Exclusive Evil: Birthday Ritual 2k25

Another year, and I've only gone half-mad. Nice.

Per Extra Evil tradition, I asked readers for birthday questions. The brave and foolish entered–earning straightforward rewards. See what happens when you go for it? Believe in yourself.

If you enjoy this, or anything else I've tapped out, pass it on. I'm always out to corrupt new minds.

My question is, do you read the reviews? Or save your sanity from both ego inflation and destruction?

—Amber Marshall (via Extra Evil comments and Newsletter)

I read them in bulk. Almost all professional ones, and much of the web static. I'd cite honesty or perspective, but it's mostly a shiny object. I'm compelled to fly in. As you know, writing feels very siloed, and I like watching the work reach people. Or, you know, not.

Hopefully I've only gone half-mad. I try to keep my ego a relatively flat variable. My backstory's full of missteps driven by excess and deficient confidence, and now I aspire to balance. We'll see if it works.

I've got too much curiosity to dodge name-searching. For example: my old website had decent global traffic stats, inspiring endless jokes about where I'm considered cool. Good times. One of forty reasons I'm irked by the powers-that-be Balkanizing the internet.

I only have one question: do you have a spell that can stop comedy authors from traumatizing their audience with horrific hate crimes?

—Thrilliho (via 1900HOTDOG)

Oh, tons. I keep a whole tome on my desk. You can't have them, but they're numerous and potent. Unrelatedly, enjoy today's column.

I do have a point with all that.

In healthy and failed states alike, Seabrooks, Pittmans, and Hatenannys fester at the margins. It's an eternal human problem. Looking directly at them stings, I know. I'm not entirely insane.

Still, if you don't want them everywhere, you have to look. If you want to know why they spawn, you have to look. Ignoring them at best changes nothing, most likely disarms you, and at worst leaves them normalized.

That, and the work's hilarious. I'm pretty slick.

Why bother creating art in a world awash in "content?" (Asking for a friend.)

—Amran Gowani (via Extra Evil comments, Leverage)

Ah, content. Few words take such a grim journey in such a short time. I have three angles on this, and I only have to win once. Starting with the dry and practical:

To borrow a phrase from the enemy, to a different end: you play the game you're in. I don't mean joining them, or what you should or shouldn't do to adapt. That's between you and the demiurge. Instead, I think it pays to remember that your basic interest in art exists outside of the content blob. You'd want to do it if it wasn't there, and you'd want to do it if things were worse. It's a frustration of your era, like a censor, plague, pointless tariff, or GoodReads.

The second point's much harder to prove. Am I losing people to content? The Empire's never been short on non-readers. And readers have always had secondary interests, addictions, and crises. I highly suspect that those habits are simply sadder and more visible. Depressing for the human condition, but perhaps not a downfall. I think consolidation and distribution pose bigger threats to what we do.

The third comes back to reason. I like creating an alternative. As the ocean of nonsense grows, I find some satisfaction in creating islands for people that want something else. In a good mood, I'll even that argue that art's worth more when everything else puts your brain on blend.

As for money, this hasn't been practical since the caves. But what a time that must've been! Imagine all the extra fish the clan poet got. Lucky gits.

Question: Do you meal plan or do you make up dinner every night? Always curious about others. I grew up in a "mostly winging it" household and have only started meal planning in the last 2 years. It's easier in most ways, but I sometimes miss the spontaneity.

—Victoria Oosterhout (via Extra Evil comments)

Pure improv. In every season, fitness phase, or stage of life. I hope mostly cooking gives me a few points on the scale of adult responsibility. My nutrition is heavily tinted by deadlines, creativity, and grocery store hours. It's all very Breath of the Wild.

In my case, it's not inherited. My mom had meal plans that stretched further than my life plans. And my dad planned to complain. I think mom would laugh at today's "udon and oxtail are in the fridge, so that's what's happening."

Between us and a thousand others: my work schedule's similar. I do my best writing jumping between lilypads. I admire artists that can stare at one scroll for ten unbroken hours at a time, but that's not the path I've walked/sprinted intermittently.

Have any of the subjects of your articles ever gotten in touch?

—Shamfeen (via 1900HOTDOG)

None so far. I haven't fought in a decade, so I should like that. But I hold operatic jealousy for the psychos that follow the others to the site. Don't I deserve the same madmen? Why do microegos give Lydia and Merritt all the premium anger...ah. The Tate era, got it. Count my blessings, I guess.

I suspect, between the corpses, print publishing witches, and old guard racial separatists, that many of my targets simply aren't online enough to find comedy essays about them. Probably the way to go. We can learn much from lazy arcanists.

Well, Zack Snyder might see it. Eat it, Zack.

Worst anime?

—Ingrid (via BlueSky)

In the fun way? X-Arm is still gloriously broken. In the non-fun way? Redo of Healer is still an isekai celebrating the night stalker. Hack and evil rarely collide that intensely.

Most cursed anime?

—Ingrid (via BlueSky)

Hmm. Can't double-tap the above without feeling lazy.

I'll suggest a local favorite. I duck the anime because of the centuries of filler. But as of this winter (the situation may have spiraled or improved by now), One Piece has an audibly sick core cast member. And the show remains a constant, relentless, breathless machine. Either love, duty, greed, or simple human drive keep him coming back. He plays a brash, high-energy doofus in a voice that sounds thinner each time. Grim.

Piece of art you're an evangelical pusher for?

—Ingrid (via BlueSky)

We almost had the world with Uber, and then publishing had to be publishing.

The sublime weirdness of Letters From Wendys remains the perfect lesson that a frame is a blessing, not an impediment.

I will, in my time, get The Man Who Was Thursday into the high school curriculum. It simple enough. It's short enough. It's old enough. Let's make it happen.

Like all Blind Guardian fans, I'm always ready to drag a friend across state lines for the annual sing-along.

I like pushing Kingdom because I want to be first for once. I know it'll take over the manga section in a month, and I'm getting the t-shirts while they're cheap.

I end up pitching The Space Merchants often (preferably the edit that doesn't staple in modern brands). It's delightfully keyed into where things were and where they were headed.

I've fallen asleep in the front row of an English class - we cool, professor?

—Ingrid (via BlueSky)

I've fallen asleep in the front row of English class. Go with God.

Your good literature choices for 2025 bring another question to mind: you fuck with Mishima at all?

—Ingrid (via BlueSky)

Strangely, only the nonfiction lunacy so far. Sun & Steel may be the Sith holocron for writers. Or bros. For lit bros? I'll give the novels a tilt in the near future.

I wonder what it'd be like to read him without knowing about the coup attempt. I enjoy the game of "is this when he snapped," but I suspect I'm distracting myself from the point a bit.

How much of a story to you plan out and how much comes to you in the moment?

—FancyShark (via Extra Evil comments)

A classic question, and I love the range in responses. I've read everything from "every plot beat for the next 25 years sits on a cork board" and "I don't even know how I'm ending this sentence, porcupine."

I make concrete outlines that die in the face of the enemy. I embrace that wasted effort. The plan gives me momentum, and watching it burn gives the story life. I've had Lucas Microverse-level plans for some work, and you'd wonder what I was on if you saw them. The answer: Strega.

Like a lot of writing, it's about building a relationship with your brain. If I forced myself to marry a plan, or outline nothing, the results would be worse. Though perhaps that's particular to my approach: chiseling small slivers off a block until it looks like the unpaid model.

What do you think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

—Deuce McMahon (via Extra Evil comments)

While any angel would be pissed about a Project 2025 cameo, he's a little extra pissed.

Or are you asking what responses fit other autocrats? Because wise, ethical, and justified are three different words. I think it's wise to bail, ethical depends on odds beyond my grasp, and anything is justified. You've seen my books, you can project my state of mind.

For some reason my question is, which is your fav beverage, tea or coffee?

—Mary Louisa Locke (via Comments & Newsletter)

Time to settle the feud.

Coffee and I are one, and not just for a caffeine shock. I drink decaff at lawsuit temperatures during minor tasks. Black, for reasons lost to me. A habit far stranger than the fun kinks churches throw stones at, but I don't make the rules. I just passively profit from the results, like most imperial citizens.

Tea's great–I drink a vat of semi-translated H-mart products every week. I just can't pretend this contest is close. Without tea, I march on. Without coffee, I weep.

My Q: Given the choice, would you A) continue to age linearly until your death, B) choose a pinnacle age from which you would begin to age in reverse until you disappeared from existence, or C) be tossed between ages at random for all eternity whilst having the option of falling asleep on demand and staying asleep for as long as you want.

—Meg Oolders (via comments & Newsletter)

C's too fascinating to miss. I could watch mankind's journey from Fallout to Dune and beyond. Well, some of it. Knowing my luck, I'd spend most of it geriatric or crawling. But I can't walk away from seeing the human story bloom/end/reboot.

Besides, there's more than a bit of tragedy to Benjamin Buttoning. And extended childhood without Mom feels bleak. I'm sure I'd love the vim and vigor, but I'll take the RNG.

Minor Book Spoilers Follow (Just general attitudes, but still)

Saw this one on a book club site and thought it was fun. Which would you Marry/date/kill:Gleason, Slade, Wendy?

—doraktb (Threads/Ancient Rivalry)

Fun fact about Book Club guides: some are nudged by the authors. Or written entirely. Especially Jamaican insomniacs. I totally wrote that question, and maybe the rest of the guide. So you'd think I'd stall less to think.

Got it.

Marry: Longtime fans of comedy, science fiction, and their teamups know there's chemistry with your clone. I'll be optimistic, and assume that either I can save Gleason or he can thoroughly corrupt me. Likely the latter, my powers of persuasion are stuck in text.

Date: Wendy enjoys the kind of part-time ninja nonsense and cultural overthinking that I've built a life around. That's just enough to get through one successful date a month. And the obvious.

Kill: Slade. I'm nowhere near immune to the charms of money or my best punchlines. Six minutes of interaction with Slade still ends in violence.

How much of you was in Gleason? How much of you was in Slade?

—Power Perpetuation Simulator (via 1900HOTDOG)

Ah, how to answer this without killing the joy of interpretation? I'll start by putting this in the spoiler section. And then I'll give up, and kill the joy of interpretation.

Without going on forever: It's a bit of a double fake. Out of the three most distinct voices in the book, my emotional life is mainly reflected elsewhere. I pick POVs carefully.

That said, they both channel attitudes I've toyed with and given up on. Old voices in my head.

For Gleason, I think there's tragedy to black American exceptionalists. White ones too, but we're talking about the difference between a rough episode of Law and Order and Macbeth. It is, without tapping my standard rants on history and politics, loving someone that doesn't love you back. Rumor has it that's stressful. Like any imperial citizen, I tried my hand at waving the flag. They asked if I'd stolen it.

Oh, and he writes insane sci-fi for three people. I wonder what that's like.

As for Slade, in the phase above, there's a whole aspect of the national psyche you try not to look at. He has that voice. Looking back at my resume, I think there's a mock-nihilist inner monologue one adopts when their work doesn't improve things. There's an ad or two I'd leave off my Wikipedia page. It's the Draper model of rationalization: I'm too slick for human ethics. Slade taps that voice.

More self-critically, he shares an impulse with me, a certain young man later on, Nero from Post-Atomic Stress, and Yossarian to sit outside the tumult and eat cheese. The trick is his free hand's still in there, making everything worse. A snake in the garden of sanity.

Now that I've typed all that, I should update my answer. A lot. I'm fighting recolors of myself like it's Mortal Kombat. Read my next book, I've got a fun take on Reptile.

And now I'm 34! Who'd have thought? Here's that book I never stop talking about.