Sunday, May 31, 2015

Finishing off May Write Away - Character

You know a game character and plot has been expertly written when you're given "I would never hurt [character]. I care too much for her" as a dialogue option, and you pick it because you MEAN IT, not because it leads to a favorable outcome in the game.

Only the best-written characters can form that kind of deep connection with the player.

On an unrelated note, the love story between Serana and the Dragonborn could be a feature film by itself.

But what are some factors which lead to making this kind of connection in a game?

1) Professional-level voice acting.
Seriously. No, really. STOP LAUGHING.
Big-league games today are growing toward movies in terms of how players receive information.

...this isn't always a good thing, *cough* The Order:1886 *cough*.

In your average game balanced between cutscene and gameplay, the positive effects of voice acting are becoming more apparent, even though quality voice acting isn't something most players demand.

Mainly because they're too busy blowing stuff up or shooting terrorists or exploring dungeons or jumping on platforms to care.

But in games which are designed to immerse the player, which is quickly becoming the standard across all genres of gaming, the presence of deeper emotion, inflection, and implication in the voice acting adds a new dimension to the game experience.
Which in many cases isn't noticed until you play an older (or new but worse) game that doesn't have it.

2) A plot in which the player builds a relationship with the character.
Properly written dialogue and plot can create a facsimile of a bond between the player and the character.
This can play out in all sorts of plot circumstances, but the most common usage involves the player fighting alongside the character, and the player experiencing consequences from his/her choices involving that character.
Reactions to dialogue options, split-second decisions, or even accidents due to game lag can all contribute to the character feeling real.
Trauma can also contribute to the player's sense of connection to the character, especially in any game which masters the art of making the player experience emotions directly (as opposed to the oft-made mistake of showing the player-character feeling a certain way, and just assuming the player will sympathize).
If you feel it directly, and you see the character you're connecting with feel it, the connection is strengthened.

3) Relatability.
Spell-check doesn't like this word, or any other deriving from "to be able to be related to," which is WAY too many words.
This is a duh for any character in any medium, but especially game design and writing.
If you're going to give me a quest to save X-character, and you want me focused on rescuing rather than on slaughtering the kidnappers (both will happen, but we're talking about motivation here), you have to have created a character who feels real, and not just a bundle of pixels shaped like a caricature.

Here are two examples, both using the kidnapping idea as a framework, of relatable vs unrelatable:

A) The hero (you) comes upon a wrecked carriage. A trail of blood leads to the east. Following it brings you to the body of a young man clutching a journal. The journal mentions a group of enemy soldiers who ambushed the carriage and took its occupant, a young princess, hostage. The young man apparently slipped away and tried to follow them to their hideout, but was spotted and killed, but not before scratching an arrow on the ground pointing toward the hideout.

B) The hero (you) has been adventuring for awhile, at one point joining up with a group of comrades to clear out a string of bandit lairs. Their youngest member is insecure and lacks confidence, and really sucks up to you. You encourage him to take his own successes and turn them into self-confidence. He smiles and hopes to one day be like you.
Later, having parted ways with the boy and his fellows, you receive a message: He tried to take on a whole group of bandits, got in over his head, and is now being held for ransom. You're the only one close enough to reach him before the ransom deadline.

So, player, which one would you be more likely to want to rescue?

Obviously you'd be motivated to rescue both, but the motivation is deeper for one than for the other.

In A), regardless of your reason for rescuing the princess (money, desire to slaughter enemy soldiers, etc) the motivation comes from a caricature, the image of the damsel-in-distress in your own head as a result of seeing it countless times in literature and film and other games.

In B), while there is some degree of caricature (the novice in over his head), the motivation comes from YOUR shared experiences and relationship with the actual character.
In the ideal game setup there would even be a sense of mentor responsibility, given that you encouraged him to be more self-confident.


That we as players are able to make these kinds of connections with game characters demonstrates an astounding level of growth in videogames as a storytelling medium.
The player's ability to interact with game characters is unprecedented given previous limitations, and continues to open up new degrees of immersion and emotional experience for players.


I'm hoping to continue to write at this rate in the coming months, though it's entirely probable that I'll be doing weeks' worth of writing (still going to try sticking to the 200-per-day setup) in individual posts.
Just want to thank anyone and everyone who has found their way to this blog for your continued reading and support.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

MWA 28, 29, 30 - Online Identity

And now for something completely different.
I get that I'm in this weird micro-generation on the border between "Generation X" and "Millennials," in a limbo between "I didn't get a computer until high school" and "INTERNET IS MY WHOLE LIFE OMFG!"

I get that.

I had a computer as a child, but I started with Windows 3.1, and the most powerful (aka, best-looking) computer games at the time required that lovely fossil of tech-lingo, "restart in DOS mode".

I didn't get Internet access until just before high school, and even now I refuse to get a laptop or smartphone because my concept of the Internet involves sitting behind a desk.
I still use the phrase "spending too much time online," which even many of my former schoolmates find perplexing in a world of always-online, always-connected.

So I guess it shouldn't surprise me that I find the idea of being driven to suicide by emails, texts, or posts online confusing and disturbing (to vastly understate).

I think of myself as relatively tech-savvy, even as I refuse to go fully mobile online.
I can use my wife's smartphone for whatever in a pinch, but I just don't feel a NEED to use gadgets like smartphones and tablets, or to constantly be connected.

If I react emotionally (in the negative sense) to something online, I physically step away from the computer and go do something else.
Because my concept of the Internet is its own activity, as opposed to reading a book, watching TV, watching a movie, spending time with friends, discussing theology or politics or nerdage, shopping, etc.

That it is possible to do any of those using the Internet has not changed my perception of those activities, and in many cases has increased my sense of differentiation between the way the Internet allows me to do them, and doing them without the Internet.

I'll watch a movie which I don't own on a free streaming service, but I don't understand the act of doing so conceptually the same way I understand taking a physical data storage medium and watching its contents on a machine which doesn't allow more than a very limited amount of input (also known as a television).

I've had some very negative interactions with people online, especially in the more anonymous sections, where a lack of real face and real name permits the worst, most cruel dregs of humanity to grab a metaphorical megaphone.
The forums in which much of this occurs predate social media, and were some of my first encounters with other people in my early days of Internet access.

Which may contribute to my perception of the Internet as something apart from myself, a communication medium first and foremost, to be accessed or NOT accessed at one's leisure.

Which seems to be the diametric opposite of today's children's experience and perception.
The prevalence of mobile Internet devices has them plugged in constantly.
Instead of forming their sense of self in day-to-day life and play and relationships THEN taking on the Internet as solid individuals (as my micro-generation and many Millennials did), they are attempting to form a sense of self in an almost entirely digital environment, in many cases neglecting the real world with its real experiences and real relationships.

This can (and too often, has) led to them being far too sensitive to the whims of the digital medium, which as I've said can be one of the most cruel environments ever devised by man.
Thus their emotional health teeters on a shaking razor's edge, which only gets worse as the hormones roll in.

Teenage self-esteem has always been unstable, at the whims of social cliques and perceived parental disappointment/abandonment.
And that was when the only influences available were REAL people they had to interact with in REAL life.
For generations it was a character-building experience that was and is vital to maturation, since the judgmental idiots and malicious elitists never really go away.

But now?
With so many children building an identity online FIRST, and their real life either barely or not catching up?
Never stepping away from the computer?
Never disconnecting?
Suddenly their self-esteem is at the whim of BILLIONS, and most of those billions are full of bile, hatred, and cruelty.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

MWA 25, 26, 27 - Random Stuff

I had meant to post this on Memorial Day, but then life.
A Short Ode to Arlington
The quiet there hangs heavy, light, the silence full of sound.
The jeer of children calms itself, and tears and prayers abound.
The knowing touch of footfalls there
Reach out to spirits in the air,
Who payed the price to earn their keep:
An honored mound in which to sleep.



Okay Fox, if you're going to do reboot League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, here's how you need to do it:
1) Rated R. Before a screenplay is even brainstormed, decide that you aren't going to pull any punches on the gore or sex or weirdness.
2) Use an ACTUAL League story. As in, one Alan Moore wrote. I don't care how much you have to pay the man for the rights.
3) Preferably, use the War of the Worlds story. And don't leave out what Mr. Hyde does to the Invisible Man just before marching to his doom.
4) On the subject of Mr. Hyde, use MOORE'S version of Jekyll and Hyde. This isn't supposed to be an equal partnership. Hyde is strength and passion and brutality, Jekyll is weakness and impotence. Your argument is invalid. End of story.
5) In keeping with the pattern I've established in these instructions, make MINA the film's main character. She's the only League member present in all continuities, she's the first one recruited by MI5, and subsequently the one who recruits the rest of them, and thus shouldn't be relegated to a side role played by a failed TV actor!
6) For the inevitable sequel-talk which will result if this movie is even made and is successful, use the Century storyline. Yes, the one in which Mary Poppins is God and Harry Potter is the Antichrist. DO IT!


I am so very contradictory at times.
I say "I can't wait to move back to a place with a half-decent public library! I haven't had the chance to read a new book in a year!"
And yet not only have I not finished reading every book I've owned for years (among them Robert McKee's Story, Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, and most of the written works of C.S. Lewis), I also recently inherited a small collection of history books from my grandfather, one of which I HAVE read.

So like many other people, I lie to myself as an excuse to complain.

I think it's interesting that when you confront someone with their failing to accomplish a given task, you get a response akin to "Well I just didn't get the opportunity".
Protip: Unless they're working three jobs and have multiple pets AND multiple kids?
They had the opportunity.
They lacked the motivation.
But we look down on people less for lack of opportunity than for lack of motivation.
...even though most of us really aren't that motivated most of the time.

So in this as in many other situations, we deem others inferior based on their outward demonstrations of our own inner failings.



It is entirely possible to act selflessly while being selfish.
Case in point: Religions with a temporal or eternal reward.
"I give to charity [so God will see and give me a bigger mansion after I die]!"

Also, can we stop using "I'm active in my church" when asked "Do you contribute to the community?"?
Please?

If you work through a program at your church to build low-cost housing for the destitute in your area, GREAT!
Say THAT when I ask if you contribute.

If you provide counseling for suicidal youth through a program organized and/or funded by your church, GREAT!
Say THAT when I ask about your contributions.

Saying "I'm active in my church" says NOTHING about actually contributing to the community as a whole.
Especially if yours is a church which requires conversion and/or membership for anyone to partake in the soup kitchens, homeless shelters, or whatever else your congregation provides, organizes, or helps to fund.

Sunday, May 24, 2015

MWA 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 - Skyrim

Playing catch-up once again because life.

And yes I know this game is older, but fuck you because I've been playing Oblivion in the intervening years because rebuilding your PC every time an Elder Scrolls game comes out is fucking expensive.

So after playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for about a month now (after being informed that it would not run at all on my graphics card), I have chosen my two favorite new features.

1) Random dragon attacks
These keep the world in a constant state of flux, instead of being able to predict every monster and enemy encounter as in previous Elder Scrolls games, to say nothing of ANYONE CAN DIE in full swing. Especially since most of the landscape is mountainous, and you'll hear them a loooooong way off. This creates a sense of anticipation and realism, especially if you're currently fighting a group of bandits. It's a worldwide wild-card effect that keeps you on your toes no matter where you are.
It also means that if you're using the Smithing skill tree, you have an endless supply of dragon bones and scales with which to make the game's best non-overpowered type of armor and weapons.

2) Cinematic kills
These are just really freaking satisfying. Whether you're plowing through hordes of generic bandits or finishing off a dragon, this feature makes full use of the game's graphics capabilities.
Also I can never stop myself from yelling "FATALITY!!!" in my best Shao Kahn impression every time it happens.
Or "HEADSHOT!" in my best Unreal Tournament impression when it happens with a bow and goes into arrow-time.

And now for the two new features I hate the most.

1) No skill tree for "Athletics" and "Acrobatics".
Remember how several paragraphs ago I said the dragon attacks add realism?
Well here's where that balances out, unfortunately.
The removal of Morrowind and Oblivion's "athletics" and "acrobatics" skills makes the game feel unrealistic at a base level, since no matter how many times you jump or how much you run, you never get better at jumping or running.
This becomes even more frustrating in the early parts of the game, when you have to hoof it (or pay for a carriage) to the major cities before you can use fast-travel.


2) Fucking Frostbite Spiders.
Gah.
I thought my childhood arachnophobia had faded, but freaking spiders coming out of the freaking ceiling when I'm freaking sneaking.
Especially the boss-sized ones that can't fit through the door you used to enter their room.

Which, ironically, demonstrates my #3 pick for best new feature.
Neither Morrowind nor Oblivion created a real sense of "boss" enemies, aside from the main-quest bad guys.
Dragons, dragon priests, big fucking spiders, eight-foot tall undead kings, and my personal favorite Potema the Wolf Queen all create a grander scale of combat to cap off a harrowing dungeon or ruin crawl.

Especially combined with the Word Walls which not only provide an epic backdrop to many of those dungeon battles, but provide a different kind of reward for winning, Shouts.


So let's talk about Shouts.
This new mechanic has me torn.

On the one hand, it's awesome that Skyrim's hero isn't just a guy/girl who happens to be a reincarnation of somebody cool (Morrowind), or who happens to survive a trip through a gate to hell (Oblivion).
As with the boss battles, Shouts and the lore behind them give a more epic scale to the player character and his/her role in the world.

You're not just good with a sword or magic or a bow or all of the above.
No matter what playstyle you choose, you will always have Shouts at your disposal to enhance that playstyle, if you're willing to hunt them down and kill a lot of dragons to unlock them.

On the other hand, the degree of variety in Shout effects (super-sprint, fire breath, slowing time, changing the freaking weather, forcing animals in the area to help in combat, increasing attack speed, disarming an enemy, summoning lightning bolts, summoning A DRAGON, etc etc etc) reduces the player's need to rely on his/her chosen playstyle.

This can be especially true for magic-based characters, though Skyrim contains an entire arsenal of spells new to the series.

That being said, it's great to employ a three-pronged attack by wielding a sword in one hand, a spell in the other, and having a damaging Shout equipped.
Especially if all three are fire-based, and you're fighting...pretty much anything that isn't a Flame Atronach.
It remains to be seen if fire magic is overpowered.

Which is a feature I never would have expected to see in an Elder Scrolls game:
Different elemental magics serving different purposes.

I played Guild Wars for years, and always loved how the game employed Fire, Water, Lightning, and Earth magic to serve different roles (burning, impeding movement, hitting multiple targets, and providing armor to the caster, respectively).
Until Skyrim, elemental magic in The Elder Scrolls was basically all the same, unless you were fighting a creature MADE OF the element you were using.
Now we see Fire hitting undead harder AND lingering after casting AND being able to SET THINGS ON FIRE, Ice able to impede movement, and Lightning damaging Magicka.



Of course, Skyrim still falls for an issue that has been prevalent throughout the entire Elder Scrolls series.
One of the series' trademarks has been the degree of character customization, especially in the different abilities of the playable races.
However, a key element of the gameworld's lore has been racial tension.
In Morrowind, Argonians and Khajiit were kept as slaves.
In Oblivion, there were rumors of wars between the Nords and Dunmer.
Skyrim pulls out all the stops, with Nazi-esque elves enforcing their state religion, xenophobic Nords in open rebellion, Dunmer forced to live in ghettos after their homeland was destroyed, etc etc.

...but none of this ever affects the player.
No matter what race he/she chooses to play, no matter where he/she goes in the game, no matter what he/she chooses to do.

Because Skyrim's story contains so much ramped up racial tension (to the point of violence repeatedly), this lack of effect upon gameplay becomes that much more glaring.

One of the few, small ways in which Skyrim at least improved the feel of the series in this area is that at least the native Nords aren't pulling a "No True Scotsman" on you.
They actually greet you like you're in your homeland.

Which is only noticeable because the previous two games didn't even go that far.
In Morrowind, playing as a Dunmer still got you treated as an outsider by other Dunmer because your character supposedly wasn't born there.
Oblivion wasn't as negative, but it also didn't do anything on the positive side if you chose to play as an Imperial.


There's one final feature which I feel I have to address.
It isn't explicit in the game design, more of an overall sense within how the game is set up.
One of the other trademarks of the Elder Scrolls series is the ability of the player to play as EVERYTHING.
Be a sword-swinging, spell-slinging thief who saves the princess.
The series' skill trees allow the player to become proficient in whatever he/she is willing to devote practice to, which was and is a huge step up in realism from the EXP of yesteryear.

That being said, Skyrim is the first to truly push the player to focus on becoming proficient in a small number of skills via its skill perk system, in which the player is able to unlock abilities related to the skill as he/she becomes more proficient in it.
Which is hysterically ironic, given that Skyrim is the first Elder Scrolls game to be truly classless.

Instead of choosing a class (or building one of your own) which has a small number of skills which determine when you level up, Skyrim lets you level up whenever you raise any skill or skills a certain number of times.
The skill perk system guides you to focus on a small number of skills to achieve maximum output (whether weapon damage or sneaking or the kind of materials you can smith with, etc.).

This becomes especially true with the weapon skills.
One-Hand and Two-Hand both contain unlockable perks which allow you to turn a cinematic kill into a cinematic decapitation.
Yeah.

So since I'm running out of time before I have to go be productive, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim totally lives up to the hype.

Here's hoping for an Elder Scrolls VI: Summerset, or Elsewyr, or Black Marsh, or Akavir....good God this game world still has a lot to explore!

Sunday, May 17, 2015

MWA 17

Leaves fluttered on the bronzed grass. Hank tightened his grip on the rifle as he crawled into the clearing, his jumpsuit and hat blending into the carpet of Autumn detritus. Thirty yards away grazed an oblivious ten-point buck, antlers almost snarling in the scrub as it chewed the fading shrubbery.
With a whisper of kissing leaves, he sighted the buck in his scope, began to squeeze the trigger...

A howl out of some twisted nightmare tore through the clearing. Hank flinched, fumbling the rifle upward and firing. The deer started, and managed three steps before a giant blur of striped fur enveloped it with a roar. Hank lay prone in the leaves, eyes clinched shut, clutching the rifle to his chest like a safety blanket.

The crunch of deer bone shocked him back to reality. He forced his eyes open, the rest of his body tensed from skin to sinew. His hunter's instinct loosened his grip on the rifle, moved his hand over its action, and kept his eyes locked on the gargantuan cat feasting on its kill, massive canines scything through flesh and bone.

The first click made the beast's ears twitch.
The second made them stand up straight.
The third laid them flat, a low growl emanating from the lowered head still tearing chunks of flesh from its prey.

Hank sighted the striped flank in his scope, praying a .30-06 with a deer load would be enough to bring down the monster.
He wrapped a finger around the trigger, keeping the scope to his eye. He began to squeeze.

The beast reared, a slitted orange eye now filling the scope.

He fired.

The beast charged, sidling left in a blur to catch the bullet near its rear and not lose forward momentum.

Only years of practice guided his hands in that moment, ejecting the spent cartridge and loading another without conscious intervention as thirty yards became three, became none.

Hank threw himself backwards as the great cat leaped.

The shot's report rebounded off trees and rocks and clouds in the clearing.

Hank lay in a mass of moss and fungi at the base of at tree, a single massive paw digging claws into his outstretched boot, its owner dead a few feet away.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

MWA 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 - On The Superhero

In its initial incarnations (especially Superman), the superhero was a powerful form of wish-fulfillment for its creators, mostly young Jewish men escaping from persecution in Europe to a Land of Opportunity across the ocean.

This aspect, combined with the fact that children (read: boys) were the primary audience for comics for decades, led to thousands of stories of black-and-white morality, in which the villain(s) and his villainy were easily identified, and the hero's task was simple: the application of brutality.

A couple punches, kicks, or Batarangs, and justice is served.
No muss, no fuss.

This was good enough for the first twenty years or so, especially when the Nazis were such easily accessible villains for Superman, The Human Torch, or Captain Marvel to beat up again and again.
And of course, the propaganda potential did not go unused, especially in the case of Captain America, which led to the openly-espoused idea, previously just left as a given, that the application of brutality is somehow inherent in the American system of.....government?
Economy?
Geography?

No one took the time to clarify this connection because the country was at war, and no one clarified it afterwards because we felt like masters of the world.
Even so, it became part of our culture, especially as generations of boys and girls ate up the black-and-white morality tales.

As the seventies rolled in, writers at DC and Marvel, the last two remaining comics companies after an idiotic senate subcommittee investigation, began attempting to address deeper issues and more human concepts (and an older audience) than the "punch now, ask questions never" approach of their predecessors.

DC's Green Lantern/Green Arrow explored drug addiction, gang violence, Native American exploitation, pollution, inner city racism, and a myriad of other contemporary debates raging in the halls of college campuses and Congress alike.

Marvel took a different approach, creating more three-dimensional superheroes (beginning with the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man) who had to deal with real-life problems that the whiz-bang characters of the thirties and forties never touched. For example, the Fantastic Four at one point faced bankruptcy because they refused to bank on their fame or inventions.
Spider-Man was and is probably the best example of this shift, being the first true teenage superhero, and being the first example of a comic book character who has a hard life, and that life becomes even more terrible after he becomes a superhero. This would never have been accepted in the two-dimensional morality tales of the previous decades.

But even with these deeper explorations into real-life issues and complexities of the seventies, superheroes remained paragons of the application of violence as a primary means to dispense justice.

It wasn't until 1986, a watershed year in the history of the comic book medium, that anyone set out to truly delve into the inherent nature of the superhero.

The seventies had given rise to the deliberately campy Batman TV show starring Adam West, which had been designed as a deliberately campy satire of the then-current state of the comic: an irrelevant bit of fluff glossing over a truly dark character. Frank Miller saw the darkness, and resolved to bring it to light with The Dark Knight Returns. He started with a Batman who'd started fighting crime in 1939 (when the character was created), and by 1986 was past his prime, living in a Gotham City that had gone to hell in his absence.
This isn't the Bruce Wayne with a smile on his face. This is the guy who saw his parents murdered as a child, something the Adam West show and the comics which inspired it apparently just forgot about. This is Batman walking the streets and seeing a new generation of cold, calculating killers replace the ilk of his parents' murderer, and they're barely old enough to shave. The "hero" is portrayed here as a murderous beast which possessed young Bruce, which was given free reign starting the night of his parents' murder. He does not brutally take down criminals because of some absolute moral duty; he does so because he is haunted, possessed, and in his honest moments admits he loves every minute of it. Especially in contrast to Superman, who is portrayed as a super-sheeple in thrall to a pastiche of Ronald Reagan, blindly obeying orders and carrying out secret wars in Central America.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons were hired by DC to craft a story involving several older characters from the then-recently-defunct Fawcett comics. What resulted is Watchmen, a magnificent work of art and a damning indictment of the concept of the hero. Moore created a realistic facsimile of an alternate 1986 America, in which Nixon has remained president for multiple sets of presidential terms by intentionally accelerating the Cold War to the point of walking the razor's edge of Armageddon, and masked heroes are a fact of life.
The comic, a true "graphic novel" (meaning, it contains over 40,000 words, and thus fits the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's definition of "novel"), deconstructs the idea of a person who would put on a mask and fling violence upon those they deem criminals, portraying each of its vigilante characters as socialyl disconnected, impotent, apathetic, sociopathic, and psychotic, respectively.

These are portrayed as the qualities necessary for a person to not only have a black-and-white sense of morality, but to inflict that morality upon others.

Alongside these two books and others came the first ever full-company comics crossover: DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths. In what became a fairly regular event at DC, and which Marvel found its own version of, the entire decades-old DC universe was re-written, and much of the light-and-fluffy, easily-digested morality elements were removed in favor of more mature, three-dimensional characters and storylines.

The breakout success of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns and the results of Crisis spurred the genesis and development what comic historians now term "The Dark Age of Comics," when the happy-go-lucky punching and kicking and funny gadgets were replaced with grim sociopaths packing heat, a willingness to kill, and a deeply scarred and/or disfigured psyche.
This led to some competition for DC and Marvel for the first time in years as comics publishers like Dark Horse and Image took advantage of the darker-and-edgier trend to market their own characters.

Writers who had grown up with the fluffier versions of the characters eventually rebelled against the trend, resulting in a synthesis of blind traditionalism and superhero psychoses.
This synthesis began in 1996, with Mark Waid and Alex Ross' iconic collaboration, Kingdom Come. In a world filling up with unstable superpowered individuals, Superman and his generation of heroes come into direct conflict with the heat-packing sociopaths of the Dark Ages, all witnessed (and eventually influenced) by Pastor Norman McKay, a completely un-superpowered old man granted visions of a coming superhero apocalypse and guided through them by the Spectre.

As a result of the growing dissatisfaction with the Dark Age concept of the hero, and Waid's humanization of previously-cliched heroes like Superman, the superhero evolved into its current form: individuals with wondrous abilities attempting to make the world a better place, but who are human first, struggling and feeling and able to connect with readers who reach out for some reassurance of stability in an increasingly unstable world.

MWA 8 and 9

Middle School "Alternative Education" Subbing Thoughts of the Day:
1) Never again.
2) UNO doesn't seem like the best game for the disturbed kids to play.
3) A trained counselor is not a trained teacher. Clearly not all are aware of this fact.
4) Substitute counselor plus substitute teacher plus four socially challenged kids = good thing they like UNO.
5) I'm starting to understand the paradox of adults cursing, but not wanting kids to curse.
6) Of all the classrooms to NOT be equipped with a camera...
7) Today I discovered my ghetto voice. Yes, we all have one. Right Megan Teer?
8) How does one discipline kids who are already at the bottom of the disciplinary barrel?
9) I think the end of the childhood disorder maze is what we've known all along: that each child is unique. But each adult is also unique, and adulthood doesn't care what disorder you have.
10) When student fights can begin life as conversations online, physically separating them in class doesn't seem to accomplish much.
11) At some point you resign yourself to "at least they're quiet".
12) I'm starting to believe that a child's taste in music could demonstrate his/her mental state, at least to some degree. We naturally seek out art with which we connect, so it makes sense for a child wanting to lash out physically to find music which does so verbally.
13) Sometimes my subconscious feeds me what-if images or scenarios that make me tear up in awkward situations.
14) I find it interesting that seemingly none of the people shouting "don't force obedience on children" are parents.
15) Never forget: Robb Stark's child could still be alive.
16) Among my top 10 favorite parts of childhood was that science was all exciting facts and no math.
17) It feels really difficult to be a hard authoritarian when your worst student is named "Duard".
18) It's amazing how easily one becomes offended on behalf of one's wife. Especially if she's a teacher.
19) Someday, I'd like to meet a public school coach who isn't a walking mass of conservative American cliches.
20) Every guy needs at least one male friend who embodies at least two negative male stereotypes.
21) That awkward moment when you find yourself accidentally trying to translate "La Bamba".
22) Remember when we trusted each other enough to have live-fire shooting galleries at the state fair? Remember that it was also the time when only white people were allowed in? Coincidence?
23) Student quote of the day: "I don't get anything for not getting in trouble!"

Sunday, May 10, 2015

May Write Away 5, 6, and 7

Ya get into a pattern and flake out for a few days, and suddenly you're playing massive catch-up.

Lately I've started becoming more comfortable with the prospect of being a Socialist.
I don't think I'm alone in that sentiment.
Especially after forty-plus years of it being treated like a curse word in my country, and as a result the scales of political balance becoming so UN-balanced in favor of business that they've pretty much fallen off the table.

Unfettered capitalism is nothing more or less than the pursuit of money (capital), without regard for human rights, safety, or the needs of anyone other than the one pursuing the money. Without oversight of an objective, enforcing legal body, capitalism is just a monetary equivalent of bestial eat-or-be-eaten instinct.

Of course, what American corporate capitalists have managed to do is buy out the supposed-to-be-objective legal body, and completely run roughshod over laws designed to protect the average person from exploitation, to say nothing of writing some new laws designed not only to exploit the average person, but prevent any kind of future oversight.

They've used their control of mass media to create a massive chunk of the American population who willingly shoot themselves in the foot again and again by supporting the corporatists, having been convinced that part of being a "real American" is acting against one's own and one's children's best interests, and these people are also indoctrinating their children with this idea.

Which is the truly insidious part.

I grew up in what I thought of at the time as a "very conservative" home.
Adulthood and Internet access has moderated that description to "fairly conservative," at least in the American sense of the term.

The older I get, the more Leftist my opinions become, especially due to the United States not truly possessing a hardline Leftist party.
The Democrats (at least, those who actually hold to their party's original standards and are not simply corporatist toadies in sheep's clothing) are basically Centrist compared to the rest of the world, especially as the Republicans continue to plow toward the cliff at the Rightwing end of the political spectrum.

Between the above state of things and the fact that pretty much everyone in the American federal government is wealthy beyond the dreams of the average person, there doesn't seem to be anyone to represent me and mine at the top of the heap.

And then there's Bernie Sanders.
Bernie's the longest-sitting Independent in the history of the United States Congress.
And he's a self-identified Socialist.
Which kind of confused me at first, being from a notch in the Bible Belt and seeing hundreds of posts online from frothing-at-the-mouth American conservatives swinging the term like a blunt instrument against anyone they didn't agree with.

The more I examine his actions as a Congressman and his stated opinions, the more I find myself agreeing and sharing them on Facebook, even as a voice in the back of my head seems to whisper "But that's really, reeeally Leftist".

But that's okay.

I think the only reason that voice is even still around is because I've spent so many years trying to avoid political labels and examine every issue and argument from as many sides as possible to avoid being pigeon-holed.
...not that it's been completely successful, especially since some people online will try to stamp you with a label of their choosing the moment your opinions clash with theirs.
This is especially true of self-identified "Christians" who can't help but No True Scotsman all over the place the instant they realize that another self-identified Christian is fighting against them.

I've always endeavored to find a balancing point between "Left" and "Right" as we Americans call them, because a great mentor of mine told me that pushing too hard on one side of a scale or the other makes you miss out on something the other side had to offer.

But as a country, we've tried it the hardline "Conservative" way for decades, and we're in a shambles as a result.
Time to overthrow and try it the hardline "Liberal" way for once.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

May Write Away 3 and 4

The stage felt cold.
The kind of cold that comes from an empty house, even with the lights blazing down from rafters and balcony and a stuffy costume cutting off most of one's breath.

Charlie felt her knees creak as she hobbled onstage to stand on the square of black wood that marked the hidden trapdoor in the middle of the white oak-paneled stage, dust clinging to the octogenarian curtains billowing in the cheap breeze of an oscillating fan somewhere backstage.

She let her eyes trail over the rows of identical red velvet seats covered in plastic sheeting, leap over the cracked movie projector mounted in the front face of the balcony, crawl up the warped paneling along the far wall, and settle onto the fragmented face of a golden statue of a woman seated above a curtained theater box, hands raised ready to applaud.

"Hello beautiful," she whispered, joints popping with her movement.
Down the stage steps, up the center aisle, around the broken ticket booth, up the squeaking, creaking stairs, and huffing and puffing down the balcony's stage-left aisle she strode to stand next to the seated statue.

"How many shows have you seen?" Unthinking, she caressed the cracked cheek with a wrinkled hand, gazed into the unseeing eyes.
"How many dances?" She leaned against the wall next to the broken facade, abandoning her cane to grasp its upraised right hand in both of her own.
"How many of mine? How many of mine did you see?" she whispered, the room's acoustics carrying her words on a whirlwind journey from balcony to stage and over every seat in the house.

"Every last one, sweetheart."
Her eyes opened as her lips pulled into a grin at his voice.
He strode towards her through seats and railing in his red and yellow pinstripe suit and a matching straw hat, holding his dancing cane like a drum major's baton.
"Jim."

"That's right, honey. And now it's time for the finale."
He held out a hand.

"Oh!" she gasped. "Oh but Jim, I'm not ready! I don't have my costume!"
He grinned a grin to make a grumpy cat laugh.
"Sure ya do, honey! Looks as gorgeous on you as it ever did!"

She looked down, feeling lightheaded.
Fur and lace and a feathered fan covered her from neck to high heels.
She laughed and took his hand, the years falling away from both of them.

"C'mon babe," he said. "They're playing our song."

Saturday, May 2, 2015

May Write Away 2

He flicked another gray hair off the razor, trying not to think, trying not to assume, trying not to remember that his thirtieth birthday was days away.
No awards hung on the walls from triumphs of his twenties, except for a bachelor's degree that had taken eight years to attain, and had yet to profit him in his search for any kind of meaningful work.
He looked down at the small cluster of gray in his sink surrounded by the other remains of his beard removal. His phone chimed for the thirtieth time, and for the thirtieth time he ignored its pleading for him to check out the achievements of his peers, now giants in their career fields and/or multi-time parents.
They couldn't help that their successes left him feeling empty inside.
It wasn't there fault the overload of social media left him depressed.
But if they weren't posting their successes on the great digital notice-board, they were posting "inspirational" messages, ostensibly for everyone who wasn't them, that left him feeling pissed on top of depressed.

He set the razor on the sink counter and embraced the touch of burning, searing blue lava erupting from Mount Aquavelva.
At least it made him feel alive, something neither his dead-end job nor his attempts at hobbies could do.

Pain was real.
Pain reminded his heart to beat.
He picked up the razor again, turning it, watching the four blades reflect the dim light of the single remaining bulb.

He set it lightly on his opposite palm, feeling the cold blades against his skin.
He pressed.
And dragged.
Four thin red lines appeared without any of the alarms in his brain telling him he'd been hurt.

No. Not enough.

He reached into his jeans pocket, removing the Buck folding knife she had given him.
Before she'd stepped in front of that truck.
He flicked it open, a click of interlocking steel against itself.

"Yes," his voice choked out.
He drove the point into his palm, the short blade impaling his hand and oozing blood from both sides.
"Yes!"
He drove it into his wrist at the joint.
"I'm alive!"
He closed his eyes, grinning, and slammed it into his stomach.
"I'm alive!"
Taking it in both hands, blood soaking his shirt, he slammed it into his chest.
"I'm ah-"

Friday, May 1, 2015

May Write Away 1

The air crackled with the oncoming blast of ions. Thera shuddered in her harness, trying to stay focused on the controls, trying to punch in the right command each moment to keep the reactor from going critical, trying to keep the ship on course, trying to avoid the swirl of cosmic dust and gas trying to melt the Stormin Norman in the heart of a star aborning.
"Warning. Emergency evacuation protocol is in effect. Please proceed to escape pod," the main computer's voice chimed for what seemed like the hundredth time.
"Thera, the reactor's fuel balance is nearing total instability. Your training does not include maintaining it and piloting the ship simultaneously." Her suit's A.I. whispered via her cochlear implant.
"I know, Melvin," she whispered, keeping her fingers moving and the rest of her mind focused on the too-many tasks at hand.
A more violent shudder racked the ship.
"Thera, the escape pods are ready. Everyone else is in them. The fleet is on its way to pick us up. There's no reason to continue."
"Yeah, no reason except the look on my dad's face when he sees the other side of this nebula." She couldn't help but smirk, continuing to send commands to the reactor's dueling fuel cores, pumping liquid hydrogen and liquid anti-hydrogen into and out of each as the other's level increased or decreased.
The next shudder felt weaker. She checked the sensor screen.
"Time to nebula boundary?" she thought.
"Two minutes thirty seconds. Mark!" came Melvin's reply.

She allowed herself a moment, a breath, allowed herself a smile now that they were almost out of-
"THERA!" Melvin screamed. "LOSS OF ANTIMATTER CONTAINMENT! SIX SECONDS TO DETONATION!"
She fumbled for her harness, fumbled across the cockpit to the release switch for the other pods. One hand flipped the switch, the other pushed the hatch control for the pilot's pod hatch.
The other pods rocketed away at near-light speed.
The pilot pod hatch didn't respond.
She pressed it again.

No response. The screen had gone dark.
No power. The reactor wasn't providing any more power as it vaporized itself.
No hope.

Fleet Command officially christened the newly-formed star Thera2420.