The illusion of next gen-ery

Hello good reader!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, away from people for the past year and a bit (in which case I would envy you greatly) you’ve probably seen the PVRs on PCP that are the Xbox One and the Playstation 4 (although the Xbox took a slightly smaller dose) and have heard the face about all the supposedly groundbreaking games and features that will come to these machines. In this nerd’s humble opinion, it’s all a little bit rubbish.

Sure, the consoles themselves might have some pretty shmick capabilities, but most of it isn’t that much of a step above their predecessor. Granted, it is nice to have something that can play most kinds of modern media (but no cassettes, bugger it), so you don’t need three annoying, fidgetty black boxes sitting near your TV, but they aren’t trully anything groundbreaking. But the games next genn-ness is where the real failure is.

I can’t speak for everyone who has ever played a video game, but for me it was always about the narrative experience I had whilst playing. Graphics never really put me off, or lag, or really anything, I just wanted to have a memorable, or at least interesting narrative experience. Now I don’t necesarrily mean ‘narrative’ to be ‘story’, I just mean an series of connected events. Many older games were built from a system and employed mechanics that allowed your own stories to emerge from you playing the game. I played the original Halo’s multiplayer when I was twelve, I still remember some of those matches with my friends. Not because the graphics were amazing or the gameplay was revolutionary, but because the game was well thought out and it’s design facilitated a narrative to write itself. The same goes for the third Elder scrolls game, Morrowind, which is not only my favourite game, but one of my favourite stories and mythical worlds, simply because of the narrative freedom that the games core design allowed for.

These were, and will be for a long time,some of the only truly groundbreaking games, even by todays standards. What publishers now expect people to accept as groundbreaking is messes like “Beyond: Two souls” which, for all intents and purposes, was a really long, interactive movie. Sorry guys, games did that in the 90’s. In todays games the great graphics are there, the innovative gameplay, new and interesting ideas, but ther core mechanics of the game don’t encourage, and sometimes hardly allow for the same sort of narrative freedom that thier ancestors had. They tell you how to play the game, you play it that way. If video game industry wants to become a more relevant and respected industry, they need to (do a lot of things) advance their innovation past “new, exciting parkour system!”s and create something that is really new and original, and above all, trully advanced, but hey, that’s just my opinion.

Until next time.

I’ll run

Get up, kick yourself into gear, run.

You know that burn that you get in your legs when you’ve been running for a while? The one that comes from your body trying to keep you muscles working for longer by shooting pyruvite to you legs. The one that feels like you’re about to collapse and the reason you’re running becomes your only motivation. You know that burn?

Yeah, got it.

What does a man have to do to find himself running accross town in his work clothes at 7 in the morning? Knock-off a store? Kill a man? Find out the men with the black hats are coming to collect his debt? Maybe, but not this time, I’m not quite that interesting. I’m running accross town in my work clothes at 7 in the morning because I was a dick.

I am not a mean person. I like people, but sometimes it’s too easy to find yourself hurting them, because sometimes it’s pretty easy. At work it’s part of my job to know people, to be able to create something that will resonate with a certain demographic. I don’t like advertisements, but I’m good at making them, and I get money for it, not a hard decision. Hurting people can be like advertising, size them up, what are they wearing, their hair, accent? Wedding rings, fake tan, whitened teeth? Do the they act confident? Are they confident? How expensive is their watch/necklace/handbag. My friends at the agency say I’m the Sherlock Holmes of advertising. The information on it’s own is useless, that’s not where the skill comes in. You can look at a person all ou want, figuring out what kind of person they are is the tricky bit, but I’m good at it, so it’s easy to hurt people. T

That’s why I’ve hurt people. That’s why I’m running. That’s why I’m running accross town in my work clothes at 7 in the morning to my girlfriends house.

People argue, it’s something that can’t be helped, heaven knows I love a good arguement, but I always follow a code. Don’t be illogical, don’t get emotional, don’t hurt people. I tryo to always follow a code.

Except last night, I didn’t follow a code last night, I hurt people last night.

             PART 2

How can I be so insensitive she wants to know.

I didn’t mean to.

How can I say something like that and not mean to?

Because it’s easy, and I’m good at it.

I normally don’t make this mistake, but her brother drives me to the edge.

Men are insecure nowdays, I think men are easier to hurt than women. Have you ever seen an ad directed towards men that didn’t have the apotheosis of how that man sees masculinity? Women get it to, but not as much. If your average man sees an ad that doesn’t feed his bludgeoned little boy ego, he’s not going to go for it. I’m no anthropologist, but we should have seen it coming, because now are little western world is full of insecure men. Insecure fathers, insecure sons, insecure brothers.

Insecure men are easy to hurt. Especially when they’re trying to hurt you.

Especially when they’re trying to hurt your girlfriend.

He came to answer the door like the arrogant prick he always is, so I ignored it. The night went as expected, no one fought until the end. When he singles her out in a room and walks up to her with that smug look on his face, everyone knows what he’s starting. She looks at me as if she’s telling me to just leave it, well, no. If he tries to pick a soft spot with her, I’ll pick a soft spot with him, she knows the look in my eyes, she know’s what’s coming. If he opens his mouth, he’s gone.

He opens his mouth and starts quietly shredding her.

He opens his mouth and starts quietly shredding her, so I take him apart like an emotional surgeon. His divorce? You can bet that was in there. The bullies at school? You bet. The fact that he just might die alone, bingo. He’s stands in front of me with little, insecure man tears running down his face. He leaves, we leave.

That’s how I can be so insensitive.

            PART 3

Now I hear why I shouldn’t have said those things. Why I should’ve just let it be. She can handle herself, women can do that. She’s right.

But men are insecure.

Insecure things can break, snap even.  Just like me. I did, and she gets her own earfull. Not like her brothers, but cruel nonetheless. We get to her house, she gets out and walks to the door before I can undo my seatbelt. She turn her big eyes towards me and I see what I’ve done.

I’ve always thought of her eyes as little universes, dark and full of bright, twinkling little stars. I told her once that it was like an orchestra of tiny supernovas, stars dying, just go give her a twinkle in her eye, because she was worth that much.

Now those little universes are glazed and have their own tiny waterfalls, and it’s my fault.

I heard once that when two people fall in love their hearts join, that could be true, because if her hearts wounded, that explains how I feel now.

EPILOGUE

I sit at home on the corner of my bed shaking.

Why did I have to be so insensitive.

Why couldn’t I let it be.

Because it’s easy, and I’m good at it.

That’s not a good enough reason anymore, it never will be again.

Now I try to sleep, but pretty soon little, insecure man tears are streaming down my face. And pretty soon they give over to big, genuine human tears. So when I go to leave for work in the morning, I run.

Now I’m running accross town in my work clothes at 7 in the morning to my girlfriends house. I’m running because she’s worth it, I’m running to tell her I didn’t mean it, because I didn’t. I;m running to tell her I’m sorry. I’m running to tell how much she’s worth. I’m running to tell her I love her. I’m running through a street full of people, with big, sad human tears running down my sweaty face, but it doesn’t matter, because I can cry now, because she’s worth it.

Now every day, because I can cry, and because she’s worth it, I’ll get up, kick myself into gear,

And I’ll run.

Run, Little Man,

Run because you mean it.

Run, Little Man,

Run Because she’s worth it.

Climb, Little Man,

Climb because you must.

Climb Little Man,

Climb for her trust.

Swim, Little Man,

Swim a for much longer.

Swim, Little Man,

Swim towards her.

Now run, Crying Man,

Run just to show her,

She’s worth more than harsh words.

Now run.

Hello good reader!

The story you just read actually came froma dream of mine. As you can imagine, it wasn’t anywhere near as interesting, or understandable, but it left me feeling oddly emotional, and in it I remember running, and a few other vague details. I felt the need to write it down, and it ended up turning into what you just read. I’ll admit that I don’t normally like sharing anything emotional or personal with many people, so putting this story up was an interesting choice on my behalf. I don’t know if it’s that good, or even if it was worth reading, but I thank you for your time.

The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains… Or is it?

Hello good reader!

The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains is a recent book by Neil Gaiman (if you don’t know who he is, shame on you) and I have to say, it’s one of the most perplexing books I’ve ever read, not solely for its content, but the ‘book’ (as in its physical-ness) as a whole.

It looks at first to be a picture book, a little children’s picture book. However on further inspection you;ll find that it is by no means a children’s story.

I won’t give anything big away about the story, because it is far too good to ruin with spoilers, but what starts off as an apparently simple story about a short man looking for gold quickly becomes something else. The story has a lot in and of itself, but there are things mentioned and alluded to that are never really explained, and now after finishing it, I still feel as though I missed something. I’m going to read it again, absolutely without a doubt I will read it again, and I recommend anyone read this book.
When I finished it I had a good long think about the art that is implicit story telling which, I think, is one of the hardest but most fulfilling ways to tell a story. When you only tell the reader what they need to know, but allude to so much more that they can figure out on their own, with enough determination and thought, of course.

The book has several lines in it that made me consider the nature of subjective truth, that is, how different things can be ‘true’ to different people, and how that changes, essentially, who they are. This is a big theme in the book, so I won’t divulge anymore in reference to it for fear of spoiling the story.

My two trains of thought about subjective truth and implicit story telling collided quite recently, and gave me one of the best creative boosts I’ve had in a long time.

A few days ago I thought I’d see how well I could implicitly tell a story. So I made an account on Reddit (something I once told myself I’d never do because of the filth that it has) and posted a very vague (but well thought out on my part) ‘creepy’ story  to r/nosleep (in all honesty I just didn’t know where else to put it. I guess you could say it’s dark fantasy, so it seemed to fit). I’d been working on parts of this story for a long time, but there was one part I couldn’t work out. It was like a real bugger of a mathematics problem that I just couldn’t solve, so I decided to just cut it from the story.

So I wrote this cut-down version of the story, posted it, and came back in an hour to find it had been very well received and there were a decent amount of comments on it with people trying to explain different parts of the story and wanting more information on the more vague details, which was just what I wanted. One of the comments I didn’t understand, so I asked the user for some clarification on what he meant by his question, lo and behold the theory he had about the story was the missing piece that I had failed to figure out by myself.

After thanking this guy/gal profusely I had a brain explosion about how the story wouldn’t be as developed as it is now without implicit story telling, and subjective truth. To this user, there was no other explanation to the gap in my story, but it’s not at all what I was thinking when I wrote it, to me it wasn’t ‘true’ and to him, it was.

The reception of my story and the speculation about it made me the happiest I’ve felt in a long time. I’ve always been very uncomfortable about sharing my work with other people (hence why I use an anonymous blog) and this gave me the boost in confidence I needed to start getting more stuff out there, I still feel ecstatic.

So thanks to this legendary individual, something I’ve been working on for two years is about to start rolling through. Thanks to implicit story telling, thanks to subjective truth.

Once I have a bit more of my story written, I’ll be posting it here. But until then.

That is All.

Looking to the New Year.

Hello good reader!

When I started this blog I didn’t expect much (if any) of a positive response, but much to my delight and suprise I have recieved one. So, the infancy is over, and onward we march into the new year, heads held high and plans for it like bees swarming.

Today I’m going to share some of the plans I have for the future.

This year I find myself with nearly no responsabilities, and an astonishing amount of free time, which I plan to put to good use. I’ve got plans for this blog.

I’m going to be posting a lot more, about more things, and with greater care and quality put into what I write. I’ll be finishing the series I started on The Hobbit, and starting a new one on the Silmarillion in the later half of the year. I’ll also be doing more writing on poetry and short stories (some Poe to get things moving I think), films and comics, and basically an form of story-telling that’s worth while. I’ll be writing more stuff about art, and sharing more of my own, which has been a struggle this year because of a gimpy wrist. And if all goes according to plan, I’ll be starting a youtube channel for things that aren’t really suited to being shared on a blog (which includes some art stuff) and doing some collaborations with my good friend @Ianfjay from http://ianfjay.wordpress.com/, which will be great.

This year already looks good, thanks for being part of it.

Bravely onwards into the future. Until next time.