The Blog In Yellow

I've dived back into the dark world of the Outlast series. I recently bought Outlast 2 and Outlast Trials. The two games were missing from my Steam list. I must be careful, I've spent forty dollars on games. I need to save money, not spend it. Let me say that I won't be spending any more this month on games or fast food. That should boost my bank account.  Going back to the Outlast games is a little hard because the games are so gory. In one instance, if you get caught by this giant of a man, he'll rip your head off. The game is set in a first person angle meaning that you'll see your body on the floor as your head dies from decapitation. Both the first and second games have lots of other disturbing moments including implied necrophilia, cannibalism, and insane religious devotion. The first game has the player infultrate an insane assylum thanks to a whistleblower email sent anonymously. Armed with only your camera's night vision as a form of light, you descend ...

I found this site  Facts in the Case of Alan Moore's Providence | Annotations of H.P. Lovecraft Comics  where the author goes through all the references that Alan Moore has used in his Providence comic series. I've been reading to read the comics to get some inspiration for my story. Alan Moore stands as one of the best comic writers as well as one of my favorite comic authors. He's most famous for his "V for Vendetta" and the "Watchmen" series which has critical acclaim even if the movies weren't the best medium for transforming his work. I looked up how he writes and he's a practitioner of the Oulipo method which constrains his creativity to allow new ideas to come out. One example of the Oulipo method is the book "A Void" by Georges Perec which is a three hundred page novel without the letter "e." I wonder if there is a book on how to use Oulipo methods that can help me. 

I read somewhere that Franz Kafka, the genius behind "The Metamorphosis" and other stories burned ninety five percent of all his work because he thought he was a failure. I can't blame him, I have the same kind of thinking. No one really reads this stuff which is good because it lets me get out the bad words in my head. But you wonder what could have been if he had saved those works. I first heard about Kafka from Calvin and Hobbes of all things. Calvin insists that his mother gives his stuffed tiger a kiss good night, at Hobbes own insistance. Hobbes claims that if you don't get a kiss you get "Kafka-esque dreams." I asked my folks what that meant and I think it took them a while to realize the author was referencing Franz Kafka. Hm, I had another thought about what I wanted to write but I forgot it. Oh, well. Yesterday was fine while at work. I think we'll lose another resident soon. It's strange because the ones that always seem to die (I'm no...

I've been thinking about this for about five minutes so, of course, I have to write it down. I was thinking about Stephen King's sequesl to "The Shinning," which is called "Dr. Sleep." It's not a bad book but there's one thing in particular that rubs me the wrong way and that's how the Shining is used. In the original novel, the Shining is a form of empathy. It allows young Danny Torrence to be influenced by the ghosts in the hotel. But it's not a power, if anything it's a weakness. The hotel wants Danny for some malevolent purpose that is never truly explained. Danny, a child, is at the mercy of the whims of the hotel and his parents are unable to do anything about it, or in Jack's case, becomes complicit. Skip to the sequel and the Shining is just another word for "telepath." A girl with the Shining pops up in adult Danny's life who not only has more power than him but can use it like hands or forces that can push peop...

I've been meaning to do a bigger review after I read the comics and analyzed them but an overview review about "Something is Killing the Children" popped up and I wanted to write my thoughts about it. It's a work by James Tynion IV, who I remember because his name sounds like "Tyrion" from Game of Thrones. The comic stars Erica Slaughter who hunts down monsters that only children can see. Monsters like the ones in woods or that hide in closets. She is a troubled young woman who looks like she's emerging from her teen years or someone who had those years taken from her. The draw of the comic is the mystery, you don't know why parents can't see these monsters, you don't know who is behind Erica helping her to kill these monsters. You even question Erica as she talks to a stuffed octopus doll that she carries around. The fact is, the comic is smart enough to leave those kind of questions to your imagination, mostly. It's an interesting techi...