Post by SYREN IS BEST on Mar 19, 2014 19:15:34 GMT -5
Scott Syren is OCW; OCW is Scott Syren. This truth has been documented by countless analysts, opponents and allies. This truth has been chiseled into Syren's Hall of Fame plaque, revokable only by Armageddon itself.
But truth is like an asshole; it just takes a few determined dicks to warp it into something totally unrecognizable.
Today we are told that OCW is not Scott Syren at all.
Over and over again, we are assured that OCW is “a different place” now, although we are never given any real details or explanations as to what those differences are, who has mandated them, or under what authority do they do so. But rest assured its a completely different OCW, and it's definitely got nothing to do with Scott Syren.
Or so claim all of the experts who have been affiliated with the brand for a full two or three months.
As MJ Bell herself said in Kenshin's last piece, “I've always had respect for the OCW vets but they have to learn that we are pushovers.”
Learn we shall.
A simple mis-spoken line, a common enough mistake for anyone to make—especially for people like MJ and Kenshin, who are burdened with the imprecision and arrogance of youth. And yet it is difficult to deny that fear and jealousy may sometimes cause truly profound gems to burst forth from the human mouth, accidental or otherwise.
So they can dish out any number of contemptuous backhanded compliments like “Scott Syren is an important part of OCW's past”, and it won't bother Scott Syren. Because Scott Syren knows that they know better. They already know that the arrogant, shortsighted talking points they insist upon over and over again are only tiny fractions of the truth.
Sure. Scott Syren is an important part of OCW's past.
But that's because Scott Syren is an important part of OCW in general.
And that's because Scott Syren is OCW.
As for everyone else? Well, if they're not Triple M or TGO (or one other who's identity remains carefully obscured), then there's a depressingly good chance that they're just another self-important pretender.
It makes one wonder... have they ever stopped to consider that, just maybe, the reason the Hall of Famers are “on the outside looking in” is because true legends don't feel any pressure to throw themselves into the petty dick-measuring contests and embarrassing workplace soap operas that are being forced upon the OCW week after week?
It seems obvious. But narcissism is, in so many ways, a blinding affliction. And with that in mind, one might even start to think that maybe ol' Scott Syren wasn't so far off-base earlier when he believed that Kenshin suffered from a vision impairment.
A MIDDLE-SCHOOL PARKING LOT IN ALABAMA, LATE AFTERNOON...
Syren divides up his newly-gotten riches: eighty dollars each for Berta, LilJungleMan and Clubbin' Man. A disgusted glance for Scoot Time.
Syren keeps only six dollars for himself. He has transcended beyond the need for money. Now his only currency is hatred, and he spends that freely.
Having plied his lackeys with cash, Syren asks, “Now who is coming to save L'Ardanth with me and LilJungleMan?”
Clubbin' Man fans his stack of ones and fives out in front of him. “Not me. I'm going to find a dance floor and some pussy.”
“Oh my,” says Berta. “Let me think here... goblins and trebuchets, or music and booze...” The overly-sarcastic transvestite makes a big show of pretending to decide between the two options before announcing, “Yeah, I'm going with Clubbin' Man.”
“Scoot dance too!” Scoot Time chirps in his Elmo-like voice. He begins to bob up and down, twerking his ass violently while doing a terrible finger-point-to-the-sky move. There is no music to dance to, so he begins to sing a truly awful rendition of the B-52s' “Rock Lobster”.
Berta and Clubbin' Man exchange worried glances. “He can't come with us,” Clubbin' Man says. “How am I supposed to get any pussy with that thing humping my leg?”
“Scoot, you stay with us and guard the car,” Syren decides.
Scoot's lower lip falls out of his face and his eyes fill up with tears. “Scoot just want to dance-dance and make friend,” he whispers to nobody as he crawls back inside the vehicle.
Berta and Clubbin' Man say their goodbyes and begin walking towards the downtown area, which is only a few blocks from the school.
“Okay,” LilJungleMan says, “here are my stipulations. One, this is the last time we do any sort of inter-dimensional travel. There's no telling what the long-term effects on our minds and bodies might be. Hell, you already lost half of your memory... although that could be due to the fact that we were over there for almost eight thousand L'Ardanthian years the first time around. Regardless, the long-term effects of what we're doing are completely unknown.”
“Agreed,” Syren agrees.
“Second, we are only going to spend one week or less in L'Ardanth. If we have not saved them from the goblin invasion after one week, well then, its too fuckin' bad for them.”
“One week?! Come on, dude. That's only like a couple of hours in earth time! We could at least do two weeks. Nobody here would even miss us.”
LilJungleMan is having none of it. “You need to get back here so you can train and study video before Black Out 2. He who underestimates Kenshin does so at great cost.”
“I'm not underestimating him,” Syren insists, pouting. “I know he can fight. Not as good as me, obviously, but—”
“Are we good on the one week time limit or not?”
“Fine,” mutters Syren.
“Last, you need to find a weapon to bring through the portal. My magic will serve as sufficient armament for myself, but you cannot battle an entire army of goblins relying on your bare fists. For all we know, the domain of the goblins may have spread to the Red Beach since you last traveled through the portal. We may not have the luxury of seeking out weapons before joining the war. If the situation is as bad as you say, we may find ourselves face-to-face with the enemy as soon as we descend the Black Tower. What the fuck ever happened to your lightning sword? Don't tell me the Fullers stole that too.”
Syren grins a sly grin. “Nope. Actually I was worried it might get stolen, considering all of the bums, drug fiends, and jealous haters running amok in OCW. So I left my sword in L'Ardanth at the top of the Black Tower. Soooo when we teleport, it will be sitting right there waiting for me. Hashtag genius, right?”
“Please. You must stop saying 'hashtag' like that,” LilJungleMan insists for the three hundredth time since they originally escaped the realm of L'Ardanth about a month ago. “That's not how it works.”
“Roach and Kenji are always doing hashtaggy stuff. I just wanted to be cool.”
“Yeah, you don't say 'hashtag' though, it's strictly an internet thing. And 'being more like Roach' shouldn't exactly be a top priority right now.”
“I dunno, Roach is pretty hashtag cool. He spends all of his time terrorizing a homeless lady... that's pretty fucked up and hashtag awesome. She's pretty hashtag great too though... I guess not all of the new blood in OCW are complete piles of fuck. Plus Roach always gets good weed. Hashtag four-twenty.”
“He does seem to have good weed a lot of the time,” LilJungleMan concedes. “Now can we get going? I saw some small abandoned farms on the way into town. An empty barn would probably be as good a place as any to set up the portal.”
“Oh? I thought we were just going to do it in the parking lot here.”
“What?! And have a bunch of seventh graders wandering into a goblin-infested warzone, and...,” LilJungleMan trails off as they both think about how fucking awesome it would actually be to let that happen. In the end, they puss out and head for the car.
“You drive,” says Syren, tossing the brown wizard the keys to the Mercury Mariner. “Because you are drunker.”
Some men live on the edge. But Scott Syren and LilJungleMan? Brother, the edge lives on them. I don't know what that means, but I just wrote it so it must be true.
They head out of town on a two-lane highway that meanders lazily through swampy, wooded land. It's a pleasant spring day, but Scott Syren cannot enjoy it. No, it's not a case of Kenji-on-the-mind. Rather, he's distracted because he knows that, even now, people who he once called his friends and brothers are being impaled and burned alive by a horde of wretched goblins. There can be no such thing as a “pleasant day” when good, noble men and hot, loose women are being eaten alive by green-skinned abominations.
Thankfully, LilJungleMan breaks this train of thought by asking, “What are you actually fighting for?”
“The people of L'Ardanth, obviously.”
“No, I mean in this world. I know its a strange question, but people are whispering about you, asking what the point is... and I cannot, for the fuck of me, find an answer for them. I know you don't care about the Internet Title... so why even bother?”
“Are you serious right now? You are the one who dragged me out of L'Ardanth and made me come back to wrestling...”
“Because I knew this was where you belonged. You can't deny that being the One True OCW World Champion—here in your own universe—is more meaningful to you than being the Savior of L'Ardanth, a place that nobody believes even exists. But I'm talking about this specific match... why is it you never tell Dean to go fuck himself when he tries to lower you to shit like this?”
“Because the Internet Title means something to somebody else. And therefore I must destroy it.” It is a hateful, petty answer. It is also perhaps the most honest thing Scott Syren has said all day.
Syren stares out the window, watching the trees and mud go by. Any moment, he expects a lecture on how he can't go on forever with nothing but bitterness and hate for fuel, how he needs to find some sort of more meaningful motivation than an all-encompassing sense of “fuck you”...
In the end, all LilJungleMan says is, “And destroy it you shall.” He is an empty and hateful man himself, though there is a spark of something else there every now and then. Syren does not envy that spark... he remembers, to an extent, what it was like to have feelings.
As he recalls, he did not care for it.
LilJungleMan pulls into a tiny mom-and-pop gas station with a single pump. “I'm gonna go crush up some adderall in the bathroom so I can do magic better when we get to L'Ardanth. You need me to steal you a beer or anything?”
Syren waves him off. “You go do your thing. I'll go in and stretch my legs a bit. Maybe I'll get some corn chips. I totally hate everything... but make no mistake, I fucking love corn chips.”
“Yep. You're a complex man like that.”
Inside the store, the selection of corn chips is sub-par at best. Syren selects a bag of off-brand “Cold Ranch Dorritas”. He goes with the party-size bag, even though he doesn't plan on partying. Yep. He's a complex man like that.
The lady tending the dinged-up early-eighties model cash register has vaguely crossed eyes and an explosion of frizzy red hair. Flecks of lint and cigarette ash adorn the tangled mess of hair, giving it the appearance of the world's worst Christmas tree. She is clearly a worthless hillbilly of some sort. She wears an old Triple P t-shirt.
You might think the shirt would serve as a springboard into a convenient expository conversation about Scott Syren's peerless body of in-ring work, but Scott Syren does not take the bait. He hates wrestling fans almost as much as he hates wrestling, which is almost as much as he hates every-fucking-thing else.
He sets his chips on the counter. A stack of awful-looking wrestling magazines on a rack near the cash register catches his eye. The publication is called “Southern Wrestling Fan Monthly” and is printed on shitty newspaper stock. The cover story is “What Ever Happened to SilverFreak?”—as if anybody fucking cares—but prominently featured on the sidebar is the promise of a full Kenshin Takamura biography within the pages.
The checkout lady catches him eyeballing the magazines. She miraculously puts two and two together and gets not four, but at least something between three and five. “Hey!” she barks. “Ain't you that guy from OCW, Rob Torborg?”
“What?”
“No, not Rob Torborg, I mean... you're, umm...” she trails off. The effort of trying to think creates visible pain on her stupid face. She scratches her gross head, causing a blizzard of dandruff and worse to shower down on the bag of chips. “Logan Caine!” she yells, super-proud of herself.
“No. I'm Curt Canon, you dumb bitch. And I don't want these chips anymore because you got dried-up flakes of pig cum or something all over them.”
“Ohhh shucks, I done'd it again! Go grab a new bag, on the house. And for whatever its worth, I hope your buddy Scotty Syren beats the stuffing out' that Kenshum fella this weekend.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks.” He goes to grab an unsoiled bag of chips.
“Yeah,” the lady continues. “I normally don't like them Northern boys much, but I damn sure ain't gonna root for some damned Oriental.”
“Um, wow. Okay. I'll be sure to send Scott your well-wishes. I'm sure he'll be thrilled as fuck. Bye, stupid lady.”
Syren retreats to the passenger seat of the stolen Mercury Mariner and begins eating his snack. The chips are very mediocre, just like everything else in this meaningless world.
The mystic pull of the glories that await him in L'Ardanth become stronger and stronger with each mundane second spent on Earth.
LilJungleMan comes back to the car, sniffling loudly and holding one of the wrestling magazines. He tosses the magazine to Syren, and also hands him one-and-a-half thirty-milligram adderalls. “That lady in there was cool!” says the little wizard. “She recognized me immediately and gave me this magazine!”
Syren chews up the pills. He holds up the magazine and groans. “Why would you give me this stupid thing? You really think I care what hole SilverFreak crawled into?”
“No. But I thought you might want to at least read up on your opponent if we're going to be wasting all your training time fucking around in L'Ardanth.”
Syren skims the magazine in an effort to humor his friend. He finds no noteworthy information; the write-up on Kenshin only serves to exacerbate his seething contempt for everything.
“So, let me get this straight,” he bitches, “I get called out twenty times a day for 'living in the past' because I claim ownership of a title that I rightfully won... but its totally okay for everyone else to jizz themselves over some karate-fu trophies that Kenji won when he was ten years old?”
“Yeah,” agrees LilJungleMan. “That's fucked up.”
“This magazine fucking sucks. The whole second half of the article is a bunch of Tiger Beat gossip about Kenji and some MJ girl. Do you remember what the OCW was like ten years ago? Do you remember how shit used to be handled? How we used to go out, beat the fuck out of whoever we thought was a dickhead, and humiliate them? And then we'd eat it in kind the next week, but it didn't matter... because when somebody stomps my fucking face in, I at least get it. I can respect anyone who hates me enough to try to break my skull. But if your idea of attacking me is calling me irrelevant on some vague, non-factual basis, then it's just like 'fuck you, dude.' You know?!" The Adderall is kicking in. "Fuck man, Triple M and I literally pissed on one another, right in the middle of the fucking ring. Now the biggest shake-up is whether or not somebody fucking kissed?!”
“Yeah,” agrees LilJungleMan. “That's fucked up too. That was awesome when you peed on Triple P, and then Triple M peed on you, and I'm pretty sure you jerked off in a guy's face or something at one point.”
“Yes!” exclaims Syren, remembering. “The infamous Whack-Off Match! I guarantee we'll never see the likes of that again... what do we have to look forward to nowadays? Ooh, a fucking ladder in the ring...”
“Man, you're not even in a ladder match. That's only the main event. You need to pay more attention... Richard.”
“What?! Fuck!”
They keep driving and rambling about the old days like a couple of former high school football stars in their forties until they come up on an old farmhouse that looks well-abandoned. They park the car on the side of the highway and make their way across the swampy ground towards a half-rotted barn. There was a time when Scott Syren would have bitched about walking across the mud and slop. There was a time when he might have been wearing a new pair of high-end Nikes at all times, just in case an OCW camera caught up with him.
But that Scott Syren has been dead for many years. This Scott Syren wears a filthy pair of cutoff jeans and some no-name aqua socks.
Not that it matters. OCW can't afford roving camera crews anymore.
It takes both of them to push open the barn door. The wood is warped and heavy with moisture and mold.
As their eyes adjust to the dimness of the barn, they see an old, one-toothed man calmly fucking a pig in the ass. Without looking up, the man says, “Y'all boys don't mind me. Y'all can have your turn soon as I'm... urrrghh!.... done.”
He exhales sharply, slaps his dick on the pig's back a few times, and walks away grinning.
Syren and LilJungleMan stare at one another for a minute. The pig stares at both of them.
“Well...,” says Syren, “did you, umm, want to take a turn with the pig first or...”
“No. No I do not. Let's just get the portal up and get this over with.”
LilJungleMan begins to mutter precursor spells in a language known only to a handful of old, dead gods. A faint red shimmer begins to coalesce in the corner of the barn, and Syren can almost hear the cheers of the L'Ardanthian armies as they see their champion once again standing atop the Black Tower...
Which I guess makes sense since the abuse of prescription speed is known to result in auditory hallucinations.
