Δευτέρα 31 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

The 2013 100th Blog Post Special!

StarChildren and SpaceBurgers by Lionel Kokkinis.


LOOK AT MY FUCKING AWESOME BANNER.

LOOK AT MY NEW FUCKING BANNER AND MARVEL AT HOW FUCKING AWESOME IT IS!

IT WAS MADE BY THIS SEXY TALENTED MOTHERFUCKER.

eh does comissions and doesn't afraid of anything.


CLICK ON HIS FUCKING PIC TO VISIT HIS PAGE.

On another, less flamboyantly Caps-Locked note, this is Shapescapes' 100th post! As such, I will use this auspicious number to do one of those masturbatory posts bloggers are wont to do about themselves, so I can brag about shit I got done last year:

So here goes the...

SHAPESCAPES 2012 ACHIEVEMENT LIST or IT COULD HAVE GONE BETTER BUT AT LEAST IT DIDN'T GET WORSE.

*joyous bleeping*

I got shit published:

Ever since I remember myself doing anything even remotely interesting (i.e. the age of 11), I recall wanting to write stories. Or, to be more specific, I remember realizing how awesome stories and the process of turning the swirl of ideas and raw chaos in your skull into a comprehensible whole that you can project to others actually is.

I always wanted to be able to put down the images and the exchanges that took place in my head, but I never actually got down to it until I was 16. And what did I do? I wrote 200,000 words worth of fan fiction.

It was pretty fucking terrible, too.

It wasn't until i was 18 when i began an earnest attempt to actually sit my ass down and right, thinking "yeah, I should probably try to get my shit published", commencing my year-long attempt to write the GREATEST GREEK FANTASY EPIC OF ALL TIME.

It fucking bombed halfway through (mostly because it was garbage) so I set off to write the GREATEST GREEK SUPERHERO FICTION EPIC OF ALL TIME which also bombed, because it was a half-baked idea that still hasn't settled.

During that time, I started working on a silly little comedic project which I called "The Chronicles of Choppinstan" (Τα Χρονικά της Καφριλονίας). It did have some...moderate success (by internet standards) but it was never finsihed, because I thought of it as too low-brow for my tastes.

What followed was a 5-year hiatus from writing, during which I felt like crap the entire fucking time and threw myself to tabletop roleplaying as a means to make me feel better. It was until 2011 that I decided to actually do something about my passion, when I started work on the first book of the Sisyphan Scriptures-The genesis of the Alef (Σισσύφιες Επιστολές-Η Γέννηση του Άλεφ) which i am currently uploading here in chapter format and I'm in the process of translating into English.

It wasn't until 2012 that i realized that I was barking up the wrong tree and I decided to try my luck with writing in the English language. Oh, it was going to be hard as balls, but hey, what was the worst that could happen, right?

Besides getting visciously mauled by dogs?

Get On with it, for fuck's sake!

So I started working on some of my stuff and I tried my hand at pretty much everything, which in turn yielded for me a few (and cherished) publications in the English language.

True to form, the Universe granted me my wish (which was the chance to write and publish children's stories) by having my very first fairy tale in English "Something In the Sandbox" accepted for publication by Open Hearts Publishing. I got to write the story of the queen of the playground, of the subtle uprising of her subjects and the banes of wantonness.

Then, Schlock! Magazine did me a favor and published a story I wrote, belonging to mys econd-favorite genre of literature, called "LeftOvers", where I told the tale of a man who got what he had coming.

Static Movement picked my story, "Under the Staircase" where I got to see the apocalypse through the eyes of a child and write about scar tissue on the human soul, the kind that grows into you and forces you to grow around it, instead of the other way round.

Round that time, EveryDayFiction.com did me a solid by accepting my flash story "Treading the Grass" where I wrote a letter in the approximate style of a revenge driven, methodical psychopath in 12th century Japan. (And you can read it here: www.everydayfiction.com/treading-the-grass-by-konstantine-paradias/)

Black Cross Productions liked my superhero story "Blue Oceans, Yellow Sands" sometime near the end of the year and I can't thank them enough for letting the Overmen that have been bounding across my skull loose, if only for a while.

And, last but not least, I got to publish my very first e-book in English! stone Cold Countenance started as a doodle, expanding constantly in my hand from the very first sentence and radiating outward toward every possible direction, until it was about 200 pages long and yearning to be let out. But you can go check out the rest on the relevant blog page.

What I think about 2013-I don't know man, but I know it's not gonna be shit.

With all that said, I'd like to wish all of you wonderufl people a wonderful, happy and productive as fuck year, with joyous occassion all around!

From me to you, here's to a 365-day long orgasm that will engrave a smile onto your face!

Here's looking at you, you tasy, glorious bastard.

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Τετάρτη 19 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

Σισσύφιες Επιστολές, Η γέννηση του Άλεφ-Μέρος 9ο



Παμφάγος Ορχιδέα


6500 μΕ, Τέρρα Πρίμα, Πόλη-ήπειρος Μαχάτ, Θόλος του Πόθου.

«Και μου λες ότι τα επίπεδα των τερματικών είναι γεμάτα με αυτά τα πράγματα;» είπε η Χήρα, κοιτάζοντας την ορχιδέα που της είχε φέρει η Μαινάδα.

«Τα κορίτσια μου φέρανε ένα μάτσο από δαύτα, λένε ότι έχουν φυτρώσει μέσα από το πλαστομέταλλο και έχουν πνίξει τα κατώτερα επίπεδα. Μερικά από αυτά έχουν ρίζες μέσα στα καλώδια του Δικτύου.»


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Τρίτη 18 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

To-Do List (Last Minute Apocalypse Special) by Konstantine Paradias





From the personal notebook of Jack Schmidt, sole victim of the events of December 21st, 2012:

-Pasta (2 packets)
-Hot peppers (1/2 kilo)
-Dishwashing soap  the green one
-That fucking red wine she likes
-Rice basmati, long
-Mushrooms (not the brown ones, they give me gas) please get the brown ones, baby
-2 liter coke remember your diet, sweetie
-Fucking expensive lettuce it’s Romain. Get two
-12 plastic bags, the big ones
-One hacksaw
-24 cans of condensed milk, for no fucking reason whatsoever you seriously want to go out and shop just for that next time?
-Tomatoes (3 kilos) try to get the really juicy red ones, I love those
-12-litre Drain-O bottle
-Blowtorch
-Condoms (12-pack) try not to get the latex ones, they give me a rash
-A better fucking girlfriend
-An isolated place by the highway where I can bury her so nobody will notice.
-Spade.

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Δευτέρα 17 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

Phoenix (Last Minute Apocalypse Special) by Dimitris Morakeas

It was on the 21st of December the year 2012 that the world ended. 

The reason wasn’t nuclear war,  the wrath of a god or a second coming, it wasn’t the alien invasion that a small part of the population had hoped for nor a zombie infestation as a slightly larger part wished. The earth certainly didn’t split, so tentacles would emerge and rampage as a fringe part of population had dreamt (a smaller subgroup thought that the tentacles would emerge only at the area of Japan and attack specifically and exclusively female students).

It was the hope and fear of us all that did the trick.

People missed work on that day and so nothing really worked; that surprised some people whose outmost fear was that without them manning their posts the end of all would really come. They stayed home and under the fear of death they saw their lives as never  before, some of them admitted to themselves that their lives sucked and found the courage to abandon their old lives even for few hours before the end of all, some realized for the first time how blessed they were (they knew how happy their lives were before but never truly understood it) and become contend with what they had, some realized the pain that they had spread and some of them were crushed under its weight while others changed (or try to change) their mindset and atone for their sins. There were of course those that ignored the whole thing but those people ignore every think around them and thus manage to stay unimportant in the flow of history.

Then came the 22nd.

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Σάββατο 15 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

Human Slaves of An insect Nation-Part 4



Poor, unkillable, lonely slayer of teenagers…


Human Slaves of An Insect Nation, part 4-The Horrors of Horror
Aaahh, horror. Now that’s a genre that’s been tossed around a lot. Movies try to do it but barely succeed



and games do it, even though sometimes horror was not their original focus or intent:



Make no mistake: Horror is not an easy genre to master or to use. It is, in fact (along with comedy) among the toughest genres to work with, mostly because it is based on manipulating your audience and knowing exactly which buttons to push and a masterful understanding of narrative flow for maximum effect.


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Τετάρτη 12 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

Σισσύφιες Επιστολές-Η Γέννηση του Άλεφ, Μέρος 8ο



Πανοπτική Μάσκα

6500 μΕ, άγνωστος πλανήτης εκτός καταγεγραμμένων εκτάσεων, κοντά στη ζώνη του Ισημερινού.

Ο Ραλφ απενεργοποίησε το καμουφλάζ του και παρακολούθησε τη μικρή ομάδα από μαυροντυμένους, με την Οόνα και τον Τόνυ να ίπτανται πίσω τους. Τα σώματά τους κινούνταν και αιμορραγούσαν, αλλά το αίμα έρρεε γύρω τους σαν μικρές στάλες, σα να βρισκόταν σε ένα πεδίο μηδενικής βαρύτητας.

Περίμενε λίγο ακόμη, μέχρι που είχαν πλεόν χαθεί πίσω από τη βλάστηση και άρχισε να τους ακολουθεί, προσπαθώντας να μην πανικοβάλλει την τοπική πανίδα. Το δάσος ήταν ένα τροπικό αντίγραφο των πρώιμων προεπαφικών χρόνων της Τέρρα Πρίμα. Η βλάστηση είχε μεταλλαχθεί, ώστε να προσαρμοστεί στο ξένο έδαφος αυτού του πλανήτη, αλλά ο Ραλφ μπορούσε να δει ότι η  ανάπτυξη της χλωρίδας ήταν βεβιασμένη και ατελής. Τα δέντρα είχαν φυτευτεί, οι σπόροι τους πιθανόν κλωνοποιημένοι σε κάποιο εργαστήριο, αλλά η χλωρίδα δεν έδειχνε καμία πρόθεση να εξαπλωθεί. Τα δέντρα αυτά ήταν πράσινα και ζωντανά, θαύματα βιοτεχνολογίας, αλλά έμοιαζαν να μην έχουν καμία απολύτως δυνατότητα να εξαπλωθούν σε αυτό τον πλανήτη.


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Τρίτη 11 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

What I Think About Stuff-The Shapescapes Endtimes Last minute special

I know I should be feeling horrible, but this is just so goddamn metal!
 The Shapescapes last-minute apocalypse special! World's going to end in ten days as from the moment of this post, so it's time for all you wonderful people to go crazy! Why wait for the 21th so you can loot and participate in the Great Endtimes orgy? Why wait for the 20th so you can huddle in church and pray to your Gods? Why kill your family on the 21st, like a schmuck, when you can do it right here, right the fuck now!

(In your imagination. This is kind of important)

Write your own 2012 the world just fucking ended apocalypse story. Chuck meteorites on the Earth, shacke tectonic plates until they come apart, or be a pussy and go zombie! Either way, summarize the End of Everything in 3,000 words or less!

Only on Shapescapes. Results will be posted on the 20th, so the winner can do a victory jig before he is consumed by the rage of Tezcatlipoca with the rest of us.

(kudos to Dimitris morakeas for proposing the idea. visit his blog, you bastards aitherontd.blogspot.com)

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Σάββατο 8 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

By The River



Illustration masterfully brought to you by Vaggelis Ntousakis. http://www.facebook.com/the.grue (all rights reserved)



“I killed a man here, once. On this river bank. I think it was right...there. Yeah, that's the spot. You can still see the stain he left as he bled out on the ground. I remember looking at all this blood pooling ‘round him, flowing between the rocks, thinking ‘this can't be happening, can it? A guy can't have this much blood in him’. He whimpered all the time, though. It's the whimpering I can't stand. See, when a guy's about to die, he kind of...regresses. He turns back into a little sobbing ape, crying for help to the rest of his pack. Had to push him underwater to make him shut up. Little ape went down like a stone, met all the other dead apes in the bottom. It's full of it down there, you know. I bet if you stacked them on top of one another, you could build a house out of all the dead in just the bottom of this river. Hell, you could get some good furniture out of the deal too. Moldy beds, old couches that grampas died in, baby trolleys. I think I'm gonna make me house out of all those dead things, one of these days.

“You’re cold, right? I can see you shaking like a leaf. Want my jacket? No? That’s alright. You ain’t gonna be cold for long. Mind if I smoke?”


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What I think About Stuff-It's Bullshit and You Know It!


PROTIP: If you don’t get this painting, then you’re not an asshole


ART! Or It’s Bullshit and you know it

DISCLAIMER: This is an article aiming to tear at horseshit that plague my country, the Internet and the sensibilities of idiots who try to seem intelligent by swimming along the river of shit that is the ‘avant garde’. If you are offended by this then you are one of them and do not deserve my pity. 

Way back when, in my Rogan Gosh review, I made a brief mention of my unbridled, venomous hatred toward ‘artists’. Note the fucking quotes, they’re important. 

I mentioned how Greece is chock full of bastards who grow goatees, wear Palestinian Indifanda scarves and read or say the weirdest shit, while making sure they are always surrounded by a group of cunts as blind and retardedly elitist as themselves, so that no one will ever tell them that their cucumber on a stone slab sculpture is a piece of shit and that it signifies fuck all.

Or anybody who might say, confront them on how they have been wasting their parents’ money on horse shit.

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Τετάρτη 5 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

Σισσύφιες Επιστολές-Η Γέννηση του Άλεφ, μέρος 7ο





6500 μΕ, Άγνωστος Πλανήτης, εκτός καταγεγραμμένου Σύμπαντος.

Η Οόνα άνοιξε το στόμα της για να αναπνεύσει και ένιωσε το αίμα της να την πνίγει. Ένα μικρό ρυάκι κύλισε από τα χείλη της και έπεσε πάνω στα απομεινάρια του πάνελ ελέγχου του σκάφους.

Διαπίστωσε ότι δε μπορούσε να κινήσει τα πόδια της και ότι δεν ένιωθε σχεδόν καθόλου πόνο. Η λαμαρίνα που είχε ξεπηδήσει κατά την πρόσκρουση την είχε διαπεράσει από τη μία άκρη του στομαχιού της  την άλλη και είχε προφανώς τσακίσει τη σπονδυλική της στήλη, αλλά δεν ένιωθε και τόσο άσχημα.


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