Multiversal "What if...?" Narratives

I’ve been seeing a lot of people complaining about Multiverse stories of late. It’s the usual crowd, influencers with a large audience and an argument to stick to. It’s fine, I’m not hoping to change their minds - their whole brand depends on them sticking to their guns. Gotta be experts in their fields, after all…

Anyway, their basic argument is that stories about multiverse variants of characters are not only meaningless, but render the main continuity meaningless as well. And, while I think they’re missing the point, I think the way that multiverse stories are told these days is missing the point, as well.

The idea behind the multiverse story, at least to me, is that it’s a narrative opportunity for the characters rather than for the readers. A character being given the opportunity to see where they would have ended up if they’d chosen a different path, or where they will end up if they stay on their current path, has fantastic potential for conflict and is great motivation for character growth.

There’s an old episode of Rugrats (shut up, just trust me) called “Chuckie’s Wonderful Life” where Chuckie wishes that he’d never been born. After this wish, he's given a vision of what everyone else’s life would be like if he had never been born. It’s a dark and depressing timeline where everyone is worse off without Chuckie. Waking up in his normal life again, Chuckie re-evaluates his previous wish and decides that things aren’t so bad after all.

In an episode of Buffy (again, shut up) called “The Wish” the character of Cordelia wishes that Buffy never came to Sunnydale, and her wish is granted. She’s given a VIP tour of a world where vampires rule the town because Buffy never arrived. Things are so bad that she doesn’t even make it alive, and even Buffy herself is killed right before the world is reverted. Now, granted, they fuck it up by having Cordelia forget everything when things revert, but while she was alive in the other world she was very much regretting her choice.

Finally, to the oldest example, A Christmas Carol, the tale of Scrouge being taken on a journey to his past, present and potential future. He’s shown what the world will be like if he doesn’t change his ways, and it’s a world where at best people don’t care about his passing and at worst are glad that he’s dead. Upon waking in his normal life, he’s a man changed from his experience. Unlike with Buffy, A Christmas Carol managed to stick the landing.

Charles Dickens is a better writer than Joss Whedon… go figure.

Anyway, my point is that these characters are given the opportunity to see a dark version of their world, and it makes them wish for something different. Whether they achieve it or not isn’t really the point, it’s the fact that there’s the desire for change, for something better, within them.

The problem with modern takes on the Multiverse narratives, which is primarily just Marvel and its labyrinthian and all-dominating Cinematic Universe, is that it’s primarily being used to show audiences “cool and alternate” versions of characters that we already know and love. Want to see a girl version of Loki? Done. Want to see a billion versions of Spiderman? Done. Want to see John Krasinski as Mr. Fantastic? Sure, we can make that happen in a safe and non-consequential manner… All of this is fine, even I’ll admit that it’s exciting, but it’s not using the multiverse to its full potential.

Doctor Strange meets an evil version of himself in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and then he does the exact damn thing that made that version of him evil in the first place. He doesn’t learn a thing. It also doesn’t help that there’s a teenage girl that just bounce around between universes so that we can see all these cool and alternate versions of earth… because that sets up what it’s all about - the visual spectacle and the cool factor.

Another series, Rick and Morty, revels in the meaningless of the modern multiverse. Both Rick and Morty jump through various timelines and universes, interacting with various versions of themselves and replace one another with frightning regularity. Rick isn’t actually Morty’s Rick, because Morty’s Rick killed Rick’s wife and daughter, and Rick figures if he can hang out with that Rick’s Morty, then he might get a chance for revenge. Also, Morty lost his real dad in a multiuniversal daycare for Jerrys, but also he lost his entire world because he and Rick accidentally destoryed it then took the place of another Rick and Morty just after they’d died.

This isn’t to say that Rick and Morty isn’t deep at times, just that it’s dived head-first into the mutliverse narrative and is pushing the bounds of storytelling in pursuit of what it can get from such a set up. Characters do grow in Rick and Morty, but the situation they’re in is simply so batshit insane that it’s nigh-unrelateable for people. It’s interesting watching Rick kill hundreds of different versions of himself, but it’s not exactly relateable.

Getting a chance to meet an alternate version of your dead father isn’t the same as still having your father, because your real father died and you really experienced that death. This multiversal version of him isn’t your dad, and you might not even be his kid in his world. Along with this, no matter how much you hang out with this not-perfect copy, you’re never going to forget your actual dad dying.

It seems like good storytelling, because there is drama there. But the drama stems from the fact that your father is dead and now there’s a near perfect copy of him standing in front of you and you’re trying to reconcile the conflicting narratives. And you do want your father back, your real father, and you might just be desperate enough to take this imitation of him… but it wouldn’t be the real him. His death happened in your life, in your timeline. It’s part of your story, and you can’t change that by bringing in some copy. It’s not about that.

Maaaybe, at best, this still-living copy of your dead father could help give you closure and help you move on with your life, but he’s not there to “fix” the fact that your dad died.

Because that’s what Multiversal Narratives have the potential to be. The character being shown a different version of their world, as a way of gaining perspective on their own world. Some things may be better, some things may be worse, the point is that it allows characters the opportunity to see alternatives and make a better decision about their own life when they return home.

Any attempt to stay in the alternate timeline is merely a character running from their life, which is why the variant timelines are often far worse than their own world. It’s a safeguard against characters wanting to stay, and therefore appearing weak for effectively running from their problems. Far better for them to see a far worse version of their lives, learning from the experience, before returning and modifying their lives while they still have the chance.

Multiverse Narratives can be meaningful, but they have to be handled in the proper manner to be so. It’s not about seeing cool but slightly different versions of well-known characters, it’s not about escaping to a new world to run from your problems… it’s about gaining insight and returning home all the stronger for it.

Gears of War: E-Day - Hope for the End of the World

A new Gears of War game was announced early Monday morning, Gears of War: E-Day, and for the first time in years I’m actually excited for a Gears of War game.

It’s no secret that the games industry, or any other entertainment industry for that matter, has taken a turn for the worst in recent years. You just have to look at the number of IP’s that have been subverted and sacrificed for people’s political views and anyone who isn’t involved or supportive can see the trend. That’s not to say that there should never be politics or messaging in games, films or stories… it’s just that it needs to be done well.

Story first, always.

Remember back in the 90’s and 00s, how the mere mention of watching a Chistian movie would illicit a round of scoffs and eye-rolls? The over the top moralizing, the puddle-deep story attempting to contain all that blatant messaging and propaganda? Well… just imagine that, in reverse - it’s now the other side doing it and it’s just as obnoxious.

What am I talking about? You don’t have to imagine - you can see it all around you.

The original Gears of War trilogy was fantastic, I’ve done a write-up of it before. But then came Gears of War Judgment, and that was a side-step to tell a prequel story. It got some things right, and some things wrong, but the tone was the same and it felt like Gears of War.

A few years later, Gears of War 4 came out. You could tell they were going for a different tone; it was a replenished world, 25 years after the last trilogy and everything was bright and happy and just waiting for a new end to come. The characters were young and unaware of the horrors of war, having grown up in a time of peace. Besides the tonal issues, and the choice of colour palette, they also toned down the gore and even made Gears 5 open world with two different endings, for some reason. There was also a blatant narrative error in the fact that they decided to focus on Kait Diaz instead of JD Fenix. You play as JD in the first game, but the story is very much about Kait.

Now, before anyone looses their mind - there’s nothing wrong with having a female character in the lead. It would have been fine if JD Fenix was a woman, because then she would have been the daughter of the last protagonist and greatest hero the setting had ever known. But instead, we’re following the story of the granddaughter of the first trilogy’s villain… the genocidal matriarch of the Locust horde. This is only exacerbated in Gears 5, where JD is relegated to war criminal and Kait takes the lead as protagonist.

It’s an odd choice, and a tough pill to swallow for fans of Marcus Fenix and the Gears of War franchise. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that they chose to murder JD’s character (not literally… yet) in the hopes that Kait would rise in the eyes of the audience. But the thing is, they didn’t actually raise Kait up, they just dragged JD down… so, Kait may look better in comparison, but she’s still a lame protagonist.

Now, cards shown, I never actually played the 5th game - I could only watch all the cutscenes on YouTube because I was abroad at the time (still am, actually) and I couldn’t get my hands on the game, let alone the console to play it. But, I did read the two novels that focused on Kait and from those I can attest that Kait is a Mary Sue at her finest. She stomps around, screaming at anyone who gets in her way as she breaks all the rules and does whatever she wants. The whole world revolves around her, and even Marcus Fenix, hero of humanity and badass soldier in the extreme, follows her lead. I don’t need to go into this too much, there’s plenty of video essays on why Kait is a terrible character that replaced JD.

Alongside this focus on Kait, is the fact that all the heroes of the original trilogy are still there, and still fighting alongside the next generation. JD failed to surpass his father, Kait is the granddaughter of the genocidal maniac who nearly wiped out humanity, and Del is a nobody… why are we playing these characters when we could still be playing the originals with a few grey hairs?

I think the biggest issue is the bait and switch, the fact that the fans thought we’d get to play as JD and carry on the Fenix legacy. But, not only do we not get to do that, we had to carry on the legacy of the villain as we watch the hero’s son get ignobly relegated to the sidelines as a broken man. And, to top things off, in a weird multiple choice ending for Gears 5 - JD might even die, depending on who Kait chooses to save.

Sooo basically… they fucked up Gears of War, in multiple ways, is what I’m saying.

So, and here we finally come to the meat of the matter, instead of giving us Gears 6… and continuing with this shitshow, they decided to give us a prequel set on E-Day. It focuses on Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago, right as the Locust launch their invasion. Both characters are fresh from the Pendulum Wars, they’ve both lost Carlos, Marcus’ best friend and Dom’s brother, and Dom is going to lose his kids and eventually his wife… this is going to be a hectic time for both characters. The dev’s promise that it’s going to go back to what Gears of War is all about, a gritty story about horrific monsters trying to genocide humanity. Which, after the Saturday morning cartoons version of Gears of War we got with 4 and 5, is nice to hear.

But, as someone who writes books, and has had a little experience in the games industry (I really need to emphasize the little part, right there) I can tell you that this is a big deal. They’ve put the main trilogy on hold to give the players exactly what they want. They had a plan to make a new trilogy, but by the second game it was clear that it wasn’t vibing with players, and so they’ve taken the nuclear option and created the exact game that they know their core audience would want. That’s a big deal, because not only is there already a lot of time/effort/money sunk into this new trilogy, but there’s the in-house ideologues who would be resistant to such a move.

“A game with two straight male characters?! And the lead is white?!?!”

There’s no ideology at play here except cold hard cash, and Microsoft want as much of it as possible. This is a prequel, set 14 years before the first Gears of War… we already know who dies and who doesn’t, we already know how it ends. All that matters here is the journey, and so the journey has to be worth it. The dev’s know they fucked up with Gears of War 4 & Gears 5, and so they’ve jumped back to their original track to try to save what they can. It’s not going to be fresh, or revolutionize the genre, but it’s going to be tried-and-true, and you’ve got to have faith that they know what they’re doing by the fact that they’ve course-corrected this drastically.

Again, because (as of writing this) we live in 2024 and people are already sperging out with self-righteous fury over this… you can have fantastic female leads, but that doesn’t mean all female leads are fantastic. If you’re so focused on getting your message across, or just comfortably not trying because you’re merely focused on representation, then your story is going to suffer and people aren’t going to get your message anyway. I’m not excited for Gears of War: E-Day because it has male leads, I’m excited because it promises a return to form.

I’m excited for Gears of War: E-Day, but at the same time I wish I didn’t have to be. I wish JD Fenix had been born a girl, because then we would’ve gotten a complete trilogy, with a better story, and we wouldn’t need this random prequel.

Prepper Fiction

I’m an Indie-Author who focuses on Post-Apocalyptic fiction, but one that finds himself at odds with the broader Post-Apocalyptic Indie Author/Audience scene. Most successful Indies who write Post-Apocalyptic fiction actually only write within a very narrow bandwidth of the genre, focusing on what should be it’s own sub-genre of Preper Fiction. It’s fine if you want to do that, but it’s really not something I want to do. I’ve known I don’t mesh well with the broader PA-Indie Author scene for a while now, but it’s always been hard to nail down why. But I just got into a brief, but revelatory, discussion with an Indie who is far more successful than I am - and now I think I know why.

Prepper Fiction, as the name suggests, focuses on Preppers - which also reveals their protagonist’s key aspect - they’re prepared. The implications of this were only made crystal clear to me during this discussion with the other, far more successful (I cannot stress that enough) Indie. To summarise his rather long point, he basically said -

“My character was a good guy, smart, popular, successful, helped out in the community and church. He almost did everything right… but he never asked ‘what if’? and so his unperparedness for a tomorrow that wasn’t like today lead to his downfall. I want people to think about this character, and not be like him.”

To which my reply was -

“So, basically, what you’re saying is - “Jack was a really great guy, but he wasn’t a Prepper… so he died.”

The conversation jackknifed and he denied my synopsis of his longwinded post and suggested I read his book, which I kindly refused. But it did get me thinking about his argument, and where I’d heard it countless times before.

Back in the good old days, where the biggest concern in society was how annoying the Christians could be, they always had this weird argument about heaven. It was basically that it didn’t matter how good a person you were, if you didn’t follow Christ then you’d go to hell. You could house the poor, care for the sick, donate blood and save puppies, but if you didn’t adopt this one particular lifestyle, then all that was in vain and you’d suffer the consequences.

It’s the same argument…

It’s no suprise that the biggest readers of Prepper Ficiton are American Christians, they’ve been freaking out about doomsday forever. They spend their entire lives preparing for the Day of Judgment, when all the non-believers who didn’t think like them will finally understand that they were fools and ohhh if only they’d listened to the ever so wise and saintly Christi-I mean, Preppers.

It’s the exact… same… argument.

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to figure it out, but this throw-away discussion with one of my betters has laid out exactly why I hate Prepper Fiction. Imagine having the audacity to think you could prepare for the end of the world? Imagine staring down zombies, nuclear war, EMP, coronal mass ejection or an actual pandemic (because those are the only scenarioes they deal with) and thinking, “yeah, I got this.” It’s the exact same audacity that allows people to walk around thinking, “anyone and everyone who doesn’t follow my way of life will burn for eternity, but I’m going to be rewarded for eternity.”

For the most part, beyond the inciting incident, the apocalypse doesn’t even play a role in Prepper Fiction - it’s just there to kick things off and break the world order we’re currently stuck with. This is because Prepper Fiction is simple wish-fulfilment - of a world where everyone who doesn’t think like the reader dies and the slate is wiped clean. Any antagonists who manages to survive the end of the world in Prepper Fiction are either evil “heathens” to be killed or unprepared “atheists” who should’ve listened and prepared while they had the chance. Prepper Fiction isn’t about people surviving the end of the world, it’s about people prepared for the end of the world surviving, and being proven right.

But the thing is - the apocalypse is the end-of-the-fucking-world, it doesn’t take sides and it doesn’t give a shit how prepared you are. A meteor is going to kill millions, the resulting tsunamis will kill millions more and the subsequent famines will kill billions after that. Fuck your little cabin in the woods and collections of bullets and beans. You’re not going to be rebuilding shit after that, certainly not your little utopian light of civilization you think you’re carrying. You’re gonna hide out in your cabin in the woods for a few weeks and then wonder why you’re suddenly getting sick. As you start firing blood from both ends you’ll remember that there’s nobody to run the nuclear powerplants and so they’ve all gone into meltdown and they’re spewing radiation all over the country side. The last thing you see, as you die scared and alone, is your bug-out-bag full of expensive gear.

I was never a Christian, and I’m not a Prepper, and even though people can and do make bank by catering to this audience, it’s just not something I’m interested in… but fuck me if this link between the two wasn’t a massive reveal for me.

The Land of Long Shadows - Released!

Well, after a whole lot of fucking around… The Land of Long Shadows is finally published.

Thanks to everyone that helped out along the way. I had a whole lot of help from people who put up with crackhead brainstorming sessions and an endless stream of strange queries that raised more than a few eyebrows. Writing this book was a challenge, but if early reports are anything to go by then it’s all been worth it.

If you’re into Post-Apocalyptic ficiton, or just something a little outside the norm, then you can check out The Land of Long Shadows - here.

Finally… I can move onto something else.

New Post-Apocalyptic Novel - The Land of Long Shadows

It took me much longer than expected, but I’m finally releasing my next post-apocalyptic novel!

Just look at that cover. You know some crazy shit is about to go down.

The basic gist of it is that I drunkenly set things in motion that rippled out like a cascading cluserfuck and consumed most of my creative energies for the past few years. But, it’s finally complete and ready to be ejected out into the world… like a stinking turd, or a demonically possessed stillborn.

“Why would he phrase it like that?!”

Because, my nonexistant interlocutor, I want to set your hypothetical expectations in order. The Land of Long Shadows, to put it mildly, is not a nice story. It is a story about the worst of the worst that humanity has to offer, stuck in a crapsack world without any hope in sight. There are no heroes in The Land of Long Shadows, and the day cannot be saved.

Just as it isn’t a short read (coming in at 142,000 words), it’s not a straight-forward read, either. The literal world has ended on a fundamental level, and there’s some reality warping, timey-whimey shenanigans going on. Just when you think you soul can’t take the strain from all the horrible characters, your mind will start to crumble from trying to get a grasp on the plot and setting. Transgressive Ficiton really can be a certain kind of fun, sometimes… from the right angle… under the proper lighting… at the exact time of year.

Anyway, I’m aiming to release The Land of Long Shadows on August 12th, 2023, just two weeks away from the time of writing this. With all this prep for release going on, I’m already hard at work on the sequel as well as a few other post-apocalyptic projects. So, stay tuned for all that.

Immune Female Protagonists

This is going to be a rough one, but stick with me and I promise that we’ll get there in the end.

A Chosen One is a character that has been chosen by fate or destiny to save the world. It’s a great set up for a story protagonist because it allows for unconventional characters to be the centre of the narrative. Why is Luke Skywalker from the original Star Wars trilogy going to be the one to bring down The Empire? Because the Force chose him. Why is the Dark Lord going to be defeated by Harry Potter in the Harry Potter series? Because He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named heard a prophecy of a child that would kill him. Why is the Dragonborn suddenly shouting in the Dragon-Tongue? Because they were blessed by Akatosh.

You get the idea.

There’s another type of Chosen One, specifically for stories that are more realistic or based around science rather than magic, someone who is biologically chosen – The Immune. Typically these characters are the protagonist of a story because they are biologically immune to some threat that is ravaging the world. Why is Dr. Robert Neville immune to the vampire virus in I Am Legend? He was just born that way, kind of lucky when you think about it, right? Why didn’t Alice turn into an Infected in 28 Weeks Later? Not sure, it's possibly got something to do with her heterchromatic eyes… pity it didn’t protect her from being killed by her husband whom she just infected. Why is Mitch Emhoff immune to the outbreak in Contagion? He’s just lucky.

You get the idea.

Being biologically chosen is mechanically the same as being chosen by fate or some god, just without the mystically woo-woo. It allows you to have unconventional characters be the heroes of the story, because they’re the only ones who *can* be the heroes. It’d be great if we had some SAS guy going after the zombie cure… but all we’ve got to rely on is this high school drop-out slacker, because he’s immune for some reason. The Immune is a great trope, but it does come with a pretty serious storytelling issue that a few notable stories have bumped into.

Ellie from The Last of Us is a primary character in the series because she is biologically immune to the Cordyceps Brain Infection. While she can still be killed by the Infected, she can’t be infected with the virus they carry. Haniwa from See is born into a world of the blind, as one of the few people that is actually able to see. While the apocalypse that ended the world and left the survivors blind is centuries past, the world has moved on without sight and Haniwa has to learn how to navigate a world not designed for her.

In stories about saving the world, the characters need to be both strong and brave, and able to take on danger at every turn in service of humanity. Both Ellie and Haniwa are fierce warriors who have adapted to a violent world that wants to kill them at every turn, it’s why they make great protagonists. As uncomfortable as it is, the key issue is the fact that they’re both women. This is because the problem with The Immune, as opposed to The Chosen One, is that a biological problem is going to have a biological solution.

In a world where immunity is the only thing that’s going to save humanity from the virus that’s threatening to wipe them out, then logically the best thing the hero can do is spread that immunity. Characters in both The Last of Us and See tackle this in their own way. In The Last of Us, a group of freedom fighters/terrorists plans to harvest Ellie’s brain so they can generate a cure for the virus. In See, a sighted man named Jerlamarel is going around knocking up as many women as he can, to sire children who can see.

The problem with female characters who are protagonists simply because they are Immune, is that the most logical thing they can do to save the world is stay at home and have babies. Realistically, if you wanted to save the world and you had access to one of these Immune females then you’d do everything in your power to make sure they’re passing on this immunity. Now, the Fireflies in The Last of Us had a stupid plan. If they were going to go full on supervillain and sacrifice a child, why harvest her brain when they could harvest her eggs? If you’ve got the capability to do brain surgery in a post-apocalyptic world, like they do in The Last of Us, then just get a hundred women and artificially inseminate them with Ellie’s fertilized eggs. Boom, instant population of Immune and things only get easier when you’ve got Immune who are men. If humanity has taken more of a tumble and isn’t as advanced anymore, like in See, then just find a woman who’s Immune and move heaven and earth to make her as comfortable as possible as she pumps out Immune kids for as long as she can.

Despite the fact that this course will save the world, it’s not glamorous, it’s not action packed and it’s not viewed as good story telling. Thanks to biology, an Immune male protagonist could spawn hundreds of Immune children in a year and still go on all sorts of story-worthy adventures. But an Immune female protagonist? Nobody wants to play a video game about a woman who stays in a zombie-surrounded compound having kids for all her child bearing years. Beyond that, could you imagine the uproar that’d result from a modern story that revolves around a woman staying at home and having kids?

In an age of stories where men are being told to grow up, stop going on carefree adventures, shoulder some responsibility and settle down with a family, women are being told to go out and live their best lives, initiate boss-bitch mode and take on the world. Immune female protagonists only seem heroic, because the real heroic thing to do (for any Immune, male or female) would be to put aside their ambitions and adventures in service of humanity… because that’s what an actual hero does.   

So, what do storytellers do to avoid this plot hole? How do they justify the Immune female protagonist, cradling the salvation of humanity in her womb, rushing off into danger and putting herself and the future of humanity at risk?

It's simple, they make her a lesbian.

The Immune female protagonist isn’t interested in having Immune children with a man because she’s not interested in men. Being a lesbian isn’t enough to get them around the whole egg-harvesting scenario, but it’s enough to insure they can stay out in the world and maintain their status as protagonist of an action story. Not that any woman would ever really aspire to being a baby factory, but it would be particular abhorrent for a lesbian in a world where artificial insemination isn’t an option. Passing on their Immunity through procreation just isn’t an option for them, so they don’t even bother with it. Writing Immune female protagonists as lesbians is justifiably enough of an excuse to allow them to get out of taking the most obvious course of action to save the world.

So, if you were ever wondering why Ellie from The Last of Us and Haniwa from See are both Immune while also both being lesbians, it might have less to do with representation and more to do with writers trying to escape a gaping plot hole they’ve created for themselves.

Setting the Record Straight

So I haven’t updated this blog in a while, despite everything I’ve said in previous posts. Plans change, boo-hoo. Despite this though, the blog has still been getting a bit of attention, although not in a manner that I’m all too happy with.

A while back I started watched the Van Helsing series, and I began writing a few blog posts about the show. I didn’t like how they handled a lot of things, but it’s Post-Apocalyptic so I kept watching and I kept writing. The problem is that these posts gained a lot of attention with the wrong sort of crowd, and even though I haven’t been here in a while - they’re still the main source of traffic to the site. So a TV show that I’m not even that fond of, is bringing the majority of people to my site.

Not happy.

The worst part, though, is that due to the nature of my critique I seem to be getting a lot of angry guys who hate the show. I can only assume they Googled the show after watching and thanks to the metrics my blog posts came up first… and so instead of taking their rage to a forum, or something, they just dumped it on my blog. This has happened a few times now and along with not being the sort of constructive discussion I’m interested in, these comments are a constant reminder of my lapsed obligations as a blogger.

So, to set the record straight - this is not an anti-Van Helsing site. This is a site for all things Post-Apocalyptic and more broadly, stories in general. I’m not going to play the SEO game with Google and start pumping out rage bait to try and capitalize on one post that became popular for all the wrong reasons. If all you’re bringing to my blog is a hatred for a TV show, kindly fuck off.

I’ve got nothing against strong female protagonists, as long as they’re handled fairly, realistically and consistently. I actually want them, because having well rounded characters makes any story better. Just do it in a way that doesn’t involve dragging guys down, and I’m as happy as a pig in shit.

Scarlett Johansson was a literal tank in Ghost in the Shell.

Sigourney Weaver was a Xeno-killing machine in Aliens.

Gina Carano was a beast in Deadpool… along with anything else she’s in.

Jennifer Garner is an absolute badass.

Charlize Theron was historic on the Fury Road….

Do I need to keep going?

Chances are that if you came toe-to-toe with any of these ladies - they would royally fuck your shit up. Deal with it.

A few episodes of Van Helsing were trashy due to mishandling a message, big deal. Overall the show is actually pretty decent, and it’s kept me watching and I’m keen to see how it ends. It’s not that great, but then how many shows these days are? I’m watching it to learn about the crafts of writing and storytelling, learning what works and what doesn’t. If you don’t like it, and you’re not getting anything else from it, then why are you still watching?

Don’t go full swing in the other direction here, either. I’m not some SJW cuck looking to virtue signal…. but I’m not some Alt-Right Incel nutjob either. Just make great stories, with well-written characters. Because if you don’t, then I’m going to learn from your mistakes.

To close, here’re some women being badasses in quarantine.

Return to Form... and an Old Post-Apocalyptic Book!

Hey folks, sorry for the massive hiatus, literally three months since my last update, life has been sort of hectic of late. Living overseas is never easy, and some days are a lot more stressful than others. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about, I’m here to talk about updating the Post-Apocalyptic Writing Guide!

It’s been a year since I released the guide, and it’s garnered some great comments and reviews… but the things with guides is that they have to stay current. With that in mind, I’m going to update and re-release the guide. A version 2.0, if you will.

Because of this, I’m opening the floor to my Post-Apocalyptic tribe - if you’ve got something you think should, or shouldn’t, be in there, then let me know! I’ve got my own changes that I want to make, sure, but I’m happy to listen and take on board any thoughts or criticisms that Post-Apocalyptic creators and fans have. I want this to be the quintessential guide, and for that I need all of you. There’s already a long list of names in the front, people who’ve helped out, and I’m more than happy to have yours in there too.

If you’ve already got a copy, then flip through it and take some notes. If you haven’t got a copy, then just email me at JJShurte@Gmail.com and I’ll send you one for free. One of the tribe, S.T. Campitelli, has already written up a five page document that’s full of some really helpful stuff, I’m seriously impressed and doubly grateful. But I don’t care who you are, as long as your a fan of the genre, I’m open to any and all input.

Thanks in advance, and best of luck out there!

PS - Yes, I’ll try to update more.
PPS - Yes, I’m still working on my fiction… when I can.

Captain Marvel - Feminism Done Right

I figured I’d wait until all the hubbub around Captain Marvel died down before I threw my two cents at the matter. I’m only coming at this from a storytelling perspective, since it’s not a Post-Apocalyptic film, but I’ve done enough posts on times when feminism has been done poorly that it felt warranted. While I think Captain Marvel was a good film, the main point here is that it delivered its message in a perfectly palatable, and inoffensive, manner.

I’ve made plenty of posts about shows like Van Helsing, Wynonna Earp and Orange is the New Black, about how they’re posing as vehicles of social change when in reality they’re just riding the wave of popular opinion to make some cash. The first two are female power fantasies, where women are given super natural strength to dominate the world around them, while the later is a character drama where all women are victims and men are ineffective losers at best and tyrannical oppressors at worst. They’re feminism done wrong, because they preach to the already converted. They’re made for people who already hold the views they’re purporting to push, which in turn makes them unpalatable to anyone they’d seek to change the opinion of. Making content for a target audience is fine, we all do it, but these shows are catering to the current populist trend of social justice and victimhood. So while they’re appealing to certain peoples sensibilities, they’re not actually contributing anything to their cause beyond “Muh Representation!” and they’re resorting to shit storytelling to do it.

So basically, that whole paragraph was to show that I’m not a fanboy, I’m not a soyboy and I’m not an ally or anything of the sort. Chicks are cool, gays are cool, I don’t even care about any of that shit, I just want well crafted stories that are water tight. All this pandering to extremists tends to create characters that are two dimensional Mary Sue’s, and narratives that are contrived and cliched. It’s boggled my fucking brain from the get go, because such hamfisted storytelling doesn’t help anyone beyond the creators who can make a quick buck off the moronic herd-minded tribalism that’s so popular these days. I put that last paragraph there to show that I’m not the sort of person who’ll just blindly swallow a cheesy moralizing feminist flick, and that I’ve written enough about such flicks that the following endorsement should carry some weight.

Captain Marvel was actually pretty good, and there wasn’t anything in the film that had me rolling me eyes or wanting to leave. There’s been a lot of negative press and controversy around the film, primarily surrounding the lead actress Brie Larson and her outspoken views on straight white men… but I don’t care about any of that external stuff. Chris Evans says some pretty on-the-nose stuff that’s in a similar vein, and while I haven’t seen any of the Captain America films, I do enjoy his work in the Avengers films. People are allowed to do and say some stupid shit and it doesn’t have to seep into the film. Tom Cruise is a bit of a dick but I watched him in Oblivion and thought “god damn, that man can act!”

I’ll admit that I agreed with people’s initial assessment from the trailers, Brie Larson did look bored. But as someone with Blunted Affect, I get how fucking irritating it is when you’re told to smile all the time. In the movie though she’s actually quite emotive, so maybe the trailers just focused on the scenes where it’s more serious. There’s a decent amount of humor in the story too, and I found myself laughing with my friends. (Yes, I have friends IRL.) There were several well written female characters, with strengths and flaws, but there were also multiple well written male characters who weren’t nerfed into cuckoldom just to make Captain Marvel look good. This is something that other aspiring feminist films could learn from - making your male characters weak doesn’t make the female lead look stronger, it' just makes her surrounded by a bunch of ineffectual losers and undercuts any achievements she might accomplish. What’s more impressive, a woman playing Rugby against the All Blacks and winning, or a woman competing against the Under-7’s Special Needs division and winning?

I know there’s one scene where her friend says something along the lines of “Let’s go show these boys how it’s done!” But you’ve got to ask yourself, what else was she going to say? They were the only two female pilots, they were surrounded by men and “Let’s go show our coworkers how it’s done!” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Also, as a guy who works with just one other male, at a certain point you do start spending a lot of time with that person simply based on their gender. Along with this, there’s this montage where there’s a bunch of men in her life telling her that she can’t do things because she’s a girl. Her dad freaks out because she was in a go-kart crash, which is understandable, and her fellow trainees in boot camp are heckling her. I never got to join the military, but it’s a pretty dude-centric institution… and the film is set in the 90’s, so again - what else where her fellow cadets going to say?

But none of it really seemed on the nose or forced, none of it rubbed me the wrong way - it was all just adversity that she’d had to overcome to reach that point in her career. And it worked too, because they had to show that she was pretty formidable before she got her powers, not just someone who went from zero to hero - like Shazam. The cat seemed a bit weird, but they managed to tie it into the humor of the film. Honestly, the only part of the film that sort of jarred me was the reveal about the Skrulls. I read the Secret Invasion comic arc when it came out a few years back, and I don’t know how this is going to mesh with that. They sort of seem at odds with one another, but maybe Marvel don’t plan to explore that story line in which case it’s not even an issue.

So yeah, despite what people may have assumed - I went and saw Captain Marvel and I actually enjoyed it. I think most of the hate for this film has been spurred on by the lead actress’ comments, combined with people just wanting to hate it because it’s got a female lead. But just like Den of Thieves needs to be recognized for it’s accurate exploration of Toxic Masculinity, Captain Marvel needs to be accepted for doing a female lead in an action film the right way. Captain Marvel is strong and capable in her own right and she doesn’t drag men down to build herself up - that’s all I’ve ever wanted. If we can’t even acknowledge when honest and earnest attempts to bridge the gap from the other side are being made, then we’re never going to get anywhere.

I’m pretty stoked to see how they’ll include her in Avengers Endgame, since she’s on the same level as Thor and Hulk in terms of power. I get the concerns about having such a powerful late-game addition to the roster seeming like a deus ex machina moment, but she seems to be on par with characters that’re already present. I’m hoping at best she’ll be just enough to tip the scales in their favor, rather than have her win the day outright. An addition of someone like Wolverine isn’t going to do shit against Thanos, but someone like Captain Marvel most certainly will. Along with this, we’ve already got two super powered dudes, so why not mix it up and make the third a chick? I’ll admit that it can go sideways in a lot of ways, but after the masterful stroke that Marvel pulled with Black Panther (wherein it was basically Trump vs Hitler) I’m pretty hopeful of what they’ll do with Avengers Endgame.

They’ve been building up to this for over a decade, they can do almost anything with it… the only thing they’re certainly not going to do is fuck it up.

Van Helsing - Really That Bad

So, I sat down and watched season 3 of Van Helsing and despite what I said in my last blog post on the subject - it’s doubled down on the man-hating social justice rhetoric and become a clusterfuck of a show. Along with the ridiculous propaganda it’s peddling, the storytelling of the show has devolved into absolute absurdity. It’s not trying to appeal to a broad audience anymore, it’s not even pretending to appeal to a wider audience, it’s purely a radical feminist girl-power romp through the post apocalypse.

Vanessa Van Helsing is a fucking joke of a protagonist - she snarls and stomps her way through this season. I guess they’re trying to show her devolution into a vampire-like being, but she’s just an absolute arsehole. As an example - Axel, the marine with multiple tours of combat duty before the vampire outbreak, is trying to enter a building with some form of tactical awareness, but Vanessa just gives him the finger and waltzes inside. I get that they’re trying to portray her as an experienced combatant who is also superhuman, but this “badassery” would be described as “toxic masculinity” if it were in a male character. She literally kills an innocent man, just to drink his blood, and then forgives herself in the next episode and it’s never brought up again. She even admits that she killed a guy in the first season despite knowing he wasn’t the murderer in their group, simply because she wanted too. To put it as bluntly - she’s just a cunt of a human being.

And the show has totally reverted to it’s original anti-male narrative, where if something bad is happening then it’s typically a man’s fault. A male nurse hits on a side character, who rebuffs him because she’s a lesbian, and he ends up attacking her in a psychotic rage. Both those things already happened in the first episode of season one, but they decided to reuse it for some bizarre reason? If the leader of a group is male then they tend to be evil, or they’re gay and get killed, or they’re female. It’s a female prisoner, who is chained to a really weak and effeminate male, who stages a riot on a prison bus which allows everyone to break free. Axel finds his long lost sister, just like Vanessa found her long lost sister… just like Mohammad found his long lost sister… and it turns out she was kidnapped and used as a sex slave by some guy who ends up having memory loss.

And the worst example, the one that nearly had me evacuating my bowels out of sheer outrage, was the castration. There’s this twitchy vampire that’s been awkwardly convulsing his way through the series and in this season he’s decided that he wants to join this sisterhood of badass vampires… and they decide to let him join, but only if he has his nuts taken off. As ridiculous as that is, the worst part is that he actually fucking begs them for it…

“Yes, do it. Make me like you. Make me a sister.”

Sorry to break it to you, but having your nuts taken off doesn’t make you a woman - it just makes you a shitty male. And not only does he have his nuts chopped off to join an all-female order of vampires, they go ahead a lop off the sacks of a whole bunch of other male vampires they force to join their ranks. They’re fucking undead, they don’t even procreate. I guess there’s the symbolic gesture of it, but what’s the point of the castration in terms of the story beyond some appeal to a batshit insane form of feminist extremism? How about I write a story about women being forced to get hysterectomies in order to join a gang… let’s see how long I survive after writing that.

Beyond this inane pandering to an ideology of victimhood, the storytelling itself has completely gone to shit. All the main cast of characters are either immortal or immune to the vampire plague, even though there’s multiple strains of it now. Someone is even healed from near death by being bitten by a vampire, despite also being immune to the virus. The vampires can’t figure out if they’re burning in the sunlight or if the clouds provide enough cover for them to walk around without protection… but it doesn’t even matter anymore because there are “Daywalkers” now. And no, despite making a joke about the shows similarities to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they couldn’t even give a nod to the fact that they stole the term from Blade. I guess Buffy gets a nod because that had a chick lead, but since Blade was a dude then he can get fucked.

The secret organisation Blak Tek also plays a bigger role in this season but they’re just as stupid and just as mustache-twistingly evil. They’ve set up a safe zone in Denver but it’s all about experiments on unwilling human test subjects and forced labor in prison camps. There’s a bunch of elder vampires who are two dimensional and a prophecy being told by some literal hag who just appeared this season, and it all ends with an ascended Sam standing off against Vanessa and her newly resurrected Van Helsing ancestor. And you just know that the fight isn’t going to happen at the start of season 4 because it’ll be forestalled somehow and dragged out for the entire bloody season.

Van Helsing at least appeared to be correcting it’s course by the end of season 2, but it totally reverted in season 3. It’s shit storytelling combined with a failed attempt to pander to ideologues that’s created this absolute abortion of a show. Vanessa Van Helsing isn’t a strong female character, she’s a shitty male character being played by a woman. There’s still a few half decent characters in this show, but they’re few and far between… it’s like wading through an ocean of shit to find a dime or two.

I’m sure I’ll see season 4 at some point, because it got renewed for some reason, simply for closure more than any interest in seeing where the story goes. It’s clearly not written for people like me, it’s a show that preaches to the already converted under the guise of trying to illicit social change… and it can’t even tell a half decent story. But for some bizarre reason these Van Helsing posts are some of my most popular content - which both perplexes and irritates me to no end. Gotta give the readers what they want though, even if it’s a crazed rant about a lame-ass show. I’m just glad I haven’t had to pay to watch this tripe…