Hello Dreamwidth!
I have not been posting in a while not because of death or depression (mostly not depression) but just because I rarely think I have something to say that people would be interested in. I mean, I could go on for a very long time about the X-Wing miniatures game and my beautiful Lambda-Class Shuttle miniature, but I can only indulge in my own stereotype for so long before I implode into a nerd singularity. Siobhan is more and more interested in me doing YouTube stuff, probably at least partly because this will allow her to do some YouTube stuff before she turns 13 and is legally allowed to have her own channel; I'm amenable, but I'm not sure how this "not wanting to bother other people with my unimportant blatherings" will contribute to having a public video presence.
But this is not an unimportant blathering. This is a very important blathering. This is where I
advertise brilliant entertainment and then ask you to give people money. Given Kickstarter and all, I am given to understand that this is now the purpose of the Internet. Far be it from me not to join in.
Are you fond of creepypasta? I mean in the ideal, not in the too-often actual "and then Slenderman popped up and the blood was hyperrealistic".
If not, are you fond of short horror fiction?
If not, are you fond of really clever short fiction, where the end typically recontextualises whatever you thought you knew before?
If not, that's a really strange thing not to be fond of, and also, are you fond of short fiction at all?
Because it's my personal opinion that
Slimebeast is among the best creators of any of that stuff currently basically working for free on the Internet. You should go and look at some of his stories. Personal favourites include the following:
funnymouthWatch for WillyOne More TimeClass CreepsRetractionsWhateverStranger Danger(For the less horror fannish, the mostly harmless ones are One More Time and Whatever.)
But that's just a selection, and there are some that it hurt my heart to cut out of that list. (Out of context: "it hurt my heart to cut out"; put that in a story some time.) If you're fond of any or all of those, and why shouldn't you be, they're great, look around the site and find others. I insist upon it.
Now about the asking for money bit; the gentleman in question
has a Patreon account which is currently shockingly underfunded, and it seems he's going through some difficult times cash-wise. While I understand that we can't help everyone suffering from economic terribleness (even though I
wanna, you guys, come on), I'm of the opinion that the really high-quality work he's provided so far is worth at least a few bucks. (And yes, I'm represented on the backers list there.) And from a purely selfish perspective, the more he gets paid, the less likely he is to die and as a result stop making quality fiction for me. STOP MAKING PEOPLE DIE AND NOT WRITE ME QUALITY FICTION. YOU MONSTERS.
(EDIT: Also you can look for connections between the stories because sometimes there are! I bring this up because I am INORDINATELY proud of discovering that "LeetHax" and "25 Cents" have an obvious shared monster I hadn't noticed before! It might be a funnymouth. I don't think so.)
Uh, speaking of quality fiction (the quality in question, in this case, being 'low'), I might very well be doing something based on one of Riona's awful horrible ideas, instead of what usually happens, which is Riona making something fantastic and well-written based on one of her awful horrible ideas. It'll be not nearly as good. You might like it.