Rachel Schneider
ENG 477
Date 1/11/2021
Marsha Blackburn
A Writing Portfolio
I want to write my own fiction stories one day; I have had a book or two swimming around in my head so I will put the computer to good use and get that typed out one of these days. In this instance I chose my 5 stories and even though one is a marketing inquiry I had fun writing it, so here are my things and some background some of them.
Resume: It is a basic one because my photo ones were not particularly good, and this is an honest resume besides the ones I made for class and I did fudge on those.
Cover letter: I made up the cover letter though there is a penguin Books but it is always fun to use your imagination!
Hike with Drew: I got the concept from a Writer’s Digest and entered it into a contes I never got a response but good practice.
Short Story Vegas: Was one I did for another class but in here I changed it and the story was much better the second time.
Marketing Flyer: This was fun to do those are stock photos of the dogs and squeaky toys, but I like Pit Bulls and dog toys are fun as well.
Scott part 1-This is a story I am working on with another writer, warning its very sexy and some naughty words are in there as well.
Writing Samples: I made these three samples up one day because as I have looked for writing work, I have seen people want a sample of your work, so I came up with these.
Rachel
Schneider

3867 Houghton Ave Riverside CA 92501 📷
951-743-8911 📷
[email protected] 📷
Rachel Schneider 📷
Rachel7Tori-Twitter 📷
📷

Objective
To get a career going in the fiction/short story writing industry my imagination can run with any scenario and to write is to live.
📷

Education
Bachelor of Arts in English | Grand Canyon University
2017 – 2021
Took 15 different writing courses, creative writing and even two fun marketing classes all to polish up my craft. Carried a 3.0 GPA and did the courses all online as well.
No Degree Obtained | Riverside Community College
June 1994 – December 1996
Took these college courses but did not finish got 32 Units of Child Development Courses though which is what I was going for
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Experience
Cafeteria Worker 1
2008 Currently Employed.
Cook, Prep, serve food in a middle school setting, also clean, count inventory and do next day prep, cash handling and POS register experience.
Bell Ringer | Salvation Army
November 2007 – December 2007
Rang bell and collected donations for the salvation Army in front of various stores during the holiday season.
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Skills
Food handlers Card
CPR First Aid certified

Grammar Proficiency
Spelling Proficiency
Can work from home
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Activities
Have good use of social media and can help update or bring in new followers with my creative writing side. Have a Reddit account as well with 30 stories up on that site. Can speak a little Spanish and Hebrew as well.
951-743-8911
[email protected]
3867 Houghton Ave Riverside CA 92501

Rachel Schneider

Writer

Penguin Books

Dear JENNIFER MCGREGOR,

1/21/2021
Jennifer McGregor
Fiction Publisher
4587 Tropicana Rd.
Las Vegas NV 89102

I have included my resume for the short story writer for young adult novels. It has been a few years, but I currently work in a middle school, so I do see all the angst and sass that goes with being a young teen. I do hope my writing samples can help me move to the top of the list. I look forward to working with Penguin Books and letting kids know being a teen is hard at first, but it does not last forever.
Sincerely,
Rachel Schneider
Rachel Schneider
3867 Houghton Ave
Riverside CA 92501
It had been a long cold winter Drew and I could not get out for a morning hike till today. Being 75 degrees, we did not have to wear many layers. He is an extremely sweet inquisitive boy who always asks a lot of questions. Why does moss grow on the north side of trees” he asks? Its times like this when it would be nice to have my husband here, but he is overseas where the work is. “well, it’s not just the north side it’s on the shadier side because that is where the moisture is.”
On we went looking at snails on the ground watching the deer pass by along a ridge. Being quiet as to not startle them. “Mom he whispered it’s a bunny den they are coming out for food, he leaves a few carrot and lettuce scraps from last night’s dinner. I walked down the path and spotted some glorious Blue Jays and a Downey Woodpecker. “Listen Drew the woodpecker is getting the bugs out of the trees.” My sweet Drew was staring at the Bunnies, they are cute and fluffy after all. We followed our path down further after the bunnies went back to the den.
The skies were getting cloudy, so I hoped the rain was not going to come back. Though the weather report said there was a chance. My little explorer with his school uniform on was undeterred, I wish I could wear shorts on a 75 day and not be cold, it is always nice to be young. Walking along our path we spot some squirrels running in circles around the tree. “Why do the chase each other like that” Drew asks. “Maybe it’s a game for them like ring around the Rosie.”
On we trek to our favorite stream where the deer family are taking their drinks. I tell Drew we cannot skip stones right now we do not want to scare them. We look through the grass for more of his favorite bugs, saw some worms just below the dirt by a tree. Looking up we see a big spider web being made between two branches. The crows were making their calls in the distance. We are finally able to skip our stones in the stream. He gets some great skips going, and we collect some new rocks for our little garden back home.
Walking past the stream we climb up the embankment and up along the ridge where we see a Fox off in the distance. He or she walks the opposite direction we are going so it is a relief we can continue to the clearing. Where there are more bugs, rocks, and Bunnies. We pass the Deer family as they run up the hill to were, they mostly frolic or maybe they live up there. We stop for a snack of Apples, Almonds, and some cheese sticks. When we were finished Drew put a couple of slices in his pocket to feed the Bunnies, I am sure.
“Mommy we’re getting to the clearing now we can see the Bunnies and the last time Daddy, and I were here I got some neat rocks too.” Drew told ne enthusiastically, I did love his passion for nature, though again my husband is much better at the nature stuff. I am a pastry Chef ask me about desserts and I am your woman, about why moss grows on trees and hello Google. Since Dad is unavailable, I step in and let him explore and see the world outside of the house and off the screen.
It is just another half mile and it is on to the clearing. He starts to pull me hand a little harder I know he is excited. We pass under the tree I glance up and see the Fox again. Then we stop and see “Daddy home……
Name: Rachel Schneider
Course: ENG 361
Date: 4/14/2020
Instructor: Debbie Graves
One Week In Las Vegas
The countdown started Friday at 2pm I got the week off from this thing I call a job (just over broke). The car was packed, it was time to hit the road. The traffic was average and climbing the Cajon Pass was not that bad. I stopped in Baker to have my favorite meal at Bob’s Big Boy, the chili spaghetti, no onions. After making my way back on the highway the traffic picked up going out of Baker, through to Primm and Stateline. I had to stop for gas at Whiskey Pete’s, so I also went in and got some snack goodies. My favorite trail mix and some cheese potato chips because vending machines are too expensive. The road was beckoning so off I went, traveling through Jean is always nice, not much to see. A prison, a few remaining casinos, some outbuildings, and a truck stop. There slogan was always fun 40 smiles closer than Vegas. You can get bored so be sure to pack some music you can have your own car concert. “I’ll face it with a grin I’m never giving in, on with the show” (Show Must Go on by Queen)
Finally, the Vegas skyline is in sight, the lights are not on yet, but they will be needing to navigate around the strip. I do say a few words the terrible drivers. This vacation was so needed my job is crazy, my kids are older now and do not need mom around anymore. Off they went to grandma’s house and I booked the week at the Delano, it is attached to the Mandalay bay so perfect access to all the fun of the strip, and just enough luxury to not look cheap. Getting the valet to take the car I check into my genuinely nice room I have a great view of the Luxor light (that comes off the top of the hotel) and the Excalibur. Now off to indulge in that genuinely nice bathtub and get some overdue reading done. My bathroom with a view has the Luxor light and that is the brightest light on the Vegas strip it comes right out of the top of the Pyramid shaped hotel. A brightness of 42.3 billion candela, you could read a paper from 10 miles straight up if you wanted to.
Once I was well soaked and finished with my chapters it was time to find something to eat besides my snack foods. After cruising the room service options, I settled on some Mexican food of chorizo and eggs with nice corn tortillas. That hit the spot so with the extra energy it was time to get out for a stroll of the property. The indoor pool is nice but small and I want to soak up the sunshine and get some exercise so I shall hit the outdoor pool tomorrow. Back in the lobby I grab those ads for things to do in the city so I can plan out the rest of my trip. There are thousands of things to do in Vegas. Do not be disappointed if you do not get everything done, that is what the next trip is for. I have a beautiful week and I want to have a good time and not have to wait for anybody, I can do what I want. I got those and cruised up through the lobby and toward the casino on my way there I saw a sign for a food and wine festival. With that guy Zac from the travel channel. Thinking hmm I did not know he was interested in food or wine. I went down and found my favorite penny slot game Lucky cat. After 15 minutes I came out putting 20 in and winning 500, so I called it a night and went to the bar to catch a hockey game and grab a fun fruity drink (I like tequila sunrise, (Tequila, grenadine, and cranberry juice). As I am rooting for the Golden Knights (local Vegas hockey team) I looked over to my left and there was Zac from the travel channel, and he likes hockey too this is awesome, and I am trying not to be a fan girl.
The game was in intermission and the Knights were winning so it was time for a new fruity drink so this time I turned around to get back to the bar and bumped right into Zac, boy was my face red. After some apologies and an offer to buy my next fruity drink (a Strawberry Daiquiri) it was a yes and I spilled that I was a fan. He told me he does have an interest in food and wine not just chasing ghosts with his crew. We had some great conversation and when the game came back on, we both sat in the booth cheering the golden knights to their victory. Now I am buzzed and standing up was going to be fun, but Zac was a true gentleman and helped me to my feet. He offered to buy me dinner. The Taco Hut was a good place the tortillas were fresh, and the company was so cool. The conversation turned to food, wine, travel, and some stuff about me. The midnight hour rolled around, and Zac had an early morning, so we said goodnight, but he was staying one floor above me, so we agreed to go to the diner in the lobby for breakfast or brunch. At 10am I was enjoying my company and this great stick to your ribs breakfast (scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns and some great watermelon) The food offerings in Vegas are so varied you can get everything from a hot dog and beer for 1.99 at the Orleans, to a 5-star meal at Caesar’s Palace the buffets are great too. Although sometimes you want a nice sit-down dinner.
The conversation was effortless the attraction was deep. We made plans to see each other again after the food contest he was judging was over. Saying goodbye was a bit hard but the hand holding was sweet and made me feel like a schoolgirl again. After saying goodbye and I did watch him walk into the convention hall I went back to my room to plan out the rest of my day. I chose a tour of the Mob Museum, they say that Vegas was built with Mob money, but it was a Mormon founded town that later Hollywood discovered. Then many people in Hollywood who were well connected (such as East Coast mobsters) financed Bugsy Segal to build the Flamingo Hotel. As I was putting my shoes on, I got a knock on the room door and as I opened it, I got some flowers (pink roses) and an all-access pass to the food and wine festival courtesy of Zac. Let us just say the Mob Museum can wait for later I got to go to a food and wine festival and spend the rest of the week with Zac. “hi Zac thanks for the flowers it was sweet of you to remember.” He said, “It’s always right to remember a ladies flower preference because that’s the right thing to do.” Smiling the rest of the day I meet other travel channel celebrities and got to taste some great foods and many different wines. The food and wine offerings at the hotels and restaurants are varied, the Las Vegas area have become very international, so the varieties are endless.
The week went by in a blur of food, wine, conversation, and some sweet dates. I never thought I would get over the break-up that happened the week before. Getting a private Vegas tour was something completely special. I did get to see the Mob Museum, Mandalay Bay Fine Art Museum, seven magic mountains, Pinball Hall of fame and a private dinner at the food and wine festival. My days in Vegas were down to one. We had reservations at Rivera right here at the Delano the view is amazing, the food is impressive with Italian and French offers. “I have had a wonderful time this week Zac thank you for mending my broken heart.” He looked at me for a minute and said, “it’s been a pleasure to get to know you and I would not mind visiting your hometown, you always have a reason to come back to Las Vegas. The next food and wine festival is around Christmas, this one will include chocolate.” Hitting the 15 early the next morning I have visions of Christmas, a pass to the food and wine festival, also a brand-new relationship to take back home with me.
The End
When writing a short story, you want to keep it from rambling and have enough details to keep it fresh. When your reader gets into the story you want them to feel like they are there with you, going to the food and wine festival, on that hike through the seven-mountains or touring the mob museum. The details are the thing to see and make sure to watch out for punctuation and common language. An average short story is within 6,00 words or 24 pages. If you wanted too you could go short-short story and that is between 500 and 2,00 words. That comes out to be 6 pages (Minot, Steven Ch. 7 pg. 41), talk about short stories. The story is all your length and style matter as much as how you want it to come into focus.
Minot, Steven and Theil Daniel Three genres the writing of literary pose, poems and plays Ninth edition Pearson Publications 2012
Bouncing Dog Toy Emporium
August 18,2019📷📷
24755 Holly Grove Way
Brookings OR, 97415
Dear Dogs, Rule the World
I am Rachel Schneider from the Bouncing Dog Toy Emporium we make extra bouncy dog toys for our furry friends. We investigated different marketing companies and choose you to do our direct to customer marketing. The way the website is set up the customers can get the product’s directly from you is easier than a multi-level marketing plan. The distribution of Bouncy Dog Toy will be a one level channel, we will provide the toys you market, and we sell them. I would like to get some videos of our company dogs Mac and Stella playing with the toys so you can post on the website. A link for the company can also be included so the consumers know where the toys came from, what they are made of and any other facts about Bouncing Dog Toy Emporium.
Sincerely, Rachel V Schneider
Mac and Stella company dogs and testers 📷
📷 📷📷 📷A sample of our products, our bounciest toys.
Scott’s Story Part 1
I am Scott Thorn, and I am going back to WDU for the first time in 15 years, I went here for a year but after I came out as gay there really were no gay dudes. I am all men but yeah lesbians were all around some BI guys but no real gay dudes. I went back to the mainland and attended Preston University I majored in administration and minored in Literature. I did at one point in my life have a girlfriend and wanted to marry her, but I could not quash the gay lifestyle. That part of my life is over and now the old school offered me a counseling job, have not done this in a while. I get to help students toward there after college career.
I sit here on this boat and keeping an eye on my 75 Triumph I have some nerves, but it is mostly about seeing this place again, so as the boat pulls up, I get my bike going and make a stop at my new on campus apartment. Its west facing because I like sunsets more than sunrise, so I did not know it needed so much work. I have some handy skills but a little at a time. The kitchen is decent and so is the bathroom. The floors will need some polish and the deck needs to be stained, this is a duplex, so I hope the neighbors are quiet. It is furnished and done nicely so I cannot complain too much, but back on the bike to see the Dean.
I get my bike set with the kill switch and walk up the way to the Admin building, I am pretty much the only one dressed. I am wearing my good black jeans and my dress shirt, in my favorite color Maroon. I do remember this place was obsessed with sex so I will stick out wearing clothes, as I enter the building at least more admin people are dressed. Miss Grant the secretary shows me to my new office, its spacious much bigger that my last one at Preston where I shared a cubicle with another person. I have files from past students and current ones, so I started filing them when Dean Kane walks in, booty shorts and a tank top. “Welcome back to WDU Scott, we look forward to seeing you succeed you come very recommended.” I could hardly concentrate because this Dean was hung but I persevered and said, “Thank you sir I look forward to helping young students find there after WDU careers.”
After he left, I had to get my rise to settle then I continued filing and looking through some files. Clarissa Love that was a name that got around even all the way to Preston. I think she does the Jax in the bedroom or something like that. I started looking around and thought I need some life in this office so I asked Miss Grant about decorating and she said I could do what I wanted but no painting, so I went to town and checked out a flea market. I found some pictures of the beaches of Canada, some old homes in the area and a few movie posters from Rocky horror Picture Show (it is my favorite). The flea market said they will deliver to the school tomorrow so I told them I will be there at 9am.
Now with my day done I get to the store to buy some groceries and realize this place uses sextons and I was down to my last few, so now I will need to exchange but thankfully a bank is nearby so I can get some of my mainland money exchanged. I pull up to my new pad off load my few groceries and notice some other tenant left beer in the fridge, talk about luck. I got the beer went to the deck and watched the sunset over the sky. It was going to be new here, but I needed a fresh start after getting dumped and losing the job because my ex was in upper management, never will I do that again. I will find someone who does not work in the school system. After I ate a roast beef and cheddar sandwich for dinner, watched some cooking shows it was time for bed. As I was brushing my teeth, I heard the neighbors having sex. Oh, goody they are not quiet. hope they do not have super energy either. Tomorrow is my first full day and I have decorating to do, fantastic they stopped, that is the thing with us older people we do not fuck like bunnies anymore. As far as I know the neighbors are lesbians so who knows.
Sample 1- If I try my hardest, I could muster up enough courage to ask the prettiest girl in school to prom. I had a suit; bolo tie and I will shine my old boots up. The thing is my courage is not as strong as my best friend Nick, now there is one brave dude who just asked the girl I wanted to go to prom with and of course she said yes. I gather myself close my locker and put on my best smile for them both. Nick and I high five and I hug her, trying to be genuine but it is hard. I head to my Social studies class and sit down next to Megan she looks at me with some concern I tell her what happened, she then asks me to Prom…...
Sample 2-Wishing I did not have to be here I sit at the back of the funeral and think about my old high school principal. I grew up in a small town and everyone knew everyone, we only had one school and you went there for kindergarten through senior year. After my graduation I packed up my old car and headed out to what I thought was the real world. Living in a bigger city only helped spur my loneliness so who says you cannot come home again, well Mom for starters because I abandoned my family, I am not welcome at home ever again (so tired of her drama), so I am staying at Principal Mason’s house yes, the same principal that I am at a funeral for I held her hand as she lay there succumbing to cancer……
Sample 3-If you really want to get over a breakup getting back on the horse will help things along. I thought that too seven lousy dates ago so here I am on date number 8 and I am not seeing any birds singing or rainbows in the sky. He steps away to take a call he is a particularly important lawyer after all (I need to fix my picker) after he comes back, he says it go time the jury has come back so off he goes. I finish my drink and head back to my brownstone close by, I pass the new chocolate shop that just opened, and I get inside and see chocolate heaven. Looking around I do not see him at first but there he is my old college lab partner Sam I just saw a rainbow…….

Cribs: Maddox edition

Oh hi, I didn't see you there. My name's George, but you probably know me by my pen-name, Maddox. If you hang around Club Cobra on transgender Wednesdays, you might also know me as Heather S. I have an afternoon residency there where I perform burlesque dance routines to the songs of Doug from Hoobastank, and hopefully inspire him to write a few new ones as well. I'm generally the subject of half of the tracks on any given Hoobastank album. That song The Letter was about a letter that I wrote to a former girlfriend after I ended the relationship with her. You remember Losing My Grip from The Scorpion King soundtrack? That was also about the same girl after she dumped... I mean after I split up with her. Remember Me was based on an email I sent to my publisher, Simon & Schuster, after they stopped taking my calls and blocked my number. A funny story: I saw Schuster on Hollywood Boulevard a few days after I sent the email and he completely ghosted me.
Anyway, you've reached my bedroom. This is where the magic happens, baby. No, I didn't attend Hogwarts, but I do have a wand, he, he. That's three flaccid inches of lumpy Armenian pig iron you're looking staring at.
What's that?
You're a prospective buyer here to the view the property. My nakedness is making you question your heterosexuality. Yes, of course, I will put on some clothes, but first let me give you the grand tour:
https://i.imgur.com/UZNZsf5.jpg
1. Shark wall decals
These are actual dead sharks that my enemies tossed onto my lawn in drive-by shark attacks, which were a misguided attempt to intimidate me. Little did they know that, in my Armenian motherland, shark pressing is a national hobby / sport. The best shark pressers can name their salary at one of the top teams in the Hrazdan Cement Shark Pressing Premier League, as long as that price in under 208 US dollars per month, or 58858342.4 units of my own made-up currency, The Madbux, at current levels of inflation.
I dragged the fish carcasses inside before my neighbours could steal them from me. For the next six months I stored them in the communal area under teetering stacks of unsold copies of my last book, 'F*ck Whales', that my publisher forwarded to me. It was like a literal game of the Armenian version of paper, rock, scissors – shark, whale, whaling boat. My decision to ignore the complaints of my housemates and the repeated threats by my landlord to evict me if I didn't remove the dead sharks from the property, paid off in the end. Now I have these decorative conversation pieces, the most commonly asked question being: “Where is that nauseating stench of dead fish coming from?”
I used to own four pressed wall sharks. One night this loud Greek guy called Asterios, who I used to hang out with online, called to tell me that he was flying from New York to L.A. to raid my fridge. Sadly he also ate two of the sharks.
2. Handmade cardboard night-stand
I will never forget a piece of advice that my mother imparted to me, seconds before she demanded that I give her money to play the slot machines in a casino owned by the Chinese mafia:
“When it come to websites and home furnishings, you get what you pay for.”
I took my mother's advice very much to heart when I paid $30,000 for this one of a kind cardboard night-stand, designed by the renowned ingénieur en papier, Bernarde Plumnutt. To the non-discerning eye, it might resemble the kind of box that once contained tins of soup, turned upright on one end. However, Bernarde has assured me that it was crafted by the mandibles of a team of wasps that he trained to reinvent cardboard.
Like all geniuses (myself included, he, he) Bernarde imposes exacting standards upon himself and is extremely self-critical. When I visited him to pick-up my finished night-stand, I found it discarded in the trash. It was only after I had fished it out of the dumpster, wiped the condiment stains off the surface and asked him: “Is this the night-stand you made for me?” that he admitted that it was, and requested that he be paid for it immediately in cash. When I visited him again a few days later he appeared to have moved out in a hurry and left no forwarding address.
I love the distressed sticky tape detailling along the top of the stand. You don't see craftsmanship like that any more.
3. Slime comforter
I used to do a podcast with a guy who calls himself Dick Masterson. Later, I found out that he was a rape supremacist so I cut him off. Despite his rape supremacy, a lot of people still think he's cool for some reason. Here's a fact that maybe you don't know about Dick: His real name is something in Spanish. When you translate it into English, it means 'Duck Horror'. He doesn't sound so cool now, does he?
Back when our friendship was on the rocks, Dick suggested a bonding exercise where we would take peyote in the desert so that we could commune with the the ghost of Jim Morrison, who would give us more peyote, along with some spare tickets he had to a safari park on the astral plane, where we could meet our spirit animals, and maybe even feed them and talk to their keepers.
Dick's spirit animal turned out to be a orange monkey with a tiny, scunched-up face, who immediately stole our remaining peyote and scampered up a tree with it to have a vision quest of its own. I was amazed to discover that my spirit animal was the slime creature from the videogame Dragon Quest. I was hoping that it would communicate wisdom and enlightenment, but it just sat there oozing grossly, with a permanent frankfurter grin plastered inanely across its face. Things get a bit hazy after that. I was arrested naked, driving the wrong way along Highland Avenue on a stolen rider mower that I had mistaken for a jet-pack.
To commemorate my vision quest I paid some bedding technicians, who I met loitering outside MIT, $30,000 for this bespoke slime comforter, manufactured entirely from soy in a Japanese laboratory. The reverence that women show when I explain the comforter's spiritual significance to them is heart-warming. More than one girl has told me: “I'm not fucking you anywhere near that thing.”
4. Cuck pole
This chic, open-plan wardrobe is perfect for the cuckold who wants to get closer to the action without actually taking part. No more standing in the dark, peering furtively though a crack in the door. Simply position yourself behind this rack of clothing, and steal as many shameful glances as you want between the sleeves of your jackets, while your girlfriend engages in session after session of vigorous bare-back pounding with the guy who packed her groceries at Walmart.
This set-up has the added benefit of leaving your bottom half exposed. At any moment your girlfriend can glance over at your skinny, bare legs and the shrivelled stub of your pallid genitalia and be reassured that she is making the right decision in terms of fulfilling her sexual needs. It's win-win all round!
5. Armenia National Security Service listening station
One of the many sacrifices that I made for my father's sacrifice entailed allowing the Armenia National Security Service to annex part of my bedroom for use as a listening station. From this base of operations covert operatives gather intelligence that they use to influence American elections and bend the malleable political framework of this decadent, so-called western superpower to the iron will of the east. There is a good reason why you can't spell American without Armenia.
To ward off unwanted scrutiny, the listening station is concealed behind a green stealth curtain which, when drawn, resembles an impenetrable, corrugated green wall. Western nations would gaze with envy upon Armenia's superior camouflage and concealment technology, if only they were able to spot it.

Hey, you're going to Las Vegas for RLCS LAN? Here's a quick run down for what you need to know if you are not a regular.

Cryptic's $14M weekend close to Star Trek box office openers. The #'s behind the DSC-Enterprise promo.

[Other] A Look into Sony/Columbia Pictures: History, 2019, and Beyond

On this post, I will focus on Sony Pictures/Columbia Pictures, the studio people want dead because they own Spider-Man and not Marvel. Besides Spider-Man, this studio is most well known for Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Men in Black, Hancock, 2012, the Daniel Craig 007 Films (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre), and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.
Before we start, I want to say something, and I might get downvoted for this.
People when Paramount Pictures’ 2017 slate critically and commercially flops (every single one of them was rated poorly: Monster Trucks, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, Rings, Ghost in the Shell, Baywatch, Transformers: The Last Knight, Mother!, Suburbicon, Daddy’s Home 2, and Downsizing): I hope Paramount Pictures improves as a studio. But hey, with new management, Paramount will turn things around in no time.
People when Sony Pictures’ Venom gets negative reviews from critics: FUCK YOU SONY! STOP MAKING SPIDER-MAN FILMS! PACK YOUR BAGS! SELL THE SPIDER-MAN RIGHTS TO MARVEL! GO ROT IN HELL! YOU PEOPLE ARE INCOMPETENT! Oh by the way, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse looks great, Sony. I also can’t wait for Spider-Man: Far From Home which is an MCU film (as they forget that Sony has final creative control and distributes the film). Anyways, FUCK YOU, SONY! I WISH YOUR MOVIES WOULD FLOP SO YOU CAN SELL YOUR MOVIE DIVISION! YOU CAN’T MAKE SPIDER-MAN MOVIES ANYMORE! (Screeching Intensifies)
It’s a good time to be a Spider-Man/Sony fan and a bad time to be a Sony hater. I’m not saying Paramount Pictures deserves to get blasted on, but Sony getting blasted constantly is somewhat unjustified to me. Of course, you may not like the direction the Spider-Man franchise had been going with Sony (then again Into the Spider-Verse says hi), but people are judging some films negatively because it’s a Sony film. Or some people just look at the new Spider-Man movies, Ghostbusters (2016), the Emoji Movie, and Venom’s reviews, and say that the whole studio sucks because of that. I’m sure some people have other reasons, but I don’t get how Sony is a reason why a movie is bad. It’s just a film studio. They’ve made bad movies, but so have 20th Century Fox, Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros, and Disney. They’ve made good movies too. I’ll show you some down below.
1924-1976: The Beginning and Before the 80s
In 1918, Harry Cohn, Jack Cohn, and Joe Brandt founded Cohn-Brandt-Cohn (CBC) Film Sales. In order to improve the brand name, the company was renamed to Columbia Pictures Corporation on January 10, 1924. Columbia’s films were mostly moderately budgeted comedies, sports films, serials, and cartoons. As time went on Columbia would start making high budget films and join United Artists and Universal Pictures to become the “Little Three” in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Unlike the five major film studios in the Golden Age, RKO Radio Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros Pictures, Columbia didn’t own any theaters. However, Columbia’s rise to become a major film studio was due to the ambitious director, Frank Capra, with movies like It Happened One Night, Lost Horizon, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which made James Stewart a star. Columbia couldn’t afford to have a large amount of contract stars to the point where they would borrow stars from other studios. MGM would send some of their stars to Columbia to punish them if they weren’t obedient. After Harry Cohn’s death in February 1958, Columbia started to decline with multiple box office failures to the point where they could possibly go bankrupt. Fortunately in 1972, the studio was saved with an drastic overhaul in management and a deal with Warner Bros to share the WB studio lot. Some Columbia hits include Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Strangelove, and Taxi Driver. Notable Columbia Pictures films: Discontented Husbands, It Happened One Night, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Strangelove, and Taxi Driver
1977-1983: Close Encounters of the Third Kind Era
On November 1977, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a sci-fi film directed by Steven Spielberg, became a major success for Columbia Pictures and was their highest grossing film at the time (making $307M worldwide). In 1982, Columbia Pictures was bought out by Coca-Cola, the company behind the soda. Tri-Star Pictures was also created around this time, while Columbia expanded its television franchise. Major hits for the studio include Kramer vs. Kramer, The Blue Lagoon, Stripes, Stir Crazy, Tootsie, and The Big Chill. Notable Columbia Pictures films: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Kramer vs. Kramer, Stripes, Stir Crazy, and Tootsie
Notable Columbia Pictures film that bombed: Krull
1984-1989: Ghostbusters/The Karate Kid/Rambo Era
On June 1984, two Columbia Pictures movies would be the biggest movies and the most well known films in Columbia’s library: Ghostbusters (making $295M worldwide) and The Karate Kid (making $91M in the US). Ghostbusters would receive a sequel in the form of Ghostbusters II, while The Karate Kid would become a trilogy. On the TriStar side, they had received Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III, which would be a major success for the studio. Rambo: First Blood Part II was the highest grossing Columbia/TriStar film in this era, making $300M worldwide. Other hits include Stand By Me, Look Who’s Talking, Peggy Sue Got Married, and When Harry Met Sally… This success would catch the eyes of a fellow Japanese multinational conglomerate that would buy them in 1989. Notable Columbia/Tristar Pictures films: Ghostbusters 1 and 2, The Karate Kid Trilogy, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III, When Harry Met Sally…, and Look Who’s Talking
Notable Columbia Pictures films that bombed: Ishtar and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
1990-1996: Early Sony Era
On 1989, Sony bought Columbia Pictures for $3.4B. Did Sony buy the best studio at the time? Probably not, but I don’t know if they could’ve bought a different studio (20th Century Fox was owned by News Corporation, Warner Bros was probably too successful to be bought, and Disney would never give in to another corporation). The three studios I could see Sony buying instead of Columbia are MGM/UA, Universal, or Paramount, though I’m leaning towards Paramount more. Imagine complaining about the new Star Trek movie or Transformers movie being ruined by “Sony”. But honestly, this wasn’t a bad buy for Sony as they would keep their film division to this day. In the long term. As for short term, well, something was off. In 1994, Sony took a $2.7B write-off. It seems like it took less time for Sony to make a successful video game console (PlayStation) than it took for Sony to make Columbia Pictures an actual worthy investment. Most of the hits came from TriStar and not from Columbia Pictures with movies like Hook, Basic Instinct, Cliffhanger, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Jumanji, and the highest grossing film for TriStar at the time, Terminator 2: Judgement Day (making $521M worldwide). On the Columbia side of things, the biggest franchise they had was probably City Slickers, but it wasn’t much compared to Ghostbusters, The Karate Kid, and Rambo in the 80s. They did have some other hits like Total Recall, Flatliners, Misery, Boyz N the Hood, The Prince of Tides, A League of Their Own, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, A Few Good Men, Groundhog Day, In the Line of Fire, Bad Boys, The Cable Guy, and the highest grossing Columbia Pictures film in this era, Jerry Maguire (making $274M worldwide). Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films: Total Recall (1990), Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Hook, City Slickers, Basic Instinct, and Jumanji
Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures film that bombed: Hudson Hawk
1997-2001: Men In Black Era
Fortunately in 1996, Amy Pascal and Chris Lee was brought in to become the president of Columbia and TriStar, respectively. On 1997, Sony Pictures was ranked as the highest grossing film studio in the US, making $1.26B with movies like The Fifth Element, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Air Force One, As Good As It Gets, and the highest grossing Sony film in this era, Men In Black (making $251M in the US and $589M Worldwide). Other hits from Sony in this era include Godzilla, The Mask of Zorro, Stepmom, Big Daddy, Stuart Little, The Patriot, Charlie’s Angels, America’s Sweethearts, and Black Hawk Down. After their success in 1997, they weren’t able to replicate their success and fell behind the other major film studios. In 2000, they were in 7th place behind every major film studio plus Dreamworks SKG, making $682M that year. In 2001, they were in 6th place behind every major film studio, making $729M that year. Fortunately for Sony, they had gotten their hands on the most iconic Marvel superhero with plans to make a live action movie of this character. And this character made a major impact on Sony Pictures. Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films: The Fifth Element, Men In Black, Air Force One, Stuart Little, and Charlie’s Angels
Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures film that bombed: Ali and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
2002-2007: Spider-Man Era
While Paramount’s 90th anniversary in 2002 didn’t end well, Columbia Pictures’ 78th anniversary was amazing. Not only was this year the best year since 1997, Sony was able to have the largest market share and make $1.5B in the US, surpassing 1997 with movies like Panic Room, Mr. Deeds, Men In Black II, xXx, Maid in Manhattan, and Sony’s highest grossing film at the time, Spider-Man (making $404M in the US and $822M worldwide) Spider-Man would be the highest grossing Sony film domestically until 2018. In 2004, Sony had the largest market share again and made $1.2B in the US with movies like 50 First Dates, White Chicks, The Grudge, Christmas with the Kranks, and of course, Spider-Man 2. In 2005, Sony led a consortium that purchased MGM, giving Sony the distribution rights to the James Bond franchise. In 2006, Sony would have the largest market share for the third time this era and made $1.7B in the US, surpassing 2002 with movies like The Da Vinci Code, Click, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Open Season, Casino Royale, and The Pursuit of Happyness, showing that Sony doesn’t need Men In Black or Spider-Man to make $1B in the US. This didn’t happen with the odd-numbered years, as Sony was 2nd in 2003 (making $1.2B that year), 5th place in 2005 (making $918M that year), and 4th place in 2007 (making $1.2B that year, even with the release of Spider-Man 3) Around this time, Sony were able to keep two actors around to make most of their films under Sony: Adam Sandler with Mr. Deeds, Anger Management, 50 First Dates, and Click and Will Smith with Men in Black II, Bad Boys II, Hitch, and The Pursuit of Happyness. Spider-Man was clearly the biggest franchise for Sony in this era and has been the biggest franchise for Sony since. Sony had other small franchises that were profitable like Resident Evil and Underworld. Other hits from Sony include Daddy Day Care, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, S.W.A.T., Superbad, and Spider-Man 3, which would become the highest grossing Sony film at the time, making $890M worldwide despite mixed reviews. Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films: Spider-Man Trilogy, Men In Black II, Hitch, The Da Vinci Code, and Casino Royale
Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films that bombed: Stuart Little 2, Gigli, xXx: State of the Union, Stealth, and Zoom
2008-2012: The James Bond Era
Now with the Spider-Man franchise mostly absent this era besides the Amazing Spider-Man, Sony mostly depended on Adam Sandler, Will Smith, and the James Bond franchise to be successful. I’ve noticed that other than that, Sony doesn’t heavily depend on multiple successful franchises compared to the other major film studios. They actually profited off of many original films in the previous era and this era. James Bond was still going strong with Quantum of Solace and reached to franchise and studio records with Skyfall, becoming James Bond and Sony’s highest grossing film and Sony’s only billion dollar film to this date, making $1.1B worldwide. Adam Sandler had hits with movies under Happy Madison like You Don’t Mess With Zohan, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Grown Ups, Just Go With It, and Zookeeper. Will Smith had hits with movies like Hancock, The Karate Kid (as Producer), and Men In Black 3. They were 5th in 2010 and 3rd in 2008, 2009, and 2011. The only time they had the largest market share this era was in 2012, making $1.8B in the US, surpassing 2006 with movies like The Vow, 21 Jump Street, Men In Black 3, The Amazing Spider-Man, Hotel Transylvania, Skyfall, and Zero Dark Thirty. Other hits for Sony include Step Brothers, Pineapple Express, Angels and Demons, District 9, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Zombieland, 2012, Salt, The Other Guys, The Social Network, The Green Hornet, Battle: Los Angeles, The Smurfs, Bad Teacher, Moneyball, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films: 007 James Bond (Quantum of Solace and Skyfall), Hancock, 2012, The Karate Kid, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Men In Black 3
Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films that bombed: Year One, The Pink Panther 2, How Do You Know, Jack and Jill, That’s My Boy, and Total Recall (2012)
2013-2016: The Amazing Spider-Man 2/Sony Hack/The Decline Era
After 2012, it seems like Sony was slowly declining. Sony didn’t have a stable franchise, though was still doing better than Paramount. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was supposed to set up a whole cinematic universe on Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, but underperformed and the sequels were cancelled in favor of a deal struck with Marvel Studios to bring Spider-Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Spectre did well as a James Bond film, but was the last James Bond film Sony would be able to distribute. Adam Sandler and Will Smith movies weren’t doing as well as before and pretty much stopped making films for Sony at the end of this era. Ghostbusters was rebooted, but infamously underperformed. They were 4th in 2013 and 2014 and 5th in 2015 and 2016 (making slightly less than $1B in the US), just above Paramount Pictures. Some other hits are This is the End, Grown Ups 2, Elysium, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, Captain Phillips, American Hustle, 22 Jump Street, The Equalizer, Hotel Transylvania 2, The Angry Birds Movie, Sausage Party, Don’t Breathe, The Magnificent Seven, and Passengers. In late 2016, Sony took a $962M write down, with rumors starting that Sony would sell off their movie division sometime in 2017 if their 2017 lineup didn’t do so well. This most likely wasn’t true, and 2017 fortunately proves the studio’s worth. Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films: Captain Phillips, American Hustle, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, 22 Jump Street, Hotel Transylvania 2, and Spectre
Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films that bombed: After Earth, White House Down, Aloha, Pixels, Grimsby, and Ghostbusters (2016)
2017-Present: Spider-Man/Jumanji Era (Comeback Era?)
In the first half of 2017, it wasn’t looking too good for Sony. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter did fine, especially in China. Life and Rough Night were only modest successes for the studio. Smurfs: The Lost Village was an attempt to reboot the Smurfs but underperformed, making slightly less than $200M. However, things started to turn around with three summer movies: Baby Driver, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the Emoji Movie. Baby Driver was a surprise success for Sony and for director Edgar Wright. Spider-Man was shared between Marvel and Sony, which led to everyone wanting to see Spider-Man’s first solo film (+Iron Man) with Marvel Studios, making $880M worldwide, just $10M behind Spider-Man 3. The Emoji Movie was made fun of by everyone, even though enough people went to make this film $218M worldwide. The Dark Tower did alright, but probably not enough to warrant a sequel. It seems like Sony did alright, but then December 2017 came. Sony decided to release Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle near Star Wars: The Last Jedi as counter programming (what a moron, am I right? /s). With the movie having a surprisingly strong word of mouth, it topped Star Wars: The Last Jedi in the first few weeks of 2018. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle would later go on to make $405M in the US, surpassing Spider-Man to be the highest grossing Sony film in the US and would make $962M worldwide, just a notch below $1B. I had a feeling that $405M made in the US was what Sony was expecting the movie to make worldwide. In 2018, Sony’s success continued on with hits like Peter Rabbit, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, The Equalizer 2, and the biggest surprise of 2018 for Sony that isn’t Jumanji, Venom, making at least $212M in the US and at least $823M worldwide. Sony was also able to keep the budgets low and have low budget films like Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, and Searching make a decent amount of profit. It may seem like Sony is making a comeback, especially with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse being well received and being at least moderately successful (though only time will tell). Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films: Baby Driver, Spider-Man Homecoming (and Into the Spider-Verse), Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, and Venom
2019 is next year, and it’s time to look at what Sony has in-store for everyone next year. I’ll try to keep it short (with a basic description of each one if necessary and how well it might do). The numbers I have won’t be accurate, so take it with a grain of salt.
Escape Room - it’s a psychological thriller film directed by Adam Robitel. If it has a low budget, I think this could be moderately successful while adapting the escape room idea into film. I’d say $50M Domestic and $70M Worldwide.
A Dog’s Way Home - it’s a family drama film directed by Charles Martin Smith. I don’t get how A Dog’s Purpose is at Universal while this movie is at Sony. Did Universal not buy the rights to every single A Dog book or what? This will probably make less than A Dog’s Purpose with $50M Domestic and $180M Worldwide. But at least it comes out before A Dog’s Journey, another movie based on the A Dog franchise. A Dog’s Way Home will probably make more than A Dog’s Journey based on this movie coming first.
Miss Bala - it’s an American-Mexican action thriller directed by Catherine Hardwicke and is a remake of the 2011 Mexican film of the same name. I don’t know what to compare this too. There isn’t any numbers on how much the original did either, so I have to make guesses. I’d say $50M Domestic and $100M Worldwide.
Greyhound - it’s a war film directed by Aaron Schneider and starring Tom Hanks in another World War II movie. No footage has been released, but it could make $100M Domestic and $300M Worldwide with the right marketing and a good movie like Saving Private Ryan.
The Intruder - it’s a psychological thriller directed by Deon Taylor. This could do almost as well as Don’t Breathe, but I still don’t get why the former owner of the mansion sold his house (if you see the trailer). $70M Domestic and $100M Worldwide.
The Rosie Project - it’s a film directed by Ben Taylor. Not much is known unless you read the book. Besides Crazy Rich Asians, there hasn’t been much romantic comedies. I guess this can be compared with Overboard (2018), meaning this movie could do $50M Domestic and $70M Worldwide
BrightBurn - it’s a horror film directed by David Yarovesky with James Gunn producing the film. This could break out, even in the late May slot. Then again, not much is known about this film. Maybe $80M Domestic and $120M Worldwide?
Men In Black International - it’s a science fiction action comedy film directed by F. Gary Gray and is a spinoff of the Men in Black trilogy. What makes this a spinoff is that this is a London based team instead of New York. And hey, Chris Hemsworth is another Sony franchise that Sony is trying to make relevant. But I think it could succeed this time, unlike Ghostbusters (2016). I could see this doing at least $160M Domestic, though it could go as high as $240M Domestic with a strong word of mouth, similar to how well Jumanji unexpectedly did. As for Worldwide, I’d say $450M, but it could go as high as $600M.
Grudge - it’s a supernatural psychological horror film directed by Nicolas Pesce and is a remake of The Grudge (2004) which was also a remake based on a Japanese horror film. It probably won’t be as successful as the 2004 remake as this 2019 remake is a similar premise and no one is really demanding it. I could see this doing $100M domestic and $160M worldwide at most.
Spider-Man: Far From Home - it’s a superhero film directed by Jon Watts and is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I could see this going two ways. One way is that this will make $900M and the domestic total will drop from Homecoming (maybe $320M). However, this could possibly be the second Sony film after Skyfall to gross $1B. The only two obstacles are The Lion King movie which comes out two weeks later (it’s like Disney is trying to prevent Sony from being a major competitor for Disney in the movie industry like how Universal and Warner Bros currently are to Disney while Fox is taken care of and Paramount is trying to pick themselves up) and the plot is pretty much Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation.
Wish Dragon - it’s a 3D computer-animated film from Sony Pictures Animation. Not much is known about this film besides Jackie Chan being involved and it having a Chinese theme. It’s set to release on the same day as Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, but I have a feeling it could be moved to late 2019 or even 2020. Maybe this could make $80M Domestic and $200M Worldwide? I don’t know. I need more footage.
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - it’s a mystery crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino. I could see this being similar in success to Inglourious Basterds or Django Unchained as this film seems like a wider release with a lot more marketing compared to The Hateful Eight. I could see this doing $150M Domestic and $400M Worldwide at most.
The Angry Birds Movie 2 - it’s a 3D computer-animated action comedy film from Rovio Animation and is the sequel to The Angry Birds Movie. Reception to the first one has been mixed, so I think it could go as low as $90M Domestic and $300M worldwide, or it could go as high as $120M Domestic and $400M worldwide.
Zombieland Too - it’s a post-apocalyptic zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer and is the sequel to Zombieland. This will be another franchise Ruben Fleischer is working on with Sony besides Venom. I could see this making more than the first one with a $90M Domestic and $120M Worldwide.
You Are My Friend - it’s a drama film directed by Marielle Heller. Not much is known besides the fact that it’s about a journalist who runs into Fred Rogers and has his life changed. Unlike Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, another film about Fred Rogers, this film has Tom Hanks portraying Fred Rogers. With a wide release (if it does get one), I could see this making $40M Domestic.
Charlie’s Angels (2019) - it’s an action comedy film directed by Elizabeth Banks and is a reboot of the Charlie’s Angels franchise. If this film goes the Ghostbusters 2016 route, I could only see this make $70M Domestic and $120M Worldwide. If not (hopefully), I could see this making as much as $140M Domestic and $260M Worldwide.
Masters of the Universe - it’s a He-Man film directed by Aaron and Adam Nee. It’s supposed to come out the same day as Jumanji 3, but I think it could be moved to 2020 (but I’ll still analyze anyways). This is a wildcard and a gamble for Sony. It could go both ways, but I think I need more footage to fully judge. $40M Domestic, $90M Worldwide?
Jumanji 3 - it’s a fantasy adventure comedy film directed by Jake Kasdan and is the sequel to Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and the movie that made Disney move Jungle Cruise to July 2020. Like Spider-Man: Far From Home, it could go both ways. It could drop from the second, especially if Star Wars: Episode IX gets people to care about Star Wars, by making as much as $380M Domestic and $800M Worldwide. It will still do well as counter-programming, but maybe not as well as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Another way this could take is that everyone lost hope in Star Wars: Episode IX, and the people who didn’t see Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi and hated it will go see Jumanji 3 instead. It’s possible that Jumanji 3 could be the second after Skyfall or the third after Skyfall and Spider-Man: Far From Home to cross $1B worldwide as a Sony film. This movie could also get a sequel boost with this making as much as $420M domestic, possibly becoming Sony’s highest grossing film domestically and passing Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. I’d say it could go down domestically, but it has the potential to reach $1B worldwide.
Little Women - it’s a drama film directed by Greta Gerwig and is based on the book of the same name. Columbia Pictures did a film based on Little Women back in 1994 and that was a success. I’d say it could go up from here. I’d say $60M Domestic and $80M Worldwide.
Thoughts on the 2019 Slate: Besides not having Ghostbusters, Robert Langdon, or The Karate Kid on their side this year (Well, there’s Cobra Kai, I guess), I think Sony is going all out next year. This is probably one of the best lineups for 2019. There’s Angry Birds, Men in Black, Jumanji, Charlie’s Angels, and Spider-Man on the same year, along with possible smaller hits like Grudge and Little Women. They won’t be going against Paramount anymore, they can now go against Universal, Warner Bros, and possibly Disney.
The Future: Regardless of what happens, I’m sure Columbia Pictures will live to see its 100th anniversary in 2024. Sony Pictures Animation will stay strong with a Peter Rabbit sequel, a Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sequel, and a spinoff (though I don’t expect the Into the Spider-Verse movies to come out until 2021). Other upcoming Sony Pictures Animation films are The Mitchells vs. the Machines and Vivo. With the success of Venom, the Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters will continue in 2020 with possibly Morbius and Venom 2. Even with the success of Venom, I doubt Sony would pull Spider-Man out of the biggest franchise ever after Far From Home. Bad Boys is coming back as Bad Boys for Life. Sony is getting more superheroes, this time from Valiant Comics starting with Bloodshot. Sony could start new franchises from video game adaptations like Watch Dogs and Uncharted (with Tom Holland as a young Nathan Drake). It seems like Sony is making a comeback, whether you like it or not.

Summer 2019 - The Swimsuit Swordmaster Seven Colored Showdown: Start - Part 2

Katsushika Hokusai:
Ehee! Now I’m getting ye!
Ye have ties with Miyamoto Musashi! Ye art the unparalleled, great swordmaster’s adopted son, Miyamoto Iori!
One of the remarkable people who inherited Niten Ichi-ryū on their passing, truly worth of being a heroic spirit, and truly suiting to be a Swimsuit Swordmaster!
However, it is unbelievable still! How Miyamoto Iori-dono was a woman!
Ye shocked me well and good! Ye did!
Siegfried:
…It's a discrepancy from the truth we're familiar with, but the feats from their their myths, legends, and history are still extraordinary.
Katsushika Hokusai:
Is that so then…
Well, that goes for I as well! Seein’ as I yet be the infamous Katsushika Hokusai despite bein' a woman!
Err, disregard Father here with that. He didn’t used to spit ink.

[Miyamoto] / [Iori]

Miyamoto Iori:
Yep.

[Musashi-chan…?]

Miyamoto Iori:
Do you know my teacher? Hahaha, cut it out. We resemble each other, but that’s it.
Mash:
Yes, you seem like peas in a pod to me…Is it from the blood relation you have with them?
Miyamoto Iori:
Are you kiddin’ me?! Iori-kun isn’t my biological child, y’know!
Mash:
?
Miyamoto Iori:
Oh, uh, oopsie! You guys know Musashi-dono, and probably the irregular one to pan-human history, who’s a girl, right? I know that because I’m also a Heroic Spirit of pan-human history, but there’s no-relation otherwise!
I just resemble them. That’s all there is. Yep. Mhm.

[……………]

Miyamoto Iori:
…I-I mean, I get how the misconception came up from our faces, but it’s nothing. Nothing!
I am Miyamoto Iori. One of the Swimsuit Swordmasters beckoned here, to Las Vegas!
And concerning the Swimsuit Swordmaster Revered Bout---
I know a lot more than others about this Swimsuit Swordmaster Seven Colored Showdown.
...Wanna hear the details?

[Yeah, that’d be great] / [We did need to info gather]

Miyamoto Iori:
Fufu, right! I’ll tell you what I know, and I’ll be concise about it too!
I’d be glad to so long as I can get some udon or burgers!

[Udon…]

Miyamoto Iori:
Uhhhhhh!
Did I say "Oodawn"? I meant Vegas food, Vegas food!
For now, just a burger…would be ok…

Getting Miyamoto their meal, she begins to explain what she knows.

Miyamoto Iori:
---The Dazzling Las Vegas!
It already existed before, but this Las Vegas is different from the normal town.
As someone from modern times, you can tell by looking at it, right? It should be easy for you to see that.
But yes, this town exists as an arena for the Swimsuit Swordmasters to gather to!
And at the same time, it exists with the full functions of Las Vegas. In other words…
It’s a luxorious, Great Casino City! Aside from battling each other, you can go have fun in the casinos!
It’s fine to battle as a swordmaster. It’s fine to play around in your swimsuit.
It doesn’t matter if you choose to battle or play if you’re a Swimsuit Swordmaster! It’s plenty rational!
In the actual Las Vegas, the casinos are managed and taken care of by enterprises and grand hotels, but…
In this Dazzling Las Vegas, guess what! Each and every big name casino is controlled by a Swimsuit Swordmaster!
Altogether, there are 5 great casinos! In other words, each casino is controlled by each individual group out of the 5 Swimsuit Swordmasters!
Out of these 5…
One has already proven to be different from the other Swimsuit Swordmasters. They’ve been singularly lauded as the mightiest, and most powerful out of all of them---
The Swimsuit Lion King, Artoria Ruler!
She’s the manager of Casino Camelot, and in essence, dominates this Dazzling Las Vegas!
Katsushika Hokusai:
I see, now I get the main gist of it!
Art-oria, ru-rah? It’d be grand of us to have a bout with them, and test her merit!
Let’s act quick before we change our minds!
Siegfried:
I see, that sounds logical.
Artoria Ruler. It sounds like we should at least make contact with this person.
The chance are very high that they possess the Holy Grail, because of their dominance over this newly founded city.
Additionally…
It may also be the source behind our irregular Saint Graphs and Spiritron Outfits.
Mash:
I think so too!
If they’re safeguarding the Holy Grail, then we'd be able to eliminate this microscopic Singularity too.

[Let’s get going!] / [Let’s investigate the Casino Camelot!]

Miyamoto Iori:
(Chomp, snarf)
Thanks fer’ the burger! It was super yummy.
So, you wanna head off to Casino Camelot? It’s right over there, the big white walled castle.
Hm---…
...
…I don’t. I don’t recommend going there~.
Katsushika Hokusai:
Don’t ye be getting’ dull on us now! We said how we must visit them, so we could at least take a peak!
Let us depart in haste! Mastah!
Sir Jikufurito, ye may tag along as well, lest ye get left behind!
With the way we sliced those large birds that blanketed the skies, we should have a complete victory in this Swimsuit Swordmaster Showdown!
Miyamoto Iori:
……..
(They’re worked up like this was their first victory. They seem more like a samurai going through a coming of age ceremony…)
(And compared to the others, she’s more like a newborn fawn…)
(But she's overflowing with untold potential. The four swords she wields seem to suit her too)
(This girl, perhaps she’s…)
Katsushika Hokusai:
Come, lets get a move on!

Hokusai darts off, but eventually runs into an invisible wall at the castle-casino.

Katsushika Hokusai:
…Nowuahh!?
W-what sort of tickery is this…I can see it in front of me, but can’t draw closer…I cannot advance to the castle!
Seems to be an invisible wall of sorts…but if its just a wall…

She attempts to cut it, to little avail.

Katsushika Hokusai:
Kuu!
Like I thought! My katana matters not!
Voice:
---That spirit of yours is good.
Alas, you don’t appear to hold a letter of challenge, fufu. Yet, I do respect the unguided rush attack to test the waters.
You cannot pierce this wall. Not even as a Swimsuit Swordmaster.
Without my own elegance, without my own blade, it is a futile effort. Because…

Swimsuit Bunny Arthur (Lancer) Ruler steps forward.

???:
I am a Swordmaster as well. You may call me The Swimsuit Lion King. Unjust Swimsuit Swordmasters shall be not allowed entry here, and ignored thus.
...Mm?
Katsushika Hokusai:
….ch!
(H-how could this be…it’s as if the weight of the heavens are falling upon me…!)
(I-impossible, could this be that thing others speak of!? The feeling of a blade against your throat, a killing intent!?)
(Uwah----, Uwah---! Have I only now come to understand a sort of killing intent by the blade!?)
(But I’m already a real Swordwielding Swordmaster of Swords, so it should be fine!)
Swimsuit Lion King:
Hmph. Four swords.
How interesting. Your appearance and your many blades remind me of a certain someone.
---Your True Name?
Katsushika Hokusai:
Ka, Ka, Katsushika Hokusai! Ukiyo-e artist, now a Swordwielding Swordmaster of Swords, a nymph of ambitions!
Swimsuit Lion King:
Well well. So you’re one with numerous titles.
Katsushika HokusauI:
S-shaddap! I’m seriously serious about seriously being serious!
What’s wrong with having a buncha pitches! "Lion King" sounds like a motto from somethin' else too!

The Lion King continues to smile, which freaks out Hokusai even more.

Miyamoto Iori:
Wait wait wait! Hooooold on for a sec! You, did you just say that we can’t bust through this?
Katsushika Hokusai:
Elder Sis Iori! I-I mean, wow, ye sure did take y-yer time getting’ here…
Swimsuit Lion King:
“Iori”?
Miyamoto Iori:
Yes! Niten Ichi-ryū wielder, Miyamoto Iori here!
Also with me is the western dragon slayer Swimsuit Master, my actual Master, and their sweet kohai-chan!
Siegfried:
‘Sup.
Mash:
My name is Mash Kyrielight!

[So she’s a bunny this time…] / [Wait, you aren’t one of the Swimsuit Swordmasters right]

Swimsuit Lion King:
I am the Swimsuit Lion King. I am the great ruler of this Casino Camelot.
Feh, if you are not aware of who I am, then I shall educate you. This bunny outfit is the uniform of my Casino.
Could that one --- be a rabbit who has gained intellect?
Fou:
Fo-u…
Swimsuit Lion King:
Regardless, I believe that this Miyamoto has their aim set on me as a fellow Swimsuit Swordmaster.
Miyamoto Iori:
R-really~? Who can say for sure? Whistle, whistle~
Siegfried:
What are you doing, Iori.
Mash:
Um, I'm worried, about how she's just whistling like that for now...
Siegfried:
??
Miyamoto Iori:
So, what’s this problem about me setting my sights on you? For the Swimsuit Swordsmaster Seven Colored Showdown---
There isn’t a rule against cooperating with others in this “Revered Bout”!
Everyone’s against each other, but there’s nothing against cooperation! So I took that idea and made some allies!
Swimsuit Lion King:
…Fufu, that all checks out.
Katsushika Hokusai:
Heeeeh, is that what this is? A Swordwielding Swordmaster of Swords going 1 on 1 would be a magnificent show, yet...
…that’d go against it all! Totally! That’d be like how the 47 rōnin showed up at Kira Yoshinaka’s together uninvited!
Or like Miyamoto Musashi hearing the noises of the great Yoshioka clan while alone, and slicing them up!
…………….
…Nn, but, yeah. I think a Swordwielding Swordmaster of Swords would probably have a splendid 1 on 1s.
Y’know, right Mastah? Like the battle on Ganryū-jima! The 1 on 1 of genius swordsmen at Ganryū, with Shinmen Musashi! A katana vs an oar!
And well --- ye can’t step around how cool that battle was!
Miyamoto Iori:
(Mu. So that time was cool to her…I see, so Hokusai-chan is an honorable swordsman)
Katsushika Hokusai:
I’d be lyin’ to myself if I had said that I wasn’t yearning for a 1 on 1.
At least one fight would be nice, because I’m here now as a swordsman. A 1 on 1! I wanna do that!
Siegfried:
…I can’t say I understand you enthusiasm.
Katsushika Hokusai:

Y-ye. What do ye think yer sayin’?
Miyamoto Iori:
It’s okay, it got through to me. I mean, yeah. Right? They say might makes right.
You came to wield the power of the Holy Grail on your own as a Swimsuit Swordmaster, right?
But since a 1 on 1 would be pretty risky for you, I think a 6 on 1 would be fair.
Yeah, a 6 on 1 would be cool against big sis Iori.
(Wink)

[That look…] / [Those numbers aren’t just for you, right?]

Miyamoto Iori:
Whistle, Whistle~
Mash:
Ah, Iori-san’s whistling again…!
Swimsuit Lion King:
…A fair and square, 1 on 1?
Your words are in good honors. I shall answer that wish here and now.
Miyamoto Iori:
Huh, wha-!?
Swimsuit Lion King:
There was some correctness in Miyamoto’s words: a one on one battle against a Swimsuit Swordmaster casino manager would be poor in scope.
However. If a Swimsuit Swordmaster were to stray, and act on their own, a one on one battle would be seen as fair play.
---In other words.
You two may cross blades with one another.
Miyamoto Iori:
Wai-, hold hold hold hold up there, pardner! That’s logical, but…
Swimsuit Lion King:
You have led that girl thus far. And you have given yourself the role of teaching her to be a Swimsuit Swordmaster.
Do not fret. In a special case, I shall grant you a [Chosen Battleground] without the need of a [Letter of Challenge].
I am the Swimsuit Lion King. I am the apex Swimsuit Swordmaster, as well as the strongest casino manager in Dazzling Las Vegas.
Such a trifling matter will come at no issue for me.
Now --- behold all this city has to offer, as you dance and splash among this performance for passersby!
SWIMSUIT SWORDMASTER SEVEN COLORED SHOWDOWN!

Everything begins to shake, and a platform emerges from the ground, trapping Hokusai and Iori!

Katsushika Hokusai:
Wh-!!
Wh, whawha, w-w-w-w-what was that!? With her indication…things changed in a moment!
Siegfried:
This dense mana! Master!
Mash:
Could it be…is this a Reality Marble…? Our connection with the Wondering Sea has been severed too, senpai!!
Miyamoto Iori:
…It’s too late to do anything now.
The Swimsuit Lion King has ushered forth a [Chosen Battleground], and now the selected Swimsuit Swordmasters must do battle.
Katsushika Hokusai:
Ye make it sound like we ought to. Yet if I don’t want to, I need not do so.
Miyamoto Iori:
Yeah, but! I feel the same as as you, but!
It’s already here! If we don’t fight…
If we don’t fight, even a bit…we won’t be able to get out of here…!
Siegfried:

Mash:
You mean…there’s no way out unless you fight…
Katsushika Hokusai:
Heh.
This ain’t good. But, we are Swimsuit Swordmasters.
I still don’t know quite what a Swimsuit Swordmaster really does, but I can understand this much.
Swimsuits, Swordmasters. Elegance, and blades.
In other words, elegance must be seen in twine with swordsmanship! So then---
Kill or be killed…that the point to this? If that’s true, then that’s some fantastically wrong “elegance”.
Miyamoto Iori:
It’s as you say. It can be somewhat painful, but I don't believe you need to die.
This is why all Swimsuit Swordmasters are Heroic Spirits: so long as their Spirit Origin remains unharmed, it’s possible to be restored to full.
Katsushika Hokusai:
That true? Makes sense.
Fine by me.
Siegfried:
Hokusai…
Katsushika Hokusai:
I’ve already decided that I’ll become the strongest Swimsuit Swordmaster! I shall respect this wish and do battle with Miyamoto Iori’s Niten Ichi-ryū as such!
Come! Come, come, come! With my waist drawn blade---
I’ll sense even a gunman’s adept strikes! Try to get past me, Iori-dono! Ye shall be diced long before ye can try!
Now, unsheathe thine blade! How am I now!? Iori-dono!
Miyamoto Iori:
(You have an impressive disposition, Katsushika Ōi! Okay, I’ll get serious too!)
Very well then, novice swordsman! The fun and games are over!
Your current skills are immature, and as a nymph, the heavens excite you still. And they shall witness your catastrophe in your perfect lack of preparations!
Embrace destiny, and hold fast to all you possess! I, Miyamoto Iori, shall answer your call, my opponent!
Ah, but let me change a bit before all that happens. This’ll be better for a Revered Bout!

Musashi changes from her 2nd ascension, to her 1st one.

Mash:
That’s…! Iori-san put on a really sporty outfit!?

[A sporty, competitive swimsuit for swordplay!] / […Well done…]

Miyamoto Iori:
For my very first fight, a Western outfit wouldn’t be very elegant, y’know? It’s summer too, and I wanna be pool side!
This doesn’t mean I'm going easy on you though! Get ready, Katsushika Hokusai!
Katsushika Hokusai: Ohoho, ye better believe I’m ready! Come, have at you --- in victory, or defeat!

---------------------------------------------------------------------
(Merlin, announcing)

LAS VEGAS SWIMSUIT SWORDMASTER SEVEN COLORED SHOWDOWN
KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI
VS.
“DYNAMITE COMPETITIVE SWIMSUIT”: MIYAMOTO IORI
COME, LET THE MATCH---
BEGIN!

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The two fight 1 v 1, and eventually Hokusai gets put on the ropes.

Katsushika Hokusai:
---yer strong!
No, no, nononono! It’ll take more than that!
Those born in Edo move from one place to another like a carp streamer blown by May winds!
An infamous waterfall screen, a pilgrimage through the country, the fish climbs the waterfall of evening; answer my summons!
Now then, if you catch sight of them, send them back to their roots!
Kirifuri! Kannon! Aoi! Rouben! Yoshitsune! Yourou! Ono! Amida!
---[Waterfall Tour of the Regions]!!

Hokusai releases her NP on Miyamoto!

Miyamoto Iori:
What the----!?

Iori is taken upstream through Hokusai’s attacks, and upon crashing back down, kneels in defeat.

Miyamoto Iori:
…I give! Your Waterfall Tour of the Regions was splendid!
Katsushika Hokusai:
Hehh, hah…hah…hah…
…huh, what’d ye say…I’ve…won…?
Swimsuit Lion King:
Enough! Game, set!
Swimsuit Swordmaster Revered Bout, First Color! Here stands the victor! Revere the Beach Beauty, Katsushika Hokusai!
Siegfried:
Both were splendid. For a moment, Iori’s blade seemed to falter, yet…
No, I must have been imagining it. It was a wonderful sight to behold.
Katsushika Hokusai:
Zehahh…V-victory! See how tall I stand now, Mastah!
[You’re amazing, Orei-san!] [Congrats on your win!]
Katsushika Hokusai:
Ooh yes!
Miyamoto Iori:
My my, looks like Miyamoto Iori’s been completely defeated. Perhaps it was the voice of the heavens telling me to train my new junior.
Hokusai-san, you swordsmanship was incredible. I really mean it.
At the end there, you struck at me using your mind and body as one…something I didn’t predict.
Katsushika Hokusai:
??
Swimsuit Lion King:
Fufu.
Indeed, this Swimsuit Swordmaster, the Beach Beauty Hokusai-san, may have some hidden potential yet.
However, concerning Miyamoto…I believe it’s about time you drop this act of yours.
Despite being the oldest competitor among the Las Vegas Swimsuit Swordmasters, you do not hold a casino to your own, and continue to wonder.
You are a disgrace to us Swimsuit Swordmasters. Please make an effort for yourself.
That’s all I have to say for now.

The Lion King walks back into her casino, barrier still intact.

Katsushika Hokusai:
Ah, wait! Wait right there! Swimsuit Lion King-san!!

She comes back.

Swimsuit Lion King:
…What is it.
Katsushika Hokusai:
Ye be the greatest person in all Ras Vegahs, yeah? Then come, clash blades with me right now.
Swimsuit Lion King:
So that’s what you want.
Katsushika Hokusai:
Once I win against you, I’ll be the strongest Swimsuit Swordmaster…didn’t you say?
Siegfried:
……………
Swimsuit Lion King:
Fu, I don’t believe this. You think you stand at the summit of Las Vegas with a single win?
Mash:

Katsushika Hokusai:
What’re ye gettin’ at…that battle was for…
Swimsuit Lion King:
That was naught but a single battle, nay, a single color! The strongest Swimsuit Swordsman must gather all Seven Colors using extreme elegance and skill!
Mash:
Seven Colors…do you mean we need to have 7 battles!?
Swimsuit Lion King:
Correct.
In this Las Vegas, there are 5 Swimsuit Swordsman casino managers, including myself.
If you wish to be known as the strongest Swimsuit Swordsman, then you must defeat all of the Swimsuit Swordsman casino managers.
Since you’ve managed to acquire a win already, surely beating the rest will be no problem…
For to be the strongest, means ---

She grins.

Swimsuit Lion King:
To have dominance over Dazzling Las Vegas. Once you have done that, then I, the Swimsuit Lion King, shall be your opponent.

She sparks with energy, making the ground tremble and shake, demonstrating just how strong she really is.

Katsushika Hokusai:
Ku…!
(This killing intent, the feeling of the blade, is so heavy…! As I thought, this mighty one is truly the strongest of all Swimsuit Swordmasters!)
(B-but in the end…it’ll be…me!)
Swimsuit Lion King:
The strongest Swimsuit Swordmaster. If you yet wish to obtain this title, Beach Beauty....
Then you must make yourself fit for it here in Dazzling Las Vegas. Put on a show of a fight, and fight as if you’re putting on a show.
Until then --- I shall be waiting. For you.

The Lion King goes into her castle for real this time, and leaves us upfront with the barrier.

Katsushika Hokusai:
S-she left…
However, there’s quite a few other beauties in this world to tackle! Well, ‘sides from Iori-dono there’s Five Fingers to take on, then we can make an appearance for that majestic Swimsuit Lion King…
Haah…I’m already so enthralled…
Miyamoto Iori:
Huh? What, did you say I was beautiful? Ahahahaha, don’t say that again, c’mon, fufufufu, no more, totally, no more, ehehe…

[Iori-san] / […You’re really Musashi-chan, right?]
Option 1:

Miyamoto Iori:
Huh, did you think I was her? Ahahaha no, c’mon, I’ve already lost, ahahahaha…

Option 2:

Miyamoto Iori:
GOHBUGHBOHG! A-Ahahahaha, what're you saying, I'm Miyamoto Iroi, ahaha!!
Fou:
Pho-uny...
Miyamoto Iori:
Alrighty! What’re we doin’ next, you guys?
Katsushika Hokusai:
That’s obvious, ain’t it! Aah, but perhaps we should withdraw for now!
There’s 5 kajino maneger Swimsuit Swordmasters! We gotta beat ‘em all, and get those Seven Colors!
I’ll be the strongest Swimsuit Swordmaster! The one who’ll get crowned that title --- will be me!
Siegfried:
…We couldn’t support you due to that 1 on 1 a while ago, but next time I shall brandish my blade alongside you.
I have no desire to be crowned strongest Swimsuit Swordmaster, but only to relinquish the Holy Grail from the Swimsuit Lion King. I will fight for that purpose.
If we seek to keep fighting in turn, then we should seek out more information about the others, to prevent this situation from happening again.
Mash:
I-I agree. Casino Camelot is shrouded by a powerful bounded field, but---
Judging by what she told us, if we defeat the others, then we’ll get a second chance to face her again!

[Right] / [Looks like it’s all we can do, so let’s go!]

Katsushika Hokusai:
Ooh! I’m comin’ for you, Swimsuit Lion King!
Miyamoto Iori:
Do do doo ♪ Thanks for this wonderful team up. No one can beat [Guda] and their friends ★
I’ll act as your guide from now on, while also keeping my duties as your bodyguard.
I’ve gotten all giddy for a buncha reasons, but you’ll learn more and more as we go through Dazzling Las Vegas.
First though, how about I give you some details on the first casino we should look for?

[That’d be awesome!] / [I think it's better to just go now. Let's to go the simplest casino!]

Option 1 Only
Miyamoto Iori:
I’m glad to be of help. Oh, since we’re all on the same level now, lemme go over the casinos.
The slots, roulettes, and card games are the main attractions. You need to use QP to get QP, so observation and luck are what lead to success or failure.
Each of the manager Swimsuit Swordmasters have a minute peculiarity to them…

Iori begins to give you a quick summary for the managers, starting with a picture of Summer Osakabehime.

Miyamoto Iori:
Taking on the current fad of [Last one standing survivor games] is the [HIMEJI] casino.
Assassin Nitocris.
Extremely high rollers only. The art museum-esque place where only celebs are allowed in, the royal [Pharaoh] casino.
Summer Meltlilith.
Admission tickets stopped sales half a year ago.The Dragon Palace inside the desert, the famous stage performances of No. 1!
Sweeping through America, is the Charisma ★ Figure Skater.
Mysterious Alter Ego Λ , who opened a stage in the [Suitengū] casino.¹
Summer Jeanne Archer
Just like from a movie! A showstage that surpasses even Hollywood VFX!
The [Water Sky Palace] casino also has a famous circus group that competes with its popularity, butting heads with dolphins, it’s the [Cirque du Requin] casino.
Swimsuit Lion King
Lastly, there’s the casino we just dealt with, where the strongest card dealer, the Lion King resides, [Camelot].
After dealing with the other Swimsuit Swordmasters, that casino will be our battlegrounds.

Branch merge/Option 2:

Miyamoto Iori:
Out of all those casinos, the easiest one would be…of course, her’s.
Ok, I’ll lead the way towards that one Swimsuit Swordmaster, the casino manager!
And that casino’s name is---
[HIMEJI Survival Casino]!

We begins to make our way there when Miyamoto stops us for a second.

Miyamoto Iori:
Oh yeah.
Each casino operates using a specific kind of currency...you'll need a certain amount of QP, so let's do our best to rack some up!

['Scuse. Me?]

Miyamoto Iori:
If you act like a bird of prey or a farming machine, then you can rack it up bit by bit. Ka-ting ka-ting ka-ting!
Siegfried:
A farming machine?
Katsushika Hokusai:
I’m not quite sure what you mean, but I’ll be usin’ my four blades! Let’s do it, Mastah!
Uooohhhhh!

She runs off.

Mash:
Ah, wait for us, Hokusai-san! Hokusai-san!

---------------------------------------------------------------------
1 - The Suitengū). While the other casinos are mostly written out in English, this one is kept in Japanese.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Next

Evolutionary Maladaptations, or how Moths and Modern Women Are Alike

We usually think of evolutionary urges as always being good. Like the drive to reproduce, or find a good mate. But when an environment changes rapidly, adaptations that previously served a species well can frequently end up hurting them. In the worst case scenarios, those maladaptations can drive a species extinct (e.g. the dodo bird).
To take an example from the animal world, it's speculated that moths' well-known attraction to bright flames developed when the only source of light was the sun or moon. Those rays of light, being from such a distant source, are essentially parallel, and so flying towards such a light is a good way to maintain a straight path. And of course, a moth is safe doing so because it will never actually hit the sun or moon.
But once humans came along and could create artificial sources of light, that moth adaptation that served it so well became a curse. A close-in light source doesn't emit parallel light rays, which means moths following such sources start circling it erratically, getting closer and closer, until eventually it gets too close and gets fried.
I humbly suggest that women's hypergamy is a similiar adaptation that used to serve a good purpose but is now a maladaptation.
Hypergamy is a biological imperative. Evolutionarily speaking, a man improved his chances to pass on his genes by having sex with as many females as possible. Quality didn't matter, only quantity. If you could impregnate the alpha female, that's great, but there was no reason to not *also* impregnate the beta / charlie / delta females too. That's why even hot guys will "slum it" with undesirable women for quick, easy sex. OTOH, since a woman can only have 1 child every 9 months, and must raise it afterwards, she does much better by being more selective about who she allows to impregnate her. Therefore, she's programmed to go after the absolute best guy she can get. If evolution allowed her to feel tingles from undesirable men, she'd be less successful at passing on her genes than a woman who was more selective.
Unfortunately, hypergamy never evolved to deal with unavailable men. It evolved when we humans / chimps lived in small colonies of maybe 20-50 people and you had a reasonable shot with any of the males. If hypergamy made you wait for some mythical chimp in another chimp colony 100 miles away, someone who would never actually arrive, then females would never have reproduced and evolution would have weeded it out.
This was fine because until now, the only eligible men you met were all in your high school class and local neighborhood, fairly similar in size and social ties to our original hunter-gatherer colonies. In those situations, hypergamy prevented you from settling with the worst guy, and pushed you to at least try for the best guys. So when the so-so guy flirted with you, you blew him off, waiting to see if the better guy was interested. And you were incentivized to work on traits that would attract high-value men, like being attractive, having a good personality, showing that you could be a good mother, etc. That's not a bad thing. Furthermore, if you didn't get the absolute best, the next guy was not that much worse, so you were satisfied with that. E.g. say the best guy in your high school was the starting quarterback for your HS team. That's great, but he isn't Tom Brady. And the next-best guy is not that much worse an option.
In our new, social media-driven environment, hypergamy has become maladaptive, because it exposes women to a bunch of guys who they don't really have a chance with (at least to marry), yet the same instinct kicks in. Now, instead of only being exposed to your high school quarterback, if you post an ass selfie, you might get a DM from Gronkowski or some other professional player who's following some hashtag you wrote. Do you have a shot at marrying him? Unlikely. Yet once you get that 'like', your hypergamy kicks in and says that's the guy you need to pursue and drop all the others.
It's even worse, because the difference between Gronkowski and your neighborhood beta dude is far, far more than the difference between the HS quarterback and that beta (in a few years, that beta might even exceed him, by getting a better job and staying in shape, while the HS QB never goes to college, gets fat, and ends up working at the local gas station). So "settling" for the beta guy seems like even more of a drop, when the alpha you thought you had a chance with isn't just the HS QB, but Tom Brady or Gronk.
Similarly, even if you lived in NYC, unless you worked in the finance industry, or went to one of their elite schools, or moved in their circles, you would never meet a hedge fund guy. They might as well have been on Mars for all you'll have access to them from Queens or Jersey. Now, put your picture on Tinder, and you'll probably get a reply. He's looking to slum it for a night, but your hypergamy kicks in, makes you think you have a chance and should hold out for him, and now, anyone less than a billionaire hedge fund manager is no longer acceptable.
Hypergamy has always been about taking a gamble: holding out for the better guy, hoping that you get him. But if you hold out too much and end up with no one to reproduce with, you lose the game. That's what's happening now.
Social media is giving women the illusion that those top 20% are available to them. Years ago, if you lived in Cleveland, OH, there was no way to even meet a celebrity in Hollywood or a hedge fund manager in NYC. Now, if you post an ass selfie on Instagram, you might get DMs from celebrities, rich guys, not to mention thirsty dudes from Saudi Arabia and India asking you to show your bobs and vagene. It's not uncommon for an average instagram ho to get hundreds of messages from guys when she posts a selfie. And it's not uncommon for girls to get literally *thousands* of matches over the course of a year on tinder. In the past, an average girl would never even *meet* a thousand eligible guys in her lifetime.
But they never realize the truth: that financier in NYC is either going to marry his college sweetheart, someone from work, or someone else in a similar socioeconomic group. Yes, some will marry their secretaries, but the vast majority don't. You can fuck him all you want. When he's ready to raise kids, he'll choose someone who will be a "good mother" and that includes navigating the socioeconomic circles necessary to ensure his kids will get into the top private schools, have the "right" playdates with the right kids, and socialize with the right families. Etc. Marriage at those levels is a lot more than just sex and tingles. The availability of these men to the average woman is illusory. But they don't know that, so they keep thinking they have a shot with them. Or they do know that, but wish to keep trying anyway because they think getting pumped-n-dumped is "so close" to getting one of them to commit. Either way, their hypergamous drive never evolved to distinguish available from unavailable men, because in ancient times, the small number of guys you knew were all potentially available, and you never had any contact with unavailable men anyway.
Social media is the antithesis of those small, close-knit social and kin networks from which hypergamy evolved. It's designed to tease you with possibilities (so that you keep clicking). In the past, girls would have crushes on some celebrity and maybe put his pictures up on their bedroom walls. But they knew he was out of reach, and so their hypergamous drive would focus on guys more available. Now, if she posts an instagram picture with her tits out, there's a good chance a celebrity will DM her, or at least 'like' her picture. Heck, most celebrities have social media teams that respond to fan tweets and facebook posts, deliberately trying to get you to think you have a real "connection" to the celebrity (so that you'll see his/her next movie).
I liken it to how a casino is designed. Most of us are mathematically innumerate. But we do have a reasonable, intuitive sense to correctly deal with everyday probabilities like 1:2, maybe 1:10, and can make the right choices in those scenarios. Our intuition breaks down when you're talking 1:1 million or 1:1 billion, because in our everyday lives, we never ran into those types of probabilities until modern times. Casinos are designed to take advantage of this deficiency by trying to convince you that the odds of that million-dollar jackpot are "intuitively" the same as the 1:10 chance you're familiar with in everyday life. They do this by having lots of bells ringing, lights flashing, etc. and dribbling out a few coins every couple of pulls to keep you thinking you're about to hit the jackpot any second now. Eventually, you end up with an empty wallet, wondering why you never won the jackpot when it was "so close". And then you blame the slot machine and kick it :-)
The modern sexual marketplace is even worse. At least casinos are regulated and can't lie about the actual probabilities (if you look closely, every slot machine will have fine print on the side telling you what the odds of each payout is). No such restriction keeps a hedge fund guy from telling a woman what her real chances of being married to him are. And no such restriction keeps Tinder from trying to convince you that all those thousands of matches are guys who want to marry you and shower you with gifts and make all your princess dreams come true.
And that totally messes up normal hypergamy. It's like asking a brain that has developed a sense for optimizing 1:10 probabilities, to intuitively optimize a 1:1 million chance. Social media tricks a girl's normal drive into believing she has a chance with these guys, and that those are the guys she should aim for. So she aims for them, ignoring the good but normal guys around her that she could choose from. And after 10 years, she wonders why she never got any of the guys she was aiming for (even though they were "so close" because they'd pump-n-dump her off a tinder match), while simultaneously, emptying her "SMV wallet" such that she's now not able to attract any of the remaining good guys around her. Which means she'll become a single cat lady and never pass on her genes, even with a "lousy" mate.
Now, I don't mean to say hypergamy is all bad. A little bit, tempered with an understanding of probabilities, can still be good. And that's what marriage-minded women in their 20s essentially do. They stay away from riding the CC, and focus on getting the best mate. She doesn't chase celebrities, or blow the band's lead guitarist backstage after the concert. The absolutely hottest ones might lock down an alpha guy, or maybe an older alpha guy who played the field but now wants to start a family. And less attractive girls marry less attractive but good guys like their high school sweethearts, someone they met in college, or maybe in their early working years to a co-worker or a friend-of-a-friend. That's what we mean when we say a woman in her 20s can easily find a decent man to marry. Yeah, you may not get a millionaire Christian Grey, but there are lots of decent men, and plenty of them get paired up with girls who aren't supermodels but are good, decent women.
But hypergamy in large doses is now maladaptive. It leads women to keep pulling the lever in the casino hoping to land the jackpot. And they keep pulling until they hit late 30s/40s, etc. At which point their "SMV wallet" is empty. At that point, even a 70th percentile man is now out of reach. Because those men (assuming single, never married) want to have kids. And it doesn't matter how beautiful and accomplished you are, no guy who wants a family wants to marry someone who is going to have significant problems with that. Every profile of a late 30s woman starts by talking about her college degree, her love of traveling, yadda yadda. None of that matters much. She would do better by posting a doctor's note stating that she's still fertile.
Women get shell shocked by how quickly and steeply their value drops. If you're attractive in your early/mid 20s, you can literally have celebrities trying to get into your pants. Lots of stories abound of drunk A-list celebrities hooking up at bars, clubs with random women. When you hit your mid/late 30s, even a fat schlub with a boring, so-so job wants nothing to do with you, or thinks *he's* the one settling if he has to marry you. That's a stunning fall, something many women have a massive difficulty accepting. Just look at e.g. Elizabeth Taylor, one of the most beautiful and famous women in the world. She had marriages and affairs with some of the most rich, famous, and powerful men in the world. And yet, her last husband was an ugly construction worker with a mullet.
In many ways, extreme hypergamy is worse than the most predatory casino. Because most of us, even if we lose all our money in Vegas, can go home, work, fill our wallet back up, and go back to Vegas and try again (or finally wise up and spend our money on more realistic but boring investments like a mutual fund). But a woman who listens to her extreme hypergamy, gives in to the lies that social media tells her about how that 6'4" millionaire with 6-pack abs is "just a swipe away!", and keeps pulling away at the one-armed bandit, and eventually ends up with an empty RMV wallet that she can't ever refill. At that point, 40 years old and without a man, or children, her hypergamous instinct leads her to extinguish her genetic line. The exact opposite of what it was supposed to do.
At the end of the day, an evolutionary drive that served her well for thousands of years has been unable to adapt to the new environment created by social media and the sexual revolution. Just like our sense of probabilities is good for telling us when it's safe to cross the street, but breaks down in a casino. It will probably take several generations at least, for this drive to be re-calibrated to the new environment (or the environment might change again). And in the meantime, lots of women are losing the RMV equivalent of their life's savings by it.

Q Magazine feature

Come join JENNY LEWIS in Las Vegas and LA to hear tales of childhood fame, dysfunctional parents and a 20-year singersongwriter career full of audio riches and heartbreaking wrenches. “You wanna blaze a doob outside, then I’ll shower?” she asks EVE BARLOW.
With arms outstretched: Jenny Lewis jumps for joy, Los Angeles, 8 May, 2019.
Photography Rachael wright Watch this!” says Jenny Lewis, sipping on a Modelo. “Take a visual of this for a second.” It’s midnight in Mandalay Bay’s casino, Las Vegas, and Lewis is exiting the House Of Blues where she’s just played the debut show of her tour for fourth solo album, On The Line. In the bar next door a band plays; a group of long-haired men whose bodies look beaten by decades of strife, yet their faces exude a purposeful passion. “Big wheels keep on turning…” chews the lead vocalist. “Carry me home to see my kin.”
They holler the chorus of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama and Lewis marvels. “Oh my God. This! These are my people!” Lewis isn’t coming home to Vegas, though she was born here, sharing a birthday with Bowie and Elvis. Los Angeles has been her home throughout a 20-year singer-songwriter career, her second. Her first career was as a child actor. She met her agent aged two-and-a-half, bought a house at five and quit by 20. Highlights include starring in 1989’s The Wizard opposite Fred Savage and playing Lucille Ball’s granddaughter in Life With Lucy.
Tonight, she’s an extra in a different scene. “These are lounge musicians”, she says of Vegas’s Lynyrd Skynyrd. “A covers band. This is like my whole family: my parents, my sister, my brother.”
Unlike the tale of Sweet Home Alabama, Lewis doesn’t have much kin left. “Just my sister. And a shit ton of half-siblings.” Sister Leslie isn’t here, but will be at tomorrow’s LA show. Her dad died in 2010.
Eddie Gordon was a virtuoso harmonica player and absent. “He played Brahms on the harmonica – a prodigy”, she says. Her mother Linda sang in a ‘70s duo with Gordon, called Love’s Lounge. Eddie and Linda played at the Tropicana and the Sands, which has since been bulldozed. “Beautiful footage”, she says – of the bulldozing, not her parents.
Lewis grew up watching things fall apart.
It made her a great raconteur. Brother Steve lives in Minnesota. His 30-year-old covers band is called The Rockin’ Hollywoods. One night The Rockin’ Hollywoods played local bar Mancini’s. “In the middle of the set the drums stopped”, she says. The band looked back to find their drummer slumped over the kit. He’d died. It’s part of Minnesotan lore: Prince, The Replacements and this. What song did he die playing? “Footloose”, she laughs. “He died on his throne. His drum throne. God, I hope I don’t die on the fucking throne”, she says, meaning the toilet.
“What a terrible place to die.”
Her parents divorced and Lewis moved to LA’s San Fernando Valley where she still lives. Her first memory is in Vegas – of her babysitter Lisa holding her by the pool.
“Lisa was a female Elvis impersonator – called Ellis.” She chortles. “I’m not making this up. That’s the fucked-up part, I don’t make shit up.” Throughout her four albums with indie band Rilo Kiley, four solo albums, plus numerous side-projects, Lewis has never made shit up. She seems destined to outclass her family’s talents. “None of my peeps were writers”, she says. “They were song interpreters.”
That fate changed when one of Linda’s boyfriends taught seven-year-old Lewis piano. “The moment he taught me Phantom Of The Opera I took the chords and wrote about my dad.” For her 15th birthday she wanted an acoustic guitar but Linda bought her a red Stratocaster. “I was so bummed.” She studied her Beatles songbook, and another one of Linda’s boyfriends taught her Desperado by the Eagles. “I wrote five songs over Desperado’s chords. One was about my friend Camille. A dark tale.
I played her it. She goes, ‘Ugh, I hate this song.’ I was like, ‘Sorry!’”
Turns out, Lewis’s catalogue contains many such harsh facts, but for years fans assumed some of it was fantasy. When she sings, “Where my ma is now, I don’t know/ She was living in her car, I was living on the road/And I hear she’s putting that stuff up her nose” on Rabbit Fur Coat (2006), she’s singing about their estrangement. Linda used to spend Lewis’s earnings on heroin.
“When you’re a child of an addict there’s a dynamic”, she says of her premature adulthood. “But I rebelled at 15, smoked cigarettes, ran away, did acid at the mall.” From the age of 12 she was in Alateen meetings – AA for teenage relatives of addicts. “My mom was in and out of jail and rehab. I was dropped off at an Alateen dance thinking, ‘Maybe I’ll meet a cute guy!’
GETTY
Riding high: (clockwise from right) Lewis goes for a spin in her back garden, LA, 2019; acting alongside Fred Savage in 1989’s The Wizard; with Rilo Kiley, 2004. “When you’re a child of an addict there’s a dynamic. But I rebelled at 15, smoked cigarettes, ran away, did acid at the mall.”
I didn’t.” She beat a kid up at school when word got out that Linda was using. “You defend your family’s honour”, she says. “So I fucking clocked them.”
Linda died from liver cancer in October 2017: Friday 13th. Lewis was by her side for eight weeks after two decades of silent treatment. Since then, she’s been sharing more than ever about her parents. Why? “Well they’re dead, so…” she says, cuttingly. “Sorry. I mean that’s the rule. I’m spitting on their graves. I didn’t wanna hurt them. Now they’re gone it’s my story. The truth as I see it.” Before she was terrified of what she saw. “I was repressing. I was writing about it but didn’t talk about it. I let very few people in. I was afraid they’d leave.” She pauses. “And I am my mother, so…”
The inner child in Lewis is contagious. Before the interview, she’s smoking a joint in a parking lot with LA restaurateur Roy Choi – a can of La Croix in one hand, a copy of Eminent Hipsters by Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen in the other. She’s 43 going on 13: boy crazy, talks like a character in Clueless, wears a weed-shaped pendant close to her heart. Later we’ll pass a Titanic exhibit. She’ll sigh, “Oh Leo.” Lewis would hang out with DiCaprio when they were teens. What did they get up to? “Well…” she giggles.
A mensch never tells. “We played video games at the arcade. Street Fighter.” She played as the character Dhalsim. “The long-legged guy. Never Ken. Ken’s too normal and definitely not Jewish.”
Jenny Lewis: “I feel in control of my craft right now…” As Lewis lets the night guide her, gliding past slot machines lined up like dominoes, she seems unfazed by losing her way or missing her 1am bus call. “This is where I feel most at home. With dirty carpets and a faraway smoke smell. It’s truly formative.
I feel like myself.” Even in moments of joy, her face has a way of falling. It reminds me of her lyric from 2006: “I was born secular and inconsolable.” Like a child, she becomes hopeless when there’s nothing to say. She tuts, hums, shakes her head.
On The Line is a grief album mourning her mother, but began as a grief album mourning a break-up. Lewis and Scottish- American songwriter Johnathan Rice were not married, but together for 12 years and made one album as Jenny And Johnny. Rice’s new LP came out today. Titled The Long Game, it’s about that dissolution.
It includes two songs they co-wrote. Has she listened to it? Her head shakes. “I uh…” Another silence. She takes her time and whispers quietly, “Not today.”
One co-write – Another Cold One – reads like a post break-up song (“It’s bittersweet in the long run/We’re both lost, nobody won”). Again her head shakes. “Often you don’t understand a song till later.” Her break-up was “pretty fresh” when Linda was hospitalised. “Johnathan was there for me”, she says. “I never want to hurt him.” She doesn’t believe in editing herself, though.
“I’ve said before: don’t hang around cannibals if you don’t wanna get eaten. I did not listen to his record today. But his record is fair game. It’s like Fight Club. The number one rule of dating another songwriter is: you can’t say anything about their songs.”
After all, her album contains songs about Rice (“after all we been through, don’t you wanna kiss me?”). After the split, Lewis fled to New York, the first time she’d lived outside LA. Her friend Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, gave her her apartment. When she was younger she’d dream of NYU (“I never took my SATs”). “I’ve been trying to get out of the Valley since I was 16.” In New York, she realised that wherever you go, there you are. “Kind of a bummer”, she says.
By way of circumstance the songs were the first she’s written alone since Rabbit Fur Coat. She writes “almost every day”. “I feel in control of my craft right now in a way I hadn’t fully felt before”, she says. It contains all of Lewis’s nuances: her ‘60s classicism (Heads Gonna Roll), her blues-y rockers (Red Bull & Hennessy), her balladry (Dogwood). Little White Dove is its centrepiece. An olive branch to her mother on her hospital bed, and a reclamation. “In the middle of love, I’m the little white dove/ I’m the heroine”, she sings. She performs it onstage with a victory strut and a pout.
She recorded the LP with a showstopping group of legends, including Rolling Stones producer Don Was, Beck, and Ringo Starr in Capitol’s Studio A. “He’s so cool”, she says of the Beatle. “Way more relaxed than I was. I’d say, ‘Hello Ringo’, but between my teeth I was like, ‘Oh Jesus Christ!’ I love the fucking Stones. But I’m a Beatles stan.
It’s all I listen to.” The other day she was at AutoZone getting a new car battery. The clerk, an old man from India, was playing The Beatles. They bonded. “He said something so beautiful: ‘Babies love The Beatles.’ It’s true.” She sighs. “The Beatles transcend everything.”
WE’RE NO SPRING CHICKENS BUT WE’VE STILL GOT IT.
Says Lewis about her new which includes highlights…

HAPPY

From solo LP Rabbit Fur Coat (2006)
Lewis performs this sad ballad banging two wooden claves. It’s slow and sleepy, like a train pulling into its station, while she waits for contentment to return.

SILVER LINING

From Rilo Kiley’s Under The Blacklight (2007)
Rilo Kiley’s final LP was a go-hard-or-gohome effort for the band; a synth-y crossover into mainstream rock. Lewis carries its legacy effortlessly. “Hooray hooray, I’m your silver lining/Hooray hooray, but now I’m gold,” she sings.

JUST ONE OF THE GUYS

From solo LP The Voyager (2014)
One of Lewis’s finest: an ode to curating your own rules in a man’s world but eventually hitting a wall.“There’s only one difference between you and me,” she sings.“When I look at myself all I can see/ I’m just another lady without a baby.”

RED BULL & HENNESSY

From solo LP On The Line (2019)
There’s a moment in the bridge where Lewis goes full-on Kate Bush. Contains all the drama of Fleetwood Mac, and similarly she’s lived it.

WITH ARMS OUTSTRETCHED

From Rilo Kiley’s The Execution Of All Things (2002)
One of Lewis’s most beloved anthems on unrequited love. She cuts the house lights for this, invites a sea of iPhone torches and lets the crowd carry the verses.“And if you want me, you better speak up/ I won’t wait, so you better move fast.”

ACID TONGUE

From solo LP Acid Tongue (2008)
A folkier acoustic ballad and one of Lewis’s best stories. She sings about taking solace in sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. “To be lonely is a habit like smoking or taking drugs/And I’ve quit them both but, man, was it rough.”
Performing These Days with Jackson Browne at the Hollywood Palladium;
“No popping, guys!” Lewis is a band freak. Before Rice, before her solo career, came Blake Sennett and Rilo Kiley. Sennett and Lewis wrote songs, played them to room-mates and formed a foursome. They took off in 2001. “It took over my entire life. I was in a relationship with my bandmate, just like my parents. The cycle continued. I had no idea.”
The band survived long after their split. “It sucked!” she says. “It was so hard. You break up, then you see the person the next day and spy on them outside the club like, ‘Are they making out with someone else?’
But I don’t know how to be with someone unless we play music together. I’m away for so long. I wanna hang with my babe.”
You wonder if it’s tough for a prolific, successful female to be with a male songwriter of lesser success. One of Rice’s new lyrics goes: “I always pictured you and me growing old disgracefully/Now I see the club’s sold out and there’s no room for me.”
She makes a pained face. “Yeah, probably not a good idea”, she says, of the question, seeking to keep things sweet. “Johnathan is amazing, and was supportive. It takes a very special person to be able to support a strong woman. It shouldn’t but it does.”
Lewis gravitated towards special men, who lent her their platform. In the 2000s, she was a queen amid a sea of male anti-heroes including Bright Eyes, Modest Mouse and Death Cab For Cutie. She was a “superfan” who studied the back of Death Cab’s Something About Airplanes LP and sent Rilo Kiley’s demos to their label Barsuk. She discovered Bright Eyes from a friend’s mixtape, bought Fevers And Mirrors and listened in the car “crying my fucking eyes out”. She wanted to know Conor Oberst. “Who was this? My soulmate? And he’s super cute? It was fucking Christmas!”
Oberst was the reason she made debut Rabbit Fur Coat, which was the catalyst for Rilo Kiley’s demise. He asked her to make a solo album for then new label Team Love.
“I go, ‘That’s so controversial, I’m in a fucking band. I’m not a solo artist. I’m a band person!’” He insisted. The resulting album – confessional, spooky and gospel-tinged – was a cut above. Soon she was invited to be on Death Cab frontman Ben Gibbard’s side-project The Postal Service, too. “What a lovely gift to pluck me out of a dysfunctional [band]. Without Conor, without Ben… They believed in me and gave me a chance to learn, to step up and just fucking do it.”
Not all have been princes, though. The unmentionable of On The Line’s players is Ryan Adams, who produced briefly. Weeks after the LP was announced, the New York Times ran a story containing allegations of sexual misconduct against Adams employing the voices of ex-wife Mandy Moore, exfiancée Megan Butterworth, artist Phoebe Bridgers and a woman named Ava who was 14 years old at the time of Adams’s alleged abuse. He worked with Lewis in early 2017.
“I was in a relationship with my bandmate, just like my parents. It was so hard. You break up, then you see the person the next day outside the club like, ‘Are they making out with someone else?’ But I don’t know how to be with someone unless we play music together.”
“I was born secular and inconsolable…”: Lewis relaxes at home;
this year’s On The Line album. Lewis looks glum when Adams’s name is mentioned. After the allegations, she tweeted, “I am deeply troubled by Ryan Adams’ alleged behavior [sic]. Although he and I had a working professional relationship, I stand in solidarity with the women who have come forward.” She told Pitchfork she “hates” that he’s on the album. It’s not Lewis who should have to justify her actions.
She doesn’t resent having these conversations. “I get scared when I’m asked about Ryan. Ryan is an important part of the bigger story of my career. We have a deep musical connection. I really appreciate his contributions. Unfortunately I sometimes feel like I can’t say it. However! Bad behaviour is bad behaviour and if you’re fucked up people are gonna find out about it. You have to treat people well. To bring it back to The Beatles, we need to project peace and love. We also need yin and yang. But we can’t accept abusive behaviour.”
The next night at LA’s Palladium, the room brims with Hollywood starriness. The set is the best she’s ever designed. In a moment only a Jenny Lewis can pull off, a perspex phone rings upon a heart-shaped platform onstage. “Oh shit”, she says. She takes the call.
“Jackson Browne?”
She asks. “I’m in the middle of a show right now…” Browne appears. They perform These Days. “Don’t confront me with my failures, I had not forgotten them”, they sing. It’s an interpretation, sure, but Lewis could have written it. Her band ran through it at soundcheck in Vegas yesterday afternoon. Who called Jackson? “I mean I actually dated his son way back”, she said backstage.
Despite her family traumas, Lewis’s inheritance – music – is her greatest ally. “It was the family business. It wasn’t a choice. But music as a job? What a fucking snooze. It’s such a gift to have success in music.
Playing in a Vegas lounge is better than jail, or another boring ass job. It’s like Cass McCombs sang [The Executioner’s Song] – you gotta love your fucking job.” As she moves into a new independent life, she’s trying to take stock more. “I’m so short. I’m five-foot-three-anda- half. I have to remind myself: Look up!”
In 2019, she’s greeted by a new generation as an icon. Her lyrics have become mantras like Buddhism for millennials. “It’s crazy to do something for 20 years, let alone do an OK job”, she says. Bus call looms once more and she sparks up. “You wanna blaze a doob outside, then I’ll shower? There’s an order for things.” Spoken like a true professional.

[Super & Real] Chapter One Part One

The grocery bags plopped down and he collapsed backward onto his couch, breathing heavily. He shook his head and rested. Wow, he was out of shape. His friends were right; he did have to lose weight after all. “Dammit,” he said, recovering. He’d always been a bit chubby, but since getting full-time at the warehouse, he’d gotten so much fatter. The long hours kept murdering his feet and knees, but after being in poverty for practically all his youth, the money more than made up for it, and his waistline expanded accordingly. Pulling the mail from his hoodie pocket, he glanced at each one. The credit card offers he pitched into his burn pile, and his paycheck he opened and checked carefully. They’d finally gotten his name—Manfred Voren—completely correct.
Taking a deep breath, he huffed, and hoisted the six plastic bags into his kitchen and began unloading. Some of the items he chose carefully, as per a recipe he wanted to try. He read the list and arranged each ingredient. Since the recipe estimated a thirty-minute time of completion, he opened his medicine drawer and popped his medication. For the next half hour, he toiled away at the chicken and pasta dish until it very nearly resembled the picture. Scooping it onto his plate, he chowed down while reading comics on his laptop. The latest issue of Breaker featured the main heroine, a tall, muscular power house of a woman, ripping into the powered armor of a bad guy. He knew the lore quite well.
First Breaker was a favorite of his. He’d been reading it since the mid-nineties, having picked it up at age twelve. What attracted him to it, as he had typed into a conversation defending it against arguments of it being outdated, was how unique it was as a comic. “First Breaker,” he had written, plumbing the depths of his childhood memories for the right words, “isn’t just a ‘hey, ‘let’s beat up bad guys and smile for the camera’ superhero story. The main character is Cyroya, a goddess from the fictional ‘Bakeru’ religion. She’s not actually a savior, or a good guy; she’s the main enemy, the Satan of her people’s beliefs. As the Goddess of Strength, she basically shows up in ancient Rome and nearly ends the world, cutting apart entire armies all by herself. Kareth, the God of Mercy and Creation, defeats her, at great cost and casts her into Pareion, basically their religion’s hell.”
He remembered that exchange and how heated he became, even though he realized he was only staring at a computer screen. He’d also introduced several of his friends to it. “Cyroya is cast into the bad place for her many murders, and here’s where it really gets good,” he’d defended. “Where most comics from the late eighties to early nineties—the so-called Dark Age—were just blood and gore for no end, we see her get tortured in Pareion and repent her crimes. That’s when Kareth sends her to the modern world and she must use her powers for good to save humanity, or else spend the rest of eternity in Pareion.”
“So,” his friend Shawn asked, “if this Kareth guy is so powerful, why doesn’t he intervene?”
Manfred took that as his cue. “Because eventually, they encounter threats even beyond the Gods. There’s literally a moment where a guy tells her she can help him take over the universe, and she has a perfectly good chance to kill Kareth and be free of his threat forever. Instead, she helps him defeat the bad guy. It’s great because she’s clearly a recovering villain. You see her have to struggle with the fact that, no, these humans aren’t insects merely there to satisfy your violent urges. You see her literally become a better person.”
He remembered the friend basically answering with, “that’s great, Manny,” and leaving it at that. It was his favorite comic. Shoveling pasta and chicken into his mouth, he pressed the space bar to move forward. Doctor Richard Felaru, the bad guy in the power armor, Manny read, clearly had thought his machine could duplicate the Godess’s power. He’d had her against the ropes, but with the strength of will, she ripped his armor apart. Manny felt like a little kid again. This storyline had been going for the better part of a year, and he was glad to see it end.
“Wow,” he mouthed, reading the last page. The story had ended exactly as he wanted. After finishing his sizeable meal, he washed his plate and silverware, setting it in the drying rack and picking up his laptop. Sitting for too long made his legs hurt, so he walked around carrying it. He shopped for comics online before reading some other issues he had on his computer. Furious Thunder Comic issue 682 appeared full-screen, him clicking on it. He enjoyed it, even though the writing hadn’t always been great. Unlike First Breaker, Furious Thunder was a very traditional super hero story, although not the same as many others. Unlike most of the traditional stories that started in the early Silver Age of Comics, Furious Thunder had started with a female lead. A female lead character, in 1952, was unheard of. Somehow it had managed to avoid being absorbed by the bigger studios, but had suffered in the sixties thus.
The new timeline, he saw, wasn’t quite as good as the one before, but he still kept reading. One of the things that annoyed him was that when the character was first drawn, she was a decently curved woman for sixties standards. Now, she was almost anorexic. It wasn’t unique; many of the big studios had the female supers being model thin, but she was supposed to be a major hero. At least she wasn’t drawn with comically exaggerated breasts—even being a guy, it became annoying and distracting after awhile. Once more, he noticed her pulling her cousin’s pod out of the river. Before it had been a mountain landslide, and the original reboot had it be a river. He knew the story by heart: Michelle Delanter, having been examining archaeological ruins in South America, touched an artifact and was magically transported to another world, where she was forced to fight for her survival for a hundred years, somehow not aging. When she finally succeeded, it was revealed the whole ordeal was an illusory test to see if she was worthy of the power contained within the artifact. She then became Capacitor, a hero that utilized otherworldly energy to possess great strength, speed, and energy abilities.
He read on, seeing that the origin deviated just slightly, with her finding the artifact and the whole training ordeal montaged in a series of six panels. She apparently explained to her cousin that he had been put in stasis because of his disease, and the pod had cured him, right before the earthquake diverted the river through the area where the building was. She grabbed his hand, and shared some of her power with him. “We’ll talk later,” she told him. “Right now, help me save the people downstream.” The next few pages were of the two of them using their powers to save people from the flooding and earthquake. It was nice to see they’d updated her age. In the original 50’s and 60’s comics, she’d been a teenager and her cousin the same age. Now, she was five years older than him.
His cellphone rang and he set down the laptop. The caller ID read a familiar name. “Yeah, Joey? What’s up?” he asked.
“You still hanging out on Saturday?” Joey said.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Manny explained. “Shit, as much as I work these days, it’s the only time I can.”
Joey let out a breath of a laugh. “Ain’t that the damn truth.” He coughed. “Well, if you’re busy right now, I’ll let you go.”
“Eh, I think I’m just staying home,” he replied. “Nothing much to do ‘round here anyway.” He smiled. “See you then.” Both knew too well what he spoke of. Southern Illinois was well-known for a few major things: abandoned buildings where industry once was, being twenty miles from the nearest civilized anything. If he was going to a movie, it would be fifteen miles to Edwardsville, or eight miles to East Alton. There was one book store the Illinois side of the Mississippi river.
He watched some shows on the internet. After that, closed his laptop. Normally, later in the week, he found himself not wanting to be bothered. Now, though, the thought of being around friends made him feel lonely. Still, the nearest mall worth going to would be almost thirty miles away in the Chesterfield, Missouri area. Popping his knuckles, he made up his mind. He didn’t want to be home alone. At least the mall, far away as it was, presented the possibility of running into friends.
His gas gauge reading full, he started it up and headed towards the Missouri line. Miles of forested areas passed by as he left his house, which was just short of Jerseyville, and passed through Alton. The riverside showed block after block of abandoned buildings where jobs used to be, some fifty years prior. The riverboat casinos with their flashing lights stood in stark contrast to the rows upon rows of taverns and bars that segmented sections of former places of business. The economy had been rough and he was lucky to have gotten a job that paid well.
After crossing the Clark Bridge, the economy seemed to get much better, with the businesses of the Florissant area passing by. After more than twenty minutes of driving, he made it to Chesterfield and one of the few remaining malls performing well in the downtrodden economy. The mall looked uncrowded as Thursday evenings weren’t major business. The first store he hit was the bookstore, checking out their manga collection. There seemed to be only twelve people walking around the store, and none of them he knew. He read a few volumes before he left the store.
Walking around the mall, looking around, he felt a bit dumb. There weren’t that many things he wanted to buy, and none of his friends seemed to have thought to come out here. He popped into a dollar store and bought a generic cola. The man behind the counter looked at his shirt and smiled. “Hey, nice shirt,” he said. “Haven’t read a comic since I was a kid, but those movies are great.”
The man looked to be nearly fifty. Manny regarded the man’s gray hair and lined face. “What’d you read growing up?”
“Well, I read a bit of everything,” the man admitted. “I can’t say I remember much of it. Nice to see Hollywood finally giving a thought to it, though.”
Manny let out a humph. “You can say that again,” he responded. “I think when I was a kid, there was the 1989 movie and other than that, a bunch of crap. Now it seems like everyone likes ‘em.” He shrugged. “It’s annoying. Where were these movies when I was in high school about two-thousand-one?”
They shared a laugh and he left the dollar store. It raised his spirit to feel reassured he wasn’t alone. Entering the video and game store, he looked through the Blu-ray section. He came across a copy of the nineteen eighty-one Capacitor movie. They’d made a crappy sequel in two-thousand-five, and hinted at a Furious Thunder reboot, but he always enjoyed the original. He hadn’t seen it in years or had this updated disc, so he bought it to give himself a reason to have come.
He started the car and set his bag in the passenger seat. Flipping the radio on, a news story talking about lights in the sky over various parts of the world, and what the experts had to say about such things. Even though it might have been interesting, he set his radio to Bluetooth and played music from his smartphone. Pressing the emergency brake off, he shifted into drive and left the parking lot. The highway back to southern Illinois signaled his experiment had failed and he had to return home. Miles of highway passed once again. Nothing much out of the ordinary appeared until he got about halfway home.
Pulling the car over to the shoulder, he stared at the sky, both awed and weirded out. Streaks of color, vaguely reminiscent of aurora borealis made streaks across the evening blue. However, these were off-colored. Various pinks, oranges, and silvers streaked in with the green and red. It undulated in the sky like some cosmic worm wriggling. Eager, he checked his mirrors and got out. He clicked his phone’s camera app and pointed it at the sky. The image quality wasn’t fantastic, but he wanted to keep a record of this. Some ten minutes later, it faded, and he got back in his car. Since others were stopping and staring, he took his opportunity and left.
Returning home, he uploaded the photo to his laptop and watched videos on the internet. He opened his bought movies and made sure they worked. After ten minutes, he checked the clock. Work the next morning would be a pain in the ass, so he decided to check in for the night. He set his phone’s alarm clock and changed into his pajamas. The usual evening routine came next: brush teeth, change into pajamas, swallow some pain medication since his feet hurt. Once the ibuprofen kicked in, his mind slipped away into dreams.
The alarm interrupted his dream of driving through a vague pseudo-city consisting of several places he had been to, while fleeing some nondescript sense of dread. Waking up was an exercise in lifting himself to a sitting position and waiting for his sense of balance to kick in. Shaking his head to clear it, he stood up and stumbled a few steps before righting himself and walking to the bathroom. The routine became second nature: brush teeth, do business, shower. He had a half hour or so before he had to be there, so he made himself a few sandwiches for breakfast along with some coffee. He took a hit of his inhaler and dressed himself before heading out the door.
The drive to the warehouse reminded him how much he hated it. His work was a decent paying job; it didn’t, however, mean he enjoyed it. The man at the door scanned his ID badge and he walked over to the counter to be assigned. The woman, a middle-aged smoking victim, regarded him with the same deadpan expression everyone got. The number he got was thirty-three with a ‘C,’ and that meant he would be on shampoo duty. If there existed a better demonstration of how to reduce a man to a robot than the next five hours, he would have loved to see it. His task consisted of taking finished shampoo two-packs, placing them in a cardboard box in their slot, sealing the box in plastic when full, and placing it on a palate for a forklift to retrieve when the palate filled. Other than a single fifteen-minute break, he did nothing else. When the lunch break came, he got in his car and drove to the truck stop across the road and bought a sandwich from the refrigerator along with a generic diet soda. After that, he went back to work and another five hours passed by.
His knees and back ached, and his hands hurt, so when finished he popped two naproxen sodium and finished the last of his green diet soda. It was painful, but at least he was lucky. Some of the other warehouse companies that hired paid only minimum wage. Then again, he rationalized, most of them were staffed by stoners and ex-convicts. On the way home, he stopped by the video rental kiosk and chose some arthouse film one of his friends had recommended. It wasn’t normally the kind of film he watched, but it would be a welcome waste of time. The sun was still up and yet, he wanted nothing more than to plop into his chair and leave the day behind. It bothered him some of his friends worked as much as possible. Other than keeping the house clean—which was the responsibility of everyone with a home—these people exercised for three, sometimes four hours a day, and this is after an eight to ten-hour work shift, and then chores. Maybe by the time they were done, they’d have two, maybe two and a half hours to just relax and do nothing before going to bed at eight-thirty, nine at the absolute latest. His shift started at five-thirty, and he finished at three-thirty. He worked forty hours a week, his default four-day schedule. His arms and back often ached, but damn it, every weekend was three days, he made enough money to pay the bills on a house his parents left him, and that mattered most. Furthermore, if he skipped a few meals here and there, he could save enough money to buy something big. Five years ago, he’d skipped enough meals to buy a two-thousand, five-hundred-dollar gaming laptop. It kicked as much ass as he could hope for. Maybe next year, he would start saving for a new one.
The movie was ok, not exceptional, but he was glad anyway, because it being Thursday, he wouldn’t have to be back at the warehouse until Monday. He pulled out his PC controller and plugged it into his laptop. He decided to play Inindo: Way of the Ninja, a role-playing game from nineteen ninety-three. A relatively obscure game, he’d rented it once as a kid from Blockbuster Video and enjoyed it so much he played it completely at least once a year. It wasn’t particularly breathtaking, but it was a fun way to pass the time. Noticing the clock on the wall was nine P.M., he saved, put his laptop into hibernation, and stretched his limbs. The night was calling and he didn’t want to stay up too late. Just not having to awake at four the next morning felt great. When he turned in the direction of his bookshelf, he saw the book occupying the top slot—volume one of the 2004 run of Capacitor in Furious Thunder Comics. Opening the graphic novel, he remembered the familiar opening. The heroine, Michelle Delanter, with her trademark red hair, reminiscent of the setting sun, flapping in the wind, stood poised to save lives. Her figure, not quite as anorexic as the new run, had the super-skinny frame of a waif model, which, absolutely did not mesh with her powerful expression. He’d been entering college during the original run of these issues, and they were always a fun time. Hard to believe, it had been more than ten long years since then.
Replacing the book, he felt a mild static shock. It annoyed him, and he started towards the bathroom when he felt a mild burning sensation wash over him. He pulled his shirt off, having stripped down to his underwear. Furiously he slapped his hands on his torso, trying to locate if something was injured or in some way damaged. A few seconds passed with the feeling increasing before fading entirely. His head felt slightly dizzy and then became normal again. “What…” he uttered. Before he had a chance to finish the thought, he felt a yanking, a pulling. It came from his abdomen. In a scene of utter impossibility, he looked down to the source of the feeling, and saw—as he continued to feel—his large bulbous fat gut drawing in. His entire torso shrank before his very eyes. “No, oonooo!” Trapped in a panicked thought, that he was shriveling up into a corpse somehow, he grabbed and pinched at skin, pulling and yanking, trying desperately to fight it. After a few moments, there wasn’t enough fat left to grab handfuls of. He gasped and panted, wide-eyed at how small his torso had become. Now the pulling came over his limbs. From his waist to feet, and shoulder to fingertip, his flesh tightened and retreated. Coarse hair disappeared, scant, fair body hair appeared in its place. His mallet-like hand with stubby sausage fingers turned into a dainty palm with slender pianist digits extending from them. Legs became thin, smooth, with only faint hair that wasn’t too noticeable. Giant fat feet shrank several shoe sizes. Finally, a twinge travelled up his chest and to the top of his head. His saggy man-breasts became recognizable ‘B-cup’ women’s breasts. Hair grazed his shoulders. “Yeep!” he shouted, tugging at the intrusion, only to see the reddish hair attached to his own head. The voice registered clearly in an adult woman’s range. He stumbled to the bathroom mirror and stared.
Twenty-year-old, redheaded, superhero, fictional character, Michelle Delanter, or, an incredible facsimile, stared back at him. He shook his head, slamming his eyes shut. No. This is impossible. He had spent years of his life thinking skeptically. It was the reason he’d left religion behind. No, what happened was, he’d gone insane. This was a hell of a hallucination; he hadn’t even had a history of mental illness. Sure, when he was ten, he had a phase where he wanted everyone to call him Batman, but even then, he knew he wasn’t turned into an imaginary character. He ran his hands over his face. The red-headed woman—who, now that he thought about it, had no reason to be a fictional character—rubbed her face the same way. He felt up and down the body, and sure enough, the hands in the mirror moved as well. He took a deep breath and let it go; this was an amazing degree of insanity. He’d really flipped. Not only had he somehow developed a separate personality, but the hallucination was so good, he couldn’t think his way out of it.
A thought occurred to him. Had he been this red-haired woman all along? He fumbled through his wallet. His driver’s license was the same as it was that morning. Manfred Voren, Illinois Driver’s License, five foot nine, two hundred eighty pounds. He took a selfie, making sure to only photograph from the neck up, and sent it to a friend of his. “What do you see here?” he included with the text.
Ten seconds later, his friend Jake responded. “Cute girl,” he said. “Nice hair. She your new girlfriend?”
“She’s a friend,” he replied. He set the phone aside. He sat down on the toilet lid. Either he hallucinated the text, he figured, or else Jake had really seen the girl. That wasn’t evidence enough, he knew, but it was a good start. He honestly expected, had he simply gone crazy, for Jake to say something about why Manny would send a photo of himself. Still, he couldn’t trust his own mind. This wasn’t possible. He had a mountain of evidence to suggest he had spent thirty-one years as Manfred Voren. Thinking about it, he’d never so much as seen a single redhead, anywhere in his life that looked like her.
He sent the photo to his perverted friend John. “Would you do her?”
“Sure, I would,” he replied moments later. “Who’s she?”
“Someone I had a pleasant conversation with earlier,” Manny texted. “Has anyone like her ever been around us before?”
“No, dude, I wish,” John replied. “Don’t miss the opportunity on this one.”
He set the phone down. Now he had more evidence. Still not enough to positively rule out his insanity, but two separate friends acknowledged that the photo he remembered taking a minute before was both not him, and not someone they’d seen before. Either he was insane enough to have hallucinated: transforming, taking a photo of the result, as well as his friends reactions, or something absolutely not possible was actually happening. He still didn’t want to accept what had never happened before in human history. He slapped himself to see if he was dreaming; he wasn’t.
He stood in front of the mirror. In his mind, he could see an image of himself as this woman. He focused hard on the image. He imagined it turning back into him. Nothing happened. After a few minutes, he closed his eyes and saw the image even clearer. He did it again, and still nothing. He imagined both images side by side—himself, as he was before, and her. Nothing happened, except this time, he felt a presence in the back of his head. Not like a person or spirit, but as if a switch or lever had magically appeared in his brain. Obviously, it didn’t have a literal appearance of such a device, or any appearance at all, but he noticed it only when he summoned both images side by side. With thoughts, he manipulated it, imagined it changing. Once more, nothing happened. Almost a half hour passed with nothing changing.
Opening his eyes, he stared once more at the red-haired woman he’d become. If this didn’t change, if he couldn’t change back, he’d have a lot of hell to deal with. Sooner or later, he figured he’d wake up in a nuthouse or a courthouse, having done something like beating a guy to death because he hallucinated the devil in him or some crap like that. Or, if the absurd turned out to be true, he would have no identifying papers as this woman, and no history whatsoever. He’d have no solutions. If he somehow overcame these problems, he’d be spending the rest of his life as this woman. Could he really commit to that? Could he really pull the trigger?
Oh my god, he thought.
It was a trigger!
He coughed to calm himself. Okay, he rationalized. Let’s assume what, again, I know to be impossible, is really happening. Let’s say I’m somehow turning into a woman and back again, his mind fired. Wouldn’t it be damn inconvenient should, say, a random thought morph you in the middle of a crowded room? He was the kind of guy to imagine spiders crawling on the walls at random. He’d hate to have the kind of power to do that. So, he guessed, should there be a fail-safe, to guarantee that no random imagining of himself would cause the change to occur? He focused on the twinge in his head, the feeling the…whatever the hell it was. He imagined her morphing straight back into him. This time, he didn’t imagine himself manipulating the…well, hell, he just decided to call it the Trigger. He committed. He decided, firmly and completely, yes, he wanted to be fat, almost thirty, underpaid and overworked, Illinois native Manfred Voren. He felt the Trigger change to a different state.
Like a bad CGI film, his body morphed back into Manfred Voren. The entire process took eleven seconds. His fingers were fat again, his gut stuck out again, and his penis and testicles had returned, along with his ungainly body hair. He could have cheered when he became normal again. He had never been so glad to be overweight.
And then, his curiosity got the better of him. Oh hell, he realized. He couldn’t let it go. He stepped on the scale, and it read two seventy-nine. Hey, he realized, he’d lost two pounds from the month before. In his mind, he imagined the woman again. He pulled the Trigger by committing to the transformation. Hey, as far as insane ideas went, it was convenient, the equivalent of an “are you sure” before deleting the file from the hard drive. It snapped into its previous state, and the change happened again. This time, the burning was replaced by a tingling, almost like the cold mixed with electric prickling around fur rugs. He stared in bewilderment as the scale plummeted to one hundred and thirty-seven pounds. Wow, not just impossible, he thought, but ultra super-duper impossible, violating the Law of Conservation of Mass impossible. He reversed the transformation and the scale climbed again.
He decided to go to bed. This insanity could wait until the morning. With thoughts raging on his mind, it took quite a while, but he managed to slip off to dream.
The sun’s light peering in through the window and shining in his face woke him up. He rubbed his belly and face. He was still Manny and still fat. How much of what happened the night before had been real? He yawned and stretched. Stumbling to the bathroom, he splashed water on his face. Mental images of himself turning into the woman from the night before returned, and with it, a familiar presence. He pulled the Trigger once again. Eleven seconds later, the red-haired woman stared back at him in the mirror, blinking when he blinked. The possibility that this was a hallucination hadn’t diminished much. Much of what he saw continued to be impossible per all the scientific evidence he knew. He had two pieces of evidence he couldn’t necessarily trust because he could have hallucinated them as well. A decision entered his mind. Since what was going on didn’t appear to be harmful or destructive yet, one of the easiest ways to prove it real would be to do things that it would be utterly impossible for a hallucination to deliver. To get there, he had to know if he had been turned into Capacitor, or just a red-haired woman.
Based on his current supermodel-thin build, it would be utterly impossible for an ordinary woman with red hair to lift a refrigerator. He knelt in front of it, and wrapped his arms around the large metal rectangular prism. He bent his womanly legs and expected his back to scream at him. Instead, he felt weight resistance on par with lifting a beach ball. At fully standing height, he yelped and immediately had to avoid three problems at once: hitting it on the ceiling, dropping it, or banging it into the wall. It felt like carrying a bag of groceries. So, not just an ordinary red-haired woman, he thought, but actually The Capacitor. Gingerly, he set down the fridge. Got it.
He walked around the house a bit, curious as to how many of her powers he had in this form. If this were really happening, he took mental note, he’d already demonstrated strength. She had several more. He stared all around, trying to activate her see-through vision. What the writers had made sure to do, he remembered from the comics, was not to give her x-ray vision. Her vision was a form of psychic remote viewing, since they didn’t want to imply her eyes gave off harmful ionizing radiation. After long minutes of trying, he found wanting to see further caused layers to become transparent, allowing him to see behind and beyond them. With effort, he gained another small, possibly unreliable, piece of evidence that this wasn’t a hallucination. One layer at a time, he saw past the wall of his house, past the walls of the neighbor across the street’s house, and into the books on a shelf perpendicular to his vision in one of their rooms. One book, he had never once read, The Old Man and The Sea by Hemingway, he saw the cover, then the first page. The next page was backwards, obviously, when the first page became invisible as he saw past it. Exercising his will, his vision returned to himself, having remembered the text of the page as best he could.
He downloaded a digital version of the book and read the first page. The text matched what he saw. Alright, I couldn’t have made that up, he realized. Unless somehow, he had read the book somehow and forgot that he read it while still remembering the text, which struck him as unlikely. He still couldn’t rule it out, but now, more evidence mounted. The best evidence, he figured, would be to act as though it were real and see how far it went. Certainly, real life broke down all barriers and the truth eventually came out. If he ventured out into the world, and this was a hallucination, it would come crashing down, wouldn’t it? Sure, it could be disastrous, but if he had the insanity to hallucinate to this degree, what could he trust? It also meant, the farthest and most unlikely scenario could be true. Something impossible could truly be happening, and the implications, he scarcely wanted to contemplate, for the whole universe was involved.
Turning back into himself, he decided to push it. He transformed parts of his body into hers. Individual feet at first, then hands. He could even transfer much of his body fat to her form. This seemed practical, as it meant his clothes would fit her, but at the same time, it bothered him. He thought about it. Ultimately, he shook it off in favor of more pressing matters. Her being fat allowed him to put his clothes on and head outside to do some work. Grabbing the car keys, he headed for the park near Wood River, Illinois. There, he could find a quiet corner of the large open park and practice.
The wooded areas had quite a few places off the beaten path where people hardly went. In a cluster of trees, he stood, focusing on what he knew. Alright, he thought, one of the most basic abilities she had was flight. She could, in the comics, fly incredibly fast. He focused on his presence and imagined himself moving. At first, just as he expected, nothing happened. Practice made perfect. It was just like riding a bike.
After twenty boring minutes of trying different mental techniques, he focused on deciding to levitate upwards. Leaves blew away from him in a circle, as if he had a propeller blowing. His feet left the ground by an inch. I’m getting it! He thought. Then he fell backwards onto his butt. He stood, brushed himself off. Fly, already, he mentally commanded. Upwards! Fly!
As though fired from a cannon he shot up. Uncontrolled at first, he slammed into a tree face first, having surprisingly tested his durability and upon issuing a mental yell of “stop!” he came crashing down with a thump. The thought occurred to him that direction and speed may not be the same mental process. He indicated the direction of up, and decided. Simultaneously, he indicated a speed of slightly above gravity and committed. Like a balloon, he levitated to the height of the tree. At the top, he changed his speed to exactly the speed of gravity. He came to a dead stop and floated alongside the treetop. Left, he focused and thought. Slow. He hovered in the direction of the next tree. What surprised him was that he continued facing the original direction as he moved sideways. He had to turn his body midair to face the direction he moved; it wasn’t automatic. Touching the tree, he stopped and lowered himself. Finesse and fine control would have to wait. He had other powers to practice. What surprised him was that flight worked much like the “trigger” that activated his power: he had to mentally force it so a random thought couldn’t interrupt it.
Sensory powers were her next major task. Sure, he knew, he’d tested her sight, but now, he had hearing to test. This was easy to activate. Unfortunately, it was hard to focus. A thunderstorm erupted in his head. He heard everything from nearby cars starting all the way down to the footfall of a squirrel. Drowning out everything except people’s conversations proved hard. It wasn’t like the comics at all. Sure, with effort, he could hear what they were saying separately by paying attention to it, but just like regular hearing, everything else mixed in.
Ironically, the easiest powers to learn were what he expected to be the hardest. Energy projection, which in the comics, manifested as her being able to emit laser-like beams from her hands and directly in front of her eyes, wasn’t hard at all. He thought of the type of energy to be fired. In this case, a powerful beam of laser light. He pointed at a log. Making the decision, the tip of his finger glowed red and a dot appeared on the log, slowly burning. He decided to increase power. The light turned from red to blue, and it ate through the log in seconds. Once stopped focusing, it vanished. The other, super speed, almost felt like turning a knob. He found the world frozen around him as he focused on it. The only disorienting part was movement. He found he could see and process all the information around him, even though he felt the tremendous speed at which he ran. The logical problem was that his clothes didn’t rip off. The only answer he could come up with was that the invulnerability extended somewhat during running.
He shifted back into his normal male form. Within twenty minutes of testing individual body parts, he found he needed to transform his brain into hers to have any abilities at all. Furthermore, he found he needed at least half his internal organs to be changed to have strength or flight, but sensory powers only required his eyes and ears to change. After a few minutes of testing his sensory powers in his normal form, he realized, it bothered him somehow. It didn’t feel right to him to use powers in his male form. He pondered it a few moments, but shook his head. He had other work to do. Namely, the thing he wanted to do was, in fiction, usually the first thing the hero learned not to do. He’d read enough comics and manga to learn that one of the very first lessons a protagonist learned was not to use their powers for self-interest. It was wrong. To an extent, he knew why it was wrong. But as someone who worked ten-hour days, for less than fifteen dollars an hour, he didn’t care.

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