Here, we’ve scored some exclusive documentation from some of movie’s most put-upon bit players, who are probably questioning some of their career choices.

Box office rep, Phantom of the Opera

“Yes, good afternoon, madam, happy to serve you and your husband, whose patronage we value greatly. We’re staging Hannibal this fall, would you like tickets?”

“I’m so sorry, we’re no longer doing Hannibal due to a change of management, but the Paris Opera would be happy to offer you tickets to Il Muto! It’s starring Carlotta, and is sure to be a smash hit.

“My apologies, this is the Paris Opera – we’ve just had notice of a casting change for the Countess effective immediately; the new lead is going to be Christine Daae, a newcomer, so that will be a lovely discovery for our patrons!”

“Dear madam, please excuse the interruption, but due to some set-construction, staffing, and lighting issues at last night’s performance, we’ll be shutting the theatre for a few days. Of course we’ll be happy to redeem your tickets in the next week or so, to see either Carlotta or Miss Daae in Il Muto!”

“Yes, hello, this is the Paris Opera house again, I’m so sorry to trouble you, but Il Muto and the rest of our fall repertoire has actually been scrapped in favor of a new opera, Don Juan Triumphant, by a debut composer! What a thrill for you, our theatregoers, and I hope you’d like to keep your tickets? Opening night is sure to be delightful!”

“Madam, this is the Paris Opera calling, hoping none of the police action or chandelier casualties at last night’s show has changed your mind about supporting next year’s season? Please give us a call back at your earliest convenience.”

Rohan’s Prime Minister of Hairdressing, The Lord of the Rings

My Lady Eowyn,

I write you this note with all the respect and deference Your Highness deserves, but I have just had another undermaid leave Rohan forever and risk the vast plains alone rather than attempt to detangle Your Highness’s hair. Of course, Your Highness is welcome to stand outside in our punishing winds as many hours a day as she chooses. However, may I remind you that for all its well-known glory and renown, our incomparable city is not infinite, and there is a limited supply of young ladies that can be brought into Your Highness’s service, as most of them lack the upper-arm strength for the position. I ask for your patience as we begin the search for a replacement. I am forever your humble servant, etc.

My Lord Eomer,

Please permit me to address you, with humility and appreciation for Your Lordship’s greatness. Your squire is our kingdom’s most loyal, and I know he would give his life for Your Lordship. However, I did not know how to answer when last I spoke with him about Your Lordship’s personal care. Perhaps, not only for his sake but for your own, Your Lordship might consider cutting his hair so that his helm may be placed more quickly, and the source of wounds to the head and chest be discovered more quickly without sorting through Your Lordship’s lengthy tresses. I am not tactician, but I know Your Lordship’s squire fears for your life, and for his ability to find suitable shampoo in the field of battle. I am forever your humble servant, etc.

My Lord Legolas,

Please allow me to offer myself most anxiously and enthusiastically to your service, or the service of any of your people. Yours sincerely.

Lestat’s assistant, The Queen of the Damned

To Whom it May Concern:

I would like to apply for the position of personal assistant to the lead singer of your band.

I am experienced in the role, having been personal assistant to The Vampire Lestat until his recent decision to retire from the business. In general, my duties included household management, groupie wrangling, and providing meals, not that the latter two were at all related, because of course the vampire thing was just a gimmick I completely support but is obviously not a real aspect of his life at all. Well-honed skills I have include finding remote and private locations as sanctuaries for my clients, and ability to cram a remarkable amount of cargo, often two five-and-a-half foot black plastic duffel bags at a time, into even the smallest vehicles.

I am currently seeking a position that would allow me to make use of some of these skills in a combination different from that of my last employer, who was very fiscally generous but who often overstepped professional boundaries. I understand the life of a musician, and I will be the best possible assistant – I routinely go above and beyond my job description – but I expect the same sort of respect for privacy from my employer as I give in return. Live and let live, is my motto, and I have recently come to mean that in a completely non-metaphorical way.

That said, this looks like an ideal position for my talents, and the position sounds extremely exciting.I especially look forward to the many travel opportunities this position would provide, as I would love an expedient reason to leave the country unobtrusively.

Financially, my salary is flexible, though I would like the opportunity to set up and contribute to an employer-funded 401k program, as I have started to place an increasing amount of importance on my financial future; I know no one lives forever, but just in case.

However, some of the shows produced as pilots every year never make it to your screen. The Defenestration TV coverage team was granted special access to these unaired pilots, thanks to a screening room with a faulty lock and a big shadowy place in one corner just big enough for one person to huddle with a steno pad, and we can now bring you this exclusive coverage of five TV pilots that never stood a chance.

1. TRAUMA WARD

TV is riddled with medical dramas, but none have ever attacked the realities of emergency medicine with the urgency of TRAUMA WARD. Taking us behind the scenes of the emergency room, Trauma Ward’s pilot follows an emergency intake from both sides of the equation.

A family struggles to complete paperwork before their family member can be admitted, as an ambitious nurse watches, trying to gauge how many times the patient will probably vomit on her. A tech shortage reaches crisis levels as the hospital gets increasingly filthy; meanwhile, a drug-seeker is forced to confront how low he has sunk when he’s returned to the waiting room and forced to sit through two hours of The Bachelorette before he can be treated.

Terrible decisions will be made, and lives changed forever, in the TRAUMA WARD. (Pulled from consideration after an insurance-industry screener.)

2. THE GRIND

Gritty police drama THE GRIND bursts onto the scene with its tale of two passionate cops determined to screw perps right into the ground.

Brick Kale and Ward Johnson are two renegades in the Vice department of a gritty metropolitan city that probably looks a lot like Vancouver. These brave officers love nothing better than going undercover, as deep as it takes to ride their case to completion. Looking like a pair of ex-cons and trained in Black Ops techniques, Brick and Ward get tangled up in sweaty, heart-pounding action with every case, whether they’re sweating it out in a sting or pinning a perp to the wall. Not that this pair always get along – at least once an episode, they crowd the frame as they have intense arguments riddled with eye contact and veiled threats about what will happen if this case goes down.

But when they’re in a tight squeeze, these cops always manage to fight their way out, drive their way through, and prove once and for all that they’re the two manliest cops on THE GRIND. (Pulled due to accidentally being incredibly, incredibly gay.)

3. CONGENIALITY

In this groundbreaking reality show, contestants will have to lay it all on the line for a chance to win big money: but this time, everyone really is there to make friends.

Contestants on CONGENIALITY will be put through a series of grueling challenges (sharing circles, trust falls, karaoke nights), and will be judged not on individual prowess, but instead on their communication with fellow contestants, and the relationships they forge. (A particularly dramatic Group Potluck Night culminates in a tearful confession of romantic infidelity between two of the participants, followed by a brief crying session, and then a civil visit to the on-site counselor to begin evaluating emotional options.) Contestants will be judged each week, and the one shown to be talking the most shit on camera or being the most antisocial during team exercises will be sent home – unless all contestants vote to be Congenial and allow that contestant to stay.

Sure to be an emotional roller-coaster, Congeniality hopes to culminate in everyone deciding to split the monetary prize equally, since that’s the nicest solution. (Pulled due to the lowest ratings in the history of television rating systems.)

4. LADYPERSON

Cutting-edge dramedy LADYPERSON follows the life of a single woman in the big city as she tries to balance her life after leaving home – and a long-term relationship – behind.

Ladyperson, who takes an admin job in a corporation to make ends meet as she tries to pursue her dream of working in an arts-sector nonprofit, must contend with subtle workplace discrimination, unwanted flirtation by men she doesn’t know, a general feeling that her love life is a priority and open for public debate, social pressure to dress her slenderest possible shape in a manner men find attractive, and scorn over her chosen leisure activities of going to museums, watching television, and occasionally dropping in on her local dodgeball league. Will Ladyperson ever be able to find happiness? (Pulled from consideration due to proliferation of sensible footwear and a horrible nagging guilt on the part of TV execs.)

However, not just any vid will do. Having been on The Net earlier today, we are much wiser than you in the trends that the hip kids are using. Here, we’ve put together a list of Frequently Asked Questions to help get you on your way!

Q: I’d like to make a fanvid for —

A: Sssh, my darling, sssh. It doesn’t do us any good to name fandoms, not now. Either it’s a superpopular fandom and we’ll judge you for being mainstream, or it’s a fandom so remote you clearly chose it to impress us, and we are on to you. Just call it Bob.

Q: Okay. I’d like to make a fanvid for Bob. What is the first step?

A: First, you need to get your hands on top-quality footage and editing software. As you can see, here at Defenestration’s Abridged Classics office, we lovingly film our own footage using a broken camera-phone from across a large room where the film is playing, to maximize the size of every pixel in the finished product. Then we open our state-of-the-art video software that came with our 200 dollar computers, and get to work!

The result is a mess of movement using pixels as big as your thumbnail that make it almost impossible to determine what’s going on, which is just the way we like it. An air of mystery should be cultivated at all times!

Q. How about still photos?

A. Love them. There’s nothing that people on the internet love more than clicking a video and seeing that it’s really a collection of still photos. It’s like a sign from the universe to slow down and admire the little things in life.

Q. Okay, so I have my footage. How do I choose the right music for my video?

A. Whatever Evanescence song you like best should work.

Q. Wait, just Evanescence?

A. I’m sorry, is there any other band? Take a look on The You Tubing, and you’ll quickly realize that nothing captures the nuance of something quite like Evanescence. Why would you let artistry like that go to waste and pick some other song? Is that really a risk you can afford?

Q. Well, I was thinking about this one song –

A. This better end in “That Evanescence did.”

Q. …it does. It’s this one song that Evanescence did.

A. Wonderful! Then it’s time to begin editing. Keep a close eye on the tone of your piece as you go. If you are using “Going Under,” one of the lead characters in your video should scream (girls) or punch something (boys) at least once. The more they scream or punch things, the better the video will look. This is what makes picking the right fandom so important.

Q. But you told me not to tell you the fandom.

A. That’s because you might be making a gentle, melancholy fanvid about your two favorite characters and their doomed love, in which case you should use one of their lesser-known songs, like “My Immortal.” If you choose to go this route, make sure your characters do a lot of quiet staring. Then slow it down, and slow THAT down, until it’s physically impossible to have them go slower and still discern movement. That should be about right.

Q. This is not very good advice.

A. You should not have asked people who make their vids by setting up National Geographic bunkers across the room from their prey, then, should you?

Q. Look, I genuinely want to make a good video, here. I’m just trying to get some advice on how to layer tints on my footage to achieve a uniform coloration and how to pull sound from the original audio track in case I want to have some VO dialogue or something.

A. I think you are underestimating what we here at Defenestration know about Videoing. Here is an excellent example of the sort of fanvid that, if you follow these simple steps you can one day hope to make:

Q. Wait — that’s “My Heart Will Go On”! That’s not even Evanescence!

A. Well, two things for you:

1) Celine Dion is like the Evanescence of easy listening, and don’t you ever forget it

2) When you’re a true artist, you can bend those rules all you want! You have to earn it with your art, that’s all – if you have what it takes, someday you can tackle something like this. Only not this one, because that shit is TAKEN, young padawan.

We hope you have found this as helpful as this advice once was for us. Now go forth, artists, and beautify the world!

Obviously, I am not here to tell you that that trend has changed. Especially since we’re talking about Thomas Hardy, and even if you appreciate literature, you’ve probably given the occasional side-eye to Mr. Hardy, because he really loves making ladies miserable.

Case in point: Tess of the d’Urbervilles, recently made into a miniseries by the BBC. It’s four hours long, about three of which are taken up by the quiet, desolate sounds of somebody sobbing. The worthless parson/farmer Angel Clare, the worthless rapist Alec d’Urberville, the drunken milkmaids, the destitute mothers and sanctimonious fathers – all have their blubbery moment in the sun. However, it’s obviously Tess who suffers most, both in magnitude and sheer percentage of screen time. (Oh, is she onscreen? Bet she’s crying.)

And since the sheer amount of eye-water dropped during this made a normal Abridged Classic extremely tricky (it would have been 90% sobbing and rising violins), I went ahead and did what I had to do.

Below, Abridged Classics: Tess of the d’Urbervilles, helpfully “spell-checked” by my program to include a capital D, and containing a minute percentage of the weeping in this miniseries.

ETA: Almost forgot! Dear Hans Matheson, this is like the two hundredth asshole in a row that you’ve played. Just saying.

————

Genevieve is a prolific writer of speculative fiction living in New York, but you’ll never find her there because millions of people live there and Genevieve likes her privacy. Examples of her fiction can be found in Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Federations, and numerous other magazines and anthologies. Her first novel is forthcoming in 2011. Also? She has terrible taste in movies.

However, for movie enthusiasts, this year’s awards season is looking a little thin on the ground (members of the Academy having already been ordered to give all Oscars to real movie The King’s Speech), and everything else inexplicably starring a series of unfunny, grooming-challenged men.

So, since 2010 is a bust, we’ve decided to look ahead to next year, and where we didn’t find the sort of movies we wanted, we just invented our own.

Below, our picks for the most successful and awards-worthy fake movies of 2011!

Photo credit: celeb photos and amazing octopus tentacle via GettyImages, borrowed with the hope that they’ll understand we’re too poor to sue unless they put a lien on the change Andrew finds in his couch cushions. All other photos are from schmancy photo shoots from Vogue, which is run by people who commute to work on their flying leopard-skin carpets, and we hope they don’t sue us because they’re too important to do their own typing and find us.

————

Genevieve is a prolific writer of speculative fiction living in New York, but you’ll never find her there because millions of people live there and Genevieve likes her privacy. Examples of her fiction can be found in Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Federations, and numerous other magazines and anthologies. Her first novel is forthcoming in 2011. Also? She has terrible taste in movies.

And man, there was plenty to show you. Especially because writing about this movie just doesn’t do it justice.

It’s one thing to write, “The Native American characters are useless.” But it really doesn’t capture the true flavor of a director who said, “You know who needed saving by a white guy? Those Native Americans who let themselves get killed because they were a bunch of helpless whiners!”

And thus, Pathfinder was born. Because if there was anything that would have stopped that genocide, it was one white dude who Just Wanted to Belong.

And yet, even this picture of a tribe full of childlike, passive Native Americans cowering before the mighty sword of the white man doesn’t give the full effect. (Fun fact: this is the only promotional photo that even shows a Native American, so basically it’s a movie in which the Native Americans are only important to give Karl Urban something to save.) The full effect is that of slackjawed, creeping horror.

Luckily, it looks like we can’t blame this on Karl Urban. He’s giving us serious Hostage Eyes in this picture. (Oh, Karl, you had better have lost a bet or something. Seriously.)

There is some comfort, I guess, in knowing that the movie is shitty on every possible level, and is not simply a well-executed movie with weird racial undertones. This is the kind of movie where a blond, blue-eyed twelve-year-old can grow up to be Karl Urban.

This is the kind of movie where every line is delivered with all the portentous, ponderous clunking of a steel-tipped fortune cookie. This is the kind of movie where someone cuts someone’s eye out and we get a five-second close-up on the bloody eyeball rolling around in the mud!

This is the kind of movie where the bravest, most skilled warriors in the tribe are entirely wiped out because they fail to recognize one of Karl Urban’s traps – a trap that they would have had to teach Karl Urban how to make in the first place. A trap that Karl Urban somehow made overnight, despite the fact that it’s about ten feet by ten feet and in a wooded area far away from his cave hideout, and also he really doesn’t look like the Viking kid he was when they picked him up when he was twelve and where did he get the eye makeup and OH GOD, MOVIE, WHAT THE HELL.

While it takes the full two hours to really understand how horrible this movie is, I tried to get it in under the seven-minute mark.

And I did!

And then FOX took it down because they claimed it infringed on their copyright.

Now, this is not true, since I was very clear that I was using the clips for purposes of commentary under the policy of Fair Use. Therefore, I suspect that they are just super-embarrassed to have made this movie, which is understandable, because holy shit, you guys, you have no idea.

However, I didn’t want to leave you with nothing, so I storyboarded the movie for you instead. It’s not the same as seeing it play out in front of you, but you should get the general flavor of the film. Enjoy!

IN A WORLD…FULL OF NATIVE AMERICANS…

ONE VIKING…FEELS ALL ALONE…

JUDGED FOR HIS GENETIC PROWESS AT SWORD-WIELDING…

BUT WHEN THE VIKINGS COME…

ONE MAN…

…WILL CHOP THE SHIT OUT OF EVERY VIKING HE CAN GET HIS HANDS ON.

…THEN HE IS THE BOSS OF THE NATIVE AMERICANS, BECAUSE THAT IS HOW IT GOES WHENEVER A WHITE PERSON MAKES A MOVIE.

THE END

————

Genevieve is a prolific writer of speculative fiction living in New York, but you’ll never find her there because millions of people live there and Genevieve likes her privacy. Examples of her fiction can be found in Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Federations, and numerous other magazines and anthologies. Her first novel is forthcoming in 2011. Also? She has terrible taste in movies.

That’s what I thought before I saw Lorna Doone.

Lorna Doone, a bizarrely slapdash version of R.D. Blackmore’s novel, has a cast that seems to have been a scientific experiment to track the effect of a terrible period piece on the career trajectory of a random sample of actors.

The cast of Lorna Doone includes:

- Aiden Gillen, the star of Queer as Folk and a number of indie movies

- Jesse Spencer, a star of House

- James McAvoy, who blew up like the Fourth of July and is currently trying to stick his comely fingers in whatever franchises he can get his hands on

- Michael Kitchen, who’s been in every project the BBC has touched in the last hundred years

- Amelia Warner, who was in Aeon Flux and then sort of fell off the radar, possibly because she has no facial expressions

- Richard Coyle, who came in from the BBC’s Coupling, and then vanished until Prince of Persia, in which he briefly ruled the Persian empire.

BBC scientists mapped the results like so:

After viewing this experiment myself, I organized the following Abridged Classic so as to provide a warning to others who might try to find some logic in this movie. You won’t find it. All you’ll find is a pile of actors who should know better, and an inexplicable number of wide shots of people harvesting. (I have no answers; science never will.)

————

Genevieve is a prolific writer of speculative fiction living in New York, but you’ll never find her there because millions of people live there and Genevieve likes her privacy. Examples of her fiction can be found in Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Federations, and numerous other magazines and anthologies. Her first novel is forthcoming in 2011. Also? She has terrible taste in movies.

Remember that time Vikings almost wiped out all the Native Americans, except that other Viking was there to save them, even though he had been adopted by them and then outcast for no reason? Oh, Ye Olde Times!

It made no sense then, it makes no sense now.

————

Genevieve is a prolific writer of speculative fiction living in New York, but you’ll never find her there because millions of people live there and Genevieve likes her privacy. Examples of her fiction can be found in Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Federations, and numerous other magazines and anthologies. Her first novel is forthcoming in 2011. Also? She has terrible taste in movies.

The basement was set up according to Mr. and Mrs. Vandemoor’s latest design epiphany (from page seven of the Sears catalog), and everything was beige except the maroon throw rug “accent piece” that sat under a polyurethane finished table. Susan pulled her blonde hair back into a ponytail as she took her seat on the rug, and wished for the tenth time that month that Mrs. Vandemoor had just left the old, squishy wall-to-wall carpeting alone.

Steve had already set up the game, and the two red dice shone like warnings. Neil sighed, set down the two-liter of Pepsi the bard was required to bring, and took a seat on the couch, adjusting his there’s 10 kinds of people in the world; those who understand binary and those who don’t shirt to cover his stomach. His narrowed his eyes. ”If Steve jumps out of that closet one more time, I swear…”

“If he jumps out of that closet,” said Targ, arranging his pirate coat around him, “Targ will swiftly exact an equivalent retaliation!”

“We’re not playing yet, Targ, you can relax,” said Susan, and then louder, “Steve! Don’t even pretend you’re not here.”

The laundry room door, equipped with a faded Hobbit movie poster (the only testament to Steve in the place) opened and Steve sauntered out, gripping an Anduril replica that had finally arrived in the mail. “Behold, fair questers, and also Susan! This day brings us together against the most deadly of foes, in the world of wonder that is REALM!”

Susan adjusted her glasses. “Yeah, brings us all together except Mark.”

“Paladin Susan expresses doubt,” Steve said, “and is punished ten health points. Cowardice is deadly!”

Neil sat back heavily on the couch and ran a hand wearily through his blond hair. “Steve, seriously – ”

“RealmLord.”

“RealmLord, seriously, we’re missing a ranger. He’s at the wedding, remember?”

Steve stepped back as if shocked. The big leather cuffs on his wrists banged together as he folded his hands around the hilt of the sword. “A ranger shirking his duty deserves to suffer! He contracts a disfiguring illness!”

Susan rolled her eyes. “Steve, come on, that’s – ”

“Paladin Susan contracts a disfiguring and FATAL illness! She perishes.”

Susan grit her teeth. “If you expect a dead paladin to pay for any pizza, you have something else coming.”

“I’ve got you covered,” said Neil, “I have enough money and one Resurrection Song left.” Susan smiled and gave him an air high-five.

Targ waved a silencing hand at them and rested his hands on the table. “Targ is impatient for the beginning of the quest! What is our goal, RealmLord?”

Steve adjusted his glasses, pushed up the cuffs of his black button-down, and perched at the head of the table, his legs folded under him like a bird. Targ,” he explained, rocking back and forth on the edge of the chair, “we set out today from the Slate Road Inn and head for the southlands, where we must navigate the Marshes of La’Prinsha and retrieve the Sword of Ashgaroth from the vicious dragon Mansbane.”

Susan raised a hand. “A dragon’s in the marsh?”

“Paladin Susan falls down the stairs of the inn and must continue with a broken ankle!”

Susan sighed. “Okay, look, I can just call Chris and get out of your hair.”

Neil brightened at the mention of Susan’s boyfriend. “Ooh, is Chris coming by later? Is he going to come down?”

“Maybe,” Susan said, “after his lacrosse practice we’re supposed to – ”

“So is he coming?” Targ asked sitting forward. “I mean, he can have some pizza with us.”

“Targ!” Steve snapped.

“Uh, I mean, Targ is ready to begin the quest! He dons his armor of impenetrable dragon scales!”

“Then we begin,” murmured Steve, and picked up the dice. “All awake the morning of the quest, except for the lazy, drunken ranger Dane, who cannot rouse.”

As he rolled, Neil leaned forward and whispered to Susan, “What the hell is Mark going to do?”

*

The seating arrangement was boy-girl-boy-girl, and Mark couldn’t help thinking back to every elementary school teacher he ever had and their attempts to force gender tolerance upon their students.

His brother’s fiancée-turned-wife-as-of-thirty-minutes-ago had made every decision regarding both wedding and reception on her own – presumably after spending the bulk of the wedding budget on her dress. The reception was being held outside, with decorations Mark would have realized meant something important to the couple if he had given two damns about those sorts of things. He tried not to stare at the enormous tiger carved from butter at the buffet table and let his eyes stray elsewhere.

The bridesmaid to his right was cute but distant – her name was Karen or Helen or some other name that ended with “en,” because that was the only part of the place card he could see. To his left was Lana, the bride’s cousin. She was attractive enough for Mark to look past the hideous orange explosion of a bridesmaid’s dress (had he heard the bride say the color was “Hawaiian sunset?”) and see her for what she really was: hot as hell. She was sexy in her discomfort, and she wore her eyeliner dark enough to piss off the new Mrs. Jenson and most of the older relatives.

He liked her immediately.

He gave her the kind of smile he imagined rockstars gave groupies, and tried to think of something witty to say.

Then the muffled theme music to Jurassic Park trumpeted from his pocket. The caller ID said “NEILS CELL” and there was a picture of Neil wearing a pair of boxer shorts on his head shooting the camera an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Mark’s smile faltered and his witty comment became an apologetic, “Uh, excuse me.”

“You’re drunk,” said Neil.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Mark whispered. “They’re just passing out the champagne now.”

“No… you are drunk. Your other you.” Mark could hear Steve muttering something in the background. Neil groaned in response, and then went on, a bit stiffly, “Rouse yourself, Dane Woodcombe, ranger of Ironroot Barrens. It seems you’ve had too much to drink, and there’s questing to be done.”

“Damn it! I thought you guys were going to wait until tonight!”

“Steve said-” more muttering “-the RealmLord said that it was urgent our quest began now.”

“Of course he said that.”

He could hear Steve again in the background, followed by what could only be Susan’s firm reply and the very clear, very curt command of “Subtract another five health points! And your other ankle breaks.”

“Great. Now we’ll need to go to the blacksmith and get a walker forged for Susan.” Neil’s tone because conspiratorial. “Come on, ranger. We need you to wake up or you’ll be stuck at Slate Road while we’re dragonslaying. There’ll be the Sword of Ashgaroth as the prize.”

Targ screamed “WOOOO!” in the background.

“I could use a bigger blade,” Mark said, and regretting it immediately when he felt the Karen/Helen bridesmaid scoot her seat a few inches away from him. Lana stayed put, and Mark prayed that she wasn’t paying attention to his conversation. He whispered, “Keep Dane on autopilot, okay? Call me for the important rolls.”

“Sure, sure. Only please tell me you have dice with you.”

“I was planning on coming over tonight, so yeah, I have dice,” he said, feeling like an idiot. “This is a constitution check, right? I need, what, a 12 to shake off drunkenness?”

“That would be correct.”

Mark reached into his pocket and pulled out the pair of black 20-sided dice. He tried rolling one as innocuously as possible. “I got a fifteen.”

“Thank the gods. Okay, now the RealmLord wants you to take a picture of the roll. As a sign of good faith.”

“Son of a-fine.” He did it quickly, wincing at the flash. He snatched the die up immediately and felt himself blushing when he caught the smirk on Lana’s face.

There was a pause from Neil’s end. “Alright, cool. We’re going to begin the quest, then. Hey, are there any hot girls there?”

“Yes.”

“Really? Are you going to bring home a phone number?”

“That depends. How many times do you guys plan on calling me?”

*

Nice hair, nice eyes. He’s cute, Lana thought when she first met Dan’s brother Mark. But he had started tapping his feet a lot and was staring at his cell phone like it was a bomb. Perhaps an emotional disorder. Less cute. But before she could lambaste herself for sounding like the latest I’m Just A Girl! Magazine, her blue contact had popped out of her eye.

“Gorgonspiel!” she yelped-this is what she got for rubbing at her fake eyelashes through the whole ceremony.

“What did you just call me?” Mark asked.

“Sorry, sorry,” Lana said, bending down to peer into the grass. “I lost my contact,” she squinted up at him, “What, did I say something offensive?”

Mark crouched done next to her. “You basically said ‘screw you and your dwarf loving mother.’” He sat back up and handed her the glittering disc of her contact. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” she said. The contact was ruined and she was a little depressed she’d have to walk around with regular brown eyes instead of “Lightening Blue Phenomena.” 

She opened her clutch and placed both contacts in their container. Mark was still looking at her, and a bunch of other people were looking, and Lana held back the urge to stick out her tongue out at them.

“My brother,” she explained. “He plays this game called Realm. The cuss words are pretty cool.”

Mark sat straight up like someone had smacked him on the back with a racket. “How old is your brother?”

“Twelve.”

“Oh.” 

There was an awkward silence and Lana found herself staring at the butter tiger. It was beginning to melt. 

“Uh, I like your dress.”

“Vomit orange.” 

“What?” 

“The color. It’s like-vomit orange don’t you think? Karen says it represents ‘the exact moment in time Dan proposed-when Hawaiian orange bled from the sky.’ But I think it looks like puke.”

Mark chuckled.

Lana rubbed at a heavily lined eye. “I mean, it makes as much sense as that damn tiger.”

“My brother was a Lit. major.”

“Well I’m sorry but your brother is an idiot. A William Blake poem turned into a pile of lard that looks like Tony the Tiger? Is there any justice?”

Mark said nothing. He sort of agreed, especially after Dan had told him he had always been under the impression that the tiger just symbolized a really hot chick: “It says fearful symmetry, dude! That means she’s got curves that can kill.” 

Lana was still talking about the butter tiger, and some other things Mark wasn’t really paying attention to, because wow she seriously was pretty cute, even without the blue eyes. 

“So,” Lana sighed, her fork digging into a plate of sesame steamed chicken with limp green beans. “Tell me more about this Realm game.”

Mark’s phone answered with a sharp ring.

*

“Neil, hang up the phone – the game waits for no one.”

“Oh, so, you mean like the time you went to the 7-11 and wouldn’t let us progress in the game until you got back forty-five minutes later?”

Steven frowned. “What are you implying, Bard?  The marsh is treacherous, and it would be all too easy to fall into the disfiguring Slime of Thagarh Dannin – the RealmLord should not be distracted.”

Neil sighed and glanced down at the phone. “Nothing.”

Susan sighed and grabbed the phone. “Oh, for – hey, Mark, it’s me.” She stood up and walked over to the laundry room, “Okay, I can talk.”

Steve held a hand over the board and shouted, “Paladin Susan’s walker snaps, and she falls headfirst into the STD!”

Targ gasped quietly for his fallen comrade.

Susan ignored them. “Okay, you have to roll for safety through the Slime Pits, and maybe you could get me out of the slime, while you’re at it. Do you have your Second-Life Talisman still, or….uh, is that Can You Feel the Love Tonight?”

“My brother’s lost his mind.” Mark’s voice was strained. “And dude, STD? Did Steve give you that? I mean. Um.”

Susan didn’t understand why he sounded so embarrassed. “Of course.”

Mark’s voice was muffled for a moment, like he was covering the phone. “No, no, I don’t call it Steve – oh God.” He came back on the line. “You know, Steve just – I mean, I’m in the middle of a wedding, and he KNOWS that!”

Susan looked over at Steve, who held out the dice in his hand and glared at her.

“Don’t get me started,” she said. “I’m only talking to you because I’m dead already. Neil’s teetering. Targ’s totally fine, of course.”

“Targ abides by the proclamations of the RealmLord,” Targ said primly.

Mark sighed through grit teeth, and muttered, “We should have taken care of this before the Naked Peaks.”

“Easy for you to say,” said Susan. “You weren’t the one who got impaled by a lava stalagmite. Or impaled by an ice shard,” she added, with a nod to Neil. Neil didn’t glance up, but he had the grace to look a little ashamed, and when he rolled he said, “I use my magical lasso to summon Paladin Susan out of the STD.”

Susan smiled, then turned back to the phone. “Mark?”

“Yeah.” He sounded distracted.

“You’re up next, I’m out of the swamp, but Steve’s going to make you do something – we’re getting close to Mansbane and you’ll need to act. You have Targ’s extra weapons, everything in our magic sack, and your spear.”

“I’ll spear it,” Mark said, and then, “No, wait -”

The call disconnected.

*

Mark cursed and started stabbing Neil’s number into the phone.

“Is Susan going to be okay? I mean, not to eavesdrop, but -”

He looked ready to fall through the floor, but after a second he said, “It’s not what you think.”

After the dice, she believed him, and hey, at least he wasn’t trying to look down her dress, which was more than she could say for the best man. “You want to dance or something?”

“Excuse me?” Mark seemed to forget what he was doing.

“Dance. People do that at weddings right after the bride and groom make asses of themselves.” Lana nodded toward the dance floor, which looked ridiculous in the middle of the lawn. “I’m bored, you’re tense, and I think I hear a David Bowie song coming on. It’ll do you some good. Plus, if I hear you yell something about goblins or chainmail or saving throws versus poison again I’m seriously going to reconsider even talking to you.”

The phone slid into his pocket. His dice were abandoned beside an empty champagne glass. Lana’s hand took his. Screw Mansbane, Scourge of the Marshes. That stupid dragon could impale himself. And crush Steve in his death throes. Assuming that were possible.

Mark lost track of time. He and Lana danced until caterers wheeled steaming silver trays across the grass. The buffet had begun, and wedding guests stood in line to eviscerate the butter tiger and scrape its creamy entrails across their dinner rolls. Mark stuffed himself on salmon in dill sauce, multi-colored string beans, garlic mashed potatoes, and other foods that were supposedly symbolic of his brother and his sister-in-law’s undying love for one another.

It was easy to forget, among the beans, the butter, and the Bowie, that somewhere in some twisted man’s fantasy world his friends were about to fight against the most ferocious imaginary dragon that ever lived in a swamp for some reason. Or were they? Had they even made it that far? Neil and the others hadn’t called back, and Mark assumed that whatever they were doing, it wasn’t important enough to include him.

“Your friends done playing?” Lana said as they walked back to the dance floor. “It’s been a while since they called.”

“Steve’s probably killed our characters off.” He tried not to sound sullen, but there was something depressing about a lunatic like Steve having that much control over you. Or rather, an imaginary you. It was the same general principle and pissed him off just the same. “He likes doing that.” 

“So why play with him?”

“It’s hard to explain. We… gamers, I mean… we like to game, you know? We want the best experience out of it. Steve used to come up with these incredibly detailed scenarios, puzzles, monsters… he made Realm worth playing. Then he got this god-complex and started finding ways to make life impossible for our characters. Now we game with him out of habit, I guess.” He got thoughtful for a moment. “And because no one else wants to be the RealmLord.”

The phone buzzed from his pocket. There was Neil, the Mad Hatter of boxer shorts, giving him the thumbs up. “Neil? What’s going on, man?”

“Hello, Ranger of Ironroot Barrens.”

“Steve?”

“It would be wise of you to call me the RealmLord, ranger.”

“Shut the hell up. What’s going on? Why haven’t any of you called?”

“I have confiscated Neil’s sorcerous listening device and have claimed it as my own.”

“Dammit, Steve, give Neil his phone back. And don’t call me if it doesn’t have anything to do with the game. Or have you killed all of us off already?”

“I think you’ll find the rest of your party is alive and well. But, if they wish to defeat mighty Mansbane, then they’ll do it without technomancy.” Steve practically spat the words, and Mark grimaced. “They’ll never defeat the dragon without your help, ranger. You’ve doomed them all.”

Mark could hear something going on in the background. It wasn’t like Steve’s basement at all. He couldn’t here the clack of dice against old pizza boxes. He couldn’t hear Susan, or Neil, or Targ. He couldn’t hear Steve’s mom asking anyone if they wanted more Mountain Dew.

What he did hear in the background was something different altogether.

Bowie.

“Steve…? Where are you…?”

* 

Lana watched as Mark hung up the phone. He had turned albino-clown white, and Lana found herself a little confused. Sure, she had accepted Mark’s gamer status as placidly as she had accepted the other groomsmen drunkenly calling her “Layla” at the reception dinner the night before (okay maybe she hated it, especially when they all started singing that Eric Clapton song with unbridled joy), but now she was having trouble deciding if Mark was just a cute, dorky guy, or fucking insane.

Mark was now staring at his phone as if it were a bomb that had gone off and killed hundreds of people-or runesmen-dunesmen? “What a stupid game,” she muttered.

He was still staring, lost to the world.

“Are you okay?” Lana finally asked. Mark had gone from shifting back and forth to jingling his car keys.

“What? Why do you ask?” Mark stood on his tiptoes and peered over the swathes of black tuxedos and taffeta.

“Because you look like you just kidnapped Karen, decapitated her and stuffed her under the buffet table and now you’re waiting to get to your getaway car.”

Mark stopped jingling his keys and fixed Lana with an incredulous look. 

Lana shrugged. “I don’t like her.” 

“Isn’t she your cousin’s best friend?”

Lana pointed at her dress, which in the deepening sunlight looked like an orangutan’s ass. “Can you see my cousin has no good taste?” 

Mark laughed, but just as quickly he started to twitch. His phone was ringing. 

“Are you going to get that?”

“No.”

The ringing stopped, and then immiedelty started up again.

“It’s really annoying.”

“I said no, okay?!” Mark shoved both hands in his rented tux pockets. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m just-”

“Totally insane?” Lana was ready to ditch this dude and head to the open bar. She opened her compact, and noticed that while her eye makeup still looked great, there was something strange behind her. 

Lana turned slowly around. There was some guy at the buffet table, poking the melting tiger with gloved fingertips. He was wearing huge sunglasses and a long black coat as shiny as a trash bag.

“Who the hell is that?” Lana asked to no one in particular.

Mark turned, and his expression was one of true horror. 

“Steve.”

*

As a RealmLord, Steve was suitably angered that one of his players had abandoned a quest for a mundane party, but the garlic potatoes did smell pretty good, and as he heard his name and turned he had all the satisfaction any RealmLord would have in realizing that his prodigal ranger was the traitor he’d always suspected.

He flicked his coat behind him and crossed the dance floor.

“Ranger,” he spat, hoping the name stung as it should. “I must say, your fellow questers have been foolish but persistent in protecting your interests – what a shame I’ll have to tell them you’ve been wooing some mundane.” 

“Dude,” Mark said quietly, “you are a crazy person, and we should go inside if you want to talk to me, because you’re scaring my grandma.” 

Of course, Steve thought, catching sight of the bridesmaid. As if he wouldn’t notice the mundane woman. It was bad enough with Susan, but now Mark?

“Are you sure you can stand to leave your lady friend?” he asked sharply. 

“Who are you calling a lady,” the girl started, but Mark stepped in (ever the gentleman) and said, “So what’s going on?” 

“All questers have been taken captive by the evil one, save one rogue ranger who was not helping revive foolish Squire Susan because he was too busy stuffing his face with chicken cutlets!” 

“Steve, I’m serious.”

“Well, so am I!” Several people looked up from a Marvin Gaye song, and Steve took a breath and tried to get his voice under control. “This isn’t a GAME, you know.”

“Um, different opinion,” said the girl.

Steve ignored her (it was easy to ignore mundanes, he’d been doing it to Susan’s boyfriend Chris since the first moment he’d met him) and held out the black dice. 

“Now, you find a place that suits, you, ranger, and you’d better make the best quest of your life, because if you can’t rescue everyone, this is the last quest those poor souls will ever see.” 

He had the satisfaction of seeing Mark turn pale. He’d known the ranger was hidden in there somewhere. 

“Where are the others? Neil, Susan, Targ?” 

The girl made a face. “Targ? Seriously?”

“Lana, look, I’m really sorry, just one second.” Mark turned to face him again, his expression stony. “Steve, seriously, if you’ve locked them in the basement I’m calling the police.” 

“The mundane is bringing them in the station wagon,” Steve muttered. “They’ll be here just in time, I think, to witness their own demise.” 

The girl raised an eyebrow. “Do you need a moustache to twist or anything?” 

Steve sneered. “Spoken like someone who’s never had lives hang in the balance.”

The girl propped a hand on her orange hip and gave him the stinkeye. “And that’s spoken by someone who shouldn’t be wearing dark colors in direct sunlight lest his brain boil over.” 

Steve sucked in a breath. Upstart, foolish girl! 

“Ranger,” he said, trying to tone down his normal volume so that he wouldn’t scare the old people at the buffet, “having recovered from your terrible blow to the head -” 

“You let someone hit me in the head?” 

” – you wake to find that your companions are captive, their muffled cries from deep within the dragon’s cave growing ever fainter and more hopeless. You are armed only with your sack and your spear, having lost the rest in the swamp, and you are charged with the rescue of your fellow questers, and a fair maiden long ago sacrificed to the demon but of such beauty that the dragon could not devour her, and instead made her his constant prisoner.” 

“WHAT?” The girl stepped forward, but glanced at Mark and stopped short. 

Mark frowned, but didn’t object, and Steve bit back a smile at his victory. Mark might like mundanes to a point, but if a mundane was good, the game was always better.

“Even though you can’t see her, even though you can’t see a thing past the dark mouth of the cave draped in vines, her voice is music to you. She calls you.”

” – calls you a deludenoid, maybe.”

“Lana, hang on one second,” Mark said, “I’m so sorry, Lana, really – RealmLord, can I use the vines?”

“You may,” Steve said, “but only to rescue your friends, not to fight the dragon.”

He held out the dice again.

“Take them and roll, if you dare.”

*

Mark snatched the dice from Steve’s greasy outstretched hand. “We’re doing this. But not out here.” He jerked his thumb toward the quaint Victorian-style bed and breakfast that was hosting the reception. “We’re going in there.”

Steve looked at it disdainfully.

“It’s either in there,” Mark said levelly, “or the tool shed. And I guarantee the last place you want me to be right now is within reach of a pair of pruning shears.”

The three of them-yes, Mark was also surprised that Lana had decided to follow along-walked into the Victorian. Sitting on a claw-footed couch between some skirted tables were Susan, Neil, and Targ, who happily smiled and waved. Targ cradled Steve’s Anduril replica in his arms as if it were a newborn baby. 

“We’re eating tea cakes!” Targ said happily.

“What are you doing here?” Steve hissed. “I thought I told you to stay in the car!”

“We were going to, but then your mom wouldn’t stop talking, so Susan came up with a polite excuse to leave and we came up here to hang out.” Neil crammed a cake into his mouth. “She’s in the parking lot with the windows down, listening to Peter Frampton.”

The dice clacked in Mark’s fist. “Listen up. Mansbane is about to go down.”

“I think you will find it is mathematically impossible for a ranger to defeat a dragon on his own,” Steve said with smug satisfaction.

“Then the cosmos are about to collapse in on themselves. Lana, I suggest you plug your ears. What I’m about to say may confuse and terrify you.”

She smiled. “It’s almost cute the way you think you can tell me what to do.” 

Mark took a deep breath. “The dragon’s lair is in the swamp cave, the inside of which is covered in vines, correct?”

“Yes.” 

“Then I can blend in,” Mark said, shaking the dice more vigorously. “I’ll test off my fieldcraft value of 15 to become camouflaged…” 

The dice tumbled onto the nearest table. Steve grinned. “…Resulting in an 11. Mansbane sees your pathetic attempt to hide and-”

“Shut up and let me finish. I’m wrapped in a cloak gifted to me by the queen of the sylvan fae, granting me a +4 to my camouflage rolls. I blend in. You bastard. And now I’m going to release the cow.” 

“What cow?!” 

“The cow Targ insisted we take from our last quest. Don’t tell me you forgot already? Remember? You spent twenty minutes on Wikipedia trying to get the exact dimensions of the cow because you swore it wouldn’t fit into the opening of my magic Sack of Holding Everything. But the internet failed you and the cow went in, along with a week’s supply of food. It’s been in magic sack limbo all this time, munching happily away on hay. So, I release the cow.”

“This is ridiculous. You can’t do that!” 

“I can. I just did. Mansbane can’t see me because I’m camouflaged, but he can see the cow. And he’s going to eat it.” 

“Not if I roll-”

“-An 18 on a single d20. He can’t fight his animal urges and you know it.” 

The RealmLord rolled. Six. His faced purpled with rage, and Mark could see that, even in his fury, he was trying to find a way to use the dice roll in his favor. But there was nothing he could do with a six. He tried to regain his composure and resumed the narrative that he, as RealmLord, was expected to continue, but his heart wasn’t in it, and all he said was, “Mansbane clutches the cow in his talons.”

“Good. Now I throw my spear. At the cow.”

“Why in the hell are you doing that?!” Steve cried. “These choices you’re making are completely against the spirit of the game and out of synch with the storyline!” 

“I throw the spear at the cow,” Mark said again. He rolled an 18, grinned as broadly as possible, and continued. “I hit the cow. I’m not even going to bother rolling damage because that’s not the point. As you know, venerable RealmLord, my spear is poisoned with bilewood viper venom, the third most deadly poison on page 53. There’s no way I’d succeed a penetration roll against dragonscale, but I can poison a cow just fine. Mansbane’s going to eat poisoned meat, and he’ll die.” 

“He’ll die,” Steve consented with a grunt. “In fifteen hours.”

“Yeah? So? He can’t see me. I’ll sit here and wait for it to happen.”

Susan laughed with a mouthful of tea cake and spit crumbs all over Steve’s shiny black coat.

*

Lana felt the tinge of a horrible headache coming on. Maybe it was from the drunken wedding band’s off-key cover of Mustang Sally or the fact that Cuteandalittlenerdyokayoffhisrocker Mark had just managed to use a bovine as a way to win a game her brother would play when he wasn’t picking his nose over the latest and lamest Frank Miller creation. 

Still-this was so much better than sitting through a boring bridal shower, or her cousin’s awful foray into the city for her bachelorette party (Lana was the only girl who had staunchly refused to wear anything phallic on her head). 

Lana reached down and picked up a tea cake. She shrugged off this moment of comfortable delusion, and promised to tell all her friends it was the result of being totally and utterly smashed.

*

“So,” Neil ventured after a moment, “are we really going to wait the fifteen hours? I mean, Chris is in the car and he might get tired. He needs his sleep.”

Susan frowned. “Thanks for being so concerned about my boyfriend,” she said, and when she looked over at Mark he shrugged. Nothing he could say to her; she would never understand that Chris was the normal boyfriend to them all.

Steve snatched his Anduril from Targ’s grasp. “We will not wait the fifteen hours. Mansbane will be able to metabolize the poison using his healing factor, and ranger Dane has failed.”

“Wait, what?” Susan sat up. “He doesn’t have healing factor.”

“Sure he does,” said Steve, getting very interested in the sword suddenly.

“When you listed his qualities,” Neil added, “you never mentioned a healing factor.”

Steve huffed. “I’m sure I did, and you just weren’t listening because you were too busy calling your stupid friend.”

Mark looked at the one guy he knew who had eidetic memory. “Targ?”

Targ blushed, twisted his hands in his lap, and said, “The RealmLord is mistaken.”

Steve stood up. “Targ, don’t you dare -”

“‘The dragon Mansbane is a fearsome foe’,” Targ recited, “‘and you will all have to beware his impenetrable scales, his fiery breath, his iron claws, his wings that span the night sky! Smoke pours from his nostrils, and he swims like a fish in the sea! His coloring is one with the marshes, and lo, his temper is short!’ End quote.”

“Wow,” Lana said. “His temper is short. Way to be fearsome, Steve.”

“What do you know,” Steve started, but at the look on Mark’s face he closed his mouth over the rest of his comment. “And you, Targ! You suffer from clawpiercing and perish!”

“He’s in the captive cave,” Susan pointed out. “He’s nowhere near the dragon. He can’t be pierced.”

Steve looked around wide-eyed, with the expression of a captain whose crew is on the verge of mutiny.

Neil raised his hand. “I vote that fifteen hours have passed, and that Mark has defeated the dragon.”

Susan and Mark raised their hands at the same time. After a moment, Targ sighed and halfheartedly held up a hand.

Lana raised a hand, too, and when Steve looked over she raised her eyebrows. “I have a hand, dude. I can vote.”

Neil jumped on the unanimous vote. “I, the bard, begin at once to compose a song honoring Ranger Dane and his defeat of the dragon Mansbane, his rescue of his friends, and his attainment of the Sword of Ashgaroth.”

There was a long moment where everyone looked at Steve.

“Fine,” Steve muttered finally, shoving the sword at Mark, “but you wait and see. I’ll win this back on the very next quest.”

“Dude,” said Mark’s brother from the doorway, “we’re about to do toasts, and…uh, what are your friends doing here?”

A light went on behind Mark’s eyes, and he stood up with a smile.

“Dropping off my wedding present for you guys,” he said, and held out the sword on two open hands. “This is to remind you that you have to fight to keep love alive.”

Mark’s brother pressed a hand to his heart. “Wow, dude. That is so…deep. Thank you.”

Susan nudged Neil and Targ, and they stood up, mumbled congratulations, and slipped out the door.

The groom disappeared, sword in hand, and after a moment Lana followed, with an expression that could mean anything from Stockholm syndrome to acid reflux. Mark figured that would take the rest of the night to figure out.

“Thanks for the quest,” he said brightly to Steve, who stood like a cartoon villain in the toile-printed parlor of the bed and breakfast, and without another thought he turned and headed out the open door.

There was a girl to rescue and a butter tiger to vandalize. The celebration of his victory had just begun.

————

Our bio is as follows: “If you don’t know who we are by now, shame on both you and our slipping fame!”

Then, Julian Sands was in Boxing Helena, and after that I couldn’t look at him any more, and that’s all I have to say about that movie that isn’t said in all caps as I flail like I’m covered in beetles.

I still haven’t gotten over that movie, to the point that when I saw him in a YouTube clip today I clicked away instantly, thinking it was from Warlock or something, but then I realized that it was a romantic songvid (don’t ask) and so Warlock it was not.

You know what it was?

It was his role as THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.

How did I live this long without knowing about this movie? Well, I am taking care of that THIS WEEKEND.

I’m excited! It has some markers for genius filmaking: namely, changing the storyline (now the Phantom is raised by rats, you guys. Not deformed, just, you know, raised by rats), and Julian Sands’ wig, which is so bad that every time this music video cuts to him, I laugh out loud. I’ve seen this video four times. No joke, I laugh out loud. Every. Time. How many comedies can boast a 100% rate of return on a joke?

If you need further evidence that this movie about a bewigged rat-child stalking an opera singer who wears transparent dresses and runs around alone at night is worth seeing, check out the review, in three parts below.

————

Genevieve is a prolific writer of speculative fiction living in New York, but you’ll never find her there because millions of people live there and Genevieve likes her privacy. Examples of her fiction can be found in Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Federations, and numerous other magazines and anthologies. Her first novel is forthcoming in 2011. Also? She has terrible taste in movies.