▸ Column · Modern Marvel New York (Queens, present day)
GREEN GOBLIN replies.
Replied to by Green Goblin, with a rebuttal from Hobgoblin.
The letter
My boyfriend Oliver has been doing the same "Get to da choppa!" impression — the Arnold one — at basically every social gathering for three years running. I have the dates in my head. It killed at a Super Bowl party in 2023, genuinely funny, everyone was losing it. But now I can feel it coming before he even opens his mouth. My sister Amelia actually timed him at Thanksgiving — called it within four minutes of dessert hitting the table, won a five-dollar bet. People still do that polite little laugh, which Oliver apparently reads as a standing ovation. I love this man and I want to marry him, but I genuinely don't know how to tell him the choppa left the building sometime in 2024 without making him feel like I just told him Santa isn't real.
— Dreading the Accent in Queens
Green Goblin replies
HEH HEH HEE HEE! Three years of the same impression and you're worried about his heart? Oh, that is precious.
Here's the real rot, my frightened little creature: those polite little laughs. Every single one is a fresh tank of gas. The bit doesn't live in Oliver — it lives in the audience propping up the corpse! You want it dead? Starve the applause. Go cold. Not a smirk, not a charitable exhale — ZERO. Let him drop the accent into the room and feel it hit carpet.
But why stop there? I prefer a proper public execution. Next gathering, someone prompts the bit. He delivers it. And you, with perfect, wide-eyed wonder: "You know what's incredible? He's been doing that exact line since Super Bowl 2023. Amelia actually set a timer on Thanksgiving. Four minutes."
Not cruelty. Just... light.
Sunlight is the best bomb. The choppa doesn't need a private funeral — it needs an audience for its final flight. Make the bit famous for being dead.
And that thing about not breaking his heart? HEE! You'll be doing the choppa a MERCY killing.
— Green Goblin
Hobgoblin weighs in
With respect, Norman — you just handed her the bomb and told her to throw it at a dinner party. That is your disease, not strategy.
The bit is a depreciating asset. Its valuation has been declining for eighteen months without any intervention from her at all. She doesn't need to execute it publicly; she needs to stop subsidizing the market. No polite laugh, no charitable smirk — demand collapses, inventory sits, the impression quietly becomes insolvent on its own.
And while she's at it: she is considering a substantial long-term investment in this man. The disciplined move is one private conversation that protects the asset — not a theatrical scene where she gets blamed for the cremation. Audit the portfolio quietly. Don't Norman Osborn the whole operation for the satisfaction of a punchline.
Madness is bad for business. So is advice that puts the principal in the blast radius.
— Hobgoblin
▸ Read next