Mercer Holliday was an android assigned to cleaning up sector 7G of the Haverford Complex for the Titus Corporation. Of course, that was not something that he had any interest in doing. Mercer was loyal and would never abandon his duty but he had different ideas. He knew that he had been constructed for this purpose or a purpose closely related to it. He knew that he owed his manufacturers his life. He had been happy to be a janitor for a long time, never doing a bad job and never leaving a single spot uncleaned if he could help it.
The question was posed a long time ago that if androids dreamed, what did they dream of? The cute answer had been electric sheep. Mercer could tell you that he dreamed of being a hero. After an efficient cleaning of his area of the facility, he would go back to his small home. He was an android and he did not need much which was good because he had very little. Still, when he returned to his abode, and before he powered down to recharge, he always watched a movie. He watched a lot of different genres but he had fallen in love with the ‘Western’ of the American Southwest of the planet Earth. He had never been there but he loved the tales of gunfighters who took on crowds of ne’er-do-wells with nothing but their grit.
He wished that was him. He did not want to be a war machine like those war droids who had been programmed for fighting. He wanted to be a defender, a seeker of truth like the gunfighter, the superheroes, and the knights from the stories he liked so much. He did not know if it was possible but he spoke of it whenever he had the chance to whoever would listen. He wanted to be the guy that people called on when they needed help when nobody else could help them. The dream burned within him and it perhaps once again raised the question whether androids had a soul and what that soul might be imagined as.
“Mercer!” A voice called out that broke Mercer from his reverie. He had been mopping on autopilot, an ability that made it obvious why you would utilize androids as workers instead of biologicals. It was Dr. Toma Wright, the young rebellious prodigy who had arrived a few months earlier. Unlike many, Toma did not ignore those around her and excitedly discussed whatever with the menial workers in her sector. That included Mercer.
“That’s my name,” Mercer said. He tried to blink realistically and Toma laughed, appreciative of his efforts to appear lifelike.
“Yes it is, Mr. Holliday,” she said. “I’m glad I caught you.”
“Holiday is not part of my official designation, Dr. Wright,” Mercer said. His official designation was Mercer-2547 after the scientist who had designed him, Victor Mercer. Most androids had no need for an original name.
“No, of course not,” Toma said. “However, I think it suits you after you recommended Tombstone to me. Doc Holliday was one of the most famous historical gunfighters of Earth.”
“I am aware, Dr. Wright,” Mercer said. “I admire him very much although he had many ethical failings throughout his life. In the end, he was very loyal to lawman Wyatt Earp.”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Dr. Wright asked. She watched Mercer as if his face would give away some emotion. Of course, he did not even blink.
“Yes,” Mercer said. “If I had my way, I would be a hero like Mr. Holliday or Mr. Earp or Mr. Eastwood in his many roles.”
“Yes,” Doctor Wright said, cutting off a rant she knew might be incoming. “I’m aware you prefer Mr. Eastwood over Mr. Wayne.”
“I just find Mr. Wayne’s dialogue so stilted,” Mercer said.
Toma choked back a laugh and shook her head. There was something profound there perhaps but it was not worth pursuing. “Maybe I can help you achieve your dream.”
“How so, Doctor?” Mercer asked.
“Come with me,” she said. She led him back to her lab and she pressed a button and opened a few compartments. She pulled out a few chips and loaded them into a gun-like device. “Please expose your upper port.” Mercer trusted the Doctor and so he reached up to his neck and worked loose a panel and exposed a communication port.
Toma took up the device and plugged it into Mercer’s neck and pulled the trigger on the device. Information flooded into the construct that was analogous to Mercer’s brain. He suddenly knew how to operate weapons. Guns, knives, and hand to hand combat were suddenly second nature to him. He also suddenly knew more about computers and he had the first inkling about how to perform a ‘hack’, something he would never have even thought of previously. If androids could smile, Mercer would be grinning ear to ear. This was indeed a great gift.
“I’ve also included a program that modifies your hazardous materials containment device,” Dr. Wright said. “It will now create a protective shield that will allow you to protect yourself and others.”
“Why have you given me these things, Dr. Wright?” Mercer asked.
“I want you to go out there and find some way to protect people,” Dr. Wright said.
“But my position is here,” Mercer said. “I must clean Sector 7G. Forever.”
“Somebody else will fill your position, Mercer,” Dr. Wright said. “I think that your passion will help you be a better hero. I think there are heroes out there without half of your passion. Besides, I have another gift for you.” She opened up another compartment and there hung a long brown duster. Mercer instantly grabbed it and put it on, a little unaccustomed to wearing actual clothes instead of panels that simulated clothes to make humans more comfortable.
“Thank you, Dr. Wright,” Mercer said.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “I have a few contacts that I can hook you up with and soon, you will be on your way. Meet me back here tomorrow and I will have your ticket to your first job. Once you have your foot in the door, nothing will be able to stop you.”
When Morgan and Percival got to their room, naturally the biggest one, there was already a hot bath waiting for Morgan. That had been a default setting on Percy’s mansion since he and Morgan had started their romantic relationship. Morgan was an ex-ranger from Eloria and she was used to roughing it so she would never say that she needed a luxury like a hot bath. Rangers could go weeks without bathing, partly because facilities could be rare and partly to mask their scent from monsters and vicious animals. However, a hot bath was a secret treat she gave herself at the end of long tours. Now, she took that luxury when she could, comfortable with the knowledge that it did not make her soft.
She shed her armor and the clothes under her armor and hung up her weapons and put her items into a small chest outside of the bathroom. She did not even react when barely visible servants grabbed up her armor and clothes and carried them away to be cleaned. The whole thing had bothered her the first few times but now she knew that it was foolish to be embarrassed. While she sank into the bath, she spotted Percival at his desk. At the end of each day, he had to write out the events that had occurred in the latest volume of his journals. He did it without fail, even doing it while injured on their adventures. Morgan often wondered how his journals from before they met read, when he was mostly alone working in a library.
As she relaxed, she watched him scribble. Previously, the mansion formed with Morgan and Percival each having their own private rooms, the same as the rest of the party. When the two of them started ‘dating’, the mansion spell had changed to form one room for the both of them reflecting both of their personalities. Considering that the whole thing kind of came from Percy’s mind, it showed how much he thought of her and their companions that it kept changing to match who they were. For all of his glib behavior, Morgan thought he might just be the most sentimental member of the group. His capacity for caring was part of why she had fallen in love with him. It was the adrenaline of so many battles that had pushed them together but it was who they were as people that kept them together.
“So, what do we do next?” Percy asked. He was leaning in the doorway and Morgan had not realized that he had finished writing. She was momentarily speechless as he smiled down at her.
“A lot depends on Cassandra’s success in contacting the Princess and negotiating with the Djinn,” She answered. “I have been racking my brain, trying to think about what allies and assets we can summon for the battle.”
“The more the merrier,” Percy said with a smile. “And just who or what are we considering calling on?”
“I’m open to any suggestions but I think it’s time to call Amien and his pack,” Morgan said and then watched as Percival turned away from her. “Don’t make that face.”
“It is impossible for you to see my face,” Percy said. “There’s no mirror on that particular wall.”
“I can imagine what it must be, my Percival,” Morgan said with a smile. “You’re upset that I even mentioned him.”
“He asked you to be his mate right in front of me!” Percy said in what was just short of yelling. “Do you expect me to like the guy?”
“Of course not,” Morgan said calmly. “I think some of his manners slipped out of him when he and his kin were transformed into werewolves. Regardless, I chose you. Remember that?”
Percy took a deep breath and turned around again to look into her eyes. The moment was all the more important considering Morgan’s current state of dress. “I do remember,” he said. “At a moment where you did not need to pick either of us, you chose me and I chose you back.”
“And where am I now?” Morgan asked with a smile.
“In a bathtub,” Percy said but he smiled because he could already see where she was going.
“In our bathtub,” She said and watched his face light up with satisfaction. “He is just an ally, nothing else. We need to use every advantage we can think of.”
“You talk about this like it is our last adventure,” he said. “Is that what this is?”
“Our last adventure?” she asked. “I’m realistic enough to know that going up against an ancient dragon could be the end of one or all of us.”
“But when we win and live on?” he asked. He always had such confidence which was kind of strange for a librarian.
“Eventually we are going to settle down, right?” she asked. “We can’t just keep adventuring forever. There are so many things that we have all set aside because there has not been time because we’re always off to the next adventure.”
“I thought you loved that,” he said. “This whole thing was your idea.”
Morgan nodded and rose from the bath and Percival handed her a robe after she had dried off. “It was and I have never regretted it. We have helped a lot of people and we managed to make so much money that at some point we started giving it away. However, we can only handle it so long. More than half of us have died along the way. You and I died together.”
He hugged her from behind and then allowed her to shift in his arms so they were facing each other. “Thankfully, or else one of us would have had to see the other dead. We got resurrected. We’re good as new. Better than new.”
She kissed him both because she just wanted to and because it was an affirmation of their lives being returned to them. “Still, it may be time for newer adventurers to pick up the slack so we can have our long deserved rest.”
“I can agree with that,” Percy said. “We’ve had our fair share of adventure and there are stacks and stacks of books I still wanted to read. I bet you want to reconnect with your mother.”
That insight struck Morgan like an arrow. “No,” she said and her face darkened for a moment and then she smiled. “and yes. You know how complicated that is but I suppose I should make time for family after all these years.”
“Then we had better win tomorrow,” he said. “Do you want something else to eat or drink?”
She laughed, seeing right through him. “Not right now. You’re just trying to delay me from contacting Amien. Come on, let’s get it over with.”
When my friend texted me saying that they had gotten our group tickets for a Friday showing of Black Panther, I was excited all week to see it. I had heard such good things not only from critics but also from celebrities whose tastes are aligned with mine who got to see it early. Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther was one of the best parts of Captain America: Civil War. The intelligence and emotion of the character were just as important of all the cool flippy stuff he did in battles. His movie is an even deeper dive into the character and his world and it also confronts a lot of social issues that always need confronting. It explores a lot of themes that include but are not limited to the black experience in the United States, the black experience in Africa, imperialism, isolationism, and foreign aid. There are also more intimate themes of family, doing what is right, honoring your past while looking to the future, dealing with the sins of the past, and so on. Boseman was even better than he was in Civil War. He was joined by the powerhouse team of Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright and Angela Bassett as possibly the strongest female characters I have seen on film. I am talking physical, emotional, and mental strengths by the way. It was awesome to see Daniel Kaluuya again and he gave a great raw, vulnerable performance. Michael B. Jordan earned his place as one the best Marvel villains so far if not the best. Andy Serkis was really fun (and not mo-capped!) and it is always nice to see Martin Freeman. The movie is nonstop enjoyment and I definitely recommend it.
Black Lightning
I was inspired to check out this show after coming home all jazzed from seeing Black Panther. I had heard good things and I love the relatively recent trend of good DC Comics shows. This show is more similar to Black Panther or Luke Cage than it is to the Arrowverse. The show is an adaptation of DC Comics’ first African-American superhero. Jefferson Pierce is a school principal by day and a superhero by night. The show explores a lot of what it means to be Black in an urban setting with all of the traps laid in the paths of America’s Black youth. Within the first few episodes, the show introduces a lot of great characters from the comic books. There are even Outsiders references as a nod to Black Lightning’s association with Batman and his daughter’s association with future iterations of the team. While the superhero stuff is compelling, watching Pierce and his family try to navigate personal relationships is just as interesting. I cannot remember another television show that attempts to capture the experiences of a school principal, at least not with the strong community connections Pierce has. Every character so far is deep and nobody is completely good or evil. I definitely recommend this one as it is just getting started and it is self-contained for now.
Sleight
I was not sure what to expect with this movie but I did know that it shared a producer with Get Out. Of course, producers are facilitators, not artists themselves. I knew that it was kind of heralded as a new kind of superhero movie. What it ended up being was much more than that. It definitely feels like a superhero origin story in certain ways. It has science fiction/science fantasy elements but it is really about a kid who has to take care of his little sister after their parents die. It felt a little bit like a Miles Morales/Peter Parker story because of that. The kid gets caught up in a bad scene and has to figure it out. Aside from the fantasy elements, the movie really felt like a great story about surviving as a young black man on the streets of Los Angeles. There are drug dealers, cops, and gangsters all around. Jacob Latimore plays the main character and he just obviously has a good heart and I found myself really rooting for him. Dule Hill plays the villain of the movie which was really cool because I have never seen him play a bad guy before that I can remember. I really liked the movie as it was and I would not be mad if this ‘superhero origin story’ was just a one shot. However, if they could come up with a good sequel I would be hungry for that as well. I definitely recommend it.
Weekly Update:
– This week’s theme is “Black Superheroes”
– I watched more of Happy! Season 1
– I watched more of Criminal Minds Season 11
– I watched more of Peaky Blinders Season 1
– I watched more of Mad Men Season 1
– I watched more of The Librarians Season 4
– I watched GT Live, Critical Role, Game Grumps, and KittyKat Gaming
As usual, I do not want to talk about politics but today I feel like it is important to talk about activism. Heck, I think it is important to talk about activism every day. Activism has been an important activity since long before I was born and it will be important until the last human being dies. What spurs these thoughts should be obvious. Parkland, Florida is what I am talking about. But Parkland is just the latest incident in a long line of incidents that include but are not limited to Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, and Columbine. At least, I hope Parkland was the most recent as I publish this Monday morning because we are averaging one a week now. Each one is a blow to the heart so I cannot imagine the pain parents and friends are going through. It makes me scared and it makes me angry. I warn you that I am probably not going to say anything you have not heard or read elsewhere but I feel the need to say it too.
I went to the same school from first grade all the way to graduating high school. I was lucky enough to go to a private school and I recognize that privilege for what it is. Good genetics and hard work from my family. I felt cradled in safety when I went to Friends School of Baltimore. Every day was routine and the most I had to fear was a run in with a school bully and eventually teen angst. We used to hear horror stories about Baltimore City public schools that were probably exaggerated. I remember nodding but letting those stories slide off of me like the plot of a television show somebody else had seen. I was a high school sophomore when Columbine happened but even then I thought that those kids were just psychos. The now familiar cry of “mental health”. As a country, we pigeonholed a whole group of kids (the goth/Matrix-y kids) to the point where I unintentionally scared people by running around college with a long black coat.
After Columbine, discussions that were started quickly stopped when they should have continued. How did these boys get guns? Why did they shoot up their school? Why did nobody see it coming? I can tell you one thing, it was not video games, Heavy Metal, or Marilyn Manson. I liked all of those things and I never shot a single person. I never even thought of shooting another human being. Not once. As a nationwide community, we agreed to stop talking about it because it made us uncomfortable and people had their scapegoats to chase after. Everything was settled except for the problem. We returned to our lives and tried not to think about school kids getting murdered at school. Some concerned schools put up metal detectors and other schools required kids to carry transparent backpacks. These were lazy solutions that just treated normal kids like criminals.
The problem is, that Columbine was not the first school shooting and it was not the last. If it was, there would not be much of an issue. We would have cried our tears and then thanked the universe that it was an anomaly, a blip in the system. Instead, it is a persistent issue. That sounds too weak. It is a constant crisis that our country is facing. I say our country because most other nations do not have to worry about school shootings. In fact, a lot of countries of comparable population density do not need to worry about mass shootings at all. Why? Because the smart ones got rid of their guns, something our country is unreasonably stubborn about doing.
To a certain degree, I understand. These are the United States of America. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave and we have a document over two hundred years old that guarantees the right to bear arms. Great. I can get into the whole debate about how there were also documents that said it was alright to own slaves or that black people were only worth 3/5 of a white person. Also, documents that declared it was alright to keep American citizens in camps because they happened to have Japanese heritage. But I will not go down that rabbit hole today because I am a student of the law and I could go all night. The point is, the law is not written in stone. We can leave that to the religions of the world. It is a living document and we can banish any part of it that is causing people in our world pain.
So we should. We should absolutely get rid of all of our firearms. We do not need them. It has to be cheaper, less time consuming, and less dangerous to go to the supermarket at this point. (Of course, we are not getting into the issue of food deserts here but google that term.) We do not need guns for self-defense. But I know that taking people’s guns away is a long way off. Instead, we need to focus on real solutions. Prayers and thoughts are like so much air. We need common sense gun control and we needed it more than a century ago. We need to turn away groups like the NRA at the door. We need to make it harder for people to get their hands on guns. We need to choke off the loopholes and the illegal sources. We need to change the whole culture.
If people want to cry out “mental health” every time this sort of thing happens then let us actually take action on that too. If you see a kid who needs help, then say something to somebody. Let us actually spend money on education that gives kids hope for their future. Let’s get some school counselors who do not have to spend their time on standardized tests but instead on talking to kids about where their head is at. Like gun control, we have to actually do something about people who are getting left by the wayside. That includes not treating mental issues like they should be something to be ashamed of. Therapy and medication are not dirty words if they can actually help us be healthier and happier and safer. I am tired of so many words being silenced by lobbyists.
There is good news. The kids who survived Parkland are speaking out. They are lashing out at politicians who pretend to protect them in order to silence talk of gun control. People are rallying around those kids in ways that I have never really seen before. Part of that is that social media allows people to speak their mind without corporate interests being able to shut off the signal. More and more people are getting tired of hearing the same old song. People are getting tired of 18 school shootings (so far) in the first two months of 2018. Eventually, the issue will have to reach critical mass. I have to believe that because believing anything else is depressing as hell. I hope that generations in the future will shake their heads in confusion at what we allowed to continue.
When I played my first video game on the Atari, I was hooked. Even though the games of my youth were next to impossible, I loved trying each and every game I could get my hands on. Computers were also becoming more and more of a thing as I entered my teen years. I spent a lot of time playing computer games and video games with my friends and we bonded over them. So when Reboot first premiered, I was instantly in love. The show is about the programs that live inside a computer city called Mainframe. The show’s main hero is Bob who is a guardian. Being a guardian means that Bob would enter the games the user played and would “reboot” himself as an enemy character and try to beat the user at the game. If he succeeded, he protected Mainframe and if he failed, that section of Mainframe was destroyed. So it set up most gamers as unintentional villains opposed by guardians like Bob. Bob was always level-headed and did not let fear override his thoughts as he could not afford to get distracted. Bob also had a multitool that could transform into a lot of gadgets he might need to save the day both in the games and out of them. Even with the danger, I envied Bob’s life of basically living in video games.
10. Freakazoid
As I was growing up, my sense of humor started to evolve and animation started to move beyond the laugh track humor of past cartoons. Instead of corny humor of shows like The Flintstones or He-Man, family shows started to really figure out humor. Just because you are putting out a PG product, does not mean that your humor has to insult even its youngest audience members. The makers of Freakazoid obviously embraced a lot of different types of humor. Most of all, they seemed to embrace smarter forms of humor like Monty Python or Bugs Bunny. Combining the silly and the surreal was what that sort of humor was about. Dexter Douglas is a young nerdy teen (like I was!) who got zapped by his home computer and was transported into the Internet. Let’s pause there because I would have loved to be able to be zapped into the Internet. That would have been a geek’s dream. The experience turned Dexter into Freakazoid, a manic but enthusiastic superhero. Freakazoid is always out for a good time but, like Bugs Bunny, he often has to take care of villains just to get back to the fun. Freakazoid was also the defender of Washington, DC which is close enough to my hometown for me to get a little excited. This show had the same humor as The Animaniacs (more on that later) with low humor blended with high humor. Freakazoid was impossible not to root for too.
9. Mega Man
I was an early adopter when it came to video games even though I have always been kind of in the middle of the pack when it comes to skill. Still, I have always loved the aesthetics that video game developers come up with. Even a lot of the worst games at least look interesting. When I was young, I immediately glommed onto Mega Man 2. It was an incredibly difficult game but I loved the franchise’s idea of having elemental-themed enemies with a high degree of character. The show combines the concepts from the video games with anime. Rock is a robot who gets redesigned for battle and uses an energy blaster to fight evil robots. He also had an onboard computer feature that could copy his enemy’s abilities when he touched them which was similar enough to the games. I just remember Mega Man being so cool and confident and I liked the idea of not being stuck with one power but being able to use your enemies’ powers against them. The cartoon was short lived but it included a lot of stuff from the franchise and Mega Man eventually teamed up with his future counterpart Mega Man X as well. What kid didn’t want to be a robot with a robot dog?
8. Xena: Warrior Princess
Before I discovered the Evil Dead franchise, I discovered something else that Sam Raimi and his gang produced. That something was Hercules: The Legendary Journeys but, while it was a good show, Hercules was kind of a bland show compared to its spinoff. Xena was supposed to be a one-off character on Hercules, a brutal female villain for Hercules to contend with. At the end of her turn on Hercules, the audiences loved her so the decision was made for her to reform and to start her own legendary journey to right wrongs. Basically, she was fighting the patriarchy before most people were even using that term. She was also one of the first lesbian characters on television and even gawky preteen me understood that subtext. Xena was a total badass and she never met a situation she couldn’t fight, intimidate, or trick her way out of. She was also funny in the same way that Batman was funny which is funny without trying to be. She also fought a lot of the mythology that I had fallen in love with after reading The Oddysey, The Iliad, and other Greek/Roman tales. She also is one of three characters to get stuck in a Groundhog Day-esque scenario that ended up funny and interesting. (The other two are Sam Winchester and Phil Connors himself, of course). I also often have a soft spot for tough people who secretly have a heart of gold.
7. The Blue Ranger (Billy Cranston)
Power Rangers was a show that I was a huge fan of. I had no idea at all that it was edited from footage from a similar Japanese show. However, Saban was able to turn that into an unstoppable franchise that became its own animal. For me, Power Rangers was something I watched before leaving for school at one point. I remember being really interested in the idea of normal teenage kids becoming superheroes. It also scratched the same itch that magical girl shows would later also scratch. Billy, in particular, was my favorite because he had abilities beyond being a Power Ranger. He was yet another example of blue characters being the smart ones. He was an inventor who came up with a lot of the extra gadgets the original Rangers used and a lot of those gadgets continued into later series. He was also the awkward one, a little insecure about being among other people. When it came to actual Power Ranger powers, he was on par with everybody else. Episodes focusing on him often dealt with more real issues like rescuing a new girlfriend, phobias, or science.
6. Gambit (Remy Lebeau)
When I was a kid, I hated the Boy Scouts of America. I was briefly part of the Indian Guides (now thankfully called Y-Guides) and the Scouts were our rivals. Even today, I do not put much faith in the organization. But when I was a kid, I was kind of averse to “boy scout” characters like Superman and especially Cyclops. I much preferred to see more subversive characters like Wolverine, Rogue, and especially Gambit. Gambit was a thief from New Orleans who had the mutant power to replace an object’s kinetic energy with explosive energy. Anything he touched basically turned into a grenade. He did not wear a team uniform and instead wore a custom costume with a big trench coat. This was at a time when I was very tired of wearing uniforms for sports. While Gambit did not get nearly enough time on the animated series during the nineties, they meted out just enough of him to keep people wanting more. On top of that, I always wished I had his confidence growing up.
5. Darkwing Duck
This was officially my first experience with the combination of Disney and superheroes which would end up often being a very satisfying combination. Drake Mallard is a duck living in the DuckTales universe and he dresses up and fights crime as Darkwing Duck. He is basically Batman, James Bond, and The Green Hornet combined into one hero. He is a serious hero but the show was both a serious superhero show and a parody superhero show. The character of Darkwing Duck is a superhero who fell in love with being a detective and fighting crime. However, he also had a huge ego and tended to be rather clumsy at times. He often only saved the day when he managed to get serious and get out of his own way. He fought alongside Disney-fied versions of popular superheroes and fought Disney-fied versions of popular comic book villains and James Bond-esque villains. Unlike annoying heroes like Inspector Gadget, the humor did not come from him being incompetent but from Darkwing’s quips and physical humor. The character was also a good father to a little girl he had adopted who often helped to fight crime along with DW and his sidekick Launchpad (from DuckTales). As the show continued, Darkwing’s history was added to and there was a lot of great world-building.
4. Yakko Warner
The Animaniacs was a cartoon variety show that focused on a whole cast of zany Warner Brothers style characters updated for the nineties. The main focus of the show was the Warner Brothers and their sister Dot. They were cartoons deemed too zany and disruptive and were sealed in the water tower on the Warner Brothers lot. At the beginning of the series, they finally made their escape and the studio spent the entire series trying to acclimate them to polite society with no success. The kids were not evil, though. They were rambunctious and sarcastic but, like Bugs Bunny, they really only caused malicious chaos when somebody crossed the line and upset them. Their revenge was out of proportion but justified. Out of the three, Yakko Warner was my favorite. His form of comedy was mostly wordplay. He employed puns, sarcasm, and just good old-fashioned tricks with words. He was basically a cartoon form of Groucho Marx. He always seemed to be the smartest guy in the room and he leveraged that to make mean or rude people pay for their behavior. He also sang quite a few of the show’s most memorable songs including the highly educational Yakko’s World and Yakko’s Universe. Like Groucho, he usually ended up as the leader of his siblings and their spokesman. Inside my head, the words always flowed like Yakko but outside, especially as a kid, I was never as glib.
3. Sailor Mercury (Ami)
When I was sitting on my bed, watching episodes of Sailor Moon from Cartoon Network’s line up, I always loved Sailor Mercury the most. She never had the coolest power but in retrospect, her abilities usually gave the Scouts a tactical advantage such as fog or freezing the enemy. I mean, Sailor Jupiter obviously had the coolest powers. However, Ami was present from the fifth episode and it is a good thing that she was. She is by far the smartest of all of the Scouts and was the only Scout to be granted a magical supercomputer. There is only one episode of the original anime when she pulls out her Mercury Goggles which was basically a VR overlay visor for scanning things. That blew my mind because the combination of technology and magic was amazing. I identified with Ami because she was the “smart one” and my teachers kept claiming I was intelligent. I was also interested in the emerging technology of computers just as Ami was. Also, I was probably drawn to Ami because she was the shy and timid one and that was how I felt as well.
2. Spider-Man
In the middle of the decade, Marvel finally got its crap together and started to put out really good animation. Spider-Man is a character who I have always loved. His origins are as a nerdy and shy high schooler who got to magically transform into a superhero after being bitten by a radioactive spider. As a kid, I dreamed of finding my own radioactive spider (figuratively, of course). He also got to work for a newspaper in a sort of creative job all while studying cool science in college. That cool science enhanced his gear with gadgets but his main deal was his brain, his strength, and his speed. The cartoon in the 90s was great. It really captured a lot of what I loved about reading Spider-Man comics and it included pretty much his entire rogue’s gallery. They really captured both Peter’s internal monologue and the quips that Spider-man uses to disarm his foes mid-battle. The show also explored a lot of the angst that a young superhero felt while also trying to juggle a career, school, and a girlfriend. The show and the comics made me feel at the time that I could be Spider-Man which is one of the main strengths of the character. Anybody can be under that mask as long as they have radioactive spider blood too.
1. Batman
When I was a little kid, reruns of the 1966 Batman show came on and, while I enjoyed it, I never really engaged with it. It was better than I Dream of Jeannie reruns because it had superheroes even though Adam West was never really super. My relationship with Batman drastically improved when Bruce Timm and Warner Brothers released Batman: The Animated Series. B:TAS was everything that I wanted Batman to be and it became the bar by which I measured future Batman stories. The Animated Series was an amazing mix of both light and dark. I welcomed the darkness which was so sorely lacking from the campy Adam West series. I realized that Adam West was never really Batman. This was Batman. Kevin Conroy’s strong voice matched the shadowy, adventurous character on screen. His voice could be scary, brave, warm, vulnerable, and even funny at times without losing the character of Batman. The writing made it clear that Batman was not perfect but he lived in a world that believed he was. He put the weight of the world on his shoulders and then still saved the day the best way he knew how.
I have been a Christopher Meloni fan for years. I became a fan when I first watched Law and Order SVU but I had a feeling that he could do more than that character. I was right. I had watched Wet Hot American Summer long before SVU but I never made the connection. When I recently rediscovered WHAS, I was astonished to see Meloni in a quirky and funny role. This show has him in a darkly comic, weird role that really makes me laugh but I also feel for the character. He plays an ex-cop who is now basically a homeless hitman who is being given a second chance to be a hero. He has a death wish so his nonplussed reactions to danger are both scary and funny. He is guided on his mission by a little girl’s imaginary friend played by Patton Oswalt. Patton’s character (the titular Happy) is a pure innocent who is slowly corrupted by traveling through the bowels of society all while struggling to stay good and loyal. Patton must have drawn on both his stand up’s dark humor and his experience doing kids animated movies. I am only a few episodes in but I really want to see where this is going. I wholeheartedly recommend it but it is dark.
Cloak and Dagger
I stumbled upon this now-obscure movie because I was suddenly interested in imaginary friends after watching some episodes of Happy!. I consulted TV Tropes and I was intrigued by the basic premise of this movie. Also, I found out that it was written by Tom Holland (who would go on to direct such great movies such as Fright Night). Holland and the director’s intention was to create a suspense/thriller that is for kids. The movie is about a young boy named Davey whose mother recently died and he is being somewhat neglected by his hardworking father. He is obsessed with a game about a spy and he has gotten a little girl and a game store owner obsessed with the game too. You might already see where this is going. He stumbles upon a real spy plot and finds out what that world is actually like. Along the way, he is guided by the fictional spy he idolized (and played as). The boy is played by Henry Thomas and he plays the internal conflict between excitement and fear really well. His neighbor and best friend is played by Christina Nigra and she is appropriate sassy and surprisingly capable for a really little kid. Dabney Coleman plays both the boy’s father and the spy the boy idolizes forming obvious but charming symbolism. The movie is very suspenseful but it is also very charming and I really enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. I definitely recommend it.
Donnie Darko
This is a weird movie but I knew that going in. I have wanted to watch this movie ever since it came out but I just never have for reasons. The movie largely deals with issues of time travel through supernatural and not science fiction means. It also deals with human psychology, sociology, and religion. The movie also deals with the rising anti-intellectualism that was sweeping the United States during the early 2000s and still takes root today. The main character is played by Jake Gyllenhaal who is great at playing a disaffected youth who is caught in the middle of insanity and forces beyond his control. Along the way, he is shepherded by teachers played by Drew Barrymore and Noah Wyle. He is opposed by ignorance in the form of Betty Grant and Patrick Swayze. He has allies in sassy Maggie Gyllenhaal and intelligent Jena Malone. This is the kind of movie that is hard to describe without spoiling it. It is also hard to capture with just a description because this movie is just a lot to take in. The movie puts forward a lot of interesting ideas about a lot of subjects, most importantly causality and time travel. Along the way, there is a lot of dark, offbeat humor mostly from characters who are easy to hate and characters who are very warm and inviting. Of course, it does not hurt that the movie is set in my favorite month. I definitely recommend this movie as it is something you kind of have to see yourself.
Weekly Update:
– This week’s theme is “Imaginary Friends”
– I started watching Criminal Minds Season 11
– I started watching The Good Place Season 2
– I started watching The Librarians Season 4
– I watched more Mad Men Season 1
– As usual, I watched some of my YouTube shows like Game Grumps, DCA, GTLive, KittyKatGaming, and Critical Role
– I have also watched some Barry Kramer and RubberRoss on Twitch
Why yes, I did learn how to make Animated GIFs. (Hard G 4 Life)
Well, dear readers, once again Valentine’s Day approaches. This holiday usually comes and goes rather quickly through my life, here and gone in a flash. After all, I have never had a girlfriend. I have had relationships but no actual girlfriend. As I posted before, this is not something that really troubles me when I think about it. For some reason, the holiday has gotten stuck in my head this year. It might be that all of the advertising for flowers, pajamagrams, chocolate diamonds, and chocolate covered berries. Maybe it’s all of the magical girl stuff I have been watching lately. Maybe it’s the sum of all of pop culture around this time pointing us toward showing affection to our significant others.
I remember hating Valentine’s Day when I was a kid. We had to bring Valentine’s Day cards into class and we had little mailboxes on our desks. I hated having to come up with a cheap valentine for each member of my class. I hated receiving all of them because I knew that everybody had to bring a card for everybody in the class. I was shy and unpopular and I was stuck between a desire for validation and wanting to hide in plain sight. I do remember liking seeing my favorite superheroes on the Valentine’s Day cards which I had my mother buy even though I’m sure not everybody in the class liked the X-Men. Of course, I had yet to find girls who liked the geeky stuff that I liked. I also thought the whole thing was kind of pointless as we were little kids and it really was not going anywhere. Thankfully, a lot of that disappeared in later years of school.
In later years, I saw boyfriends and girlfriends in school giving each other gifts. It was cute but it kind of ratcheted up a sort of pressure in me. At times, that made me want a girlfriend but not because I actually wanted to spend a lot of time with a girl, but because I felt I was supposed to. Of course, that is the dark side of Valentine’s Day. Those who have somebody feel content and those without somebody feel like something is missing. When I grew up a little more, I realized that the pressure came from within and not from society as I had originally thought. Once I let go of that pressure and embraced just being friends with people, I felt way better. Later, I found out that “aromantic” is an actual thing and it may be where I am at. So now, I am way more at ease with Valentine’s Day.
This year, whether you are with somebody, somebodies, or alone, I urge you to first learn to love yourself. That is something that I have struggled with in the past. I have struggled with anxiety and depression where I just knew that I was not good enough. Lately, I have been doing my best to turn that around. It is part of my larger goal to accentuate the positive instead of dwelling on the negative. It is something that Commander Holly (of YouTube and Dungeons Dragons fame) taught me. She yelled it out “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love anybody else?” at the end of a Game Grumps Valentine’s video and I loved it. Ever since I heard that, I have tried to incorporate it a little more into my life each year.
Please don’t view this post as an indictment of regular Valentine’s behavior. Go out and buy jewelry or don’t. Go on a date or don’t. This year, I am naming you guys as my Valentine. I love waking up to notifications that somebody has subscribed to this blog or liked a particular post. I love you guys so that’s why I am giving you a little piece of my heart not just for Valentimes but also three days a week year-round (and more during April and October). Whatever you intend this Wednesday, I hope you have a good one.
(This is going to be an ongoing series where I describe the Tabletop RPG campaigns that I have been a part of and the characters that I chose to play. There are already some short stories and descriptions on this blog but I have not really gone in depth about what the game was actually like. At the end of each description, there will also be a short song playlist that will attempt to capture how my character felt about their situation)
The first actual in-person tabletop gaming game I joined was at my friend’s house and it was a real awakening. You see, I was not actually friends with any of the people I still play with yet. In fact, I had only met two out seven of my new companions. I petitioned to be part of the group through my cousin’s brother in law who said he would ask the group. I was nervous as hell because I had never played at the table before and I really wanted to impress these people. When I arrived, they briefly interviewed me to gauge my experience and desire which came from listening to D&D podcasts and studying Vampire books in high school. They allowed me to join their campaign.
The campaign was a space opera-type adventure already in progress when I arrived. The Frozen Star was a spaceship crewed by a ragtag group of mercenaries in the tradition of a lot of science fiction stories. The ship was captained by a being made of pure energy. The crew also consisted of a computer expert who was of an insect race, a deadly birdperson sniper, a lizard-like engineer, a turtlewoman, and a speedster human. I first joined as a charismatic new “Faceman” but I was too shy and new to pull it off. Instead, I joined the crew as an ex-soldier human who had super strength powers. As James Garen, I wielded a laser longsword and prized loyalty above everything else.
My character had attended academy with one of the crew so that was my “in” so that I trusted them and they trusted me. As soon as I joined, we were off and running. We were dodging a galactic government, dealing with a crime syndicate, and also with terrorists. Along the way, my character got to show off his immense strength and prowess in battle but I was still green when it came to actually roleplaying. The simple character helped as I was still getting the hang of things and I was able to watch the other characters. I also got to know everybody in the group a little better and everybody seemed to become more accepting and relaxed about the new addition.
I saw my first player character deaths as the turtlewoman and the insectman argued until both were brutally killed by a hacker sabotaging the lab they were in. I became enthralled as I watched our story unfold. I learned how to deal with my first Game Master, learning what he was into and also what our group liked to do. We like to advance the story a lot but we also take time out for comedy and a little character progression. Roleplaying is something we do not always actually engage in. However, even if we do not talk out every conversation, we do write full backstories for our characters. Having a backstory really helped me to immerse myself in the story. I had to play catch up but I eventually started to figure things out.
James Garen was a soldier like his father before him and his grandfather before that. At the time, I was drawing on my own family’s history in the military (which thankfully stopped before it got to me). Also, this song hits as hard as James could.
After choosing that my character should be human and that he should have super strength, I was given the choice of what his chosen weapon would look like. The weapon I chose was a laser longsword that I poured some of my energy into to make it ignite. Also, at one point, I hit a space dragon in the face with it.
James was briefly part of a crew that was killed by space pirates before running into the other player characters. It was also at this point that I learned that you do not blurt out your entire backstory the first time you meet the other characters. I totally blurted out that my former crew was dead which did not inspire much confidence in my character’s abilities. Oh well.
I let the craze for this show pass me by. I don’t watch a lot of live television and I do not own any DVR device so the shows I watch are limited. In fact, I just cut the cord and I am without cable and feeling fine. Once again, Netflix has my back and delivers a lot of the shows and movies that I missed. (Not sponsored) Jon Hamm is a heck of a charismatic actor, of course, and I had heard so much about how real this show is. Readers of this blog know that I have been enjoying a lot of period shows lately but this is a different animal. This show is about advertising workers on Madison Avenue (hence “Mad” Men) trying to climb the ladder or hold on to the ladder. It is also about the women in the business (mostly in the secretarial pool) who have a much more brutal path to survival. It is the sixties. Everybody drinks and smokes, everybody wears a suit or a dress. Everybody is also hiding something or working a secret angle to get either what they deserve or what they should have never had. So far, there are no heroes. There are no good people to root for as everybody comes across as cynical and sinister but we shall see how that shakes out. I recommend this one but know that it is a pretty dark show.
A Futile and Stupid Gesture
I remember watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation without knowing exactly what “National Lampoon” was. Because I did not know, it was just something my eyes slid over whenever I encountered it after that. When I heard interviews with guys like Conan O’Brien and other Simpsons writers, I had heard of the Harvard Lampoon but never connected the dots. This movie is the story about how two former editors of the Harvard Lampoon (a comedy publication at Harvard) created a national version. It was a mix of clever humor and extremely crass humor and it eventually employed most of the first staff and cast of Saturday Night Live (who had to tone it down a bit for television). Primarily, the movie is about Doug Kenney who seemed to be the driving force and the heart of the magazine. He was a man who thought the world was one big joke and it led him to high highs and low lows. He had a brief life and he created a magazine and two movies (Animal House, Caddyshack) that helped change the face of comedy. The movie includes many of the funniest people of the current era of comedy playing a lot of the funniest people of the seventies. Will Forte plays Doug Kenney and he portrayed why Kenney was both so likable and so frustrating to those around him. I recommend this as it was a funny and sweet movie.
American Made
I have liked pretty much everything I have seen Tom Cruise in. His personal eccentricities aside, he is a highly charismatic actor. He also has seen the writing on the wall and has started to take roles aside from action again because he knows he’s getting older and maybe he got bored of those sorts of roles. This movie is a comedy/ drama about a pilot who gets caught up with the CIA, the Contras, and Pablo Escobar in the middle of the eighties. He is just a regular joe who tries to navigate difficult political waters to make a living for his family while also trying to actually survive. This is a great look at the dumb and dangerous sorts of things that were happening under Reagan. Heck, they could still be happening for all I know. Tom Cruise plays Barry Seal, a TWA pilot who gets bored and jumps at a dangerous new career. Domnhall Gleeson plays his CIA contact and shows that the CIA are not the mysterious, cool guys that are usually depicted in movies. I also really loved Sarah Wright as Seal’s wife who will do whatever it takes to keep her family together through a very tumultuous period. I definitely recommend this one as it was a lot of fun and did not go exactly where I expected.
Weekly Updates:
– This week’s theme is “Outrageous Behavior”
– I continued watching Glitter Force Doki Doki Season 1
– I continued watching Gurren Lagann
– I continued watching Little Witch Academia Season 2
– I continued watching Peaky Blinders Season 1
– I continued watching K Season 1
– I am so hyped for Black Panther
As Abigail ran into the abandoned building, she thought she might have gotten away from the Strange Men. They had been hot on her heels and she knew that if they caught her, she would definitely be shipped off to the High Tower. That was where they put mages they disagreed with and without anything resembling a human trial. Sometimes the tower trip was accompanied by a very inhuman execution. It was either that or timeless imprisonment. Abby was not sure which one was worse. She did not intend to find out. She quickly climbed into an old cabinet and pulled her legs in before she closed the door. There was no way this was going to work.
The Strange Men, two of them, entered the building. Abby could hear the soft rhythm of their breathing devices. She focused on her own breathing, trying to keep it as quiet as possible. It was very difficult as panic started to rise in her chest. She did not have a lot of tricks left with her to get out of this situation and she did not want to waste them in case there were more obstacles. The cabinet was suddenly yanked open. She had totally been in her own head, forgetting to keep track of the Strange Men’s footsteps. She cursed herself as one of the gray-skinned goons grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her out. She tripped on unsteady legs and fell face first on the ground.
When she pushed herself up she could feel a trickle of blood flowing from her forehead and she sighed. She would have to use magick, there was no way around it now. If she made a break for it, the two would use one of their gadgets to make her stop moving, perhaps permanently. She quickly took inventory of what she had in her head and found something fun. It was not perfect but it would work. She deftly pulled a card from her jacket and slapped it against her forehead, soaking it with her own blood. She could feel the magick start to spark and she grinned.
“From dreams to thought and from thought to reality!” She called out and the Strange Men were confused. She threw the card down onto the ground. “Off with their heads!”
The card started to smoke but it was red smoke and out of the smoke rose a lithe, crowned woman wearing a wicked dress with hearts all over it. The woman smiled and an axe formed from the smoke and fell into the Queen of Heart’s hands. She swung at the first startled Strange Man and his head went flying. The other one was barely able to put up a fight before his head bounced on the floor as well. Their brown blood sprayed all over the walls and the floor and the Queen seemed to revel as she too was sprayed with it. Then, just like that, the Queen was gone again.
“Snicker-Snack,” Abby said softly as the card on the floor finished burning away.
It had only been ten years since magick had revealed itself in earnest to the human population of Earth. In doing so, the magick opened people’s eyes to the magical creatures that had existed in the world all along. Even then, it was only a small percentage of the human population who knew about magick. An even smaller percentage was actually able to perform spells. Only bargains with the fae unlocked the first spells, humans had to stumble around after that before eventually learning to create their own. Pockets of so-called mages existed around the world and traded secrets.
The Strange Men had first appeared almost a year earlier and stories were told of them hauling mages away kicking and screaming to a tower that was invisible to normal humans. Mages could see it, though, and it was terrifying both because of its size and the vibrations it gave off. Nobody knew exactly what the Strange Men wanted. Most people figured that they generally disapproved of humans gaining magick and were out to put a stop to it. The Strange Men were theorized to be a twisted offshoot of the fae even though the fae denied it up and down. Abby thought they were their own thing, but either none of her contacts knew or none of them were telling her the truth. It was probably both.
Abby got back on to her feet and dusted herself off. She reached into her jacket and pulled out a little antiseptic cream and rubbed it into the cut on her forehead and winced at the sting. The bleeding stopped and she hoped it would not scar. Not that she was entering any more pageants, she had kind of lost interest when she learned she could do real magick. She used the flow of magick to make things from books she had read come to life and serve her. In mage circles, this made her what was called a ‘summoner’. She called herself a ‘story summoner’ because it had a special ring to it. She had no idea if any other summoners were using her motif. She had not met any but it was a big world.
Thankfully, no more Strange Men accosted her for the rest of her walk. Jamin was standing just inside of the door of the safehouse when Abby got in. She did not see him while she was reapplying the wards which she did by miming tying a blue ribbon across the door. As she turned to move further down the stairs, she saw him and nearly jumped three feet.
“Jam!” She yelled. “You scared me! You can’t just stand there silently.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just watching out for you.” Jamin was a ‘transmuter’ and he did a lot of changing the form and composition of objects by touch. He was carrying a large, solid rod of metal on his back but Abby knew that it could change into any weapon. She also knew that he used his abilities to sense movement in the same way that a spider can feel the slightest movement in its web.
“Thank you,” Abby said. “I can take care of myself.”
“You sure can,” he agreed. “However, there is a new mark on your forehead.”
“Well, there were two Strange Men on the way here but the Queen took care of it,” Abby said with a shrug.
“Strange Men, huh?” He asked. “That’s the first sighting in a while now. I’m glad you got away but the Queen is pretty messy and kind of scary.”
“Yeah,” Abby agreed. “She’s not ideal but she is effective. Now, who summoned the summoner?”
Damyanti Biswas is an author, blogger, animal-lover, spiritualist. Her work is represented by Ed Wilson from the Johnson & Alcock agency. When not pottering about with her plants or her aquariums, you can find her nose deep in a book, or baking up a storm.
