Lazy Sunday Post: Where Are You Coming From?

I make a lot of jokes on this blog about how small my audience is. So many in fact, I'm not sure what I'll do if I ever do develop any kind of audience. I'll be like a fat comedian who finally lost weight. (Sidebar: was that joke offensive? Doesn't matter, nobody reads these. SEE! I did it again!) Today though, I'd like to spend an entire Sunday evening breaking down that very small audience, because it confuses me. A lot.

For starters, did you know that my Crackpot Theory explaining Sharknado garnered 25 views, compared to the five and two views of the only other posts on this blog at the time. A 500% increase in readership over the course of a single post! I'm not statistician, but that sounds like a really big jump on paper.

Pictured: Not a statistician.

Weirder still, is that following that post, readership plummeted right back down, and did not exceed that view count until the recorded breaking Squirrel Survey Setup garnered 35 views. That post, as I mentioned earlier, was the first to be tweeted about upon its release, with a follow-up post on Facebook.

Now, I can track the amount of clicks the links I put up get, and the most clicked link I've ever posted (at time of writing) has... eleven clicks. That leaves fourteen page views completely unaccounted for on the last article. Also, there is a single person in Germany who clicks my links. I don't know who you are, but whoever you are, you sir/madam are a champion.

According to Bloggers stats page, most of my traffic is coming from google.com. That makes about as much sense to me as a female demographic does to Warner Brothers (Oh snap!), which leads me with one central question:

Everybody reading this right now, WHERE DID YOU COME FROM? Or to phrase that in less yell-y sort of way, exactly what led you to this blog? Specifically this entry? I know it's a total hassle, but if you could take two minutes to explain in the comments the chain of events that led you to here, it would be much appreciated. I also apologize in advance, as I'm sure you were expecting something a lot more interesting.

I'm just trying to get a sense of what's going on here, maybe figure out how to reach more people the same way I reached kind, handsome, and charming folks such as youself. And if you help me out by taking the time to write such a comment, I'll be sure to include a shoutout to you in my next YouTube video. By the way, I have a YouTube channel. Did you know? Go check it out, it's great. It also has extremely low viewership, for equal reasons I equally cannot explain.

But mark my words, this image will appear in a video. 

Lazy Sunday Post: ¡Soy Coconut!

Before I go any further, let me just say that it was way more of a hassle than it should have been to type out that title. I won't name any characters, but someone *cough* upside down exclamation point *cough* has a very stupid keyboard code that turns my current tab into a new tab.

So that happened. On with the actual point of this post.

As many of you may have notice, I am an extremely handsome shade of brown. For those of you who haven't noticed, take a minimum of ten minutes to admire the handsomeness of the below photo.

Awwwww yeah.

I know, right?

The beautiful shade you see before you is a result of my fiery Latin heritage. My mother was a full blooded Puerto Rican (Rican is a word, Blogger. Racist.) and my father was a Mexican more than anything else. Such a heritage came with great many things. Homemade tortillas on Sundays, eating a lot of tacos, knowing what a tostada actually is, and having someone yell ¡sientete! at you when you were a little kid.

One thing it did not end up coming with though, was the ability to actually speak Spanish. Early on in my childhood, I had a lot of visits from my mother's side of the family, and those people spoke Spanish like it was going out of style. Because of this, 'lil Phoenix didn't know the English words for rice and underwear until he was like, two.

From a childhood like that, you'd probably have guessed I was on the road to bilingualism. Unfortunately, I guess people just sort of stopped speaking Spanish around me, because eventually I stopped speaking it too. I also went on to lose the ability to name the make and model of any car I saw, and decided that blueberries were disgusting. I made some poor choices in my developing years.

And now, after all that Spanglish in childhood, and three years of Spanish in high school, I can declare myself to be a backpack, and family get togethers remain so much bargled (not a word but it is now) speech intermixed with the occasional use of the word "with."

And to put the icing on this coconut-y cake, Wings actually speaks better Spanish than I do.

Yo quero ser un hippopotoma.

That's it for this Sunday folks. Cheers.

Phoenix Creation Journal #6

Hello, one. I'd say "one and all", but the average view per post on this blog is still low enough that the word "all" feels a tad disingenuous (don't even get me started on how many times I misspelled that before giving up and cracking out spellcheck). As is the purpose of this segment, I am bringing out another Phoenix Creation journal to discuss what's what. An update of past, present, and future as it were.

And with the passage of Thanksgiving, it officially 'tis the season for all discussions of past present and future to be delivered exclusively by a trio of ghosts who resemble people in my life.

And in walked the ghost of PhoenixWings Past

I'll be the first to admit that for as long as this blog and my corresponding YouTube channel (Give it a look see,why don't you? If you like this blog, you'll like the channel, because it's more me!)have existed, they've been largely aimless. The sheer number of different tags on my blog articles, that declaration in entry #3 to start up a current events satire series, and the fact that multiple articles are in fact, effectively tagless (not a word according to spellcheck, but it is now), is a pretty clear indicator of what kind of net I've been casting (a massive, aimless, and also kind of lazy one full of holes).

It's also time for me to admit that I secretly had no earthly idea what kind of tone to pursue. I'm pretty sure there was a desire to be fun and witty, mixing in with my tendency to be a straight man comedian, hampered by the need to babysit the kind of boring, soulless stuff I regularly churned out in school alongside this kind of stuff. The result is something, admittedly, even I didn't really enjoy reading.

I honestly can't tell you if it's just because I'm a creative type who naturally hates all his older work or if it's a case of the stuff I wrote genuinely being really uninteresting. If I was a reasonable outside observer, I would probably come to the conclusion that it was likely a combination of the two, but I'm an emotionally invested nutter, so I'm going to say it's all my fault regardless.

A lot has changed for me since I started this kind of work. I've started university work, which wasn't nearly as much fun as everyone said it would be. I started listening to comedy podcasts in lieu of cable, which I no longer have, and the radio, which has been playing the "Wildest Dreams" so often for the last two months that I've seriously contemplated shiving my radio with a hunting knife. And I spend a lot more time with Wings now.

As circumstances and stimuli have changed, I've changed. Maybe to a significant enough degree that we can call this a regeneration, but maybe not. I'm not totally sure just yet. I'm sure I will be two regenerations down the line with the benefit of hindsight, but for now, meh.

Speaking of wavering tone, let's talk art styles! Specifically, the art style of the YouTube videos on my channel. I've tried creating simpler, easier to manipulate versions in Illustrator, but I'm not really a huge fan of the shape this creations take on. In one video, I experimented with a hand drawn, hand colored look, and while this experiment did lead to me adopting a background I was much happier with, I was pretty disappointed with the overall look in that video. I've also tried a combination, hand drawn and hand colored. It saves me a bit of time in the drawing phase, but not as much as Illustrator does.

Followed by the ghost of PhoenixWings present. (It has no face because I don't have three friends)

So where does all of that leave us now?

After all the mess that is the past, I've finally settled into a kind of groove. I know what I want to do, which I can say is pretty exciting in its own, completely monotonous way. As of right now, the most popular articles on this blog are easily Crackpot Theories (Sharknado Nazis and Squirrel Surveys, as some of you may recall), so obviously I intend to continue with more of those. The recent article on Squirrel Surveys is actually also a landmark as the first piece I ever tweeted about, but that's probably best left to another paragraph.

Nerdgasm articles, while not as popular, revolve around a subject matter that I have a lot of passion for, (And also some expertise maybe?) so they're not going anywhere anytime soon either. If anything, I'm probably going to start making more of those just to give myself something to do with my life once I inevitably run out of shows to binge watch. *again raises shield to deflect sea of recommendations*

The Lazy Sunday Post, then, shall remain as the new be all end all, in that it will be where all articles that don't fall under the two other tags go to die. I mean- well, no, I mean die. I didn't mistype. Nobody loves the Lazy Sunday Post. Not even me, and I write the damn things.

I mentioned Twitter earlier and now I'm going to mention it again: I have a Twitter. I got one mostly to reserve my name on it, but also because I knew that in theory it could in some way be useful. To date I've tweeted the releases of two pieces of content, a blog article and a YouTube video, with mixed results. The blog article saw record views, while the YouTube video, my longest to date, ...didn't. Didn't is the most gentle way to describe that. So I'm not really sure what allowed the article to get a boost but not the video. Maybe it was because the article tweet had a bizarre picture, maybe people just don't click strange links on Twitter. Who knows. Hopefully me, at some point.

But what about the video half of my internet... career? Can we call it a career? I'm not sure I want to, because then I think the government can start collecting taxes, and at this point, they'll just end up taking my desk.

Anyway, much like the Desk of 003 blog, my YouTube channel was started as this very nebulous thing that I could do stuff in. Which, while flexible, isn't the sort of thing most people are looking for in a channel. At least, it's not what I'd look for in a channel. I'm interested in subscribing to channels that regularly produce a specific niche of content, and I imagine that's the case with most other people. It's why some YouTubers actually create multiple channels, so that new content doesn't clash with the existing identity of a channel.

I'm happy to announce that much like the blog, I've reigned in the PhoenixAgent003 YouTube channel to a much more focused content stream, breaking it up into two distinct parts: PhoenixWings Shorts, and a headline series.

PhoenixWings Shorts will be quick, one to two minute videos that amount to a single joke or some kind of short video project that I manage to put a PhoenixWings spin on, and they'll essentially be about whatever. Two of them out now are pure, unabashed metahumor revolving around show art style and my Photoshop ineptitude. At this point in time, I have no plans to monetize any of these shorts, so as far as my control extends, there will be no ads on these videos.

The headline series will be an ongoing series I contribute to with as much frequency as I can handle. They'll be longer videos, closer to the four to six minute range. Currently, the headlining series is The PhoenixWings Guide to Heroics of the Super Variety, a show where each episode will give you a quick schooling on how to be a superhero. In the works are episodes to discuss secret identities, costume design, threat detection, and many more topics that I was too lazy to type out for fear of creating a run on sentence. Because I would love to put a roof over my head doing this, I will be monetizing these videos in some capacity or other.

While I'm on the subject of videos, I'll briefly touch again on the subject of art style that I mentioned in a past paragraph. After some internal deliberation, I've decided, for now, to go with the hand drawn, digitally colored look, which takes a bit longer to make, but looks way better in my opinion. If you'd like to read this paragraph the way it sounded in my head, click here.

And in walked the future.

All this talk of the current state of things is all well and good, but what about where the channel and blog are headed? What, exactly, are the current plans for the future?

The biggest goal, something I suspect to be an ongoing one, is to grow an audience. Currently, I believe I'm on the equivalent of a first name basis with all seven of my YouTube subscribers, and I can only assume the readership of a vast majority of my blog readership remains me, Wings, and my mother acting in secret. I'm not reaching anyone I couldn't reach by walking down the hall or dial a number in my phone, and I'd definitely like to change that moving forward. By that I mean reach more people, not less. Just to clarify.

Beyond that, things get much more specific.

First on the agenda, I want to start producing the headlining series faster. I know if I worked it, I could get a video out every two weeks easily, maybe even every week. Bottom line though, however it works out, I want my content to start coming out on a regular, predictable basis, or as close to it as I can get it.

Obviously, I expect The PhoenixWings Guide to Heroics of the Super Variety (or TPWGtHotSV
for all you acronym enthusiasts) to run for a while, but eventually a new headliner will need to step up. I'm thinking of doing a follow-up series where I do a cartoonish evil voice and tackle a whole set of issues for supervillains. I'll call in Xineohp's Guide to Evil Nerfairianism, and I'm actually really looking forward to doing some of those. I may even just alternate between TPWGtHotSV and XGtEN just to help keep my brain fresh.

I'd like to start another video series, a monthly one that just sort of serves as a quick update to comic canon for everyone who doesn't have the time to read comics but also doesn't want to feel outgunnned by that one comic book obsessed friend who spoils all the Marvel movies for them. Catching up without catching up, so to speak. I could easily write off like twenty bucks worth of comics on my tax forms if I started this series. I haven't decided what to call it yet, because "This Month in Comics" was taken. Unlike "I am Machingunsaur", which as we previously established, was all me.

I'm currently in the very nebulous stage of starting a podcast to go along with the blog and YouTube channel. Much like the blog and channel before it, it has yet to find any kind of focus or theme as of yet, but I'm hoping to do something in the way of ridiculous hypotheticals (Which according to spellcheck, isn't a word, but screw yourself spellcheck, I make the rules here!).

I've even kicked around the idea of doing some live action stuff. Getting a real desk, a white jacket, a REALLY big piece of lined paper, and just give it a red hot go. Mostly as a one off thing, just to give it a whirl? I really prefer drawing, and I like the more opportunities it affords for subtle visual humor.

Much like my YouTube videos, I'd like to focus on getting content out more regularly on the Desk of 003 blog, and maybe even giving the thing its own proper website at some point down the line. Blog articles don't take nearly as long to produce as videos, and they'd probably serve as nice breaks from all the drawing that goes into videos (even though the articles now also rely on drawings).

At some point, likely much further down the line, I would like to go ad-free on my YouTube videos, and the best way I can think to do that that allows me to retain the total, no strings attached creative independence I currently enjoy would be to adopt a crowd funding model. So at some point in the future, when I actually have an audience, I'll probably launch that.

Speaking of money, I also want to experiment with merchandise, once I figure out how all that shenanigans works. You know, find a way to mass produce products to sell, find a way to sell them, find a way to make that legal, all that jazz. Currently, there aren't any particularly popular or even recurring images in the show outside of mine and Wings' avatars, so I'll probably start by making replicas of the shirts our avatars wear.

Crackpot Theory: Squirrel Survey Setup

The other day, a friend of mine was walking on her squirrel ridden college campus (Incidentally, her university really chose the wrong mascot. Forget the bird, those squirrels are everywhere.)  and she came across a squirrel with a small tag attached to its ear, presumably the kind of tag attached to animals to monitor them for scientific purposes.

When she brought the tale of this squirrel to my attention, her chief curiosity was what people could possibly be studying the squirrels for. Which, to be fair, is curious enough. But in thinking about that question, I stumbled upon a largely and far more hilarious question: how did they get that tag on the squirrel?

Many of you are likely civilized folks with actual attention spans, and as such have never tried chasing a squirrel with the actual intention of catching it while walking around town. I am not a civilized person, and I have no attention span. In my defense, my cross country team had a rule that if you saw a squirrel during practice and caught it, you would be done for the day.

No one ever got the day off via squirrel, incidentally.

Squirrels are not easy to catch in a straight chase 'em down sort of way. Largely because before you can do that whole "run your prey to death" thing that humans are apparently capable of, squirrels will just scamper up a tree and laugh at your climbing incompetence. Stupid squirrels.

But really, if you needed to catch a squirrel, how would you do it? Maybe you'd use a tranquilizer dart gun. Probably the easiest, assuming that you're not a crap shot. But this is a college campus. These days, they're a bit jumpy about guns, weaponry, or anything remotely shaped like guns and weaponry.

An amusing theory we came up with initially was leaving a bowl of food out for the squirrels and spiking it with some sort of tranquilizer. Sure, you'd probably also tranq some poor sap looking to score a free meal, but it's just a tranquilizer. I'm sure they'll be fine after a few hours.

But then we came up with another idea, and idea so impossibly ridiculous, that it must be true.

It goes something like this.

You see, as much as they like to walk around grabbing table scraps off the ground or out of our hands, squirrels are still largely tree folk. Sooner or later, a squirrel will climb a tree. As a sidenote, I'm going to declare that today's indisputable fact and put it in very large, bold font for the world to behold.

"Sooner or later, a squirrel will climb a tree."

 The best way then, to catch a squirrel, my friend and I decided, would be to don an elaborate but comically low budget tree costume, stand very still in the middle of the squirrel infested campus, and wait for a squirrel to climb you.

Once a squirrel takes the bait, the next step is to simply yell "SURPRISE MOTHERF*CKER" as you grab them in a full bear hug and then forcibly attach the survey clip to its ear.

One can only imagine the psychological impact this would have on the subject squirrel, as for weeks after it can't bring itself to climb a tree out of fear and mistrust for the very foundations of truth it once believed the world operated on. It's other squirrel friends would try their best to rehabilitate him, but oh the work they would have for them.

JET: Come on Phil, you can do it. Climb the tree.

PHIL: NO! YOU DON'T KNOW MAN! YOU WEREN'T THERE!

JET: Phil, Phil! Take it easy. Here, look. I'll climb the tree first, and then you can follow.

*JET climbs the tree*

JET: See? It's harmless.

TREE: SURPRISE MOTHERF*CKER!

Crackpot Theory: The Secret Superpower of Video Game Characters

Not to vindicate the daywalkers, but I probably need to get out more. I say this because for the past few days, I have been completely unable to stop thinking about my newest mortal nemesis, a collective of unspeakable operatives whose agents have ascended quite literally to the highest points of society. An enemy I share with an idiotic robot and an anthropomorphic warrior panda. I am referring of course to:

Stairs.

For those of you who don't know, I recently moved from a quaint, one story house in the suburbs to a very tiny room on the fourth floor of a building which has no elevator. That means that several times a day, I am going up and down four flights of stairs. Any time that I want to get food, go to class, or grab my umbrella because I didn't look out my window or check the weather before going down stairs, walking out of the building, and getting drenched by rain, I will be dealing with stairs. And that's just at home.

Of all the classes I attended throughout the week, not a single one of them is on the ground floor of the building it is in. I often spend my weekends in a two story house. I am on stairs all of the time.

But when I have some free time not being taken up by stairs, I often take some time to sit down, relax, and whittle away my troubles on the old Xbox. I'm a bit of a shooter man myself, and quite recently, I've been sinking a lot of time into Destiny.

And I've noticed, because of the fundamental way first person shooter gameplay works and because of the way the environments are designed, my in game character constantly finds himself sprinting up and down stairs without looking at her feet. I don't know about all of you, but I can't walk up or down stairs without looking out my feet unless it's an unnaturally slow pace.

Try it next time you're on a flight of stairs, see how fast you can do it without falling on your face. Don't look at your feet the entire time, and for added challenge, mime firing a gun at a bunch of alien robots. Ignore the funny looks you'll get, in a few seconds they'll completely forget your bizarre behavior because they'll be too busy  asking you if you need a ride to the hospital for that head injury you just sustained.

I'm sure there are more unrealistic aspects of games, all of which have been parodied extensively online. Why can we carry five weapons at once? Where are we keeping all this ammo? How does heavy breathing allow an otherwise ordinary marine to recover from gunshot wounds in seconds? Is that shopkeeper really oblivious to me robbing him blind just because I put a bucket on his head? All hilarious, all valid, and all well trodden ground.

But I don't think anyone has ever dealt with the full ramifications of stair sprinting in first person shooters. So, to that end, here's a picture of Master Chief tripping down a flight of stairs.

Damn Covenaaaaaaaant!

3 Reasons to Vote Iron Man in Civil War

The upcoming release of Captain America: Civil War has got me thinking: what is Spider-Man's costume going to look like? But also, more importantly, it has allowed me to dive into a comic book-y hypothetical scenario where I try to imagine how fantastical elements of comic books would play out in our world and how we'd react to them. It's a way better time than it sounds.

And so, the premise of the film got me thinking, if the Superhuman Registration Act was something we as the people had to decide whether to put through or put down, what should we vote for?

My personal opinions aside, I can totally use this as an excuse to write multiple articles tying into the film, thus slapping a superhero banner onto my work in a shameless attempt to get more people to read this blog.

To that end, today we'll be looking at three reasons to vote for Iron Man's side of the Civil War conflict. At some point in the future, I'll do a mirror article arguing for Cap's side of the issue. So, without further ado, let's dive in!

1. It'll keep people safe.

Let's talk about one of the big reasons for putting Registration on the table to begin with: keeping people safe. It's time to face facts. Superhumans are dangerous. The first time Thor ever showed up, his sibling rivalry pretty much leveled a small town. Iron Man has made literally all of his own villains. Hulk. I'm not even going to elaborate with that one. Just... Hulk. Superhumans can't just operate with impunity, doing whatever they want and answering to no one. 

Without anyone to answer to, superheroes have caused some major, major problems. Problems that got innocent people traumatized, maimed, and killed. Granted, Ultron apologized for lopping that guy's arm off, but I doubt "sorry" works the same way stem cells do.

So how do we make superheroes safer? By giving them oversight, and someone to answer to. So the next time Thor wants to start something, there can be a better solution than "make him New Mexico's problem." Looking at you, Odin. Or hey, the next time Tony and Bruce disappear into a lab for two days, someone from IA can pop in to say, "Hey, you guys aren't trying to make an artificial intelligence, are you?"

It's not just about keeping the general public safe either. It's about all the Aunt May's and Jane Fosters of the world too.

In The Avengers, when things start to hit the fan, SHIELD has Thor's girlfriend moved to a nice, comfortable job somewhere far away from any potential danger. That's the kind of protection everyone close to a superhero needs.

Imagine The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (sorry for making you do that, just bear with me), but this time Peter Parker is a registered superhuman government agent. The second Electro starts talking about how much he hates Spider-Man, Gwen and Aunt May are both getting a call from SHIELD, or the CIA, or the NYPD, or whoever Spider-Man works for, along the lines of, "Hey, there's a super villain with a vendetta against your boyfriend/nephew. We're moving you somewhere safe while we sort this out."

Boom. Gwen lives, Electro beaten, Green Goblin beaten, Spidey goes on to Spidey another day without having to take two months to angst all over the cemetery.

On top of that, it could cut down on the number of supervillains in the world. Plenty of supervillains are motivated by money. They need the dollar dollar bills, either for their sick relative, their sick selves, or just because they like to buy stuff. Rather than them turning to a life of crime, why not register them as government operatives, have them use their powers for good, give them a salary (it's a government salary, so it's not great, but it's something), and give them benefits (which are great with government jobs) like insurance for that sick relative.

Sandman, on the run, stumbles into the Make a Sandman Project (seriously, were those scientist trying to make a supervillain? Because that's the only possible explanation I have for that experiment.) and gets mutated into a Sandman. Realizing he now has super powers, and knowing that The Superhuman Registration Act provides amnesty for criminals, he signs up, gets his past forgiven, and gets the money to take care of his daughter. Boom, no Sandman, no cops punched by a giant sand fist, nobody backs up Venom in the final fight. Spider-Man can probably take him. Problem solved, day saved.

2. It could help the economy.

It's a fairly well agreed upon point that a good way to help an economy is to boost the number of jobs there are. Should you disagree, that an entirely different article on an entirely different blog. Today, I'm just running on my six months of macroeconomic education and say that jobs are healthy for the economy.

Right off the bat, Superhuman Registration creates a job for every superhero and supervillain looking to reform, which is pretty great. Peter Parker can get an actual job instead of unstable work as a freelancer for a dying media. Ant-Man never needs to break into a place and steal stuff again.Unless, you know, his job that day is to break into a place and steal stuff. Yeah, Steve Rogers won't be able to afford a place in Brooklyn, but who can these days?

So everyone with superpowers has a job. That's great. But jobs don't stop there. You can set up an entire infrastructure around the Superhuman Registration Act. Just out of the gate we've got all sorts of temporary construction jobs to construct or renovate facilities for Registered Superhumans to operate out of. But then there's all sorts of new, permanent jobs dedicated to help make sure the new operation runs smoothly. Clerical work. IT guys. Volunteers. Psychiatric staff. Internships. Security details. HR departments. The whole shebang!

And think about this: every super villain who registers and goes to work for the government is more than just one more working citizen stimulating the economy by spending their salary. Every register villain is also one less person taking up millions of taxpayer dollars serving life in super maximum security prison.

It's like printing our own registered superhuman money!

3. It shows we still believe in America.

You know, it says something about the way things are if we would rather have our protectors be bands of super powered renegades acting with unregulated impunity than people who's job with the government is to keep us safe.

Think about it. If we cave in to Captain America's misguided freedom talk, what we're really saying is we want to people who protect us to be free to act however they see fit, outside the system because the system is broken. If we go down that road, if we give up hope in that system, we give up hope in America.

Afterall, once we lose faith in the system, what reason do we have to follow it's rules? What reason is there to be beholden to it? If we give up the laws, regulation, and oversight that give us order, we give up everything.

Well, we're not ready to stop believing in America, Cap. We still believe that these great United States and the people who work under its employ can keep us safe from threats foreign and domestic. It's not a perfect world, but it's the one we've got, and I'd rather work to make what we have work than give up on our dream.

Register your Superhuman powers, and God Bless America!

Lazy Sunday Post: My Hero(es)

Before anyone guesses, no, this is not about the show Heroes, or the fact that it's apparently coming back. I never saw that, and word on the street is that's a bullet dodged on my part. And while we're on the subject of dodging bullets, let's talk about people who can never die, because, hey, I choose to go by an alias which directly invokes a mythological immortal fire bird, so that's probably in my wheelhouse, right?

Last post, I mentioned that Jon Stewart was my hero, and probably the most single most inspirational man I have ever seen on television. And in the general race, he's pretty dang high too. Not in the pot way, but in the... you know what I mean!

Anyway, I just thought I'd include a list of all of my heroes both real world and fictional and a brief explanation of why they're on the list.

Jon Stewart- In a world of shoddy news media, government corruption, and whatever the hell Fox News is, he was like a colonist from Planet Sensible who absolutely refused to stop reminding the residents of Bullshit Mountain what the mountain they chose to live on was named. Four nights a week for 16 years. Love this guy.

The Doctor- My journey with Doctor who is a bit of a wibbly-wobbly, timey wimey one, so I'll spare you the details of why he's my hero and instead sum it up with the sentiment expressed by Stephen Moffat. He doesn't have laser vision or super strength. He has an extra heart. He doesn't have a tank or a sports car or some kind of jet. He has a box that was designed to let people call for help.

Batman- Oh, Batman. Where to start with Batman. I suppose for starters, I could say the sheer badassery of a mortal man protecting his home from evil, and standing side by side with virtual gods among men is just chill inducing. I could say I sympathize and even empathize with a desire to protect not because you know you're wanted but because you know you're needed. Wherever I started, I would end by gathering all the Batman-haters of the world and displaying to them my officially unofficial Bat-Finger.

Captain America- I once made the distinction to someone that I am Batman but I wish I was the Doctor. Captain America is an entirely different beast. If I could somehow pick the person my children would choose as their role model, I would pick Captain America, hands down.

Mr. P- For the sake of his privacy I won't divulge his full name, but my high school economics/government/psychology teacher/track and cross country coach was one of the most motivational and inspirational figures in my life. He is exactly the kind of teacher I would want to become, and I can't thank him enough for everything he's done in my life. Cheers to you, P.

Mom- Oh shut up. I feel like I shouldn't even have to explain this one, I feel like the name says it all. And quite frankly, it does. She is undoubtedly one of my heroes and if you heard her story she would be one of yours too. And actually, I'm going to close with that. Cheers, everybody.

Phoenix Creation Journal #3

For those of you who don't know, three is a very big number for me. And because of that, I deliberately skipped "Phoenix Creation Journal #3" as a post title and went right for four, because I wanted to make sure that the post that bore the number three contained something special. I had no idea what that would be though, until now.

I think it's a very common feeling to feel the need to have a voice. The world's a big place, and as it marches, shambles, or awkwardly spasms on, I know that we all just want to know our voice is being heard. That people know what we think. That we're not being ignored. I, personally, am privileged to live in a country that features a democratic process, but even with that in place, with all the insatiable billionaires, puppet politicians, propaganda machines, and... Fox News running around, it really does feel like sometimes the grand 'ole democratic process isn't really making my voice heard like it says it does on the tin.

And that's why I think it's an incredibly special thing to encounter someone who has an audience, and who has people who are listening, who has the same views as you do. Someone who can truly represent you. And I don't mean panderingly saying what they think you want them to say so you won't stop listening to them, but really saying what they feel. When you get something real like that, there's this magical moment where you realize you do have a voice. Someone's out there, spreading the exact word you would spread except to an audience several magnitudes larger than anything you're pulling.

For me, the Daily Show's host Jon Stewart was my voice. Everything that upset me in this country and in the world at large, Jon tore into with a beautifully perfect mixture of satirical comedy and remarkable insight. Our views were so lined up that every night when he went on, I really did feel like I was up there, verbally smacking Fox News over the head for being a bunch of poo flinging monkeys who insist that giving all the bananas to the obese alpha gorillas is the perfect way to make sure everybody gets their fair share of bananas. And also, those alpha gorillas have chronic binge eating disorder. Also, screw Fox News.

My point is, I discovered the Daily Show on a recommendation from my high school government and psychology teacher, which I actually heard in passing because he was actually giving the recommendation to a friend of mine. By the time I started tuning in, the host Jon Stewart had already announced some months ago that he would be leaving the show come... well, come now, actually. Nevertheless, I was instantly enthralled. Never before in my life had I ever been so enthused and inspired by a man on television before, and I'm including Batman and the Doctor in that running. In a very short span of time, Jon Stewart became my voice and my hero, which is probably why it's so sad for me to see him go.

Granted, I completely understand the reasoning he gave for his exit, and I wish nothing but the best for him, and his family. I have all the same feelings for upcoming host Trevor Noah that I had for Peter Capaldi when he sneezed into existence and then crashed the TARDIS into a dinosaur's gizzard. I hope he can do something great with the role he's been given, I know I'll tune in to see what he's got, and I'll probably even like his stuff. But I'll never forget my drunk giraffe.

I'm left then, in an odd position, as I mourn the exit and retirement of one of my heroes. And I think about all the idiots on Bullshit Mountain, and I imagine them feeling smug right now. I imagine them thinking that the one guy who could call them out on their crap is gone and now they're free to once again operate with impunity. I'm sure there's others out there keeping the fight going. I hear John Oliver is doing well on HBO, and as I said the Daily Show is still going to keep going with Trevor Noah. But in the wake of John's exit, during which I totally did not cry because I was too busy lifting weights and talking about monster trucks, I've decided that I'm done sitting on the sidelines. From now on, I'm my own voice, and I'm going to use that voice to remind Fox News what a terrible case of the stupids they've come down with. And also probably talk about other stuff.

Do you hear that Jon Stewart? Even if technically your 16 years of comedy gold didn't make the news networks any better at their jobs, even if that side-splitting pun didn't cause all of Isis to spontaneously combust, and even if everyone were to suffer a sudden brain hemmorage accompanied by a global expunge of all Daily Show footage both from Comedy Central archives and the internet, you will still have a legacy, and it will be one horribly inexperienced writer ranting on the internet through a blog that absolutely no one reads. Which is kind of a crap legacy, so you really better hope that whole "expunge Jon Stewart from history" thing doesn't happen.

Cheers.

Phoenix Creation Journal #5

That last post sounded more bitter than I intended, and that made me feel kind of bad because the people I'm bitter with are almost certainly not the same people who will be reading my blog, meaning I just dumped all that annoyed rage of mine on you poor innocent souls. So I thought I'd post something happy to help cushion the blow.

Remember those times I mentioned that I'm working on a novel titled Sara Barton and the Argo? No? That's probably because you haven't read all the articles on this blog. Go read all of them right now. It's okay, I'll wait.

Are you back? Fantastic. So yes, I have been writing a novel. Well now it's done!

Sort of. It isn't available for purchase or even pre-order, and likely won't be for a number of years, and in actuality I've only just finished the first draft, but who cares? I have an actual, 78k word completed manuscript that I'm proud of, a state I haven't been in since... well shoot, since eighth grade, really.

This is really, really huge for me. I feel like I've broken through some kind of glass ceiling. Gotten my mojo back. I've proven to myself that I can do this. I can write a good original novel, start to finish, the whole shebang.

I'm thrilled.

The good news doesn't stop there. As I may or may not have mentioned, Sara Barton and the Argo is part of a larger shared universe of novels and serials that I have planned. While in the process of writing SB&A, I became inspired to finally iron out an actual plan for the shared universe beyond just existing, and as such have created a plan to keep me busy for at least nine more years.

So I've got a finished manuscript and a plan for another seventeen. I'm feeling good right now. Go me. And you know what? Go you. All of you, sitting at home reading this. Follow your dreams. Unless you dream of becoming a serial killer, in which case, follow these nice men who'll take great care of you.

Half-Life is All Dead (And I Don't Care)

It can't be too hard for the average joe to pick up that I'm actually pretty into video games. I quite enjoy playing them, and I also tend to enjoy following games media.

For those of you who don't know, Half-Life is a first person shooter game created by the company Valve that, according to the word of mouth, was a really good, genre redefining title. It's sequel was also apparently really good, it got two more episodic sequel... expansion... things. No one's really clear on it. Most people call them additions bolted on to Half-Life 2, but apparently there are those at Valve who saw them as the first two pieces of Half-Life 3. If that's the case, they really shouldn't have put "Half-Life 2" in the title. I mean seriously, it just confuses people like me.

And lo have we stumbled upon the point of this article. The last time the Half-Life series was heard from was in the year 2007, when Valve released Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (Which is apparently the fourth video game to bear the name "Half-Life." It's as pointlessly confusing as it sounds). Thing is though, I didn't really get into gaming until 2011. I have never played a Half-Life game in my life, and what with modern graphics technology making the look jarringly outdated, I'm not sure I could get into it even if I tried now. So I do not, and will never get, why Half-Life is such a big deal.

That's always put me in a bit of a weird position, since the more long standing members of the gaming community (that's my nice way of saying the old people) seem to hail it as the greatest thing ever to be forged by man. To make matters worse, the last installment of the series left things on a cliffhanger, leaving the internet forever full of mewling Valve fans crying out for another installment. It's been eight years, and they're still mewling, despite the fact that Valve very obviously just doesn't do game development anymore.

 Imagine that cocaine suddenly vanished from the world, and there was only one person on planet earth who possessed the knowledge, equipment, and legal copyright to produce it. All the addicts would gather outside that person's house demand day in and day out for something to sate their addiction, but it's never going to come because that guy's given up drug dealing for a much more lucrative and low effort money laundering scheme. That's where the internet and Valve are at right now. And I'm someone looking at all the addicts going, "Seriously guys, just find something else to do with your life. He's not going to make any more."

I'm not the first person to point this out. There have been numerous other articles and videos pointing out, and often satirizing, the fact that Valve does not make video games anymore. So why are people still waiting for Half-Life 3?

Actually, don't bother finding me an answer to that, because I don't care. That sounds callous, and that's probably because it is. I'm just sick of people willfully ignoring the obvious neon writing in the sand that's also been conveniently written in the sky in thirteen different languages.

I made that cocaine analogy earlier because that's also literally the only explanation I can think of for why people are also still treating Valve with any degree of pedigree. Sure, they've made some undoubtedly solid games, but that's in the past, and you should always care more about who a person is now as opposed to who they used to be. Speaking as someone who's actually never played any game by Valve, my interactions of them have been exclusively spent trying to navigate their over saturated storefront, rebuying games said storefront has deleted from my library, and watching the studio continue to coyly ignore the outcries and expectations of fans that I frankly don't think they deserve.

The point I'm trying to make is, I have zero interest and investment in Half-Life as a series. I don't care if it's cliffhanger never gets resolved, because it was before my time. And the more years go by, the more people like me there will be in the world. Someday soon there will be seasoned gamers who not only have never touched Half-Life, but have never heard of it.

Half-Life 3 will never be release. Actually, that's a lie. If Valve ever goes public it absolutely will be. But Half-Life 3 should never be released. For the sake of the fans and the company, that game should never see the light of day. Because at this point, it's been eight years of waiting, and every passing day it isn't released only raises expectations and at this point expectations are already so high that if the game does not transcend the very fabric of space and time and cure at least three types of cancer, the fans will go rabid and burn Valve to the ground with internet hate fires.

*see Duke Nukem Forever*

Lazy Sunday Post: I am Machingunsaur!

The Lazy Sunday Post, as I'm sure you've all picked up on, largely exists so that I can reveal the inner machinations of my mind without having to put the kind of effort in an actual post would take. I truly enjoy it as a segment in which I can throw professionalism out the window... well more than usual, I mean. This place has a largely shameless degree of unprofessionalism (shut up Google spell check that is a word), but the Lazy Sunday post is so shameless it actually crosses over into whatever the opposite of shame is. I'm aware shame has an actual antonym, and I just remembered what it is, but I refuse to type it out of principle.

Anyway, Lazy Sunday post is lazy. Big shocker there. Let's move on to what I actually came here to talk about.

Sometimes, when I'm incredibly bored or just experiencing some sort of ADHD episode, I suddenly stop whatever I'm currently doing on my computer, open a new tab, and Google the first thing that pops into my head. For no reason, usually. Though I will take a second to say googling the phrase "laser vision" yields incredibly underwhelming results. Get on that Google.

And if there's one thing I've learned, it's that with seven billion people on the planet, there are no original thoughts anymore. Once, attempting to google something no one had googled before, I typed "squirrel is batman".

This is ONE of the results. ONE.

Do you see the power of raw numbers? Statistically speaking, with seven billion people on the planet Earth, the odds of me thinking up something no one has thought up before are literally impossible.

OR ARE THEY?

For you see, ladies and gentlemen, I have had... AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT!

Or at least, original enough that when I googled it, I got zero results, a feat usually only achievable by toddlers and cats. That thought?

"I AM MACHINGUNSAR!!!" (Trio of exclamation points not used in search.)

This was a phrase I would often belt out, exhausted, after a hard days training. Training that usually involved running many, many miles at speeds which would make the jaws of mortal men touch the floor beneath the feet of those very same mortal men. It's a stupid phrase, but it's my stupid phrase, and it's always been a very empowering one for me.

So yeah, the Internet, just remember that even if you finally catch up and popularize Machingunsaur as a gun totting, mother f*cking T-Rex, or a dinosaur with machineguns mounted on the back of its machine gun hands with machine guns for teeth so that its machine guns can machine gun while it machine guns... I thought of it first.

Tomorrow People: Before and After

So I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of hard pressed for something to watch on Netflix right about now. *raises shield to defend against House of Cards and Orange is the New Black recommendations* Jesus, you people are rabid, you know that? As I was saying, in scrolling through the endless grid of movie options, I saw a whole lot of stuff that looked to be incredibly not my cup of tea. Yea I judge books (well, movies and shows in this case, but whatever) by their covers, so what?

Then I stumbled across an apparent recent addition to the Netflix gallery, The Tomorrow People, which according to its description boxes was a show about psychis from the future who fight bad guys.

This grabbed me not just because of the premise, but because it was a premise I had just thought of that day. Basically my idea was that in the future, all of humanity evolved to gain various telepathic abilities as a result of a very widespread population shrinkage event. Hoping to prevent said cataclysm, a psyhic human journeys to the past to unlock earlier man's latent psychic potential, but he's a total jerk about it, so some of the new psychics have to learn how to deal with their abilities so they can tell him where to shove it.

And with that fresh idea in my mind, I'm wondering how The Tomorrow People compares. So I figured I'd give it a watch, and then write down what I think about it because why not. I'm a writer. I write things down.

[One Netflix binge later...]

Huh. Not what I was expecting. Good. But not what I was expecting. I should keep watching this so I can-

WHAT?!

...

I'M BUSY!

...

IT'S FOR AN ARTICLE!

...

NO, I'M NOT GETTING PAID, BUT-

...

OKAY, OKAY! I'M COMING!

[Several weeks, and an additional Netflix binge later to finish the thing off...]

Okay! I finished the entire first season of The Tomorrow People, and can now share my "after" thoughts on it. For starters, it turns out I was misled by the Netflix description. The show does not feature psychics from the future. Rather, it takes the X-Men route of the supernatural characters being "the next stage of human evolution," albeit with a bit more evolutionary sense to it.

Seriously, (cue sidebar) hasn't it ever struck anyone else as wierd that Marvel claims all of its mutants are born from the next stage of the evolutionary process of humanity, and that mutanthood is dictated by the X-gene? Because that doesn't really explain how they have such a wide range of abilities. Surely one mutated gene appearing in the human population would lead to a race of people with similar abilities, not a bunch of people with that many different abilities. Right? Or at least admit that the mutants aren't all the same species, and they all actually made evolutionary leaps in their own directions. Although really, that many organisms making that many evolutionary leaps in that many different directions in that short a span of time seems... impractical?

Ah who am I kidding, this is comic books we're talking about. Let's get back to the good stuff of shooting lases, punching bad guys, and having stupid amounts of fun!

I digress.

Yeah, it is a tad X-men-y (not an adjective but it is now) what with the super powered people being given the scientific name "homo superior", human evolution being used as an excuse, and there being serious tension between humans and mutants. And then towards the end we get a very clear Magneto type with his "Argh, we can never share this world with the humans, rah!" shtick.

Nevertheless, the show is pretty solid. The action's nice, the effects are good aside from one single solitary scene where a telekinetic raises the dinner glasses of everyone at the table in a toast (which by the way is kind of rude, taking the choice of raising the glass out of their hands.), and the writing is solid. Most of the characters are pretty believable and complex, with the possible exception of Kara who seemed to me to switch personalities as convenient to the plot a couple of times.

And then there were the sex scenes. I have sort of mixed feelings about them. On one hand, all of the involved parties are, to put it bluntly, incredibly good looking, and what's on screen is pretty steamy. That said, I can't help but wonder if the production crew might have caught wind that they might not be getting a second season and made a last ditch effort to save the show by injecting more sex into it, because it becomes a lot more frequent in later episodes and sometimes drew out longer than was necessary from a narrative standpoint.

TV/movie visual shorthand for sex is usually intense kissing, followed by removal shirts, hands roaming, then fall into bed and fade to black. The show, especially in later episodes would get to the fall into bed part, and then just linger on two people making out in their underwear in pre-foreplay to the degree that my reaction was usually along the lines of:

"These two are about to have sex aren't they? Oh, shirts are coming off, they totally are. They hit the bed... and we're not fading? ...still not fading? Wow. Okay, look, this is kind of hot, but I have family in the room right now, so I'm just going to pretend to look at my phone until this is over. Well maybe one more look. Okay, back to the phone. Done yet? Oh thank God, the plot to the rescue."

Which is not to give the false impression that this show is softcore porn. Far from it. This was probably something that happened... six times? In a twenty-two episode show? Way more than I'm used to, but I'm sure it's tame compared to some of the stuff out there. Still, I noticed it.

As I may have tipped off earlier, this show did not get a second season. I learned that information about halfway through, and was immediately worried that I was going to get a giant unresolved cliff hanger like what The Flash did to me a few months ago. So it was with fearful uncertainty that I approached the closing episodes, which proved quite an enjoyable ride, coming to a mostly satisfying conclusion.

There were a couple loose ends, but enough were tied to leave an overall satisfying conclusion while still offering up possibilities for the future. A future this show will never see, but still. Good work Tomorrow People. You were nothing like what I expected you would be, but you were an enjoyable romp. Give it a watch if you're looking for something to watch and have already seen Daredevil, The Flash, Doctor Who, Young Justice, and Arrow, which I have officially declared mandatory viewing for all of humanity.

Lil' Note:
Does anyone else find it funny that Robbie Amell is playing a character named "Stephen," which also happens to be the name of his cousin Stephen Amell? No? Just me? Aw.

Oliver Queen's New Suit

As I'm sure some of you may have heard, the CW's hit DC show Arrow recently had itself a grand old time at Comic Con as it does every year. Plenty of things were teased, hinted at, and confirmed. Diggle's costume, gay Mr. Terrific, Barrowman's ring, some other shenanigans that are probably currently escaping my mind because I'm still picking pieces of it off of the walls.

And that's just the news for Arrow. There was also a ton of bombs dropped for its spin-off shows The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Vixen. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which I follow for the same reason you would follow a drunken friend who just walked out of the house carrying a salad fork instead of his car keys, also showed off a new trailer.

As you can well imagine, being the intrepid blogger that I am, my heart swelled with the possibilities this news provided me with. What to write about? What not to write about seems like a better question, really. Not going to lie, I'm excited. I'm positively giddy and I'm bouncing off the walls.

That said, I did eventually have to pick something to write about. I'm an independent blogger scrapping a living almost entirely off of borrowed money. I do not own a press pass and thus am not the kind of person who has any business "breaking the story" as it were. I do, however, find myself in a nice comfortable position from which I can analyze the story, and offer up opinions that would otherwise be wasted in the comment sections of other people's articles.

So, right now, I'd like to talk about the latest image of Oliver Queen's new suit. I don't want to risk my humble little digital desk being overturned and burned by the WB legal team, so I'm not going to include the image here. Instead I'll just post a link to it.

Seen it? Awesome. Now let's talk.

To start with, I like the suit. I find it to be an interesting new direction, and it definitely feels more superhero-y, if that's an adjective (and if it isn't it is now), what with the exposed arms and what not. I had a feeling the sleeves were coming off the suit eventually, given that the showrunners have always stated an eventual goal is Green Arrow in all his glory.

That said, I think I like the old suit more. It was kind of cool how it was slowly modified and updated with necessity and opportunity. It almost felt like a character all its own, growing and changing but still being the same original object. This new suit change isn't an update, its an all-out swap. Which, actually now that I think about it, could work from a character standpoint. Huh. Well played, writers. You're transformation symbolism is duly noted.

So yeah, overall I like it. It's more comic book-y (also probably not an adjective but it is now) which is a direction I can get behind. What I do take issue with is one particular area of skin the Green Arrow's costume leaves exposed. Go ahead and take another look, and pay special attention to the bow arm.

Those new gauntlets the Green Arrow suit has leave Oliver's inner forearm completely exposed. As someone who has operated a bow and arrow multiple times in the past, I can tell you first hand that this is not an area you want exposed when a high tension cord is zipping mere centimeters past your arm after you just used upwards of sixty pounds of force to draw it back. One wrong move, and that bowstring is going to drag itself across your forearm, potentially slicing it open if the bow is powerful enough.

Now I understand my capabilities with a bow and arrow border on the absurdly novelist, and Oliver Queen is literally the most skilled archer in modern fiction (thank you Stan Lee's Fan Fights for settling that debate), but even still. You can't tell me that in the heat of battle, bullets whizzing everywhere and maybe having just been punched in the face, that there isn't even a chance that Oliver will mess up on his form a little and get slapped by his bowstring. Well, you could, and there's actually a chance you're right, but there's also a chance you're wrong, so HA!

Anyway, it just seems odd that an archer superhero's costume would leave exposed an area that archery stores sell gear specifically to protect. But whatever. The suit's great. That forearm's gonna bug me. Can't wait for Season 4. Hi Tom!

Arrow returns to the CW October 7. 

Crackpot Theory: The Infinite North Korea Theorum

As I'm sure most of the free world is aware, North Korea is an interesting place. It's pretty poor, technologically lagging, full of Stalinistic policies so Stalinistic Stalin himself would demand freedom, and its run by an inarguably eccentric man-child. In the 50s, Korea had a big political split that to this day hasn't been mended, necessitating the "North" in its name.

 Despite repeatedly insisting it wants to destroy us all and become the dominant species, most of us sensible nations are content to pat its cute little head and reply "Of course you will, dearie," every time it threatens Armageddon so that we can focus our attentions on countries with more oil.

Like those. Those'll do very nicely.

It was while pondering this, the existence of an ongoing space war between humanity and a bunch of long game playing space, and the presence of surface to space planetary railgun in our backyard that I and my good friend Gamma One came to one, obvious, undeniably fact.

Our planet is the North Korea of the galaxy. 

While you pick your jaws up from the floor, I will elaborate. As previously stated, North Korea is pretty poor, comparatively speaking. A lot of people within its borders seem to be going hungry, or so I'm told from the Grade A journalism that is The Interview. In the past people have attempted to alleviate this by doing what people always do, send in aid. Unfortunately, North Korea is pretty notorious about not being so gracious with accepting aid.

This seems, at least to me, to be a pretty foolish position to take, up there with shooting yourself in the stomach and then punching anyone who offers to stop you from bleeding to death. But hey, to each their own, right? Because now, I want you to picture this:

A galaxy full of space faring, interplanetary traveling, alien civilizations. Some civilizations are bit better off than others, there are a few unstable military regimes and downright horrible places to live. And then, in that one corner of the galaxy, is that planet. 

You know the one I'm talking about. So woefully behind in technology they've only occasional been to their own moon. Full of starving people, poor as poor can be, and incredibly hostile to outside cultures. You've heard rumors of people who visit the planet being locked up in government facilities, never to be heard from again because they're being interrogated and tortured and experimented on. The governing bodies run by eccentric man children. In the 50s, it had a big political split it still hasn't mended. 

The government of the planet insists it is capable of going to war with the rest of the galactic superpowers, and puts out streams of propoganda attesting to this that also paints outside cultures as hostile forces out to destroy them and their way of life.

Luckily, these days, most of the galactic community is content to ignore this backward bizarro world, patting its cute little blue head and saying "Of course you can, dearie" every time it threatens War of the Worlds so that it can focus on planets with more magic space elements.

Like this one. This'll do very nicely.

Some planets do try to send in aid to the poor, starving people of Earth, but the local government is pretty bad about accepting aid from outside civilizations, so- you see where I'm going with this.

For all the looking down on North Korea we here on planet Earth do, there is a proportionately equal amount of looking down on Earth being done here in the Milky Way. And it doesn't stop there, for it also follows that just as the Milky Way looks down on Earth, so does the local galaxy cluster look down on the Milky Way. And just as the local galaxy cluster looks down on the Milky Way, so too does the universe look down on our local galaxycluster. And just as the universe looks down on our local galaxy cluster, so too does the multiverse look down on our universe!

Best of luck with coming to terms with that.

003 out.

Phoenix Creation Journal #4

If you read my last Story Spotlight post, then you know that sometimes when I'm at my computer, I'm not working on my own book (like I probably should be), but I am instead checking out Fictionpress and more recently Wattpad in search of something interesting and well written, doling out constructive criticism as I go and secretly hoping to cause one of the people I critique to go read something I've written and in turn comment on that. (Preferably something I've written this year.)

So I admit I have something of an ulterior motive, but hey so does everyone. Your parents probably had any number of secret reasons for you being born. Maybe they needed another tax write off. And it's not a sinister one, so I have no guilt.

But anyway, I recently took a look at three different stories, two of which I was genuinely interested in and one which I admit I was drawn to simply because the summary was a horrendously common "I suk at summaries lol" and I wanted to impart some advice and hopefully make the poor author stop being so generically bad.

None of the three stories ended up being worth writing up a story spotlight on. There was a story which lured me in with a zany title and promises of cyborg adventure fun times, but at time of reading it consisted exclusively of a single prologue which detailed a horrible childhood accident (presumably giving birth to the titular cyborg). Nevertheless, I was genuinely alright with it and wish there had been more, since what was there wasn't enough to make me want to set up notifications.

See, I don't "follow" or do the local equivalent lightly, like a lot of other people on the internet (no offense). I don't friend someone on XBL or Steam unless I've played with them on two separate occasions and enjoyed both times. I won't favorite an author online unless I like at least two of their works. I won't subscribe to a Youtube channel unless I enjoyed at least two of their videos. Okay, I completely break that rule on Twitter, but that's just because I can't take Twitter very seriously. And neither does it. 140 characters is not enough space for serious. I digress.

The other two stories consisted of a story about a human/alien hybrid caught between the two sides of a human/alien war and another prologue, this one to a story about angelic warfare and fallen angels and also the apocalypse? Pretty sure there was an apocalypse thrown in there. They mentioned nuclear war once.

I left some constructive criticism on all three, opening by stating my intentions were benign but this was going to hurt, like the nurse who gives you your shots. I admit, I got a tad scalding at times. I'd just finished a marathon of Zero Punctuation, it rubs off on me. But I tried to keep my tone light and supportive. I think I did a fairly good job of it too.

The author of the alien story offered a brief reply, paraphrased as such: "Thanks for the feedback. I'll work on it." The author of the angel story opted to assume the fetal position and have themselves a brief cry. That in an of itself isn't the end of the world. Criticism can hurt sometimes, even if it is made with best of intentions. As long as you don't ignore it, you're doing fine.

But this is where it gets interesting. Because a fan of the story, not the author, but a fan of the story, decided to take it upon themselves to stick up for the story, and responded to my criticism with a levelheaded and dignified acknowledgement and rebuttal.

By that of course I mean they cursed me out (that'll show me, trying to call the writing style immature), declared that they and plenty of other people liked the story (which clearly means it is flawless and couldn't possibly be improved by something like proper grammar), informed me that the author's work was way more original (I never slagged the author's originality. If anything I think I'd actually praised it, but what ever) and all around better than mine because they'd seen my work (And I wonder what they meant by that. The single, three year old story I have on Wattpad? Or the various five year old stories I have on FF.net?) and my work was just a rip off of most Sci Fi RPGs (Now they're just making things up. I wrote PJO stories that borrowed from CoD and zombie movies [not as cool as it sounds] not from Sci Fi RPGs. My Wattpad story was about a fat guy joining the CIA and dying. What Sci Fi RPGs was this kid playing?), and if I wanted to be "that guy" I could take my critique somewhere else because I'm a horrible human being. Also, fuck me, apparently.

And my apologies to you sir or madam. I did not realize that the word "comment" translates directly to "cheerlead." Constructive criticism, which I'd left, is meant to help the author improve their work. Those who cannot accept it are doomed to fail.

All of this came to my mind as I read the extremely eloquent and well thought out response to my criticism, and suddenly I realized that the "Reply" button was sitting there, mockingly mooning me and daring to fire back.

"No, it's okay, you don't have to stoop to their level," it cooed seductively. "You can be calm and rational and be the bigger person and make them see the error of their ways. Then after lunch you can cure cancer and go piggy back riding sea horses on the moon. It'll be wonderful."

So I did not click the reply button, and I never will. In fact, I intend to never directly acknowledge my extremely well mannered new friend ever again. Because some people are just not worth the effort, and those people typically conveniently coalesce in the comment sections of the internet.

I still wanted to rant out my rebuttal though, so you guys get this. And to you, my silver tongued fellow Wattpad connoisseur, to you who will almost certainly never read this, I say

Fuck off.

Story Spotlight #1 Defenders of Earth - Book 1: Bittersweet Reunions

To start off with, since this is a bit of a new thing I'm doing here, I'd like to explain what's going on right now. As I'm sure I've mentioned about six or seven billion times, I'm writing a novel. In this particular case, it doesn't really matter how much further in the future you're reading this or how known I may or not have gotten in time since writing, because I will always, always be writing a novel. At some point, I'll develop dementia and every time I sit down to start writing I'll have forgotten what I'd written before and probably never get anywhere anymore, but still. I will always be writing a novel. That's one status that never needs updating.

But anyway. I know how incredibly hard it can be one of the innumerable horde posting writing to the internet. I know firsthand the steady decline in ambition when you throw your work out there for all to see and no one so much as glances your way. Yeah, maybe you see the view count go up a hair every now and again, but really, no one seems to taking notice. No one makes note or comment of your existence. It sucks. I don't like that feeling, and I certainly wouldn't wish it on anybody else.

So to that end, I'm going to do my fellow unknown authors a bit of a service, and give them a shoutout. Fat lot of good that'll do them now, since at time of writing I'm pretty sure the only one who reads this blog is my wife. But whatever. It's the thought that counts.

Alright, that's enough explaining what I'm doing, time to start doing it. For the first ever Story Spotlight, I give you:

Defenders of Earth - Book 1: Bittersweet Reunionsby Fatal-Blow

The Defenders of Earth series is, by all impressions thus far, a snugly fit member of the superhero genre, one of my favorite genres of all time ever, so even going init had already scored points with me just by being about one of my favorite subjects. Which was good, but it definitely lost a point or two with it's title. Colonize if you want, but if you're going to colonize, please drop the "Book 1."

Anyway, the title can be forgiven for now, since the big function of a title is to draw new readers in and if you're hearing about this story from me instead of Fictionpress you obviously don't need the title to be directed to give this story a try. Makes sense? Good.  Now we can talk about more important things.

Defenders of Earth, as I've said, is a superhero story, chronicling the coming together of a group of teens who have all inherited superpowers from their biological parents, a group of genetically engineered superheroes who used to work for the government. The teens come from a very diverse range of backgrounds and locations, with many of them not even speaking the same language (though you'd be amazed at how many people in this story speak Wolf).

The one thing they all have in common though, is that they're all kids dealing with their powers. My favorite chapters in this story are easily the character spotlight and introduction ones, where the reader gets to walk in the shoes of the new character and see what it's like ti have any number of these abilities.

If you're like me and you're fairly well versed in comic books and comic book movies, you're going to notice some X-men parallels. There's a good guy with mental abilities recruiting the kids so he can help them deal with life and they've got a really swanky mansion, and there's a bad guy who the good guy used to know who's also recruiting for his own likely nefarious causes. Where I think the two IPs differ, at least importantly, is that the X-Men franchise has always been much more about asking the question of how the world would react to people with fantastic abilities (and also an allegory for LGBT rights if you're Bryan Singer, apparently. Totally missed that as a kid. But hey, I was like six when I saw those movies.). Which is a great question to ask and answer. Defenders of Earth, however, looks at things from a different angle and asks how the people with the powers react to having powers.

One complaint that I'm sure some may have will be that the actual plot does seem to be moving a bit sluggishly, at least so far in as chapter 10. I personally didn't mind too much, since there were a lot of characters being introduced in all of those chapters and I was just having a ball getting to meet them and then watch them interact with each other. Call it a character driven story I guess? I hear people like those.

So anyway, if you like superheroes, and if you like character centric writing, I think this might be worth a look for you. I know the author would be thrilled to get some feedback on what he (or she? It's the internet, it's kind of hard to be clear unless they come out and say it.) (...I'm a guy, by the way.) has out so far. So please, saunter on over. And tell 'em 003 sent ya. (You don't actually have to say that I sent you. Though I guess it'd be cool if you did.)

Anyway, I'm Agent 003, and this has been Story Spotlights.

Lazy Sunday Post: Typo Terrors

For those of you who don't know, I do more than just blog incoherently at nothing about nothing in particular whenever the mood strikes me. In fact, there's even a chance that at least one person reading this actually recognizes my screen name and knows that I'm actually an author.

Well, I say "author", but I'm pretty sure you actually have to have a book published before you can call yourself one of those. But you know what, I've written an embarrassingly large enough amount of fanfiction, and I've got enough book ideas in my head that I'm going to keep using that title and hopefully no one will think to call me out on it. Or look up my fanfiction. Please, God, don't look up my fanfiction. It's atrocious and from when I was in middle school. I keep it exclusively as a souvenir, not as a serious example of me as a writer. 

I was going somewhere with this. And I still am, so don't commit me to the asylum just yet. I bring up my identity as an author because I once again am writing a novel, Sara Barton and the Argo, a story set in the Adventureverse/Phoenixverse/whatever I decide to call it one day. I'll probably explain what exactly that's about one day soon, but for now I'd just like to throw that out there. It's a whole lot of fun, especially thanks to my recent discovery that I can type without looking at the keys (No idea how that happened, never got around to taking Keyboarding in school), and I can't wait to publish it.

That being said, the experience so far has also served as a wonderful reminder as to why I use a laptop over a typewriter. Well, besides the whole thing about typewriters weighing a metric butt-ton and being incredibly out of date. I make a lot of typos. Little ones, mostly, and nothing helps hide them than the red squiggly line and Google's right-click to correct feature.

And since this is the lazy Sunday post, I figured I'd crank out a free article by listing out my most common typos. Enjoy.


Pari/Paor=Pair I have no idea why this happens so much, but it does, and it annoys me. 

Sra: Sara This one happens almost everytime I try to type out this girl's name, and she's the protagonist of the whole dang novel, so yes, this one comes up fairly regularly.

hoepful: hopefully I don't know what it is with me mixing up the order of letters.\

frood: food Heh. Frood.

iot: it The more of these I list out, the more I think that I really should invest the eight seconds it takes to program an autocorrect.

slgith: slight This one is a nightmare. I literally retyped it three times while trying to correct it once.

And, as a bonus, my favorite typo that I ever made:

pooped: popped Really changes the meaning when the sentence was supposed to be "a brick wall popped out of nowhere."

The CW and Their Justice League

If you're my wife or one of my classmates, you probably know that a while ago I released a video to YouTube in which I pointed out the very obvious and said that the CW network was building their own small screen Justice League, and upon further review I've come to the conclusion that I was even more right than I thought, which as you may well know is saying something, because I usually assume that I'm 100% right all the time unless Wings says otherwise.

She's always right.

My initial thesis that CW is making its own Justice League was based on the fact that there were about seven DC superheroes working together. At the time, that I was as far as I thought the rabbit hole went. Oh, how short sided all thinking seems in retrospect.

I have discovered that if the CW's Justice League roster fleshes out as I've predicted, we could actually be looking at something even more similar to the classic comic book Justice League than we thought.

The Dark, Powerless One

No, I don't mean in a race kind of way. What I do mean is that the Justice League has that one dark, gritty hero who has no superpowers but has instead risen to superhero status through intensive physical and mental training. They operate largely at night and focus on ridding their cities of crime by striking fear into the hearts of their enemies while adopting a strict no-killing policy.

For the classic Justice League, that job goes, of course, to the Dark Knight Detective himself, Batman. But on everything I've just said also applies to a CW hero who is no doubt going to be fulfilling the same role once his Justice League comes together. 

What I'm saying is (really what we've all been saying) that the Arrow is Batman. I've always held my suspicions that he didn't just act like Batman, but for all intents and purposes was that universe's Batman, but there were a few moments that really hammers this idea home for me. 

The first thing that really sold me on this was when I watched the two-part Arrow/Flash crossover, and literally every thing that anyone has ever said makes Batman/Superman team-ups cool was on display in those episodes, with the Arrow very comfortably filling in Batman's half of that relationship. 

But what really left no doubt in my mind was when (SPOILERS FOR ARROW SEASON THREE SKIP DOWN TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH YOU'VE BEEN WARNED) Ra's al Ghul, rather than killing Oliver Queen for assualting Nanda Parbat, offers Oliver the chance to take over the League of Assassins. For those of you who aren't obsessed with Batman, allow me to explain that this kind of relationship with Ra's is a huge element of the Batman mythos, and for the Arrow to take it on has left me with no doubt that in this universe, the Arrow is Batman.

And you know what? I'm okay with that. The Justice League needs a Batman, even if its not a literal Batman. As a sidenote, please note, Warner Bros, that I said a Batman, as in singular. That does not mean that you need to turn every single one of your superheroes in a dark, gritty, tortured avenger. (Believe me, that is not the last you'll hear from me on that subject.)

The Ultrapowerful Boy Scout

Before he stood for wanton destruction and neck-snaps, Superman stood for truth, justice, and the American/Russian (long story) way of life. He was a ultra powerful metahuman who managed to retain his humanity. He was compassionate and brave, a symbol of hope and inspiration. He was a good guy. Not in the sense that he was on a particular side in the good vs evil thing, but he really was a good guy. The kind you were supposed to take home to meet the folks.

Hm. Ultrapowerful metahuman with a heart of gold who's been openly stated by others to be a symbol of hope, now where else have I seen- enough foreplay it's Barry Allen.

I never even considered that the CW's Flash could be an analogue to any Justice Leaguer other than the Flash. At least, not until I saw the Arrow/Flash crossover, when I realized that just as Oliver was fulfilling the Batman half of the classic Batman/Superman dynamic, Barry was just as comfortably fulfilling the role usually held by Supes.

And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Comic Superman and CW Flash are both ultrapowerful golden boys who play good cop opposite their grim and brooding buddies. 

The Tech-y Flyboy

Unlike my earlier Batman/Arrow comparison, here's one I'm fairly certain a lot of other people on the internet haven't made.

To begin with, a lot of people are still calling the CW's Ray Palmer aka "The Atom" an Iron Man rip-off, which I have to say is a bit unfair. For starters, while Iron Man is easily the most recognizeable flying dude in power armor, he's by no means got some kind of patent on that shtick. Beyond that, the character that is now Ray Palmer was initially supposed to be Ted Kord, a genius inventor crime fighter known as the Blue Beetle. Blue Beetle in power armor makes a lot of sense. The Atom, less so, but when DC tells you that you can't use Ted Kord and have to use Ray Palmer, then you use Ray Palmer. S'the way it goes.

But enough about that, because I've got someone else to compare The Atom to. To begin with, let's boil him down to some defining traits that he brings to the table. An overconfident smartass who utilizes hyper-advanced technology to manifest all kinds of powers from flight to energy projection while also using said technology for a wide range of information gathering activities.

Know anyone else like that?

Hint: It's this guy.

That's right, ladies and gentlmen of the jury, I propose to this courtroom that despite that one Superman joke in "All-Star Team Up", Ray Palmer is actually an analogue to the Green Lantern!

The Lighthearted One

Referencing that one video I made once again, I'd like to once again bring up the prospect of The Flash's Cisco Ramon becoming the superhero Vibe, and how he'd fit into this still technically hypothetical Justice League the CW very obviously has cooking.

Cisco has been the lightest heart on an already lighthearted show. He's the one who gets all excited watching Barry in action, gets a stupid huge grin whenever he's talking about tech and inventions, and gives all the supervillains their cool supervillain names. Despite this, he has shown his more mature and emotional side at times, proving theirs more to this loveable nerd than an endless supply of cool t-shirts.

If Cisco were to become Vibe, he'd be the slightly immature, lighthearted superhero who can occasionally get himself caught in jams as a result of his youth and inexperience. I could also see a lot of people misunderstanding or underestimating his powers when they first meet him.

And that description fits perfectly on...the Flash. Don't worry, it confused everyone else I told too. I'm not talking about the CW Flash. I'm talking about the Flash from the Justice League animated series, and to a lesser extent comic book Flash. 

On top of these comparisons, comic Flash is pretty good friends with comic Green Lantern. They have all kinds of team-ups and, for lack of a better word, bromance. That's not a far stretch from what we got to see with Cisco and Ray, who as previously established, is this universe's Green Lantern.

Mind blown? Mind blown.

The Freaky Outsider

Do you know that Martian Manhunter really, in terms of power level, pretty much a green Superman? He's got superstrength (okay, whoop dee doo on that one, since every other person in comics has super strength) and he can fly. He's also a shapeshifter, he can go intangible, and he's a telepath. A very, very powerful telepath, who if you wanted to could lobotomize everyone in a room all at once with his mind.

He's also green, and socially awkward, and incredibly isolated from the rest of humanity due to his species and powers. Complain all you want about your isolation Supes, at least you were raised here and aren't green. J'hon J'onzz just sort of showed up one day. Born in a world where everyone was a telepath probably feels terrifyingly alone even inside his head on Earth. That is a man who is alienated.

But who on the CW's roster of heroes has been made into something of a powerful freak due to his superpowers? Well, just taking a shot in the dark here, but I'm going to say its the disassociative identity disorder patient who's on fire all the time.

In this world, Firestorm is our Martian Manhunter.

The Girl

Okay, I admit this is where my comparisons get a little flimsy. Laurel Lance and Wonder Woman don't have a ton in common outside being the only girl who seems to be around right now. I hear there's another CW spinoff in the works that's aiming to bring in, among other people, Hawkgirl, and if that happens I'm pretty sure their Hawkgirl will make a much better Wonder Woman stand-in than the Black Canary, what with Hawkgirl being an aggressive femme warrior type. But for now, this is what we've got.

The Other Guy

I said this is where things get flimsy, and I meant it. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Martian Manhunter. Those guys have been on the Justice League since (in technical historic terms) like forever. Their archetypes are things that you will see in a Justice League roster. 

But the seventh guy? That's a bit trickier. Comic tradition says Aquaman is the seventh member. But then there's the extremely popular and beloved DC Animated Universe that says Hawkgirl is the seventh (probably for the sake of having more than one girl on the team). Then the New 52 decided Cyborg is the seventh.

So, for the sake of making this argument even feasible, I'm going to say the seventh is Cyborg, boil him down to a younger hero swept into the larger conflicts of the League by circumstance, and then declare that Roy Harper can probably fill that mold if we needed him to. 

Yeah, I know Colton Haynes left the show as a regular, but he's still open to guest appearances, so I can still use him. 

Man, this argument kind of fell apart toward the very end... ah well, was fun to write.