Why aren't there any fat superheros?

I have been struggling with my weight for, well, pretty much my whole life. I'm a fat guy but I'm not supposed to bothered by this apparently. Women feel self-concious about their bodies and they rally together to say Barbie is unrealistic as are the myriad of superheroines with large busts and tiny costumes. But when it comes to guys, well, we're lucky, it's okay to be a big guy, but fat girls get it hard because women are expected to be skinny and beautiful. At least, this is what I am told, and if it's true, damn I am sorry for all of you women, because being a big guy has not been easy. When I was in middle school, there were a few boys who would ask me every time they saw me "How's the baby?" implying that I looked pregnant. Of course, they weren't scared of me, because even if i was bigger and stronger, I would have to catch them first and I couldn't because I was fat. I learned not to mind the boys but what really hurt was that the girls didn't seem to find me attractive and I blamed it all on how fat I was. It has taken me a long time to realize that what they really found unattractive about me was how little confidence I had after others broke me. I was, and still am, afraid to talk to women because I am always afraid they won't like me because I'm fat. If you think about it, media doesn't help the fat guys anymore than the fat girls. Yeah Barbie has unrealistic proportions, but have you had a look at the male equivalent? Every superhero wore spandex and had washboard abs and muscles so ripped their veins popped out. They were plastic, but someone took the time to set the molds with veins popping out of their bulging muscles. And spandex, there was no way I was going to pull off spandex, it was clear I was too fat for this. Hw could I be so sure? The only fat guy with super powers was the Blob, and he was a villain. Yeah, that's encouraging, if I want to be among the superheroes, I get to be the bad guy too fat to feel when they are punching me, woo-hoo! Aside from him the next guys were Kingpin and the Penguin, also both villains, and not particularly impressive ones at that. One could argue that all of this was to promote physical fitness, boys were supposed to get into sports and be athletic, if you weren't motivated to get into shape, well then you were just a wuss, grow a pair or go back to the basement. As a boy, there was never any compassion for being fat, it was just a matter of exercising, playing sports and workign for that body, and that's what we're supposed to do, no crying, that's for girls. Grils could complain, femnists had no problem saying there was simply no way for every girl to have tiny waists and giant boobs and we needed to accept women in all of their shapes and sizes. Make no mistake, I feel for women, there are a lot of big girls that I find very attractive and it breaks my heart when they don't have the confidence to present themselves as sexy as they really are because people have told them they are ugly when they are in fact quite beautiful. Only recently has it come to my attention that I am in the same boat. There are women who tell me I am cute and handsome and sweet and they like me just the way I am, but I don't hear it enough. I'm not sure if it's that women aren't saying it, or that I'm just not hearing it because I am so used to hearing bad things that I don't know when a woman likes me. We need to be more vocal about this, there are people who are set on a road to self-destruction because we don't know that there are people who will accept us as we are. We need to stop over-glorifying skinny fit physiques, not that we should villainize them either, there are some people who just are that way naturally. God I hate them sometimes, but there are people with such metabolism that they remain skinny no matter how much they eat and they hate that they have no muscle mass. Of course, that's mostly guys, skinny girls always seem to find a place where they belong, but turning things all the way around isn't going to help if skinny girls are going to feel as awkward as fat girls do now. We need to stop acting like any body type is definitively better, we need more fat characters to balance out the skinny ones, we need diversity of shape as well as color. And for goodness sake, can we please get some decent characters to cosplay as? Spandex simply do not come in XXXL.

Deadpool and Superfrenemies

First things first, Superfrenemies has been published and is available in both paperback and e-book format with a final fifth chapter that isn't up on Write-On. I actually thought of a few more chapters of material, but they will wait because they delved into territory I wasn't prepared to go into in this book. There is a point where a superhero parody can go too far.

Like Deadpool, I'm not sure this movie crosses the line but it gets damn close. I finally got around to watching it this week, and it was hilarious. It was definitely R-rated, if you have heard that it is not appropriate to take the kids to, let me say this once again, it is not appropriate to take the kids to. Fist of all, Deadpool likes saying "fuck" a lot. And then there's the shameless violence, which happens when you realize you're immortal and don't give a fuck anymore. And then thre's the one serious dramatic part of the movie when Wade Wilson gets cancer and suddenly he and his girlfriend get dead serious and he goes for extreme treatment that turns him into a mutant by way of torture. The sequence is necessary for the overall plot, but you have to be prepared to understand that it's a critical part of Deadpool's backstory or else it's just the most disturbing thing you'll ever see. Seriously, Wade goes through some brutal torture, you have been warned. And there's also the fact that Wade falls in love with a hooker who works at a strip club and they don't skimp on the nudity to sell it(Stan Lee plays a DJ, probably his favorite role ever). But still, all of this fits seamlessly with Deadpool's sick twisted sense of humor, because this whole movie is basically an hour and forty-five minutes of Ryan Reynolds being an asshole, and nobody is off limits, not even himself. He actually cracks a couple of Ryan Reynolds jokes, as well as ripping on everyone and everything in sight, even the opening credits are a joke. You will laugh, if you haven't been grossed out by Deadpool's appearance or the bloody gore, you will laugh at everything else. Personally my favorite line was when he goes to the X-Mansion and says "Big mansion, but I only see two of you, it's like the studio couldn't afford a third X-Man." Oh yeah, Deadpool is a dick, hardcore, big time. Wait that didn't come out right...or did it?

Okay, synopsis if you want to know before you go in, the movie starts with Deadpool attacking the bad guys, for very selfish reasons. Deadpool's mutation made him so ugly he has to wear a mask in public and blames Ajax, the guy who did it, and wants him to fix it so he has methodically hunted down everyone who works for him to get the information he wants to set things right, and kills all the uncooperative goons who get in his way. Don't feel too bad, they are bad guys, they are part of a crime syndicate, they do very bad things, and the world is better place after Deadpool kills them. Anyway, just when Deadpool catches up with Ajax, Colossus shows up with Negasonic Teenage Warhead to arrest Deadpool for the chaos he's creating that made the news and drew Colossus's attention in the firstplace. This whole scene is cut with flashbacks to how Wade got here, which is an awesome way to tell this story, because we would have been kinda bored if we actually had to wait through Wade's whole backstory at once before the Deadpool awesomeness, and also the movie onl has two major action sequences and this style helps break it u a bit and create the illusion that more is going on than really is, a brilliant film making trick played so expertly that you don't realize it until it's over and you're actually even more impressed at how they pulled it off. So, yeah the backstory, if you don't know, Wade Wilson was an army special forces soldier who went mercenary after he got out of the service and takes jobs picking on pricks and assholes that are meaner and less funny than he is. His job board is a bar where they have a Dead Pool, a running bet that one of the merc regulars will die on a job, in a bar fight, or for any other reason, first before the others. The point is...well, to give him his name later. Oh, and he also meets a hooker named Vanessa who's a tough bitch that impresses him and he goofs around with her until they fall in love because, and I quote "your crazy matches my crazy". Then just when it looks like they have their happily ever after, Wade gets cancer, then the silly get serious and Wade gets an offer for a treatment for his cancer that includes turninginto a mutant superhero. Wade is desperate because he sees how much it's hurting Vanessa to think of losing him, so he goes for the treatment. This treatment is the worst thing ever shown in a Marvel movie, but it's Deadpool's story so it's kinda gotta happen. Wade ends up being suffocated in a hyperbaric chamber set on reverse and just when the vacuum should have killed him, he transforms into Deadpool and now he doesn't have to worry about dying from cancer or suffocation...or explosions...or gunshots...or anything really. So, good news, Wade beat cancer, bad news he now looks like Freddy Krueger. He now only takes two things seriously, his love for Vanessa amd his desire to look normal enough not to creep her out. This brings us about an hour into the movie and the last forty minutes are all dedicated to how Ajax gets pissed and kidnaps Vanessa and Deadpool has to save her, which involves recruiting the X-Men, which are just the two, because well, his joke is for real. Yada, yada, yada, the end, and the Marvel extra with a tease at the next movie, which will probably involve Cable because he said so, and nobody has used Cable, so I think it's about time...and I eman, what else were they planning? They made good money on this project another has been greenlit, so if Ryan Reynolds could make this happen he's getting Cable for the sequel and he's going to fuck with that shit and we'll love it.

Why are you still reading? I'm done, that was it for this week, log off already. Chicka chicka.

Charlie Bone and the Children of the Red King

Hiding in the shadows of Harry Potter is another similar series that doesn't pack as much power but makes up for it in mystery and heart. I am talking about Charlie Bone and the Children of the Red King. Charlie Bone lives in a weird world where magic is real and subtle. It seems to be the real world as we know it, but once, long ago, there was a wizard known as the Red King who came from Africa and had ten children, each inheriting a portion of their father's power. Five of the children grew up to be tyrants, abusing their power to bring ruin to their father's kingdom, the other five were so ashamed they ran away and disowned themselves. Charlie Bone is among the descendants of the Red King as are the Bloors who run Bloor's Academy, built upon the ruins of the Red King's castle. Bloor's Academy is sort of like Hogwarts except that it isn't a hidden school of magic, it's a school for kids with special talents, mostly the kind that you would find in the real world, music, drama, and art. Then there are the children of the Red King, a small group of about a dozen students who have talents not so neatly defined. Each child has inherited a specific form of magic from their common ancestor, interestingly these are contrasted with other students ordinary talents to show that they are arguably no greater than the artists they share the school with. This makes for a very intriguing dynamic, everyone in the school knows about the Children of the Red King and their magic, it's not really much of a secret, instead it remains hidden because most of them keep it subtle enough that it doesn't stand out any more than the talented musicians and actors that surround them.

For Charlie, his involvemnt begins when he finds he has the power to communicate with portraits,even crossing time if need be to hear what someone said when the portrait was made. His power grows over the series, from hearign, to being able to talk to them, to actually being able to enter their world. He uses the last power once to acquire a wand that once belonged to his ancestor, a Welsh magician with power second only to the Red King, but the wand is only used as a wand for a short time before it transforms into a moth that still performs magic but now of its own accord. As soonas Charlie's power first manifests he is sent to Bloor's Academy where he is paired with a peer mentor, a music student who tries to teach Charlie how to play an instrument so he can fit into the school of music(everyine falls into one of the three regular groups, the Children of the Red King are not formally separated into their own school). Charlie meets a number of other students, some magical, some not, but his main enemies are the Bloors. Manfred, the youngest of the Bloors, has the power of mind reading and mind control, but curiously, Charlie Bone is immune to this power. Manfred's grandfather Ezekiel is the true mastermind but has no magic of his own and covets the power of the children. Ezekiel is in league with Charlie's grandmother and her sisters,two of whom have their own powers, but Charlie has his uncle Paton on his side. Unfortunately, Paton, the brother of the Yewbeam sisters, has a rather inconveninet power, he boosts light bulbs until they burst. For the most part Paton hides in his room and works on genealogy, but when Charlie's life gets complicated he comes out and challenges the Bloors. Then there's the flame cats, Leo, Aries, and Sagittarius, colored red, copper, and yellow, who can turn into fire.They were once leopards until the Red King turned them into housecats so they could blend in, and they have their own strange purpose and power, though they clearly favor Charlie and seem to come him whenever he needs them most.

I highly recommend this book series if you ever wanted to know what it would be like if Harry Potter switched to decaf, which is so much more interesting, because if leaves you thinking "Well now that I believe."

Final Fantasy II

The second installment in the Final Fantasy series gets a bad rap, and it isn't entirely undeserved, unless you consider it was only the second game and they were trying a few thigns to keep it fresh, so they made a few mistakes, they also introduced elements that practically define the series. Among the important innovations, This was the first game to have chocobos and Cid. Cid is mentioned in rereleases of FF1, but that was added after Cid became a thing, this was his first real appearance, and liek the chocobo, his role was a form of transportation, but much more useful. Cid's Airship is necessary a few times, but then becomes a convenient warp point, chocobo on the ther hand only appeared once and is only necessary once, and only useful once or twice after that, but of all of the modes of transportation in this game, it has had the biggest impact. Also, this game introduces the first dragoon, Ricard Highwind, also the first of many Highwinds, including Kain(IV) and Cid(VII). The biggest drawback is that they replaced the level system with a skill system which increases stats based on use, which was a good idea, but is easily abused. The way the system works, the more damage you take, the more your HP and defense stats increase, so you can let your characters get pummeled on purpose to boost HP and defense through the roof.  Another swing and a miss was the system for interactive conversation, which was a good idea to give you options to do more than wandering around and fighting, but it was implemented poorly. You have to collect keywords to say to people to get specific reactions, which seems overwhelmingly cmplicated as you think you won't know which words you'll need for any cnversation, but that is overcompensated for by the fact that any time you need a keyword, it's almost always, with a scant few exceptions if any, the last keyword you recieved and therefore the top of the list, making it more boring than it could have been. The story isn't spectacular either, but it was the first "evil empire forces youths to rebel" story, so the later games owe a lot to this trailblazer.

If you want to know the story it's fairly straight forward. Four characters that you can name (Default, Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon) try to fight for survival when their village is attacked. They lose and only three seem to walk away from the battle and they join a rebel group fighting against the empire. The party goes on a series of missions with a rotating cast characters filling the fourth slot, three of which die, dramatically sacrificing themselves to save the main three characters. What actually happens isn't compelling, it's just "go to the dungeon and get the thing we need" and honestly the dramatic deaths of party members are the most impressive parts of the story, that and when you are finally reunited with your original lost fourth party member who is revealed to be the Dark Knight in service of the evil Emperor who has been dogging you through most of the game.

What really kills this game for Americans is that it was lost in the shuffle when it first came out and didn't get to us until after FF7 came out and by then everything revolutionary about it was old hat and nobody really cared. However, if you can appreciate the classics for what they were, FFII is still a decent game. My most important recommendation, play this game honestly, do not bring your party to the brink of death to inflate their stats, you can but it takes all of the fun out of it.