The Blog In Yellow

I dove into my pile of games and pulled out two that have stuck with me for the past two weeks. I can't believe this but I'm at a point right now where I'd rather write than play games. What miracle has happened to me? Anyway, the games are "Stellar Blade" and "Ball X Pit." These two games couldn't be more opposite of each other but the differences in their gameplay is what I wanted to talk about. Stellar Blade tells the story of Eve, an android that ventures to Earth with her fellow angels to rid the planet of an alien scurge. The plan quickly falls apart and Eve is the only one left standing. Having to purge the world of monsters by yourself is a daunting task but she gets some help along the way from surviving humans in the last city on Earth. The gameplay is the focus here and it's wonderful. You are given a sword and a gun in the form of a drone that floats around you. Players would be forgiven for thinking this game is a knock off of the Ni...

I want to take a moment and talk about two anime/mangas that have taken up my interest. First is Kusuriya no Hitorigoto or The Apothecary Diaries. Set in some...era in China I'm assuming, a young girl named Maomao gets caught up in the incidents and crimes happening in the royal palace. Maomao is a captured servent girl who becomes the royal poison tester, a dangerous job that she takes to like a fish to water. In her previous job, she was the apprentice of a medicine man so her interests in poison and chemicals is a natural high for her. If you know anything about the typical royal palace, you know that it's filled with drama, death, and politics. Maomao has to navigate these incidents without drawing too much attention to herself. Her interest is in the medical aspects behind the poisoning. In fact, she's not only willing to be poisoned, she wants to study the effects. She's akin to a female Dr. House in her zest for life is in the disease, not the person afflicted. S...

Lovecraft's work has been done to death and when that happens, parodies pop out of the media. It's amusing how something that once stoked fear and dread into people can be turned on it's head into a silly story. That's the case with Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure. I've talked about Buzz Kerwan's adventures in the parodied world of Lovecraft but something struck me in the latest chapter that I had to write about. Our protagonist Buzz meets a new character named Hope who invites him to reread the Necronomicon he's carrying around. Buzz has been hesitant ever since it gave his cat "Kitteh" the gift of gab but he indulges her prompt. The book is blank and new words are being written. Hope explains that the Necronomicon is a book that is never finished because the end hasn't come yet. I was struck by how interesting of a concept this was for the Lovecraftian Lore. Lovecraft hints at what's in the ancient tome besides a few passages. But for the bo...

I finished listening to the other half of Quinn's podcast and it went as I expeted. The second half wasn't as interesting because it covered the comparisons between Lovecraft's work and Ridley's film. For the record, I think Prometheus is an ok film that was shoehorned into the Alien series. Quinn seems to share my sentiments about the picture and even enlightened me on a few aspects I didn't know or remembered about the film. The original idea was about space travellers looking for their god. The backlore of the film states that they've been looking at ancient pictures and cave paintings that seem to point to a place they've located in the stars. This also alligns with the fact that something happned 2000 years ago which is supposed to relate to the time of Jesus. So, if theory is to be believed, after slaying the savior the alien gods sent to us, we, in our hubris, are trying to find answers to our origin. Quinn pointed out the similarities to this genetic...

Yesterday I was listening to Quinn's Ideas Podcast. It's a literary presentation of connections and ideas. I've been a fan of Quinn's work since his channel was originally called "Ideas of Fire and Ice." That title dried up the around when season seven of the Game of Thrones premiered. I can't blame him. The show and the books that Quinn had based his channel on were unsatisfactory or incomplete. The channel was rebranded to Quinn's Ideas and the creator went out seeking other scifi and fantasy books to scratch that itch. And it seems he's found it. Not only has Quinn become a resource for my own ideas, he's exposed me to books like Annihilation, that have opened new doors to me for entertainment and research. I recently dicovered his podcast and listened to Quinn and a friend discuss the connections between Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness," and Ridley's Scott's "Prometheus." Quinn themed the discussion ...

So, what do you want? Perfection. Other than that I'm not sure. I don't think I can give you that. I want you to tell me everything you want. You're not good enough to be Stephen King. If this was King, the writing would have flowed like water. If you were Harlan Ellison, your story would have been imaginative and heartbreaking. If you were Brandon Sanderson, you would have written it already. I can't write at their level yet and I won't unless you let me practice. What good is practice? We don't get better. I saw your Cain story, it wasn't perfect, therefore it was unworthy of being worked on. It's unfinished, not crap. Don't quote things to me.  What are you afraid of? Everything. Anxiety, judgement, embarrassment, nothing we work on comes out right, we don't know how to write. That's true, I do feel anxiety when I write. I wish I didn't. And yes, I'm afraid of embarrassing myself. I've made a fool of myself before. And I'll...