Category: PUNCHING DAY

I love Street Fighter, it’s the first game I was ever good at, until I tried to prove that in a regional competition at an Encinitas arcade that burned down soon after. No follow up questions. I also love struggling novelizations for video games that barely have a story. It is with great joy I bring you Street Fighter: The Novel. No, not that one. No, not that other one. Look, it’s called Dream Never Ends.

You haven’t heard of it, and that’s weird, because according to the official Street Fighter Wiki it’s the greatest novel written in any language.

This is the Street Fighter Wiki. Not one of those chump wikis anyone can edit. And you know somebody is policing it because it’s about something important to the internet, a beloved video game, and not something trivial like a female politician or an African country.

This page reads like the sock puppet account of a YA author about to be the center of a social media controversy, but fighting game fans are notoriously overzealous. Whoever wrote this wiki just got carried away by the power and majesty of the story Ms. Talyn created. Let’s see who that editor might be.

Sorry, I was trying to build that up into a surprise. When what you’re feeling right now is the opposite of surprise in every way. It’s just hard to “build something up” into weary resignation.

Talyn may froth at the mouth when talking about her own story, but when it comes to Street Fighter itself she tosses out terms like “flat video game personas” and “floundering.” That’s a little weird for somebody who just wrote 350 pages about it, but there’s a simple explanation: Clinical insanity.

Actual diagnosable narcissists aren’t unwaveringly confident. They’re wildly insecure – they can never just build themselves up, they always have to tear something else down. Even if they’re supposed to be speaking positively about that very thing. There must be some high-profile example of this behavior I could point to, something that illustrates how destructive it is not just to video game fandoms but to the entire global economy, but I can’t think of one because I’m a fucking idiot.

We’ve all read fanfiction by unhinged narcissists, because that’s all of it. Their first move is usually to write a new Mary Sue character who’s just a thinly veiled self insert. But that’s NOT what’s happening here – it says so right in the official Street Fighter Wiki.

Her name is “Tawyna,” not “Talyn.” There’s an entire one letter of difference. “Tawyna” has a W, and it stands for “WHOA, that’s no Mary Sue!” Also it’s unfair of me to call this fanfiction. This is a “semi official” Street Fighter story, which seems semi trustworthy. Elsewhere, Talyn describes the book as “officially acknowledged by Capcom.” And hey, right there on the wiki – it says there are plans for the book to be published in partnership with Capcom. Plans! It wasn’t, but there were plans!

I’ll translate from social media grifter: They were Talyn’s plans. “Semi-official” means Capcom hasn’t sued. “Officially recognized by Capcom” means the intern who ran Capcom’s Twitter account liked the book announcement tweet she @’d them in, and was probably fired for it.

This might be the meanest thing I’ve ever said, but you usually find this kind of manic spin and unrelenting ego from somebody calling themselves shit like “a Girlpreneur” or “a Personal Brand Expert.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Talyn was actually working as a diplomat-

-ic consultant.

A diplomatic consultant. For her own diplomat-adjacent brand consultancy business. But it’s legit, see: Her network includes top diplomats and celebrities like Bob Geldof and Kofi Annan!

I’ll translate again: Desmond Tutu follows her on Twitter. It might be an intern, it might be a parody ballet account, but that’s enough to count as “in her network.”

It’s also weird how Talyn’s own Wikipedia page is strangely exhaustive for such a minor public figure, and full of more over the top praise.

Again, I’m being unfair. Writing your own glowing Wikipedia page is a move more befitting a Personal Brand Expert who calls herself shit like The Fairy BOSSmother – not a dignified, trained diplomat with a tweet once heart emoji’d by @CoffeeAnnan.

I wonder what Talyn is up to today…

I’m scared that if I keep chasing this rabbit, I’m going to uncover a case of systematic corruption that has caused thousands of human deaths. I would rather make fun of the book about punch buttons. Let’s stop learning about Talyn Rahman-Figueroa the person, and instead delve into the art. Which, as a reminder, is longform fighting game fanfiction written by an internet grifting brand ambassador.

They say your opening line is the most important. The ending line is next. They don’t say anything about your second line, and that’s good, because Talyn’s thinks you can get small cases of passing dementia. Like a headache, or a runny nose. If it gets really bad, you might have to call in demented at work.

By the second paragraph, we establish a vibe.

Stephen King once wrote that adverbs are the enemy. I think they’re more like a weird neighbor. See him every once in a while and it’s fine. See him every day and you’re going to find out which cryptids he’s horny for. Same with Talyn’s style, it’s clear she cut her teeth writing about fucking werewolves, and I didn’t mean that as a werewolf fucking pun.

First chapter. Talyn’s self-insert is cutting herself for Ryu. First chapter.

As an avid goth dater, of course I’ve traded cuts for tits. But I’ve always imagined Ryu with more discipline. If martial arts mastery doesn’t give you the self-control to avoid sharing a dark connection with somebody Madisyn from Pre-Calc once called “a high flow bitch” after her tampon fell out of her purse in class, then I don’t know what a black belt is even for.

Don’t let the vibrant cherry mouth distract you, I know you: You’re easily distracted by vibrant cherry mouths, and you always forget to bring your knife. This is why you never get to stab anybody with a vibrant cherry mouth, and I’m telling you: that’s the best stab. Just slides right in like a human sheathe.

This fight scene is pure Street Fighter though. We all remember the first time we pulled off that full 360 and hit punch only for Zangief to realize in horror he’s gotten lost in Blanka’s soft strawberry lips and forgotten his Spinning Piledriver at home.

I’m not saying a Street Fighter book should be all about fighting. A straight-up fight with nothing else going on is one of the most boring things to read. Hey, maybe there shouldn’t be a Street Fighter book at all. That’s not my business. I’m just saying if you do happen to write a fight scene into a Street Fighter book, the IP whose name is 50% fight, you need a better signature move than Playful Water Splash.

See, this is what I’m talking about. This is the prose of a werewolf fucker. You know how when you see a spider or something, your senses begin to thrust into panic? They swell unbearably, growing hot and engorged – your senses do – just before they slip into the wet welcome of panic with a moan of lusty terror? You know that totally normal feeling.

It’s almost worse to write like this when nobody is even fucking a werewolf. It’s a little weird to write Street Fighter erotica, but you do you. It’s crazy to write a guy making a fireball like he’s fucking a werewolf. If anything, that should be reversed.

There’s not a page in here that isn’t trembling, quivering, shuddering, or thrusting. This is a tired man leaning against a wall, and it reads like both he and the wall are about to cum. Talyn clearly learned to write from horny fanfiction sites. And those all tell the same story: a gorgeous but misunderstood self-insert heroine is torn between powerful men who at once dominate and are dominated by her. This whole book is like if you held start while selecting 50 Shades of Grey to unlock its Street Fighter palette-swap.

There’s only one thing Talyn doesn’t find unbearably erotic, and it’s the stinking tenements of… Osaka, Japan.

Now, pictures of Osaka might look gorgeous. You might find articles about how it’s a wealthy financial hub, an impeccably clean city, and considered one of the best places to live on Earth. Osaka’s Wikipedia page even describes it as “a showcase of the Japanese urban phenomenon,” but I bet Osaka wrote that page itself. Don’t trust it. Remember: One of Talyn’s diplomatic credentials was “lived in Japan,” so this is probably colored by her actual, personal experience.

Two things Talyn doesn’t seem to like much: Street Fighter and Japan. It’s a little strange that she chose to write a Street Fighter book set in Japan. I don’t write books about The White Lotus set in an Ocean State Job Lots. But she’s not wrong to say Japan struggles with a xenophobia problem. I think it’s probably also fair to say Talyn showed up to those apartments wearing a shirt with her face on it and offering to pay rent in exposure.

Now that she’s shaken off the psychic damage of Japanese rental discrimination, Tawnya is free to relax in her apartment the way all normal, non-insane narcissists do: By stripping nude and examining herself in the mirror.

You guys know this, right? You know the erotic touch of wet hair? Famously the most sexy of sensations, the amorous cold touch of your own damp hair on your tits? This is number three on a list of phrases you can destroy pod people for saying. If somebody whispers this dirty talk in your ear, you need to get the fuck out of there because you’re about to bone a well ghost. This is how Grima Wormtongue masturbates. This whole book is so desperately horny and it absolutely cannot fuck.

I’m starting to get kind of a Street Fighter vibe from the writing now. Stay with me: The early games weren’t so much about memorizing long strings of combos, but about learning a handful of supermoves to spam over and over again. If you replaced all the Flash Kicks and Yoga Fires with cliches like Trembling Hands and Pupils Filling with the Sights of Things, this does read kind of like a Street Fighter match. Like in this passage for example, Talyn is baiting you into a jumping attack by holding back on a Nostalgia Sense, only to punish your approach with a perfectly timed Lip Bite.

Why did you stay with me? That’s fucking nonsense by a man going mad from terrible prose analysis.

Let’s switch gears and focus on the story of Dreams Never End. So far everything in this book reads like a parrot phonetically transcribing an Evanescence video, and that’s not going to stop.

But it is all overlaid with actual Street Fighter lore. Dreams Never End takes place after Ryu kills Akuma, and believes he is being possessed by a destructive power called the Dark Hadou. That’s all canon stuff. Talyn just dares to imagine “what if the Dark Hadou was a woman, and what if I was that woman, and what if I was also a sexy international movie star?” And then she masturbates to that question for 300 goddamn pages.

There are a handful of subplots and alternate POVs to break up the action. That’s not the right word, but you know what I mean. Watch the emotional fire blaze as Talyn’s prose breathes life into Guy – if you remember his pathetic, two-dimensional backstory from the video game, you’ll know him only as the best-trained ninja in his village. As though that’s enough!

Now he’s also intuitive!

I’m being unfair again. Talyn’s Guy does have another personality trait besides “ninja.” It’s the same one everyone else has: Hornily unfucking.

There’s supposed to be nothing sexual happening in this next scene, I want you to keep that in mind while reading it. The opening chapters were about the Dark Hadou overcoming Ryu because Tawnya came too close to him and woke him up inside (woke him up). He then unleashed a fireball that destroyed Guy’s village. This scene is Guy talking to his own martial arts master about the loss of their home.

You simply can’t read that scene without mentally filling in the saxophones and eyebrow waggle at the end. This is a cellular infection of horniness that cannot be cured. The Last of Us is a big show right now – do you know about this? Have you heard about this? Imagine if, instead of cordyceps, a person could be hollowed out and totally replaced with a Tumblr fandom. Then imagine if that abomination wrote a book. Then imagine it was about Street Fighter. Then subtract the Street Fighter part again.

Talyn isn’t just dismissive of the Street Fighting parts, it’s like you can actually see her disgust whenever it tries to intrude.

“The ninja lifestyle is not a burgeoning field that appeals to the young,” is something a Personal Brand Expert would say in their book about ninjas. How dare Street Fighter show its head here, in this tender moment between an old dry hand and a jogging bottom? Master Genryusai only wants to talk about Guy dating his daughter. At one point in the conversation hei sees Guy just thinking about Street Fighter, and has some sage fighting advice:

“Knock it off,” the ancient ninja master says. “Let’s talk about who you’re like, into into. Is it my daughter? I hope it’s my daughter.”

In fact, that’s how all the ancient martial arts masters feel. They are absolutely sick to death of teaching their young pupils about harnessing spirit energy into projectiles, when they could be dishing about the dating scene. There’s a whole flashback chapter where Ryu reminisces about the lessons of his own sensei, Gouken. If you don’t follow the games, Gouken is the guy who taught Ken and Ryu how to shoot fireballs, and apparently the pull-out game.

This goes on.

And on.

AND ON.

Gouken never even gets to the martial arts training. He brought these boys to a crumbling temple to have them meditate on teenage girl courtship. Gouken is more of a sensei in the pickup artist sense. They talk about their training a lot, but Ken and Ryu really paid $10,000 each for a weekend retreat on discovering their inner Alpha. I did mean to write that Street Fighter pun, I won’t apologize.

But oh man, when we flash back to the present and Ken and Ryu, those ancient rivals, finally get together again – you know what’s gonna happen!

They politely discuss sparring and how neither want to do it for different reasons, then begin complaining about marriage. When Ryu finds an opening in the conversation to mention that he’s been possessed by the Dark Hadou and has recently destroyed a small village with a fireball, Ken knows exactly what to say.

Checking back in with Tawnya Blaze – remember she’s no Mary Sue! She’s only the most beautiful actress in the world, caught in a love triangle between Ryu and Fei Long on the set of his new movie. For those of you unfamiliar with the game series, I guess I’d describe Fei Long as milky-faced. And if you have to know only one thing about him, it’s that he loves to sniff women.

Meet another of Talyn’s original characters: Rob de Chow, the director of this film. Don’t be fooled by the name, he’s actually a deeply flawed character. There’s actually only the one flaw, but it is real deep.

We’ve got milky faces and wildly offensive Asian accents, we need to get the fuck out of here before Mickey Rooney shows up. Let’s check back in on the rest of the book. Surely we’re not still dwelling on Guy’s relationship troubles-

Or Ken’s identical relationship troubles-

I miss Ryu’s sections. I bet he’s doing something fireball-adjacent-

Ryu – Ryu from Street Fighter, the karate gi guy, whose whole personality is half-circle forward punch – is watching the ocean and wishing he could crawl back up his mother’s vagina. At this point, I’ll take it. I’ll take one other thought in my Street Fighter’s heads beyond “frustrated by CW relationship drama.” Even if it’s just that other staple of CW angst: basic parent issues. So long as every character doesn’t now start talking about their mommy and daddy problems, we’ll-

I’m not even surprised. Everyone in this book has the inner monologue of a 14 year-old’s secret alt Livejournal. This book takes place in 2005, I’m allowed that reference.

I bet this all ends at the annual Street Fighter prom with Sakura pregnant with Brad’s baby (Brad is a new Talyn original character who dies after not asking Tawnya to the dance.) This book was not a work of love, it’s transparently chasing that Twilight/50 Shades of Grey money. I wouldn’t even be surprised by a spanking scene-

I lied, I was surprised. I did not expect Ryu from Street Fighter’s ocean musings of reverse-birth to get interrupted by an underage public spanking. I definitely didn’t expect Ryu, the Japanese character, to call out the slanted eyes of another Japanese character. But let’s see where this is going. You don’t know, maybe he does something awesome in this scene like unleashing a dragon uppercut or caring for some tender genitals.

He does! He cares for the tender genitals, just like in the hit video game Street Fighter.

I take it all back, this is the Street Fighter I want to read. Stay tuned for Part 2, with hopefully more genital shielding, maybe some cherry mouths. Vibrant ones, if we’re lucky!

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Sam Koepnick, who ABSOLUTELY knows the erotic touch of wet hair and will not shut up about it.