Tony Stark is more than a whiny bitch in a sweet tin can, Iron-Man 3 is more than it seems, and this review may be more than a review. CLICK HERE to learn the senses-shattering truth about Iron-Man 3!
Tag Archives: kyle b. stiff
Your Reward for My Victory
The ninth challenge in the Iron Writer contest ended in victory. I returned from the arena, carefully cleaned my weapons and returned them to their shelf, then strode off to the showers in dead silence. My servants congratulated one another as they took my armor, but when they looked at my face to see if it was flushed with victory, they saw only the blank serenity of one accustomed to crushing his opponents and who is already focused on the next battle.
If you want to check out the stories, they’re right HERE.
My official entry was the second story I wrote for the contest; I’ll post the first in this very blog post that you now hold in your hands. It has the same necessary set pieces: A loom, a sunken ship, a rollercoaster, and a pregnant camel. My first attempt was too long and shortening it would have been like wrestling a buttered goblin, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth a look.
Note that this superhero-themed story contains a bomb in a backpack, which was included unconsciously and may be so painfully pertinent in terms of current events that many readers might have considered it to be in poor taste. Oh well!
KISS OF THE MAN-SPIDER: FANTASTIC FIRST ISSUE! FEATURING… THE DEADLY CAMEL!
By Kyle B. Stiff
After Art proved to Rachel beyond a shadow of a doubt that Commander America could beat the Man-Spider in a one-on-one battle, she finally relented and agreed to introduce him to the old man that she was convinced was the real-life Padre Porter, the web-slinging crime-fighter also known as the Man-Spider. Despite his father’s insistence that the Man-Spider had saved his life years ago, Art was sure that an elaborate joke was being played on him.
“Alright,” Art said, “let’s go see this old fart you’re crushing on. But I have to be back by seven, or dad’ll be pissed.”
“I’m not ‘crushing’ on him,” Rachel said, still sulking. “In fact, he’s pretty gross.”
A hike through the neighborhood brought them to a dilapidated house tucked between overgrown foliage. Rachel entered without knocking. Art entered and was assaulted by the stench of post-game locker room and cigarette butts. He could hear wood knocking against wood and the sound of multiple conspiracy theory radio shows playing one on top of another.
Creepy Old House by havokforlife, found on deviantart dot com.
Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw an old man with thin limbs working an old-fashioned loom. He had wisps of long white hair, a shirt that doubled as a napkin, and his eyes were covered in shadow. It was difficult to see, but it looked as if the old man was pulling string from his pocket. Art wanted to turn and leave, but he was enchanted by the pale, shining tapestry strung across the loom.
“Padre Porter?” Art said, feeling a little foolish. “Did you, uh, retire from fighting crime to pick up weaving?”
“I never retired,” the old man said immediately. “My old costume no longer fits, but I still weave the fates of men. I still spin justice, boy.”
Art realized that the old man spoke around a thick wad of saliva that collected at the corners of his mouth and around his tongue. He was further repulsed to see that the string stuck to his fingers as if his hands were coated in jelly or syrup.
“I guess I thought you were just a comic book character.”
“The greater part of reality you see only as a shadow. Did you know that Aleister Crowley, grand magister of the new age, was the inspiration for Professor Javier, leader of the Ex-Men, in your comic books? He taught us how to become more than human. He gave us our true names and turned us into supermen. But I can see that you, Camel, have brought me a gift in your backpack.”
Art was about to argue that not only was he not wearing a backpack, he also had nothing to do with the b-list super-villain whose lame power was the ability to go without water for weeks at a time. But when he reached behind himself he realized that he was, in fact, wearing a heavy backpack.
“Surprised?” said Padre Porter. “It’s a bomb, no doubt. You’re a victim of mind control sent by the Revengers to kill me. But mind control is such a fickle thing, isn’t it? Anyone can say the correct keywords to activate programming. For example: Rollercoaster.”
Art was struck by intense nausea. He felt as if he was teetering over the edge of a precipice and would fall at any moment. He crashed to his knees.
“Why have you come?” said Padre.
Art heard himself speaking. “Pregnant Camel comes across the wasteland to give birth to an explosion. We’ll kill you… just like we killed your syphilitic master.”
Art felt hands pull his backpack away. He could not resist. He saw men and women standing over him. Their faces were dead, their eyes were black and empty, and they carried automatic rifles and handguns.
Padre paused and leaned over his loom. His eyes were also black and dead. “I can’t do the work on my own anymore. My children are my hands and eyes now. Their thoughts are my thoughts.”
“Freedom fighters?” Art forced out the words. “They look like terrorists!”
“They’re the good guys. And you will be, too, once you reveal the location of your handler’s headquarters.”
Art clamped his mouth shut, but then heard himself say, “The museum, the sunken ship display. It’s the entrance to Titan IC. We call it Titan-99.”
“Rachel… Arachne, go and lead the others. Go and kill this man’s father, Commander America, just as I should have done so long ago.”
The superheroes filed out of the door silently. Still frozen in place, Art listened as Padre, the Man-Spider, explained that his fate would be rewoven as a bringer of justice. The old man returned to his loom and the shining tapestry and Art was horrified to see that he was pulling fresh string not from his pocket but from a grotesque opening on his lower belly.
THE END.
* * *
Hey readers! If you liked this post, you should check out some of my books. I’ve got an epic series called Demonworld, which is equal parts Mad Max and Lord of the Rings (think “science fantasy”), and a much-loved gamebook series called Heavy Metal Thunder which is currently a hyperlinked Kindle book but will be a fancy phone app any day now.
The Iron Writer: Challenge 9: Time to Vote!
The ninth round of Iron Writer stories are up! Not only can you see Kyle B. Stiff’s deadly battle against three other writers, you can even vote for your favorite story! That’s right, it’s not the fighters in the arena who make the outcome, as our moves and attacks are deemed by fate… instead, it’s the cheers of the crowd that determine victory or defeat!
Just go HERE and check out the contestants. All four stories are about five hundred words – that’s a mere single page of text – and each is hamstrung from the get-go by having to include four random set pieces. This challenge’s set pieces are a pregnant camel, a loom, a rollercoaster, and a sunken ship. Only a master could weave these four unrelated things into one cohesive narrative… and it’s up to you, the readers, to choose who will wear the crown and who will be buried in a shallow ditch where the arena’s toilets are dumped out biannually.
What does Frank Herbert’s Dune have to do with modern conspiracy theory?
Many, many connections are made between the seemingly disparate subjects of Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction masterpiece and the world of modern conspiracy theory when Kyle B. Stiff, a conspiracy theorist nutjob extraordinaire, is on the case. Humor his deluded ass and take a look at the ravings of a failed Kwisatz Haderach by clicking here.
Art by Bill Sienkiewicz.
How to Use Facebook Like a Badass
By Kyle B. Stiff
It’s come to my attention that you guys are logging in and out of Facebook twenty times a day and checking your notifications rather than being hardcore winners at life. This is not going to work out for me; I don’t want to live on a planet populated by people who got played like a game of FarmVille. I want to live in a world filled with badasses. To that end, I’m going to show you how I use Facebook.
What’s the big deal with my Facebook technique? Why do I think it’s superior to everyone else’s Facebook technique? And why should anyone be using Facebook at all? Or at the other extreme, why not let Facebook win?
The thing is, you can use Facebook and still achieve victory in life. It is possible. In fact, it’s been my experience that once the Book of Faces has been opened, it cannot be shut. The best we can do is limit its power over us. I’m going to show you how to enjoy using it without letting it use you.
First, we’ve got to talk about your friends. Let’s face it: Most of them aren’t that interesting. Don’t you know that you’re only truly friends with a few people on your list? The rest are family, coworkers, acquaintances, and people you’re stalking. Just seeing their status updates makes you feel anxious. To make things worse, a surprising number of people that come up in your newsfeed say things that piss you off, or make you resentful, or you look down on them, or sometimes they even give you a non-specific and generalized sense of feeling like shit.
True friends!
So what do you do, unfriend them? No, that’s not necessary, and it could lead to a backed-up toilet full of drama. Here’s what you do: When you browse through your news feed, hide a couple of people. Only a couple. The next day, hide a couple more. Don’t think about it too hard, just hide the biggest loudmouths that post the dumbest shit. It’ll be easier than you think, because your feed is most likely an un-weeded garden filled with schmucks with nothing to say. I know it sounds harsh, but the truth is that once those dimwits are gone from your feed, you will never, ever miss them!
Question: What if someone finds out I hid them? Won’t they be mad at me?
Answer: No one will ever, ever find out that you hid them from your newsfeed. For one thing, they post so much stupid shit that they have no way of tracking who sees what. For another thing, everyone’s newsfeed is so jam-packed with stupid shit that if some moron says, “Did you see the awesome thing I posted?” then the only honest and air-tight answer truly is, “No, I have too much dumb shit in my newsfeed, I missed the awesome thing you posted.” (Note: Try not to roll your eyes when you say “awesome”. In a real-life encounter, you must lie through your teeth in order to avoid drama from needy simpletons.)
In a few days, this seemingly difficult first step will become intoxicating. You’ll start hiding people from your feed left and right, and it’ll get easier and easier as you go. In time, only a few people that you truly like, or who actually have something to say, will be left.
Once you’ve finally cleaned up your feed, it’s time to make your feed impressive; after you weed a garden, you gotta put some roses in there. The second step toward using Facebook like one of life’s winners is to start friending or subscribing to groups or people (rather than friends) that represent your interests. This step is necessary… but it’s also dangerous.
For one thing, don’t interact with these people. In fact, it’s necessary that you not think of them as people. They are not your friends and they will never be your friends, and that’s exactly how you want it. Why? Because you’re too busy achieving victory in real life to make friends online.
Another danger lies in the fact that you might subscribe to interests that don’t add to your joy of living. You’ll want to subscribe to groups or people who post stuff ONLY if it relaxes you or engages your brain or your soul. This is easier said than done. For example: Are you into politics? Then you should subscribe to a feed that’ll keep you up to date on the latest political news, right? WRONG. Better yet: DEAD WRONG. If you’re into politics, then by all means go to a protest, debate with someone, vote and pray that the voting machines haven’t been tweaked. But DO NOT clog your feed with a bunch of nonsense that’s only going to get your pulse racing and heighten your anxiety.
You might be shaking your head, but trust me. When it comes to your Facebook feed, you’re going to have to skirt around a lot of nerve-wracking horseshit. Politics is the worst offender when it comes to ruining Facebook feeds. It’s been said that the revolution won’t be televised; I know you want to be informed, but believe me, the revolution isn’t going to be on Facebook either. Conservatives, try not to subscribe to groups that post pictures of dead babies and feature misspelled warnings about Obama making abortion mandatory for all heterosexual couples (note that If those babies were born, you would just end up friending them on Facebook and their status updates would clog up your newsfeed). Liberals, try not to subscribe to groups that whine about how teachers need to make over a hundred grand a year (note that those teachers would end up buying the same cars that rappers drive and they would still complain about their jobs).
So what should you subscribe to? Anything that won’t make you feel anxious, but shows you something you might not have found on your own, is fair game. When I began cleaning up my feed, I subscribed to a lot of people who do nothing but post pictures of art all day long. I stick to old paintings done with a level of skill we don’t have these days, with a few comic book artists thrown in for fun. Once you manage to find a few feed-enhancers, you’ll find better ones later by accident. Trust me, logging into Facebook and seeing a work of art done by Michelangelo or Moebius is a thousand times better than reading a status update about someone’s car taking a shit and making them late for a job they hate or perhaps don’t deserve to have.
(Note: Try to stay away from abstract postmodern shit. Nobody’s going to take the time to look through your profile and judge your interests, so you won’t get any brownie points from anyone by clogging up your feed with pictures of colored blocks that cleverly use empty space to get across a message about man’s inhumanity to man. You won’t be taking more than five seconds to look at this stuff anyway, so find stuff that looks nice and doesn’t jack-hammer your anxiety levels.)
But that’s just a starting point. What about cute animals? It’s never a bad idea to have random pictures of kittens and baby ducks and lobsters show up in your feed. The only thing to watch out for is that you don’t want cute animal pictures to have any stupid meme text pasted on them – you want to smile involuntarily because you got surprised by somethin’ heartwarming, not smirk like a dipshit because you “got” some other dipshit’s lowbrow joke.
What about handmade goods? Futuristic crap? Books in general? Pictures of mountains with lava spewing out of them? Famous corpses? Clouds that look like nothing other than clouds? Guns made to shoot bullets rather than act as political argument pieces? That’s fine – all of that stuff is perfectly acceptable to have in a feed, and can enlighten the hell out of you when you’re in the mood to waste time in style.
That’s it: Two steps toward tailoring Facebook to suit your needs. Few of us are strong enough to simply walk away from the Book of Faces, but that doesn’t mean we have to be notification-whores click-click-clickin’ away until we find ourselves on our death beds with no victory to show the gods. When Death Itself clicks on the notification that says our tomorrows have ended, none of us wants to go through a life-review filled with moments where we habitually checked something that only brought us down and made us feel like something less than the badasses we truly are. When we go out in a blaze of glory and stand before the gods in judgment, and they look at how Facebook affected us, let’s be ready to tell them, “I didn’t get bent out of shape over status updates written by needy simpletons. I remade Facebook in my own image; and there I saw volcanoes raging, and the cuteness of kittens, and art made by masters long since passed away, and many other badass things full of wonder.”
Hey readers! If you liked this post, you should check out some of my books. I’ve got an epic series called Demonworld, which is equal parts Mad Max and Lord of the Rings (think “science fantasy”), and a much-loved gamebook series called Heavy Metal Thunder which is currently a hyperlinked Kindle book but will be a fancy phone app any day now.
Kyle B. Stiff Has Accepted the Iron Writer Challenge!
Four writers, four random set pieces, three days, five hundred words, one winner, and no mercy. This is the Iron Writer Challenge, a no-holds-barred online event that smashes the bodies of writers and grinds them up for the entertainment of the crowd, and the only thing the winner walks away with is the right to live for one more day…
And now Kyle B. Stiff’s name has been drawn from the black box. His fate is sealed. He will take part in the Iron Writer Challenge near the end of April.
This is the first time he has been granted the honor of fighting and shedding blood for the pleasure of the crowd – on this world. But he has seen arenas in other eras, other lifetimes, even other worlds far from Earth. Many, many times he has put on armor dented by the kiss of blade and hammer. Many times he has lowered his helm and strapped it tight and heard the shouting muted by layers of gauze and steel. Many times he has walked along a row of weapons – sabers, nets, spears, shields emblazoned with corporate logos, shining crystalline axes, even chainsaws that drink gasoline as well as blood. Many times he has passed signs and gestures to his comrades before the gate is raised and he enters the killing grounds. Clowns and wild beasts caper in between shows, but when the light hits his armor he lifts his weapon and the roar of the crowd grows and grows, rippling and ululating like a single giant monster crying out in anguish. The crowd is dressed in the finest manner, each a respectable representative of his era and his nation; the faces, usually composed and respectfully stifling emotion, are now drawn out and shaking with pure insanity. He clangs weapon against shield but the sound is impossible to hear over the roar. He knows that untold wealth rests on his name, entire fortunes depend on him either killing his foe or dying in a pool of gore-caked wet sand.
The opponent steps forth and cuts a strange jig before the gladiators turn and face one another. They are similar in manner and temperament, but each opposes the existence of the other. All conscious thought withdraws; they cease to be human and become pure Entertainers. The crowd draws and holds its breath, then a bell or gong or electronic tone is sounded – and then the Game begins.
What I mean to say is: I can’t wait.
Kyle B. Stiff’s Favorite Movie
Today, Kyle makes a confession about his favorite movie. And yes of course it’s called CONAN THE BARBARIAN. Click here or here or even here to read the blood-spattered confession of a true baller.
Conan looking terrified as usual.
Kyle B. Stiff’s Epiphany About Open-World Games
Kyle B. Stiff sometimes has ideas that can improve video games. This is one of them.
Kyle B. Stiff is going to take you away on a wondrous journey full of unasked-for opinions continually vomited out by an overblown ego!
Gandalf’s Advice on the Subject of Aliens
Here’s all you need to know about the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life. For some reason, I incorporated Gandalf into it. Go figure! If you’re interested, click here.
The Fall of Pope Benedict and the Rise of Petrus Romanus
By Kyle B. Stiff
Did you guys know that there’s a chance that the next pope to sit on the massive golden throne may be the last?
Here’s the deal. Around 1590 a monk wrote a list of all the popes and included a description of each. The names and descriptions were like riddles, and usually involved where the pope came from, or his family’s coat of arms, or something noteworthy he’d done. Where things get strange is that the monk continued his list and wrote descriptions of the popes who would come much, much later – up to and including the very last pope, an enigmatic figure he called Petrus Romanus, or Peter the Roman.
So the list was prophetic. If you think that prophecy is total bullshit (and who could blame you?), then I suggest you stop reading here. I would also suggest leaving this strange reality and moving to a dimension where inanimate matter doesn’t spontaneously create itself and then arrange itself into sentient self-replicating organisms that exist within the confines of something as slippery as time which seems to change its properties depending on how fast you move or how close you stand to a black hole – in other words, a dimension where things “make sense” and unfathomable mysteries don’t abound at every turn.
So here’s a few examples of the Prophecy of the Popes. Just to show you what the riddling system looks like, here’s a few popes that were a matter of historical record before the prophecy was published:
Celestine II was given the descriptor From a castle of the Tiber.
Literal interpretation: He was born in Citti di Castello (formerly called Tiberinum), which was on the banks of the Tiber river.
Urban III was called Pig in a sieve.
Literal interpretation: His family name Crivelli means sieve, and his family’s coat of arms showed two pigs and a sieve.
As for popes who came long after the prophecy was written, here are a couple of examples:
Pope Urban VIII was called Lily and rose.
Literal interpretation: This pope that came to power in 1623 was a native of Florence, which had a red lily on its coat of arms.
Clement XIV was called Swift bear.
Literal interpretation: This pope, who came to power in 1769, had a family crest with a running bear.
Strange, isn’t it? Of course, not all the popes neatly match their prophetic descriptions. This could be due to the fact that 1) seeing into the future is impossible, or 2) understanding the future is just as difficult as understanding the past or present.
What about the past two popes, Pope John Paul II and the kindly ex-Nazi known as Pope Benedict XVI?
John Paul II was called From the labor of the sun.
Literal interpretation: Dude was born and buried on the day of a solar eclipse. Also comes from Krakow, the birthplace of Copernicus, a heretic who believed that the earth revolved around the sun.
Benedict XVI AKA Josef Ratzinger was called Glory of the olive.
Literal interpretation: This one’s pretty weak. Ratzinger chose the name Benedict after Saint Benedict of Nursia, founder of the Benedictine Order, and whose rule had something to do with the Olivetan Order.
And now there’s only one more on the list, a final pope that we have yet to see. He’s called Petrus Romanus, and unlike the other popes, he has a long and strange description. Here’s a translation of it:
In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit
Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations,
And when these things are finished,
The city of seven hills [Rome]
Will be destroyed,
And the terrible judge will judge his people.
THE END.
There’s a lot of interesting things about this prophecy. It was written from the perspective of someone living in the late 1500s, so he most likely thought that the Catholic Church was at the forefront in the battle to make the world a civil and decent place. These days we associate the Catholic Church with child molestation scandals complete with under-the-table coverups, sermons about tithing given from a dude sitting on a golden throne, and an awkwardly hostile “Hold the line!” stance against birth control even though there are currently seven billion humans buzz-sawing their way through resources like the undead freaks you see in those annoyingly repetitive zombie movies. Seen from that perspective, the prospect that the Catholic Church might soon face its final battle and then trouble us no more naturally leads to curiosity rather than fear.
Pope Vader says: Let’s not worry so much about all that New Testament noise about loving your fellow man and “blessed be the peacemakers” and yadda yadda, we get it already Jesus! Guys there are like some really cool parts in the Old Testament where God is just this huge sociopath who likes it when people does what he says, and he straight up kills them if they don’t. For instance, how are we going to deal with fags? Let’s go with the Old Testament on that one. Makes sense to me.
Then again, who really wants to see atheists become even more overly self-assured in the wake of the destruction of the Catholic Church? Which group is more annoying, the one that’s pushing the idea that humans are born evil and need to feel guilty, or the group that’s pushing the idea that inanimate and organic matter are all based on an increasingly complex series of accidents?
Real world = not very believable.
And then there’s the figure of Petrus Romanus himself. For one thing, it’s a cool name. The Catholics claim Saint Peter as their founder. He was Christ’s right-hand man who showed just a tiny bit of complete and total abject cowardice when the shit hit the fan – not that we can blame him when you consider that the Romans soon became famous for throwing Christians into wood-chippers surrounded by a blood-hungry audience. Peter was called “The Rock” because he was the rock on which the Catholic Church was built; he was considered the first pope. And now the last pope is called Peter the Roman, which is a fusion of rebel and tyrant, outsider and establishment, Jedi and Sith.
Beyond pimp. Gaudy = Godlike?
Just what is this character going to be like? Will he be one more bureaucrat shuffling child molesting wolves from one parish to another? Will he be a John Connor “leader of the human resistance” type of dude leading his flock in an endless war against condom-wearing Terminators? Or more like Darth Vader using the divine Force to hunt down modern-day gnostic Jedi? Or perhaps a boring combination of all three?!
I realize this is all rampant speculation, but it’s a wonder to me. We become used to going to work, then the grocery, then a little Netflix before bedtime – and then the cycle repeats and we start to believe that that’s reality, eternal and insistent and dependable. But from a higher perspective, it’s easy to see that nations are born and then collapse, beliefs change and build on top of new ideas, savagery and gluttony lurk just behind the mask of civility, and all of that may be happening in other worlds and other dimensions with strange inhabitants all doing their best to manipulate things like matter, fores like electricity and gravity, or even time itself. None of those things are solid. Maybe the ornate rituals of Catholic pageantry are echoes of visions of crystal cities seen through the lens of DMT, where ideas and souls are bartered in an economy beyond our understanding; maybe our lives are echoes or shadows of those higher dimensions. From that perspective, it’s no logical leap to wonder if the life of the next pope will resonate with the idea of Petrus Romanus, whose battle is only just beginning.
The golden echo of one divine note.
* * *
Hey readers! If you liked this post, you should check out some of my books. I’ve got an epic series called Demonworld, which is equal parts Mad Max and Lord of the Rings (think “science fantasy”), and a much-loved gamebook series called Heavy Metal Thunder which is currently a hyperlinked Kindle book but will be a fancy phone app any day now.
