Blackfire: The Charrim Fighting Tournament

Setting: Charrim tournament ring. Ranter stands on top of Mega Sumo in the middle of the ring. Ranter stares down at Mega Sumo, smirking arrogantly, as Mega Sumo flails his legs while trying to push himself out of the hole his head is stuck in. Thomas and Hercule chuckle while watching on the sidelines while the rest of the fighters, as well as the audience, stare in awe.

Mega Sumo - Get off of me you little bastard!

Ranter - Push me off, faggot. You've got those big, chubby arms, you can do it!

MS - I'll get you for this!

R - Say something less predictable of a whiny loser like yourself, and I'll help you out. Maybe apologize?

MS - I have nothing to apologize for!

R - You should apologize for being so Goddamn fat. Honestly, I don't think anyone on Gyronia is as Goddamn fat as you are, even on purpose.

MS - Fuck you!

Announcer - (Over PA system) I think it's safe to say that Ranter Blackfire is the winner folks! Ranter Blackfire, please help Mega Sumo out of the hole you put him in and lead him out of the ring, and make way for Hercule and Germaine!

R - Aw, fuck. Alright, Mega Fatso, let's go.

Ranter steps off of Mega Sumo, grabs him by the ankles, and rips him out of the stone-tiled floor. Mega Sumo grunts as pieces of tile break off against his head. Ranter tosses Mega Sumo out of the ring with ease, and he lands on the ground with a hard thud. Ranter then exits the ring and stands with Thomas.

Thomas - That was fun to watch. You should have dragged it out a little more, though.

R - I couldn't be bothered. It was like fighting with an unbreakable water balloon until his head broke the floor.

Ranter and Thomas watched as Hercule and another man approached the ring. The pieces of tile broken from the hole in the ring melted and merged with the tile, and the floor repaired itself.

T - That's pretty neat.

R - Yeah. Do they have an alchemist on site, or does it do that by itself?

King Shorma - They have an alchemist on site, stupid. They can't make it do that by itself.

R - Holy shit, dude, are you for real? Nice crown and cape setup, Fuzzypants. You must be King Shorma, the stupidest name in the house.

KS - Who do you think you are? I'll have you know-

T - I'm gonna stop you there, Shorma, it's not gonna do you any good. I'm Thomas, and this is Ranter. I'm your first opponent.

KS - Oh, I see. Are you two twins? Brothers, at least?

T - No, we're just genetically identical.

(Pause)

R - Man, I love the reactions we get from that.

A - Hercule is the winner of his first match! And what an exciting match it was!

R - Aw, for fuck's sake, you made me miss the match, you stupid shit.

T - Looks like we're up, Shorma.

KS - That's King Shorma to you, Thomas.

Thomas and King Shorma walked onto the ring, passing Hercule dragging a broken man by the collar of his jumpsuit.

H - I didn't kill him. He won't ever be the same again, though.

R - Son of a bitch, I missed the whole thing because of Kingaling and his fake British accent.

H - British?

R - It's an Earth thing, you wouldn't understand.

H - Hey, I can understand Earth things. It's not like it's a whole other planet or something.

R - Suit yourself, but you're going to have to do your own research.

H - Yeah well, whatever, I've gotta deal with this guy's family now that he may never walk again, so I don't have time for any fancy research.

R - Suit yourself some more, then.

Hercule walked to the edge of the audience where a woman was crying, and a man in a white robe holding a staff stood. The man began casting magic on the broken fighter to heal his wounds.

R - (shouting) Hey, you know if he can't even beat Hercule in a fight, you might as well bury the guy now, he's hopeless!

H - Hey, shut up!

Ranter cackled at them, while the woman wailed. Ranter then looked up at the ring to see Shorma King flailing around the ring, completely engulfed in flame. Thomas put his hands out, palms facing the Shorma King, and a blast of wind flew forward at him. The flames were doused, and the Shorma King flew out of the ring, his furry cape completely burned up and his crown half-melted. Thomas walked off the ring to meet Ranter.

R - What the hell? I missed the fight again. And you told me to drag it out longer.

T - Dude, I seriously didn't touch the guy. His costume burst into flames before I could clench a fist, I can't even describe it. One minute he was running at me, and then, boom, he's in flames.

R - I'd have to say friction burn.

T - Are you gonna watch the next fight?

R - This is the only fight I wanted to skip. It'll probably be long and boring. You don't happen to be hungry, do you?

T - I haven't been hungry in days. Might as well get something to eat before the next fight, I guess.

R - Sounds good, let's go rob some orphans.

T - I think I'm in the mood for a burger.

R - Okay well let's go buy a burger then. Orphans can't afford burgers.

T - I think you're thinking of homeless people.

R - I heard that homeless people make around $40,000 a year in Canada from begging alone. I think they can afford a burger every now and then.

T - I'd say check your sources, but whatever, let's go to some generic burger joint then.

• • • • •

H - You guys done dicking around? The semifinals are about to start.

R - Alright, Hercule. We're up, I guess.

H - Hell yeah, I've been waiting for this all day.

A - Fighters, ready yourselves! The semifinals are now underway! Ranter and Hercule, please step into the ring!

Ranter and Hercule face off in the ring. As they begin fighting, a flurry of high speed punches and kicks fly in every direction. Energy radiates from them as they fly above the ring, clashing forearms and shins. Shock-waves emit all throughout the sky. Before long, Hercule comes crashing down into the ring on his back, and is shortly after met by a hard-hitting energy blast, causing shards of tile to fly into the air. Ranter rockets down from the sky and lands dead-center on Hercule's rib-cage with one foot. Hercule cried out, and the crowd fell dead silent.

A - ... It looks like the winner of this exciting battle is Ranter Blackfire!

The crowd erupts with cheer. Ranter steps off Hercule, holds out his hand, and helps him up.

R - That was a good fight, Hercule.

H - Looks like I've still got some work to do. Next time I see you, though, I'm getting a rematch, tournament or not.

R - Keep whining, whiny. You're such a whiny whiner, Mr. Whiny Whiner Whiney Whine.

T - Yo Rex, we're up. Get Hercule outta there.

R - Sure, we'll get out of your way. Come on, Mr. Whiney Whi- Oh, he's gone already.

T - No, I mean you and I fight next. The other two guys are both out.

R - What? How?

T - I like to imagine they punched each other in the face at the same time and knocked each other out, but I can't get any answers from anyone. It's too bad we went to get burgers otherwise we might have seen what happened.

R - Weak. Alright, well let's get on with it then.

A - Get ready, folks! This is the last fight of the night! Ranter Blackfire will face off against Thomas Blackfire!

T - Should we go ahead and call it a draw in advance, or should we give this audience a show?

R - We've got to give them a show. The fights today haven't been any good, or at least the ones I've seen.

T - You mean none of them?

R - Right, none of them. None of them have been any good.

T - That's not what I-

A - Let the match begin!

T - Fuck it, let's go.

Ranter and Thomas burst towards each other in an explosion of energy. At just barely watchable speeds, Ranter and Thomas threw and dodged hundreds of each other's attacks. Energy blasts as big as the arena lit up the sky like fireworks. Ranter and Thomas held up for twenty minutes, and then landed. They faced each other in fighting stances at opposite ends of the ring. With another burst of energy, they both dashed forward with a punch. Their fists collided, and a pillar of fire blasted up from below the ring for several seconds and vanished. What was left was a crater where the ring once was, and Ranter and Thomas had both sneaked away in the explosion, leaving the cheering crowd behind.

Blackfire: Prologue

Setting: Outside of Lab Entrance, middle of the desert flats. Ranter and Thomas stand outside the door of the tower, waiting for Zinc to come out. Zinc walks out of the lab's only entrance, holding some papers.

Zinc - Hey guys, I've got some scripts for the episodes we're going to run.

Ranter - What? Scripts? What the fuck is this?

Thomas - They're the scripts for the new story, since the last one crashed.

R - What story? What the fuck, we don't read scripts for this shit. Get those papers out of here.

Z - Ranter, Don't you remember the last story? With all the non-canon and the badly formatted chapters that only made it to chapter 3 despite there being 6 chapters or so?

R - No, that didn't happen, shut up. We're not doing a fucking play or a movie or a skit or some shit. If there are cameras following us around, I swear to God I will burrow into the center of this fucking planet and explode.

T - There aren't any cameras, calm down. Jesus Christ.

R - Am I the only one with any logic of originality here at least? First of all, stories about stories being made fucking suck under any context except for awful hallucinations, and even then only sometimes do they not suck completely. Secondly-

Z - It doesn't feel like this is the real problem here.

R - The problem here is that we, as fucking fiction, don't resort to making more fiction as the story. If there's going to be a fucking story about fiction, the fictional characters do not make a fucking script.

(pause)

Z - So are-

R - No, shut the fuck up, give me those papers. (Ranter takes the papers from Zinc, and they burn up in Ranter's hands.)

Z - Jesus Christ, Ranter.

T - You know, I actually agree with him on this one, Zinc.

R - We're not doing a story. We're not doing a story about a story, and we're not doing a story, shut up. I can't believe this is what we were waiting around here for.

T - Hey Zinc, we've gotta get outta here, there's a fight in Charrim City we're missing.

Z - Alright, I've got other things to work on. You guys go ahead.

R - Cool, let's go, Tom. Seeya, Zinc.

Ranter and Thomas run across the desert in a flash, and quickly arrive at the outskirts of a city of tall buildings and crowded streets. They navigate their way through the city and find an opening; a circular arena, surrounded by a crowd of anxious fans. Inside the ring were six men warming up separately.

R - (entering the ring) Hey guys, sorry we're late. I see you didn't start without us.

One of the men in the ring approaches Ranter.

Hercule - You aren't as late as you think, man. Fights aren't picked for another ten minutes.

T - Well, I hardly think we need a warm up. I think I'll just float around until they draw names. (Thomas levitates off the ground and begins floating nonchalantly around the ring)

R - So, Hercule, are you gonna rig the fight order to make sure we fight together?

H - Hell no, these guys aren't worth it. I could take them all at once. Even if I have to wait till the semifinals to fight you or Tom, I can pull my own shit 'till then.

R - Sounds good. You'll still lose though.

H - Fuck off, you maggot.

Announcer - (Over PA system) Welcome, fighters. Please direct your attention to my voice!

R - Jesus Christ, that was ten minutes? We must have been talking in slow-mo or something, fuck.

A - All entrants have been accounted for, and we will begin drawing names to determine the order of the matches.

A set of empty tournament brackets show up on the scoreboard mounted on the wall of a building.

A - The following matches have been chosen at random. For the first match, Ranter Blackfire will be facing Mega Sumo!

R - Seriously? Mega Sumo? What the fuck kind of name is that? Who comes up with this shit?

A - The second match will be Hercule versus Germaine!

R - Why didn't they shout your last name? Or the other guy's last name?

H - "Hercule" is my stage name. I prefer anonymity.

A - The third match will have Thomas Blackfire facing off against the Shorma King!

R - Come to think of it, I don't know what your last name is.

H - and I prefer to keep it that way. I like to keep my enemies at bay.

R - Alright, calm down, shithead. Did they announce the last match yet?

H - Yeah, they did. You weren't listening?

R - I guess not. It isn't really all that important to me, I don't know who the other guys are. There's no sense in filling up my memory with names that don't matter.

A - Fighters, please clear out for the first match. Ranter, Mega Sumo, please take to the ring!

All the fighters but Ranter and Mega Sumo clear the ring. Ranter and a very large, tan man wearing a skin tight suit stand across from each other in the ring.

Mega Sumo - Hahaha! You are my opponent! You are so small!

R - Fuck, it's one of these "big" guys who can't get enough of themselves and their atrocious obesity. Alright, fatass, let's go!

A - Let the match begin!

The Evolutionary Impossibilities of Namekians

Understanding the Dragon Ball series is a task in itself. Every new villain is impossibly more powerful than the last, and it couldn't be easier for a select few characters to accelerate to their level. There are species among species of humanoid characters that are strangely colored, slightly deformed, or otherwise. There are saiyans who are only slightly more realistic than Superman, androids with infinite energy source, and a pink blob of goo that proves to be a universal terrorist. None of this is really put into perspective other than "EXTREMELY POWERFULLLL," but then there are the namekians who are explained, but just not quite enough. If you are going to think about this realistically, namekians don't exist. Oh goodnesss, it's fiction, wah wah wah, someone just made it up, wah wah wah. But to push away the idea of fiction,too many things about namekians are explained in canon, and I am going to tell you why outside of the fiction world, they just can't exist.

To begin, let's take a look at Planet Namek, where the sky is green and the grass is blue. The namekians are nearly the only species on this planet other than plants and some fish. There are trees, grass, flowers and fish. And namekians who just don't really fit into the equation. Maybe insects, too. There are very few foresty areas as most places tend to be open fields with occasional trees and large ponds. The namekian villages tend to be near the big ponds, because that's where they get their food. No, they don't eat fish, they just drink water. They drink fucking water.

Please look at the above picture. The green guy is a namekian, specifically Piccolo if you're seriously reading this and knowing nothing about Dragon Ball. He looks just like a human, except horrible and green. He's got the potential for huge, bulky arms and legs and whatever. He's already got sort of muscly arms, but why? He lives on water alone. Now, according to Toriyama in the Super Exciting Guide, whatever the hell that is, namekians only drink water because their bodies have enzymes that allow them to transform water into nutrients. Basically, that's black magic at work, which I'm going to ignore as black magic since the word "enzymes" was used to sound sciency and that's total bullshit. If humans got hold of a namekian, said namekian would begin to get dissected in all sorts of ways to get that enzyme out of him so WE could live on water. Then global warming is solved because who gives a shit about other animals if we can live on water, right? Well, that's elsewhere.

But since namekians have a legitimate reason *snicker* to be able to live on water alone, why do they look like this?

See the dark, intimidating look in his eyes? Well, that's irrelevant, because this is just piccolo again and he's kind of a hard-ass. But what about the huge canine teeth or the fingernails that sprout like claws? I'm not going to say anything about the super energy powers since way too many people seem to be able to do that anyway, but with that and the ability to bulk up, what's the point? Namekians have no natural predators, and their only prey is fucking water so why did they evolve to look like monsters? Why do they even have teeth at all? The only legitimate reason I could come up with for a species such as this is for mating rituals. Oh, but guess what? Namekians are hermaphrodites. They don't breed with each other, they spit up eggs. Like, out of their mouths. Ugh. So being intimidating is useless. But not all namekians are intimidating!

There are actually different classifications of namekians, and they are defined most specifically when a dragonball mmo was created. There are the warrior clan and the dragon clan, each with different abilities. There is also no racism on Namek, so no one cares very much, probably. The warriors are stronger than the rest and have vast fighting abilities and why do they have fighting abilities when there is nothing they need to fight!? The dragon clan members are the white mages of the namekians and have healing abilities for some reason. Why do they have healing abilities? Who is getting so frequently wounded in this predatorless world that magic healing powers must be practiced!? The dragon clan members are a lot more realistic than the warriors considering the non-violent nature of namekians. And yet there are still so many unanswered questions.

So, why do they have antennae? Well apparently, for absolutely no reason. Maybe just to look more identifiable as not entirely human. Not once, for a single instant, are a namekian's antennae used for anything at all. In fact, piccolo wears a turban more often than not, and it covers his antennae completely. Why, evolution? Why? Namekians speak a language, can see, hear, smell, taste and feel! Why do they need antennae? Also, on a side note, why can namekians get fat?

Look at the beer gut on this magnificent bastard.

The big guy there is Guru. After a horrible wind storm that killed literally the entire species except for him, he gave birth to every single namekian who existed during Dragon Ball Z excluding Kami and Picollo. He dies of old age eventually, being apprently over 500 years old. And before that, he is incredibly huge, and incredibly fat. Just look at him, there's no arguing it. The only thing to justify it is that some namekians seem to get fattish looking in old age, but this is ridiculous. And not all of them do it, because Kami is a typical old man despite being horrible and green. Guru is of the dragon clan, since he created the dragon balls (something else only dragon clan members can do) and so is Kami, since Kami created Earth's dragon balls, so it's not just a clan thing, certainly. So, that raises the question: why are there different body types!? Not only does everyone eat the same thing (fucking water) but if it was a genetic thing, than everyone on Namek should be getting fat with age! Kami isn't the only old skinny namekian around. Most of the old namekians are skinny like Kami. And even moreso, why is Guru so huge? It isn't consistant with the rest of the namekians, as all the other old namekians are short or approximately the same size as the other adult namekians. Guru looks like, if he wasn't so horribly weak, he could accidentally breathe in too hard and cause a minor drought.

I've read somewhere that some fans think that namekians use photosynthesis, and back it up with the fact that they only drink water and they are green and their planet has three suns. I'm going to go ahead and destroy that argument with scientific proof. Firstly, namekians are not plants, and only plants can use photosynthesis. Forget that they are aliens, because we have billions of different species that are completely different from each other and Namek is extremely similar to Earth. It even has similar gravity. There is one known species on Earth that has both animal and plant cells, and it's some sort of green sea slug. Hey, namekians are sort of slugs, right? Well, no, not at all. Besides, the slug that has both of these cells still looks like a fucking leaf. Namekians don't look like fucking leaves.

Hey there Picco- oh, sorry, I got the wrong guy.

Just as well, plants don't bleed, and plants don't have enzymes to change water into nutrients to create fucking teeth and claws and muscle tissue and they certainly can't do this:

The word you are looking for is AAUUGGHH!

That's instant regeneration, more black magic at work. That's sort of like how some lizards grow back their tail, right? Except faster? Maybe they're green less because they're like plants, and more because they're like lizards? I would like to apologize for the fans to all green lizards and amphibians who have been inadvertently compared to plants. But anyway, back to the regeneration thing. Why can namekians do that!? This is another example of super powers that just aren't necessary in a world without predators.

I think that about covers it. Namekians just don't make any sense. Please note that I left out a lot of super powers on purpose because Dragon Ball is fucking ridiculous. In closing, I think that namekians as a species, despite having no reason to toughen up, no reason to be intelligent at all, being able to live out in the open right next to water, the only thing they need to live, completely carefree, they made out pretty fucking fantastic.

KingRanter

What happened to the Rant?

I'd like to point out my negligence to post again. Obviously I'm not obligated to post, so I'm not going to make excuses. I'm just not that into it these days. But I've begun to have a slow-working revelation that I would like to share. I might finally be crawling out of my rut.

I know that lately I haven't posted much, and not about much. That's because I haven't felt like doing anything. And I haven't really been doing anything at all other than playing video games. Well, I won't be buying any new games any time soon (except for some Nintendo 3DS stuff when that comes out), because I have a long lineup of games that need to be played first.

The reason I've been stuck in this rut is unclear. Lately, I've been speaking to a few friends, I've been doing some reflecting. I don't like who I am, and I'm trying to change. I haven't done anything drastic, and I haven't changed my pattern or my personality, so it doesn't seem like anything's changed. But it has, because I see what I need to fix. It's just becoming a matter of fixing it, and I can't guarantee I won't need a little help with that.

I'm evolving into a stronger me. I've re-expanded my music library, for one, which is already giving me a different outlook. I've made some decisions about my future, and I feel like I'm building self-discipline. God knows I can't make that judgement on my own, so I'll see where it takes me.

Another thing that's happened is that my will for a getting a girlfriend had dropped. I think I was just losing hope. However, as of late, I already feel like I'm closer to getting back on my horse again. Anything can happen, so I can only hope what happens will be good. It's been far too long for me, so I'll probably have to figure some of this stuff out all over again, but hey, I'm sure worse has happened to better.

I feel like in the recent past, I've really downgraded my personality and lost the comfortability I had. I'm going to try my best to get it back, because I know that's all I'll need to do to get back on my feet again, raring to go. Maybe I need to accomplish something big. Or even small. Or just something personal. Video game unrelated, of course. I'm smarter than that.

Blog related news: I'm not planning on posting anymore Blackfire stuff anymore. None. Reading back, I realized that the action-genre doesn't really belong in a book. So I'm disregarding that. I probably won't do another story, but if I do, expect absolutely no fight scenes, because they don't actually turn out very well. Thank you for your time.

KingRanter