by A.J. Focht
Today’s media is overrun with rehashed tales of old myths. It is nearly impossible to come across a fantasy story that doesn’t re-use mythical beings. Vampires, werewolves, and zombies all come from traditional myths and plague our airwaves and book stores; every author is looking for a way to put their own spin on this time tested material.
Some authors are very good at taking traditional myths and adapting them, whereas others should be hanged, drawn, and quartered for their crimes against them. Most myths have grey areas that can be adapted, but they all have their canon – lists of facts and pieces of the myth that cannot be changed without altering that which is intrinsic to it. When an author starts altering these facts they upset the status quo. They weaken not only the fabric of the mythological being – but our ability to suspend our disbelief. This leaves their final product looking like a cheap bastardization of the original.
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By SG’s Team Agony
Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.
[Shotgun in In The Fog]
Q. There is a girl that I have been trying to date for more than a couple months now. She loves video games, swears and drinks just as much as I do, and has an overall awesome personality. She has told my friends on multiple occasions that she likes me, and wants me to go for it. Here is my dilemma: one of our mutual friends, that she has known way longer than me, I’m pretty sure is deeply in love with her. This is why my decision has taken so long, and now it seems like I have lost my opportunity. I always put my friends before myself, and it always seems to hurt me in the end. I have waited so long, and now it seems like my chance is blown. Though her and I are still friends, it doesn’t seem like she still has the same feelings she once did. Do these feelings really just go away? Should I forget the whole thing, or should I just grow some balls and confront her?
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By Malloreigh
The December holidays, quickly approaching, are a dark time for many vegans. Not only are we surrounded by piles of rich, dairy and egg-laden holiday baking, but we have to deal with our families – who, sometimes, consider our dietary choices to be a personal insult, a rejection of the values they brought us up to hold.
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by Jensen
A couple of months back I was in town visiting my parents and my brother’s girlfriend said she had recently tried these amazing fried pies. Fried pie?! What?! Growing up in California, I feel like I have missed out on so many opportunities to fry things that Southern kids don’t bat an eyelash at. I was super jazzed about these fried pies and we all decided that we would get them for the Thanksgiving holiday. I’ve literally been pumped about these fried pies for two months. So I’m talking on the phone with my mom a few days ago and she informs me that plans have changed and the decision was made that fried pies were no longer on the menu over Thanksgiving weekend. I was crushed, but more importantly, I was pissed and out to seek revenge.
Long story short, today we are making fried pies. They’re basically Homerun Pies, only not as shitty.
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by Tamara Palmer
“From the heart and honest.”
– Vera Ramone King
Vera Ramone King’s book Poisoned Heart: I Married Dee Dee Ramone documents her 17-year marriage to the bassist and lead songwriter of seminal punk rockers The Ramones. In vivid and loving detail, she recounts the rise and demise of her lover and best friend, who succumbed to a heroin overdose in 2002. She offers the untold story of how she continually kept him alive even amidst bouts of terrifying abuse from her husband, illuminating a vital link in the band’s masterful and enduring legacy.
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by Brett Warner
“In the United States, Christmas has become the rape of an idea.”
– Richard Bach
“This job would be great if it wasn’t for the fucking customers.”
– Randall Graves
My enemy is a short, middle-aged African American woman wearing a purple felt winter coat and black leather gloves. We’re standing in the Politics section of Borders Books in the Southland Mall of Taylor, Michigan with one of my co-workers and a tall, white sweater-wearing man looking on from the sidelines. I’m holding a small hardcover book — not shelved in Politics, as the woman had claimed, but in Sociology. Caught mid-task in the midst of Holiday mall shopping pandemonium, she’d asked for help finding a book in this section. Escorting her here, a quick look on the Book Search computer revealed the title’s true location.
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