Where Geek Meets Goth

Above is a fan created trailer for an X-Men Origins: Nightcrawler movie. Thank you, Silverlightsaber.

I like Nightcrawler. He is not only my favorite X-Man he is my favorite superhero. He is much the reason I started reading comics. While I like him very much I find, as it is with most things I like, that it proves difficult to explain why. It is easier by far to point out the flaws in something. For some reason negative comments come easier.

So why do I like Nightcrawler? Well, looking over some of the interwebs descriptions of the fuzzy elf I may have figured it out.

Nightcrawler is an embodiment of dichotomies. I’m a big fan of yin yang theory, the balance of positive and negative traits that ebb and flow, interacting and evolving from one to the other. Hot begets cold. Dark begets light. When Chris Claremont first wrote for the character he seized upon the potential to play with pairs of opposites.

The most obvious is Kurt Wagner’s appearance, and appearance designed by artist, Dave Cockrum, and writer, Len Wein. He is a demonic looking individual with indigo fur, glowing yellow eyes, and fanged teeth. He has goat like legs and inhuman appearing hands and feet. Even when he teleports, being his prominent mutant ability, he brings with him a miasma of sulphur and brimstone. He actually travels through a Hellish dimension in order to BAMF from place to place. Variations on his backstory suggest that his father is Azazel, a member of the Brotherhood of Mutants led by Magneto. Azazel is a member of a mutant race of demons, the opposing race of the original X-Men, Angel. Confirming this, Nightcrawler can be damaged by Angel’s healing abilities.

Yet he is a devout Catholic. His religious faith plays such a great part in his life that, later in his comic book appearances, he studies for the priesthood. His Catholicism played a major role in X-Men United, wherein Alan Cumming played the iconic character. He prays. He wears a crucifix. He speaks often of his faith in the Father, the Son, and Der Heilige Geist. In short his faith is counter to his appearance.

One would expect someone of such religious devotion to be rather somber and temperate. However, Kurt once again breaks stereotype. He has a fondness for wine, women, and song. His hero is Errol Flynn, star of the classic pirate movies. Nightcrawler models his life on the swashbuckler, going so far to use a holographic disguise to appear as the star of the silver screen. Kurt embodies the same degree of charm and grace. He flirts with the ladies. He battles with flamboyant moves, even going so far as to fence with his prehensile tail. 

He displays a great joy for life. Despite being cursed with an inhuman appearance, Kurt is of the least morose of the X-Men. Again we witness a contrariness in his character. While characters like Rogue and Cyclops forever bemoan their abilities, Kurt embraces them. He applied his Spider-man like agility in the circus. He uses his blending into shadows and his ability to climb walls to play pranks on his fellow X-Men. Yet even his joviality is sometimes contradicted by fear of discovery. Generally he disguises his mutant form as the more bigoted humans respond with violence. 

Moreover, his free spirited nature hides more private moments of doubt. As if to counter his absolute faith in God, Kurt lacks faith in his own ability. On several occasions he doubts his place in the X-Men. When many of the other Marvel heroes were called to battle the Beyonder, Nightcrawler was left behind to dwell upon his inadequacies. A similar self doubt manifests after Illyana Rasputin (Magik) returns from an alternate dimension in which Kurt turned to the side of evil. In this magical realm, Kurt murdered many of the X-Men.  Kurt has to come to terms with an alternate version of himself, determining whether he would ever come to the same bitter end.

Despite these moments of self doubt, at times he is raised to leadership status. He has led both the X-Men and Excalibur. While the parties he leads tend to be smaller, he manages nonetheless to keep order. Again this seems contrary to his jokester nature. Could he be serious enough to lead? Well, apparently so. His team trusts him and responds to his commands.

Even his friendships speak to a certain level of contrariness. Kurt is German. One of his best friends is the young Kitty Pryde, both a mutant and a Jewess. As the X-Men often compared the plight of the mutants to the holocaust it is no accident that Nightcrawler and Shadowcat form a close bond. They both have a fondness for technology. Kurt is a pilot and mechanic. Kitty is an expert in computers and electronics. Together they can be found making repairs to the danger room. Yet that isn’t the only close friendship. Kurt gets along well with the rather introverted and artistic Colossus. His playful nature helps bring the larger Russian out of his shell. Wolverine, too, hangs around Kurt despite Logan’s reputation as a loner. Again it is Kurt’s easy going nature that provides an opening for friendship. Yet there is a serious side, an ability to listen and counsel, that bolsters that friendship.

Taking everything in, Kurt is a complex character with a dynamic personality and striking look. What appears to be a superficial jokester and womanizer is but the thin veneer over an emotionally deep and thoughtful character. Just when you suspect you have him figured out, Kurt goes in a different but no less valid direction. I like him for these reasons. His talents and his flaws combine to create a complete and well rounded character. 

I wonder if DC ever kicks themselves for turning down the offer to buy the character.

So, the end of Mass Effect 3. I have the dubious honor to fall among those that did not like the ending. Hold on. I haven’t bombarded Bioware with cupcakes nor have I tried to guilt them into a different ending through some charity. I respect their decision to end the series as they chose. I do not, however, agree that it was the best or most well executed ending, nor even the ending promised.

Very well. I get that consumers should not have this sense of entitlement over any one product. To expect a game developer to create a game specific to what you want out of it is absurd. Even so, game developers do have an obligation to make a game that is entertaining as well as satisfying at least to most of their core demographic. It’s a symbiotic relationship. One creates a product that offers hours of entertainment, the other funds the creative team and production staff that designs said games.

That one half of the dynamic drops the ball so to speak upsets this relationship. A gamer who does not purchase the game (I can claim to be a part of this problem as I tend to buy used games) does not provide money for further development. Meanwhile a developer that creates a dissatisfying game fails to honor the payment made for that game. The first issue is the more direct and obvious. The second, however, relies much upon subjective taste and that is the crux of one of the interwebs most heated debates. Mass Effect 3, is the ending shit or not shit.

As I said at the start of this rambling assemblage of text, I am no fan of the ending. I have several reasons. One such reason is not that I didn’t understand. I understood well enough rest assured. But first a little overview.

Now many claim the Mass Effect series to be one of the greatest gaming franchises ever to come into existence. I admit that I’m a bit lukewarm on the whole affair. I found the games to be dialogue heavy. I was quick to see the decisions made in the game were not quite as impacting as marketing or fan raving made it out to be. Yes decisions do affect later events but only insofar as coding for a video game allows. It’s somewhat limited. I get that. Even so, don’t make it out to be more than it is. It’s impressive, but not mind-blowing.

I was no fan of the combat system. I preferred the first game’s interface wherein you could modify your weapons and you never could run out of ammo, only overheat through over use. ME 2 added more enemies and less ammo leading to combat that seemed overwhelming at times. I like a good firefight just as much as anyone else, but when enemies seem never-ending and appear to spawn from areas you thought you had cleared it becomes more frustrating than anything else.

Then there is the aesthetic. I just don’t like the look of Mass Effect. The ever present lens flares (and in Mass Effect 3 dust on the lens as well) I find distracting, like watching Abrams Star Trek on LSD. At times a blue smear of light takes up three quarters of the screen. In other cases a lens flare obscures the features of a character in conversation. Moreover I found the environments rather samey. No matter which planet you visited they had fairly similar architecture and furnishings. Again that stems from restrictions in memory storage. Better to clone crates and chairs and panels than to burden the disc space with an IKEA catalog of furnishings. Still it gives off the impression of similarity and diminishes the scope of the universe. The Mass Effect universe feels small.

This is in great contrast to the story. Mass Effect is littered with interesting races and diverse cultures that breathe life into the games. You are provided a codex to read at your leisure about the history of each race or the details of each piece of technology. Sadly the level design too often fails to honor this diversity. Mass Effect’s other advantage is the story. The advancement of the human race and their journey to the stars, the soldier burdened with the safety of the galaxy, the friendships made in pursuit of a common goal, these are the reasons to play the games. It is in forming relationships and furthering the cause that Mass Effect is most rewarding.

Yet, once again I am somewhat less impressed. Huge epics rarely appeal to me. There comes a level of aggrandizement that grows cumbersome. I feel the weight of the whole galaxy on my shoulders. I am one that prefers Pitch Black to Chronicles of Riddick. I find greater satisfaction on a small scale than on one of immense proportions. So when Mass Effect deals with 50,000 year cycles or the genocide of an entire race I must refrain from rolling my eyes. It comes off as pretentious or overblown. Once again any kind of realism fades away especially compared once more with just how small this galaxy feels.

So, the ending.

First off, I never quite felt like Shepard after Cerberus reconstructed my character from a bit of ash. Resurrection is an odd choice. Thematically I can see why they chose to go that route. It provides drama in that close friends no longer trust you. Moreover it supports the ever present conflict between organic and inorganic life. Just the same, I didn’t buy it. I could not accept that Shepard could be restored in full; personality, memories, skills, and all. Whether or not you believe in a soul there is some essence unique to us. That this essence could be restored unaffected after death boggles the mind.

That said, from that point on I never really regarded my Shepard as the true Shepard, only a close facsimile. I played a mostly renegade soldier, not that class or alignment means much in the end.

I am in London. I race towards a pillar of light that brings me to the Citadel, the Citadel I had visited not that long ago. A pillar of light that the Reapers set up apparently to send bodies to be processed at the Citadel. How long have they been doing this? Have bodies been shipped to the Citadel during the whole invasion? If so why hasn’t the Reaper presence been felt there? Clearly this brings up many questions. Normally Mass Effect is very good about providing information whether you think it required or not. I know enough about the genophage by now to probably be able to construct and distribute my own virus targeting people you use their cellphones at the movie theater. I also know enough about the Quarian and Geth relationship to write a dissertation. Yet, at the end of Mass Effect 3 very little information is provided. You are left to take what you hear on faith.

So I get blasted by a beam weapon. Okay. There is nothing I like more than slowly limping from cut scene to cut scene. Not a way to win me over. I’m injured. I’m likely to die. I expected the series to end in Shepard’s death. Keep in mind, though, I feel as though my Shepard died at the start of ME 2. So I blast some G with my gat as I plod towards the light. ZWOMP! and I’m on the Citadel limping my way through gory piles of bodies toward Anderson and, what do you know, the Illusive Man.

Okay, this little confrontation plays better than I thought. Fights don’t always have to be with weapons. They can be with ideologies. So I have a philosophical discussion with President Bartlett. He goes to shoot Anderson. I shoot the Illusive man instead. Yay. I spared Anderson’s life enough time for him to sit down, say something melodramatic, and die. Hope you savored those few last moments, Anderson. I felt they were a bit, well, pointless really. Why’d I save your life again?

So lo and behold yet another thing goes wrong. The Crucible isn’t firing. Bloodied and on my next to last breath I crawl towards a control panel. Nothing. Have to do it manually. So I slide in a pool of my own blood to a panel that lifts me to the game’s climax. There I meet a hologram of this little tyke that has been plaguing my overly long dreams. He says I’m the first to have reached this point as if this is some kind of achievement. I wonder why we didn’t destroy the Citadel after the first invasion. I also wonder why we didn’t pick up his signal with which he controls the Reapers in the first game, you know, when we scanned for Keepers and a self aware computer.

Anyhow, he informs me that his whole schtick was to weed out space faring life every 50,000 years to give the lesser races their chance. Okay. Fine. It’s sort of like how we let forest fires burn to nourish the land for future forests. Maybe Humanity has had it’s go. You got a point. But wait. There’s more. That option won’t work anymore. Really? Why not? Aber Warum? Por que? Explain.

Nope. It just won’t. Instead I - I - have the choice to either control the Reapers (so it can be done, just the Illusive Man was not the OG to do it), destroy all synthetic life (including the Geth and Edi and keep in mind I chose the Geth over the Quarians. By the way, nice swan dive, Tali, but a really splashy ending), or choose synthesis which he says with a knowing wink. Clearly synthesis is the option the developers had in mind. Key points in the story suggest the marriage of technology and organic life as well as closer ties between the different races. The Asari by their reproductive nature inhabit the very concept of synthesis. So, I can choose to fuse all organic and synthetic life to create a new DNA. And this is a good thing? Sure, granted EDI gets some soft fleshy parts for Joker to fondle and stick things in, but what else?

How is the homogeny of the entire galaxy a good thing? Wouldn’t this lead to stagnation? What does synthesis entail? That is the problem. Not one of these options is fully explained. The only clear choice is destruction as that sounds pretty final and self explanatory. What does control of the Reapers provide? Do they just sit around in people’s yards like disused camaros up on blocks? Do they become Shepard’s intergalactic police force?

Mass Effect has provided tons of information on everything but the most important, final decision of the game. There are debates on the internet over what choice one person made or another. There are debates because there are no clear answers. No one really knows for certain what the choices mean and what will come of them. The game ends on an ambiguous note. I would have preferred in the realm of ambiguous endings the game ending just before Shepard chooses. What did she choose? Who knows? Now that’s an ambiguous ending.

Instead we get a colored beam shot through the various Mass Relays which in turn explode stranding the many alien fleets on Earth. Okay. I hope they can breathe the atmosphere. Yes, some suggest that if they can build the Crucible they can rebuild the Mass Relays. Well, the Crucible was of Prothean design with written plans. The Mass Relays are of Reaper origin and there are no plans. Some also suggest that larger ships may be able to traverse the great space between star systems. Maybe. We just don’t know.

Then we have the crash landing of the Normandy. Joker survives by the will of fans. He may or may not be with EDI depending on the final choice made. Furthermore, Garrus may or may not be there. Traynor, too, may show her libidinous behind.

So, that’s it. No. Wait again. There’s more. We have an ending sequence right out of a Zemeckis film wherein some old man tells some young boy about Shepard and all the many races. Is this Joker in his later years? Who knows? Does he say anything poignant? Not really. I recall telling Liara to be honest with my story she was going to somehow write into the stars. I heard none of it.

Let’s bite into the meat of it. You can see how I can be upset with the lack of information and overall ambiguity of the ending but most at fault for my lack of satisfaction is the limited choice. I didn’t even bring up the fact that this holographic child, the avatar of the one controlling the Reapers, should be viewed as an untrustworthy narrator. Here is an intelligence hell bent on the destruction of all advanced races. Yet, Shepard takes him at his word. Shepard has doubted councilors, business men, commanders, and even friends. Yet she accepts the holographs information on face value, not even questioning the veracity. Sure.

It is still one choice, a choice given to every Shepard in ever iteration of the game. It has been argued that the final choice is inevitable. All other choices made were but a means to this end. It was the journey and not the destination. Well, I’m not satisfied with that. That screams of fatalism. If this were some prophecy, if Shepard had been foreseen to reach this point then maybe, grudgingly, I may have accepted it. Even so, such stories of prophecy are undermined at the end by the hero choosing an unforeseen alternate course of action. We are not even granted the same opportunity here. I put it thusly. The ending of Mass Effect 3 is much like reading a choose your own adventure book. You can read through one course of action, or another, or another, yet each read through leads to the same page with the same three (or rather two) ambiguous endings. Looking at it that way one wonders why even read through the pages leading up to that point?

If you look at chaos theory or quantum mechanics, both suggest a myriad of possible outcomes from a single action. Here we have the opposite. We have the same outcome from a myriad of choices and that outcome does not feel unique. It has nothing to do with background, nothing to do with chosen class, nothing to do with renegade or paragon status. Once more I’m struck by just how small the Mass Effect universe feels. I haven’t even the option to agree with the Reapers and allow the mass culling of advanced races. What if I had wanted that rather nihilistic option. Or what about choosing not to choose?

I have no bad blood for those that like the ending. Indeed I wish them all the best but for this. I have grown tired of being told to shut up or to fuck off for not liking the ending. I have grown tired of being called an idiot for not understanding the subtleties of the ending or being called ungrateful for not simply accepting what I have been given. Well, I do accept it and I am grateful to a point but does that mean I can’t wish to have had better.

We do thank our grandmothers for socks every Christmas, don’t we?

My favorite YouTube video. Industrial drummer, Tank, shows off his dance skills amongst iconic characters at an anime convention. Plus the Imperative Reaction track kicks ass. How many characters can you recognize?

Remember MTV? You know, when they played videos? A band called The Buggles introduced Music Television with a video of their hit song Video Killed the Radio Star. Who knew decades later reality television would kill music television? Anyhow, the spirit of that song carries over to The Birthday Massacre and their song, Video Kid. Video Kid was the first song I heard from this 80s revival band. The new romanticism can be heard in their synthpop sound, a sound they compliment with occasional metal elements. The eight bit blips and bleeps that introduce and close the song also conjure up ghosts of the 80s, those sounds the hallmarks of Donkey Kong and the beginnings of Nintendo.

With all the hullabaloo over sparkling vampires and the undead strolling in the sunlight, in a sense people are claiming to know something of vampire lore. However, vampire lore is extraordinary diverse. Various cultures have their own take on the vampire legend, including China. The Jiang Shi is the corpse of a Chinese soldier. Having died far from home, the corpse does not receive the proper burial. The soul is said to have two parts. In the Jiang Shi, only one part remains, keeping the body from perishing completely. It sustains itself on the breath of the living. In many ways the Jiang Shi is different than the vampire. In other ways, it is very similar. Instead of a wooden stake, a wooden sword can vanquish the revenant. Instead of garlic, sticky rice should be used to ward off the Jiang Shi. However, sunlight originally damaged only the Jiang Shi. That vampires cannot go out in daylight is a 20th century custom. In short, those who claim to be vampire geeks assume to know more than they do.

There is such a thing as a horror geek. Like fans of Star Trek and Star Wars, they have the figures, own the box sets, have autographed pictures, own the original scripts, bid on memorabilia, the works. So what happens when a horror geek encounters a real vampire? The film Fright Night addresses that very issue. And who better to aid you in your fight against evil that a vampire hunter? Well, okay. He may not be a vampire hunter, but Roddy McDowall plays one on TV.

Either these clips will give you the creeps or have you shouting hoax. maybe a little of both. Despite many claiming ghosts don’t exist, quite a few hold tightly to the belief in spirits. Clips like these are a litmus test. Are you scientifically minded, looking for the most reasonable solution? Are you a believer, prone to accept each clip as fact? Or are you perhaps somewhere between? Do you believe in spooks? Do you? Do you? Do you believe in spooks? 

So before I knew I was goth, I watched this cartoon. Hell, I even had a Casper the Friendly Ghost record. Despite it’s rather saccharine front story, there are some gruesome elements. For one, see how Casper is treated by his fellow ghosts. He is bullied and poked fun of. Now see how Casper is treated by the living. They fear him. Although kind hearted, Casper is extremely lonely. That is, until he meets Wendy. I think Casper captured the way I felt back then, and to some extent he still does today. Both geeks and goths are somewhat marginalized by society. The mainstreamers think this is by choice, that we actively choose not to participate. It goes a bit deeper than that. Casper just wants friends. It’s the way he is wired. He can’t help it if he is a ghost. It is not insofar that we don’t want to participate. We just don’t fit in.