Post by Dunwik on Feb 15, 2023 1:18:18 GMT
April 1st, 1917
Alan Babitch flipped through the pulp magazines, a purple, felt-tip marker in his hand, a pair of scissors sitting on his desk. Carefully, he start cutting through the cheap paper, splitting away the different stories from each other. Then, going through each and every one in its turn, he scribbled down notes, concepts, ideas. Marking poignant statements in purple, and what he saw as gross errors in red. For the most part, he remained moderately amused, but one story, Babitch found, ended scribbled in red ink.
It was something of the pacing, but more than that, how anti-Dunwikki it was. A product of a feverish, deluded, cowardly mind. The sorts that Arthur railed against - Babitch thought them a myth, but here they were, published! How could anyone not follow Arthur? Babitch, somewhat dryly to himself, noted that with the preponderance of railway cars, railway lines, roads, telegraph lines, ships, and ports named Arthur, it'd be impossible to avoid his name by now.
Yet, this seemed more an error in mindset than anything else. Perhaps, Babitch thought, a guiding hand could be used. This author, this Mr. West, seemed intelligent. Perhaps compensating with verbosity, but he understood the mechanism of building emotion in the reader - even if the means he used it for were abhorrent. To leave the people afraid of witch cults mumbling ludicrous cantrips, to drag the Dunwikki back into fearing Lengans under their bed... for what end? Vigilance? It would not inspire vigilance to declare the fight is hopeless.
"Dear Mr. West
I must say I'm rather impressed with your vocabulary as an author, and it truly seems to be your strong suit. While I wouldn't personally spend so much of my prose in description, I understand such things are stylistic endeavors moreso than any iron law. What I must say, though, is that I feel as though your media demonstrates anti-Dunwikki sentiment and may inspire a sense of listlessness and dare I say superstition in the common man. You have great potential as an author, but I feel that you, to truly shine, must embrace the Dunwikki spirit. You write in the style of a Lengan, my friend, and I hope this is rectified immediately. Consider having your protagonists ultimately triumph over the monster in the end, and I feel we will be in perfect agreement ever after.
Your fellow writer,
-Alan Babitch."
---
Henry West sifted through his letters, leaving many stacks of his correspondence out to be mailed on the next day. Fishing through his incoming mail with long fingers, he received a short letter, unfolding it and reading the piddling paragraph in a flash. His eyes creased and his mouth turned into a frown. Damnable children. They knew little, naught. So confident in their conceptions of a safe and sane world, unaware of the nuclear chaos lurking 'round every corner and 'neath every stone, the gibbering incomprehensible horrors, amorphous and invisible, malevolent and eternal, behind every blade of grass and out of sight - audible, sometimes detectable by olfaction, but impossible for the foolish to see. What a fool this Babitch was. His prose barer than a skeleton, his characters mere things pushed about, void of soul, humanity.
Perhaps the ignoramus, in his arrogance, believed the war was over. That the horrors beneath had truly been vanquished. What fools!
"Your conduct disgusts me. You are a revolting creature, ignorant the arts, unlearned in the ways of the Enemy. Your prose is as mechanical & bare as the textbooks you so immersed yourself in & your terminal lack of understanding - imagination - comprehension, rings true. For all the stunts of your puppet characters, soulless anima, you are a mediocre talesman. Your creatures possess no inner lives & your morality is as basic & bland as a mere child. That the miracles of science, technology, & fervent worship of Arthur will inexplicably yet inexorably elevate the Dunwikki man to untold heights. What childishness!
But I ask of you, as it was in the olden times, whence have all of these abominable tales come forth from? Point to anywhere on the map, from that dread plateau of Leng, to the barbarous lands of the Tholes and the decadent froth of the Divinian, from the animal Ilhicaco to the lazy Sadaler, whence, I ask, whence, hath come these abominable tales? Constant spirits, too many patterns to ignore, that men must die to bring forth the harvest?
It is inconceivable - impossible - that these basal creatures have the slightest capacity for abstraction. Perhaps they would have the folly to continually slaughter their own for spirits nonexistent, but they lack the intellect to even come to that conclusion in the first place. It is a ludicrous statement to declare that the "gods" of these stupid, lowly apes are somehow abstractions of such complexity they baffled even your "god" Arthur. That would be a declaration that the barbarous creatures of the outer world have inexplicably stumped - in your eyes - the greatest man not only alive, but ever.
You fool, you stupid creature, you computer void of imagination, anima, soul, or foresight, there is but one rational & plausible conclusion. That somehow, in some way, we are not the first master of the earth, nor shall we be the last. The crude peoples are wrong to worship such abominations, for in times of old, they must've been, & they shall return whence their worship has been depleted, for motives inconceivable, to orchestrate crimes unmentionable.
Do not speak to me again until you comprehend."
Alan Babitch flipped through the pulp magazines, a purple, felt-tip marker in his hand, a pair of scissors sitting on his desk. Carefully, he start cutting through the cheap paper, splitting away the different stories from each other. Then, going through each and every one in its turn, he scribbled down notes, concepts, ideas. Marking poignant statements in purple, and what he saw as gross errors in red. For the most part, he remained moderately amused, but one story, Babitch found, ended scribbled in red ink.
It was something of the pacing, but more than that, how anti-Dunwikki it was. A product of a feverish, deluded, cowardly mind. The sorts that Arthur railed against - Babitch thought them a myth, but here they were, published! How could anyone not follow Arthur? Babitch, somewhat dryly to himself, noted that with the preponderance of railway cars, railway lines, roads, telegraph lines, ships, and ports named Arthur, it'd be impossible to avoid his name by now.
Yet, this seemed more an error in mindset than anything else. Perhaps, Babitch thought, a guiding hand could be used. This author, this Mr. West, seemed intelligent. Perhaps compensating with verbosity, but he understood the mechanism of building emotion in the reader - even if the means he used it for were abhorrent. To leave the people afraid of witch cults mumbling ludicrous cantrips, to drag the Dunwikki back into fearing Lengans under their bed... for what end? Vigilance? It would not inspire vigilance to declare the fight is hopeless.
"Dear Mr. West
I must say I'm rather impressed with your vocabulary as an author, and it truly seems to be your strong suit. While I wouldn't personally spend so much of my prose in description, I understand such things are stylistic endeavors moreso than any iron law. What I must say, though, is that I feel as though your media demonstrates anti-Dunwikki sentiment and may inspire a sense of listlessness and dare I say superstition in the common man. You have great potential as an author, but I feel that you, to truly shine, must embrace the Dunwikki spirit. You write in the style of a Lengan, my friend, and I hope this is rectified immediately. Consider having your protagonists ultimately triumph over the monster in the end, and I feel we will be in perfect agreement ever after.
Your fellow writer,
-Alan Babitch."
---
Henry West sifted through his letters, leaving many stacks of his correspondence out to be mailed on the next day. Fishing through his incoming mail with long fingers, he received a short letter, unfolding it and reading the piddling paragraph in a flash. His eyes creased and his mouth turned into a frown. Damnable children. They knew little, naught. So confident in their conceptions of a safe and sane world, unaware of the nuclear chaos lurking 'round every corner and 'neath every stone, the gibbering incomprehensible horrors, amorphous and invisible, malevolent and eternal, behind every blade of grass and out of sight - audible, sometimes detectable by olfaction, but impossible for the foolish to see. What a fool this Babitch was. His prose barer than a skeleton, his characters mere things pushed about, void of soul, humanity.
Perhaps the ignoramus, in his arrogance, believed the war was over. That the horrors beneath had truly been vanquished. What fools!
"Your conduct disgusts me. You are a revolting creature, ignorant the arts, unlearned in the ways of the Enemy. Your prose is as mechanical & bare as the textbooks you so immersed yourself in & your terminal lack of understanding - imagination - comprehension, rings true. For all the stunts of your puppet characters, soulless anima, you are a mediocre talesman. Your creatures possess no inner lives & your morality is as basic & bland as a mere child. That the miracles of science, technology, & fervent worship of Arthur will inexplicably yet inexorably elevate the Dunwikki man to untold heights. What childishness!
But I ask of you, as it was in the olden times, whence have all of these abominable tales come forth from? Point to anywhere on the map, from that dread plateau of Leng, to the barbarous lands of the Tholes and the decadent froth of the Divinian, from the animal Ilhicaco to the lazy Sadaler, whence, I ask, whence, hath come these abominable tales? Constant spirits, too many patterns to ignore, that men must die to bring forth the harvest?
It is inconceivable - impossible - that these basal creatures have the slightest capacity for abstraction. Perhaps they would have the folly to continually slaughter their own for spirits nonexistent, but they lack the intellect to even come to that conclusion in the first place. It is a ludicrous statement to declare that the "gods" of these stupid, lowly apes are somehow abstractions of such complexity they baffled even your "god" Arthur. That would be a declaration that the barbarous creatures of the outer world have inexplicably stumped - in your eyes - the greatest man not only alive, but ever.
You fool, you stupid creature, you computer void of imagination, anima, soul, or foresight, there is but one rational & plausible conclusion. That somehow, in some way, we are not the first master of the earth, nor shall we be the last. The crude peoples are wrong to worship such abominations, for in times of old, they must've been, & they shall return whence their worship has been depleted, for motives inconceivable, to orchestrate crimes unmentionable.
Do not speak to me again until you comprehend."