Well, my first attempt at a story. Apologies if it is badly written, and even more if it sounds like heresy to any of you. oh yeah, btw i will upload in segments. (i wasn't expecting so many speedy responses). actually, someone take over this thread as i was expecting to be able to slowly add more story not be swamped with replies already (although it is appreciated).
I think just a single exclamation mark would have been a good summary - terse, but filled with nuance. As it is, I think Otzi's page of blank text relies too much on the imagination of his readers. @thedarkfourth would say "show, don't tell" but I think this piece of nouveau-nihilism has a disappointing paucity of exposition - even if it is, without any doubt, stylish.
Thiss iss real art! NO lizard have done it before you Otzi' like pi'ca'sso's cubism and Kazimir Malevitj black square have you created something uniqe. A stroke of geniuss chos can impossebly taint thiss true masterpice of the old ones. You must be truly blessed by Artzafartzi! Thiss pice of art is incomprendibel for morthal beings! //Essmir the herald of Artzafartzi
John Cage's "4'33" is commonly misinterpreted as four and half minutes of silence, but this is not what the composer intended. Rather, it was supposed to be a live performance in which the musicians simply did not play their instruments: the music came from the ambient sounds of the environment itself, thus constituting the ultimate manifestation of Cage's belief that anything can be music. I believe Otzi'mandias' "Heresy" is a bold homage to Cage's zen-inspired modernism. At the immediate level, the reader is invited to assess the enigmatic nature of Lustria Online's virtual junglescape as well as his or her own position within it. Can we really say that Lizardmen "fanfic" is fiction, when it occupies a very real part of our consciousness, not to mention the internet? Does true L-O literature lie simply in our communal participation in this imaginative labour itself? Do we really need to codify it in concrete stories, or does an empty message on a desolate thread suffice to say everything that needs to be said? These are the questions raised by "Heresy", and they are questions that cut right to the core of the fluff and stories scene. The name itself provides the ultimate ambiguity. The most straightforward interpretation is that the nod to Cage's Buddhist philosophy cuts against the very grain of the Mesoamerican-inspired rituals of Lustrian fandom. The heresy lies in daring to present the ultimate form of pacifist non-engagement, right here in the heart of Aztec ultra-violence. But perhaps there is a deeper heresy, one that cries against the nature of literature itself. Just as Socrates claimed that man's natural genius and imagination is watered down and lost in the process of transcription into a permanent record, so "Heresy" dares to follow in the footsteps of that ultimate heretic, and drink the hemlock of abnegation of the very medium to which it is expected to conform. By spurning written words, "Heresy" provides a rallying cry for a truly radical revolution of Lustrian consciousness. It is, without doubt, the most important work of our generation, and history may well remember it as the beginning of a bright new dawn for Lizardmen writing.
Look, I can't agree with you, TDF. I put the 10 hour remix of Cage's "4'33" " on my ipod, but the battery ran out before I was remotely enlightened. I have gone over "Heresy" at least 6 times already, and I have got to say, I actually got it, but it is really too clever by half. If Otzi wants to smash the fourth wall by letting the entire internet and therefore all recorded knowledge, including those photos which I though I had blocked, kind of trickle inside, can this work be truly considered original? If I want see something offensive, I have only to look in the mirror.
So wait... the old ones weren't real, it was just a long convoluted story cooked up by the slann to keep control of the rest? They only let Sotek into the pantheon to stop a skink uprising and maintain the status quo of the old ones myth? Very bold @Otzi'mandias very bold.
Oh... You mean it is a REAL heresy, not a figurative one. That changes everything. Heat up the red hot pokers.