A Hole in the Mouth

 (En Esperanto*; vortoj fremdaj estas kursivaj) ((*Noto: cxi tiu estas mia unua fojo skribanta en Esperanto. Pardonu se mia skribo estas malbona.)) Antaux nelonge, mi spektis animeon japanan nomatan "Simuun" (jp. シムーン). Simuun, kreita en 2006 de Studio Deen , estas tre stranga teleserio, sed mi gxin tute amas. Mi volis skribi pri gxi, sed cxar gxi estas ioma polemika, mi skribas en Esperanton anstataux en la anglan. La sujxeto de Simuun temas pri milito inter Teokratio de Simulakrum kaj duaj landoj: la Arkipelago de Argentum kaj la Lando de Plumbus. La popolo de Simulakrum batalas per flugmasxinoj magiaj nomata Simuun. Simuun flugas per metodoj obskuraj; ili havas duan motorojn helikformajn kiuj misterie pelas ilin tra la atmosfero kun malmulta rezisto. Cxi teknologio estas la motivo de la milito; la Arkipelago, kui aliancigxis kun Plumbus, estas lando tre polucia, kaj ili bezonas rimedon puran de generi energion. Tamen, la rakonto pri milito ne estas la aspekto plej interesa...

  Day 4 ‘Tis the dawn of the fourth day. I am Sraosha צ , last of the envoys of the Great One sent to this Earth. Diary mine –           A night of sleep, but sleep peppered with dreams. I dreamt in the eyes of a thief, first, one of the clay people that inhabited this Earth in the Last Days; I dreamt as he broke into the houses of the opulent and stole their food, and ran away desperately from their private armies. I dreamt as every heist became less successful; I dreamt as every time the thief became more mangled. In the end, he was nothing more than a collection of holes and seeping wounds; and the food was left to rot upon those streets.            I descended once again into the storage-room in search of Words in its library. In candlelight, I pored through the ancient texts – one, two whole, with nothing found; and then a third. An ancient composition in a half-forgotten langu...

Day 3 ‘Tis the dawn of the third day. I am Sraosha צ , last of the envoys of the Great One sent to this Earth. Diary mine –           Another sleepless night. When the thought of rest comes to mind, my body reacts – pain, first, then the spasms, then the palpitations. Sometimes I can drift closer to stillness, but these spells are temporary; as soon as my consciousness fades, the dreams begin, and I quickly jolt awake. Dreams – perhaps calling them so is inappropriate. Visions, more like; echoes of the blood spilled on this land. My eyes return four-hundred years to the birthplace of this city (the temple is, of course, in the periphery of a city); they see the slave-ships docking at the port and unloading hundreds of dark-skinned men and women onto cobble streets, gawked at and spit on and dragged by chain and rope to their fields. They see the once-lush forests of the place, marshlands and beaches, the people and the statues and the mus...

 Day 2 ‘Tis the dawn of the second day. I am Sraosha צ , last of the envoys of the Great One sent to this Earth. Diary mine –           I was not granted the pleasantry of sleep after struggling with my dreams. I have grown conscious of the forces of Terror beyond these old, bloated walls; the rotten petrol smell of that man on the black horse invades my nostrils, carried by the old, dead wind. He is quite far, I suppose; perhaps the smell is conjured by my mind, and not truly his. I would not know.           When I desisted returning to sleep, I decided it was time to roam – to explore this temple more, now that it was made my living-place. The main building is small and austere; a pulpit afront stained glass in rainbow-colored concentric circles, and a few rows of old wooden benches. Mine is the foremost, to the right. Upon that one I sleep. There is a trapdoor near the pulpit; beneath...

Day 1 ‘Tis the dawn of the first day. I am Sraosha צ , last of the envoys of the Great One sent to this Earth. ‘Though the world lieth in ruin, the Almighty hath graced me with a temple replete with ancient Scripture, or so do I believe; no message hath to me been spoken, in any event, but Its Providence is felt everywhere. This shall be the last haven in this world against the Terror, and the birthplace of the land’s long-term Resurrection. Sraosha; that is the name I had been given when created. The Master’s Children raised me from that pallid lake in the Upper Kingdom, where all our kind are born; I yet remember the mirthful singing of the Saints as I arose, wings yet tender and frail. I remember – I remember the Bearer of the Sun lowering its wings above my head, the three claws gently falling on my hair, and the word that would be made my name spewed from its youthful throat. Sraosha; I am told it had once meant “conscience” in one of the languages spoken by Bet-Chavvah. I am ...

I have spent a good deal of time wondering uselessly about how to approach writing for this blog. Not in the trivial "how does one sit down and type words?" sense (although such things are indeed both difficult and unintuitive to ADHD-bearers such as myself), but in the stylistic, artistic sense. One thing that the internet oft obscures, due to its now over-a-decade-long traditional subculture of repackaging other people's art under the guise of a "review" that amounts to nothing more than a summary and some jokes at the expense of minorities and artists, is that reviewing can feel as aimless as it feels purposeless, both on the reviewer's end and (more importantly) on the audience's end. Reviews are rarely art in themselves , which is to say, their content is rarely expressive, and only adds anything to the experience of the original art being commented on once every geological aeon. As an artist, I am mildly repulsed by this, and generaly feel constrai...

 This is a poem-cycle I composed concerning a story concept I have been working on for a while. In my mind, each (minus the first) should precede a major arc in the overarching narrative, but also foreshadow some of the central themes, motifs, and ideas of the coming text. The central characters are an automatist boy, his loyal friend, and the vampire mistress he yearns to serve. NTB1 A solemn moon above the skyline Gentle rainfall in my ears — I am hope, I see the ever-distant dreamlands I course through the City Blood, that effervescent ichor The amber roses in my veins I hear it calling, I feel the urge Fangs descend into my prey I raise a flag of intervention Within the night a roaring cry I am war, rebellion of the ancients I shall break the chains that bind Ancient leeches rise against me Threatening to end it all I call them, those familiars We shall bring justice, We shall bring victory, We shall answer the City’s call NTB2 - Midnight Prank I seek but do not find Always tre...

(Originally posted on Goodreads around September 15, 2023) De Profundis is a wonderful book. Half epistolary novel, half experimental roleplaying "game", it is a beautiful piece of metafiction and psychodrama that seeks to bring innovation, psychological depth, empathy, and -- real -- paranoia to gaming circles. As an appreciator of postmodern literature writ large, I am a great enjoyer of Michał Oracz's choice to deliberately blur the line between his fiction and instructions; and as a fan of method acting and certified mental illness haver™, I absolutely adore his feverish, bizarre, and almost certainly maddening advice on how to conjure, through sheer willpower and immersion into collective emergent fiction, the weird and horrible into the corners of your IRL perception as a tool to enrich that fiction. I think this "game" is a powerful tool even (and perhaps especially) for those who: a) hate the rote, descriptive, instructive style of traditional TRPG books...

( Reposted from Goodreads. Originally posted on Feb. 29, 2024. This is a spoiler-free review. ) This book might be the definition of "middle of the road." Bakemonogatari ("monstory," as it were) Pt. 1 is an anthology containing the two short stories "Hitagi Crab" (about a weightless, acerbic girl) and "Mayoi Snail" (about a little girl trying to visit her divorced mother). The series this novel is a part of is lauded by many anime, manga, and light novel fans the world over for its literary aspirations, experimental style, and emotional resonance, as well as its mysterious and mythologically-rich setting. However, my impression of Bakemonogatari Pt. 1 is that it fumbles many of its attempts at literary quality and resonance, oftentimes due to the ways in which it attempts to be experimental. Eschewing traditional formats, Nishio Ishin writes the anthology more in the style of an audiovisual or theatrical script, comprised primarily of long exchan...

(Reposted from Goodreads. Originally posted on Feb. 29, 2024.) This is, in a word, a "gross" book. It is gross in every sense of the word: it's overlong, bloated, and preachy; it is guilty of extreme generalizations, of hyperbolic claims, and of grave delusions; and it is repulsive, exuding offense from every line. The one star I give to this book are given because it is technically competent in organization and citation, and because it is at least internally coherent; its content, in itself, is worthy of no such praise. One might forget that Savitri Devi is a furiously fanatical Nazi if she weren't so obsessed with demonstrating her whole-hearted, body-and-soul religious devotion to Adolf Hitler and his National Socialism at least once in every paragraph of this book. Indeed, much of her language is a somewhat less obscurantist pastiche of classical New Age esoterica and Hindu jargon, and it is evident to the reader that she has real conviction in and knowledge of bo...

How can I describe the experience of finding Envy's The Fallen Crimson ?  It is currently night-time in Lawrence, Kansas. I have spent something like 17-and-a-half hours awake, divided between going to class, reviewing statistics for an exam on Thursday, and getting shit done for grad school applications. My energy is at a low; the tiredness is melding with the natural decline in Adderall density in my bloodstream, and the math-induced headache is making thinking difficult. There's a guy behind me, in my scholarship hall's study room, that has been playing ARK: Survival Evolved  (by himself, but very loudly) for some two hours, now. This confounding variable does not facilitate my work. I have taken breaks, but they were limited. One time, earlier today, I worked on some ideas for my short story anthology project; the other time, I got three BUCK-TICK albums queued up on Apple Music to try to find some favorite tracks to add to a "BUCK-TICK Bangers" playlist. Late...

Rain and storm, dark night. Herculean winds crashed against the shabby windows of an apartment in a seedy complex, whose painted walls were damp and chipped. Each time thunder struck, the whole place shook under the vibrations; it was a terrible home, abandoned-like and decrepit. Every other week, some new critter would show up — a rat, a roach, ants, or flies, didn’t matter. Vermin, in a word.  And her. She was a small girl, and poor. Her parents had passed in an accident soon after she got into college, and the money had been slim since then. Getting her degree — a BS in computer engineering — was a tough ride: although her performance was good enough to earn her a couple scholarships, she still was only barely able to sustain herself in one of the world’s most expensive megalopoleis. Still, that time came and went; now, she was a software engineer for a “unique” gaming company, so to say. Pay wasn’t good, and working conditions were tough. Her most common dinner was ten-dollar p...

  (Reposted from Goodreads. Originally posted on Aug. 19, 2023.) A Red & Pleasant Land is a strange, beautiful piece of art. Its illustrations are raw and evocative, utilizing rough linework and vivid colors to really impress upon the reader the symbolism of the characters and world they represent; the language, though simple, never fails to bring about a solid mental image that is infinitely fascinating and a true wellspring of ideas from which to create interesting tabletop - or even literary - material. The reason I refrain from giving this book five stars is more of a practical one than a technical one; it is not a good gaming supplement, full stop. Yes, the ideas herein are great inspiration for writing and worldbuilding, but as a supplement designed to be a toolkit for running adventures and campaigns in, it is messy and faulty. It comes with a few good random tables, and some seeds of ideas to integrate into a world, but otherwise lacks... everything. Variety, directio...