The Cyberpunk Collection

When you’re locked down, the perfect late night genre to find solace in is Science Fiction’s dazzling young son, Cyberpunk.

In it, you will find dystopic futures where cybernetic, mutagenic, nightmarish low-lifes with high-tech fantasies are enthralled in the oncoming breakdown of a city’s social order.

The heroes are either cops or crims and usually possess or are in search of the key to unknowingly unlocking a more dangerous and promising chapter for the world around them.

Cyberpunk can be Film Noir with technology (Tech Noir), a police procedral with cyberised mecha or a crime drama with pretty much everything sci-fi.

To help you dive into the cyberpunk experience, I present to you this list:

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404 No One Is Listening

Apache/12.4.20 (Gibson) Server at http://www.self-isolation.net Port 85: netcasting into the digital grey yonder where carbon meets plastic. Society is losing face with the industries supposedly keeping shit together, the dregs are onto the Org’s scheme, as cracks form in the mis-information supply-chain and the capitalisation of the sick. The pandemic virus wastes the streets, keeping jobless norms imprisoned in their dusty hovels that are still being siphoned by the banks, forcing these shmucks to peck at their inheritances or use up their super funds, as the elite laugh from inside their gated residences and the little guys get the finger. The fat cats need to be shown and the alarms need to sound. Spread the word not the virus.

Detention Life Cycle

Isolation Day plus 15. I’ve been imprisoned within the walls of this enclosing apartment, the stagnant air, the constant screen glare, the caution over the outside world – they’re out there, man! And they want in! There’s no stopping the little freaks except with a gas mask and a couple sticks of TNT, dynomite from hell. The gloves are skin tight, and I’m getting used to them, man, I am I think, even the smell. The others you see outside eyeball you, questioning if you’re one of them or under the microscope; hell, we’re all asking those questions in both orders. That’s what this station lifestyle has given us, paranoia and missing toilet paper. Oh shit, I see one coming now, no, stay back, stay baaaaaack…!

Pub stories

The secret history of the famous Melbournian cat burglar, currently targeted by officials, beginning with her first theft from the stalwart people of Militaires Sans Frontieres to other famous historical acts of burglary depicted in the papers, including the Great White Diamond Horde, which was allegedly where “The Cat” met her lothario sidekick, “Rasputin,” who came up with the idea to steal from the first flying blimp restaurant, where Italy’s darling opera singer Rosetta Vellotti, whose first splash was as a street musician, had stolen her ruby crusted necklace, which was on loan to her from the Arch Duke of Cheshire, who was out hunting near the lake at Westinthrope House, when The Cat and Rasputin snuck in to his family’s longstanding home to take from it the last surviving portrait of the 15th century rosicrucian Asla Gargal Vanlouse – who had killed himself in a fit of heretic rage – and then escaped the House’s expansive grounds under the cover of pale moonlight, flickering shadows at every twist and turn to throw off the dogs and keepers, who themselves complained about how the thieves had stolen the dog’s leashes as well as two chickens, a quarter pint of milk and a young squire’s arm hair, which, of course, had to be a lie, because the chief keeper kept covered his hairy left arm, which seemed to have a bald spot all of a sudden, and which the bald spot had stolen from it some skin particles, mind you… And the ramble didn’t finish for a good while, but by then it was morning.

Don’t get mad, chill

We’re all under lockdown, an entire world asked to bear the ennui of self-isolation, and some of us are suffering because of it.

This suffering comes out as tics, back-handed compliments or clear indications of anger toward friends or loved ones. People are touchy, at the moment. So it’s a good time to remember where anger or better yet wrath stems from – and what forms it will emody and empower.

Wrath stems from darkness; when we’re lacking clarity or direction. Wrath is found in desire; when we can’t get what we want. Wrath is hidden in ignorance; when we’re unsure of something, making it easier to lash out. Wrath lingers in the flesh; when our body pines for that which it should not. Wrath hides in the mind; where it festers in the shadows. Wrath is a pathway toward death.

Move and rest. Live and reflect.

Saturday 4 April 2020

Why spend the lockdown doomscrolling or exhausting Netflix when you can be immersing yourself in an extreme version of our current state of life. Zombie movies or games like the Resident Evil 3 remake are the horror-tainment shining a light on how life shouldn’t go and why we should all look out for each other. Shine on you crazy diamonds.

V is for…

The National Security team just barged through the door, looking for a doctor. They in’s the man in a lock room, wearing handcuffs, and they put a black hood over his head. All this doctor can think about is his son, who he saved from his step-mother, a young blonde who was infected with a prehistoric virus that turned her into a vampire.

Arriving at an abandoned warehouse, National Security agents take the hood off of the doctor’s head before escorting him to a dusty locker room. They ask the doctor to help them with what they want. He wants to know where is his son.

For a Netflix show, V Wars is pretty good. The story can be up and down when the plot follows the side characters, but it overall comes together as one of the better sci-fi horror shows. 3/5 vulpas.

No, not you too!

Thisness in the King James Bible

‘So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.’

~ 1 Corinthians 15:54

‘Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.’

~ Song of Solomon 8:7

‘The king’s daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold.’

~ Psalm 45:13

‘Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off.’

~ Isaiah 33:17

‘And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.’

~ Isaiah 32:2

This: Used to identify a specific person or thing close at hand or being indicated or experienced.

1. Always prefer the concrete word to the abstract.

2. Almost prefer the direct word to the circumlocution.

3. Generally, use transitive verbs, that strike their object; and use them in the active voice, eschewing the stationary passive.

Thisness in Sonnet XXXI 31

Thy bosom is endearéd with all hearts
Which I by lacking have supposéd dead:
And there reigns Love, and all Love’s loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buriéd.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye
As interest of the dead!—which now appear
But things removed, that hidden in thee lie.
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
—That due of many now is mine alone:
Their images I loved I view in thee,
And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.

This: Used to identify a specific person or thing close at hand or being indicated or experienced.

On writing the protagonist

The protagonist will want something tangible, like money, a romantic interest, to destroy a facet of society that affected them earlier in life, and so on.

This want will be tied to a personal problem that either haunts, drives or motivates them. Get a sense of what your protagonist’s problem is and how it triggers them into action. 

This problem will usually be aggravated by an inciting incident that forces the protagonist to move from story’s start to a path of action, what Joseph Campbell called the adventure.

Who will the protagonist need to talk with throughout their story? What relationship will be focal to their attention, and thus drive most of the story’s drama? Who will antagonise the protagonist?

The antagonist’s obvious or not-so-obvious actions will oppose the protagonist’s efforts to reach their goal. The adventure will move toward disorder, hitting a peak in the middle of the story, which will make life much worse for the protagonist and lead them to not end up anywhere near where they started.

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