Monday, August 30, 2010

"i'm gonna win the battle frontier fer sure!"

The most reliable thing in my life.

Garchomp

My Garchomp was hatched on July 17th, 2007. I was too lazy to breed for Adamant, which would reduce Special Attack in exchange for boosting Attack, so I instead opted for a Lonely nature, which swapped Special Attack reduction for Defense reduction. While at the time, this seemed like a bad idea, in its latest incarnation, the extra Special Attack points are a godsend. I maxed out Attack and Speed, with leftovers going into HP. Its attacks are Outrage, Earthquake, Stone Edge and Fire Blast, with Life Orb as an attached item.

Garchomp has been in every single one of my Battle Tower/Frontier challenge teams with the exception of Battle Factory and the brief time in 09 when I used a mono-Dark team, and he's been there for good reason. He outspeeds a lot and KO's even more. He also has the highest streak in the Battle Hall, at 93, as well as being in both of my 51 battle streaks in the Battle Tower; the only crossover member between the two teams, as well as my Gold Print run in the Battle Arcade, managing to destroy all three of the leader's Pokemon with its Stone Edge attack.

The reason I strive for excellence in my Pokemon teams is because it gives me somewhere to be good at what I do. I was never a good writer or musician, school work bores me, and I never played sports; but in Pokemon, I'm the best person I know. It's really lame, but it's the way I think. The way I have to think.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

unmasking the masked crusader: the truth behind bruce wayne.

We the audience see Batman the way he sees himself; a hero who makes a difference, a man who conquers evil using the gifts left to him by his parents, parents who were unfairly taken. We see Batman as a champion of the people, but just because we see Batman this way does not mean that we are on the same page as the citizens and more importantly, the CEOs of Gotham City.

First of all, and a very important fact to note, Batman does not go after the same supervillains we see him take down. The enemies that Batman sees in his head are quite different to those that he actually hunts down, being that Batman is the most literal adaptation of the term "corporate headhunter". Initially, Wayne was employed by Wayne Enterprises due to his familial connections to the company, but after the revelation of his mental instability because of childhood traumas (ie. falling into the well and being terrified by a swarm of bats, his sheltered upbringing and most importantly, his parents dying in front of him), the board of executives tried to move Wayne out of power within the company and attempted to buy him out. However, after he continued to be a nuisance, the executives decided to avoid a lawsuit, as the Wayne family was well-known for being universally liked within the confines of Gotham City for their charity work and kind hearts, and rather employed him as a sort of hitman within the company, allowing him to believe he was protecting the good deeds of his parents by defeating those who sought to destroy it. However, in reality, he was being instructed to defeat rival executives from companies whose power threatened Wayne Enterprises. While it started quite successfully, (competition was running scared leaving Wayne Enterprises to dominate the market, along with the anti-capitalist groups of Gotham City feeling as though someone was finally doing something in the city entirely dominated by businesses and run for the sole purpose of finances) Wayne eventually began to realize similarities between the 'fiends' he was pursuing and the executives of Wayne Enterprises, leading to his attempt on the lives of those who formerly ran the company. A sole executive, Lucius Fox, who had a guilty conscience for the manipulations he had taken part in over Wayne's mind, unwittingly seized an opportunistic moment for a takeover, buying out all the other members of the board in an attempt to stop Wayne from killing anymore; trying to allow him to start over fresh. However, it was too far gone; Wayne saw what he was doing as the ultimate good, but appreciated Fox's "attempt to rid Gotham City of the villains who had the good people in a capitalistic choke-hold." Before seizing actual control of Wayne Enterprises, Fox had tried to have Wayne committed without allowing the public to know what they had done to the orphan of the city's most beloved philanthropists. This is the event that lead to the outbreak in Arkham Asylum, as Wayne felt that Dr. Crane's therapy was invasive and manipulative, but as a normal citizen, Wayne could not harm him. This was why the persona of "Scarecrow" was invented; as a super-villain, Wayne could free his fellow mental patients who he felt were equally as sane as him and being held captive against their wills.

Lucius realized there was very little he could actually do to control Wayne, who had almost been entirely enveloped by the persona of "Batman" that he had created. Bruce lived alone in Wayne Manor and opened up to figments of his imagination: 'Alfred the butler' who represented a father figure and tried to protect him, 'Rachael Dawes', a girl he knew as a child who, early on in her life, was exposed to Gotham's seedy underbelly when she was hit by the car of a scientist who was at the top of one of the opposing monopolies of Gotham City, and therefore managed to get out. While these safeguards were around in Wayne's mind, it was impossible for anyone to break him out of the fantasy he was in, and the more he 'defeated his enemies', the deeper he fell. This was the point where Fox allowed Wayne to have a limited control over his parents company, but as he got deeper and deeper into his fantasies, the company got deeper and deeper into debt due to his greater expenditure on more elaborate designs. A notable one being the single-use monitoring system of everyone within city limits through their mobile phone in a set-up that would allow him, in his mind, to kill a rival CEO. This multi-billion dollar project was crudely destroyed after the murder, leaving a very evident paper trail back to the top of the company.It is estimated that 2008's year, with an estimated profits standing around $770 billion dollars were actually met, but were reduced by almost two thirds due to Wayne's insane scheming, with reports showing $290 billion for the financial year ending 2008. A warrant was placed out for Wayne's arrest, still to this day standing.

A more widespread effect of Wayne's psychotic crimes was found in the late 00's as the market took a fatal blow. As Wayne began dissolving opposing companies through his 'heroic work', and his own projects got bigger, the leading exporting companies in the United States began falling below projected budgets and very far into the red. While the market wasn't exactly stable anyway, Bruce Wayne played a large hand in destroying the specific US export market almost single-handedly through his psychosis and ease in taking the lives of those he deemed 'evil'.

It is these crimes that have lead Wayne to be a universally-sought criminal, facing in excess of two-hundred life sentences, twenty-three death sentences, as well as additional crimes against humanity with a yet to be determined sentence by the United Nations, as well as several other sentences in foreign countries. Wayne was last seen in 2008, and under advice of Gotham City officials, CIA experts as well as united taskforces around the world, the sighting of Bruce Wayne should be reported to your nearest law-enforcement officials so that the appropriate precautions can be put into practice and hopefully bring this menace to justice.

back to the future iv.

The "Previously on Back to the Future" segment sets the scene, with the Doc returning to the current time, deciding he had given up on travelling time with his family, while Marty has had his first child with his girlfriend who he married, showing that he avoided the future shown to viewers in Back to the Future 2.

The first act opens with a frantic knocking on the door of the new McFly household, the kind of knocking that can only signify one thing: a time-travel experience. Marty stands up from the kitchen table, still wearing his familiar jacket and jeans, disregarding the fact he's now several years older for a marketing ploy wherein the jacket will be mass produced and sold as merchandise for the movie. He opens the door, and standing there is the one and only Doc Brown who blurts out, "Marty, we've got to go back to the future!" There is no explanation given as to why, as it is fairly clear to all that it would only be contrived and contradict the closure given in Back to the Future 2. Marty seemingly has no qualms with up and leaving his wife and child to travel time, despite the fact he has only encountered problems in his past endeavours doing so. The two run to the Delorean which is now parked outside the McFly residence and now cannot fly; another fact that is not explained. The familiar music starts up, and as the car hits 88 miles per hour, the lightning strikes and flames are all that are left in the present day.

Flash to 2020, where the car re-emerges in a future that looks exactly the same as our present, another contradiction to the previous movies. The car and our heroes begin slowing down as they hear a sickening thud and a scream, and the lifeless body of a small child is smashed against the windshield, which cracks under the force, and specks of blood manage to splatter against Marty and the Doc. Doc Brown slams on the brakes and the Delorean comes to a screeching halt; Marty is evidently shocked, visibly shaken and pale. He throws open the suicide doors, falls to his knees and covers his mouth with his hands as chunks of vomit find their way through the cracks between his fingers. Tears roll down his face as he screams at the Doc; "WE CAME HERE TO FIX THINGS, BUT WE KILLED A CHILD! WE ARE THE MONSTERS NOW! WE CAN'T FIX ANYTHING NOW!" The Doc is also pale due to the events, but manages to stutter, "It-it's okay. We can go back five minutes before this and... And prevent this tragedy from happening. We can fix things." Marty tries to stand up as the Doc puts the new time in the head unit of the Delorean. McFly stumbles to the car, wiping his tears away, and quietly says "I can't believe the damage we have caused..." He steps inside the Delorean, shuts the door, and speeds to 88 again, with an aim to avert the sickening events they themselves caused. However, in doing so, the Doc forgot to account for the time already spent in the future.The same events occur; the sickening thud, the lifeless body, the horrifying screams. Marty looks at the Doc and screams, "WE DID IT AGAIN! YOU SAID YOU'D FIX THIS, YOU WORTHLESS CUNT!" He grabs the Doc's labcoat and shakes him, his screaming now descended from his horrified thoughts to just primal, horrible howls of pain. Before the Doc can prevent his mistake, the Delorean from the first travel crashes into the back of our current heroes, destroying the Flux capacitor and leaving them stranded in the year 2020. Both pairs look at each other stunned; they have both taken the lives of a young child, and there's now nothing they can do to fix it. They sit in silence and await the arrival of the police, now understanding they deserve their fate and that there are consequences to their actions in the future.

Due to the brutal crime and recklessness of the perpetrators, there is a swift judgement on the case. Both pairs and the Delorean are to be imprisoned in a federal facility on a life sentence. The Delorean grows apart from the Doc and Marty, siding with white supremacists. Initially, Marty and Doc Brown go along with this, but after seeing that the white supremacists deal with other gangs in the facility, they cannot stand idly by. They voice their concerns and leave the group, bringing a swift revenge against Doc Emmett Brown, who is raped in the showers by the Delorean in a sickening homage to American History X and is left bleeding on the ground in the shower block.