Frayed Branches

  Summertide : Available Now + New Preview Hey everyone. I'm excited to announce that my poetry collection, Summertide , is now available in paperback and Kindle ebook ! As an added bonus for today, you can find four more free preview poems below. There are dozens more where these came from, so if you like them, consider supporting me by purchasing a copy by clicking on the highlighted links above. 1 Patrons to the Stars It’s the middle of the night. Glowing star-spots above devacate the atmosphere, Pluming in the black to reveal their beings. Crisp spark-fires, they elevate high above the planet, Watchful gazes turned down to the beloved below. But there is a stranger somewhere in their midst. An idea that, ever-watching, starts to grow. At first, no one notices the little starry tendrils forming: It’s been centuries. Surely the sky was always designed like this! Historians, however, posit no, The phenomenon we see today is unnatural. No cause for panic yet. A disaster from the s...

  Summertide: Poems Preview Hey everyone. Today, I'll be giving you all a preview of my upcoming poetry collection, Summertide . Below are 8 poems from the collection. All of these poems were written in the summer of 2021. They are intended to be experienced in any order you, as the reader, choose to read them in. This is just a preview of what's to come; a release date for the collection will be announced soon! Note: Titles and content of each poem are subject to change prior to the release of the final product. 1 Death at the Main Hall What irony liberation manifests, As us, forced into the Red Seat Room, Barring all violence and inevitable chafing, Find a false axiom on the sliding screen. Ah, I see, so your life has been  The recompense of forbidden knowledge? Yes, continue to spew it, so I understand it’s unknown qualities! Fluent fixtures of a time long past Turns the Earth—a wide-winged Monarch—back into a pupa. What sickly, gray caterpillar will crawl across the screen...

The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 5: "Out of the Ashes" Review [WARNING: Major spoilers for  The Walking Dead  seasons 1-10, spoilers for season 11.] The new Walking Dead never ceases to amaze me with just how much can happen in an episode that isn't filler yet somehow feels like it all the same. Don't get me wrong, we're above and beyond the level of quality the show was at a few years ago, but it still has a long road ahead of it if it's ever to reach the heights of its most popular seasons. This episode was especially telling, with much of the focus being on a side-plot that has little to no bearing on what should be a grand finale these last episodes should be building toward. Nonetheless, here we are, with plenty of things that are just waiting to happen, yet the show instead taking the opportunity to meander when it really doesn't have to. Despite the formal introduction of the Commonwealth in this episode--which we'll get to a little later--the...

  The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 4: "Rendition" Review [WARNING: Major spoilers for  The Walking Dead  seasons 1-10, spoilers for season 11.] After being absent in the previous episode, Daryl returns for his own bottled adventure, marked as 1/6th of the way through The Walking Dead 's final season. Starting at the same point as the previous episode, this entry follows Daryl as he is on the road escaping the Reapers. However, upon daybreak, Daryl is alone, having lost his dog, Dog, in a scuffle with some Reapers in the forest. He ends up coming across a Reaper that's holding Dog captive. At first, Daryl pulls his knife on the individual, intent on taking Dog back no matter the bloodshed that would ensue. But his plans change when the figure takes off her mask, revealing it to be Leah, a girl who lived in a cabin that Daryl had a relationship with way back during the timeskip when he was in the woods looking for Rick. So begins an episode where Daryl tries to convin...

  Gemini Home Entertainment: Cosmic Horror Meets Analog Video Supernatural horror, as a genre, can come in many shapes and sizes. From books to television to even comic books, the idea of something unknown and unexplainable lurking just at the corners of human vision has always fascinated us. I should know, given I've written books inspired by those very ideas. But, with the Internet allowing storytellers more tools to create and share the worlds they envision, a whole new slew of horror content has been cropping up in the last decade or so. This ranges from shows like  Marble Hornets , a webseries about the popular, faceless Slenderman monster, to "creepypasta," Internet horror stories, some of which are incredibly chilling ("Candle Cove" being one of my favorites).  But recently, a new type of video has been cropping up on YouTube: Analog horror. A subgenre of found footage, analog horror typically throws away the idea that found footage has to rely on a chara...

  Uncharted: Drake's Fortune : An Action-Packed Treasure-Hunting Adventure Game The interactivity of video games is something I've rarely touched on in this blog outside of a single exception: The demo for Bandai Namco's Scarlet Nexus . But I think it's something I should do more often, as not only do some video games tell unique and interesting tales, but they also allow for direct interactivity between the audience and the medium. I'm sure hundreds if not thousands of articles and essays have already been written on the subject of how video games offer an interactive narrative that, while often on a specific path, allow players to choose how that journey plays out. But that's the joy of video games, really. The fact that you're experiencing a story right alongside the characters you play as. Not to mention that it allows players to take on new, exciting roles they simply never would be able to in real life. One video game that tells a fun, engaging story w...

  The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 3: "Hunted" Review [WARNING: Major spoilers for  The Walking Dead  seasons 1-10, spoilers for season 11.] The biggest lie I could tell you right now is that I know where The Walking Dead is headed in its final season. But I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that regard. Following a fairly strong--or at least entertaining--second part to the series premiere, the third episode of the show's super-sized ending takes us into a rather messy episode that jumps all over the place in terms of both location and presentation. After being chased away from Meridian by the Reapers, Maggie's group is scattered to the wind. Daryl all but disappears as unnamed characters are picked off by this new threat. All the while, the audience watches as Maggie, Negan, and Gabriel are separated and injured in the assault, forced to flee into the forest. Our major focus is on Maggie, who still wants to continue the mission of getting food from Meridian d...

  The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 1-2: "Acheron" Review [WARNING: Major spoilers for The Walking Dead seasons 1-10, minor spoilers for season 11.] If you're surprised to see AMC's most popular series The Walking Dead has managed to shamble its way into an 11th season, don't worry: You're not alone. A series that was once a powerhouse in terms of views because of its unique, character-driven storytelling set in the backdrop of the zombie apocalypse, The Walking Dead has seen many ups and downs in both quality and viewership since its peak of popularity all the way back in season 5. Right now, though, the series is slowly dripping as the last of its live viewers filter out, the series now only raking in 2 million live viewers on a good day. An admirable feat to be sure, and indicative of a general degree of popularity. But it's nowhere near the 14 million live viewers the series would receive during its peak. As for the current viewership, for better or w...