Category: 2017

Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Essays

What Should I Read?

I’ve received this question a few times when I talk to people about my website. What should I read? Where should I start? I’m going to answer those questions somewhat now. What should you read? Read what you want. You might suspect that my answer would be “Read everything. It’s all fantastic. Even if it doesn’t interest you, read it”, but that answer isn’t very helpful.

Imagine that my website is a restaurant where I prepare equal amounts of every dish and ask people to take what they like. At the end of the night, I can look and go “Lots of people ate the roast beef, but not many people ate frog legs”. I can order more roast beef and fewer frog legs. Frog legs will still exist, they’ll just be a niche item with fewer orders. In the same vein, I can see how many people have navigated to the page for any particular piece. I can’t see how long they stayed or how much they read. I can just tell that they visited the page.

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Fantasy, Short Stories

Fracture Part Two – Finn and Nessa

Finn prepared the crates of cargo on Cedric’s orders. A ship was coming in soon that would take the cargo. Finn had a plan to be on that ship. Their previous ride had dumped them unceremoniously in this backwater outpost. Finn looked over to Nessa who hoisted the large boxes of cargo onto the top of their piles with grace and relative ease, never once letting her face be revealed under her overly large hood. He, meanwhile, was rather clumsy but made a concentrated effort to make sure the cargo was packed neatly. Cedric came around to see their progress and inform them that his contact was approaching. With this, Finn collected his cargo and began moving it towards the dock. Nessa followed suit.

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Literary, Short Stories

Stage Kiss

An outdoor stage, mirrored on the inside by an indoor stage. One bathed in light, the other in shadow. From where he stood on this dark, outer stage, he could hear the revelries of the party inside. They occupied the space where an audience had been mere hours ago. Meanwhile, this private stage of his, had only crickets for an audience. Their incessant chirping suggested that summer was on its way. It wasn’t quite there yet though. Upon reflection, one could name this season he inhabited the Spring of Not-Quite-There.

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Fantasy, Short Stories

Fracture Part One – Captain Varda

Captain Varda sharpened her axe deftly with a whetstone. She sat in the wooden cabin, perched behind her desk. Along the walls and strewn across the tables were charts of every region in the known world. Charts stacked on top of charts, the most relevant sitting on top of the others. Captain Varda placed the large double-sided axe in a sheath on her back. She stood and the large axe was almost as tall as her. She was admittedly a dwarf, and dwarves were not known for their stature. She moved her braided, red hair over her shoulders so that it didn’t get knotted on the axe. She looked to the gilded instruments that were built into her desk. The spinning disks that spun to indicate the speed of the vessel were beginning to slow and Varda knew that they were approaching port.

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Essays, Gaming

Thoughts on Breath of the Wild and the Switch

It’s good.

Ok, some context first. Breath of the Wild is the latest in the Legend of Zelda series that’s been consistently running since 1986. Breath of the Wild was released about a month ago for the Wii U and the Switch. As you might have guessed from my article My First Game, I’m fairly new to Nintendo (and practically a spring chicken in some circles of gaming). This is my first Zelda (I did play about ten minutes of Wind Waker HD on my Wii U but I couldn’t get into it). I have been borrowing my brother’s Switch to play the game when I can. So I thought I’d offer my thoughts as a recent Nintendo convert (as late as the Wii U and 3DS).

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Essays

The Word ‘Cuck’

So, you might have heard this word being tossed around in internet discourse of late. If not, well … welcome to Internet Discourse 2017. If you’re not familiar, cuck is an insult chucked around by right-wing nuts and trolls, generally targeted at progressive leftie types, specifically males. Now, it being the case that words is totally my thing what I’m good at, I thought I’d take a look at the why of the word Cuck, and why it’s used as an insult.

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Essays, Gaming

Representations of Australia in Gaming

So, recently I’ve been playing a few games that centre around Australia as a setting and inspiration. So I figured I’d take a look at how Australia is represented in games, through the lens of the current games I’ve been playing. I’ve never been a particularly proud Australian, mostly in part because nationalism is … messy. Australia as a game setting though? Hell yeah, sign me up.

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The first game I want to look at is also the oldest on the list: TY the Tasmanian Tiger. A PS2/Xbox era game that was recently re-released on Steam sometime last year. TY the Tasmanian Tiger centres around the evil plans of Boss Cass, an evil cassowary (appropriate since Cassowaries are bloody scary) and the thwarting of those plans by TY, the last Tasmanian Tiger after the rest of his species was abducted into the Dreamtime.

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Sci-Fi, Short Stories

The Big, Orange Meanie

We are living in the end of history. Or at least we were. Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist, posited that the end of the Cold War marked an end in the battle of ideologies in which liberal democracy was the winner. With that said, does the rise of the alt-right mean history is starting up again?

 

“November 8th, 2016”

“No”

The two sat at the booth in the diner and discussed their plans. Mark had an agenda.

“Why not?” Mark asked.

“Trauma’s too fresh for you. You need some perspective” Eli responded.

“Come on, he lost the popular vote. It’s only fair,” Mark argued

“What are you going to do? Up-end the electoral college? Gore in 2000?” Eli debated.

“Why not?” Mark asked glibly.

This particular diner that Eli and Mark sat was a diner outside of time itself. A thoroughfare for time travellers. Eli and Mark had stopped to discuss their plans over dinner. Mark was new to the whole time travel gig. Eli was an old hat. Mark was born in the mid-1990s. Eli was born in the mid-2050s. They didn’t always see eye to eye.

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Literary, Short Stories

The Gorge

I see it in the distance as we approach. The chasm, it seems impossibly huge. Impassable. The car stops and I approach the edge of the gorge. I look over the edge. At the bottom of the gorge, there is a valley of verdant scrub. The valley is enticing, it is calling me to jump. The stark reality of the orange-brown rocks stops me. Looking up, I am reminded of the length of the gorge. The others, who brought me to the edge of the gorge approach. They move their hands slowly and grab me. Their hand lean me dangerously over the gorge. They speak, sometimes in unison, sometimes discordantly against each other.

“You must jump the gorge. Everyone here has jumped the gorge, so must you.” (more…)

Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Literary, Short Stories

Object

The room was a sea of black marble. Black marble floors, black marble walls, black marble ceiling. Paintings adorned the sleek walls, hanging by some invisible thread. The room was immaculately and delicately designed. So delicate that the designer must have known that no child would ever enter this room. In the centre of the room was a statue. A statue of a woman, made of white marble. It stood upon a small tower of black marble. The woman was hunched over and naked.

Her hands clutched her face as her mouth seemed to let out a silent shriek. The finesse of the marble showed her fingers digging into her face, as if the woman was in such agony that she might claw her face asunder. Her hunched body made her breasts hang and come to a point, almost pointing towards the floor. The slim figure had rolls of skin that if she was standing straight up would disappear. The woman’s pubic hair was neatly trimmed. Her legs stood shoulder width apart, the folds of her sculpted vagina sitting between her thighs. Her legs were firmly planted upon the black marble. Upon the black marble sat a small gold plaque with the title of the piece ‘Object’.

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