Jack Spicer, Evil Boy Genius

How deadly is your character? What could make her kill someone, and how would it happen?

Jack probably thinks he could kill someone if they got in his way, but I think he'd have a harder time with it than he imagines. When it comes right down to it, he's not as tough as he wants to be, after all.

I think he could do it, but he'd have to be pushed way too far. It'd have to be desperation and fear, and he probably wouldn't really be thinking about what he was doing as he did it.

What is your idea of the perfect day?

The totally perfect day involves world domination and a certain dragon in... well, anyway.

My perfect achievable day means I wake up around noon, on my own, no Mom coming in telling me I shouldn't waste my day. There's waffles for breakfast and I get some work done in my lab and it all goes perfectly, and then Wuya finds a wu and I track it down and I win the showdown. Then Wuya says I did a good job and Chase is there and doesn't make a disparaging remark, and I go home and maybe stop for sushi and tempura on the way, and get some more work done that all goes really well, and then I'd go to bed when I couldn't keep my eyes open.

Kinda sad, maybe. I dunno.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. - Walt Whitman

Is two a multitude? I dunno.

I'll tell you, I'm pretty good at contradicting myself. There's your run of the mill stuff: I want to do things that scare the crap out of me, the things I go out of my way to get are just stand-ins for the things I don't think I can really have, I build robots because I want real friends. That's your run of the mill, psychologist stuff.

The me I can't stand, though, is my good self. I'm not talking about some kind of Jungian archetype here, either. That would be easier to deal with. I guess he might have started out that way. But... well...

Maybe it took a couple of Shen Gong Wu to get me to the surface, but now that I'm here I'm not going anywhere. You may not be interested in good, but I'm just as much you as you are.

That doesn't even make any sense.

Anybody know any good tricks for making the little angel on your shoulder fall?

If you could have just one wish, what would it be?

... oh god, don't make me admit it.

I don't talk about what I want. Well, okay, I talk about world domination, but trying to take over the world is habit at this point as much as it's an actual goal.

I just make it a habit not to talk about what I really want. Not to think about it, even, except for very short periods, because my imagination tends to run off on me if I'm not careful.

Why bother thinking about what I can't have? Either I build it or I convince myself I don't want it.

Who or what is your worst enemy and why?

Myself, obviously.

What, everybody doesn't say that?

Even I'm self-reflective enough to know I shoot myself in the foot twice as much as other people even aim at me.

Reasons you do the job you do.

You may think this is obvious. World domination is the good ol' standard villain trope, right? Of course I want to take over the world. I'm evil! And how do you know I'm evil? Because I want to take over the world.

Nobody ever seems to stop and consider that there might be good reasons for an evil dictator to be in charge of everything. Nobody ever thinks about how much better off a world ruled by an evil but (mostly) fair dictator with absolute power world be.

Why me? Well, because I don't think anybody else can do it.

Really, when you think about it, I'm just another starry eyed idealist looking to make change in the world. The difference between me and the college kid with the petition to legalize pot is that I stand a chance of actually doing something.

My theory is that if you look confident you can pull off anything - even if you have no clue what you're doing. - Jessica Alba

I'd like to think this is true, but my experience suggests otherwise. I mean, it works okay some of the time, mostly with people who are easy to bullshit anyway. The ones who know what they're doing? The really smart, clever ones? The ones you really want to impress? Not a chance.

Believe me, I've tried.

Why, yes, red is my favorite color. What gave it away? The eyes, the hair? It's a deliciously evil color when you think about it. Pretty much every shade of red is badass - that's why they came up with a whole 'nother word for shades of red that are wussy. Pink's not red.

Dark red is blood, that one's obvious. Bright red is pain, or warning. It's a violent color. Red is the exclaimation point of the rainbow. Stop! Yield! Step the fuck off, man!

Some people will tell you that red is love or something, but that's optimism talking. Red is passion if it's anything, Valentines Day be damned. Passion is violent. Even if you're not, like, scratching or biting (and if you're not, I kinda feel sorry for you), passion is the headrush and the adrenaline and the pursuit of that perfect silence.

So why do I choose the color for my eyes, and tweak the color of my hair? Warning, mostly. People think twice if you're glaring at them with red eyes when you tell them to step off. Violence isn't my stock in trade, but I end up dealing in it often enough. And passion...

Well maybe I had it backwards. Maybe violence is passion.

What is your earliest memory?

All my early memories are of my mother. Yeah, I know, I'm a momma's boy. Zip it. My dad was never around and my mom did most of the raising. She gave up a good career before I was born - I don't know if it was because she got pregnant or just because Dad wanted her to, I just know she stopped working for him after they married. So she was there all the time when I was little.

But I guess some things, you study them because you love them, they never really get out of your system. So all my early memories of my mom have electronics in them.

I think my very earliest memory is being on the floor in Mom's workshop in the basement, this was back when she used to work down there, and she was working on something. I couldn't tell at the time what it was, and I never asked her, you know? Some kinda robot thing.

When she wasn't paying attention, I picked up a thin wrench that had fallen on the floor. I think I must have thought it was a toy like a rattle or something. I tried to chew on it, and it was gross, and then I managed to hit myself with it and I started crying.

Mom must have come over to get me - I don't actually remember it after that. Just a little thing. Guess I'm lucky I didn't take away a phobia of wrenches or anything from that, though.

"There are people I would take a bullet for and people I would like to put a bullet in."

I think that's true of most people. Even Buddhist monks, all but the very best, and none of the ones I know are the very best yet.

Of course, I'm the kind of person who's got a very long list for the second half of that line. I'm not what you'd call patient, except when I have to be, and I don't like it then either.

And well... most of the people I'd take a bullet for are a lot more bulletproof than I am. I'm just kind of lame like that, story of my life. So I guess I'll stick to taking pot shots at people for the time being.

If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear? - Confucius

They call me evil.

Well, okay, I call me evil too. But hang with me, ok? I'm making a point.

They call me evil because my goals conflict with theirs. Yeah, sure, world domination sounds pretty bad at first blush, but who says the world wouldn't be better with me running it? I've read the Evil Overlord list. I know that the best way to run an Evil Empire is to make the peons happy.

Ruling the world just for the hell of it would get boring fast. But ruling the world to fix the puzzle of humanity's amazing ability to fuck itself up, well, that'd be a hell of a project. And if I can fix it... well, why would that be a bad thing?

"Security isn't anything more than superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all." Helen Keller

Life as a daring adventure, hm?

Well, I'm certainly no master at playing it safe. I get the snot kicked out of me on a regular basis and

But I definitely agree that security is a lie. We do stupid little shit thinking it makes us "safe" when it really does nothing of the sort. Sometimes it even hurts more than it helps, but thinking it's safe just short-circuits common sense. And if you do manage to eliminate every "dangerous" thing, you're left with what? An empty room? Nothing to do? Might as well go crazy and be institutionalized – those padded rooms are as safe as you can get, right?

Not that I'm known for my common sense. But at least when I defy logic and do something insanely retarded that's likely to get me killed, I know I'm doing it. I don't have any illusions.

Funny how that's what growing up has ended up meaning to me.

Do you believe in an afterlife? If so, what do you expect to find when you get there?

I've come close to dying... well, enough times that I've actually thought about dying. You really do think about it when you're falling out of the sky or getting the crap beaten out of you.

Religiously, I'm not sure what you'd call me.

I believe in evil. I believe in being evil. But I really suck at it.

I wonder if it's possible to suck at evil so bad I go to heaven?

I dunno. I don't really believe in heaven or hell. I'm not sure about reincarnation. I probably ought to believe in it, but it's hard to get my head around.

Probably there's a line. I bet the afterlife looks like the DMV. It'd be just my luck.

Prompt table for a writing challenge I'm considering is behind the cut.

( Prompts. )

Lucky boxers, check.
Lucky goggles, check.
Lucky gloves, check.
Lucky boots, check.
Lucky coat, check.

You might think it's a joke. Most people would - I'm a joke after all. What do I need luck for? I screw everything up, my stuff explodes, my robots suck, and on and on. And yeah, when I'm sitting on my ass for the second or fourth or tenth time in a day, I don't feel particularly luck and I don't look particularly lucky either.

But it's all about perspective, really. I may not be winning, I may not even be doing well half the time, but I do well sometimes. When I manage to get ahold of a Shen Gong Wu, it's almost always entirely due to luck. It's got to be luck, because I know it's not skill.

And hell, I'm not dead yet. By all rights, I should be considering how many times I've fallen and how many times my robots have blown up on me. Maybe it's coincidence, and maybe it's actually competence keeping me alive, but I doubt it.

I'd rather not take my chances. Slim luck is better than none.

You always sort of hope that when you meet one of your heroes, you won't become a drooling fanboy in his presence. Nobody wants to be that guy. But somehow it all goes out the window when you realize you're really face to face with someone who's shaped your life without ever meeting you.

So there's Chase, the evilest evil that ever eviled, looking all cool and, you know, evil. And I tried to play it cool, told myself I'd be all "yeah, whatever." That lasted all of three seconds and before I knew it I was fawning all over him.

Can you blame me, really?

It was a lot longer before I realized I made any impact on him. Four years following him around trying to impress him and almost two months on his doorstep, camping, after I decided that maybe an old fashioned guy called for old fashioned measures.

When he let me in, I had no idea how to react to it. I stared dumbly until he shut the door, actually, and then had to wait another three days before he let me in again. This time I jumped at it.

I wasn't what you'd call "good" at any of the things he tried to teach me, but I was dilligent and I was apparently at least good at messing up. I didn't think anything was changing until one particular day. I was nothing special on the floor that day, but once I looked up from falling, and Chase caught my eye.

He was smiling. Mr. Serious was smiling. Somehow I knew that was different after that.

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. - Carl Jung

The creepiest thing ever?

Not guys who could crush my skull with a karate chop and give Chuck Norris a run for his money. Not magicians who can destroy the world. No, the creepiest thing is looking up into your own face as your robot double is trying to kill you.

Because, seriously? I do not need my self hatred to be that externalized, thanks.

So this is my basement. Sure, technically my parents own it, but it's mine in a way my bedroom's never been. The bedroom is their decoration, blue and white and baseball-themed and lame, and I don't even bother to sleep up there half the time. Down here, though? This is my domain.

Dark, for one. Because I'm evil, and evil people hang out in the dark. But not too dark, because sautering and welding can get pretty painful if you can't see what you're doing. I'm totally devoted to my robots and my plans and I'm surrounded by them.

I've got lots of different kinds of robots, too. You've got your generic evil robots that are programmed to destroy my enemies, but there's also the ones that bring me lunch when I forget to eat and the ones that talk to me so I don't sound all crazy talking to myself. And there's the WuyaBot, the one I built to replace her when she left.

And no, it totally doesn't say I'm lonely or whatever. It just says I'm too busy with conquering the world to worry about stuff like people. Nothing else.

Hey, cool, something kinda pleasant for the holiday.

Does this hotel celebrate holidays? I can't tell -- it doesn't look much more crowded than usual.

Anyway, cooking. There's not too much I can say on the subject. Generally I let the robots handle food duties because I've got better things to do. And, as a bonus, they never feel bad if I get distracted and let the food get cold like my mom does sometimes. I don't like making my mom feel bad, but I like stopping what I'm doing even less. You know how it is, you get on a roll and you just can't stop to eat.

I tried cooking a couple times. Mom kept giving me lessons at it when I was ten or so, but I never really took to it. After I set the stove on fire, she stopped trying. That's why we have cooks, you know! And robots.

What do I want? Oh, that's easy. Complete and total domination of the world. Yeah, it's no Miss America answer, but I'm not really the Miss America type. I can't walk in heels for shit, for one thing. The only kind of world peace I'm interested in is the kind that exists because all of humanity is united under my iron (or at least leather-clad) fist.

That's really all I could ask for. Well, that and the destruction of my enemies. Or at least them saying they were sorry they'd ever opposed me. That'd be pretty cool.

And just between you and me, electronic journal, it'd be nice if a certain somebody called me something other than "worm" once in a while. And if maybe I had some real friends instead of everybody, good or evil, just trying to get in a laugh at my expense.

But I'll settle for world domination.