Gowi's short posts skew that average, to be fair. Not a knock on you, Mike
Also. Calling fanfic 'literature' is a bold move.
Well, if you ignore 9 of the 11 words in this definition: "written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit", then I'm right.
I took the average length of posts by determining the word count of every post on the first page, spare the opener. It comes out to about 1300 words. 112 posts. 1,300 words per post. That means we have approximately 145,600 words written, total. We are overlong for an average novel, as the average novel is between 70k and 120k words. The first IC post came 13 days ago. The longest work of English literature is a Super Smash Bros. fan fiction, at a towering 3,548,615 words. We will crack that in under a year if we keep going at this pace.
New York City, New York --- The Offices of Ramon J. Solomano
The Solomano Building was a wicked skyscraper, jutting out of the maw of a cluster of otherwise unimpressive and derelict constructions. Its only access was a side alley, carved out after a short but ferocious legal battle to wrest control of the few feet of land it took to construct from their previous owners. It didn’t so much as tower into the sky as it reached for the stars and petered, the top content to curl back into itself and slump. If you could make your way past the gangbangers that prowled out front you’d find a wholly unremarkable collection of bored office workers slurping stale coffee. That is, until you reach the top three floors: The Offices of Roman J. Solomano.
George “Big Caesar” Vincenzo shouldered open a carved wooden door three times his size. The mobster straightened his suit coat as he went in, brushing flecks of dusts away and swearing to himself. He flinched as his shoe squeaked off the last bit of linoleum entering the office. The door creaked closed behind him.
It was the only room in the building to have a barrel vaulted ceiling. Long slabs of polished tile led to an oaken desk that seemed rooted to the floor. At the far end of the room, Roman J Solomano stood, staring out the picture window that dominated the office with a vicegrip on his tumbler glass.
“You got good news for me, Vincenzo?” Solomano said.
“Well, uh,” Big Caesar gulped, “Word just got in that the, uh, cops rolled out on The Punisher. But he, uh, got away…”
“God fucking dammit!” Solomano’s tumbler exploded across the tile and his gloved fist cracked into the windowpane. Caesar could see Solomano’s scowl reflecting in the spiderwebbed glass.
Big Caesar put his hands up, palms out, “Least he’s got more of Silvermane’s guys to go through, right?”
Solomano massaged his temples and turned around, plodding to his desk. The desk was crafted out of gnarled and knotted wood, as if grown out the ground itself. He sank into his swivel. He straightened the pens on his desk, and for just a moment, he stopped. His eyes snapped to Big Caesar’s.
Solomano’s eyes were piggy little things, hiding in the deep holes of his skull. He steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them. His gaze burned holes out through the back of Big Caesar’s skull. Caesar looked away.
“You must have forgotten why they named me The Hand, Vincenzo.” Solomano’s voice came out small. He pulled a black, leathery glove off of one hand. The back of his hand had a rune crudely carved into the stretched, white flesh. The scar was raised from the skin, healed over in the years since it was etched, but it still boiled an angry red.
“They gave me this,” he stabbed his left hand into the scar, “because it means fucking power.” He slammed his hands into the table and swiped everything off of the desk, sending cups of pens shattering against the floor.
“Because of that murder-fetishist jackoff, and everybody like him, this doesn’t mean shit anymore.” Solomano threw himself back in his chair. He put his elbows on the desk and slumped into his open hands.
“We got that Spider-bitch right on our doorstep, and less than three hours away we have a goddamn god that can knock anything we throw at him out of the sky. Next thing we know, Captain America is gonna leap out of the comic books and kick my teeth in.” Solomano said. Big Caesar nodded slowly, his chin was tucked into his chest and he stared at the ground. He dropped to his knees and started to collect the scattered pens.
“Maybe… Maybe we could try running more guns to our guys? Better hardware might shut ‘em down?” Big Caesar looked up at Solomano, starting to raise his arm to shield his face. Solomano pulled away from his hands, into the middle distance.
“The Spider stopped an armored car. At full speed. It’d take a goddamn tank to stop her. We need more. We need powered enforcers. We’d need a god on our side.” He said. His eyes were red rimmed, the lids drooped low.
Big Caesar nodded. “Or a demon.”
Solomano looked Big Caesar up and down. His eyes flitted to the fragments of ceramic and glass littering the ground. Then to the ceiling.
“God forgive me. Get me my books from the thirteenth floor, Vincenzo. We need to make a deal.” The scar on Solomano’s hand began to pulse a dark blue.
@Hound55 Ive uplaoded unlisted recordings of my friends and I playing TTRPGs where I replaced the video with black screen; its worked great for me,and my mug.
I've considered reading my posts and throwing up a podcast link with each one to make it easier to catch up on and adding the link under the title of each post...
just need to figure out hosting without eating a ton of space/cost.
Character You're Applying For: Greg Saunders; Vigilante
Powers And Abilities: Spirit of Vengeance- After surviving his experience in Hell, Vigilante has found himself possessed by the Spirit of Vengeance, thus making him the current Ghost Rider, though he has trouble controlling it once he does change. These abilities are extremely new to Vig, he does not yet fully understand the scope of his responsibilities as the spirit. Vigilante can transform into his Ghost Rider form through concentration, or he can be forced into it during life threatening situations. In this form, Vigilante becomes a skeletal version of himself, and his body, clothing, and motorcycle are wreathed in hellfire. While in this state, he is a degree faster, stronger, and more durable than any average man; and his motorcycle is much faster than an average bike. Additionally, his lariat dramatically increases in length, and is itself wreathed in hellfire. His guns can also fire hellfire bullets. The last ability this form grants is a signature ‘Penance Stare’. He can finish a sufficiently weakened opponent by staring into the depths of their very soul, forcing them to see and feel the pain they’ve inflicted upon others for eternity. Vig suspects this form may have more abilities, but he has yet to discover them.
Gunslinger- Even during his time as a normal man, Greg Saunders had a knack for his pistols. He was never masterful, but he more than knew his way around the range, and was certainly the best pistolero in Warpath. Since his time in Hell, Vigilante’s skills have sharpened a hundredfold. He hasn’t had much of a chance to test it, but Vig now reckons he’s one of the best marksmen in the world. He carries six revolvers on him, two on the front of his hips, two on the back, and two on his chest(Edward Kenway style).
Whipfighter- Vigilante had experience with his whip when he was alive, but being constantly knee deep in demons teaches a man to use every tool at his disposal. He’s grown very precise with his lariat, able to even reliably grab and throw objects with it. A few times he’s managed to use it to wrestle a weapon out of a demon’s hands.
Grease Monkey- Vigilante’s passion, before his life went to Hell(literally) was working on his motorcycle. He’s a little rusty, since he didn’t have much time for motorbike repair in Hell, but he’s excited to soup up his ride for his new responsibilities.
Origin And Backstory (In A Maximum Of Four Paragraphs):
Greg Saunders, on some level, always suspected that Warpath, Texas, was never meant for human habitation. There was an always has been a certain amount of strange to the place. Being born there, Greg would know that better than anybody. It was like a black hole to the curious and the supernatural -- always drawing them in. All the street corners had another magician who could tell your future for a dime, and every time the circus was in town, it was stranger than the last. The way his Pop described it, Warpath was a place where Hell and Heaven became kissing cousins, where reality and fictions bled together until you couldn’t tell ‘em apart no more. Greg always figured his Dad was joking around with him. Nothing stranger happened in Warpath than it would in any of the big cities. Greg would’ve been mostly right. Until things really started to get weird.
Sheriff Mort Saunders was just about the best Cop on the force, and the only one that really gave a shit. Things had a way of sorting themselves out in Warpath. Most of the offenses were just hack magicians trying to sell themselves on the mystique of the place, and swindle people out of their money. Anything worse than that was usually just petty crime. Anything that there was evidence of, anyhow. Reports would always come in from time to time. Murder, robbery, you name it; but when the Police would roll up, there’d be no evidence. Just ghosts and echoes. By the time Greg was nearing his twenty first birthday, Mort started mentioning a ‘New Case’ to him. Something that would ‘explain everything’. Six months later, he turned up dead in the first confirmed murder in the last twenty-five years of Warpath’s history. Greg took up Pop’s old revolvers and his whip, intent on delivering revenge to the sonsabitches who did this to his father. He swore on his grave to dedicate his life to the path of justice. The life of the Vigilante. The newly christened Vig spent two months tracking down and systematically eliminated a gang of bandits. As he worked his way through the higher ranking members, it was slowly becoming clearer and clearer that this was no ordinary Gang. It was a cult, devoted to finding something they called ‘The Miracle Mesa’. Vig never knew much about magic, but as he rolled up on the Cult for the final showdown, he could feel the air draw thinner. The closer he drew to them, the more he felt in a waking dream. The very reality around him seemed to pulsate with a kind of power, as if being touched by a force beyond mortal comprehension. It was around then that everything went to Hell.
Vigilante can still not accurately recall precisely what took place that day. In the face of the Miracle Mesa, reality peeled away, and all that was left was a nonsensical jangle of ideas, colors, feelings, and raw magic. What he does remember is bits and pieces. He remembers a blob of color, high in the sky, like you’d asked an abstract expressionist to design a city. He remembers emptying his pistols over and over again, shooting rounds into unholy abominations that spilled out of what seemed to be a hole in the world. What he remembers most of all is that he woke up in a place wholly unfamiliar to him, knee deep in demons.
Much like Warpath, Hell was… Unsuited to mortals, if Vigilante was still a mortal at all. God knows if he was dragged there through the Miracle Mesa, or if the demons spilling out of the thing killed him and brought him here. The one thing Vig knew for sure was that he had to get out. His experience of Hell was like a cryptic, corrupted version of the mortal plane. Everything was inverted, a perversion of itself. Everywhere was a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah, and just about all of the locals wanted him dead. In time, he found his pack. Six others who the Miracle Mesa had dragged in: Shining Knight, Jonah Hex, Johnny Frankenstein, Crimson Avenger, The Star Spangled Kid, and of course, good ol’ Stripsey. Time is a murky thing in Hell. They might’ve spent six months or a thousand years waging war on every manner of Demon and Monster they could find. However long it took them, on their way to demand passage out of the land of the damned from the Sultan of Sin himself, they ran across a demonic entity by the name of Mephisto. Mephisto’s bargain was simple: Safe passage out of Hell for Vig and all of his friends; in return for his mortal soul. By now The Seven Soldiers had learned a handful of lessons about survival in Hell. “Don’t deal with demons” was at the top of the list. In a pitched battle that lasted either a half hour or a month, the Soldiers, most of whom had all their limbs broken, were reasonably certain they’d hurt Mephisto. At least a tiny bit. Entirely beaten and with no other options, Vigilante stood up to the plate and laid down his soul, thus making him into Mephisto’s pawn, the Spirit of Vengeance. The current Ghost Rider. Now returned to Warpath, Vig and the Soldiers are planning their vengeance on Mephisto, and are seeking any magical help they can get. As Vig swore on his father's grave: Justice will be done.
What Makes This Character 'Ultimate'?: This version of Vigilante alters his traditional origins, instead placing him in Warpath from the get-go. The idea here is to blend elements from many different versions of the character; literally the Ultimate edition. The main difference from those standard runs is its heavy focus on Saunders’ time in hell, which was otherwise just a bit of narration in a Jimmy Olsen comic. This version takes major inspiration from the raw weird that was Grant Morrison’s 7 Soldiers. There’s also the introduction of the Ghost Rider elements, which I did both to strengthen the idea of the DC and Marvel connection going on in this universe, but also to boost Vigilante’s power level, so he’s no slouch around some of the heavy hitters being brought in for this(as traditional Vig is just a grease monkey who is good with guns). On top of that, it lets Vig lean into the weird/supernatural that surrounds Hell and the West more effectively.
Supporting Characters: Shining Knight - A medieval Knight encountered in Hell. He stumbled across the Miracle Mesa while battling with Morgan Le Fay. He swears he owned a winged horse by the name of Winged Victory, and thinks it must be alive somewhere in the world.
Jonah Hex - 1800's Bounty Hunter that Vig met in Hell. He ran into the Miracle Mesa while tracking down a Bounty.
Frankenstein - Another person Vigilante encountered in Hell. He stumbled into the Miracle Mesa sometime in the late 1700s.
Crimson Avenger - The first man Vigilante encountered in Hell. Small time hero of the early 1940s. He typically did things quietly enough that neither SHIELD nor CADMUS came down on him. While tracking down a case, he encountered the Miracle Mesa.
Star Spangled Kid and Stripsey - Star Spangled Kid, former sidekick to Captain America, and his sidekick Stripsey themselves stumbled onto Miracle Mesa themselves in the late 1940’s, and have been in Hell since. That is, until Vig sprung them.
Billy Gunn - Old family friend and current Sheriff of Warpath.
Mephisto - Technically, Mephisto is Vigilante’s current Boss. The demon is responsible for his Ghost Rider abilities and his escape from Hell.
Sample Post:
Vigilante could always feel it behind his eyes. The burning. The anger. It was like a little demon that lived in his head, constantly stabbing his eyes and his brain. Always screaming.
“VENGEANCE MUST BE DONE.” If he listened close he could constantly hear the click-clack of his own bones. The sound was whispered into his ear by some kind of unseen entity. Vig supposed it was Mephisto’s way of taunting him. He hoped the Demon Lord got enough satisfaction out of it before his head got turned into chunky salsa.
Vig leaned back in his rocker, polishing his pistols for the umpteenth time. He should’ve been the one to go, but according to Frank, he was best equipped to handle it if some creepy crawly clawed its way up to the surface. In his heart, Vig knew it too. But hell, maybe they were just protecting him from himself, Houston hadn’t been fine. A simple operation to wrassle a coupla Occult Books outta’ the hands of some gangbangers that didn’t know what the fuck they were turned into hellfire and screams of the damned. By contrast there wasn’t much to wake that thing in Warpath.
Hex said he’d seen it once before. The old man was tracking down a gang of outlaws led by a bandit by the name of White Face. The way Hex told it, by the time he rode up with his big iron, the whole place was burnin’ to the ground. Now, this was one of them old Frontier towns. Everything was down one long single road. Every one of the gang was laid at over the place. Sticking outta shop windows, gutted open on the glass. Speared through on a cracked post. Some of ‘em were burnin’ with the buildings. Even from a distance, Hex could see the thousand yard stares on some of the bodies. Weren’t no man that did this to them.
Way down, at the end of that long road, Hex could see White Face himself. The mask was burned away an’ his face was singed. Whatever the hell was holding him up by his neck wasn’t human, and certainly wasn’t no creature of God. Its skin was all burned away, an’ all that was left was a white skull coated in hellfire. Hex had killed many a man in his time, but he’d never seen no one beg like White Face begged that day. Hex ‘imself never got a good look at its proper face. Musta been something horrible, to make a rough sonuvabitch like White Face sob his goddamn eyes out. It was hard for Hex to see quite right at all that distance, but at some point White Face stopped struggling. He just stared through. His eyes were locked right on that skull, but they seemed to be gone for a million miles.
That was the only bounty Hex ever abandoned. He figured The Devil had come to collect his dues before mortal men got the chance, and that was a-okay with him.
On the horizon, Vig could see a dust cloud. The first to return. He holstered his pistol and drew himself out of his rocker. He tried to ignore the gnawing sensation in the back of his mind. Out of the dust, a figure cloaked in red slowly materialized. He was riding on a white steed -- that guy would never get used to motorcycle, even as Vig’s insistence.
The Crimson Avenger was the first man Vigilante had encountered in Hell. He seemed someone of solid principle, devoted to his cause -- Not unlike Vig’s father. Vig stood in the street. He wiped his hands and waved to his coming friend.
“Woah, nelly.” Crimson called out to his horse. They slowed on approach.
“Get whatcha’ needed, pardner?” Vig extended a hand to help him down from the horse.
“Yep. Now, we’ll probably have to modify the thing to make it suitable for combat down there…” Crimson took the hand and jumped down from his horse. He had a silver case attached to him at the hip.
“I’m just happy to have a fresh model of the old girl, again,” The Crimson Avenger opened the case and pulled out a gas gun -- it gleamed in the sunlight, “been too long.”
“Can’t imagine what that feelin’s like. Three years realtime was long enough fer me to be away from my bike.” Vigilante gestured to the second rocker. The Avenger nodded and obliged.
“So, what’s the word, Avenger?” Vig kicked up his legs and leaned back into the chair. The simple pleasures would be few, now. Had to do his best to enjoy them before it came time for the real war to start.
“Well, Knight, Hex, and Frankenstein are still trying to get themselves accustomed to the modern world. They were going to head up to the New York and Metropolis area to see what’s to see. They were planning on looking into the local occult locations to see if they can scrounge up anything we don’t already know.” Crimson Avenger said. He took a seat in his rocker, taking the time to press out the folds and wrinkles in his costume. It was a thing of amazing construction -- it held up all the way through his time in Hell up to now.
“Mhm.” Vig said. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled a cigarette. He considered it, for a moment. He felt the voice in his ear reaching out for his lighter, the call of the fire. He put the cig on the arm of the chair. “The Kid and Stripey have any word on Cap?”
The Crimson Avenger shook his head. The Star Spangled Kid had set out to find his old teacher -- Said he would’ve known it Cap had passed. The man was certain they would’ve heard tell of his passing or, God forbid, have seen him there. That meant he was out there somewhere, and hell, maybe he could be of service.
“Well Crimson, that jus means it’s you, me, and a long wait against whatever hand The Miracle Mesa deals us next. Cheers.”
Additional Notes: -I tried my best, but I just couldn’t find the name of Vig’s Dad. But his original creators were both guys named Mort, so Mort Saunders was born.
-Why yes, yes I did ignore traditional paragraph rules and common sense in order to make my backstory fit the requirement. I really tried to keep it brief but most all of the details in there I thought were too important to cut out, and I really needed them to sell the concept.
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