i wanted to be oshi, but they made me ori

...or on the end of the road

so i just got finished watching the big paris car chase in ronin and it got me thinking about the end of the road. being forced into retirement. kicking and screaming. going into that good night. into obscurity. and writing two to three word sentences. the tale of the 47 ronin is about 47 men who were forced out of their jobs dishonorably and of revenge and in a sense redemption. the bastard thinks that this is what we might want at the end of the day. not some stint at a retirement home. perhaps we want a little dignity. maybe it's like wild horses in a sense. when they know they are close to death they begin to run. and they keeo running until they hit it. because there is a dignity to going down running

this reminds the bastard of other things in other mediums. what comes to mind is frank miller's the dark knight returns and the dark knight strikes back. bat man is forced into retirement. as are other members of the justice league and ten years later when old bruce (and he is old in the book) comes out of retirement to set things right in his mind. in volume two (returns), he brings out the rest of league for one last shot at making it right. he closes it up as the cave and all of the things that were his blows up and robin comments on the destruction of the souvenirs of his crime fighting career burn and he replies, "i was sentimental back when i was old".

the bastard has long held this conclusion about the need for something to redeem you life in you own eyes. i started thinking closer on this reading the watchmen. yeah, it's a comic book as well. so back off. the bastard was always about the quick read. the education system nearly destroyed my desire to pick up a book so this is where i went. the watchmen deals with a pack of super heroes in an alternate present in which nixon was still president (yeah, nixon but, it's a minor detail really). these heroes retire peaceably and one by one go back into action. some of them crazier that when they originally went down the road. some of them a little too tight for their uniforms when they come back in. alan moore wrote it and it reads like a mystery in which this crazy paranoid vigilante named rohrshact is trying to solve a series of retired super hero murders. he pulls in some members of his old team and allthough it reads like a mystery, it feels like a search for meaning. i think theirs a market for this. the bastard doesn't know how ronin did at the box office but he does know that he wants to go down running.

—the bastard