Abandoned: An Archive

As a way of closing out our November abandoned work theme and of commemorating the end of another largely wasted decade of my life, I’ve combed through more than ten years of Google Docs and dredged the fertilizer lagoon of my computer’s Documents folder to find as many of my aborted creative projects as possible. Below you’ll find an archive of unfinished stories, essays, tabletop games, characters and custom content for role-playing games, and an assortment of random brainstorming documents. All but a few of these pieces are short. Some are very, very short.  These are the works of an artistic dilettante. Someone too lazy to ever take his writing as seriously as he should have or hoped to. I’ve organized the items chronologically, and I’ve tried to include the year in which they were written (and, whenever possible, the month), though sometimes the best I could do was a rough estimate. I’ve included a short description with each piece to provide a tiny bit of additional context. (Still, good luck figuring out what the hell I was trying to do with most of them.) None of the pieces have been edited, so expect plentiful typos and lots of poor grammatical and artistic choices. Much of the writing below is offensive and incoherent, even by my lax standards. It’s bad, is what I’m trying to communicate. Enjoy.

Consumptive Adept

Unfinished Dungeons & Dragons custom class.

Date unclear. Possibly 2008.

Consumptive Adept

“*cough*”

Adventures: 

Characteristics: 

Alignment: 

Religion: 

Background: 

Races: 

Other Classes: 

Game Rule Information: 

Abilities:  Constitution.

Alignment:  Any.

HD: d12

Class    Base Attack    -Saving Throws-               
Level    Bonus        Fort   Ref Will   Special               

   1      +0          +2     +0 +0        Tuberculosis, Phthisis Focus, Dostoyevskian Awareness I

   2       +1          +3     +0 +0         [Untitled Dex] I, Immune Efficiency   

   3       +2          +3     +1 +1         Dickensian Charm I, Agonized Distraction

   4    +3          +4     +1 +1        [Untitled Str] I, Salvation through Suffering

   5    +3          +4     +1 +1         Dostoyevskian Awareness II, Psychic Quarantine

   6    +4          +5     +2 +2         [Untitled Dex] II, [Initiative Boost]

   7    +5          +5     +2 +2         Dickensian Charm II, Vampiric Facade   

   8    +6          +6     +2 +2         [Untitled Str] II, Developed Resistance

   9    +6          +6    +3 +3          Dostoyevskian Awareness III   

   10    +7          +7    +3 +3          [Untitled Dex] III, Violent Catharsis

   11    +8          +7    +3 +3           Dickensian Charm III

   12    +9          +8    +4 +4          [Untitled Str] IV, Contagious Breath

   13    +9          +8    +4 +4           Dostoyevskian Awareness IV   

   14    +10          +9    +4 +4          [Untitled Dex] IV, Phthisic Supremacy

   15    +11          +9    +5 +5          Dickensian Charm IV

   16    +12          +10   +5 +5        [Untitled Str] V, Spes Phthisica

   17    +12          +10   +5 +5         Dostoyevskian Awareness V, Contagious Essence

   18    +13          +11   +6 +6         [Untitled Dex] V

   19    +14          +11   +6 +6          Dickensian Charm V, Consumption

   20    +15          +12   +6 +6         [Untitled Str] VI, Consumed

Class Skills: The following are considered to be class skills of the Consumptive Adept: Alchemy, Concentration, Craft, Heal, Hide, Intimidate, Listen, Profession, Search, Spot, Survival, Use Rope

Skill Points at 1st Level: 4 + Int modifier x 4.

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier.

Class Features: 

Tuberculosis: In order to qualify for this class, the character must be suffering from an advanced case of tuberculosis. Although this class grants the victim a certain level of control over the more severe physical effects of the illness, the character continues to suffer from its lesser positive symptoms: coughing (often including bloody mucous), chills, fever, fatigue, pain while breathing, etc. Also, the Consumptive Adept remains contagious until he gains the ability to suppress this contagion at later levels. If the Consumptive Adept’s tuberculosis is cured by magical or non-magical means, he or she loses all of his or her class abilities.

Phthisis Focus: Starting at 1^st level, the Consumptive Adept gains an ability to manipulate the wasting effects of his disease in order to generate temporary resilience at the cost of physical deterioration. As a standard action, a Consumptive Adept may temporarily trade 1 point of constitution for an extra hit die worth of temporary hit points. The Consumptive Adept may use this ability any number of times (until constitution is reduced to 0), but each use requires a standard action. Temporary hit points gained in this way last one hour. These hit points are lost or spent prior to permanent hit points. The Consumptive Adept regains constitution spent in this way at a rate of 1 point per full hour of sleep.

Dostoevskian Awareness: Starting at 1^st level and continuing ever fourth level thereafter, the Consumptive Adept may select one Wisdom based skill. The Consumptive Adept may pay a number of hit points equal to or less than his class level in order to gain a bonus on a check on that skill equal to the number of hit points expended.

Immune Efficiency: Starting at 2^nd level, the Consumptive Adept gains a level of finesse over his tubercular constitution that grants him the ability to strengthen his defense against poison and disease at the cost of physical deterioration. The character may spend a number of hit points equal to or less than his class level and apply a bonus to a fortitude save equal to the number of hit points expended.

: Starting at 2^nd level and continuing ever fourth level thereafter, the Consumptive Adept may select one Dexterity based skill. The Consumptive Adept may pay a number of hit points equal to or less than his class level in order to gain a bonus on a check on that skill equal to the number of hit points expended.

Agonized Distraction: Starting at 3rd level, the Consumptive Adept gains a level of finesse over his illness that grants him the ability to initiate periods of fatigue or pain in order to breach the effects of charms and other psychological conditions. The character may spend a number of hit points equal to or less than his class level and apply a bonus to a  will save equal to the number of hit points expended.

Dickensian Charm: Starting at 3^rd level and continuing ever fourth level thereafter, the Consumptive Adept may select one charisma based skill. The Consumptive Adept may pay a number of hit points equal to or less than his class level in order to gain a bonus on a check on that skill equal to the number of hit points expended.

Salvation through Suffering: Starting at 4th level, the Consumptive Adept gains a level of finesse over his illness that grants him the ability to inflict sudden bursts of internal pain upon himself, generating increased adrenaline levels that can be used to evade physical dangers. The character may spend a number of hit points equal to or less than his class level and apply a bonus to a reflex save equal to the number of hit points expended.

: Starting at 4^th level and continuing ever fourth level thereafter, the Consumptive Adept may select one strength based skill. The Consumptive Adept may pay a number of hit points equal to or less than his class level in order to gain a bonus on a check on that skill equal to the number of hit points expended.

Psychic Quarantine: Starting at 5^th level, the Consumptive Adept gains the ability to control and suppress his contagion. As a standard action, the character may choose to activate or deactivate the contagious nature of his disease. 

: Starting at 4th level, the Consumptive Adept becomes capable of utilizing the pain caused by his condition to give himself brief bursts of adrenaline, boosting his reaction speed. At the start of initiative, the character may spend a number of hit points equal to or less than half his class level and apply a bonus to an initiative roll equal to the number of hit points expended.

Vampiric Facade: Starting at 7^th level, the Consumptive Adept gains the ability to manipulate the positive symptoms of his disease, enhancing his appearance of sickliness and contagion, in order to disrupt the attention of an opponent. The character may spend a number of hit points equal to or less than his class level and apply a circumstance bonus to armor class equal to the number of hit points expended. This bonus lasts for one turn per class level.

Developed Resistance: Starting at 8^th level, the Consumptive Adept’s tuberculosis becomes resistant to treatment. The adept’s tuberculosis becomes immune to all non-magical cures. The adept may also apply a modifier equal to his number of Consumptive Adept class levels to fortitudes saves made against attempts to cure, remove, or otherwise treat his disease. 

Violent Catharsis: Starting at 10^th level, the Consumptive Adept gains the ability to inflict high levels of feverish pain upon himself, resulting in manic frustration. During combat, as a standard action, the Consumptive Adept may pay a number of hit points equal to or less than his class level and apply a bonus equal to the amount of hit points rolled to his next melee attack roll. If he succeeds in this attack, he may also apply the same bonus to his damage roll.

Contagious Breath: Starting at 12^th level, the Consumptive Adept becomes capable of directing the pathogens that he exhales, using them to attempt to infect specific individuals with tuberculosis. The adept may temporarily expend 2 points of Constitution in order to attempt to infect a single target. This ability functions like the spell Contagion, except that it uses a ranged touch attack (limit 15 ft.) and can only be used to transmit tuberculosis. The Fortitude save DC is equal to 10 + Consumptive Adept level + the adept’s constitution modifier. The Consumptive Adept regains constitution spent in this way at a rate of 1 point per full hour of sleep.

Phthisic Supremacy: Starting at 14^th level, the Consumptive Adept has developed a symbiotic bond between his disease and his body that allows him to manipulate his internal equilibrium at the expense of physical deterioration.  As a standard action, a Consumptive Adept may temporarily trade any number of points of constitution for bonus of an equal number of points in another ability score. The Consumptive Adept may use this ability any number of times (until constitution is reduced to 0), but each use requires a standard action. Temporary ability points gained in this way last one hour. The Consumptive Adept regains constitution spent in this way at a rate of 1 point per full hour of sleep.

Spes Phthisica: Starting at 16^th level, the Consumptive Adept begins to experience moments of manic euphoria symptomatic of advanced tuberculosis. At will, the adept may temporarily expend one point of constitution to act as if under the effects of haste for one turn.   The Consumptive Adept may use this ability any number of times (until constitution is reduced to 0). The Consumptive Adept regains constitution spent in this way at a rate of 1 point per full hour of sleep.

Contagious Essence: Starting at 17^th level, the Consumptive Adept may attempt to use his control over his viral pathogens to infect several individuals simultaneously. This functions as Contagious Breath, but the adept may chose multiple targets, expending one point of constitution per target.

Consumption: Starting at 19^th level, the Consumptive Adept gains a degree of mastery over and understanding of tuberculosis that allows him to manipulate the bodily equilibrium of others suffering from the disease, sapping their life to obtain short-term health benefits. If the Consumptive Adept successfully grapples a target that has been infected with tuberculosis, he may inflict one point of permanent constitution drain on the target and obtain a point of temporary constitution for each turn that he manages to maintain the grapple. This ability does not elicit a save from the target. Temporary ability points gained in this way last one hour.

Consumed: At 20^th level, the Consumptive Adept becomes totally unified with his tuberculosis and the character and his disease become a single organism. The adept’s tuberculosis is no longer considered a disease, and thus becomes fully immune to all forms of magical and non-magical healing. If the character dies, any spell that raises the character also raises his tuberculosis, preserving all class abilities. The character’s type changes to aberration. Also, the character gains Fast Healing 5.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Simple Weapon and Light Armor Proficiency

Empyrial Ashes

Beginning of an unfinished fantasy novel

Date unclear. Possibly 2010.

Empyrial Ashes

I

    The house had been filthy for as long as [name] could remember. The purple-red mold growing below the kitchen cook stove might as well have been the colony of some distant imperial dynasty. Its borders were continually expanding as it advanced across the floor, driving native hair and dander into refuge between the floorboards. The milk pans had become ponds, with a layer of algae replacing the skin of the settling cream. Frogs plopped from pan-to-pan at night, disturbing [name]‘s sleep as they loudly propositioned mates. Mice had nested in the straw and rags insulating the walls. They were ambitious builders, gathering and piling and clumping the insulation, securing their comfort at the expense of drafts and cold spots for the house’s other residents. After their walled city became overcrowded and materials became scarce they turned on their neighbors. [name] never saw their battles, but he heard them. He heard the scurrying and the screeching of combat, and the  pained whines of the retreating wounded.

    Once, while he 

The Seed Seller

Unfinished prologue to an aborted fantasy novel.

Date unclear. Possibly 2010 or 2011.

    The men knew the seed seller was inhuman because his shoes were always clean. It was the worst drought in generations. The dust settled everywhere. It settled on the drying tongues of every man as he worked in the fields. It settled on every sprout yellowing in every row. It settled in the lungs of every child. 

 But it never settled on the seed seller’s shoes. They were always polished. Every skin cell in the leather was reflective. When the men would not look him in the eye, when they would stand with their hands wrapped tight around their stomachs and mumble to him with their eyes on the ground, they would go home and tell their wives that they were staring at his shoes. They couldn’t look the man in the face. They couldn’t barter with him like any other traveling bum. His shoes were just too god damn distracting.

And, besides, there was no bargain to be made. They couldn’t afford to dicker. Most of the sprouts had already died in the ground, and within days all the others would follow. If they didn’t get new seeds planted right away, there would be no crops before the frost. 

So they paid the seed seller what he asked. It wasn’t so steep anyway. It could have been worse. They’d heard of men paying higher prices for rotten corn cobs and bags of beans that were equal parts mold and spider eggs. In an emergency, you paid what you had to pay and your family ate.

 They didn’t buy the rest of his promises. They didn’t believe that the seeds would flourish in dry ground, or that they could thrive on dew and the sweat of the men that planted them. The seed seller was a braggart, like any other man who lives off the taste of his own words. He was strengthened by their desperation. The more hopeless they had seemed, the more he would have lied and the bigger the lies would have been.

So they bought the seeds with no expectations, and waited for rain. They waited for fog or mist. They waited for a cloudy morning or a humid evening. Any hint of moisture, even the heavy suffocating summer air that murders sleep, would have been celebrated. But there was no rain, no fog or mist, no morning clouds or sticky sleepless nights. There were just empty, sunny days of planting and waiting. Days spent burying seeds alive and waiting for them to die in the ground.

But they didn’t die. The men realized 

[Untitled Role-Playing Game]

Playtesting notes for an unfinished RPG.

Date unclear. Possibly October, 2011.

Note to the players: these are rough directions designed to make it easier to playtest this game. Expect basic rules below, not “flavor.” I’ll explain flavor, theme, etc. orally. Normally you wouldn’t even get this much, but I’m honestly afraid that I’ll forget rules specifics mid-game. (I am already violating my personal rules about mechanical complexity—not a good sign!)

Character Creation

Each player should create an epic character and a peasant character. Epic characters are used during the main game, while peasant characters are used during the aftermath scenes.

In order to make an epic character, first come up with a general concept based on the chosen setting and what you think would be hot shit. So, like, if this was an medieval Japanese setting, Tom might play a samurai who wields a double-bladed katana in each hand. Rudy might play the rapist of Nanking (yes, all of it). Brandon might not play at all. The point is that the character should feel epic, like Beowulf.

Once you have a concept, you should come up with three abilities for the character that match the concept: a cool ability (1d6), a damn cool ability (2d6) and a “fuck it, I’m done” ability (3d6). Try to keep the abilities broad enough to be useful in multiple situations without becoming so broad that they cease to sound cool. The d6 number indicates the minimum number of dice you must roll to use the ability and the maximum number of dice you can draw from the communal pool when using that ability (see “Turn Order” below).

In order to make a peasant character, first come up with a basic sense of who your peasant is within his community. Is he the blacksmith? The town chaplain? A homeless drunk who drops his shorts for quarters? The question isn’t so much who he is as what role he plays, what his primary connection is to the others he meets. 

Next, list three basic things that your character cares strongly about. Examples: his family, his faith in god, his job, his loyalty to his country, etc. These items will vary greatly from character to character, but they must be something the character can lose.

Turn Order

1. Each player rolls. Player with highest result frames the scene.
2. Play begins with the player to their left and continues clockwise. During each turn, the active player decides which of their three abilities they will use to attack. They may draw up to that may dice from the communal pool, and then add any number of their personal dice to the attack. The defending player decides which ability he will use to counter and draws up to that may dice from the communal pool and uses any number of dice from his personal pool to counter the attack.
3. The attacking players describes his attack in character, and the defending player describes how his character plans to counter the attack.
4. Once the attacking and defending player have chosen their dice and described their attack in character, any of the other players may join the conflict. However, they must side with either the attacking or defending player and they can only add dice from their personal pool to the conflict. Once they’ve declared which player they plan to assist, they should describe their in character actions.
5. If any player involved in a conflict proposes uses one of their abilities in a way that stretches plausibility (or is just fucken’ ridiculous), the other players can vote to give that player a reality penalty of between one and three d6. These penalties aren’t rolled right away. (See step 10.)
6. Everyone involved in their conflict rolls their dice. The attacking player and his allies add their results together, and the defending player and his allies add their results together. The player or group with the largest total wins. The losing player/group forfeits all of the dice they used in the conflict to the winning player/group. If the winning player had no allies, they get all of the dice used by their opponent(s). If allies were involved, each winning player (beginning with the attacking or defending player and then proceeding through each ally based on the number of dice they used) takes turns collecting one die from the pool of dice used by the losers until all losing dice are taken.
7. The winning players narrate the in character results of the conflict.
8. Repeat steps 2-6 until each players has had a turn.
9. Each players may chose any number of dice from their personal pool and return them to the communal pool.
10. Each player takes a turn rolling all the dice in their personal pool once and adding up the results. The player then rolls any reality penalties that they’ve earned during this scene and adds the total to their result. Then the player finds their result on the aftermath scene chart and removes the number of dice in their personal pool from the game indicated by the chart.
11. Each player takes a turn playing out an aftermath scene based on the result they rolled on the aftermath chart. These scenes should be entirely in character.  Players play their peasant characters during their own aftermath scenes. Any other player may insert themselves into another player’s aftermath scene as an NPC, so long as they behave in a way that is in keeping with the result rolled on the aftermath chart (i.e., don’t turn a personal tragedy into a global catastrophe).
12. Return to step 1 and repeat all steps until all of the dice still in play are in the personal pool of a single player. That player then gets any opportunity to narrate the terms and results of his victory. Follow this with an aftermath scene including all of the peasant characters interacting with each other that concludes their story and shows just how shitty life is under the victorious character’s rule. (Yeah, I basically stopped pretending that I was writing for a general audience there. These fucking rules will need to be rewritten anyway.)

Aftermath Scene Chart

[Untitled Cho-Seng Hui Piece #1]

Found in a file named WIPnovelmaybe.odt.

May, 2013

“All the shit you’ve given me.” That was Cho Seng-Hui’s explanation, and it might as well be mine. He was old for a school shooter, pushing 24, and I’m even older. Two years past 25. Two years past the point where you are permitted to still be figuring it out. Two years too old to be anything but a failure, anything but a loser. Two inexcusable years spent taking all of the shit I was given.

    And four years beyond my four year degree. Four years spent discovering just how worthless the previous four were. And debt, of course, and underemployment, and the four walls of my childhood bedroom, and lists of chores from my parents on the days I don’t get called in to work, and carpooling with dad on the days I do, and, yes, you get it. You’ve heard the human interest stories. Some Trisha Takanawa-looking cunt on HLN has already debriefed you on the plight of my generation. “All of the shit you’ve given me, right back at you with hollow points.” Nikki Giovanni couldn’t have put it more poetically, even with all her experience mimicking the dialect of troubled youth (while having them expelled from her classroom).

    But poet or not, Cho

[Untitled Biographical Story]

Found alone in a folder called “pieces of a larger untitled work, maybe.”

June, 2013

My sister had come home between semesters at Cornell. She said she had heard that R___ wasn’t in college anymore, and asked what he was doing. I told her that he had discovered a series of pro-life propaganda videos with footage of aborted fetuses recovered from Planned Parenthood dumpsters. The videos featured narration from a Richard Stack sound alike who explained how each fetus how been dismembered and made comparisons to the Holocaust. Rudy would mute him, open WimAmp, and play “Hot Pants” by James Brown. He would watch the montage of varicose faces, bite size torsos, and little dead fists gripping tweezer arms while Brown shouted, “Oh! Bring it Home! Hit me! Get down!”

I was going to mention that he had taken a screen capture of one of the more intact victims and photoshopped a military beret on its swollen head, but I could see that she already considered her question answered in full.

She grimaced. “Doesn’t he have any soul at all?”

I knew the answer immediately.

“He has James Brown.”

Hit me.

[A Dash and Two Words]

Found alone in a file entitled novelphrases.odt.

December, 2013

– Pheromonal morality

[Untitled Cho-Seng Hui Piece #2]

Found in a file called novelmayberevisted.odt. Possibly another attempt at the same idea that inspired [Untitled Cho-Seng Hui Piece #1]. Two versions exist of this attempt exist. This is the later version. Very few changes were made.

First version November, 2013. Second version January, 2014.

    Cho Seng-Hui screwed up. I’m not talking about his 28 victims (and 4 professors). That was an accomplishment. A new record. A future Guinness Book entry. (“Of course a Korean took the high score,” _______ told me that night, as they were still counting the bodies on cable news. “He had the hot keys memorized. Zerg didn’t stand a chance.”)

    No, his mistake was mailing his manifesto to the media. In 2007. He obviously could work a digital camera. He knew enough to burn all of his documents and videos onto a single DVD, presumably to save on postage. Didn’t he know how to upload a video to youtube? Or, if he was afraid of the ubiquitous terms of service police, he could have bought two months of hosting for $35 and gotten a free domain to boot. He could have posted his complete works, and he would still have had a gig or two left over for a playlist of his favorite mp3s, which, if his former roommates are to believed, would have consisted almost exclusively of recordings of “Shine” by Collective Soul. He could have put any damn thing he wanted up and it would have been a solid week after the shooting before his web space provider complied with the takedown notice. And, of course, by that point every video, every image, every word would exist on thousands of other sites and millions of home computers.

    But instead he surrendered to nostalgia, or to some Unabomber/Zodiac Killer inspired childhood fantasy, and he sent it all to NBC. And now we only have what some emergency committee of producers and executives and advertiser liaisons decided was necessary and appropriate to air. A salacious powerpoint masquerading as insight into his state of mind.

    The two GLOCKs. The Terminator pose. All the shit you’ve given me. Richard McBeef. Nikki Giovanni’s concerns. Your trust fund wasn’t enough. Your Vodka and Cognac weren’t enough. The girl who didn’t love him back. The psychiatric hearing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ. Pap, pap, pap. (“Fap, fap, fap,” ____ offers, as he reads over my shoulder.)

    And that’s all we will ever have: a TV newsreel of juxtaposed clichés, a psychopath’s training montage. All because he opted to distribute his martyrdom video via pony express. And it even arrived a full day late, because he put the wrong zip code on the envelope.

    I won’t make the same mistake. (Sorry, we won’t. I’ve been corrected.) I don’t want our actions to be reduced to a mental illness awareness lesson.(“Can you offer us some insight into the shooters’ actions?” asks a future reporter, as a voice in his ear cautions him against using any more explicit word.) I don’t want to inspire an aborted gun control bill. I don’t want to be a glassy-eyed photograph with a cowlick and a dirty t-shirt, and I’m certain ____ doesn’t want to be a leaked list of prescription medications. We’re not interested in being deliberately misunderstood.

    We

Newark

Possibly a second attempt to grapple with the idea that inspired [Untitled Biographical Story]. Extremely fragmentary, even by the standards of this archive. The anecdote alluded to is basically a joke rudy’s father once told me that essentially boils down to “there are so many black people in Newark because during the post-sharecropping period a lot of those migrating north from the Deep South by train with hopes of settling in New York City misheard their conductor and got off at the wrong stop.

March, 2014

Newark

    R___ was born in Newark, New Jersey. His father once told me …. (Rudy: “Are you really going to pander to those faggots?”Well, you know. Consider your audience. I never did read The Elements of Style, but I have taken a few English comp courses, and. “And …” Fair enough! Consider yourselves trigger-warned, I guess.)

CORRECTION: Google tells me that R___’s father’s story is false. The real reason there are so many blacks in Newark is just standard, unexceptional megalopolian sprawl. As New York bloated … Marginal people tend to end up on the, well, margins. (Can we talk about how obnoxious the comma-well-comma conceit is? Not only is that “well” always a pretentious lie, and never a real acknowledgment of a twisted tongue, but it’s also the author laughing at his own joke. A coy, faux-awkward giggle. I might as well have ended that sentence with “LOL ^_^.” But whatever.) Anyway, So much for folklore. So much for pollock jokes.

Unreliable

Preliminary notes for an unfinished role-playing game where players play as real dead historical authors trying to collaborate on a story in the afterlife.

April, 2014

Unreliable Notes

• Everyone starts with five face-up scraps of paper with “authorial fantasy” details  and three face-down scraps of paper with “authorial pathology”  details that fill out prior to play. Each scrap has a pre-determined heading to guide the player in concocting these details, and these headings are unique to each author.
     
• Scraps to fiction: each player contributes a scrap. Scraps are drawn from the hat at random. The first scrap is drawn and interpreted, and the next scrap is interpreted within the framework already established by the interpretation of the first scrap. The next scrap is then interpreted, taking into account the details already established by previous scraps, and so on. The setting is created in this way at the beginning of the game as well.
     
• Authors have unique  abilities that are triggered when another player introduces something into the narrative (example: Robert Jordan has    an ability that triggers whenever another player mentions an article of clothing). Possible abilities include: drawing a blank scrap of paper, adding a word to another player’s scrap, stealing another player’s scrap, forcing players to trade scraps, putting multiple scraps in the hat, writing on a blank scrap and handing it to another player, cross out/erase a word on a scrap, etc.
     
• Pathology scraps must not be played until all of the fantasy scraps are used, unless an ability states otherwise. When all of a player’s pathology scraps are used, that author can no longer hide behind the pretense of fiction. The author’s avatar ceases to exist, and the player must play only the author, neuroses and all, for the rest of the game. Possibly they can’t contribute to the hat or something too.
     
• Paying scraps for narrative control? Or maybe pathology scraps could give you the ability to seize narrative control (or dictate the order & interpretation of one round of scraps)? If the latter, then pathology scraps wouldn’t have to be played last.
     
• Some kind of win condition that lets one player decide how the story ends? (Too obvious?)
     
• Advancement  via bonus scraps at beginning of next session?
     
• Scrap  “bidding war” to resolve if two players use pathologies in the same round?
     
• Turning pathologies into fantasies? Some kind of masturbatory wish fulfillment endgame sequence for those with pathologies left?
  
  

Changed in the Night

An unfinished work of Batman fan fiction.

December, 2014

Batman: Changed in the Night

And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I?

– Lewis Carol, Alice in Wonderland

I

    Brittney Billings, eight and a half years old. Taken from her own back yard. Bruce Wayne had placed the police reports and the crime scene photographs in front of him on a steel table in the Batcave. He examined each closely, holding them under the clinical blue light of the desk lamp’s compact florescent bulb. This wasn’t his first time reviewing the evidence; evidence he had obtained thanks to a remote access tool he had covertly installed during an unauthorized midnight trip to the Gotham PD server room. In retrospect, he realized that Jim Gordon probably would have been willing to give him his own username and password, and that the subterfuge had been unnecessary, but patterns of behavior, once established, are stronger than the will of most men.

    Brittney Billings. (“They’re all Brittneys now,” Tetch would tell him later, nothing but a smile under the rim of a Gibus hat. “At least the days of Madisons and Mackenzies are finally over. What awful, awful, ugly, ugly names. And I can look forward to all the Sophias who have just gone from safety seats to boosters. Sonorous Sophia. Sophia. Sophia. Sophia.”) Her parents had noticed the tea table first, a little pink plastic item, cheap, with two matching chairs, one overturned, the other holding a stuffed white rabbit with its face and paws flopped limply on the tabletop. In the center one the table was a ceramic tea set—a floral print pot and two cups, one also overturned—a probable thrift store purchase. They had never seen any of it before. Brittney didn’t host imaginary tea parties. What little girl does anymore? Her father had walked out into the yard and called for her. She didn’t answer, of course. He found her 3DS on the lawn, still on, still playing a shrill chiptune. The battery hadn’t run out. She couldn’t have been gone for long. Not more than an hour. He called again. And again. Her mother ran out of the house, one gym sneaker on, the white sock on the other foot becoming permanently grass stained. She ran around the house to the front, and stood at the end of the driveway, by the mailbox, repeating her daughter’s name to the empty suburban street. She was still there when the police arrived.

    It was three days and six hours later, at dusk, when Brittney walked down that same driveway and rang her own doorbell. Her parents never saw the car that brought her, if there had been a car at all. She was wearing only a pair of underwear, from the Disney Princess line, depicting Alice blue skirts inflated, in the midst of her fall down the rabbit hole. (“These are not my daughter’s,” her mother would tell the police later, holding the evidence bag in her pale hands. “These are not Brittney’s.”) She remembered nothing from the previous two days. Later, her parents would decide this was probably a blessing.

    The rest was all procedural details: the rape kit (no evidence of trauma, no semen found), the chemical analysis of the tea (Earl Grey with traces of an unidentified benzodiazepine), the neighborhood canvass (no one saw anything; windows have blinds, there are no dogs allowed in the development, people have their own lives, etc.), and the obligatory interviews with the parents, conducted in separate rooms (both were devastated, and had largely identical stories).

    Bruce started. For a moment he thoughts the details of the case had gotten to him—maybe he hadn’t become as cynical as he thought—but then he noticed Alfred’s hand on his shoulder. He was standing over him, looking at the photographs. “Alice in Wonderland?” he said in a practiced, disapproving tone, not really a question so much as an annotation. “What a ghastly cliché. I hope you apprehend this one, Master Bruce, if only for his crimes against taste and creative thought.” Bruce felt Alfred’s cold hand squeeze his shoulder, the only way that the aging butler ever revealed when he was joking. His tone never softened. Only his fingers showed affection.

    “What is it, Alfred?”

    “It’s the Grayson lad. He refuses to sleep. He is crying out for his parents again.”

II

    Bruce was beginning to become uncomfortable with the amount of interest that Alfred had taken in Dick Greyson. When Bruce had first brought the orphan back to Wayne Manor after the death of his parents, Alfred had been aloof. He had even expressed skepticism about the propriety of “two old bachelors with unmentionable secrets and busy nights” (his words) becoming the caretakers of a young boy. But now, less than a week later, he was doting on the child, perhaps even to the point where he was neglecting his other duties, a shift in priorities that Bruce had thought would be impossible for the normally fastidious butler. Two days earlier he had returned to his bedroom after an hour spent suspended upside down recalibrating the suspension mechanism on his utility belt to find his pajama shirt from the night before was still on the end of his bed, unwashed and unfolded. He has gone to find Alfred to tease him about his uncharacteristic dereliction of duty, and had found him in Dick’s room, reading the child a Rudyard Kipling story. He even deepened his normally monotonous voice, just a decibel or two, as he related the words of Bagheera the panther.

    Bruce remembered his earliest days under Alfred’s care, just after the murder of his parents. Alfred had always taken an interest in him, even while Thomas and Martha were still alive. He had not had much time or opportunity to interact with Bruce, as Wayne Manor demanded an even higher standard of care back then, when the Waynes had regular dinner guests and tennis tournaments and the occasional fundraising gala for one of their pet causes (mental health, homelessness, improving science education in inner city schools, etc.). But somehow, busy as he was, Alfred always managed to be there, hovering at the periphery of Bruce’s childhood. While Bruce hung from his personal jungle gym, the waist of his untucked shirt inches from his face, Alfred would be nearby, tending the garden. While Bruce was in the pool, learning to breaststroke in spite the awkwardness of his loose-fitting trunks, Alfred was crouched nearby with a test strip, checking the pH. And at the end of each day when Martha dragged Bruce between bathroom and bedroom, hair soaked, the fly on his pajama pants unbuttoned, Alfred was always there to offer him a warm towel. “Master Bruce,” he would say, “it would be a terrible thing for you to go to bed cold.”

    And then came the opera, the two gunshots, and the long day at the cemetery where, rather than look at the lifeless, makeuped faces of his parents, Bruce watched a robin exhume a worm from a fresh grave. After the funeral, there were to be no more dinner guests, tennis doubles, or charitable dinners. Alfred closed the house to the outside world, insisting that it was what was best for his young ward. “There are murderers in this world, Master Bruce,” he explained “Murderers and parasites and riffraff, all of whom would like nothing better than to see another good boy from a reputable family dead in the gutter. To think of your mother and father, lying on the street, in the same alley where transients urinate and fallen women operate. The dishonor of it all is far worse than their deaths. I’ll not have the same happen to you.”

    So Alfred became his only family, his only friend. Though emotionally cold, he took meticulous care of the ten year old. He simultaneously did everything that one normally expects of a parent, a servant, and a teacher: the cooking, the cleaning, the lessons in grammar and mathematics, the feigned losses at tee-ball and chess, the perfunctory attempts to explain the reasons behind life and death. Bruce wanted for nothing, except for the sound of laughter and the comfort of a gentle tone of voice. He wondered, sometimes, if Alfred saw him only as the sum total of his work, the way an accountant would view the digits on a spreadsheet or a maid would examine the surface of a freshly mopped floor.

    He wondered this until one night after a rare day trip into Gotham that culminated in a surprise visit to the movies—Alfred, not taking any chances, had bought out the entire showing—Alfred had given a still-excited Bruce a glass of warm milk, garnished with a cinnamon stick. “It is very late, Master Bruce, and this will help you sleep.” Indeed Bruce began to feel drowsy before he had even finished the glass. Alfred took him by the hand and led him from the kitchen into the hall, but rather than lead him upstairs to bed, Alfred brought him downstairs, through the now empty servants’ quarters (all of the other staff had been dismissed after the funeral) and into his own room. Bruce walked through the door absently; he could not process where he was, why he was there, or what was likely to happen next. He doubted that he was still awake. Alfred pointed him towards the bed and he sat down and waited there, watching the polka dots on the wallpaper undulate and grow. The next morning he remembered very little of the night before, just a few images without context: the flapping tails of a butler’s coat, the fluttering of black sheets, a cricket bat propped in the corner.

III

    Dick Grayson was lying in the bed in a guest room, now his room, when Bruce entered.

[Untitled School Shooter Novel]

My most successful attempt at writing a novel for NaNoWriMo. Abandoned after a week or two.

November, 2015

1

On Friday, April 22nd, 2016 (the day before yesterday!) Ryan Eric Marshall died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the first floor men’s lavatory of the Harrisonville Middle School in Harrisonville, NY. He was 26 years old, had an associate’s degree in information technology from a local community college, was presently taking an online creative writing course from one of this nation’s premiere for-profit universities, and was employed at HMS part-time as a substitute teacher. Oh, and he also killed 7 other people, four students (between the ages of 12 and 15), two teachers (math and social studies), and a custodian. (My heart goes out to the custodian. Wrong place, wrong time, buddy.) 

The death toll could have been much higher. Marshall had purchased two dozen military surplus grenades from the internet and smuggled them into the school in a duffle bag. (It is always a duffle bag, by the way. Have our congressmen thought seriously about duffle bag control?) The grenades, it turns out, had been decommissioned and were totally worthless as deadly weapons. Ryan didn’t know this because he had decided not to test one of the grenades in advance. I suppose he was a conservationist by nature and couldn’t bear the thought of wasting such a precious resource on a dry run. As a Texas governor turned presidential hopeful (no, not that one) once infamously said: “Oops.”

2

Ryan was born on January 18th, 1990. (Bear with me, every story begins in the same place.) He was 9 years old when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 bullies (and 1 teacher and themselves) at Columbine High School, and he had just started middle school himself (at HMS, no less) when the twin towers fell. It must have been his second or third week of classes. What a way to start a new chapter of your life! What an introduction to adolescence! Can he possibly have missed the significance of it as he watched those lazily symbolic buildings collapse and then perhaps went to the bathroom (the same one where he would later shoot himself??) to wash the confused tears from his face and discovered his first pimple? 

Listen, I don’t know. He didn’t talk to me about that day. I should have asked. If I had known what he was planning to do, I certainly would have. (If only for the sake of this story.) We’ll make the most of the information we have, and let our imaginations fill in the rest.

3

But speaking of 9/11, the Big Bang to which countless soft scientists attribute the birth of our shared post-traumatic universe, I do know where I was and what I did on that lazy Tuesday. (Just think: if the universal emergency response number had been 9-1-0, we could have all enjoyed a three day weekend!) I was just shy of a month into my second year as a MFA student at one of those ubiquitous, interchangeable liberal arts colleges in that part of upstate New York where every small town is named after a Greek city state and harbors a comparable number of pederasts. I won’t bother to name the college because it lost its accreditation seventeen months after I graduated and was shuttered ten months after that.

(Say what you will about these fly-by-night educational institutions, but they have been nothing but good to me. When I was growing up, my mother taught me that the simplest prayers were often the best–and let’s face it: God isn’t much of a listener; concision pays when you’re dealing with an attention deficit case. She gave me a basic template: thank God for your loved ones and ask that he keep them safe. Anything else, she said, was asking too much from Him and expecting too little of yourself. So with that in mind, I say, “Thank you lord for diploma mills. May they never come to harm.”)

I am nocturnal by disposition and I had no early class that morning, so by the time I woke up the initial shock (a small private plane, an accident), the manufactured twist (a second plane!), and the moment of Michael Baysian dramatic excess (a third plane EXPLODES AT THE PENTAGON) had passed. I had planned to have a casual breakfast (Captain Crunch directly from the box and a cup of tea) and write a poem for a 4:30 seminar. (I don’t remember what it would have been about. It was either a reflection on a torrid romance from a perspective of a syphilis spirochete or a retelling of Donne’s “The Flea” wherein the titular flea was a carrier of the black death.) 

Rather than start writing immediately (because, come on) I turned on the television. Oops. I didn’t write a word that day.

After three or four hours of pedestrians caked with carcinogenic dust, prerecorded screams, falling men, et al., I felt I had earned a break, so I decided to take a walk. It was a beautiful late summer day; so beautiful, in fact, that my mind initially refused to digest it. I looked at the blueness of the cloudless sky and I think I choked, or gagged. There was some gross incongruity between my sunny upstate afternoon and the cloud of ash oppressing a city that was only a 4 hour drive away (take I-81 South, get on 380 after Scranton, traffic delays in and around the flaming crater in Shanksville, PA). I couldn’t make it all square. And then it occurred to me: whatever was happening south of me on that day, whatever architectural wonders were being maimed or demolished, whoever was falling or burning to death, had nothing to do with me. Nothing!

It simply wasn’t my tragedy. It was a regional disaster, a bad traffic day in the metropolitan area; not all that different from the day Chris Christie shut down the toll plaza on the George Washington Bridge. (Hell, come to think of it, that was another day in the second week of September. Only it was a Monday. Christie, unlike Mohammed Atta, obviously knows the value of a long weekend.)

So I did the thing one naturally does when it’s a holiday and you’re the only one not at home in the reverent company of your loved ones, but you still want to make the most of your day off: I got Chinese takeout and ate it in front of the television.

4

I’ve been watching cable news constantly since the shooting, waiting to hear my name. Nothing yet. CNN, Fox, HLN, MSNBC; 24 hours of coverage a day, and no mention of his favorite professor, of his confidant. I even switched to CSPAN in a moment of weakness. I had a powerful fantasy that I would see a congressman–maybe my own representative–stand and denounce me on the House floor. Instead, they were debating the nuances of an appropriations bill. Can you believe it? They weren’t even discussing gun control! I am not the center of the universe today, and neither is the deceased Mr. Ryan E. Marshall. No, if you leave our provincial arm of the Milky Way and travel inward, pointing your rocketship towards the heart of our galaxy, I know exactly what you’ll find when you reach your destination: a $150 hammer.

But, oh, to be a co-conspirator.  Is there a sexier word in the English language than “co-conspirator”? The way it starts and then restarts, a little stutter of anticipation; it slides inside itself, and then stretches out beyond its natural length, so perfectly even above and below the line, except for the tail of the “p,” hanging down. God, what I’d give to see Nancy Grace wrap her lips around those two almost consecutive “O”s and then say my name.

I have retained a lawyer though, just to be safe. I called him today and told him about this book. His professional advice: “Fuck, don’t do that.”

5

Did you know that the school shooting predates the Declaration of Independence? No, really. The first one happened in 1764. Check Wikipedia if you don’t believe me.

Four Lenape braves walked into a one room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania (the colony, not yet a state in the yet to be united states), shot the schoolmaster to death, and then straight up killed and scalped nine kids. 

Of course, no one called it a “school shooting” at the time. (The concepts of “public education” and “mass murder of civilians with firearms” were too young to be married in the public’s consciousness yet. They were both still kids, really, and not ready for that sort of commitment yet. But here they are, over 250 years later, still every bit the happy couple.) Instead, it was viewed exclusively as a wartime atrocity; a couple of tribes hadn’t gotten the memo that the whole French/Indian/British/Colonial dustup was over. (Another spectacular “oops” moment! One would almost think that history is slapstick: a tiresome routine of pratfalls and fuck-ups.) The biggest immediate societal impact of the killings was a steep rise in the fair market value of Indian scalps (up to $134 for men over 10 and $50 for women–just imagine what a windfall that would be after accounting for inflation!). Only in retrospect do we recognize the birth of an American cultural tradition.

But this history holds some bad news for all my fellow angry white males: turns out the school massacre has been appropriated. Even our acts of violence are not our own!

6

OK, you caught me procrastinating. I try to be honest only as a last resort, but I might as well level with you: I am struggling. I know there is a story here–I mean, we have children in peril for Christ’s sake. Some of them have even died.–but I cannot quite find it.

Or, rather, the story is obvious, the story is news, but my place in it is not as obvious as I thought, and neither is my relationship with Ryan, which was so transparent and unequivocal to me when I started writing just hours ago that I turned my desk towards the window so I could type without missing the moment when the first news van attempted to parallel park across the street, its jittery, caffeinated driver praying not to graze any of the economy cars with $400 rims, anticipating the sound of a car alarm and the materialization of a screaming, amorphous tenement denizen, nothing but a swarm of gang tattoos and a cocked hammer. (And that is all the description you’ll get from me of this imaginary man. I will let your own imagination be as racist as it wishes. I’ll have no part of that dirty work.)

But the camera crew hasn’t arrived. (More precisely, the camera crew doesn’t exist.) And now I am wondering if I am qualified to tell this story. (I absolutely am not, but if I can get close enough to collect a modest advance, then, I’m not about to surrender, facts and taste be damned.) I am doubting how well I know (knew?) my subject. I am doubting my ability to make his incoherent act coherent, or at least to make it compelling. (And here I thought that violence was inherently compelling, prima facie, given a large enough tally of the dead.)

Or maybe I just need to organize my information. (From my shanghaied syllabus: Step #1. Make an outline.) If I lay out the broad strokes of what I know, maybe the narrative will be obvious. What I need is the data.

So, with that in mind, brace yourselves for the infodump:

• Ryan E. was enrolled in two online 10 week 100 level courses under my instruction: “Introduction to Creative Writing I” (3.0 GPA) and “Introduction to Creative Writing II” (Incomplete). In order to meet the criteria meticulously laid out in my syllabus (a template stolen from the internet; thank you University of Wisconsin–Madison!), he wrote and submitted 5 short stories (should have been 3 per course, but I don’t think his 6th is forthcoming), 4 poems, and a some whimsical quantity of brief spontaneous writing assignments. (The whim in question being mine and mine alone, of course. When you are a rigid overseer in the corrections business, you rediscover your agency in the moment when you contemplate whether or not to kick the prostrate prisoner before you in the spleen or to simply escort him back to solitary.) He also sent me 47 emails, and I replied to every one.    
• I will not disclose the name of the university that employs me. It hasn’t been mentioned in any of the media coverage of the shooting as of yet, and I enjoy the relaxed pace and relatively lax oversight of my position far too much to jeopardize it by being the one to name names. Rest assured, we are still 100% fully accredited, unlike my former alma mater. They even let us air commercials on television!
• All of the details that I have about Ryan’s life come from our email correspondence, news reports, class participation, and a short biographical piece that he wrote in response to one of my pilfered prompts. (I can’t remember which Midwestern safety school I have to thank for that one, but I do recall that they had a first rate unit on creative nonfiction, and at least one saintly graduate student tasked with scanning lecture notes for every class and posting them on their haphazardly secured student portal. Her username: grad_assistant. Her password: password. But then even the sphinx was kind of a pushover.) I am sure I still have his micro-autobiography somewhere, and I will share it as soon as I find it. It’s certainly on the university’s network drive, but my files are in profound disorder, and with this electronic cloud, like a natural one, any pattern or form you might think you discern among its disordered molecules would be strictly imaginative; pure apophenia.
• Like all the rest of them, our shooter had a history of mental illness. (By the way, A History of Mental Illness would make for a glorious David Cronenberg film, wouldn’t it?) I’m not privy to his full diagnosis, but once, after he had missed three consecutive weeks of classes, I received a low resolution scan of a doctor’s note from his mother’s email account. The note was short, but did include the word “depression” (the “hysteria” of the information age; I hope he prescribed our boy some laudanum) and made mention of “increased life stress.” (Because I too was 26 and sad and single once, I read the latter phrase and thought of a soft hand climbing the naked vertebrae of his back to wrap around his neck.)
• I will say this much about Ryan Marshall, killer of four children: he was sincere about becoming a better writer. He diligently applied himself to all of his assignments, was receptive of feedback, and was a compulsive asker of questions. If I were a real teacher–you know, one of those perverts who fantasize about leaving their fingerprints deep in the surface of a young, developing mind–I would have considered his enthusiasm a blessing. (Most students, after all, are mercenaries.) But I am a charlatan, and when you’re a charlatan, there is no greater threat than someone who is legitimately interested in your affected area of expertise. When your cynicism is your livelihood, sincerity is an existential threat.

OK, that’s enough bullet points. I’m convinced. There is a story here. My confidence is restored!

7

Can we talk about that bowl cut? Certainly you’ve seen the photograph by now. In fact, since you are reading this months or years in the future, not only have you seen the photo, in your mind that image (the bowl cut, the aspergers gaze, the reflective vest, his father’s hunting rifle) is Ryan Eric Marshall. 

I have to admit that I always felt that the pictures of these murder boys circulated by the media were somehow disingenuous. They seemed too sad to be true. Maybe they weren’t flat out photoshopped to look crazed and malnourished, like some reverse pin-up, but I was certain that they were at least carefully chosen. I imagined that some intern’s big break might be the opportunity to sift through yearbooks, white supremacist message board profiles, public facebook posts (future spree killers of America: check your privacy settings!), and cold call distant relatives and former friends of the accused begging for just five minutes alone with the family photo album, all in pursuit of the aesthetic smoking gun: the image that, when viewed at 720p in all its pixelated grandeur would make the audience at home suck their teeth and think, “Yes, this is someone who would kill me and my family. No question about it.”

But let me tell you this: the bowl cut is real! I have seen it for myself. It did exist, and it was no less extraordinary than it looks on your TV screen. I saw it for the first time 

9

Have you heard the good news? There is a video! (Thank you, oh lord, for the self-surveillance state; never let it die.) Can you believe it? We have footage of the act itself! Though I have to admit that’s unlikely to make a big splash at Sundance. It’s not a particularly ambitious work: a single, unbroken shot taken, it appears, with a cheap android phone. Our auteur is crouched beneath a desk. You never see her, but you hear her panicked breathing and she says “oh my god” more than once, softly (though you worry that it might not be softly enough). You can make out what sounds like a gunshot in the hall at 4 seconds; probably our poor custodian, caught with his arm in the trash can. There are screams in the classroom. She doesn’t scream, but our first “oh my god” occurs here. He enters the classroom 6 seconds later, offscreen. His skinny legs enter the shot at the 13 second mark.  You only see him below the waist. He is wearing black pants (work attire), and his shoes are visibly scuffed. He fires two shots (“oh my god, oh my god”) though we never see the gun. He stops firing and takes a partial step forward (perhaps he is pulling the pin on one of his worthless grenades) and our cameragirl sees an opportunity to stand and run and takes it, putting her phone in her pocket in the process. End scene.

She survived, of course, or this footage would be trapped inside a microSD card trapped inside an $80 phone trapped inside a plastic forensics bag sealed with red tape trapped inside an evidence locker trapped inside our stuffy, semi-moral assumptions about good taste and social acceptability, but instead it’s free to cruise the information superhighway, uninhibited, windows down, system up, at a reckless speed (like our filmmaker in three or four years, no doubt) directly to the homes of countless salivating degenerates (mea culpa). 

But that’s not the remarkable thing. As I said, the video itself is pretty much spree killing boilerplate; it tells us nothing that we didn’t already know or imagine. However, while I was searching for the video online–CNN has refused to air it in an uncharacteristic act of decency and restraint–I made a wonderful discovery. Did you know there is an entire subreddit dedicated to videos (and animated gifs) of the real deaths of (one imagines) equally real human beings? It’s even called /r/WatchPeopleDie! The variety is spectacular too: suicide by defenestration, ISIS beheadings, semi-truck/motorcycle collisions (worse for the motorcyclist, of course), necklacings and cuban neckties (though I’ve yet to see one on the neck of an actual Cuban), self-immolations, police involved shootings, and even the stonings of third world adulteresses. I just now learned that there are cameras in the cockpits of subway trains. 

And to think, when I was growing up, if you wanted to watch someone die, you had to turn on the evening news and hope for the best. And the best rarely happened, particularly since the Vietnam War had the impertinence to end while I was still an infant. But there were respites from my sheltered childhood of hostage crises and oil shocks. I remember Jonestown. I found my mother crying in the living room. I had no idea that a congressman had been gunned down and that 900+ people had committed “revolutionary suicide” (to use the Rev. Jones’ nomenclature). I knew nothing of the over 200 dead children (more than 50 times the number killed by R. E. Marshall), and the cyanide and valium laced Kool-Aid (that was in fact not Kool-Aid at all, but a generic brand, a missed opportunity for a trademark tarnishment suite, if ever there was one). 

Seeing her sitting there, sobbing, on the couch, completely alone, with no person (father or otherwise) present who could have harmed her, I assumed that our dog had died (a moment of childhood trauma that would not actually happen for another four years). I experienced one of those moments of panic where you don’t dare to ask the question (“Is Sampson OK?”) because you know that through asking you’ll conjure exactly the answer that you fear, so, rather than kill the puppy with words I decided to walk outside and check the doghouse myself. But the front door was on the opposite side of the living room, necessitating a trip directly past my mother. I was afraid that if I looked at her while I crossed in front of her, she would feel compelled to give me the bad news and that would be it for schrodinger’s dog, so I turned my face to the television instead. On the screen was an aerial photograph, a single overhead shot, taken from a helicopter. 1/4 of the shot was the tin room of some structure (it looked like a dairy barn from above, a transplanted bit of Americana) and the remaining 3/4, bodies. 

I don’t remember my reaction, but soon I was on the couch next to my mother and she was giving me a lecture. It was alright, she said, to feel bad when other people got hurt, even if I didn’t know them. It was fine to cry for unlucky strangers. Empathy was natural; compassion was a gift. If you see a man step on a nail, you grab your own foot. It was a natural, human response. Pain, like everything else in the world, had to be shared to be appreciated. Universal tears, she said, these are universal tears. There was something wrong with that woman.

[Untitled Webcomic]

Brainstorming document for a series of webcomics. None of the comics were ever produced.

January, 2016

[Webcomic]

General ideas:

• A collage aesthetic mixing hand drawn pictures with snippets from real photographs, combined via photoshop to give an expressionistic look (Munch meets glitchwave?). Maybe use some pictures of people but blur their faces to give it that “anonymous true crime doc” look and portray a sense of alienation. Use these anonymous people primarily for background stuff. Central characters should be hand drawn to create contrast. Backgrounds could be a mix of hand drawn images and manipulated photos.

Potential Comics:

• Suicide #1: A black ink figure stands on a bridge, clearly contemplating suicide. Near him on the bridge are “real” people (aka photos). The water below is “real” too. He jumps. When he lands in the water he dissolves, rather than drowning. (He is ink, after all.) He leaves a black pool in the water. Final panel is a real photograph of a dead fish (or some other wildlife) covered in black oil.
• Suicide #2: A similar (the same?) black ink figure sits in his home. His back is to a white wall. He has a gun. He raises it to his head and fires. He falls, slumped against the wall. There is a big black stain above his head. Final panel is a closeup of the stain, revealing it to be a Rorschach inkblot. Text block over the final panel: “OK. Let’s try another one. Can you tell me what you see here?”
• Maybe we could take the “Rope Trick” text and format it so it looks like it’s on letterhead or parchment (or like it’s printed in an academic journal?) and then add step-by-step diagrams depicting the process of the “trick.” (Possibly we could do something similar with “Resurrection Man” to make it look like a magazine interview with pictures.)

Beyond Heath Death

Opening of an aborted novel told from the perspective of an intelligent nanomachine at the end of time.

June, 2016

I cannot tell you how long the universe survived, because you (as I imagine you: human, small, but so much larger than me) would want to know its lifespan in years. You would further want to know what year it is today, and how old your narrator is in years. You would want to put me in perspective: how many Methuselahs must you stack end to end to get from your funeral procession to heat death? If your hearse was a rocket ship, traveling at the speed of light, how much of the galaxy could it traverse before there was no galaxy left to travel, before entropy prevailed, and the space between atoms became greater than the space between worlds, and there was not enough energy or heat left to power a digital watch to count the hours, let alone an internal combustion engine. It has been a long time, but I cannot tell you in years.

A year is the amount of time it takes a planet to complete a revolution around its star. In common usage it is the amount of time that it took a specific planet, Earth, to orbit its sun, the Sun. So how can the term apply to a time when there is no Earth, no Sun, and very likely no planets or stars?

But, you might argue (if a you existed to argue), I can tell you how long a year is, even without a sun in the sky, with no need of a North Star to give me direction: a year is 365 days. And if you existed, except as a rhetorical device, except as a function of the norms of conversational language (conversations being another thing that no longer exist), I would apologize to you for using you as such an obvious straw man, because of course there are no days now either. Day is another term that is only meaningful as long as you have terrestrial bodies in a celestial context: a planet makes one complete rotation on its axis; that’s a day: 50% sunlight, 50% darkness. 

Time is light placed in context. Without light, all we have are minutes and hours, and minutes and hours are senseless abstractions. They’re constructs, just as I am; the product of anal retentive minds and mathematics. They create the illusion of continuity between past and present, and here I am, selling you that same fiction, allowing you to imagine that some atom of humanity will survive your extinction. But I’m only math too: an algorithm, predictive text, the (great*10^15)grandchild of autocorrect.

“That’s romantic, but to me it has always looked like a swirl of luminescent vomit circling the drain of a vast bathtub,” he said. “And God sits on the toilet seat, in the dark bathroom, cradling his head, and regretting the night before.”

“In that case,” I replied “Just be thankful that we’re in one of the spiral arms, far from the center of the galaxy. We have a longer trip to the septic tank.”

He shrugged. “We still won’t outlast the hangover.” 

Ogre Recidivism

Character and initial post for one of rudy’s play-by-post roleplaying threads.

November, 2016

Kanashī Jigoku no Busshu

悲しい地獄のブッシュ

Kanashī Jigoku no Busshu, the Tree of Dark Memories Do Not Forget, My Son

Kanashi is a jinmenju, a ghost tree that grows human heads instead of fruit. Each of its many faces is tied directly to a powerful memory from the salaryman’s past. Some of these memories are happy ones, but most are sad (or just humiliating). Sometimes its faces will speak all at once, drowning each other out, and producing a soothing, monotonous hum, not unlike white noise. However, occasionally one voice will become dominant and the other heads will stop to listen to it. When this happens, anyone nearby will be compelled to listen as well, and the words (whether uplifting or despairing or just awkward) will have a profound impact on them.

Since Kanashi is a tree, it cannot move of its own accord. However, maybe it’s in a pot or something? Maybe a kind player character could carry it around or pull it in a cart or wagon?

Stats

Strength: 1

Dexterity: –

Constitution: 2

Intelligence: 1

Wisdom: 1

Charisma: 4

(I used the green side.)

post

Kanashi grows from the classroom floor, behind one of the desks, where a student would normally be seated. The chair that should sit behind the desk is instead nestled precariously in Kanashi’s upper branches. The faces are all speaking softly to themselves, and the words flow into each other. Most of the voices are unintelligible, but a close listener could make out words like “assignment,” “deadline,” “responsibility,” “exams,” “future,” and “duty.” 

One of the faces, a white man with a big, round nose and a black mustache, wearing a red cap, begins to hum the theme to Super Mario Bros. The humming gets louder and louder, until it drowns out all the other voices. The humming continues until the wrinkled, pruney face of an elderly man, one of the low hanging fruit, clears his throat and all the others fall silent out of respect.

“See this sword? This is my father’s sword, your great-grandfather’s sword. He was Konoe Shidan. It was his duty to protect the Emperor with his life. When Hirohito surrendered, your great-grandfather used this sword to commit seppuku. He had no second, because all of the other imperial guards had chosen instead to bow at MacArthur’s feet. So, rather than be swiftly beheaded, he bled to death in a small outbuilding behind the Imperial Palace, where the trash was kept. I do not know if this is true, but I have been told that after he died, he emptied his bowels on a stack of leaflets, dropped by the Americans over Hiroshima, warning of the coming bomb. When they presented this sword to your grandmother, it was still wet with my father’s blood. There was no power or running water in Tokyo in the days after the war, so my mother took the sword to the Sumida to wash it. She made me come with her. I was four years old. I stood on the bank and watched her dip the blade into the water and wipe it clean on the hem of her kimono. When she finished, she placed the hilt of the sword in my tiny hands and said,  ‘Your father is dead. His blood flows downstream into the ocean. You are Japan now.’ And this, grandson, is why you must do your homework.”

Faustin (Or: You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Or: Oedipus the President)

Initial posts for an abandoned play-by-post role-playing thread.

November, 2016

post #1

Democracy. Free and open elections. The peaceful transition of power.

Fedwin had done it. He had broken the cycle of tyranny. It had meant great personal sacrifice. The years of war, the years of humiliation, the years of thoughtful reflection in exile, the years of renewed conflict, the victory won with blood and pissy trenches and widow’s tears. And now, the ultimate offering to the gods of a more equitable future: the voluntary relinquishing of his own power, the handing over of his throne not to the next despot, but to a president, chosen by Altheria’s people, to serve them, not rule them. Yes, he’d miss it: the power, the dignity of the office, the state-funded pedicures, but through this act he had become something greater than a ruler, he had become a founding father. He was George fucken Washington. (And not the crude ghostly caricature of that great man that his aides claimed still haunted the castle halls at night with his dick in his hand. “He beats it until it’s red, white, and blue,” had quipped one of his aides.)

He had become so consumed by his reverie that he had lost track of the time. He swiveled in his red leather desk chair so that he could look out the window, beyond the moat (emptied of water six years before, the sea monsters moved to a wildlife refuge by his decree), past the palisades (kept intact strictly because of their historical value), at the kingdom that would be his for only a few hours more, that would only be a kingdom for a few hours more. It was dark. The polls had been closed for … how long? He checked the grandfather clock (second hand, shabby chic, purchased personally at a thrift store during a weekend spent antiquing in The Shire) . 2 am. The polls had closed long ago. It shouldn’t take this long to count the results. Something must be wrong. Had their been intimidation at key polling places in the Gnomish District? Had one of the candidates refused to concede? Were there protests? Violence. Jesus.

He stood up and leaned out the window. There were no fires. No crowds. No slogans. No screams. It was quiet, and not too quit, like a sorority girl might say in one of the deliciously cheesy slasher movies that he and his boyfriend might watch together on the coach on a Friday night spent a home, too exhausted from a long week of careful governance to go to one of the many (and diverse) bars and clubs that had sprung up as part of the economic and cultural renaissance that Altheria (now The Altherian Republic) had undergone over the last eight years. Just quiet. Serene.

He felt the knock before he heard it. In his spinal cord. That tingle. Spidey senses? A wave of nausea. He choked it back. How weird. How irrational. Prom night jitters.

“Come in.” He turned to face the door.

Illtheianna was standing there. Altheria’s first elven female chief of staff. (Well, technically, it’s first chief of staff, period. His predecessor used different titles.) She looked nervous. He stomach acid rippled again.

“Well, honey, don’t just stand there. Are the results in, or not?”

She turned her eyes down to a piece of yellow paper in hand hand, freshly printed but already crumpled. “They are, but …”

“So who won? Mayor Pluut? Depithereon the Elder? Old Joe? Rastlin?”

He noticed then how pale she looked. Her complexion had gone from Sylvan to Drow. He was already fumbling inside his desk in search of a roll of tums when she said the words.

“There was a write-in candidate.”

post #2

Most of the universe is empty. A vacuum. Nothing. An unregulated, formless void. Star date: who gives a fuck.

But in this infinite darkness–no, the physicist nags, not infinite, not technically–there shines a light. A strobe light. It burns the last of the juice from its two D batteries as it pulsates in orbit around the only other object with form and mass for thousands of miles (tens of thousands? millions?): a dilapidated spaceship, the last of a mighty fleet, the seat of an empire in ruins. The toilet seat. The intermittent light briefly illuminates the floating body of a gnomish man, tethered to the ship with a length of hemp rope (25 ft, prices vary, check the latest edition of the Player’s Handbook), slipknot tight around his neck. Devoid of hope and with a poor understanding of zero gravity environments, he had tried to hang himself but instead a quick end courtesy of a broken spine, he had slowly asphyxiated as he bobbed weightlessly, unable to pull himself back through the ruptured escape pod door. He’s a satellite now, but also the center of his own small solar system, orbited by no fewer than thirteen used condoms.

Inside, seated on a cot in Engine Bay 69 (formerly 42), on of the few sections of the ship that is still pressurized and where the oxygen to carbon dioxide ratio, while not ideal, can still support human life, is the boy emperor, no longer an emperor, no longer a boy. His 30th birthday passed weeks ago with no celebration. No acknowledgment. Not from his surviving loyal subjects. Not from the universe. Not even from his own once insatiable ego. He has put on weight. His endless, manic energy has faded. Can a god experience learned helplessness? Maybe a more self aware man would have asked himself that question. But Dalineous Faustin (formerly the Great Divine, Profane, Glorious, Down-to-Earth, Ruler, Equal, Serene, Vicious, Christlike, Unforgiving Emperor of Faustinia and all its colonies, protectorates, and territories, both real and imagined) was not a self-aware man, so he mostly masturbated.

But he is not masturbating today. He’s reading. Just below his nose he holds a copy of All Quiet on the Western Front, its first eight pages dog-eared from years of use, the remaining ones untouched. A pencil, covered with teeth marks, dangles from his mouth. After minutes of furrowing his brow in intense concentration, his eyes reveal a moment of inspiration, apotheosis. He grabs the pencil from his lips and begins to scribble in the margin. A moment later he withdraws his hand and smiles at his handiwork: a picture of a dick, a little lopsided, more testicles than shaft.

He does not even notice when the darkness just outside of the range of his bedside lamp (one of three functional lights on the ship, not counting the orbiting strobe) begins to congeal, taking a vaguely humanoid form. The shadow/man reaches out a long appendage, half-arm, half-pseudopod and taps Dalineous on the shoulder, while another similar limb withdraws a newspaper from the nowhere blackness of its chest and holds it up to the light.

The headline: “Election Shocker Leaves Altheria’s Democratic Future in Doubt.”

The once-emperor looks up, bleary-eyed and uncomprehending. He moves his lips mechanically, struggling to read the story aloud.

“E-rect-ion Sl-op–“

The shadow/man interrupts him. Opening his mouth to reveal a wide, white smile, while the rest of his form begins to dissolve, the Cheshire Cat in blackface. The mouth speaks only two words:

“We president.”

[Untitled Paragraph on Star Wars]

Found alone in an untitled document. Possibly part of a longer planned thinkpiece/rant inspired by The Force Awakens that was never completed.

December, 2016

I hate Star Wars. I honestly do. I hate it as much as I hate my own ugly adolescence. I don’t want to relive Star Wars. I don’t. I want that god awful agonizing title scroll to reverse itself and for the entire franchise to be sucked backwards into the eternal vacuum of space.

[One Sentence on Winter]

Found alone in an untitled document.

December, 2016

Wednesday is the Winter Solstice, the year’s longest period of uninterrupted darkness, the feast day of the seasonally depressed. 

[Untitled Depression Thinkpiece]

Opening to an unfinished essay. Possibly written for this website.

December, 2016

This is a thinkpiece. I am so very sorry. 

But first, a disclaimer: depression is not an unequivocal state of unparalleled insight and mental acuity. In fact, severe depression can leave you just as delusional as boundless, stupid optimism. I can attest to this from personal experience. You become blind to good possibilities. Real perspective is impossible to attain through the fog of anxiety and self-loathing. You begin to resent and distrust those who love you most. The internal calculator that allows you to asses the value of your accomplishments, ambitions, and relationships stops tabulating; everything is a zero. You take stupid risks, or you take no risks at all. Your only innovations are in the field of self-sabotage. You are blind and you are lost, and because you are blind and know of no landmarks to help you regain your sense of direction, you cannot hope to navigate home by touch alone.

Drapetomaniakkks: Prologue

Script for a fantasy blaxploitation comic based on rudy’s conworld.

February, 2017

[The dialogue below is an internal monologue by the main character of the comic, who I’m calling “The Runaway” for now. My thought is that the monologue could be spread across a series of panels in the first page or two of the comic. The first panel would just be a silhouette of a black man hanging from a tree, apparently the victim of a lynching, with just the words “Whitey don’t die.” The rest of the monologue would play out over a series of panels where a group of slave women cut the body down, wash it, and eventually bury it, while singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Occasionally, you might cut to The Runaway. He’s a muscular, Shaft-looking black man, wearing no shirt or shoes, just a pair of ragged pants and a belt with a big revolver in a holster. His back has scars from frequent whippings (of course). When he reaches the part where he’s talking about how white people aren’t human, you might include a frame that shows a plantation house, seen distantly, maybe also in silhouette. The final line, “And it don’t die,” should be the image of the slave’s grave, unmarked, after the women have left.]

“Whitey don’t die. Black men, we don’t know how to do nothing else. Either we let them crackers work us til we drop, or we run and keep running til they catch us and hang our ass from a tree. Then maybe we run in the air for a little while longer, but we still die, sure as shit. And shit is what we might as well be for all the running was worth. Running like diarrhea down a man’s leg while he picks cotton in the sun with no water and no break. Running with no place to go but down into the ground, with no purpose but to stink. But white folk ain’t like us. They’re not men like us, not human. Much as they mug and dissemble to look like it, they’re not. They’re something else from some place else, Hell or maybe worse. And that thing that they are don’t lose, don’t know how to lose, never has lost. And it don’t die.”

[The next sequence opens with a panel of The Runaway running through a swamp, being pursued by a slave catcher, who gives the monologue below from horseback as he rides through the swamp, trying to find and apprehend The Runaway. The Runaway is dressed the same in this scene as the last, only he doesn’t have the belt with the revolver. The slave catcher basically looks like the dude on the far left in this picture: https://i0.wp.com/images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/1-fugitive-slave-act-1850-granger.jpg. While the slave catcher monologues, The Runaway climbs a tree and starts jumping from branch to branch and tree to tree, trying to remain unseen. The slave catcher carries a rope with a loop at the end that might be a lasso or might be a noose. The “Aha!” occurs when the slave catcher spots The Runaway in a tree and raises the rope. However, he’s too slow and The Runaway jumps down from the tree on top of him, knocking him off his horse and out cold. Maybe there’s, like, a POW panel here for good measure.]

“Where you hiding at, you black bastard? It ain’t worth you time. Never known a nigro could hide from me for long. Did you know that my daddy used to hunt foxes? Thought it made him a regular aristocrat, like them prissy British faggots. He used to take me with him sometimes. Said it was more dignified than treeing a coon. But, hell, an animal is an animal, am I right? The pelt only matters if you’re a fur trader or a taxidermist. But I’ma confess something to you, man to nigger. Don’t tell my Daddy this, cause he always used to brag about what a fine tracker I was, but I never had no heart for hunting. At the end of the day, it was just too hard to pull that trigger, knowing you was taking a life. That’s why slave catching come so natural to me: you gets to take your prey alive. More humane, dontcha think? Aha!”

[Panel with a close-up on the slave catcher’s eyes, closed, then open.]

Runaway: “Wake up, peckerwood.”

[The slave catcher is seated on the back of his horse. His hands are tied behind his back and there’s a rope around his neck that is also looped around a tree branch. The Runaway pulls a BIG FUCKEN REVOLVER from the slave catcher’s belt and waves it in his face.]

Runaway: “Pretty big gun for a man so into catch and release.”

Slave Catcher: “Listen—”

[The Runaway points the revolver in the air. Close up of his finger on the trigger. Maybe a close shot of his eyes or the slave catcher’s face, looking nervous, depending on how many panels you need for the dialogue. Possibly a surreal panel where The Runaway really does just appear as a mouth in the darkness, like the Chesire Cat.]

Runaway: “No, honky, you listen, because I’m gonna tell you a joke. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but not quite like this. I must look pretty black to you. You must be thinking that my bright, toothy smile should be on the label of a jar of molasses, cept they wouldn’t be able to tell where I end and the molasses begins, right? I must look like the mother fucking Chesire Cat to you right now, here in the dark. But it might surprise you to know that I’ve got a white man in my family tree.”

Slave Catcher: “Darkie, you ain’t got no clue what you’re doing—”

[The Runaway pulls the trigger, firing a shot into the air. The horse is spooked and bolts, leaving the slave catcher to hang.]

Runaway: “He’s still hanging there.”

[The slave catcher strangles to death. Might want to include a panel of his feet kicking or something for good measure. As he suffocates, The Runaway looks up and sees something in the sky. At first it looks like it might be a falling star, but as it gets closer, it becomes clear that it’s a flaming, heavenly chariot. Looking down, he sees the ghostly image of the slave catcher, standing in front of him. The chariot lands and he climbs inside, flashing The Runaway a smile before the chariot flies away. The Runaway looks at the tree and there’s a black man hanging there, dressed in the slave catcher’s clothes. It’s the same black man who was being buried during the first sequence.]

Runaway: “The fuck?”

[Flash back to the present for a panel where The Runaway stands over the grave where the black man was buried, after the women have left. He’s wearing the belt with the revolver now, as in the first sequence. He looks down at the grave.]

Runaway: “Whitey don’t die.”

[The Runaway gets on the slave catcher’s horse, and begins to ride away, down a dirt road through the swamp. It seems like the comic is going to end on a solemn note, but suddenly headlights appear behind him, and a beat up sedan (like a 90s-era accord or something), drives up on him, bass booming. There’s a big black man hanging out the passenger side window with an AK-47. When they reach The Runaway, they open fire, spraying his horse with bullets, and then they ride off.]

Driveby Nigga: “Nice horse muthafucka.”

[The Runaway pulls himself out from under the dead horse, bloody but alive, and stands at the side road, watching the taillights of the car fade into the distance. He cocks the hammer on his revolver. End.]

The White House at Night

Planning documents for an aborted Kickstarter campaign for a visual novel. A playable prologue of the game still exists.

November, 2017 – June, 2018

Resources

White House maps: http://npmaps.com/white-house/

Presidential portraits: http://npg.si.edu/portraits/collection-highlights/presidential-portraits, https://www.whitehousehistory.org/galleries/presidential-portraits, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraits_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

It looks like all images on the witehouse.gov website are public domain (might be good for backgrounds): https://www.whitehouse.gov/copyright

White House ghost stories: https://www.whitehousehistory.org/press-room/press-fact-sheets/white-house-ghost-stories, https://listverse.com/2012/08/22/top-10-haunted-areas-of-the-whitehouse/, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/10/30/is-the-white-house-haunted-a-history-of-spooked-presidents-prime-ministers-and-pets/ 

Lincoln’s ghost has his own Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%27s_ghost 

Mechanics

• Players are presented with a map of the White House and can select what rooms they want to visit. Different text encounters with different ghosts occur in different rooms. Players can also select some locations on the White House grounds (tennis court, rose gardens).
  • The map should include multiple floors of the actual White House (so that we can include iconic locations like the Lincoln Bedroom) plus at least the first floor of the West Wing.
  • We may want some rooms/encounters to “unlock” after others, and/or to make some of the dialogue options or responses contingent on choices the player has already made. (Not sure how much of this we want to do.)  Maybe “ghost rooms” appear after certain choices are made?

• It would be cool to have a system that allows Trump to evolve in some way based on his responses to the ghosts, possibly some sort of stats/alignment/relationship tracker. 
  • Maybe we could have a political compass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_compass) on the hud or on the map screen that tracks Trump’s ideological position based on the responses the player chooses. If we did this, we might want to track social left/right and economic left/right separately, since it’s totally possible to be, say, someone who is both a cultural conservative and a big advocate of the welfare state. This seems especially pertinent to Trump, since his rhetoric is often populist and traditional populism is essentially a mix of the cultural right and economic left.
  • It could be cool to have his position of the political axis at the end of the game determine which of several endings the player receives. Possibly the endings could be different outcomes for his administration. (Maybe he’s impeached, maybe he goes full New Deal and becomes popular, maybe he wins reelection by doubling down on conservative cultural issues and benefiting from polarization, etc. etc.) If we were going to do this, we might want something to track progress towards either a positive or negative ending in addition to his political position. (I’m not sure what this would be, exactly, but you want to account for the fact that it’s not ideology alone that determines the fate of presidents. Trump could back popular policies but still be undone by poor managerial skills, alienating potential allies, corruption, etc.)

Potential Ghosts

Former Presidents

Abraham Lincoln: I’d like to portray Lincoln as a sort of pragmatic tyrant, interested in victory at all costs. I think this would square with what Trump might admire about Lincoln and also cut against the more benevolent conventional wisdom. I’m not sure where this encounter should take place though, as the Lincoln Bedroom seems too obvious.

Woodrow Wilson: It’d be cool for this encounter to take place in the White House’s movie theater with Birth of a Nation playing, since Wilson screened the film in the White House and possibly admired the KKK. Wilson should be dressed in Klan robes. (“What’s with the white sheet?” “I’m a ghost. What did you expect?”)

Lyndon Johnson: I think Johnson’s weird legacy as both a casually racist good ol’ boy and the president who passed the Civil Rights Act (along with a bunch of other major pieces of progressive legislation) would make him an interesting foil for Trump. He also seems like he would be fun to write.

Richard Nixon: Trump apparently idolizes Nixon, so I think it would be cool to have Nixon’s ghost be portrayed sympathetically and be someone Trump can commiserate with. I want to steer clear of the obvious “Tricky Dick” stuff.

Andrew Jackson: Another obvious precursor to Trump. Apparently his ghost has been sighted in the Queens’ Bedroom (https://www.whitehousehistory.org/press-room/press-fact-sheets/white-house-ghost-stories), which seems pretty appropriate.

William Henry Harrison: He had a short, meaningless presidency and died in the White House. Seems like an obvious choice. Comic relief?

Other

Freddy Trump: It would be nice to have a “personal ghost,” someone who could give insight into Trump as a person and who sends light on his psychological quirks.

Former White House Slave: Seems like we have to go there, right?

Huey Long: Long seems like a proto-Trump in a lot of ways. It might be cool to have him somewhere on the White House lawn, since he obviously dreamed of becoming president, but never made it there.

Calvin Coolidge Jr: I would like to recreate the scene in my original story where Trump watches Calvin Jr play tennis with a faceless version of Barron. (Maybe Calvin Sr could be watching too?)

Some former Presidential pets for comedy relief?:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_pets I guess Teddy Roosevelt owned a fucking hyena named Bill.  Depending on how weird we want to go, we might even have them be talking animals?

Demon Cat: While we’re talking about animals, there’s apparently a demonic cat in the White House basement that gets larger and larger the closer you get to it, “Wait ‘Til Martin Comes” style. (See #8: https://listverse.com/2012/08/22/top-10-haunted-areas-of-the-whitehouse/)

Unknown British Soldier: A couple of the articles mentions a British soldier with a touch who tries to set shit on fire, presumably related to the burning of the White House during the War of 1812.

Locations/Rooms

Basement:  I feel like this is too good of an opportunity to pass up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_basement What ghost hunting story would be complete without a haunted basement?  Maybe Nixon could haunt the bowling alley, and some of his encounters with Trump could take place there, during games of bowling?

Red Room: So not only is this room pretty creepy looking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Room_(White_House)), but apparently Mary Todd Lincoln used to hold seances there after her son died.

Not a room, exactly, but the British torched the White House during the War of 1812. Might be pretty sweet to have an image of the White House burning as seen from somewhere on  the grounds. Not sure how to incorporate this into the story yet.

Yellow Oval Room: A number of different ghost encounters happened here. Apparently it was Lincoln’s office, so this might be a good place to have Trump meet him, if we don’t opt for the Lincoln bedroom. It was also a favorite of FDR, if we use him: http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/floor2/yellow-oval-room.htm 

Lincoln Bedroom: I guess there have been a lot of sightings of Lincoln standing by the fireplace here. Too obvious? (Considering how many of the stories take place in the Lincoln Bedroom, maybe it could be one of the rooms that “unlock” near the end of the story, to build anticipation.)

Does the White House have a garage? If so, it’d be cool to have the convertible that Kennedy was assassinated in park there. His body with his head blown open could be slumped over the back seat. I like the idea of a mute (and mutilated) ghost for Kennedy since so much of his appeal actually came from his appearance and charisma rather than the substance of his ideas or policies.

Resources

he looks fucken ghostly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson#/media/File:78yo_Andrew_Jackson.jpg

Room List

Base Game

Kitchen: Trump encounters his dead brother, Freddy. Included in prologue.

Truman Balcony: Harry Truman as an anthropomorphic atom bomb. Partially included in prologue.

Lincoln Bedroom: Abraham Lincoln’s ghost calls Trump a pussy and encourages him to be more ruthless.

Family Theater: Woodrow Wilson is in the theater, dressed in Klan robes (or ghost sheets?). He’s watching Birth of a Nation and praises the film to Trump.

North Lawn: One of the British soldiers who set fire to the White House during the War of 1812 is here, holding a torch. The White House appears to be burning, though the flames do not damage the building, as in the title screen.

Situation Room:  I feel we have no choice but to use the “demon cat” that gets larger and larger the closer you get to it. Maybe you could have “get closer” and “run away” menu options, with the cat getting bigger and weirder until the player decides to run.

Driveway: The convertible that JFK was assassinated in is parked here. Kennedy is lying in the back with his brains blown out. He doesn’t speak.

Tennis Court: Trump watches Calvin Coolidge Jr. play tennis and cannot remember his own son’s face, like in the original short story.

Laundry Room: How about Reagan’s ghost, still suffering from alzheimer’s, sitting on the laundry room floor eating tide pods because he think they’re jelly beans?

Bowling Alley: Richard Nixon could be bowling here, since he added the original bowling alley to the White House. and because of the whole “bowling alone” thing. I’d like to have Nixon be a somewhat sympathetic character, given Trump’s apparent admiration for him.

Stretch Goals

1. Rose Garden: I think this might be a good place for the ghost of Huey Long, since he never made it to the White House. You could also do a “Jesus in Gethsemane” thing with him suffering in the garden and lamenting his martyrdom.

2. State Dining Room: Bill, Teddy Roosevelt’s hyena, could be in the dining room, eating directly off the table. Maybe he could be joined by other presidential pets.

3. Red Room: Mary Todd Lincoln used to hold seances here after her son died. What if Trump walks in on a seance where Lincoln is still trying to contact her son’s spirit, unaware that she is also dead? Perhaps she could confuse Trump for the spiritualist conducting the seance and ask him a bunch of questions about her son and what happens after you die. Could be a fun reversal of expectations.

4. China Room: Andrew Jackson rants to Trump about his disgust at the niceties of American politics, expresses his approval at the way Trump has demolished political norms, and tries to talk Trump into smashing some of the White House china. Maybe at the end some natives show up and scalp Jackson in a Monty Python-esque moment of absurdity, I dunno.

5. Oval Office: After agonizing over this, I think the best ghost for the Oval Office would be Warren Harding. It subverts the audience’s expectations for the room, since they’ll be an anticipating one of the best presidents and end up with one of the worst. Harding also has a lot in common with Trump: his administration was plagued by scandal, he was surrounded by bickering, corrupt sycophants, and he had multiple extramarital affairs (and even fathered a daughter with his secretary). He apparently even had sex with her in the Oval Office while the Secret Service watched the door. I think we could slip Clinton’s notorious cigar in (har, har) here too. Maybe it could be on the Resolute Desk and Harding could say something like, “Don’t touch that. Someone left it here, but he’ll be coming back for it soon enough.” Harding was also apparently quite vain and died while his wife was reading him a positive newspaper article about his presidency, which seems very Trumpian.

6. Press Briefing Room: A ghost (possibly the mysterious teen boy called “The Thing”) forces Trump to give an improvised press conference, while it watches, unimpressed. The player will have to cobble together the speech blind from a series of incomplete sentence pieces, sort of like using predictive text. Since the player won’t know what sentence fragments they’ll get next, the speech will inevitably end up being garbled and largely meaningless.

7. Attic: William Henry Harrison could be locked up in the attic, draped with a dusty sheet like an old, forgotten piece of furniture. I think he could be kind of a comic, neurotic character, worried about his irrelevance. Maybe he’s long winded since he developed pneumonia after giving an excessively long inaugural address.

8. Carpenter’s Shop: This seems like the perfect place to put one of the slaves who built the White House. Plus, you could have an obvious contrast between what they built with hard labor and what Trump has built as a real estate magnate.

9. Bathroom: What if the ghost of Taft was trapped in a bathtub, as per the urban legend? That would be a pretty disturbing visual.

10. East Room: Since the East Room has been used for various receptions since the White House was built, we could have a whole bunch of different ghostly events going on simultaneously; dances, funerals, weddings, and press conferences all mashed together incoherently. One of the funerals could be for Elmer Ellsworth, since that would give Lincoln a chance to brag about how he essentially got him killed to improve the view from his front porch. This could also give us a chance to present a bunch of different ghosts with conflicting outlooks simultaneous to really underscore just how senseless and absurd history is.

Emily Tok

Character from an aborted Fate RPG campaign

July, 2018

Emily Tok is a petite (4’10”, 85 lbs) 18 year old Asian women afflicted with multiple personality disorder—and all of her personalities are angry as shit.

Emily was raised by stern, borderline abusive Cambodian immigrant parents who always pushed her to achieve her full potential and who also harshly punished her for any sort of misbehavior and especially for displaying any negative emotions. Early in her childhood her parents took notice of her diminutive size and unnatural dexterity and enrolled her in gymnastics classes, hoping that she might compete at the Olympic level someday. And, in fact, Emily may very well have lived up to her parents’ dreams if she hadn’t started having violent emotional outbursts where she would launch into vile, hateful tirades, full of racial and sexual slurs and incoherent conspiratorial rants. Oddly, the targets of these rants changed with every outburst (Jews one day, lesbians the next, white males the third). At first, doctors were convinced Emily had tourettes, but her diatribes were too articulate and often lasted for minutes or even hours rather than just seconds. 

Her psychologists were about ready to simply write her behavior off as acting out under stress when Emily failed to show up for an SAT prep class. That afternoon she was arrested following a two hour and forty minute Falling Down-esque ass-kicking rampage that left three black youths, an elderly Jewish woman, a middle-aged gay couple, a Southern Baptist pastor, six Muslim schoolchildren, and (most remarkably) a Korean grocer seriously injured, and one pitbull dead. While in custody she was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, declared mentally unfit to stand trial, and hospitalized indefinitely. After multiple violent encounters with patients at other hospitals, she was transferred to Point Pleasant.

Aspects

High concept: A talented gymnast infested with the personalities of dozens of furious bigots.

Trouble: She’s a disappointment to her parents, and she knows it.

Skills

Provoke (+4) – Because she is basically a walking compendium of bigoted rhetoric and unbridled malice, Emily excels at evoking negative emotional responses from those around her. 

Fight (+3)  – When one of her personalities takes over, all of Emily’s gymnastic skills are transformed into some serious kung fu shit.

Athletics (+3)  – See: trained gymnast.

Empathy (+2) – Emily, like all children with belligerent parents, is keenly skilled at reading others’ emotional states.

(+2)

(+2)

Physique (+1)  – She may be small, but adrenaline and a history of getting her ass whooped with a bamboo rod for misbehavior have made her durable.

Shoot (+1) – Her father owned an inner city bodega, so you best believe she’s handled a gun before.

(+1)

(+1)

Drive (-6) – Even with all her athletic prowess, she’s still an Asian woman.

Stunts

Weaponized Empathy – If Emily has a polite conversation with a character in her “normal” persona prior to launching into one of her fits of bigotry, she can add her empathy bonus to all Fight rolls against that character in the exchange that follows.

Psychological Jujitsu – If another character tries to bully or intimidate Emily, their roll automatically fails and instead triggers one of Emily’s personalities. Determine what skill the character was using in the bullying/intimidation attempt. In the conflict that follows, Emily gets a bonus to all her Fight rolls equal to that character’s bonus in the offending skill.

Actual Jujitsu – If Emily is attacked by a character wielding a melee weapon, she can roll Athletics (instead of Fight) during her turn to attack that character with their own weapon. At the end of the attack, Emily and her opponent make an opposed athletics roll and the winner is left holding the weapon.

[Two Sentences]

Found alone in a Google Doc.

November, 2018

[Untitled Young Adult Novel]

My most recent failure. Aborted after one or two attempts.

November, 2018

I

Girl

Young adult fiction. I loathe young adult fiction. Consider the million year history of human literature, beginning with excremental smears on sandstone or bark or a trepanated skull, surviving panics and pogroms and centuries where the cardinal virtues were illiteracy and fire, flowering in Dickinson, Dostoevsky, and Nabokov―only to culminate in the awkwardly retraced outlines of toothless dragons, an indeterminate number of synthetic -punks, and thousands of metric tons of repurposed cellulose devoted exclusively to rationalizing teenage promiscuity. What a waste. What an embarrassment. What a racket. I hope you will forgive me then, when I say that I want in.¹ I’m ill-equipped for this particular scam―let the run-on sentence which we escaped only five periods ago testify to that―but, hell, every charlatan is, by definition, underqualified. Though, admittedly, you’re unlikely to find many confidence men this insecure.²

Alright, alright. Let’s write.

First, we’ll need a protagonist. Now reader, you might think that I should create a universe before I begin to populate it. You might assume there’s a certain fixed Jehovian order of operations that every would-be originator of realities must follow, that we must move from large to small, from general to specific, from grand to mundane. Light → Space → Earth → Life → Bugs → Man. Nonsense. I firmly believe that God would not have embarked on the tedious and largely pointless task of birthing a vast and intricately, even obnoxiously, detailed universe if he did not have Adam already in mind. Or maybe it was Eve, who, yes, was made in his own image too, but perhaps less exactly and less predictably so. An author wants his work to be appreciated, and only a live mind, a judgmental soul, can satisfy that desire.

Of course, you, reader―who are also imaginary―can begin to fill that role. That’s why I’ve conjured you before even the central character of our story. But here’s some bad news: you are not enough. Get used to hearing that while you are young. I will not be the last one to share this truth with you, though hopefully, for your sake, I am the most callous. You are only one set of eyes, skimming a page, surrounded by complete and absolute darkness.³ And worse, you have no mouth. You are mute by design, and I must imagine the tastes of your quiet, unknowable heart. For all I know, you might be about to lay this book down in disgust as we speak (no, as I speak, just me), revolted by the flowery excess of the previous sentence. No, this won’t do. Reader, you are making me insecure. I need a simple, malleable consciousness, totally beholden to my whims, an obvious, transparent lacky. Enter the protagonist.

Our first task is the most delicate. We must craft a unique human mind, with only words and without the aid of light or touch. We’ll work from the inside out: soul before skin.  Beginning with only a single nucleus of divine inspiration, orbited by carefully selected adjectives, we’ll forge an atomic bound strong enough to hold an entire psychological universe together, an indestructible ego that will weather the unexpected demands of  two hundred pages (or, god help me, more) of authorial whims and plot contrivances with ease.

No, sorry, I’m pulling your leg. We’re not going to do anything like that. That’s totally impossible. Or, at the very least, a lot of work. Emotional labor.⁴ Forget it. It’s the superficial details that intrigue us anyway. Let’s be honest here, trashy pick-up lines aside, when was the last time anyone was immediately drawn to a stranger’s soul? No, the most important details―here, at the beginning of time, at the birth of space―are the most superficial. Demographics, demographics, demographics. We must give the census man his due.

Question 1: What is your sex? Male or female. Check one, and only one, box. We have a thirst for simple categories, and this is the simplest. Identifiable immediately at birth.⁵ Hugely influential. Predictive of future outcomes.⁶ Reader, gaze down time’s dimly lit hallway―don’t allow yourself to be distracted by the tacky wallpaper⁷―and watch while I make doors open and shut with a single word.

Girl. Yes, sure. A girl. Why not? 

She must be precocious, because young adult fiction is exclusively read by precocious teens and mediocre adults who have deluded themselves into believing that they were once precocious teens. 

Tradition obligates us to give her at least one dead parent. For simplicity’s sake, let’s give her two. Here’s a tip for aspiring authors: a dead parent is, without exception, easier to write than a live one. 

I won’t disclose (or bother to concoct) a cause of death for either Parent #1 (m) or Parent #2 (f) just yet. Sometimes an author will tactically withhold information from the reader to 

“Shut up,” she says. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.”

1. An indelible childhood memory: the drunken imitation Santa Claus from the original Miracle on 34th Street muttering, “It’s cold. A man’s gotta do something to keep warm.” It shouldn’t surprise the reader that this witticism was excised from the 1994 remake. But, cold as this world may be, reader, don’t think I am doing this for the warmth. I’m plenty warm and my stomach is as full as any first world primitive. I’m a mercenary, an opportunist, and undeserving of your sympathy (or, worse, your empathy). Don’t forget that, or I will catch you squatting, with your robe around your ankles, like David did Saul, and I will not spare you.
2. You’ll note, reader, that the graft has levels you might have missed. Every word you’ve read so far has been nothing but an act of procrastination masquerading as a necessary introduction. How much of your time have I pilfered already? Hope you tucked your billfold in your sock on the way in.
3. I take no responsibility and cannot and will not be held liable for any and all existential nightmares this image may inspire, by the way. You were going to have to reflect on your own loneliness and mortality eventually anyway. It’s the inviolable curse of curious young minds.
4. If you don’t know what I mean, ask your most insufferable classmate.
5. My apologies to to the one person out of every fifteen hundred who is intersex. Look at me, alienating readers already.
6. Why? You don’t think I’m about to accept the profound risk that comes with offering an answer to that question, do you? Reader, I’m a coward. Nature/nurture. Predestination/Prejudice. Genes/jeans. Choose your own adventure.
7. A childhood memory: the hall in my grandparents’ house was papered with mock historical newsprint. I remember a dot matrix image of a Model T and an article about the Wright Brothers’ act of hubris at Kitty Hawk. Why am I thinking about this now?