Marvel, DC, WTF?

For the first time in five years I'm actually able to afford a subscription to my favorite comics instead of waiting for them to show up in the bargain bin a month or two later. So I go to the websites and what do I find? Oh, I can buy the fucking digital version no problem, but want to buy it in print? Nah, Brah, that shit is for the birds. 

Just fucking give me my hard copies so that you soulless fucks don't one day decide that I don't own them and wipe them off my fucking hard drive like the apple want-a-bes you are!

<RAGE QUIT>

A Point of Order

If you are dumb enough to believe that handling poisonous snakes will prove your faith in god, and that by refusing the antivenom when you get bitten furthers that goal, then you deserve to die. 

The days where the night was filled with imaginary monsters and every sneeze was a demon looking to get out are over. We build skyscrapers, iPhones, and have robots on the face of another-fucking-world now. We can actually see beyond the farthest planet and out into the vastness of space. 

We have a god-damned space station!

We have discovered evolution - and it's only a theory in the sense that gravity is just a fucking theory - climate change, and relativity. We've built nuclear bombs, leveled mountains, and peered into the depths of the sun seeing things that no man has ever dreamed. 

Yet you want to wave off the paramedic as he comes to you with the anti-venom because, "God will heal me."

Mother-fucker, God gave us minds that could think beyond the vagaries of thousand year old books and that could invent medicines, vaccines, and satellites that could traverse the solar system and beyond.

Take the fucking anti-venom you inbred, hillbilly fuckhead and stop embarrassing the human race.

On Those Sad, Fake, Nerd Girls

This morning I was reading a few tumblers where the authors were complaining about all of these "fake nerd girls" who have started invading our "nerd culture" and how they should all stop and fucking die.

Let me clear some things up for you kids.

I don't care if the girl who is sitting next to me at the Doctor Who premier started watching back when Patrick Troughton took over the role or when Matt Smith stepped up. I don't care if she can't tell the difference between the Peter Parker and Eddie Brock. I could care less if she knows the damage potential of a magic missile, or that it automatically hits. Fuck, I couldn't give a shit if she can't figure out that the Teen Titans in the comics aren't the same as they are on the animated show. 

What matters is that she's here now and enjoying it. 

But she's not a real nerd!

Why? 

Because she came into the "culture" later than you and doesn't have a fountain of useless knowledge to fall back on? Or is it because she likes the things that your hipster ass finds lame?

No, it's because she's just using our culture to get us to fawn all over her and abuse our hearts and wallets.

What. the. fuck?

What sort of sad-sack, bullshit response is that? 

This "culture" that you're fetishizing has been maligned for decades and the whole reason why it's become popular today is because women started picking up on it and thought it was cool. They brought their non-geek husbands, children, and friends along to the movies and picked up the comics. They have brought more notoriety to our conventions as they dress up as their favorite characters; and they have breathed new life into our dying hobbies as they create brand new projects that you get to go all nerd rage about because they're out doing your favorite, trite, bullshit. 

She's doing it right.

You're doing it wrong.

But they're not real nerds!

I am utterly convinced that any woman who walks into the room and picks up a d20, or an issue of Deadpool, should be seen as a sign that the universe is not just a cruel and unforgiving mistress, but that she has a sense of humor as well. Because while you could enjoy the woman sitting on your right as she plays her Druid her own god-damned-way and develop a genuine friendship with a person who can introduce you to your soul mate (Don't be creepy; it isn't her. It's her fine friend she'll introduce you to after you prove you're not a rapist douche bag); you won't. Instead you'll sit there with your arms crossed, huffing like the ignorant jack ass you are, and loudly bray your way through the night, "She's playing it wrong! Why'd you let her play? She obviously has no idea what's going on! Fucking fake, nerd girls!"

You know what, the next time you feel like showing your ass to a lady who comes to a convention I want you raise your right hand and take a good, hard look at it instead. Look at that hand and remember that it's the only lover and friend you've got. The people you hang out with are ashamed to know someone so closed minded and as soon as they can they'll ditch you; and while it's nice of your mother to tell you that these girls just don't recognize how special you are, the truth is that they aren't lining up to date you because you're dick. 

So take a good, long look at that hand and remember that what's ruining this culture isn't the people joining it by bringing an influx of creativity and money to it, but the jackass who's got his hand raised.

/rant

On Rejection, A Letter to the Void

So you didn't make the cut, did you?

The story has been going on for weeks and you're out there on the outside listening to them talk about this person and that, wishing that they'd talk about you and how wonderfully brilliant you are, yet you're doing nothing to earn it. 

Yes, I said earn it. 

Oh sure you can sit there in your dark room banging on the keyboard like a drunken monkey writing your childish screed, but what has that gotten you? Your name isn't mentioned in the same breath as the greats - and it damned well shouldn't be; you've done nothing to warrant that sort of praise.

Quit your belly aching and stop sitting on your ass daydreaming about how magnificent your ideas are and start putting them down on paper. Read over that first draft, wad it up, and start on a second draft. Hate your third draft and disappear in a bottle for six months, only to come out of your stupor with an abysmal forth draft that latter generations will write books about (saying, "This was the moment when we all should have known something was wrong"). Finally you'll consolidate your drafts into something publishable, and then you'll submit it. 

It's then that the letters and emails will pour in! 

You'll have nice ones where you can hear the secretary's velvet voice, "I'm sorry, sir, but at this time we have no interest in Big Butt Owlbears and the Men Who Love Them." Of course those little stabs to your heart will be followed with the real savages of the publishing world. Men who mince no words and who call the cops on you after reading your manuscript in the hopes that they'll find a few of the missing women from your neck of the woods in your basement. Oh, these bastards will rip your heart to shreds and piss on the remains. 

At that point you've given up any hope of being published by others and you shove it on the unsuspecting public through your blog. Ho, ho! You'll be safe there. 

You fool, you god-damned fool! 

You've gone from the frying pan and into the fire as now the real bastards come out from their hovels and shacks to savage your work. They'll shit all over the words you've written and write reviews of your efforts, "Sure his work is impressive to the mindless masses, but here, where the real enthusiasts live, it's just a derivative piece of esoteric garbage produced by a substandard mind."

Ho, ho! You're in the conversation now! Now they're talking about you and writing articles about how myopic your ramblings are and they're telling each other that a blind, quadriplegic could have seen your failings and written a better novel. A forum is opened in your honor and the masses come there to lament the tragedy that was your birth!

You're reading all of it and taking every sling and arrow to heart. "You're absolutely right, it's crazy to imagine a world where unicorns and lepers can fall in love," you write one night in black spray paint under an overpass. So you give up on your dream and toss all your worldly possessions into a pile and watch them light up the night sky as you burn them in an alcohol induced rage.

You go to jail and they throw a party celebrating your fall from grace. "Let's see him write again while Tim the 600 pd gorilla pounds him in the ass!"

Only Tim's a nice guy and you two start up a long term relationship where the two of you eventually get married and on your release you move out someplace nice, where the two of you can be together and enjoy the sea. The years are passing you by and soon you find that your adopted son and his wife are going to be having a baby they want to name after you. Terror grips your heart as you remember what those sons of bitches used to say about you online, so you google yourself and pray that you can't find it anymore.

And there it is, that old forum. "Surely they've forgotten about me" you whisper as you click on the first post. They're still talking about you only now they're talking about how revolutionary Big Butt Owlbears and the Men Who Love Them was and how they wish you had written another novel. You're sitting there crying when suddenly it hits you, you're one of the greats.

By god, you've earned.