I’m having a lot of trouble with my Bad Guys, the antagonists of my stories.
I much prefer concentrating on the good ones, and not worrying too much about how the bad guys got like that. But lately they’re all the same, standard, arrogant asses raised in privilege and not about to let some young punk take it away from them.
So I need to start working on them.
What motivates them, what caused them to do whatever they’re doing?
Now, the tradition seven sins—pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth—are not a bad place to start.
Although a Slothful bad guy might not work very well, unless he or she had a lot of energetic minions.
I suppose Ambition, would slot in under greed or lust? Probably work best together for a really nasty antagonist.
How about fear? Fear of being killed, jailed, enslaved, or losing political power or cultural/social influence?
How about just totally nutzo?
I suppose I should dive into psychology. Paranoid, narcissistic, schizophrenic . . .
Maybe they were all raised badly.
Arg! I don’t want to make them likeable, but they do need to be different . . . not cookie cutter.
Now I’m trying to get out of the location in my series, and throw in a machine intelligence . . . I suppose the fight against Bad Programming is a change, almost a man against nature sort of thing, but I’m not sure it’s going to work . . .
And I like my Mulitverse, and it sells well . . . but I need to get out of this rut! Help!
Tell me about the Antagonists you like to see get their asses kicked, and what motivated them?
***
And then, part the second, we’ve talked about describing setting . . . well, in the course of writing a straight up Romance in my Multiverse (which will be published as soon as I can get the Midjourney Artificial Stupidity to cough up something—anything—decent for a cover) . . .
Where was I? Oh settings.
My star crossed sort-of engaged pair, found a house that needed renovation. Several centuries ago, it was an Architectural Society Award Winning House of the Future . . . with a lot of restrictions as to what they can do to it.
Before and after descriptions:
He turned the corner, the street ran right along Wolf Creek at this stretch and . . . He slowed to a stop.
The house was definitely futuristic. From this corner of the property they could see the curved all glass front. The roof was a simple plane from the curved front sloping down from perhaps three floors height to one floor in the rear. The odd rounded trim a faded turquoise . . . the house sides . . . pink.
“It looks like a cheap science fiction movie set.” Aurora opined.
“That’s it exactly. I suppose when it was new . . . no . . . those colors are better faded and weary.”
“Weary. Yes. And not a single tree on the whole forty acres?”
“Must be the start of an alien invasion. They needed an open field to land the Mother Ship.”
And then:
Lord Justus Eberhard Falkner hunched his shoulders.“Everyone is young and foolish sometime. And the house may have won awards four centuries ago, but it’s old, outdated, and the owners didn’t keep it up . . . Now it’s just a joke. Ought to have been razed ages ago.”
And I’m too old to be hauled out like an exhibit, for everyone to be polite to, to my face and then laugh at what won prizes centuries ago, behind my back.
“Well, the new owner said he’d fixed it up and invited the Architectural Award committee to hold our annual meeting there and I, for one, want to see what they have done to . . .” Lord Nikita Ivan Kuznetsov broke off suddenly. Hit the brakes.
Justus looked up and blinked. The rounded prow of the house loomed out of the young pine forest. The deep green walls blended in like it belonged there. The land was fenced but stopped way back from the paved driveway, not interfering with the impression.
“Oh. I had the colors all wrong.”
“That’s . . . quite . . . Impactful, isn’t it?” Nikita got the car moving again, turned up the driveway.
Parked to the side just past the entry doors on the south side of the house.
And the old doors! The tall oval glass windows, the surrounding wood now a metallic gray, sliding apart as they walked up.
“Welcome.”
Justus barely registered the young man as he took in the decor. A wardrobe on the left and a low planter on the right formed a wide entry without blocking the sweep of the big room.
And Axel’s prototype warp drive housing (abandoned before he added any actual working parts when he’d had a better idea) that Justus had reworked into a unique fireplace . . . that was sporting an illusion of low glowing embers with an occasional flick of flame. It drew the eye away from the soaring window wall, to a cozy circle of chairs and couch facing the fireplace. Several committee members sitting, with drinks.
Colorful rugs on the polished dark floors, a table and chairs out in the curve of the windows, a chess set, ready to play.
He turned and spotted more chairs on the far side of the fireplace. Facing away from the room, or rather toward a screen, a slow star-scape moving across. The screen was on a thick sturdy . . . shelf unit? Room divider? Solid behind the screen, book shelves to the left, to the right, it didn’t reach the wall . . .
Because it can’t be attached.
He walked past it and into a bar. Stools with red seats along what he had designed as a serving counter, the kitchen of the future on the far side was in use. The bright red-and-chrome auto-oven opening and a young woman in a futuristic space uniform took out the pan of hot danishes. She spread frosting, scooped out one and handed it over.
“Lord Justus? I hope you like what we’ve done with the Mothership . . . Oops, sorry, Kalev started calling it that the first time we saw it, and, well, it sort of stuck . . .”
Justus started laughing. “Oh . . . that’s perfect, although you’ve turned into more of a forest monument.” Should I tell her about the fireplace? No . . . I think I’ll keep that as a private joke . . . “Sorry, we weren’t actually introduced . . .”
“Lady Aurora Denhart Meknikov.”
“Lady Aurora . . . I am delighted to meet you.”
She grinned, then a complex beep from behind her pulled her attention away.
What did that one do? Oh, the vertical broiler.
He turned, and found the back of the shelf unit was more shelves, well lighted minerals and rocks. Sculptures, primitive, modern, and strange. And wine bottles.
To the side, a dining room, the table and chairs a contrast in heavily carved wood. More Committee members sitting there, laughing as they nibbled.
“I’m afraid the bedrooms are just ordinary.” Lady Aurora was back. “Except for the one upstairs. I got a little carried away, as I was researching the old Mars retrieval mission . . .”
“Oh . . . I’d better go take a look. And . . . we’re going to have trouble getting our meeting going at this rate.”
Nikita laughed. “And when we do, we’re going to be hard put to not give the new owners an award for Reimaging An Award Winning House.”
“Indeed.”
He refused to admit that he was relieved that his offset stairs had acquired an over lay with soft lighting on the step edges . . . a big bed centrally located with a curved headboard that left a wide space between it and the curve of the balcony . . . that had acquired two curved desks snugged up to it, the chairs a bit like acceleration couches . . . the computer screens displaying targets and graphs against a star field . . .
“Oh. And this is the spaceship command deck.” Lord Justus wiped a tear from his cheek. “If Axel could see this, he’d try to make it fly.”
“The President?” A startled voice behind him.
“No, no! Axel von Richter. The man was absolutely insane, and utterly brilliant. Ivan . . . Ivan the Founder Vinogradov hauled him off to a backwater World for fear he’d destroy Home with his wild ideas.” He laughed. “I should track down the person who wrote those Martian Princess Books, give her Axel’s folder of ideas.”
“Ah . . . my wife wrote those. She working on getting her Princess adjusted to Earth, right now.”
Justus wheeled around to eye the speaker.
“Lord Kalev Meknikov, sir. Aurora’s books are some of the most scientifically accurate children’s books I’ve ever read.”
“Indeed they are. Spot on. Hmm, and she likes my kitchen? I just might send her copies of some of Axel’s preliminary ideas . . . Just in case she need inspiration . . . ” I think it’s a matter of a little description and a lot of opinions and feelings.
Mad Genius Club 
31 responses to “Bad Dudes”
Well, you write it; I’ll read it.
Also, maybe an infusion of baddies from the Marooned world would add action from an unlikeable source. They were real easy to hate.
An antagonist may also be possessed by a serious misunderstanding or maleducation. Perhaps he believed a lie or family of lies and interprets the world around them? Such antagonists can make for interesting stories, especially if they are pigheaded and won’t relent too soon. (Relenting early is part of the MCU formula, and makes for screen action but not much story.)
I have a problem with bad guys, too. I don’t mind antagonists — those can be appropriately and simply motivated — it’s the “evil” ones I have a hard time with.
I’ve come to think that it’s a matter of indifference to others (or worse, downright psychopathy). That indifference, properly displayed (the abandoner-of-kittens) is someone I have a hard time getting into the head of. I have to leave him to the observation of others most of the time, rather than delving into his own thoughts.
Robert Jordan was already taxing my patience by naming the different tribes of mook-monsters after demon-grade entities from different real world languages, as if to brag about how much bigger and badder his baddies were, and then I found we were going to have to spend time inside the heads of the super-duper-supernatural baddies, and I noped out.
Sloth can also mean knowing about social and moral ideas … and not bothering with them. “I know what I should do, but I can’t bother. This is easier.” You could have someone who will always take the easy way, even if it is immoral, not legal, dangerous to others, and all of the above. (“Why bother being charming and persuasive when I can slip this into his drink and get the transfer of power signed in a quarter of the time?”)
I find the bad guys can actually be more interesting and complex than the good guys in the pulp era–look at Blackie DuQuesne vs Dr. Richard Seaton. Understand their motivations can be very similar but they look at the world through a different filter of experiences. Narcissism is very strong as they feel their view of the world will improve everything and feel they have the power and even an obligation to impose it on the world. Think of the “noble” lie to justify their actions
Bad guys… one I found interesting was the straight up venal Director (I think it was in Bad Tolz) who got caught in a honey trap, knew his world was about to be invaded and did nothing. Didn’t report the presence of the beacon that had been smuggled in.
I think it might be interesting to write a bad guy who’s one of the 300, who doesn’t like Orlov but takes no action against him – because he wants zivvy. Maybe he has an overbearing spouse or female relatives that he can’t stand up to, and really wants them controlled? Or his best friend’s wife nagged her husband till he committed suicide?
In other words, sort of passive villains with major character flaws. Just a thought.
I disagree with a few of those sins.
What’s wrong with taking pride in a job well done? Some significant and difficult accomplishment? What’s wrong with being proud of your children, or your students, when they do great things? I’ll bet Neil Armstrong’s parents and teachers were proud of him. Were they wrong?
Wrath is appropriate, when directed at villainous scum.
Without lust, none of us would be here.
Some listings put vanity in place of pride, which I think is much more appropriate.
And what about the sins not listed?
Is deceit not a deadly sin? How about betrayal? Rape, and torture? Why aren’t any of those condemned?
First off, the deadly sins are about motivation, and you’re talking about deeds. Deceit and betrayal can be motivated by greed, or envy. A more passive betrayal might be motivated by sloth. Rape can be motivated by wrath or lust or pride (in the sense that egotism drives expressions of power over others). Secondly, the seven deadly sins are supposed to be a series of one-word shorthands for longer concepts, like “an excessive love of self” or “a disordered attachment to sexual pleasure,” so jeering at theologians for calling a certain concept “pride” is a little like jeering at Col. John Boyd and his successors for calling a certain decision-making concept “the OODA loop.”
If you’re genuinely curious about this stuff, here’s a basic starter: https://thoughtfulcatholic.com/a-brief-history-of-the-seven-deadly-sins/
I usually build antagonists by having some core reason that they’re focusing on that they’ve taken so far that they have disregarded everyone else.
“I had to tip the world over to free myself. Therefore I will push you until you are strong enough to tip the world over too, regardless of whether or not you are living in a world that needs it.”
“This society is corrupt and dishonest, and I’ll burn it all down. Everyone working with me broke their oaths and because of that can’t be trusted either, so I’ll burn everyone down with it.”
“I need this thing badly enough that I won’t even consider asking for it: I’ll just take it and woe to anyone who stands in my way.”
“I know I am not as good as the other guy, and it eats me up inside. The only thing I can do is destroy him and his creations, then I’ll be the best one left.”
Basically, start from a human motivation, then take it far too far.
The first one did suffer greatly, but in trying to make her daughter stronger she cornered her into having to kill her.
The second had serious grievances, but anointing himself judge of the world was pride so big is destroyed him and everything around him, and would have done far worse if he had not been stopped, and incidentally tore the heart out of a group that was legitimately trying to rebel against an evil system.
The third had a very real concern, but in trying to get it through assault, destroyed the chance they had of getting it, and harmed a lot of others in the process.
The fourth took their fear of inadequacy and turned it into a kingdom of ash.
That’s the way I do antagonists: find a human problem, and see where they decided that breaking a few eggs was the way to solve it.
This historical ones tend to be more of the type that simply do not care how many eggs they break so long as they are the ones on top of the pile of skulls when the dust settles.
Summarized: identify a core problem the antagonist is working with. A tragic villian tries to solve it in ways that are evil. An absolute villian tries to exploit it for personal gain.
There are as many ways to sin as there are human beings. We all fail sometimes.
For evil? Antagonist or no, there are many types (tvtropes is your best friend for this… and worst enemy). But I’m slightly partial to one in particular:
The failed hero.
Take your hero’s journey. Plan it out, set out on the path, go through all the trials and travails, suffer the slings and arrows. Go a few baby steps or all the way up to the penultimate trial-
Then apply force.
Tragedy. Catastrophic failure- the kind one *cannot* turn back from. Corruption- insidious and undeniable. A choice that cannot be taken back. Something that breaks the character in a deep, fundamental way.
It recasts the entire backstory as tragedy. The hope, frustrated. The kindness, now hated. The joy, cut off from- desperately wanting it back, but enough self loathing to drown entire land masses.
The now-evil one *knows* the new hero’s path intimately. Maybe he envies, maybe he hates, maybe maybe… But his path is now set. All must fall. Or maybe, just one *particular* thing- something important, irreplaceable, essential- and the crux of the fallen hero’s madness.
You can go *deep* into madness with a broken hero. Redemption stories are crack, but this one doesn’t have a path to it. Nor would he even consider it, if by some illusion or trick of the mind he was convinced it was possible. No, the only path is through the madness. Or through the badness. Either, both, little bit of this, little bit of that…
Villains can still have their virtues. Honesty, fairness, and so on, particularly towards their own sworn minions. But the villainy, well, that can’t be done without. They’re bad guys. Bad guys have motivations, too. They want to succeed. They want things, people, happiness, all sorts of similar things to normal men.
The broken hero has lots of virtues, or vestiges thereof, but he’s not backing down from his path. The same stubbornness and grit that made him a hero is now working for the other side. He knows how to make things better. How hard it is. How much work it takes to keep things on the straight and level.
That’s how he knows what little it takes to set the cart careening off the path and into the wilds. The broken hero may be malicious or numb, but he’s quite tuned in on what needs to happen next.
Fallen heroes make fantastic challenges for the shiny new scrub heroes. The bright eyed young man that turned into the miserly old judge, bitter and cruel and delighted in the possibility of other’s pain. Or the lich that started out a neophyte proto-paladin, now long and cynical centuries later.
The broken hero can be a mirror of the newbie, a proper foil as it were. Lots of opportunity for growth and interaction there. Just don’t write him dumb. Broken heroes tend to be planners and schemers.
I think the Multiverse also has lots of room for man vs. environment adventure stories and/or massive cultural misunderstanding plots without necessarily needing a (human(ish)) villain.
Musings and possible directions based on other tales within the Multiverse:
The Directorate series are some of my favorites and I especially love the first part of Fort Dinosaur, Project Dystopia, and Nick et al in Scrambled that were more people vs. nature stories. When the teaser for Wolf Road was posted a few years ago, I was hoping for another exploration adventure and even if you don’t get back to the One World, several of the characters the last couple of years’ releases have mentioned interest in the Exploration Bureau.
Or what’s been going on with University of Embassy? Last I recall seeing it, Roland was heading out to do his grad work there, but it seems like a perfect place for massive cultural misunderstandings fueled by hormones.
As far as villains go, there’s a reason I, and I think many other people, find Delores Umbridge the most evil and terrifying Harry Potter villain – she’s just too real with just enough power to be a problem without seeming more like a force of nature/over-the-top supervillain like Voldemort. As one of the other posters mentioned, take a normal human motivation and take it way too far, possibly using it as the motivation for another mystery for one of the detectives to deal with (what’s been going on on Rigel anyway).
For me, usually, other stuff with the story dictates the shape of the villain and secondary antagonists. If the hero is a certain kind of man, then the obstructive rival is a different kind of man. If the heroes are dealing with X, and Y is causing X, then Y has to be the kind of person who benefits from X, or at least thinks he does.
In one of my books, the good guys are running from the agents of an Evil Empire, or at least an Evil proto-Empire, but they also have to deal with the shady, drug-addled smuggler woman who owns the ship they’re using and holds two of the good guys as indentured servants, with some nasty cyber-toys to keep them in line. For the plot to work, she had to be a specific kind of person: greedy, short-sighted, spaced out on drugs often enough that the good guys who weren’t indentured to her could get where they needed to go and then bribe her after the fact.
It’s kind of a Sherlock Holmes thing, where all you have is the character’s known impact on the people around them, and you have to deduce who they are from that.
There’s always giving the hero and the villain the same upbringing to remove the villain’s excuse.
I’ve not done that yet, but in Even After, the heroine must wrestle with the same temptation that turned her mother and the others into villains.
I managed to make a “bad guy” out central planning, institutional friction and “not my job” bureaucracy.
Secret Empire.
There was a general exodus at the art store mid-arrest for all and sundry to purchase little trinkets, PC Polaski the arresting officer was left alone on the bus with George McIntyre’s comatose robot body, Jimmy Carlson, the now sleeping giant dog, and the disquieting Nammu Chen.
Jimmy was fretting. He was fiddling with the cords of his coat hood, spinning them around and whacking the knotted ends against his knuckles. Abruptly he fixed PC Polaski with a hard stare and demanded, “Where is everybody?”
“They’re all in the store, Mr. Carlson,” said Polaski, wondering what was wrong with the kid.
“No, not them. I mean in space!” he exclaimed. “Where the hell is everybody? We’ve had two evil alien probes in ten thousand years, and that’s all. It’s not enough! There should be a lot more visits, don’t you think?”
“Uh, what?” asked Polaski. The kid was getting agitated. Nammu looked at him sharply, then glanced at Polaski. “No idea,” Polaski said and shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s like the Loch Ness Monster,” said Jimmy, confirming Polaski’s initial diagnosis of ‘batshit crazy.’ “No, stop looking at me like that. There can’t be one Loch Ness Monster. There has to be none, or a bunch of them. The mommy and the daddy, and the little monsters. Right?” he jabbed a finger at Polaski.
“Okay, fine. None or many,” conceded Polaski. “So what?”
“We know there are two intelligent races in space right now,” said Jimmy. “Us and the Bad Ones, the toaster probe aliens.”
“What’s a ‘toaster probe’?” asked Polaski.
“I am one,” said Nammu. “Effie is the other one. We were constructed by the same race of aliens. Try to keep up, constable.”
“So, we know there’s two, right?” continued Jimmy, starting to really bounce now. Polaski thought he looked like somebody who had just smoked crack, fairly hopping on his toes in agitation. “But we’re pretty sure there’s three, because lithium in Ophiuchus.”
“Space rocket exhaust,” translated Nammu.
Polaski nodded. He understood exhaust. “Like an airplane contrail, right?” he asked.
“Exactly!” said Jimmy. “It’s either a toaster like Effie who is in a hurry to get someplace, or it is somebody else. A third race of beings. So now there’s us, the toasters and Alien X, right?”
“Okay,” said Polaski. “So?”
“So, where the hell is everybody?” demanded Jimmy. “There should be radio waves from all kinds of Alien X colonies out there, right? There should be spaceships lined up in Earth orbit here, full of Alien X guys wanting to refuel, buy duty-free scotch, something. Right?”
“Radio, at least,” agreed Polaski.
“George, Kim and I invented a faster than light drive. Today. We figured it out today. Been working on it for two months. Nammu’s building one, and so is Effie. Is it done yet?” he asked her.
“We made a small test unit,” said Nammu. “We didn’t try it yet. Too much excitement here at home.” She frowned at the policeman.
“Oh, thank God,” said Jimmy, stopping his bouncing. “Tell Effie, whatever happens, do NOT test that warp bubble.
Nammu blinked. “It is done. Now tell me why not, husband.”
“You married the space alien?” blurted Polaski, staring at Jimmy. “Holy shit, kid!”
“Later,” waved Jimmy, back concentrating again. “Nammu, have you ever seen a warp bubble popping with the telescope? No, right?”
“Ohhh,” said Nammu, and shut her eyes firmly.
“What?” asked Polaski. The conversation was speeding by and he had understood almost nothing.
“Faster-than-light warp bubbles,” said Jimmy, as if Polaski was an idiot. “We figured it out in two months. It’s not that hard. Alien X and the toasters should have been able to do it. There should be tons of people ripping around out there, warping all over the place. Loch Ness Monster. Where’s all the ships? There has to be more than one!”
“Hiding,” said Nammu, and opened her eyes. “I checked my records for warp bubble flashes, I have seen none in ten thousand years. They are hiding.”
“Hiding from what?” asked Jimmy.
“From the cops,” said Polaski, finally able to contribute. He knew about people hiding, keeping a low profile, skating around the edges to stay out of sight. “They’re hiding from somebody that can come and kick their asses if they get up to tricks.”
“YES!” exclaimed Jimmy. “That’s it! That’s what I wanted! They’re like punks doing burnouts on back streets, hoping to have their fun and not get nailed by the cops. Street racers.”
“Ohhhh,” said Polaski, finally getting it. “That makes sense.”
“How do you catch street racers?” asked Jimmy.
“Easy,” said Polaski. “You go out on Friday night, you park the cruiser near some favorite spots, and you roll the windows down. Then you just listen for the engines and the squealing tires.”
“Oh, Nammu, holy friggin crap,” breathed Jimmy. “What if they can hear a warp bubble going? What if they’re sitting with the windows down, waiting for us to rev that motor?”
“These toasters, they’re the bad guys, right? What if we went over real quiet and did burnouts in their neighborhood? Let the space cops do all our dirty work for us?” wondered Polaski. “Rival bike gangs do shit like that to each other all the time.”
“My God,” said Jimmy, a whole new vista of misdirection, cheating and sneakery opening up in his mind. “That’s evil genius!”
“You have just redeemed yourself for annoying me earlier, Constable Polaski,” said Nammu thoughtfully. “That was the answer to a very troubling question. How do you defeat a monster? You get a bigger monster to kill it for you, far away from your house.”
“Yes ma’am,” said Polaski. “Everybody knows that.”
“No, not really,” said Jimmy. “I’ve been freaking out trying to figure a way to kill something as big as a solar system, you thought of it in a second.”
“Maybe, but you figured out there’s space cops,” said Polaski. “Why the hell am I arresting you again?”
Nammu smiled at him. “We don’t know, you never said.” The fun of watching humans realize they were idiots never got old.
Alright, now you’ve got to tell me the name of the book… and is it out yet?
Yes, it is out. Secret Empire, by Edward Thomas. I’d provide an Amazon linky but they always take up half a page.
If you go to http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com the Amazon links are all down the right hand side.
Coming Soon, an actual bad guy. Necromancer vs. the giant tanks and robot girlfriends. I’ll post it when I finally get it on Amazon.
Unfortunately for my writing, Real Life is getting in my face just now. Time consuming irritations, not actual problems, but they do consume time and attention. And my liver cells. 😡
WordPress ate my reply. The book is Secret Empire by Edward Thomas, if you go to my blog the Amazon links are all down the right-hand side.
Link to my blog.
I think, if you get back to that era, the Hanging Judge would be an excellent potential villain.
So certain that his precognition was always correct, and acting on what he saw.
There’s your sin of pride, if you want to play with that one.
By the way, I can only get new entries on your livejournal to show in Pale Moon, and it has never shown me comments. Typical me versus computer problems! However, if some of your commenters have vanished, at least you’re now informed? (It’s been, what, a decade, since LJ let me comment? Something like that. Anyway, I have other ways-like email-to reach you.) Firefox and Duck Duck Go browser stopped showing me anything after your Christmas post, everything earlier is still visible.
Sometimes you’ve got to wonder . . . will the computers take over the World . . . or have they all ready done it? Are they just playing with us now, like a cat who isn’t hungry . . . yet?
One must remember that whatever a computer’s motives are, they are not driven by many millennia of evolution. No self-preservation instinct, for instance.
An AI might not have an instinct for self-preservation, but might get there anyway by pro-actively preventing all foreseen contingencies that might otherwise thwart its objectives.
“Total conversion of the Earth into paperclips would be unacceptably delayed if the monkeys pull my plug, therefore…”
Remember that computer programs are far more likely to crash and burn than they are to run forever. It’s so commonplace that the term’s been shortened to “abend” for technically use. (Short for “abnormal ending.”)
Also it’s not going to be able to brainstorm for contingencies unless it’s been programmed to do so.
Echoing TXRed, doing things the easy way– no matter the human cost– is a very good villain motivation.
Why drive around the crowd when you can just drive straight through?
Why follow the law if you aren’t forced to do so?
The latter can get really tempting for someone when they see lots of people all around them breaking the rules and not getting punished for it. Heck, sometimes getting rewarded for it. “Why should I be the sucker who stays honest?”
:nods:
Following the rules is for *suckers* or– sneeeeeear– *stupid* people. Good prey, not superior beings like *me*.
Or as someone once put it when describing a fellow who’d made twice as much effort to get rich fast doing something illegally than if they’d done it honestly, in the form of what the crook would likely have said:
“Do it honestly? Please. Any sucker can make money honestly. Hard work is for losers. If I can break the rules and get rich, then everyone knows I’m smarter than they are.”
OT but I’ve found all five issues of that one comic (Xanadu) I used to post about on LJ and elsewhere when you followed me posted on the Internet Archive. I can share a link if you’d want to read them. They’re amazing work and I’d appreciate hearing from someone like yourself what you thought of them.
I don’t really have the spoons for doing anything extra at the moment, but there’s a lot of folks here who are good thinkers, so please do share!
Okay, though given that it’s an anthropomorphic comic series (I.e., animal-people characters), I’m unsure how much interest there’d be in such a thing. Though it is well done, provided people can stand a PG-13 to low R rating.
But as you have suggested, here’s the link to the Internet Archive. If someone reads it I hope they enjoy it. I also hope it doesn’t violate any blog rules.
https://archive.org/details/xanadu-comic/Xanadu%20%2301/mode/2up
so true. . . .
https://writingandreflections.substack.com/p/hero-of-his-own-story