Okay, since I was bored and since folks are complaining it's dead
by JP
I'm working on a new chapter for FAJ. Superhero-heavy, lots of focus on Skullomania and Battlerman. Pretty rough right now as it is, but here's a fraction of the opening
*********
"Dear Eiji,
I just killed a whole ton of ninjas, and they were not totally sweet! What is up with that?
Thanks,
Hotsuma"
"Ah, good question," said Eiji aloud as he typed his response. "Let me explain that with another of my bogus mathematical theorums. You see, the solitude is directly proportional to the sweetitude. Ninja who are totally alone, like me, are also totally sweet, like me. If they work in pairs their sweetness is greatly impaired, and doubled again we have ninja quartets, like the Ninja Turtles, who are not sweet anymore, even though they are still well into the awesome range. From there you have ninja strike forces and then even whole ninja clans attacking at once, and they might be pretty awesome collectively, but they'll still be easily slaughtered by one lone enemy ninja, as Ninja Scroll illustrates.
"You should have something around the house to remind you of this simple theorum, like maybe an inspirational poster, or perhaps a quilt. Or you could do what I did!"
Eiji held up a tiny framed cloth to his webcam, upon which was embroidered "The solitude is directly proportional to the sweetitude."
Vega popped out from a nearby desk drawer. "Hey, nice stitching. Looks like SOMEone's got a side to them that they didn't tell anyone about."
"Shut up!"
[---]
"Young stunt double, Doom has decided that in order for you to truly be able to pretend you are Doom, you must know the basic fundamental rules of Doom."
Dong took another sip from his Pina Colada and gazed blearily at Doom. "Guh? Like what?"
"Like so! Firstly-" Doom fired a laser from one of his hands into the ceiling to wake Dong up "When you are Doom, you are better than anyone. At everything."
"Got it, I'm better than everyone else when I'm Doom."
"Except me."
"Huh?"
"Because I will be the real Dr. Doom."
"Huh?"
"Enough! Moving on, the second rule is that you are never defeated! Ever! Even if it LOOKS like you are defeated, it's just a setback. Your plans allowed for or even included you being beated in a fight or some object you desired being blown up."
Dong nodded again and took another sip. He hadn't realized yet that the glass was actually empty.
"And thirdly, and pay attention because this is the most important, IT'S ALL RICHARDS' FAULT! Everything that goes wrong in your life can and WILL be traced back to Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, even if it does not seem so at first!"
"Oh, right!" said Dong. "I remember reading about that. Something blew up in your face in high school, scarred you for life and that was why you went all mad gearz on him."
"Er...well, I suppose you could say that," said Doom. "But in reality the cosmic annoyance that is Richards' interferance in my life streches back further, to elementary school."
[---]
Victor Von Doom, age ten, struggled with his Radio Flyer piled full of chocolate bars, his puny, nerdy body barely able to pull the weight.
"You will see! You WILL SEE!" He shook his little fist at the sky in defiance, unaware that he was in the throes of heat exhaustion and delerium. "I WILL be the one to sell a hundred thousand candy bars for the school drive and gain the super secret ultimate grand prize!"
A shadow came over the neighborhood and a ghostly voice echoed towards him.
"Dooooom...Dooooom! Give up your hopeless quest for chocolaty superiority!" said a cloaked figure drifting towards him. Under the hood was a two-dimensional dog's face wearing a two-dimensional red wool cap.
"W-who are you!?" shrieked lil' Doom.
"I am Parappa, the gangsta specter of defeat, yo! OoooooOOOooh!" said the apparition.
"You know the secret of the grand price, don't you? Tell me, dog man!" howled lil' Doom. "I MUST KNOW!"
The apparition folded its hands and shook its two-dimensional head. "I ain't saying, yo."
"Is it a weapon? A suit of power armor? A tome of incredible magical power? Is it the means to take over the entire planet?! TELL ME!"
"The grand prize will never be yours, Doom! OooOOOOoooh!" The apparition began drifting away.
Doom hurled all seventy-five pounds of himself at the ghost. When he hit it, the hallucination vanished and he found himself holding the jacket of his arch-nemesis since kindergarden, Reed Richards.
"Oww! Hey, Victor, cut it out man," said Reed. "You know, defeat really has made you go insane."
"Defeat?!" screetched lil' Doom. "You speak lies! I will be the one who wins the contest! Then I will go home to my lovely Latveria and return to destroy your entire country, starting with this stupid, stupid school!"
Reed laughed. "Come on, hasn't anyone told you? The contest ended yesterday, man."
A look of horror crossed over lil' Doom's face. "NOOOOOOOO!!!" He sank to his knees, quivering. After a moment the horrified look was replaced by a mask of rage. He pointed a finger at Reed. "This is your fault! You made me forget! You must have, You always hated me because I was the better candy bar salesman!"
A quizzicle look passed over Reed's face, but he shrugged and went back up the sidewalk. "Later, man. Let me know when you get a life, okay?"
[---]
"So there you have it," said Dr. Doom to Dong. "The true origin of our animosity!"
"Uh, I don't really see how he could have--"
"Of course you don't! Nobody understands that it is all Richards' fault. But it is, oh, yes, it is! All of it! My acne, my first shaving cuts, the way the girls preferred his gas-guzzling American muscle car to my efficient Volkswagon SuperBeetle, all a devious plot to make himself look good by stomping all over me!"
Dong blinked. "So, it's all his fault?"
"Yes!"
"What about the stuff he had nothing to do with?"
"Also his fault! Thanks to the beauty of chaos theory we can now connect nearly every seemingly-unrelated unhappy event in my entire life to the actions of Reed Richards! Only Doom's incredible intellect would be capable of mapping them all out, but it is true."
"Wow, man," said Dong, taking another pull on the straw in his still-empty Pina Collada.
Posted on Dec 4, 2003, 1:40 PM from IP address 63.202.110.254