Burton’s Exotic Brews and Spirits

            So it's become a sort of tradition for me to supply this blog with my finished (and I use that word lightly) stories from my creative writing classes. Though there are some I'd like to keep locked up in the metaphorical Disney Vault for the time being, I have enough meek, fragile confidence in this one that I'll deign to show it to the internet at large. Besides, its been two weeks since an update and for normal people that constitutes an update drought. For me it constitutes a slight lull in the rampaging rapids of overflowing update-water, but that's besides the point. The point is, hopefully you'll enjoy this short story.

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Runescape, Part 2

            In a sleepy little village out in the countryside, a young boy yawns awake, stretching in the morning sun. He groggily dresses himself and stumbles outside to check the mail. It is at this point that he glimpses a lone figure riding in on the horizon. The boy squints, and when he recognizes the special mailman his eyes widen in surprise and his face lights up. Tripping slightly in his haste to turn around, he rushes back around the corner to his house and bursts through the door.

            “Papa!” yells the little boy. “Papa, Mama, come quick come quick!”

           

            The father of this young lad creaked open his door, looking disgruntled and rubbing his face. “Alphonse, why must you wake us so early on a holiday?” he said.

            “I saw him!” said Alphonse, bouncing on the heels of his feet. “I saw him Papa, I saw the special mailman!” 

Genericide Holiday Special 2: Yuletide Boogaloo

            In some austere study, in an ancient armchair silhouetted by the moonlight, there sits a man. Or rather, what was once a man.  The ghastly figure that now lingered in this place had clearly left its humanity behind long ago. The figure had a horrible, scarred and stretched visage, complimented by inhumanly pale blue skin, which wavered and flickered in the light with a slight translucence. He – for it had indeed been a he, ages past – was clothed in warped and disfigured rags whose original design was all but lost due not just to their state of disrepair but also due to the chains. The man was covered in giant, rust-ridden chains that crossed this way and that all around his body in incalculable numbers. They rattled constantly, their grim, hellish tones a constant and unceasing reminder of the twisted afterlife this simultaneously terrifying and pitiable creature had unwillingly bought for himself.

            He was currently struggling with the phone.

            “Yes, you heard me correctly” he intoned in an echoing bass. “Yes, it still hasn’t arrived...a large pepperoni...no...it should be under Ghost...yes, full name Herbert C. Ghost...yes...yes, stands for Christmas...yes I’m serious...okay...okay. But I’ll call back again if it isn’t soon...yes, goodbye.”

Principles of Persuasion Mini-Paper

So as has sometimes happened in the past, I was suffering writer's block for a paper I didn't want to write, and in an attempt to alleviate this wrote a fake paper instead. It didn't do much to help my productivity, but it was pretty fun to write. It can be found below, unedited.

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Neopets Part 2: Neoquest Boogaloo

Aha! Bet you thought you wouldn’t see this series again? Probably thought it would go the way of that Christmas “series” I was going to do, or that series of rambles I’ve put on indefinite hold, or Professor Horus’ Puzzling Adventues. Well it’s NOT, so there! As for those other series...uh...

So in the last installment of this technically-a-series-now, I introduced you to Neopets. Apart from embarrassing breakdowns in the face of inert sacks, there wasn’t really much interesting about it. That would be because the one feature I left out before was the games! There are many little flash games on that particular website, and previously I planned to give this whole shpiel on some of the good ones and the bad ones and a much more detailed description. I...don’t really feel like doing that now, and in fact I don’t even feel like logging back into the website. The last time I visited that website, it broke my spirit completely and utterly.

I also MAY have forgotten my login info.

The Heist

So I'm taking another creative writing course this semester at college. Within this course I recently completed a nice little self contained short story in an exercise. It's fairly brief (the page limitations were strict), and I'm not coming back to revise it, but I thought some people might enjoy it. So the rest of this post in its entirety will be the aforementioned story completely unedited. Enjoy.

Earthbound Review

Have you ever played a game that frustrated you to no end? A game where there are dozens of enemies but they’re mostly identical? A game where irritating status ailments are plentiful and what little enjoyment you get out of the combat is sucked dry by the persistent hassle? A game where you enjoy yourself more using a walkthrough because every single step is littered with obtuse bullshit triggers, so that you can only proceed when you think of things in the way the game designers did, as opposed to rationally in-universe? A game where, when you get down to it, everything is a broken mess that’s “old-school” in all the wrong ways? There’s a game like that...and it’s called Earthbound.

Have you ever played a game that defied your expectations? A game where, for better or worse, you can never really predict what’s going to happen next? A game where it’s in some strange middle-ground between absurdist parody and innocent, heartfelt story-telling? A game where there are strange but oddly compelling visuals and sounds, where you want to keep playing just to see where it’ll take you next? A game that can make you laugh, creep you out, and above all has an unusual earnestness to it that embodies the phrase ‘weird but wonderful’? There’s a game like that....and it’s called Earthbound.