Vinny
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Post by Vinny on Oct 30, 2014 19:01:27 GMT -5
Thanks, Noelle. Drake's internal demons have always been Chekov's Gun in my writing. Sooner or later, something has to happen.
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Vinny
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Post by Vinny on Oct 20, 2014 14:11:06 GMT -5
Also Benny/Vinny wrote that, not just me. He can take some of the blame. I wrote all the goofy spots, Ben made it all make sense. I'm glad people liked the ending.
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Vinny
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Post by Vinny on Oct 18, 2014 9:54:45 GMT -5
Thanks, Cordy and Riley (I'm a POS, I don't know your real names)!
Page/Drake would just be a poor man's Page/Chris Q, but I'd still be down for it.
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Vinny
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Post by Vinny on Oct 17, 2014 9:06:15 GMT -5
Thanks, guys.
My promo style has evolved a lot since I started playing this game and even since I started in FGA. I've moved away from 'background' story and start weaving that into the promo and completely eliminated any off-camera stuff. I also used to write long, LONG setting and detail descriptions, but what I found is that the more extraneous stuff I can cut out the more it makes the 'shoot' pop. The reader's brain can fill in the rest of the details if you give them the right cues, and they get a more vivid image because they aren't shoe-horning your images into their imagination, they're creating it themselves. So as much as I loved showing off with all the window dressing, I think it's more effective - more me at least - to cut to the chase and focus on what's important. With Drake I've made his raison d'etre only achievable through wrestling, which makes wrestling the focus of his life.
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Vinny
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Post by Vinny on Oct 16, 2014 10:36:45 GMT -5
Here's something I don't say very often, I'm REALLY pleased with this piece (no pun intended): The Missing Piece. I finally feel like I'm able to slip back into Drake's mind and really work the strings and machinations again. But I'm more interested in what everyone else thinks, especially those of you have known the character for so long. I'm also interested in what people who don't know Drake as well think of his character progression, his arc. Yes, I talk like Drake. I know. Thanks, - V
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Vinny
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Post by Vinny on Oct 16, 2014 10:33:53 GMT -5
Washington, DC.
Located a few blocks from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, just off the Washington Circle Park is the George Washington University Hospital. The beige concrete facade stands unassuming against the overcast gray skies above; a steady flow of patients parade in and out of the emergency room doors and various other, less exciting, entrances and exits. Among these entrances is the Transfusion Medicine Service Lab, better known as the Blood Bank.
The lobby is sterile in appearance, as one might expect. A gray-green rug over the floor, white painted walls and handful of purple chairs, arranged into short rows. A disheveled older man hunches sleepily in one of the chairs, his face resting in his palm and a small spittle of drool hanging from his lip. Across from him, in black leather jacket, T-shirt, jeans and combat boots sits Malcolm Drake. Drake brushes the dirty blond strands of hair off his face as he stares down at a clipboard cradled on his lap. In his left hand is a red pen; he slowly marks “yes” and “no” answers to the “Blood Donation Eligibility Form.”
“It seems like everyone is keen on seeing me bleed,” Drake says without lifting his eyes from the form, “Hmm. I don't know why that is. Maybe they're expecting my blood to be black... and viscous. Maybe they're looking for something to point at and say 'See?! There the monster! He's not like us! He's not human!'” He stabs the point of the pen into the clipboard making a hard check in a “no” box as he speaks, “Well... as my father would've told you, I'm nothing if not a constant disappointment. The blood that courses through these veins is just as red as yours. Albeit it might burn a little hotter and might be crawling with... undesirable paramecia... but it is red. It is human. O+, since you're all so interested in my hemoglobin.”
Drake takes a brief look over his form before standing. He walks over to the glass-protected nurse's station and slides the clipboard through the opening, depositing the red pen back into a coffee mug that reads “GIVE BLOOD” next to the insignia of the Red Cross.
“Give blood?” he says, tilting his head at the mug before returning to his seat, “That's the idea isn't it? At least here anyway. But not too far from here and not too long from now that idea will change. It'll twist and pervert. It won't be about giving blood, it'll be about TAKING... blood. A First Blood match,” Drake gives a wave of his hand, “It's a quaint notion considering where we've been and what we've done. Look at the scars on my hands, on my body. They're like monument markers on a road map. Points of interest, if you will. And I'm a very... interesting... man.”
“It started with Mirage asking me to bleed for him, and now Dom Harter wants my blood on his hands. I get it. It's... primal. Violent. Basic. And that's why I hate it. You might not believe this, but I don't have any desire to hurt Dom Harter. I don't want to make him bleed. I don't want to grind his bones to dust or mash his face to an unrecognizable pulp. I don't want to see his insides on the outside. I don't want to gut him and show everyone that his belly is, in fact, yellow. Dom Harter is the closest thing I've ever had to a brother. The closest thing I've ever had to a friend...”
Drake pauses and his head sags, long strands dropping over his face. When he raises his head back up the nurse is standing in front of him with the clipboard he had filled out.
“Mr. Drakowski?” she asks, knowing the answer already. Drake gives the slightest nod. The nurse fidgets a bit before saying, “I'm sorry, sir. But we can't accept your donation at this time.”
Silence hangs in the air as Drake stares, blank faced, back at the nurse. The nurse shifts her weight and drops her eyes back down to the clipboard, only glancing up at Drake when she feels it unavoidable.
“You answered yes to question 6 and question 10 here...” She extends the clipboard in front of Drake's eyes, indicating the questions with the shaky end of a ball-point pen. “We'd usually do a deferral for... uh... men who have had... relations with another man,” she pauses attempting to gauge Drake's reaction but his eyes are focused on the clipboard, “but I'm afraid the... intravenous drug use disqualifies you from donating.”
Another long pause settles in the room. The older man lets out a cough and a snort before falling back to sleep.
“I'm sorry,” she says slowly retracting the clipboard. Drake eyes rise first, meeting her gaze and holding her there. His body follows.
“So am I,” he says finally before turning and walking out of the room. Drake pushes the hair off his face and pushes open the exit door, moving into the light rain that has begun to fall.
“So then why did I leave?” he continues as if he had never been interrupted, “Why did I ABANDON you? Is that what you want to know, Dom? Why didn't I call, why didn't I write, why didn't I tell you I was coming back, why didn't I cup the balls... SHUT UP!” Drake stops in his tracks and punches himself in the head with his right hand. Once hard and then several more shorter blows. “Shut up, Dom! Not everything is about YOU! You've got problems? You've got issues? Well, fuck you, pal.”
Drake starts walking again, the rain intensifies. He kicks a street lamppost as he walks by.
“You think this is all about you. You think you let me down. God, Dom, could you be easier? Why don't you tattoo “inferiority complex” across your forehead. Or get it carved into your childish haircut. You want answers, huh? You think I OWE you that? Were you a disappointment to me?”
Drake stops.
“No,” he says after a breath. “No, you weren't a disappointment to me and that's exactly the problem. You aspired to earn the respect of a person like me; why? You know what IS a disappointment, Dom? You never wanted to better. You wanted to be like me... You wanted to be like me... If my leaving cured you of that idiocy then I'm GLAD I LEFT. I'm GLAD I 'abandoned' you.”
Drake spits.
“You were my vessel of success, Dominic. Now you're my vessel of redemption. I've always been able to mold you, Dom. I've always been able to shape you into the tool, the instrument that I need. And I'm doing it again now. I did it without you even realizing it,” Drake allows himself a brief smirk. “It's a question you asked, it's the question that's nagged at you that everyone else seems to gloss over. It's the missing piece of the narrative...”
“...if Malcolm Drake, you know that 'evil mastermind,' came back knowing that everyone would hate him, if he was free enough from delusion to know what he was walking into, how could he not anticipate how Dom Harter would react? The person who he knows best, how could I not see that coming?”
“How indeed.”
“Is it coming together now? You're my punishment. You're my sword of redemption. You know the names, you recite them like a prayer: O’Hare, DeMore, Blayze, Junior, Kidd, Tryon, Marx, et cetera... Every blow you strike against me is a triumph for each of those people I hurt. Every bone you break is my penance, every scar a recompense. The blood I spill will be as a baptism. Don't you see, Dom? This is my gift to you. I've made you what you always wanted to be...”
“… a hero.”
Drake smirks and lets it slowly drift from his face as the wind whips his wet hair around like a halo.
“Memento mori.”
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Vinny
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Posts: 683
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Post by Vinny on Oct 2, 2014 20:05:16 GMT -5
Thanks!
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Vinny
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Posts: 683
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Post by Vinny on Oct 2, 2014 18:30:07 GMT -5
#2 since I've been back: Beg MeI felt like this was too short and went back and added about 300 more words to it. I've always been one of the shortest writers here, and don't like stretching stuff out. What do you all think? Still too short? Too long, maybe? Thanks, - V
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Vinny
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Beg Me
Oct 2, 2014 18:27:24 GMT -5
Post by Vinny on Oct 2, 2014 18:27:24 GMT -5
Berlin, Maryland
About five miles inland from Ocean City, is the small town of Berlin, Maryland. What was once a Circuit City has been swiftly rebranded with a black and orange banner that reads “Halloween Depot” in an appropriately spooky font. It's the kind of temporary store that pops up around different holidays to sell over-priced plastic to cheap people. Inside flimsy wire racks form aisles of made-in-China superhero costumes, slutty everything outfits, and cheap plastic props. There is also, naturally, an aisle devoted to masks. Freddy, Jason, Chucky, Michael and amidst them – Malcolm Drake.
Drake stands, attired in a black leather motorcycle jacket over a plain white T-shirt, dark blue jeans, and black combat boots. In his hands is a black and white Kabuki mask that he is turning back and forth, inspecting it.
“Maybe I'll dress up like a hero and fight off this new villain,” Drake muses to himself, “Isn't that what the “good guys” do?”
A smirk crosses his lips as he continues to fiddle with the mask.
“People always asked,” Drake begins, as if speaking to the mask, “why Malcolm Drake was the Head Crow of The Murder. Bob Pooler was more seasoned. Dom Harter was more talented... The answer is that I've always been a big picture guy, even when that picture was just a portrait of mayhem and destruction. I can see five moves ahead and I can manipulate the players and the pieces. My gift is just a propensity for violence, it's that I can see – truly see – human nature. No distractions, no disguises,” Drake looks down, “No masks... Dominic talked about MY mask, my... exterior casing. That quality that makes me... unfuckwithable. And there's the rub. Where I am a hardened case, Dominic Harter is a raw, exposed nerve. He is anger. He is aggression. He is a useful tool. Malleable, pliable. The perfect make-up for a lackey. A STOOGE. A flunky. Hmmm. That flush of rage you're feeling in your face now, Dom... that's me poking you. That's me poking the exposed nerve. Poke. Poke. POKE. Does it... tickle?”
“What Dom Harter knows... is that I am anything but ordinary. There are some who dismiss me out of hand. Drake's a psycho. Drake's... crazy. No, no, no. I am NOT one of these run-of-the-mill cut-outs that throws on a mask and all-of-sudden GOES CRAZY! No... What Dom Harter knows is that above all else, I'm in control. That's why I could do what I did and why it sent shivers down the spines of ALL the biggest and baddest in FGA. And it's... now... I will control myself. Wrestle my demons. Everyone doubts that I am capable of that control. Doubts that I am capable of using it to reform myself. To fix the parts of me that are broken, and believe me, I know that I am broken. But... but... it could always be said that only one person could truly know what Malcolm Drake is capable of... me. Even you, Dominic, even you...”
“But you're a problem for another time,” he waves the mask in the air dismissively.
“Danny,” Drake continues, “I had a lot of free time between my match and when Mr. Harter was trying to trying to keep my doctors and dentists in business. I heard your little promo on Saturday night. I heard you refer to yourself as a “God amongst men.” A God... Amongst men. I enjoyed that. That brought back some memories. See you're not the only one around here with a pseudonym. There was a man around here – not so long ago – who called himself a “God amongst men.” This “God” stepped into the ring with me... and I stepped out of that ring with the nickname “God Killer.”
“But you've changed your story since then, haven't you? And it's not Danny anymore, it's... Mirage. Adorable. And you've got a mask to go with your new name, and a history that's supposed to make me quiver in fear, right?”
“Dog killer,” Drake spits on the floor, “Here's a little know fact about me... I like dogs. In fact, on the list of things I like in this world, dogs are the only item that don't involve making someone BLEED. And you... you put on a little bag over your face and want to pretend to be the Big Bad around here now? Cute. Here's what I think: You want to let your alter-ego out? Maybe I should let the 'other guy' out, too. That old Malcolm Drake. The Malcolm Drake that would turn your little mask into a colostomy bag. The Malcolm Drake that would make your past transgressions look like kindergarten pranks. If it's blood you're after... Mirage... there will be plenty of it, but it won't be coming from me. It'll be coming from you. It'll be POURING out of the wounds I leave in your body. You say that Danny Diamond is a loser. Well then all Mirage is... is a loser in a mask.”
“You're not a different person with the mask on; you're selling multiple personality garbage, but I'm not buying. All you are is a garden variety psychopath. I should know, I'm... somewhat of an expert on the subject. But here's the kicker... you're also a COWARD. A coward, making excuses. A coward, hiding behind a mask. You wanna pretend to be someone else, some kind of tough guy? Okay, Sunshine. You do that. You play dress up and make believe and I'll go back to haunting the nightmares of every damn sonuvabitch in this promotion. You know, like someone who is actually capable of inspiring fear.”
“You're like these masks and costumes,” Drake makes a sweeping gesture, indicating his surroundings, “a cheap imitation. A knock-off. You're a bargain basement megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur. You're not the first version of 'Drake Lite' that's stepped into my path with their chest puffed out, babbling incoherent nonsense. But maybe after what I do to you on Saturday, you'll be the last... dog killer.”
Drake spikes the Kabuki mask off the ground and turns on his heel to walk away down the aisle. After a step or two, he stops. He leans back over his shoulder without turning.
“Oh, and one last thing. You don't need to beg me to hurt you, Danny... You'll need to beg me to stop.”
He turns away.
“Memento mori.”
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Vinny
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Post by Vinny on Sept 25, 2014 9:51:37 GMT -5
I never get tired of reading that.
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Vinny
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Post by Vinny on Sept 22, 2014 9:37:19 GMT -5
Favorite Segment(s): Sands/Bond, Karma (natch), Closing segment.
Most Memorable Moment(s): Ash's megaphone, Sean Sands return (Way to steal my thunder. #DammitSpiro), Page/Cordy/Cyn
What Do You Think Happens Next: The plot thickens.
Miscellaneous Feedback: - I was really worried at the start of the show where the Page/Cordy angle was going; borderline groaning, but the pay-off at end was absolutely worth it. I'm too freshly back to know all the backstory but that is an impactful way to kick off a feud. Good stuff. - A thing I've noticed - and this isn't directed at anyone in particular, because I've been guilty of it, too - is the rapidly escalating stakes. Everything is getting turned up to 11 and it's starting to all sound like distorted noise. How many violent assaults can you have in one show? I'm glad the "that tickled" line got over (it was pretty much my only contribution, Ben's carrying my sand-bagging ass), because Harter's attack on Drake was like the 5th most violent on the show. Comparatively speaking, it should've tickled. This is the first show after an iPPV, and I'm just not sure how a lot of these feuds are going to build without going absolutely over-the-top.
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Vinny
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Post by Vinny on Sept 22, 2014 8:38:40 GMT -5
Thanks, guys. It was nice to shake off some of the rust.
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Vinny
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Post by Vinny on Sept 17, 2014 21:24:28 GMT -5
Probably smart to start a new thread for this. So my first RP is up: Old Habits, Old Haunts. This is the first substantial anything I've written in about six months. I'd love any feedback you guys are willing to give me. Thanks, - Vinny PS. For those new folks, I'm usually pretty good at paying-it-forward with feedback.
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Vinny
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Post by Vinny on Sept 17, 2014 21:18:15 GMT -5
Dorchester, Massachusetts.
We've been here before, but it feels different the second time around.
There's a mint-green double-decker on Deer Street with a dark green awning over the front door and plywood boards over the first floor windows. The vinyl siding is cracked in places and has been fully peeled off in others. What's there is sun-faded and dirt-caked. The second floor windows are shattered from rocks thrown through them. The small yard that surrounds the house is overgrown with weeds, that are barely contained by the collapsing chain-link fence. The house remains standing as if only by force of will; to serve as a memorial to failures to numerous to count and too ugly to name.
The front doorway is blockaded by two large board of plywood and a weather-beaten notice that reads “NO TRESSPASSING. POLICE TAKE NOTICE.” The makeshift barricade has been recently pried loose. The late summer wind carries stray leaves through the opening and onto the gnarled wooden floor. There is a staircase in the front hallway that leads to second floor. Each step groans under the strain, as if the house has forgotten how to accept its visitors. The first room to the right at the top of the stairs was once painted a pale blue, but what remains is chipped and worn. There are holes in the walls and shards of window on the floor.
There is also a small AM/FM radio seated onto the floor, next to a half-finished six pack of High Life and the slumped body of a man. The soft chords of Hole's “Doll Parts” float through static and over the speakers of small. As Courtney Love intones “Someday you will ache like I ache,” the man reaches up his free hand, the one not holding a beer, and delicately lowers the volume. It slowly drifts down to silence.
The man's dirty-blond hangs in tendrils that stretch down his face; his legs are splayed out in front of him and the beer bottle between them. As he lifts the bottle to his lips, the hair falls back from his face and Malcolm Drake tilts the bottle back, draining the last few drops.
“There's not a helluva lot I'm good at,” he says with a dismissive twist of his wrist, “I've got what you'd call a 'limited skillset.' What I'm really good at his hammering flesh with my FISTS. There's not a lot of honest work you can get with that skill. Sure, I could hammer a nail. I tried that. The problem is you usually only get to hit the nail once before it... gives up. Where's the satisfaction? I can't get no...”
“See, when you're taking your hands, balling them up, and WAILING into someone's face, it's gonna take more than one shot before their skull... gives up. You have to keep hammering, and hammering, and hammering, and hammering, and HAMMERING... and hammering. By the end you can't even make fists no more; your hands are throbbing, your knuckles shredded. And that face, man, it's no more than twisted red goo and jagged fragments of bone.”
“There's not a lot of honest work you can get with that... but there's plenty of dishonest work. There's A LOT of dishonest work you can get with that.”
Drake lifts his hands up, palms inward, to display the scar tissue that lines his knuckles; misaligned from healed breaks that didn't set properly.
“I ran away last time I was here. I tucked my tail between my legs and bolted for whatever part of the horizon seemed furthest away. I ran until the soles wore out of my boots, and I ran until the bottoms of my feet were bloodied and raw, and then I ran until my lungs breathed fire and my body gave up on me. Then I crawled. I crawled until I found a suitable gutter, rolled onto my back, looked up at the heavens to a god that doesn't exist, and decided this was as good a place as any... to just die.”
“Then it started raining,” Drake chuckles, but it sounds more like a sob, “It fucking started raining. I wasn't even going to be allowed to DIE in peace. I rolled over and did the only smart thing I've ever done. I opened my eyes, and stared down into the puddle forming from the runoff of my head and hair. I stared down and the man staring back at me, the one with the sunken eyes, the shallow cheeks, the tattered skin... he wasn't Malcolm Drake.”
“He was my father.”
Drake tosses the beer bottle forcefully against the wall; it explodes likes a firecracker on impact, cascading shards through the air.
“FUCK. THAT. I was content dying as a scum bag, as a piece of shit, as infectious human waste... but I wasn't going to die being as low as my father. I may not be better than shit, but I'm better than him. So I pulled myself out of the gutter and sought out that honest work, and tried to build myself back up. And when I failed at that, I turned to that dishonest work. The work I'm so equipped for, the work I was born for, the work I do so damn well. Like a junkie back to the needle, like a moth back to the flame. I could feel the vicious cycle starting up again, I could feel myself; hamster back on the wheel.”
“So I jumped off. I didn't find Jesus or Buddha or DB Cooper or any of that hollow, empty bullshit. I found this...”
Drake reaches into the left front pocket of his black denim jacket and pulls out a tattered and bent piece of hard-stock paper. A ticket, faded with time and water-damage, but still visibly bearing the lions-head crest of Frontier Grappling Arts.
“My literal ticket... to redemption. It hit me like I hit so many skulls, an honest line of work where they pay you... they CHEER you... for hurting people. Well, not me, but people. People... that was a little higher than what I was aspiring to, but I figure now... I don't got anything else. I might as well aim for that goddamn brass ring I hear so much about from all the do-gooders around here.”
“I didn't expect a warm reception. I don't deserve one. I expected the boos, the jeers, the garbage... I actually kind of missed it,” Drake smirks, but his smile fades quickly, “I guess I just wasn't expecting Dom Harter.”
“As I stood in the ring facing him, I thought of Dr. Frankenstein staring into the eyes of his monster. I thought of Pandora trying to put the lid back on the box. I thought of Pygmalion and a horribly mutated Galatea. What hath I wrought? I felt... guilt. Do you hear me, Dominic? I felt GUILT staring at you. Not for 'abandoning' you, not for 'running away,' but for allowing you off the leash. I felt guilt because just like my father before me I created some rotten demon-spawn and turned it lose on the world.”
Drake spits onto the floor. He takes a breath before pulling one of remaining beers from the pack and twisting the top off.
“You say I can't change, Dom... Well, maybe you're right. Maybe you're... right. Maybe there's no helping me. Maybe I'll always be twisted and broken and infectious and rotten and callous and low and base and VIOLENT and brutal and nasty and dirty and cruel and MURDERous and savage and vicious and bloodthirsty and wild and goddamn, motherfucking CRAZY...”
His tone lowers.
“...but I hope for YOUR sake, you're wrong. Because if you're right, you just slapped the face of the most psychotically violent sociopath ever to step into a wrestling ring. A truly unbalanced animal. A bloodthirsty Crow. A man who makes you... look like a little boy scout.”
“You remember the catchphrase, don't you, Dom?” Drake takes a sip from his beer, “Memento mori.”
“Ahh, I'm supposed to save that for the end, aren't I? I'm rusty. But that's what Saturday is for. My return, officially or unofficially, a dark match against this new guy, Johnny Raike. Drake versus Raike... as symbolism goes it's a bit heavy-handed for my tastes."
"You're new here, Little Johnny, so you probably don't have the history. See, back about six months ago I was a different man around these parts. I guess you could say I was a bit rough – well, even rougher – around the edges. Back then I'd probably say something to you like: 'They call it a dark match because the cameras aren't rolling yet. That's probably a good thing for you Little Johnny; no one is going to want any sort of visible memento of what I'm going to do to you in that ring. The irony of the dark match is that the house lights are still on when we go at it... but I've got this sneaking suspicion they're going to want to kill all the lights, to hide the MASSACRE that I'm going to leave in that ring. That ring is my canvas and my only medium on Saturday night will be your blood and viscera...'”
Drake snarls, before dismissively wiping the look from his face; replaced with a smirk and a subsequent drag of High Life.
“...but I'm a changed man. Well, a CHANGING man. I'm a work-in-progress, Little Johnny. It won't be my intent to do anything more than soundly defeat you. It won't be my intent to cripple you, to maim you, to leave you a gurgling half-corpse bubbling from so many open wounds. That's not my intent, Johnny... but,” Drake shrugs, “I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. Like I said, I'm rusty. And old habits die hard.”
“Memento mori.”
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Vinny
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Post by Vinny on Feb 20, 2014 18:45:33 GMT -5
Camden Town, England.
The Camden Town sits northwest of downtown London and is famous for its street markets. The sidewalks are packed with twenty-somethings in various shades of black and denim, browsing the wares of open air shops with the sort of ambling nonchalance that is the purview of youth. Camden looks every bit like a warbling Mick Jones guitar-lick sounds: crowded, graffiti-tagged, and laden with T-shirts beckoning you to “Go Fuck Yourself.”
Below the rising namesake of Dark Angel and the dancing dragon of Max Orient, a group of mohawked, leather-clad punks - with as many pins in their flesh as in their clothes - congregate to fill the air with smoke and curses. The group is abruptly split by the stiff gait of less-ostentatious figure in stressed leather and jeans. It's not often that the mangy locks and dingy attire of Malcolm Drake doesn't make him stick out like a sore thumb. Drake, oblivious to the obscene gestures aimed at his back, shoulders through the crowd until he can find a side alley to duck inside.
With his back against a brick wall and a slow trickle of rain water running underneath his boots, Drake pulls a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the pockets of his jacket and sparks one. He puffs out a long, steady cloud of smoke.
“This is about as close as I get to a vacation,” he says through the smoke, “It's not very often I find a place where I can fade into the scenery. Of course, it's one thing to live this way and another to buy for a couple of quid at the market. But that's neither here nor there. HERE... is London. And as far as I'm concerned, it not quite far enough from THERE as I'd like, but it'll have to do.”
Drake's movements are herky-jerky as he takes long, hard pulls from the cigarette.
“I'm not too familiar with the concept of vacations. From what I gather, you're supposed to get away from your troubles for a little while and do what you enjoy. Well, right now there's a big fucking ocean between me and my biggest problem so I guess that puts me halfway on the right track. But... what does Malcolm Drake like to do... for fun? Hmmm. Did that thought make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? It should. You see what I enjoy most of all... is hurting people. I like the feeling of bones and flesh giving way underneath the force of my fists and feet. I love the sound of body parts separating in unnatural ways. I LIVE for the warm trickle of blood between fingers and the fear in someone else's eyes.”
Drake grins, wide and beaming, before slipping the cigarette back between his lips, more at ease.
“But you know that already don't you, boys? You learned first hand that The Murder do what we love, and love what we do. And the body-count indicates that we're pretty damn good at it, too. So where does that leave the two of you? Where does that leave the Super Mario Wrestling Bros? Two kids in funny outfits with way more balls than brains and a death-wish. Or is that too dismissive? Is there more to you than that? More than a cute name and some battery-powered ring jackets?”
Drake shrugs and takes another drag, smoking the butt down to the filter but not discarding it.
“Maybe. Maybe there is more to the Super Mario Wrestling Bros than meets the eye... pity that no one will ever see it. This Saturday night – International Incident – it will be your magnum opus... and your swan song. You'll walk into the ring with the greatest tag team on the face of the Earth, possibly ever, and for a little while you will fight us. You will give it your absolute very best. You'll cash in all your coins, use every last second of your star power, you'll burn your fire-flowers down to the stem, and you'll spend every extra life you've got...”
“But here's the thing... it won't be enough. THIS... is NOT a game. We're not some final boss for you to vanquish. We are not some initials at the top of a High Score list that you can stop. You can't keep pumping in quarters for extra chances until you can outlast us. The thing about your games is that they follow certain rules. And as you so observantly pointed out... we don't follow any rules except our own. We aren't the game, we are the personification of the “GAME OVER” screen.”
Drake finally tosses the remnants of his cigarette into the puddle at his feet.
“You will walk into the ring against the Murder on Saturday night at the Royal Albert Hall... but you won't walk out. I hope Battleground really drove the message home for the two of you. I hope you realize just EXACTLY who and what you're stepping into the ring against on Saturday night. I hope you can comprehend the magnitude of this shot you're getting. The Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Championships are THE belts in this sport, and they have been ever since they were first placed around our waists. I won't say you haven't earned, I'll simply point out that the rest of the division... the fact that there IS none... yeah, we did that.”
“Dragons, Kings, Suspects, the Church... what a pair of Brothers to add to the list? Just two more bodies for the mass grave that they call our Win Column. I hope that is all getting through, I hope this is sinking in. I hope you're finally realizing the hopelessness of your situation. I hope... and not because I give a SHIT about either of you... I don't care if you survive this match, I don't care if I cripple one of you and maim the other, I don't care if you never walk or wrestle again.”
Drake smirks.
“I hope... because I like it when my victims struggle.”
“Memento mori.”
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