The Ravens Nest

No Algorithms, Censorship Or Performance-Based Bullshit

You’re gonna see those “New Year, New Me” posts.

Some are going to talk about how they’re going to drop some weight.

I started six years ago when I topped out at 235 lbs. Today, I’m down to 185 and ten pounds away from my first major target and milestone. Getting below 200 was first, getting under 190 was the next. Last time I weighed myself before that, I’d gained a few pounds and was 195. So with that many pounds gone, I know what to do and I’m about to do it. 175, here I come.

I haven’t posted about it much. If I hit a major milestone like my pants size got smaller, I’d post about it but then that would be the only mention. Why? Because me getting a little healthier because I’m not in my 20s anymore wasn’t something performative. I wasn’t doing it for your approval. I have a certain way I want to look and operate and I can’t do that if I’m unhealthy.

I never announced it with each year, at most, I averaged a post about it every two years because I might have posted about it three times.

This is when a thought hit me, I’ve seen an uptick here. People are flocking here because they want my opinions on something. Some come in just to post something stupid only to get sent packing.

Here’s the problem, this isn’t my focus anymore.

I don’t post as regularly here on The Nest anymore. Why? Because I started taking what I really wanted to do, for the most part, off-line.

My true focus has been Against All Odds & The Nocturneverse on ScribbleHub.

If you’ve noticed, I haven’t posted much about games themselves, whether I have liked them or not. You know what my opinons are on certain games and certain types of games. I probably have more games than I’ll ever be able to play unless I become independently wealthy and becoming a relatively inexpensive GM and even then, I may not be able to cover everything in my library.

& are two TTRPG peeps you should be checking out if you haven’t already. Seriously. These two are doing stuff that most don’t take notice of but it’s powerful stuff, innovative and it’s fun stuff. That is the point of gaming. If you’re not having fun (whatever that looks like to you) then you’re not required to keep playing it. I have books in my library I look at and go “I really wanted to like you.” That’s okay. Live and Learn.

Pictured: Kal-Arath by , a solo or co-op Sword & Sorcery game and one I highly recommend getting in print. Twin Sun Sutra Just Arrived Today.

Getting back to the point, these days, I’ve been playing the “Dreaded Storygame of Theatre Kids” everywhere, New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness and other vampire games and horror games. That’s my jam, that’s my genre. The solo game itself that I’m playing is set in the world of Vampire: The Requiem (far better than I remember) and going through as the character of Draven Nocturne has been a lot of fun for me. I have a friend who got interested in the role of Lysandra and decided to play improvisationally alongside me. Within a couple of sessions, she had Lyssa’s character sheet, I gave her a set of dice and now we play a GM-less game together. When I say, I hope I’m not butchering the Florentine Italian that my friend speaks in parts, coupled with some digging around, that is difficult to try to get to read authentic while trusting you as the audience. The notes from that game get turned into stories that you can read like a straight up short story or serialized novel/novella.

Why? Because this got me back into writing. During play and sessions at the keys, I didn’t care about anything else. Something else had occurred. I got acquainted with my old friends again.

They’re old, all of them but they’ve been around so long and seen so much.

I’m talking about pen and paper. It forced me to slow down. Thousand Year Old Vampire helped with that. I have to take my time because that’s a gameified system of writing prompts with endless replayability.

Lately, I’ve been looking over what happens online when I’m here. Seems Twitter’s code now insists on sending you to the For You tab and won’t leave it alone. What that means is, they’re going to feed you tons of things you are not interested in the name of keeping you enraged so that you keep posting. For Twitter: Fear Porn and The Overton Window isn’t just a staple, it’s business. It’s fueling engagement and Twitter knows it. Even if things get super-heated as they are now, this is the way of things.

It’s our own fault, we let this happen.

Now I’m going to say this, I get the visceral reaction that people have when I say this but, let’s face a few hard facts:

1. When you call someone names like “Demonic” or “Nazi” then I start viewing you with suspicion. I’ve told my story about violence visited upon me, Charlie Kirk’s murder is on full display on the internet like a damn snuff film. At one point, some people had rumors about snuff films being made, now it’s reality and it’s on display. That’s the intended point. Names like that mean that you’re telling yourself something that, on a long enough timeline, you stop viewing them as people and you start viewing them as anything but human. You’re giving yourself permission to be a shitty person at best and a murderous monster at most. I want nothing at all to do with that. Every “Side” is convinced they’re right and there’s where our problem is. No reasonable disagreement is allowed. Satanic Panic 2.0 is on the way and it’s going to be worse than ever. It’s not going to last but it’s going to be one of the most harrowing, showing we’ve learned nothing.

2. Every Bit of What You See Is A Performance: In the late 90s when the Internet was beginning it’s ubiquity, one of my professors in college pointed out that each of us created a webpage and we needed to rise above the din of noise in order to be noticed. That was back in 1997/1998. Remembering that helped. You had to have some sort of edge over your competition and everyone was competition. If you couldn’t, then you networked. You networked and overshadowed the individual because the group put in on something. There were compromises made and eventually, those that should have been told to pound sand were tolerated and now, here we are. When we clung to performance on everything, this is the end result.

3. The Myth of “The Center Doesn’t Exist”: It’s more performance. What’s happened is that the fear porn has been ramped up to the point of throwing everyone into grabbing pitchforks and torches. Let me be clear on this matter; I would sooner play D&D 5th Edition for the next four years than ever play Pitchforks & Torches. Both sides have played this game and when you want to leave the table, both sides will treat you very poorly (See point #1) and since both have done so, I see no point of ever trying to argue with these people. This is an ideological equivalent of an ultimatum. If you take up with one “side” or another, your individuality will be eliminated. If you try to hold to any vestige of it, you’ll be cast out. Mark my words, been through it twice. This is why I’ve essentially told both sides to pound sand, kick rocks, fuck off, etc. If your question is “Who’s side are you on?” is a question you carry, rest assured my stance is always the same; “Not Yours, Bucko.”

4. The Myth of “They Would Do It To YOU!!!” Yeah, they would. So would you. That’s the response. If they look hurt, as them how long the term “demonic” or “nazi” or whatever group of buzzwords they’re using. If they’re repeating bumper stickers or t-shirts, you’re not dealing with a serious person no matter what “side” they claim to be. All of this is fact. It’s not the center that’s the myth, it’s that the “sides” must reign supreme. The reality is that both of them want power and you do not matter except as a number in their collective. Your individualism will be crushed or you will. Those are the only things that “sides” have to offer you.

5. Your Offense Means Zero: That’s right, it means nothing. Little, at best. Censorship is still an evil that you need to start taking the first four criteria and applying it. Where does this always start? Well, it starts with porn. Whether or not you consume porn is now beside the point. Even Collective Shout started with “We’re just trying to ban porn (Which is what they initially wanted) to protect the children!” They then changed the terminology to say they’re trying to ban things that were NSFW. Words mean things people and both sides are Progressive. Make no mistake, each wants to progress their cause. If you don’t get down with that cause, they’ll claim “We’re not canceling you, stop being paranoid” while working behind the scenes to shut you out. Both of these supposed “sides” want power above all else. Again, if you think your individuality will remain intact, you’re wrong. Already, Against All Odds, especially The Nocturneverse is now locked behind age restriction for our readers oversease. Guess what they’re not willing to do? Age Verify To Read Stories About Vampires, Werewolves and The Supernatural.

These are just a few points of things I’ve personally observed. Even this space has been performative to the point where, people got the wrong idea entirely. I’m going to come out and say this, I voted for Trump. If you’re wondering if I have any regrets for that, no, I don’t. Same way I don’t regret jumping back into games like Vampire: The Requiem or Thousand Year Old Vampire. Someone’s not gonna like it. I’m still not going to do a song and dance to assuage someone’s rage over it. It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter because there are days where I’m doing all-day writing sessions from the notes or copying and editing the stuff from my TYOV games. It doesn’t matter whether readership is down thanks to EU law (Get Fucked, Governments of Europe) because we will find new readers. Even if readership has plummeted from triple to double digits, the fact of the matter is, we’re not slowing down. I can count on one hand the people that have a problem with what it is I do but I see so many more that don’t and, let’s not get it twisted, I’m not even fond of my own writing from a technical standpoint. I still don’t have a problem. If I did. Nothing would ever be posted.

That being said, do you have to vote the way I do to jump in and play? No. But you do have to leave the politics and the TMI at the door. If you come into our little thing, and you want to carve out your own niche, cool, hop on in. If you come in expecting things will change, we shut the door, lock you out and we don’t bother even acknowledging you exist. Side won’t matter. If you don’t like Ronnie Dalton’s constant swearing, tough. Don’t care. If you don’t like that the protagonists are Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, Promethean Constructs, Changelings, The Dead Returning To Life, Monster Hunters, etc because it’s “spiritually caustic” to you, it doesn’t matter. I literally do not care. That doesn’t mean it comes down because you can’t stand it. If you don’t like it because we’re not making it about your trans-black, non-binary, whatever-my-special-needs-are-that-Must-must-must-take-center-stage, it doesn’t matter. Again, none of this stops for anyone. We spent our time to build up momentum. The censorship hasn’t dissuaded us, it’s only deepened our resolve to think outside the box and start some guerilla marketing.

Now, let’s wrap this up.

Everyone knows I despise politicians. Now, the letter next to the name doesn’t matter. You know it, I know it; They Are All In On The Crime. Get that clear in your minds.

What does this have to do with The Nocturneverse itself? Simple. At least when we write about a world of monsters, it’s purely entertaining. That’s the main point. What I would prefer to do this year is turn Politicians and news media into glorified adspace. Let’s face it, you and I have paid for these idiot. We paid for their verification. They can’t block us and they can’t stop us. You do you, me, I’m going to promote The Nocturneverse. They owe me and until it’s repaid in full with interest and they get to figure out how much and we kick it back each time we think they’re wrong. I paid for it, I’m using it. Why? Because I’m going to hijack their performances.

If I find someone else posting dumb things, hey…

“Come Read Our Work!”

Here’s your code for ScribbleHub.

This is the one for Substack.

The brilliance is…It’ Not spam. Not harassment. Just redirection.

We paid for their enjoyment of being verified and thus, I’m turning their megaphone into our billboard.

They owe us with interest accruing daily and I don’t think they’re getting how pissed off some of us are.

When they posture, we’ll promote.

When they lie, we’ll jus slide our link in there.

When they try to censor elsewhere, we remind everyone there’s art that refuses to kneel.

And if the day comes when trolling isn’t enough and people decide they’ve had enough of the overreach… well, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves for pushing that far.

Until then, we build. We write, with plans to put every story on the blockchain which means it’s immutable, uncensorable, truly borderless and free, just as the internet should have remained.

If your response is that we’ll get platforms in trouble by telling “lawmakers” to get fucked, then that platform is of zero use to us any longer. I already have everyone’s email address in my list. I can take you with us.

Read around any law, any regime, any algorithm. Fines will be paid with only a photo of a middle finger.

This isn’t a resolution, it’s what will occur moving forward: Only Draven Nocturne, William War-Howl, Nocturnal Shadows, Lightning Bolt, Chernobyl Ballsack and those showing up to the Detroit Battle of The Bands will be performing. So get your eyes on the Against All Odds version of The Nocturneverse or go read it on ScribbleHub where there are some additions to certain sections, writing that’s tightened up and beginning to undergo the process of scrubbing out game references in order for us to move to print publication.

Got news for the The Cult of Government Intervention.

Your god is dead and no one cares.

If there is a Hell, I’ll see you there.