Dragonslaying Slackers Unite!

I was torn. Legend of the Dragonslaying Slacker was almost the name of this blog. Partly homage to one of my favorite video game series of all time, The Legend of Zelda, partly obscure reference to Star Ocean 2: The Second Story. Without spoiling too much, there is a segment within Star Ocean 2: The Second Story where you can put together a combination of words as a Hero Title for your protagonist within the coliseum. Dragonslaying Slacker was one such combination. This title amused me to no end, almost as if the developers had broken the magic fourth wall to acknowledge the audience that was playing the game.

Sometimes I wonder just how many of us there are out there in the world. How many youths were young Don Quixotes, slashing at pixelated monsters instead of windmills? How many of us had spent an afternoon that soon stretched to dinner-time and then eventually bedtime, reading books such as The Hobbit or A Spell for Chameleon? Probably as countless as the grains of sand on a beach, and that makes me glad. Whether your initial encounter was with Tolkien, Lewis, Pullman, Brooks, or Rowling... or with an NES controller and a grey cartridge you had to blow way too many times in to produce functionality... is irrelevant. What matters is that if even for the briefest moment, you were able see the threads. Those threads that are so tightly woven together, they compose what we accept and call reality. In that moment, not only were you able to see the threads, but you saw a glimpse of how things could be if those threads loosened if even just a little. It is seeing the world not just as it is, but seeing it for what it could be; the possibilities infinite and beautiful.

What if magic was real? What if dinosaurs walked the earth now? What if the sky was green instead of blue? What if I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Butter... was actually in fact butter? What if it's a misconception that dragons would eat people given the opportunity, instead choosing to snack upon a 1/2 ton of Quarter Pounders with Cheese? If a ninja and a pirate were to mate with one another, would their offspring be the Ultimate Warrior (and would this child be born in Ja-nin-juary?)?