Day 30: Where to Set Down Roots?
I’m kind of that point in my life where I’m looking at my options and figuring out what the hell I was meant to do. Wanting to be a writer isn’t easy, especially since the world’s full of wannabe writers and dreamers just like myself and there’s no set path to accomplishing it.
It’s scary to think about, trying to get to a Point B that has no direct, guaranteed way from Point A. The way I figure it; it can’t help to move around, and get as much experience as I can in a variety of writing fields. I’ve been filling out applications and the like, and started narrowing down what I really want to do, and now, it’s just matter of narrowing down the ‘where.’ So here’s a couple of promising places, that I got brochures for or looked up online.
Metropolis - America’s cleanest city, Metropolis is a shining beacon to what man can achieve by using science to spit in the eye of God and steal technology from the future. We also invent new technology, and are proudly nicknamed the City of Tomorrow. Advantages to living in the Big Peach include plenty of job openings in the city’s many killer robot factories, newspapers, and Lexco Science Labs. Don’t let the city’s constant attacks by glowing green Kryptonite men or daily giant monster attacks scare you away from the crown jewel of the East Coast, because Metropolis also serves as the home town of the Man of Steel himself, Superman.
While safe, visitors to our fair town are not encouraged to jump off of something, though Superman will catch you. That is guaranteed, and was recently amended to be the first line in the town charter, “Superman will catch your ass.” Superman catching you as you plummet to your doom is more likely than the sun not rising. Because, you know, that one time, it didn’t.
Gotham City - Gotham, the Town that No One Wanted. Designed by absinthe mad opium addicts, its crimson-hued and smog-choked skies shelter a city of dreamers. How else could you explain an ungodly high crime rate in a town where every lawbreaker ends up crippled by a psycho dressed head to toe in leather fetish gear? Gotham’s museums are some the busiest with the fastest change rate amongst exhibits in the world due to items being stolen by mental hospital escapees around the clock. Job opportunities include, mob enforcer, crooked cop, stoolie, crooked politician, henchman, botanist, mental health orderly, psychiatrist, sidekick, crooked psychiatrist, bat-signal light bulb changer, themed serial killer, and dog walker.
So won’t you please join us in fair Gotham City? Gotham City, the town where everyone’s life is equally shitty, unless your last name’s Wayne.
Coast City: This shining beacon of prosperity was recently re-built following some ugliness a few years back that we won’t talk about here, but is now America’s largest, emptiest city. With an infrastructure and the facilities designed to accommodate millions, the paltry thousands here are barely noticeable, making Coast City the first ghost town to have skyscrapers. Millions of fabulous positions are waiting to be filled, in every aspect of city life. Why, the first one to sit behind the big desk in City Hall gets to be mayor! The city is right next to a beautiful beach filled with black sand and radioactive glass, and the harbor is designed to work as Navy fueling depot and base, so here comes some great government funding to build schools staffed by skeleton crews.
Don’t take our word that Coast City is great, why not hear what our very own superhero has to say? Take it away, Green Lantern, “I totally let Coast City 1 get blown up a few years back, and went completely bug fuck. It wasn’t my fault though, I got infected by a space devil/bug, and what are the odds that’ll happen again?”
Coast City: What are the Odds We’ll Get Wiped Out Again?
Keystone City/Central City: Sure, Minnesota has the original Twin Cities, but are their cities protected by someone with super speed? No, they just have Thungorr, the world’s biggest Vikings’ fan.
A shimmering beacon to the dark aged lifestyle that is America’s Midwest, KC and CC are fifteen years ahead of the rest of the mysterious land between coasts, making it only ten years behind Metropolis and Coast City. These (other) Twin Cities have enjoyed having four generations of superheroes watching over it as the home base for the Flash dynasty with our suspension bridge (26th longest in the world!) helping the Flash make his rounds.
Don’t think being trapped in the crushing blandness of the Midwest means out towns are boring, far from it! The Flash and his once pitiful, now psychotic and blood-thirsty, crew of colorful Rogues have been fighting back and forth for so long, that now their battles are nothing more than a series of games and grab-assing in which our frail and squishy bodies are but pawns and décor in the background used to liven up what would surely have become a boring game of cat and mouse without our continued existence on the line.
You keep running Flash; we’ll keep rebuilding what’s left of our lives!
Fawcett City: Disappointed that you didn’t get to live in the 1950’s? Afraid you missed out on the conformity and blind allegiance to authority of that by-gone era? You’re in luck, because there’s still Fawcett City, the town that progress forgot! Located in Northern Indiana, Fawcett City is a town where all the cars are made entirely from Detroit steel, smoking’s still good for you, no one locks their doors at night, and the blacks and the gays are run out on a rail. Anyone educated anywhere else in the world could come here and be instantly inserted into our sleepy, but thriving, community, unless of course you’re trained to use computers, teach science, or are Russian.
Fawcett City’s on the map for a reason other than apparently being cut-off from the rest of the world in 1953, we’re protected by the world’s mightiest mortal, Captain Marvel! By uttering the magic word, SHAZAM, Marvel is gifted with the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the endurance of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury! With such power is it no wonder he spends most of his time tussling with a tiny worm that wears glasses? Or the unstoppable power of someone imaginatively named Captain Nazi?
If you’re tired of the maverick cool of Green Lantern, or the draw of the driven loner Batman, why not settle for the ‘aw, shucks’ attitude of Captain Marvel? If you’ve never seen a grown man who could punch the moon out of orbit, kick dejectedly at the ground, and whimper, “oh phooey,” because he doesn’t have the money to pay a cartoon lion for a sandwich, then Fawcett City’s the city for you!
Marvel’s New York - The safest city in North America, NYC has fifteen superheroes for every one citizen! A haven for masked avengers and secret terrorism cells alike, Marvel’s version of New York City is just like the world outside your door, only super! With the same mistrust, cynicism and paranoia as the your world, but with the very real possibility of being speared through the chest with a robot tentacle, consumed by an every-hungry space god, or smashed by a giant green radioactive brute in purple pants, it’s an escapist’s dream.
With all this action, you may not feel safe, but that’s a stupid fear, and you’re stupid for having it, but that’s not your fault, you’re not from New York. You see, we not only have the highest per capita of super-powered beings on the planet, we’re also the only city that United Nations global response force, SHIELD, gives two shits about. So if the strongest creature ever to walk the earth was shot into space, and then came back smarter, stronger, tougher, and with an army, SHIELD will be on hand to evacuate the city using futuristic technology and telepathy, whereas if the Red Skull planted a bomb in Philadelphia; we’d only send our most inept agent alone to defuse it and fight off one of the greatest hand-to-combatants to ever exist.
You see, in Marvel NYC, we have a little saying: Fuck Philly.
Latveria: All glory to Doom for deeming you worthy to read His name upon this parchment. All glory to our Iron King, who saved us from imperial dogs who only wanted to use us for their vile machinations. All glory to Latveria, the greatest country in the world, a pearl without flaw nestled in scenic and warm Eastern Europe.
If selected to come to Latveria, you will be accosted by Doombots in the dead of night, built in the visage of our noble and loving Master, they will probe you for what seems like an eternity to make sure you are not a spy of the accursed Reed Richards, public enemy number one in peaceful Latveria, where birds sing and children play.
After the induction programming, you will submit to Doom’s Encephelo Helmet, which will read all of your knowledge and memories, thus knowing you better than you know yourself. After the Helmet, built by the gauntleted hands of He who saved us from the darkness of self-rule, has ingested your dreams, you will be assigned a job, a hobby, and a mate, none of which will be pleasant.
All glory to Doom for our low unemployment rate. All glory to Doom for clean streets, patrolled by killer robots. All glory to Doom for sheltering us from the outside world, that he has told us is filled with zombies, giant spiders, and nations populated entirely by giant, super-intelligent apes.
As you can see, there’s a lot of great places to live. I’m leaning towards Latveria.
Matt