, and my life has been richer for that weirdness.

See, I'm the kind of person who obsessively looks for patterns. I seek meaning in way too many things. I like to attribute this to my artistic leanings, and truth be told it's served me well in life, both in discerning literary symbolism and in helping me unearth the motivations of those around me. (Yes, we brainy introspective types with English majors and Psychology minors can double as FBI profilers and Lit Critics. Be afraid.)

However, sometimes this passion for pattern recognition borders on OCD. Don't tell us that a pattern isn't there! We just haven't dug deeply enough. Give us time, by golly by jingo, and we'll find it. You just wait and see.

Next thing you know, we're starring in a sequel to A Beautiful Mind.

Into this frothing mass of post-teenage aaaaaaaaaaangst fell Eris. At first, I thought it was something silly, a vaguely coherent-sounding rant that I could use when I LARPed my Malkavian. Then I re-read it. And re-re-read it. Again. And again.

I had to keep reading it because, well, I sensed something. A pattern, a greater truth... as Polonius said, Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.

And then, finally I got it. It took me a long time to get not because the truth was particularly hard, but because I had to shatter my own paradigm of reality to understand it.

I'm going to try to share it with you. If you don't get it, that's okay. Some people get it instantly; some never do. Some, however -- and I sincerely hope to count you, dear reader, among this number -- read it; don't quite get it; read it again; spend days puzzling it out; and then, at an inopportune and potentially embarrassing moment, you GET IT and have a falling-down case of the giggles.

Paraquoting:

We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids. Different philosophies use different grids. Through this window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The order is in the grid.

Disorder is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", non-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about gender. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness," or vice-versa, is a matter of definition, and thus unmeasurable, and therefore wholly arbitrary. Pick a grid, and through it some reality appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same reality will appear differently ordered and disordered.

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, be True. This is an illusion, because it is based upon the notion that Order is inherently good and Disorder inherently bad. This causes man to endure the destructive aspects of order and prevents him from effectively participating in the creative uses of disorder.


To choose order over disorder, or disorder over order, is to accept a worldview composed of both the creative and the destructive. But to choose the creative over the the destructive is to choose an all-creative worldview composed of both order and disorder.

The human race will begin solving its problems on the day that it ceases taking itself so seriously: LIFE IS THE ART OF PLAYING GAMES.

If you can master nonsense as well as you have already learned to master sense, then each will expose the other for what it is: absurdity. From that moment of illumination, a man begins to be free regardless of his surroundings. He becomes free to play order games and change them at will. He becomes free to play disorder games just for the hell of it. He becomes free to play neither, or both. And as the master of his own games, he plays without fear, and therefore without frustration, and therefore with goodwill in his soul and love in his being.

If you didn't get all that, don't fret. Eris has a way of fucking with you when least expected.

It's really only proper that I end this mostly quoted blog with another quote, this time from Kerry Thornley, one of the co-founders of Discordianism.

[...] before I was a Discordian, when I entered my room only to be reminded by its disarry that it was a mess, I felt a sense of defeat. These days when that happens I just say, "Hail Eris!" - our customary salute to any embodiment of chaos - and then I cheerfully carry on, secure in the knowledge that the constellations look no better.

I'm still uptight in a lot of ways. I still obsess over patterns. I am still a work in progress. But instead of getting upset by disorder, by absurdity, by chaos which doesn't fit in my little grid I call reality... I can laugh at it, and get on with the far more important task of living my life as I wish.

Hail Eris.

Aiming to Misbehave

Joss Whedon's Firefly was, and still is, the most perfect television show ever.



I will not tolerate argument about this. I cannot express how deeply I love this show. If I ever have the chance to travel back in time, I am taking my boxed set of the series and the motion picture and I will find a way to get into the Fox Network boardroom circa 2002 and, if logic fails, I will re-enact Dogma on their asses if that's what it takes to get them to un-cancel it.

Pardon me. I seem to be foaming at the mouth.

A brief summary for those unable or unwilling to follow links: 500 years in the future, humanity has colonized a new solar system. In the wake of a civil war called "Unification", the Central Planets (think typical high-tech sci-fi society) has imposed its will upon the Rim Worlds (think hardscrabble pioneers, miners, and settlers). In the midst of all this is Malcolm Reynolds, captain of the Firefly-class mid-bulk transport Serenity. Mal fought on the Independent (i.e., losing) side of Unification, and now lives a shadowy and frequently illegal existence wherein his main goal is to exist outside the control of central authority.

Mal doesn't know it, but he lives the Discordian dream. He has a ship, and that means freedom. He has a crew who are loyal to him, and that means family. His plans, brilliant as they are, never ever go smoothly, and that's because he's blessed by Eris Herself. Heck, he even shares a name with one of the founders of the Discordian movement: Malaclypse the Younger, aka Mal-2.

In fact, the entire show can be seen as a giant Discordian Manifesto. I never realized it until I saw the picture on Monday, and then found this jewel of a quote in my well-worn Principia:

There is Serenity in Chaos. Seek ye the Eye of the Hurricane.

DUDE.

Serenity, the ship, travels the Chaos of space. But at the same time, there is Chaos within Serenity, as the crew squabble and fight with each other as families are wont to do. They are all seeking that center of calm within themselves, that unconquerable feeling of "I am me; I have done the impossible; that makes me mighty" which, though the world surrounding them may thrash and wail, cannot break them. And all of this is done aboard Serenity.

There is Serenity in Chaos. Seek ye the Eye of the Hurricane. It's practically a syllogistic koan.

An oft-recurring quote within the series is, "No power in the 'Verse can stop me." This is a fierce statement of independence and empowerment, and was taken up by the fans when the series was cancelled back in 2002. It worked: when the series was released on DVD in 2003, it shot to the top of Amazon.com's bestsellers, and as of today -- four years later -- it is #12 on the Top 100 Bestseller List. Because of this voracious demand, Serenity was released as a major motion picture in 2005.

Failed TV shows don't get made into movies. But the fans didn't listen. No power in the 'verse could stop them.

So let's look at the picture again:

• Gold, for faithfulness.
  
• "No power in the 'verse can stop us."
• Why an apple? Well, in the episode "War Stories", reference is made to "griswalds", tiny pressure-sensitive grenades that were embedded in apples by enemy troops.

Faith. Stubbornness. Hidden power. These are the qualities of a Firefly fan (aka Browncoat), and they are also the qualities of a Discordian (aka Erisian).

Tomorrow: Tying it all together, aka 'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.

Conventional Chaos

Pop quiz, hotshots: How many planets does our solar system have?

Prior to September 13, 2006, the correct answer was nine. Nowadays we have either eight or eleven, depending on how literally you parse the word "planet".

Yes, Eris had managed to toss another golden apple into our solar system back in 2005 with this little bowling display, and the astronomers and scientists and people-who-make-names-official promptly fell all over themselves arguing about her. Three Letter Acronyms, such as TNO, were bandied about. Eventually, after much brouhaha, she was classified on 9/13/06 as a dwarf planet, along with Pluto and Ceres.

To reiterate: Eris got Pluto demoted from planet status, and a glorified asteroid promoted to "dwarf planet".

That, my friends, is what we call a display of pure, unadulterated, Erisian power.

So back to the picture again:

• Golden Apple
  
• Roughly spherical... one might say almost planetoid in appearance
• "No power in the 'Verse [universe] can stop us."

Indeed, no power in the universe can stop Eris.. including the lawyers and bureaucrats who name the silly things.

Interlude: A shoutout to my homie, Chris Sims

I received a lovely letter from the inimitable Chris Sims, he of the Invincible Super-Blog, wherein he writes the following:

Your writing is breezy and conversational, which is always nice and often hard to manufacture, so it's good that you've got that going for you. Also, if it matters to you, I was motivated enough over the weekend to go look up the Wikipedia entry on Discordianism, which finally answered my question as to why Eris always has an apple with a K on it when she shows up on The Grimm Adventures of Billy & Mandy.

I am beside myself with glee. Not only does Mssr. Sims like my style, but was sufficiently motivated to seek out Eris on his own.

I know you will join me in saying: "We accept you, we accept you... one of us.... ONE OF US!"



Oh, be sure to show his website some love, won't you?

Καλλίστη

Close the shades and hide the children, dear readers, because today we're talking about Greek Mythology. And when we talk about Greek gods, we're talking about sex.

Kinky sex.

Freaky sex.

Positively copious amounts of sex.

And as you can see, most of the sex is being had by Zeus. If you're Freudian, you can of course see the phallus inherent in Zeus' symbol, the bolt of lightning: a thing of potence, a sign of kingship, and tool of aggression. So when I say that Zeus had a thing for smiting people with lightning....

... nudge nudge, wink wink...

... well, you get the idea.

One of Zeus' many, many children was Eris, goddess of Discord. Interestingly enough, she wasn't a bastard, instead being one of the five legitimate children Zeus had with his wife, Hera. Of further interest is that Eris' thematic opposite -- Harmonia, goddess of Concord -- has far muddier origins. Harmonia's father is questionable; some say Ares, some say Hephaestus -- but her mother, Aphrodite, was Zeus' granddaughter. For those having trouble, let me lay it all out:

Eris

Chaos

Legitimate

Daughter of Olympus' ruler

Harmonia

Order

Questionable Legitimacy

Daughter of Olympus' biggest tramp, who is herself a bastard

Order's pedigree begins to look a wee bit suspect, wouldn't you say?

So, bona fides having been firmly established, I'm going to quote wholecloth for you the story of The Original Snub, as originally laid forth in the seminal Principia Discordia:

It seems that Zeus was preparing a wedding banquet for Peleus and Thetis and did not want to invite Eris because of Her reputation as a trouble maker.

This made Eris angry, and so She fashioned an apple of pure gold and inscribed upon it Καλλίστη ("To The Prettiest One") and on the day of the fete, She rolled it into the banquet hall and then left to be alone and joyously partake of a hot dog.

Now, three of the invited goddesses, Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite, each immediately claimed it to belong to herself because of the inscription. And they started fighting, and they started throwing punch all over the place and everything.

Finally Zeus calmed things down and declared that an arbitrator must be selected, which was a reasonable suggestion, and all agreed. He sent them to a shepherd of Troy, whose name was Paris because his mother had had a lot of gaul and had married a Frenchman; but each of the sneaky goddesses tried to outwit the others by going early and offering a bribe to Paris.

Athena offered him Heroic War Victories, Hera offered him Great Wealth, and Aphrodite offered him the Most Beautiful Woman on Earth. Being a healthy young Trojan lad, Paris promptly accepted Aphrodite's bribe and she got the apple and he got screwed.

As she had promised, she maneuvered earthly happenings so that Paris could have Helen (THE Helen) then living with her husband Menelaus, King of Sparta. Anyway, everyone knows that the Trojan War followed when Sparta demanded their Queen back and that the Trojan War is said to be The First War among men.

And so we suffer because of the Original Snub. And so a Discordian is to partake of No Hot Dog Buns.

Verily! Now, with this story fresh in your minds, look once again at yesterday's picture.

Apple? Check.

Golden? Checkity-check.

Cryptic inscription? CZECH!

Verily I say again! This is an honest-to-goddess, no fooling, Erisian Artifact.

"Great," I hear you all thinking -- and I can hear you thinking other things too, and for those thoughts you should be very, very ashamed -- "I get the dealie-o with the apple, but what does this have to do with yesterday's post? And what, for blogfodder's sake, does this have to do with Joss Whedon?"

Tomorrow, dear children. I want to blow your minds gently.

Seek Ye the Eye of the Hurricane

I've been teasing you for a week now with my references to Discordianism. Some of you are apt pupils and have studiously followed the links I have provided. To you I say, "That which binds us together like a nutshell counts only as one act." Those of you who don't immediately see the inherent parallel that has with act 2, scene 2 of Hamlet had better keep reading.

I could spend several pages talking about Discordianism. Odds are excellent that you'll see more essays about it on this blog, usually on a Friday. But just this once I'll go easy on you, dear readers, and boil it down to basics, because otherwise you'll have no clue what I'm talking about. And I usually find expressions of abject bafflement quite adorable, so you'd better appreciate this gift.

People spend inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to counteract entropy, which basically says that the Universe likes taking the path of least resistance. This means that the contents of a spilled box of cornflakes will not arrange themselves into a nice little pile, because nice little piles are orderly, and order takes energy. It requires vastly less energy to spill across your kitchen floor in a haphazard pattern. Path of least resistance is taken, and you have a mess first thing in the morning. You then spend time and effort to clean up said mess -- in other words, restoring order. In other other words, you're fighting entropy, and getting less out of the deal because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Discordianism is, at its heart, a philosophy that says: "So what if things fall apart? Who says chaos is bad? Sometimes it's good. Maybe while you're on your hands and knees cleaning the kitchen, you find something you dropped last week. Maybe the pattern on the floor gives you artistic insight. Or maybe it makes you late for work, you lose your job, and then you find a better one." In many ways, Discordianism is Rinzai Zen Buddhism filtered through modern Western absurdist principles:

1. Things screw up.
   
2. You can't keep things from screwing up.
   
3. You get really worked up and tense from fixing screwed up things.
   
4. Wouldn't you really rather not have to fix screwed up things?
5. Embrace the screwup -- i.e. chaos -- as a necessary part of your life, and chill.
   

(For those paying attention at home, I've just linked Zen, Thermodynamics, and Søren Kierkegaard to the same subject in three paragraphs. If ever you wondered why you loved me, here's your proof: I can be geeky in three separate disciplines simultaneously. Go me.)

Today, according to the Official Discordian Kalendar, is Day 50 of the Season of Chaos. The 50th day of every season is special, and today is known as Chaoflux. On the day of Chaos, in the season of Chaos, I found this image on Whedonesque:


(Photo courtesy of The One True b!X)

Trust me when I tell you that this could not be laden with more symbolic imagery than if it were an 18-wheeler with the words "Symbolic Imagery" on the side. In fact, it's going to take me all week to describe this metaphoric goldmine.

So strap in. Things get crazy from here on out.

Well... crazier, at any rate.