1000 Posts Later: The Best Posts Of the Blog

And now we're here. And now we're at post #1000.

Who knew?

Now what?

Well, as per tradition, I note all of the top ten blogs of all time.

1. Who would Captain America vote for? An election special.

Four years later, this is still on the list. Originally from the 2012 election, I this one was probably carried more by Alex Ross art than anything else. But it's still going strong as the #1 blog of all time.

This was fun. I was just going over the top and insane.

But here, Captain America punching Hitler in the face.

Can we have one of Captain America punching Osama in the face? Really. Pretty please?

Yeah, I know, I should probably do this again for 2016, but no. Have you seen the cesspit of this election? No one would vote for either one of these people. I think even Captain America would punch both of them in the face. Repeatedly. The 2016 election would make Tony Stark run for President as a 3rd party candidate, and win.

2. Sad Puppies Bite Back

From April of last year, and it jumped to the #2 spot immediately. This is so successful, I made this into a novel. Yes, it's a book now. Please, feel free to to buy it.

If you have no idea what SPBB is ... click here. It is a really, really, really long flipping story. It was a one-shot that spiraled so far out of control, I really didn't see the end of it.

But people are still coming to the blog just to read them.  Well, here you go, enjoy. 

3. Sex, DC Comics, and ... wtf?

Yup, it's still in the #3 spot, and shows no signs of leaving. Ever, really.

This was right after the dawn of DC's New 52 Universes in 2011, when the comics had gone into a sideways spiral of strange. 

Catwoman screwing Batman on a roof? Check. 

Starfire becoming an amnesiac slut? Check .... except that they're not even that clear, and backtracked, rewrote, and I'm not even sure that DC Comics know what the hell they were doing then. 

I think this the popularity of this had something to do with sex being in the title. You don't even want to see what the search terms look like.

4. Disasters to Marvel At: A Comic Discussion.

From 2010, I ripped apart with every stupid decision that Marvel comics had made for the previous 5 years.  Sadly, some of those decisions are still going strong. But it's hard to figure out which ones. 

Except for One More Day. F**k that, and them, and Joe Quesada.

I think I have to do this again. Because, well, Captain America as Hydra. Gah.

Seriously, Marvel, stop it.

I'm told that OMD might be reversed. I'm not holding my breath, though.

5. Review: Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent.

Yay, we have a new one. Yes, a new entry. who knew? But yes, this was the review of Larry Correia's really strange audio book, narrated by the awesome Adam Baldwin.

This was almost bizarre and hilarious, and the entire review exploded onto the top ten list in a matter of days, and it took a little while longer for it to make it to the number 5 spot.

But yes, I do recommend it. It's hilarious.

Also, Wendell the Manatee.

6. Sad Puppies Bite Back (Part 2)

This one is still on the list. Again, as new as last year, but still, it's here. And, obviously, you do need to buy the book to read the whole thing now, sorry.

Historically, though, this is where things started going really odd. And I probably should have seen it coming that things were going to really go sideways ... "sideways" as in "The Puppies have taken over my blog."  I think part one got suggestions of nominating this for a "Best related" award from the Hugos. 

I would have enjoyed watching the Puppy Kickers go insane. But we can't have everything. 

Oh well. Heh. 

7. Cry Havoc! And Let Slip the Puppies of War!

From April of 2015, this was after Entertainment Weekly's libelous article about Sad Puppies, written and published without talking to anyone within Sad Puppies. At all. Yes, really.

Believe it or not, in retrospect, this was not what got me really into the Sad Puppies bandwagon. That was when someone decided to go after Brad Torgersen's wife. Then, then I had a meltdown, and decided someone needed a stern talking to.

8. #MakeItStop -- please, make the stupid stop

From this June, 2016. This is months old. Heck, in the course of a week, this shot up.

This is what happens with the use of hashtags.

I'm still blown away that, well, this was a political post. I don't do politics here. I tend to avoid them. I'm surprised anyone bothered.

And all I did was round up arguments I've seen others make online. 

Funny thing? The douchebags whining in the comments are pretty much invalidated by the existence of the truck attack last week in Nice, France.

Shocking, huh?

9. Puppies Come to WorldCon (SPBB III)

Still here from last year. This was going to be The End. Period. Dot. Final. The last straw. The Puppies were going to come to the Hugos, and it would have to end there. Why? Because there would be nothing left for me to write until the Hugos came out. It was a perfect out, right? Right?

Yes. And that worked soooo well.

10. The Dragon Awards are Here, vote Early, Vote Often.

This was a simple announcement about the Dragon Award nominees from this year. That was it. This also made it on the top ten list in a matter of weeks, if not days.

Looking over this list, I've come to the conclusion ... that I should probably make this blog all about sex, Sad Puppies, politics, book reviews, and comic books.  But then, I reach that conclusion every few hundred posts or so.  We'll see about doing that sometime next time around.

Sadly, I'm all out of Puppy material. Tomorrow, more Codename: UnSub.

Enjoy.

THIS! IS! 500!!!!! Thanks, and the top ten list

Cedar

This is the 500th post for this blog.

We've done a LOT since last time.

The Pius Trilogy has finally come to an end.  Each of the books, A Pius Man, A Pius Legacy, and A Pius Stand have all had great reviews, with only one prick who decided that I had kicked his puppy or something. Though if he really wants Sad Puppies, go here.  Cedar, Larry Correia and Sarah Hoyt can really make puppies cry. MUAHAHAHAHAHA

Margot

I'm sorry, where was I?  I was distracted by crying puppies.

Oh, yes, 500 posts.

I've been trying to sell these books since 2007, and I've been running this blog -- or vice versa -- since 2010.

Because of it, I've made some great friends, like Sarah Hoyt,  Ann Margaret Lewis, Karina Fabian, Daniella Bova, Daria Anne DiGiovanni, Margot St. Aubin, and Matt Bowman, the Novel Ninja.

I've read some awesome books, like Amy Lynn, Ordinance 93, The Watson Chronicles, the Book of Helen, Stealing Jenny, and a whole slough of others. Slew? Slough? Oh, you get the idea.

Kia

And these people.  Wow.

Heck, due to Kia Heavey, I have a new model for Manana Shushurin, now that the previous model is far, far too respectable to be associated with the likes of me.  She was before, but I guess she finally figured that out. :)  Kia is an author, and I recommend her books. Heck, I have.

Ann and Karina have been responsible for dragging me into the Catholic Writer's Guild. And if they weren't (it's been so long, they may not have), they're a large chunk of the reason I stay.

There's the CLFA, and that's also a long story.

Margot was largely responsible for the gun shop visit of 2014, and accompanied me to the Catholic Writers Guild conference that I was a guest at.

I've lost some good friends.  One of my first beta readers for A Pius Man died before it was published. The first artist for the site, with whom I was acquaintances since college, and I drifted apart.

DC comics death from Above: writing for management

Starfire, bad ass.

In the not too distant past, I did an article about how DC comics seems to have a pathological problem with sex.

This month, the problems have really started to hit me.

Keep in mind, the last DC comic story I read was "Final Crisis," and that one didn't even make sense.  Once they went to the New 52, "One More Day"ed every relationship, and started warping the very nature of their characters, I have only glanced at the comics from time to time, usually to my horror.

Starfire, fashion victim

It was bad enough when DC comics took Starfire -- an alien who was fairly open about her sex life, and was completely monogamous -- and turned her into a .... I'm not entirely certain that the word "slut" is a strong enough word. Not only did they have to go out of their way to make the character amoral when it came to sex, but also gave her a costume redesign to match.

I mean, really? Who comes up with this stuff?

Then Catwoman's character redesign was .... also horrible.

I figured, okay, not a problem, that's two comics out of 52, and one of those writers is Judd Winick, who is a crappy writer to start with (Really? Let's bring back Jason Todd? That's a good idea by you?).

And then some of the most recent stupidity hit the fan.


Take, for example, Batwoman, a "Lesbian hero in the DC universe."  That, in and of itself, doesn't effect me. After all, I figured out a while ago that the DC policy on women created since the late 80s is simple: if you're not a woman dating a Superhero, or if you don't have superpowers in the DC universe, you're a Lesbian (Footnote: see Maggie Sawyer, Metropolis cop; Renee Montoya, Gotham Cop, Batwoman... you get the idea).

Here's the problem.  After building up for months the concept that "Oh, Batwoman's going to get married to her girlfriend," DC pulls the plug on the whole concept.

Now, I don't know if you're aware of this, but comic books are usually planned out at least one year in advance. This allows for planning, crossovers, editing, illustrating, etc. You can't start a 6-12 month story arc without approval.  You can't start something and blink at the last minute.

And yet, this is what DC comics has done.

If you told me that, at the last minute, someone had old religious feeling kick in and they felt they had to swerve away from a lesbian marriage .... I wouldn't believe you.

Why?  Well, aside from the fact that a lot of people don't give a crap about gay marriage (my opinion on it is here), you have.....

1) As I said above, the "new 52" imposed a "One More Day"- like idiocy on the DCU.  No one in the entire DC universe is married anymore.  Barry Allen, married forever? Not anymore. Superman and Lois married for all of the 90s? He's now dating Wonder Woman.  Marriage is, after all, for old people. Who cares if your loyal readership of decades have grown up with these characters in solid, committed relationships? Teenagers are where [DC thinks] the money is.  (Personally, I'd wager my money on the middle aged professionals doing a 9-5 and have a few bucks to catch up to Superman this week)

2) I can't see religion being a factor, given what was done to Catwoman and Starfire.  And, after cancelling any wedding for Batwoman, DC decided that they wanted artwork of a naked Harley Quinn committing suicide. Which leads me to...

3) Is it just me, or is every active writing decision that DC Makes centered around pandering?

• "Hey, we'll have some gay superheroes!" And make it a green lantern from an alternate universe who gets almost zero screen time, as well as one of a hundred interchangeable green lanterns.
• "We'll make a title heroine who's a Lesbian, yay!" as long as she doesn't get locked into a stable relationship, but we can see her make out with her girlfriend.
• "Let's have two of our strongest female leads turn into sex crazed women!"
• "Naked Harley Quinn!"

Seriously? Who's in charge of DC comic nowadays? The same five year olds who swear on MMORPGs because they just discovered these great new words?

My point? I'm not sure if I have one, short of "top-down control is bad."  I used to think it was deranged when there was an infinite amount of crises at DC.  "Oh, hey, we're going to continually shake up the DC universe every month."  But those at least created some interesting stories and some good writing along the way, such as the three year War of the Rings in Green Lantern, or the series 52.

This .... all this has just resulted in bad writing. Does anyone know what's going on anymore?  Once it was editorial lockdown from above, where everyone was in lockstep with the crisis du jour. Now, it looks like no one is in charge except for refugees from my old high school.

Month in Review: October, 2011

This is the month where everything went very, very strange.  And, that was apparently a good thing.  This is officially the month with the most page views ever. Who knew?

I started out with something that pissed me off: DC Comics turning Starfire and Catwoman, two of their stronger female protagonists, into sluts, to put it charitably.  They were so totally reduced to sex objects, I wanted to throw rocks.

So I threw angry language at them instead.

Ironically, in one month, it has become the most read post on this entire blog, beating out Disasters to Marvel at, which is a year old.

Also, I decided to get back to creative writing, creating more surveys that my characters have filled out.  You know, the older online essays that used to be sort of fun.  I had one for the German spy Manana Shushurin, and another for the Secret Service agent and nerd, Wilhelmina Goldberg, as well as the lethal weapon, Irish Interpol Agent Maureen McGrail.

I didn't have all that many music blogs this month.  I threw up some John Williams marches, and Tom Smith taking his revenge on technology and Rob Granito

A false report on gay marriage in the military made me start an irate blog .... then I wanted a better footnote, discovered that the story I based my indignation on was bogus, and I was stuck with a blog I had to rewrite, very, very fast.

I put in another blog on writing. This time it was a matter of "how to exposition like crazy" -- when you have to dump a graduate paper's worth of information into one novel.

Also, I had a little conversation on how to write for disaster.  It's mostly how to write characters who are supposed to be terrified, when you yourself have never been quite that scared -- and, making certain that your character's fear is appropriate both to the situation, and the person.

And, there was my self-defense review for the month -- with my  my self defense columns for October. It had to do a lot with Occupy Wall Street, self defense for women, and self defense against the zombie apocalypse .... I'm serious about the zombie apocalypse part.

Catholic conspiracies 3.  This was almost a replacement for It was inspired after I saw a lot of idiots try to pin Occupy Wall Street on "crypto-Jewish Jesuit fascists founded by the Illuminati."

I want my Vatican ninjas.

Sex, DC Comics, and ... wtf?

Long term readers know my opinion on sex in writing.  I'd say my opinion on sex in general is very Catholic, but since no one understand that, I'm not even going to bother.

However, I can sum up my thoughts on sex in fiction very easily: who needs it?

We all know the mechanics. What possible reason is there for a blow by blow description? Pardon the pun, but you know what I mean.

Since my first article on sex, I've written a few sex scenes .... by few I mean two, and they were in the same book.  However, the "sex scene" was in someone's dream, and the protagonist was having a conversation with his dead wife through most of it. The sex was incidental, and mostly has to do with the fact that she was killed on their honeymoon.  The second sex scene was so vague, any less detail would be as clear as a Salvatore Dali painting, only with words.

Yes, I brought in Dali to an article on sex. I'm weird. However, there is a point.

Even during these scenes, there's no blow by blow description. (I'm going to stop apologizing for that phrase, just roll with it.).  It's not necessary, unless someone's writing porn.  Even something as intimate as noticing a tattoo on someone during sex doesn't necessitate that much detail -- the audience does not need to know what specific act the individual was doing when s/he noticed the tattoo.  It's sex. Nudity happens.  Next chapter.

So, what prompted today's rant?

DC Comics seems to be going back to the 1990s, where the artistic style was summarized by my friend Jason as "Big boobs, big guns."

The current version seems to focus on women and sexuality, with an overemphasis on the sex.

I've no problem with sexuality, or with women -- look at my model for Manana Shushurin if you don't believe me --  it's that it's bad writing.

Starfire in costume

Take, for example, the character of Starfire.  She's an alien with red hair, green eyes (and I don't mean with two green irises, I mean the entire eye is green), orange skin, with measurements somewhere in the 36 DD battery range.

Normally, I would stop reading at green-eyed redhead (I grew up with a crush on the female lead in Riverdance, leave me alone).  The character has always been sexually relaxed, it was mostly a cultural thing.  And, for the most part, it was used properly -- as comedy.  For example, in the classic Crisis on Infinite Earths, Starfire walks in with Nightwing, meets an old friend, and introduces him as "This is Nightwing, my lover."

Nightwing's reaction is such that you suspect he's glad that he has to go and face the end of the world.

And that was it.  One panel. Move on.

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