"Everything the Same, III"

The world breathes the same. The waters still the same. Nothing has changed a bit; your life continues the same. History repeats, everything the same.
And every mind thinks, the same:

What of that enigma that was no Camper? What of the beast with the wheels that disappeared down this tunnel? Will I ever see it again? Will it ever allow itself to be seen again?
Will I ever learn its secrets?

Come a year, everything the same.
Come a hundred years, everything the same.
Come a thousand, everything the same.
Come the end of the universe, everything the same. Now to play it all over again. Now to try once more for the passion play. Now to try once more to learn, to escape.
Once more, with feeling.

THIRTY SECONDS: The Silence Before the Battle

I'm going to school on Monday. After that, I will have school every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

So.. basically, this blog may very well turn into a more traditional OOG blog. I might start talking about blah blah blah people I know and schoolwork. But I think I'll try my best to keep a firm grounding in the Fear Mythos, as I view that to be my profession. I intend on trying to see if I can lure a few people I meet in college to enter our mythos, too. >w>

..god, can you imagine if I got a video camera and was able to make a full-on Fearvlog?

ALSO I'm gonna get to play Black Mesa today. This mod has been in development for eight years, and I've actually been waiting for it this entire time. I was introduced to it shortly after it was announced; I got into the Half-Life series when I was about nine or ten. And.. well, eight years of development hell later, Black Mesa has finally come out! For reference, it's a complete re-imagining of the original Half-Life into the source engine and closer to the standards of present-day Valve titles. It's made entirely by fans, and as it's a mod, it's absolutely free!

But the only catch is that, although it's finally being released, Black Mesa isn't exactly finished. The last four chapters of the game aren't included; the mod ends after "Lambda Core." Now, this is actually fairly understandable, considering the last four chapters of the game are somehow reviled by most fans (*shrugs* They happen to be some of my favourite chapters in video game history, to each his own) and are just.. god. Without trying to spoil anything, they provide such a contrast to the rest of the game and they try for things that not many video games dare trying. And are beautiful. owe But the developers are, indeed, hard at work on them! The rest of the game will be released and updated to the mod sometime in 2013.

THE POINT IS THAT 5/6 of the game are still there to play, and the thing about Half-Life is that those 5/6 of the game are still among the greatest chapters to any video game ever. And after eight years of waiting, I'm stoked to get to play this.

I'd do an LP but I'll be playing on my brother's computer. :C

So yes! This has been, quite possibly, one of the most.. significant weekends in my entire life. OH AND NANQUEST

CLICK ON THIS FUCKING LINK

THIS IS NANQUEST

THIS HAS BEEN AND CONTINUES TO BE A MASSIVE INFLUENCE ON ME

NanQuest is a /tg/ adventure about Nan, an adorable goat repairwoman who has a job to do in a hotel. I.. won't say much more. It's the spiritual successor to RubyQuest, which was about Ruby, an adorable bunny who wakes up in a strange metal lab. Both stories have adorable art and utterly terrifying content. Though NanQuest is still ongoing, in my opinion it seems so much better for so many freaking reasons. I still love RubyQuest, though! Fantastic freaking story. A classic horror tale, expertly presented and wonderfully enacted. It's just that NanQuest has a much richer focus on storytelling and somehow managed to capture every terrifying thing in the world in one frightening hotel. I love spooky hotels. Hotels, forests, highways, and modern cities are my all-time favourite horror locations. >W<

..but yes. The reason I bring this up is because I recently checked up on it and it turns out the sixth thread has been released. Plus the fifth thread got a second half that I never read. So I caught up and just oh my god this story is so brilliant.

SO YES BEST WEEKEND EVER

Educational Video: "How to Design a Blog"

For all you aspiring Fearbloggers out there, let me tell you a thing or two about how to make your blog look fantastic. :D

The Comedy of Bones

This is Entry 39 of Marble Hornets (Part 2). This will come in handy.

One thing Eric "Bones" Taylor and I like to do is watch films while giving our commentary of them MST3K-style (we also like to watch episodes of MST3K while giving our commentary on the commentary). Marble Hornets is something we adore giving commentary on. I mean, we both love the entries, but there's still something really fun about slender man humour. Hell, we're among the few people on the internet who truly find "Gimme Twenty Dollars" funny, but hopefully this blog post should give you a good idea of what kind of comedy we like to bring to a situation.

So when Marble Hornets Part 2 ended, Bones and I gathered in his basement and watched it on glorious HD. We spent a lot of this actually not making that many jokes, as Part 2 is pretty damn tense and admirably well-done. But Bones surprised the fuck out of me when we got to Entry 39. To attempt to even remotely convey the art of Bones' quick one-line commentary, I will simply give you timestamps.

1:18 "Masky's driving that car."

1:29 "Slendy's driving that one; they're having a car chase."

2:06 "Look, Masky won!"

List of my Fearblog Reviews

Earlier reviews
CuteWithoutThe: The Hunter
alliterator: Snowball in Hell
proxiehunter: To Light a Candle

Modern reviews:
Allanbag: Memoirs for Breakfast
TheSomnambulist: The World Through These Eyeholes part 1, part 2
The Visitor: Terrific
queenofinsanity6: Take the Myth
Omega: Mephi Act 1
Multiple: A Realm of Emptiness
GraciousVictory: The Public Castigation of a Lowly Hypochondriac
Acelegin: Daniel & Friends The Gods of Darkness Arc
Multiple: The Puppet's Game 2 (half-assed review)
AmeliaTanaka: A Fly on the Wall part 1
Malus: Blank Space
tgecko: Penny Dropped part 1, part 2
RedRockingHood: City of Sinopia part 1

A Tired Ramble That Becomes Self-Gushing

I'm so tired. But let's make a blog post; it's been a while.

So OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING is 4/5 complete. Over that by now, actually. There is exactly one month of logs left to go; the newest log was September 21st, and the story will end on October 21st. ..well, I'll probably write an epilogue of sorts, but that's nothing, that'll be easy. For now, we just gotta worry about this thing we call Act IV.

Jesus. This isn't gonna be easy. It hasn't been so far, and it won't be now.

So far, we've had a lot of Fear politics and some glimpses into Xanadian politics as well. To be honest, Xanadu probably won't get that much focus. ...probably. I mean, I do want to skirt along the edges of conventional high fantasy, but c'mon. Rapture is high fantasy. High.. surrealist apocalyptic fantasy horror black comedy romance adventure mystery. In stream-of-consciousness.

Wouldn't it be rad if, years from now, people looked back on Rapture as one of our generation's important works of fiction? For its deconstructions of the blogging medium, the zombie apocalypse and post-apocalyptic genres, epic video game motifs, and.. whatever the hell else it deconstructs? As well as for being a work written entirely in stream-of-consciousness; I'm pretty sure that counts for something.

You may have noticed I'm in a self-gushing mood right now. "They say pride comes before the fall," more like they say the asshole comes with the stupid quotes. Now I'm talking to myself.

The point is that I need to write before I can do all of my boasting. And honestly, I'm really nervous. I mean, shit. This is the act that has been foreshadowed since, like, day one. The final battle at the end of this has to be, like, all magnitudes of epic. It has to be completely built up and completely complex and completely eldritch and completely extensive. The Lamb versus The Beast! Cockroach Jesus versus the slender man wearing a scarf and trilby! This is something I never thought I'd write!

This entire story is something I never thought I'd write. Five months of deconstructive apocalypse with me as the protagonist who gets laid a lot all told through stream-of-consciousness? Jeeeeesus. A work of the internet medium, at that. One of these days, the internet medium will be massively big. Like, exponentially more than it currently is. And on that day, I kinda really really hope that Rapture will be remembered.

...and I don't even need to mention that Rapture is an epic. It is, in every way, an epic. The noun form. And I can't tell you how cool that is to realize: I wrote an epic. I wrote a modern epic.

..well. I'm writing one. I need to finish it. I do. For the good of everyone! And for the good of myself!

</ramble> I NEED TO SLEEP DAMMIT

"Everything the Same, II"

The world rotates several more times, the nations flooding and flowing with water and structure.

In a desert country, two former humans stand fifty feet away from each other, massive armies behind each, men standing line-by-line and ready for war. Not a single toy wonders what the point of fighting is when every mind is the same consciousness, for the Camper all know exactly what this conflict's purpose is.

Sound off, one two three.

Muskets fly, spears pierce, feet trample, limbs make contact, bruises develop. Not a single voice is heard; there is no need for exclamation in a world where all think alike. Pain is all in the mind, and what are a few limbs to a being with all the arms in the world?

Thirteen minutes later, only the leader Camper are left standing. Neither had moved an inch in the duration of the skirmish, their faces remaining stern as the philosophies they share. The desert is littered with bodies, and not one of them is dead, only sleeping with holes in their hearts.

At this call of silence, the corpses rise and begin their exodus, following the leaders to the next town, where they will repeat the skirmish identically, a shot-by-shot remake of an artificial war film.

This is how conflicts are settled: Systematically.




In an urban country, a stadium stands, filled with a quiet race of Camper watching the game, concentrating on every nuance and detail. Down on the field, balls are kicked around, boundaries are crossed, figures dash from side to side. Points are scored, boards light up, and the crowd cheers together at every goal, mouths closed at every other instant.

The tactics of the game run through every mind to the point of becoming second-nature. If a Camper in the crowd were to stand up and run onto the field, she could seamlessly enter the game and not a play would be out of place.

A blimp flies overhead with the winning team's name being advertised to the people in the bleachers. Every character knows who the winners will be, and every part of the crowd knows the details of every participant of the blimp. Not one mind ponders on the purpose of advertisement in a world where all are one; all the coaches and all the players and all the producers and all the audience knows what this event's purpose is.

When the game is won, the predicted winners are carried out by a mob of fans with emotionless faces. Parties are held, celebrations roar in every household. Every detail is carefully planned and executed by the same mind, never questioning the point, always certain in the answers sought.

This is how conflicts are created: Systematically.

Everything the same.

Sunsetters: "The Last Sunset"

Life ends, inferno
Splashing surroundings.
Watch the sky turn red.
Trees darken and voices join the sentient wind.
Apologize no more,
Don't mourn the last sunset.
Cold figures laugh at themselves,
The ultimate practical joke.
They see skies fading,
Their faces regret nothing at all tonight.
Still, they think once of
The last sunset bitter.
Water dies,
Unknowing.
With its last breath gone,
The Earth becomes memory.

This is my first attempt at writing proper lyrics for a Sunsetters song. It's titled "The Last Sunset," and it's meant to be a fictional sad piano song off of their debut album, Sunsetters. Track six. See, I went and figured out a rough idea of their entire discography, all eight albums, all thirteen discs. Sunsetters will be relevant to both Topography Genera and Rapture.

I hope that the excerpted lyrics might be satisfactory for anyone who.. likes poetry. <:D