Your Duties as a Writer

Posted on August 7, 2020 by Rawle Nyanzi

I have compiled a list of duties that I and every other writer must follow if we are to be taken seriously. While I must confess, that I have fallen far short of many of these things, it does not make the statements any less true.

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Why Geeks and Gamers Whines All the Time

Posted on August 6, 2020 by Rawle Nyanzi

The internet is a tough place to get attention, and many people have tried a variety of approaches. However, in all my years of watching YouTube and reading blog content, I’ve noticed that three types of content get consistent engagement: outrage content, expert content, and brand-focused content.

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Posted in Popular culture | Tagged | 2 Comments

The Stories the Woke Crowd Doesn’t Want You Reading

Posted on August 5, 2020 by Rawle Nyanzi

Let’s do an anthology of work.

Let’s have it be 100% free of charge if e-book, and sold at a low price if paperback.

But let’s not make it just any old anthology — let’s make it an anthology of adventures for boys and men.

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To an SJW-Free Future

Posted on August 4, 2020 by Rawle Nyanzi

Imagine, for a moment, someone in the late 22nd century making a film of this novella. It can happen.

When we write, we understandably focus on the here and now: Is it good? Will it sell? Will anybody even like it? We release it, and we think about it as just throwaway entertainment that no one will care about.

But consider that there’s a group of people reading the throwaway entertainment of yesteryear and being inspired by it. How many of these folks even imagined that people would not only read their works 100+ years later, but praise it as an example to follow?

Then we realize what we are really doing: with our work, we are throwing a signal into the future, communicating not only with our contemporaries in the present, but with those who will come after us.

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To Fight Censorship, Buy Physical Media

Posted on August 3, 2020 by Rawle Nyanzi

Will Aoi-chan be banned next? The way things are going, it’s a real possibility!

We all remember when Netflix first burst onto the scene. Gone were the days of cumbersome and expensive DVD box-sets; now uncountable episodes of our favorite classic and current shows were available at our fingertips. Rentals became unnecessary, and old Blockbuster shuffled off this mortal coil unmourned and unlamented. No longer were we tied to the timetables of broadcast and cable networks, for any show could be watched anywhere at any time. It had reached the point where new laptops don’t even bother to include optical drives anymore. The future was here, and it was all digital.

Then reality struck back.

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The Pulp Mindset

Posted on July 30, 2020 by Rawle Nyanzi

With every passing day, it seems that global pop culture disappoints us more. Classic franchises are vandalized into self-parodies to “modernize” them, creative talent increasingly treats fandoms as the enemy, and geek-oriented media champion the intimidation and silencing of creatives who don’t toe a very particular ideological line.

Some have taken to YouTube in the hopes of convincing the big brands to respect their fanbases and restore the classic IPs to their former glory, but no such restoration has come no matter how many viewers the YouTubers amass or how many snarky jokes pass through their mouths. The owners of the afflicted brands merely laugh as these Youtubers give them free advertising; just ask Captain Marvel.

Others put their hopes in Japanese popular culture, pointing to the abundance of enjoyable, professionally-made shows that come from there — many of which don’t conform to the extreme progressive biases of well-financed Western creatives. However, cracks are starting to show. Amazon has delisted a number of popular light novels and manga — common sources of anime adaptations. American money is increasingly financing anime as Japan’s domestic market shrinks due to lack of children. Western anime distributors do have an extreme progressive bias, allowing them to influence what shows and books reach the lucrative US market, and if those products will be censored. Sony has targeted games with sexual content for banning, while Nintendo made a censored version of one of their games the definitive global edition. I have seen nothing to change my prediction that by the year 2024, anime will be every bit as full of far-left propaganda as Western-made cultural products.

Thus, there is only one real solution to our dilemma: create our own geek culture. And this is where friend of the blog JD Cowan’s newest book The Pulp Mindset comes in.

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Posted in Fiction | Tagged | 6 Comments

I Was Going to Blog about a Rebuttal

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Rawle Nyanzi

…to my assessment of the problem with anime fandom, but Bradford C. Walker, author of Star Knight Saga, does a far better job of assessing them than I ever could, so read his take instead.

His main point is that although anime isn’t dependent on legacy brands, it all comes from a well-established corporate structure that nonetheless discourages innovation. That being said, it does satisfy its viewership and doesn’t hate its customers, so there isn’t much appetite for change. Read the aforementioned post for details.

Also, pick up Star Knight Saga.

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The Myopia of Fandom [UPDATED]

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Rawle Nyanzi

By now you’ve heard of Kodai Senkaku Genocider (古代戦殻ジェノサイダー) the independent anime short by “Defrost,” done in the style of a lost 1980s title, complete with visual artifacts and scratchy sound. Though it was made in modern times, it was done up to look like something broadcast 30+ years ago. It even includes commercials and an ending song.

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No One Plays Video Games Anymore

Posted on May 4, 2020 by Rawle Nyanzi

NOTE: I was late in responding to comments earlier because I had recently received a new tablet, and notifications were not coming to it. I have since fixed the notification issue, so now I can respond to comments far more quickly.

NOTE 2: Fixed a tag error that caused most of the article to look like one big hyperlink.

No one plays video games anymore.

It can sure feel that way when no one purchases the indie game you worked so hard on. All those sleepless nights, all that time, effort, and money — all of it is ignored. You feel like you did nothing of value.

But I’m not here to talk about video games, I’m here to talk about books. It’s easy to think that no one buys your book because “no one reads anymore,” but I believe that perspective is very mistaken.

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Posted in Writing | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

The Power of the Flat Character Arc

Posted on April 18, 2020 by Rawle Nyanzi

Friend of the blog Bradford C. Walker has recently written on the Coronavirus’s effects on the corporate-driven entertainment industry — namely film, novel publishing, and comic publishing (spoiler: they’re not doing so great.) However, in doing so, he pivoted to a topic that I’ve been looking into as of late: the power of the flat character arc (which Walker refers to as the Iconic Hero.) My recent delve into the Conan stories came from my attempt to understand this sort of arc in literature.

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