/lit/ - Literature

https://lampbylit.com/magazine/verify/
>https://lampbylit.com/magazine/verify/
https://lampbylit.com/magazine/verify/
>https://lampbylit.com/magazine/verify/

no link wtf??????

>>22887310
>https://LampByLit.com
>>22887310
https://lampbylit.com/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/its-such-a-thing_compressed.pdf

>>22887326
You got the meme Frank Gardner hack thing up again.

>>22887331
omg f garder ftw

>>22887292
Can someone tell me what (if anything) is worth reading in this issue?

>>22887462
It's been up for like 15 minutes. You tell me.

>>22887326
bretty gud

>>22887292
Aw man no schizo cantos

>>22887635
Nah, he sided with Altas during the discord skirmish a while back

>>22887672
I "sided" with nobody, just made a post expressing sympathy for a person I'd enjoyed talking to. &amp dropped off my server list and I didn't go looking for it again because drama is exhausting.
I did send in a batch for 019 but that was weeks before the public drama started and I figure it got lost in the depths of the inbox. Probably should have re-sent it at some point but I neglected to.

>>22887689
Consider yourself dropped and rejected. Maybe Atlus and her much luaded &non will lay out a hammock and bowl of water for you. Fitting accommodations for a snake.

>>22887292
Oh shi–!

Great news

>>22887292
Is there another Woolston story in this one?

>>22887750
Page hopping layout of midsection typically bizarre

>>22887689
Based.
>>22887758
Yeah why did they do that.

>>22887292
We are so back. I'll rank and review everything soon.

>>22887292
Nice I look forward to reading it

>>22887292
Woah very nice. I wasn’t expecting this to come thru at the last moment but glad it did. Let’s just take a moment for that, and appreciate and know that now there’s actually something to talk about.
Even if there’s a typo in my name :(

bump

explain this fucking layout to me

>>22889460
did you not enjoy it?

Great work on the cover design. My favourite part about these are some of the editor’s notes. I’m not so sure on them. They don’t carry me away exactly. Some names from the Unreal I recognise and some anonymous or unknown, I like the mix. I have to be honest I have hardly read the stories because of the formatting, but I expect this means I was filtered.

>>22889460
It compels you to buy the print version. Editor was excited because he normally formats exclusively digital.

>>22889859
how does reading the print help? just east of back and forth?

>>22888311
I enjoyed your style. I think it can be hard to confidently and convincingly blend prose style with modern internet language even though the form is becoming more familiar. But anything in that style is always nice to me. I think you did a great job on your story. You should make your message clearer next time, as your next challenge to improve. It is one thing to create a prose piece of style and images that feel and look reasonably impressive, and I am sure you had a sense of what you were going for, but the challenge is making something evident and clear even through all the style or better yet because of it. Right now I think you're memeing A BIT. Or using the style to greater and clearer effect.

>>22889460
lazy poor imitation of sam hyde as always
you should see the inside
monkey see monkey do
so embarrassing

>>22890185
>imitation of Sam Hyde
picrel. experience more.

score anon, please tell me you are here???

>>22890458
This is how I feel about the dude who read The Tent few issues back and called it derivative of Shakespeare

>nearly five months in the oven and it looks like shit
why

The M section almost passes the sniff test on looks but feels like cheap imitation corpo slop. And good god the Canon's Spiral is cringe.

From what I read
>Beware My Zoodles: meh
Had a double punchline that didn't land. It might be funny if it were much shorter, like two paragraphs, and if it wasn't so over-explained. Text should be justified but that's on the editor.
>A Stick of Incense: cool but cliche
Every disaffected twenty-something e-writer writes like this to express their idiosyncratic detachment from society in a way that doesn't go anywhere. Do more with the language than just puke it out on the page as an opaque statement. Maybe write something longer with this type of stuff interspersed so there's some pacing.
>Hellcion: second only to Canon's Spiral for cringe
Had to copy the text into a text file to actually read it without my head hurting, but nonetheless suffered through all the babbling just to reach
>Cogito, ergo sum — I think, therefore I am.
>mfw
That line really ignites my 'punch' reflex. Someone could pop your head like a zit it's so over-inflated.

>>22890458
Well what is the style then? what is it called?

Some good shit there. I appreciate the effort. Maybe I'll submit a story some day. Thanks lads.

>>22890494
Tell me the key. Are the sections genre coded? Based impressions. I felt a lot of the same feeling as you.

>>22890501
>lads
Woolston

>>22890503
It's explained at the front in poorly edited meme format.

>>22890496
Holy fuck who cares? You want me to declare a genre so you can disregard it as being beneath you? Use your fucking brain and broaden your god damned horizons. Better yet, go back to dickriding guenon and dosto and a bunch of other writers you haven’t read and let the creative people work. Your eagerness to put people to compensate for limited awareness of quality is embarassing.

>>22890507
oh yeah duh lol! can't believe I skippe that

>>22890509
I didn't mean genre in a bad way...

>>22890507
And S=Soul is like the "best" going by the brain meme? Because no way Ecofreak is considered better than anything in this issue.

>>22890509
Wow you're mad. &amp's style (when it exists) is a bad attempt at a mid-2010s "ugly on purpose" "quirky" html/css abuse style. You can see it in full force if you go to lampbylit.com/elite/, and it's more prevalent in older issues. The cover of this issue is in that style, but the rest is just slop.

>>22890538
The cover is great. I had really high hopes.

>>22890538
>you’re mad
>here’s a list of everything &amp has ever done and why it all upsets me
You’re pathetic. Thanks for at least making it obvious.

>>22889961
thanks

>>22890494

I apologize for the heady writing. I quoted Jung in the beginning and wanted to quote an opposition at the end since I wrote the piece as a criticism of society and academia's stunted ideas about where "imagination" and "creativity" come from and whether or not our brains, being the grand antenna, pick up more signals while awake or while asleep. Jung - asleep, Decartes - awake. - RJC

>>22890561
Would you rather I hadn't read the old issues? Just callin it as I see it, hombre. Sorry I didn't buy a ticket for the dickriding.

>>22890583
It really didn't work well at all, and I honestly didn't pick up at all on it being a criticism of anything. I didn't feel like there was any coherent message, and the style itself was just boring wank to me. 'Heady' is a good way to put it.

Pretty funny how the issue confirms that the whole Atlas tries to subvert amp before freaking out arc was orchestrated.

>>22890611
I’d rather you didn’t call it at all, considering you’re too stupid to see shit. Guess that’s what you ask for on this site: a deluge of braindead faggots who can get away with retardation because they don’t have an assigned screen name. Just make sure to keep bumping, that’s really all you tryhard larpers are good for anyway

>>22890687
Where does it do that? It has a QR code that links to a copy of the original text dump, but it doesn't say anything about it. If anything it specifically avoided saying anything about it, especially by hiding it with a tiny font and behind a QR code of all things. Gay as hell to include anything on it at all as if it's some kind of win.

>>22890691
The design sucks. Simple as. You're not even saying what looks good or what's wrong with my take, you're just pissing your pants about it.

>>22890496
It's called MDE imitation. Can't match the real thing, which is why it sucks... even if it did it'd just be like... why? Do something fresh. &amp is extremely stale and has nothing to do with /lit/. Look at the responses to pointing this shit out lmao. It's a mess.

>>22890730
I wish the issue ignored the Atlas saga or at least BTFO the situation in a major way. At the moment, it just includes the stuff we already saw in the threads. Just as is/as was. It doesn't really have anything to conclude by it.

&amp!

>>22890733
Yeah but the MDE style is itself a part of a broader post-modern style. I'm wondering what you call it.

>>22890611

Thank you for your honest feedback. I appreciate that you took the time to read "Hellcion" and share your feelings. I'm sorry that it didn't work for you, and that you didn't find it meaningful. I respect your opinion. Thanks again for your constructive criticism.

- RJC

Shout outs to Jesus Christ

What the fuck is going on!?

>>22890494
>meh
Zoodle bros it’s over…

>Debrief
At first I loved it.
>"fat black woman, massive tits"
That made me laugh .
Then his knuckles are sore?
Then it's like in this annoying active voice guys thinks it's a Guy Ritchie movie or something
>"The pragmatic solution, right? We ditch her, absolve ourselves of guilt. Unless they run the plates, then we're fucked."
>"Brilliant plan if either of us knew where we could source hydro...sulfuric...whatever kind of acid. Maybe feeder pigs? It might take too long. Plus farmers'd be waking up by now, we'd get blasted."
One thing I wonder when I peruse /wg/ or &amp threads: why don't so many of these writers try their hand at scripts? You can have a narrator say these things over the beginning of a movie and it fits much better.
>"Looking to my left, tits fill my vision."
You only get one tit joke.
>"Chainsmoking behind the wheel, I parse my mind for ideas. I watch enough true crime shit to know they can ping your phone off of cell towers and shit, yeah? We leave the phones at the house, as far as anyone knows, we just got back from the party, okay? Davey nods. Hitting the blinker, we turn off the highway onto our street."
Hm okay now it's settling in. The voice fits okay. True to itself, at least.
>"r-- The door unlocks to interrupt my internal monologue"
Misstep
>"Letting go, her torso flops over the summit, body concave, arms above her head. 'Now we can just...', we both hyperventilate. 'Now we can just... push her down. And let her...', Davey does a 'tumbling dead woman' motion with his hands. '...Y'know?' Repositioning her body to let it freely roll, we halfheartedly send her off with a nudge from our shoes. Her body cracks and mangles, the quiet dawn barely shattered by twigs and sticks breaking under her weight. She twists and breaks, pale flesh soiled by filth as she loses speed. Finally, she lay, a muddy, broken, contorted mass of flesh."
Descriptive, candid. For what it is I like it. It's very GRRM "the more she drank, the more she shat" except I never thought that paragraph was bad the way people say it is.

>>22891376
No one cares OP =)

>>22891191
>broader post-modern style
You have no idea what you're talking about huh

>>22891415
Yeah i do I just said it!!!

>>22890494
Imagine getting filtered by "The Ampersand"

>>22891191
Still haven't found a name for the genre, but maximalism and irony are major parts of it. If you look at How to Bomb the U.S. Gov't it's stylistically very different from how &amp looks/looked (and is actually pretty impressive), though I think they've got similar roots, especially when it comes to the maximalism and irony.

&amp comes more from the web design side of things, from the fad of deliberately obtuse and overfull webpages trying to mock a late 1990s, early 2000s style of bad web design (think Geocities in the past, and look to Neocities or lampbylit.com/elite/ for the 2010s fad; otherwise picture flashing, overlapping elements, coolfonts.com-esque text features, and gaudy custom cursors; this is currently the domain of the "quirky", like furries and MtF shut-ins). Ryan's inspiration in particular goes back to mid 2010s Facebook groups dedicated to the early-internet shitty HTML and mock-hacker/sys-admin lingo. In terms of magazine design, there's one from the mid 2010s called K-Hole that might be the stylistic grandpa of &amp, maximalist but not in the web clutter-y way of &amp.

I'd also bet there's a link to the style of album artwork used by people like Lil Ugly Mane. His earlier rap album art has very specific inspiration, "an homage to No Limit Records album covers" according to someone on /mu/. But again, I think it's part of a 2010s movement of maximalist, ironic design. He's also got a zine that was coupled with one of his releases, which I has similarities to Sam Hyde's stuff, being full of bad-on-purpose, gross-out writing and art.

>inb4 abluh-abluh you don't know what you're talking about abluh-abluh
>you're no creative abluh
Keep pissing your pants, my girl.

>>22891617
>abluh-abluh

>>22890493
You were perhaps filtered. The Tent was truly significant.

>>22890494
>Ariposting this obviously
Godbless you forever.

>>22890538
Finally somebody understands my whole aesthetic impetus. I summed it up pretty good stylistically here:
https://lampbylit.com/elite

>>22890761 I clearly stated my updated opinion in the miniMAG section, admitting I was a homeless cult member

>>22892037
Yes, retard, that's what I linked.

>>22891691
Based

>>22892053
A lot of the aesthetic that I favor comes from execution errors, stack errors, unintentional glitches due to bad design; bad is good and less is more.

>>22892078
>A lot of the aesthetic that I favor comes from [...] bad design

>>22892086
>no offense, kiddo
Can you at least send us another teaser of the Best-Of?

>>22887292
Crystals was simple but good. First story a bit more ragged, but better. Helicon formatted as eyepain

>>22892358
Did you really read any of them?

>>22892419
Yeah, the first one - the disabled kid - was very solid realism. No irony, low artifice, convincing. Crystals thing is very YA in tone, but well-made YA instead of 4chan schizobabble.

Then there was a continuation of I don't know what; a close packed pink mess of text; some joke stuff from lit; then four more of which I've read the AI one (sophomoric) and the dick-knot one (quite funny).

>>22892479
Okay, based.

>>22892022
No I'm saying that the "derivative" comparison is unwarranted and comes from the critiquer's lack of reading.

wow two girls published in this issue and would either of them like to be my girlfriend

>>22893176
Those and the catty editor's note… Honor Levy who?

Surprised Atlas hasn't started freaking out in this thread yet. She must either be dead or in jail because there's no way she has enough self control to avoid having a meltdown and spamming gibberish.

>>22893857
She won’t answer my texts, so she must be choked that we included her rant

NEW YEAR INCOMING
everyone should reset and make peace with each other

editor must be hard up they're really spruiking the print this time

>>22894417
I already have!

>>22894425
If you look at the print I think like 80% of the cost is printing and delivery though.

>>22893176
EC Millieu is 50/50 an MTF trans.

>>22894427
very kewl

Why no reviews?

>almost all of the design from the H-section is copied directly from 018, just with shitty filters put over it to change the colour
>couldn’t even take 5 minutes to find new graphics, change the fonts, or grab some new filler images from /p/

>>22894528
Damn, I noticed some repeated assets but I didn't think that section was a wholesale copy. Fucking lol.

>>22894481
because there's lots of drinking & socializing to do
circle back tomorrow

>>22894435
writes like a girl

>>22894528
Holy shit lol...... damning. &amp is over.

>>22894481
>>22894539
Yes I have lots of family around still. Need more time.

>>22894578
Some autists over-analizing design choices so they needn't bother reading: wouldn't worriboudit.

>>22894613
>analizing
Learn2Spell

>>22894613
Lmao. what can the reader critique in these issues without being in bad faith?? The magazine is a product of its own. It lacks originality, the evidence is right there. Sad.

>>22894528
The rest is dogshit too. Ecofreak is introduced with Canva clipart, with one asset repeated five times. Then it uses a fucking stencil font on a hospital-gown-blue background, although I'll take a plain background over the gradient/blur shit used elsewhere. Crystal Curse is far worse for that reason, not to mention the shitty crystal art and fonts.

There's also a repeat page at 68 and 69 of the PDF, using the same text while having changed only how shit the accompanying AI art is. Maybe this was on purpose.

Rations.txt is 6 pages of full-width columns and some possibly monospaced sans serif font, which you might call inoffensive, but would be more aptly described as offensively boring. Similar to the BIG TEXT MODE on the phone of a granny or other similarly blind person, it's the kind of shit that would look way worse in person, especially held up on two letter-sized pages.

Pic related is Goysloppia from page 46. It's my assumption that this piece sucked so bad that the editors made it unreadable on purpose, but they could also just be stupid.

Apart from the subtly mis-aligned shit plaguing section M, the Russian Funeral and the Past Under the Dunes share multiple pages with a weird split of 2-columns/1-column, which is artfully retarded.

I'd also like to give a special mention to the design of Fish Batter Stain: I fucking hate it. I really really really hate this style of boxes slapped over blurry backgrounds. It looks so cheap and tacky. That's on top of the text being fucked up in multiple places, the bad alignment, and the insets of other story snippets. The premise of having stories jump around is also dumb. Even worse considering it's a ploy (joke?) to get people to buy the print.

And so on.

Let's not forget that the five months of working on this was excused as being to improve the quality. This shit looks like it was put together in a night, but sadly it probably took them about a week.

>>22894481
See
>>22889961
>>22890494
>>22891376
>>22892479

>>22894613
>the design of this Luxury Periodical doesn't matter
It just ain't up to snuff, brother. I'd put it right back on the rack.

>>22894638
>what is paronomasic orthography?

>>22894769
More like a freudian slip, eh buttboy?

>>22894603
I agree although it is a bit lazy. In any case I can excuse it as a one issue off. It's a holiday season plus I think editor is homeless again.

>>22894698
your pic is the worst by far, literally unreadable. maybe it was an artistic choice. some of these may be the writers themselves submitting in these formats. definitely the worst looking issue which is sad because it took so long and the style is as much a part of the mag as the writing i think. fluke i hope

>>22895011
It's hard to see it as a fluke. &amp has had bad readability on select pages before, and I can't imagine an author sending in something you can't even see half the text on. You also don't accidentally steal content from previous issues, which is worse when you consider Ryan had apparently handed off much of the design for the last two (maybe three) issues to Atlas. Design-wise the issues always suffer from being a split of good and bad. Now he's apparently done as little work as possible on the magazine since June, maybe even March. Consider he had Zulu and Atlas before, then tried to hand this issue off to the miniMAG editor.

I think the reason for the shit quality is that Ryan doesn't care about the magazine and only keeps it up for appearances. He's been trying to push shit like Lamp Standard and his real-deal anthology instead, which he probably hopes will make him the money that &amp as a magazine cannot. Nobody will care about those unless he shills them alongside the magazine. The OP didn't even include a link to issue 19, and instead linked the latest rebranding of the anthology project (which no longer has a submission deadline of tomorrow, of course).

>>22895241
Samefag schizo. You can pinpoint precisely when he popped up itt.
(This post no clearance of potential criticism - that's always there.)

Smells like crab in here.

>>22894528
Worst part about this is that in almost every case the 019 version of the design looks comically worse. If you're going be lazy and reuse shit from old issues, at least improve upon it instead of making it significantly uglier. Judging purely on aesthetics, this is the worst-looking issue of &amp we've ever gotten, to the point that it's put me off of wanting to read it. Dunno whether to blame this visual nightmare on Hartley or on Prestia. The issues of miniMAG usually look clean, so Prestia can't be that terrible at design, but maybe miniMAG is just so simple and formulaic that it's impossible to mess up. And Hartley's designs are usually decent, but maybe the crack has fried his brain to the point that he's lost all sense now.

>>22894698
>I really really really hate this style of boxes slapped over blurry backgrounds
That is always how &amp has treats its "serious" literary stories. Very boring.

>>22895313
lmfao, insane degree of cope

019 Review:
>Fish Batter Stain
6/10
>Crystal Curse
6/10
>Gone In An Instant
5/10
>Hellcion
3/10
>Overheard on lit
2/10
>The Russian Funeral
6/10
>Why Sunset Shimmer is a Christ Figure
6/10
>Why Computers Cannot Think
4/10
>ManKings
4/10
>Beware My Zoodles
5/10
>The Canon's Spiral
3/10
>The Past Under the Dunes
7/10
>A stick of incense
3/10
>Goysloppia
2/10
>Lazy Rations
5/10
>Debrief
5/10
>The Dark Wizards St-Have
7/10
>EcoFreak
4/10
>Where the Columbines Grow
4/10

>Overall design and presentation
1/10, fucking awful

>>22887292
Love the art design on the cover bro!

Happy New Year Ryan!
-J

>>22896197
>5/10
I’ll take it

Nice, reading the whole thing and reviewing now.

>>22895241
Ryan does care about the magazine. He's been making &amp for years out of the goodness of his heart, just because he cares about /lit/. There's no reason to think he's ever tried to make money off of any of this shit. If anything he'll be losing money by paying people for their subs to the upcoming anthology. You're just a hater who shits on artists out of jealousy, because you can't create anything worthwhile yourself.

>>22897610
If he cares so much about the magazine then why does it look like absolute ass this time? Why has he tried to shirk as much responsibility for it as possible this year? Why, especially, has he lost focus on it while turning to money-oriented ventures instead?

If he's not trying to make money, why is he tacking a 50% cut of the profits on Shards? Why did he offer RJC cuts on future profits? Why does he have a Patreon? Why did he have the Mixtape Hyperborea author pay him to host a pop-up ad on the website earlier this year?

My point about money isn't that he'll actually succeed at making a profit, but that it's his goal. Yeah, I agree that he'll probably lose money on the anthology, but I'm certain he sees it as more likely to turn a profit than the magazine.

And if he cares so much about /lit/ why is he calling for submissions on Reddit and Twitter?


I hate the fact that I'm probably replying to Jason Bryan and that you'll start bitching without answering any of the above. Even if you're not Jason the odds of this getting an actual answer are about zero.

Couple of reviews here. YMMV - I read for enjoyment and nothing else.

Fish batter stain
8/10
Nice prose, ends well, plenty of charm. A couple of mini-scenes that felt a bit like they could've been cut to streamline things, or replaced with something slightly more action-oriented (thinking of the shop scene mainly). But overall really evocative.

Crystal curse
3/10 DNF
Not expecially good. For one thing in the first act the writer is alternating too quickly between current scene (in the car) and exposition (explaining what led them to the car). This contaminates the action and dissipates tension. Your mind's eye is having to work too hard to come up with new images all the time.
>SIDE NOTE. WHY THE FUCK AM I HAVING TO JUMP AROUND PAGES TO FINISH READING THIS SHIT WHOSE RETARDED IDEA IS THIS.
But also, there's just no stakes. Mysterious rituals are one thing, but the writer hasn't given us any context as to why this might be upsetting or tense for the protagonist - so when we brain-merge with her as readers we're as indifferent as she is. It's just misunderstanding the fundamentals - you can't just describe gross stuff, you have to bounce it off the main character to make it MATTER. Otherwise it's boring.

Hellcion
2/10
I am mystified as to how anybody could enjoy this pseudo-intellectual gibberish. I see a lot of talk about RJC being a narcissist on this board, and if this is his writing I can believe it. It's giving desperation. It's desperate.

>THIS FUCKING MAGAZINE IS SO DIFFICULT TO NAVIGATE IM SKIPPING ALL OF OVERHEARD ON /LIT/. BLAME THE EDITORS

Beware my Zoodles
4/10
Just not funny. Also:
>affects less than 1 out of 50 million children
You mean fewer than 1 in 50 million you fucking midwit.

<probably skipped a bunch of shit here. Text uninviting>

The past under the dunes
1/10 DNF
Just nothing here that resembles entertainment. I'm not reading your fucking 1950s history textbook faggot fuck off.

A stick of incense
4/10
Traces of a intelligible character in what is otherwise an unwelcoming shitpost. Not fun or inviting to read.


Goysloppia
4/10
Basically the same review as above. I don't really get these pieces, they don't feel like impressive feats of writing to me because their meaning is so unclear.


Nirina-Lazy Rations.txt
3/10 DNF
Just unremarkable, annoying prose, not enough action.

Debrief
6.5/10
Nice! A good, intelligible story. It just doesn't end that well - like there's no character arc or character failure that makes the thing worthwhile. Just a bit pointless - feels more like a critical scene in a novel than a standalone. But this writer actually knows how to write, and things feel like they matter, which is refreshing.


STOPPING HERE FOR NOW. THE FORMATTING OF THIS MAG HAS GIVEN ME A HEADACHE.

>>22896197
>>Fish Batter Stain
>6/10
>>Crystal Curse
>6/10


This poster
>>22897925
here.

Sorry there is just no way in hell anyone could read those two pieces all the way through and score them the same. It's impossible. I'd bet my life you didn't actually read them, and that you're a strange, difficult person IRL, prone to lying.

>>22890761
Including Atlas' tell-all and following it up with
>lol yeah guyz I'm totes in a cult, look what a quirky and zany dude I am!
treating the situation as though it's all a big joke, is the turd on top of the shit sundae that &amp has become.

It would've been naïve to have expected any kind of honesty or public apology for the past few months of his bullshit, but if he had just ignored the drama altogether it would've been much less insulting. He'll jokingly address the cult stuff here because it's easily memeable, yet he'll continue to totally disregard the other, much more serious allegations (making threats, harrassment, exploitative and abusive behavior, criminal acts). He won't try to refute any of it, because he can't, but also because he's arrogant enough to think that he doesn't have to.

019 shows the utter contempt that Ryan has for /lit/ and for his readers. He'll churn out the laziest, vilest slop imaginable and still expect you to eat it up and say that it's good. He thinks you are idiots. He thinks you are sheep. What Ryan is really saying to you is:

>I've got it made! I can stage retarded psyops, take advantage of other people's work, terrorize and harass my former collaborators when they expose me, promote a shitty half-baked pyramid scheme, fail to follow through on almost all of my promises, and take five months to come up with the laziest, most dogshit issue of &amp imaginable, all while exhibiting zero remorse or accountability, and you'll still continue to send me your work and support me!

It's quite telling that Ryan's most vocal defenders and yes-men are RJC and Jason Bryan. Any rational person would rather languish in obscurity than resort to relying on accolades and endorsements from a clueless egotist like RJC or a delusional half-wit like Jason Bryan. But megalomaniacs like praise, and aren't too picky about where that praise is coming from.

To those who continue to support this dumpster fire: don't be fooled. If you ever choose to divest from his brand and publicly criticize him, Ryan will turn on you in exactly the same way as he turned on Ari and Atlas. You'll be the one at the receiving end of his vitriol.

Also, notice how he fucked off as soon as he got called out for copying shit from 018.

>>22898017
>insulting
To you
>contempt for /lit/ and readers
No, just you apparently
>really saying to you:
No one particularly feels to be addressed thus save (You)

>>22898017
I don't really understand posts like this. Criticism is fine but this amount of rage over an amateur e-zine is kind of embarrassing.

So many questions:
What do you want to happen to &amp?
Are you trying to destroy it?
Why are you so keen to reveal the editors "contempt" for /lit/?
Aren't you ashamed?

(and before you ask: no, I'm not a named &amp writer, or any other editor, or Ryan)

>>22898072
Ignore Ari. He knows he'll never be a real creative, so all he can do is rage anonymously and try to bring artists down. He's just mad because Ryan has the balls to reject the media goyslop version of what life should be like and make art that goes against the mainstream.

>>22897970
He's just a skimmer. He contributed at least. More than I can say for myself, I still mean to write my own reviews but I'm still busy.
>>22898017
I agree with you in general.
>>22898072
But also agree with this anon.

>>22898072
NTA but that was a criticism of Ryan, not of the magazine, and I think
>Ryan will turn on you in exactly the same way as he turned on Ari and Atlas. You'll be the one at the receiving end of his vitriol.
sums up why people might care to hear it. If you get the Atlas treatment you can look forward to insane death threats, doxxing, being swatted, and attempts to post fake nudes to defame you.

And I'm the one that wrote >>22897708 about how the magazine is going to shit while Ryan chases the dragon of profit. Anyone can make an amateur e-zine, so there's no point propping up the colossal dumpster fire that follows Ryan.

These projects are good for people to get eyes on the writing, but Ryan is not a necessary part of that. And you can look at this issue for an example of how his halfassing will effectively discard your work anyway >>22894698. I don't imagine the writers who had their works chopped up or otherwise made illegible appreciate it.

>>22898097
I'll guess you're >>22897610, so are you not going to respond to what I said here >>22897708?

>>22898132
>I'll guess you're >>22897610

I'm not, I'm afraid.

>>22898183
Alright, I'll guess RJC this time because
>Ryan has the balls to reject the media goyslop version of what life should be like and make art that goes against the mainstream
seems like the kind of self-aggrandizing shit he'd say about his own bad writing.

Regardless, going "against the mainstream" apparently means "bad design and publishing anything he's given" to you. Can you really look at this issue of &amp and say Ryan did anyone a favour?

Even if this is Ari, which it probably is, I can't blame him. It must be so cathartic to watch an enemy whither away and die like Hartley has these past few months. All of this blustering faggotry and constant put downs directed towards those who carried him and THIS is what he puts out?

>>22897925
Bumping so my peice can be savaged by this absolute unit (colossal retard penis)

>>22896197
Love you even if you are a skimmer

>>22897925
>Fish Batter Stain
Agree mostly and you are correct the shop scene and the description of the news is the weakest point of the story I have to give it a 7 or maybe even a 6 its so glaring which is a shame because almost everything that comes after is masterful.

>>22896197
>6/10 for 'Why Sunset Shimmer is a Christ Figure'

We take those.

>>22887292
>Crystal Curse
Interesting story, not bad: the everydayness of the intro might not pull you in, nor the plain, quotidian prose—though they are both commonplaces of the short story—but a fascinating conception of this crystal people religion. While she's collecting her crystal—I imagine it a hot summer's day, orange, purple light from outside shining through in dusty particles of the darker, ill-lit space—it returns to the mundane (what else with these stories?) but while letting you inhabit this strange reality—and perhaps for the better that it doesn't try to go all pretentious on you, in tone, in ideas about the religion etc. (contrasted, mutatis mutandis, with, say, Olga Ravn's Employees, which was a rather trite eyerolly affair), even if a land of crystal maidens is the interestingest! And I guess the scratchscratch implies the protag is a next 'miracle girl'... Good.

>Hellcion
I can see why ppl might not like it—authors in &amp who've already had something of a reputation can be a bit of an underwhelming letdown (like, desu, Woolston's): though this is by far not that bad. It's interesting that this is a different *kind* of text: I think it's best tackled not really as a theoretical argument, but more an Aphorismenfolge or prose poem, its phrases (e.g. the Night) taken more nonconceptually, elementally. For all that the "prose style" is not remarkable, just doing what it needs doing. Now I might be reading it completely wrongly, and simply can't be bothered with grappling with it (Jung, e.g.; tho perhaps my reading has a Jung influence, via Eranos?); oh well.

>Editor's Note
The other mean-girls editor's note's good too. This one: what at the center, the clearing, of the labyrinth? a monstrous minotaur? such that the canonic truth, the ur-measure of the inner circle may also be extreme, be the highest 'new' measure—would that /lit/'d ever strive thither? but /lit/ and &amp being /lit/ and &amp, yeah there's probably gonna be more of the other kind, that 'disintegrating lumpen mass', that ur-swamp. Perhaps some of the longer stories embody that? for the better? (Should read?)

>Stick of Incense
As someone mentioned Honor Levy itt, one might indeed think of that zoomer female style, though without so much the mundane culture, displaced to a more aristocratic one—which is much better imo; like a Fleur Jaeggy (tho without the "icy-sharp brevity"). Don't care for the punctuation personally, but it's just a short sketch and I like the themes/imagery desu.

>Burgerpunk poems
Meh. Rhyming feminine with masculine endings offends me. The other poem (H18) did nothing for me. Not to have had more poetry in this issue was a missed opportunity in general...

>Dhark Whizard
Amusing. It's a shorty so that excuses whatever and makes you see it's just a fun shitpost story but that's fine right? Why the asp-hiration, exhactly tho lol?

i liked where the columbines grow. title is totally unfitting though, i was expecting the &amp standard transgressive stream of consciousness but it was pretty slick. please take 6 months on the next issue too so my submission can be in the historic 20th issue

>>22897925
>YMMV
???

>>22898372
RPV?

>>22896227

did you ever sell those tires or are they still on your patio

>amp finally releases new issue after months of delays
>can’t even fill a single thread
Dead mag

>>22898372
sorry but these reviews are absolutely useless. it reads like you have no genuine fully-formed thoughts or feelings on anything you've read, so you're just rambling to fill space. There isn't a scrap of anything in what you've said that a writer might use to improve, either. Begs the question, why even bother?

>>22899412
>t. Buttmad author

>>22899426
I'm not an author in this issue and everything I said about those midwit reviews is true.

>Beware My Zoodles
5/10
Funny in the first half. I like the idea. Cute kid.
>The Russian Funeral
6/10
I think it’s obvious that the author is very talented. I think first of all that The Russian Funeral is more suited to a novel format than the short story. There is a lot of lore and detail here that I can sense in the story even some of it that is totally unwritten. The author clearly has a distinct world he has imagined. Why does it jump back and forth from past to present tense randomly? Don’t tell me that it was done on purpose because nothing makes it clear. The narrative voice is a little distant from the action and momentum of the story but again this would be solved in a longer format. I enjoyed the story but I think this is just an idea of something and believe there should be more to it. How the hell does “A Stick of Incense” get its own spread and design. Stick that in the skinny section.

>Why Sunset Shimmer is a Christ Figure
DNF
I cannot bring myself to read about My Little Pony. It does seem funny. Best of luck.

>A Stick of Incense
5/10
I actually have a fondness for internet new age prose. It is a clear gimmick and I don’t want to go on the record saying anything objective about it. But for my taste I liked it.

>Debrief
4/10
There is no point to this story other than the exact scene that plays out. I don’t really know what to say. I think that narrator has a suitable voice and at times it charms but other times it is amateur. Other times you try to portray the bumbling or unsure nature of the characters and I think you have something in mind like a Pulp Fiction film or something like that but the murder of a girl and the dumping of her body and the lack of character never lives up to anything so it does not have the same pulp aesthetic that makes the audience/reader fall in love with the . They are just dumping a girl. It is either poorly done edge or a poorly formed idea.

>Gone In An Instant
6/10
Effective detective story. I should admit that I found the plot a little simplistic but the story is long enough and it develops at an even pace and there is a chance for the prose to reveal itself and there is a nice set of characters so that I am comfortable giving it a 6. You have all the makings of a story and each of those done adequately gets you a long way in the domain of &amp stories. I think one of the main flaws was the author’s lack of understanding of things like finance, corporate protocol, police work, and a lot of the other particulars. When I read a story like this I expect the author to be the authority on any matter that I don’t know about. Again since I’m the reader I get the luxury of being uneducated one whatever I want but in this case of this story I felt that I knew more than the author at times. I have never recommended this to anyone since it has never come up but I think you should do more research.

>>22899460
>Crystal Curse
6/10
There’s a reason reviews have been so mixed. It is Young Adult fiction in some of the worst and most typical ways but also edgy and original in others. It gave a poor first impression but by the end I was won over. I like it. I was reading at a cursory pace as the text does not call for a lot of concentration which I think helped it in the end because I wasn’t bothering to keep track of all the details so the final scene came as a nice surprise when I realised that the girl was meant to be the next in the basement and now ignoring her mother for a much different reason. I was even relieved that she was successfully going to escape to college.

>>22899433
Sure you aren’t ;)

>>22899510
I'm not, and those reviews are so directionless and mild it would be impossible for me to be buttmad about anything anyway. That was my point.

>>22899465
>There’s a reason reviews have been so mixed. It is Young Adult fiction

I gave some crystal clear reasons here
>>22897925
as to why I didn't like that piece. None of them had anything to do with it being YA. Why are you so self-important that you think YOU have the only answer as to why someone wouldn't like it?

>>22899560
Lol... I don't know what to say anon. I guess it was just a manner of speaking. I didn't mean to offend you.

&amp!

>>22899347
Not over yet

>>22897925
>Fish batter stain
>A couple of mini-scenes that felt a bit like they could've been cut to streamline things
Someone else said this too but I only half agree - I think abbreviating the walk home may have been worth it, but that's about it. the restaurant and TV sessions felt key to me since they both created nice amounts of tension

So much negativity on the reviews. I remember when this fun.

>>22899412
Yeah why share one's thoughts at all eh? Posts itt are only allowed to be useful, constructive points and rankings for authors, and bad-faith concern trolling.

>>22899347
>trolls constantly keep making and remaking threads for nothing and insist of bumping and filling them up
>something actually happens: "mustn't give it attention" obv

>>22900398
That anon was plainly sharing thoughts because he liked the look of his own words, not because he had anything to say.

>>22898017
Based Ari. Ryan is scum and &amp has become a trainwreck. He should've just left /lit/ and let the mag die after 018.

>Fish Batter Stain
7/10
This is a serious attempt at serious literature and I believe it succeeds. And by succeeds I mean it is probably a middling story in the grand scheme of classic and modern fiction but it is the sort of thing you don’t expect to find in an amateur magazine like this. Some incredible turns of phrase and moments of prose. The scene that involves the father descending into thought and reflection about his son and his sex life with his wife makes incredible use of style. True to life in a lot of ways and truly confessional in the way you hope literature will be.

>Hellcion
3/10
It bored me to death. I am sorry RJC I am not trying to pile on I think you get enough criticism here and a lot of it is obviously unfair. I can see a lot of reference to Jung through the thread and of course there is the quote you have included. So I acknowledge that being undereducated on Jung it might be my failure to understand the piece but to be honest I can and have read works of advanced philosophy that are serious in their merit and no matter how poorly educated I am on the topic if there is an argument or message clear enough I can at least always find the thread. I read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and I can see that I’m the dummy when I struggle to get through it. I read this and I don’t feel that way. This was a mess and a word salad and if I’m wrong then it’s just too boring for me to follow. It might be my fault but I think its yours. Good luck with Shards.

>>22899347
I disagree! We are only just getting started.

>>22898562
yeh. You (or I s'pose Alex) didn't print my poems ...

>>22901445
Why not?

>>22896197
>>22898372
>Dhark Whizard
>Why the asp-hiration, exhactly tho lol?
So Dhark Whizard's St-have is an homage to one of Clark Ashton Smith's stories and pic related gem, entitled 'Saturn Swept', which haunted /wg/ for some months.

I'm working on a longer peice in vaguely this style and had writers block so did it as an experiment in that CAS sort of voice pushed to an extreme. The aspiration is both to be silly but also to emphasize/create a feeling of breathlessness which I often feel reading more Gothic type writing. I also played with word choice to prioritize longer vowels. The alt spelling/aspiration rule system was actually more extreme in an earlier draft but I dialed it back to be more immediately ledgible.

Hey buddy I didn't know how to submit stuff and I feel like i did a year or so ago and I don't think it went through.
I heard everything went through >;(
So I think it's just cuz I fucked up. Anyways I think I submitted in the wrong way again so here's a link to what I did
https://lampbylit.com/magazine/fastlane-2022-hulk-hogan-vs-rhea-ripley-street-fight/

Let me know if it's got a chance of making it in the next issue brother

>>22887292
Why didn't you print Lewis Woolston's stellar offering?
Fuck you fuck you fuck you and I mean it
Kiss my arse.

>>22891691
>Still haven't found a name for the genre
MDE-clone is the name of the genre

>>22901688
A genre of comedy does not seem like it's going to encapsulate this hypertext shit, unless they have more print material I haven't seen beyond. Like I said, even Bomb the U.S. Gov't looks pretty different from &amp beyond the maximalism and irony. I also mentioned K-Hole, which predates MDE by multiple years (MDE started in 2016, and K-Hole ran from 2013-2015). Maybe you're talking about the style of writing/humor?

Here's a website in the style of lampbylit.com/elite/. the &amp covers, and some of &amp's collage pages (like pic related or the page beside Goysloppia in the current issue):
>www.themostamazingwebsiteontheinternet.com/
This site is pretty much a perfect match for the /elite/ page style, and like I said before, it derives from busted old webpages coupled with 2010's ironic humor.

>>22901751
Fuck, "more print material beyond Bomb the U.S. Gov't".

>>22901751
>maximalism
please, please, please stop using words when you don't understand the definition.
Maximalism is Gravity's Rainbow, not bright graphics on a webpage.
Besides the fact you're completely wrong about basically everything you just said. MDE did not start in 2016, you utter shit for brains.

>>22901783
&amp isn't a very artistic or well done example of maximalism, but I don't see how you can say it isn't an example of it.

I pulled the date from Google and it gave me a first-aired date of 2016; now I see MDE started in 2009. Regardless, I still don't see the visual link between it and &amp. Post a fucking example if you're so certain of this. Did MDE pioneer the stupid beat-to-death HTML gore I posted?

>>22901808
>Did MDE pioneer the stupid beat-to-death HTML gore I posted?
yes, they've been doing that shtick forever and made it popular for two-bit wankers like KR Crackhead to rip off. 2016 is when they aired on Adult Swim. Their original youtube channel was made in the mid 2000s.

>>22901808
>Did MDE pioneer the stupid beat-to-death HTML gore I posted?
No, but it popularised it, which is enough for short hand and reference. You don't need to seethe over it.

>>22901751
Just late net art through post-internet, ‘new aesthetic’ and vaporwave &c.

>>22901849
>>22901854
Alright, I concede. I'm looking at milliondollarextreme.tv now on the Wayback Machine and it's got all the HTML gimmicks going. Still, "maximalist" and "ironic" describe a good chunk of this and its spin-offs. &amp 001 had a whole (very poorly done) section on MDE, so I wonder whether Ryan knew he was pulling from them or if the HTML gore had proliferated enough at that point for him to be totally unaware. You're right, anyway.

I still think K-Hole (and whatever other e-mags were swimming around at that point) might be a good indicator of what culture &amp's alternate side of smug hipster design was coming from. All the candid photos and sans serif fonts and not trying too hard stuff. Or maybe that's more a matter of Canva templates. There are also early alt editors like Prussia, who I think designed shit like Commie Blocks in Pyongyang from 002, which stands out considerably.

>>22901783
>Maximalism is Gravity's Rainbow, not bright graphics on a webpage
Holy shit this board is actually populated by retards

>>22901929
What do you think is the best alt/web mag going right now?

>>22901943
No clue. I'm a dilettante with a good knowledge of /lit/ and not much else.

what about (granted, not so much the design) the likes of fluland?

>>22901929
maximallist is a literary term. Your use of it to describe web graphics is redundant and self wankulatory.

>>22902034
Do you really think it's exclusively used to describe literary works? Do you not think that the term could be applied to other forms of art? If you look at the Wikipedia page do you not see a section on visual arts? If you look up "maximalist art" does it turn up nothing?

>>22902044
whats maximal about mde? the html color codes? it doesnt describe anything yet you keep pounding that word out.

>>22902051
I had been using it to describe webpages like the ones I linked previously, and if you look at How to Bomb the U.S. Gov't you'll see plenty of pages that are very dense with graphics and text (pic related). The MDE page is obviously less dense than the HTML gore stuff that came later, but shit like heavily contrasted colors, floating boxes criss-crossing the screen, highlighted text, flashing graphics, and garish full-page backgrounds sure as shit aren't minimalist.

>>22902080
i agree that some of the HTBTUSG pages are maximalist but that is a book -- its like house of leaves in that sense
but to use it to describe all of that style of web doesnt work. look at cruelty squad--it uses mde aesthetic but is arguably minimalist.
anyway I was being a cunt earlier but most people call this style 'y2k'

>>22902087
>Cruelty Squad
>minimalist
Looking at the screenshots I want to hear your explanation of that. I don't see how you could describe it as minimalist at all, unless you're making that claim based on the sparse environments, which I'd still question given that your actual screen-space is graphically very dense.

>some of the HTBTUSG pages are maximalist but that is a book
Are you arguing that you can only call design maximalist if it appears in a book? You think because it's in a book that still makes all of the graphics a matter of literature?

And I wouldn't call the HTML gore stuff Y2K. Yeah, it's inspired by the shitty webpages of those days, but it's certainly it's own thing now. The MDE website as I posted it seems to be a stop-gap in that progression.

>>22902107
it might not be what you call it and technically the nomiker is incorrect but that is what zoomers call it. That or just 'MDE'. or even 'darknet'

>>22902107
What this anon said: >>22902117
Your autistic, researched, timeline pinpointed definitions mean nothing when compared to the terms that are actually in circulation or the common vernacular RIGHT NOW - whatever people mean by this terms is what those terms mean. That's just how it works. In 2011 you had the whole of 4chan melting down because people on Facebook and 9gag were putting words on text and calling the jpegs "memes". It didn't matter then either. That's now and officially what memes are. Same goes for all things.

Yeah I guess, like zoomies rebranding all early PC Music hyperpop

>>22901478
It might have been too late, but I also might have told aitserp hands off the RPV because I wanted to do something with it for 020. He and I have an unfinished project as well that deserves space.

Where's shitkicker doesn't he usually show up in these threads
Did a homeless guy finally stab him mid-asssex?

>>22902174
Don't summon him. He's a cancerous thread-ruiner.

Hartley is blaming the shit quality of this issue on Alex Prestia (aitserp).

>>22902469
if LA Lasange got cut he can't be doing that bad of a job

>>22898132

>If you get the Atlas treatment you can look forward to insane death threats, doxxing, being swatted, and attempts to post fake nudes to defame you.

There's no proof of any of this because it never happened. Stop lying and trying to sabotage Ryan out of jealousy. Go do something worthwhile with your life and create your own art instead of posting hateporn here.

>>22902473
Fuck you.

>>22901943
Cookedbook

>>22902951
It costs money and I'm a broke retard. Post a free link to the pdf tho and I'll check it out

>>22902951
just &amp reject stories

>>22903027
&amp doesn't reject anything. But if you want to argue that the editor personally vetted and decided all of the writing in this issue (or any other) was good, go ahead.

>>22903027
Meant rip off stories.

>>22887292
I get the cover of this one is meant to be bad but goddamn the designs therein are fucking atrocious bro

>>22900347
to be clear, I'm
>>22897925
and I really love &amp. when it succeeds it's a genuinely nice thing to sit and read on a sleepy weekend. fishing for good stories in the mag is a joy, as is ripping apart and learning from the shit ones.

This wasn't the best issue but it was far from the worst in my opinion.

>>22903195
nah the cover is kino

>>22902473
fuck off

>>22901662
fuck you mate I'm the real lewis on the arvo

>>22903793
fuck you mate, how dare you. I love my wife and she sent me packing this arvo and now it's off to warm the local bench again and feed the pidgies. Kiss my arse.

Are we still submitting stories or what?

>>22903953
Submissions are now closed as we only print from unrealtrannies, woolston, and our personal lapdog robert hack cross, thank you.

>>22903953
Yeah man, submissions are open.
lamp.lit.magazine@gmail.com

>>22903975
>>22904501
Thank you

Can't believe the rag stooped so low.

The muses are not with you, Hartley and Ari. You may think that being degenerates makes you artists but that tells me you are not actually artists, you could not be artists because your souls are putrid and your lives too sordid. In fact, I think you cowards hate artists and their work. You may think that doing drugs like Baudelaire makes you talented like Baudelaire but not it only makes you a druggie like Baudelaire but also the lost denizens of the tent cities. But you don't care because you're all woke anyway so I won't waste more time on you. Just remember Atlas reads the heavy books for fun you guys pretend to.

Atlas, keep up the good work and don't let these coños get to you. They want to be you but they'll never be like you. Wish you the best, glad you have stayed true to yourself. Can't believe Kundera died last year :( R.I.P professor

you guys publish bullshit like this and then wonder why no women want to write for you. you're weirdos

>>22904804
I don't recall anyone unironically wondering that

And by the way, I know Atlas better than you, Ryan Hartley. She's probably gone crazy by now. But not in the way you think, no. She's probably having a fit of maniacal laughter from realizing you really don't have a shred of integrity. Laughter that only emerges from confusion upon seeing terror sublimate into something grotesque and ridiculous. That's the real you! Probably laughing at herself too because she does not have your insecurities, she came here ready to work and now she's had to take her talents elsewhere because she's too big for this place. And her leaving is your fault, because both readers and contributors liked her, and you got jealous. You wanted to have her do your work while you rake in the cash. You make me sick, you BUM. You're worse than /mu/sicians. The sole existence of women like her make simps like you so resentful Hartley that I might even feel bad for you...well not actually. She can get any guy she wants desu, and she knows it and that is why your manipulation tactics failed on her and you broke. She called your bluff, Hartley. Atlas saw right through you and made you concede defeat unconsciously in this month's issue. That is how dazzled you yourself are by her. I bet you cry yourself to sleep from regret. She would never compromise her dignity to the likes of you because she never trusted you. Whatever you say, whatever you do. You can never take back the fact that Atlas did a truly artistic show of exposing you. The shadows that you live in, which most people wouldn't looking; she took them and fought you like a torero, and now it is the moment of truth for you. Instead of being nice to the bookish gyal you tried to use her for your devilish ends. You get no love, Hartley. No love. Pathetic!

All hail the girl that walked her true face through an anonymous message board. Pure and honest queen of memes

>>22902189
>>22902174
I've been working over the holidays

Pic related is the top of the escalator at Waterfront station... had to travel through Surrey to Vancouver, Vancouver to the airport and it was a complete dystopian nightmare

>>22904894
You're alright, Jason. I couldn't give any less of a fuck about politics but boy do I agree the WEF need to fuck off. Keep grinding, may you find redemption.

>>22904804
This issue has multiple female contributors

>>22904902
I had an amazing holidays but a shitty new year's eve, I've quit weed and been smoke-free for 2 weeks now. Travelling through vancouver was a fucking trip:
>>453935759

After all my bills have been paid, a full fridge, and everything else taken care of, I have this much cash left, enough to allow me to get back to work on my AI-powered porn "reels" site.

>>22904894
Don't talk shit bout Surrey, sala penchod

>>22904929
No shit! I'm off the weed for good, got freaked out last year and my head was groggy for weeks after I had stopped smoking. Apparently they call that depersonalization/derealization? Fucking either way I'm glad that shit's over; apparently it can last for years. Stay strong and save the money you'd spend on weed. Glad you spent the end of the year well even if the actual turn was not that fun. Life's full of ups and downs. We can't expect ourselves to just get everything right the first time, expecting creatures of God to be so boring is what leads to sin in my opinion. Like my dad always says, you have to move through life like you are a fish under the water. Apparently the waterfront is beautiful over where you're at, don't fucking miss it.

>>22904894
thats you on the floor begging for quarters bitch

>>22904902
This book is fascinating as it speaks about the "sixth sense" and learning to use your intuition, but only after you've fed your subconsciousness with the right thoughts.

Artists naturally can tap into the "receiver" of information from the "infinite intelligence" as Napoleon Hill calls it, but we're probably extra susceptible to mind-fucking ourselves when seeing things in the world and allowing them to shape our world view. What you believe, essentially, becomes reality, so to shape your reality, you need to weld your desires with your faith into action. First book I've read in ages, loved it! The guy even talks about his own schizo fantasies where he envisions all of his heros having a board meeting together and talking to him inside his mind. I'm practicing this form of vision at the moment, but I'm unable to actually think of who my heros are, which is a bit of a problem. Charles Manson? Probably not the greatest hero.

>>22904889
you may be right but you also sound gay as shit

>>22904958
Getting back into the porn business and pushing yearly memberships, was nice to see this yesterday when I checked my stats... this shit definitely makes more than my writing, haha.

>>22904962
Ive read that before. It's actually pretty good for business, as long as you keep a level head.

>>22904962
I'm more into the Bible, desu. Tried reading Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends...I just don't buy it.

People say I'm weird but how else will I know who my real friends are if I don't weed out the weak? Check this out when you can btw, I think you'll get some inspiration. Anonymous composers will always be better than the compilers of good musical ideas that get famous, the place you talk of, that's where true inspiration comes from.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IdyfiPaK3xA

Signing off

- Pseudo Zalmoxis the Fortunate

>>22904947
Weed has its time and place in my life, but if I want to be a better father and leader, I need to take life more seriously. Hard to actually self-actualize again when you can smoke a fat joint and not really give a fuck about anything, put on some music and just have a good time.

I was working for some fucking ballers this winter and none of them smoke weed, they only do rippers. Was definitely a fun time, even moreso that I got fucking paid to drive a brand new 2024 Ford Expedition. That mother fucker accelerates like a Mustang V8, handles like a sportscar, and the brakes are good enough to put your teeth inside the dashboard. Doing 180 KPH on the Coqahalla felt like doing 100 kph in a regular car. I am super impressed.

Ryan's AMP threads are the best place to chat on the entire internet in 2024. So many interesting people congregate here.

>>22904929
Have you already stashed away enough for your next damage deposit? do you have a move date?

>>22905011
Zoinks Scoob, it's a h-haunted gas station!

>>22905003
Check out In Tune with the Infinite

>>22905018
I already moved into a new shack in the middle of nowhere for $900 a month all-included, shit's tight, about to get re-started on my AI-powered porn site!

Honestly I might even submit to AMP, but I don't know what type of stories he wants, how long, etc... definitely want to contribute to AMP because these threads are always so lively and attract like-minded people.

>>22905025
Will do, amigo.

>>22905032
I'd love to see an ad for your business in the next &amp. There were some ads in this issue and I think it would really help flesh it out and make it lively.

The heart and soul of &amp are honesty, so you should just write down your thoughts wherever they go until you have to put the pen down. Something risque and honest would really nail the &amp style and you're the one who can right it in my humble opinion. Philosophy, sex, self-actualization. That's all good shit. Do you think you could do your own designs?

>>22905032
That's a good question. I've tried to write my own kinds of things, but despite liking &amp I sometimes wonder if I a have the right fit for it. Maybe I can try something new to me.

>>22897610
>Ryan does care about the magazine. He's been making &amp for years out of the goodness of his heart,
Ryan keeps putting out material and that is the #1 most important thing.

It seems the haters and crabs are attracted to hate on people who actually DO shit.

>>22904804
That's kino though

>>22904962
how many people grew rich from following the financial strategies defined in this book?

>>22905066
I've met several country-club rich people that have read it. Traders, business owners, golfers. It used to be THE financial success book a long time ago, it's a classic.

>>22905072
What.growth strategy have you developed for your business thanks to this book?

>>22905045
You've given me a great idea of what to write about. Will be in touch.

>>22905130
Whatever you write I want to see it in &amp! Your type of writing is this board's bread and butter, whether the crab literati want to admit it or not.

>>22905175
>Your type of writing is this board's bread and butter

>>22905246
If you don't drive fast cars
If you don't fuck hot women
If you don't live in cool places
Are you really living?

>>22905079
I'm a business owner, but it made me way more patient. I used to self sabotage all the time. The book helps you become more rule oriented.

>>22905253
FUCK ME, I meant I'm not a business owner

>>22905251
>>22905251
No doubt!
Post your current fast car, current hot women, and cool place you currently live.

>>22905253
>The book helps you become more rule oriented.
what successful business did the author run before writing this book?

>>22905257
I am destitute in 2024 but I'm 45 and have many fun memories, a wonderful daughter, and ideas on how to get to the next stage of fun in life.

The day I found out I knocked up my hot baby momma, I quit coke cold turkey and decided to get out of the party lifestyle. A week later, my dealer, Dagger Mike or East Van Mike, was found dead from an overdose from his own supply. I am lucky and grateful to be alive. God's plan.

>>22905266
So you're not really living? Seeing as the things that you believe make you better than others on /lit/ are things you no longer are, do you feel worthless now? Just a weird flex, considering.

>>22905266
I feel sorry for your daughter. She's probably already reaching an age where she's starting to realize that you're an unreliable deadbeat loser. By the time she's an adult she'll want nothing to do with you, and she'll undoubtedly need extensive therapy to cope with having been raised by a narcissist who sees her as nothing but a trophy and an extension of himself.

>>22905279
Hey cool your jets, he's just following in the author's footsteps.
>The beginning of the Great Depression, however, affected Hill's finances adversely, forcing his Catskills property into foreclosure before the end of 1929.[15] He went broke, forcing his wife's family to pay for the expenses of Florence and her children.[5]

>>22905266
Good luck

>>22905259
Think And Grow Rich isn't just about material wealth, as the author explains the "rich" part can mean any number of things you desire. Desire, faith, and action gets you to where you want to go.

The book is clear that most people just mind-fuck themselves and are unable to see beyond their own excuses that limit themselves. One of my favourite lines in the book describes how the mind is a void, and if you want to get "rich", you need to actively put things into that void and fill it with your desires and your faith, because if you don't actively work on filling that void, poverty will naturally slide up in that shit and fucking destroy you from within your own thoughts. Pre-COVID, I had faith and desire, and was actually really starting to enjoy my life post-porn, but then when I lost my job for refusing the "vaccine", my mind was in constant turmoil that somehow society was completely against me due to the media I was exposed to. The more I actually go out into the world and talk to people and interact, the more clear it is that people nearly ALL know and understand that COVID was a gigantic fucking scam and hoax designed to control people through fear, to get them to comply. Look at the booster uptake in 2023, hardly anyone takes that shit unless they are threatened with job loss and being shut out of society for 8+ months. This entire period completely mind-fucked me as an empathic person, as I felt totally betrayed by everyone around me. I wondered why nobody just fuckin' blew up Ottawa and dragged politicans out into the street and murdered them. I often thought about things that I shouldn't repeat online, but now that I've been able to pull myself out of the blackest of blackpills, I can see that most people actually do agree with me, most people don't actually want to take the "vaccine", they were forced to, but so few people want to be the nail that sticks up. People would prefer to just quietly die from an overdose on powerful painkillers or quietly drink themselves to death than endure the punishment for standing up against the trillion-dollar system supported by all world governments and international corporations that run the entire fucking show.

So where to now? Basically you just have to laugh in the face of the system while working within it. Your only other option is to become a hermit and live off the land in some remote butt-fuck nowhere eating fish and foraging for meals, not exactly a very interesting lifestyle for those accustomed to the luxuries of urban living.

>>22905273
I have lived extremely well for many, many years, I am in a lull at the moment, but that lull puts everything else in perspective. You can't appreciate the highs without understanding the lows.

Absolutely at times I have felt worthless, but then there are moments of pure light that make even the most destitute moments a gift from God. I am so grateful to have been the recipient of coincidences and opportunities that sprung out of nowhere, to have had the baby momma that rescued me from total hopelessness during COVID when I was fired from my jobs for refusing the "vaccine" and wasn't able to even get a job at a fucking gas station, and for all of the shit I put her through, she STILL did not allow me to fall into the abyss. Some guy bought a copy of The Shitkickers on, I think, Christmas Eve and paid me $100 and told me a story of how he put himself through University in the 70's by drawing portraits of people's dogs. Richness and wealth can be isolating, but poverty has a certain shared struggle that puts you in touch with humanity. I lost that idea while making 10k USD a month on average for so long. After I quit porn and worked with disabled seniors, it was a very surreal experience to know that just taking someone for a decaf coffee and sitting with them on a bench and listening to what they had to say would make them so happy because they have nobody else. You lose that basic humanity when you're rich because you have so much other busy shit going on, fast cars to drive, cool places to live, hot bitches to fuck.

>>22905292

You didn't take the vaccine because a doctor told you not to take it. Your reply seems to imply that you didn't take it as some sort of political stand.
You didn't take the vaccine for the same reasons other people did take it: expert medical advice. Why the dishonesty?

>>22905311

>You lose that basic humanity when you're rich because you have so much other busy shit going on, fast cars to drive, cool places to live, hot bitches to fuck.
Yet that's what you've used as a qualifier on /lit/ multiple times to berate people into why you are better than them, so pretending it doesn't matter to you is in contradiction to your numerous posts on why you are cooler than everyone else here.

>>22905316
I was trying to keep my Reddit account and not be a total sperg, I wanted to write a huge ass post about how the history of the lobotomy procedure, thalidomide tragedy, and Pfizer's 2+ billion dollar fine in 2009, the fact that so many drugs are pulled, along with how many fucking "early lifes" are involves with the COVID "vaccine" was the reason that I distrust Big Pharma.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_withdrawn_drugs

I full admit to being dishonest on Reddit, I've made several attempts to get on the site and actually build up an account to be a counter-culture person on the site, but eventually the mask slips and I'm fucking banned site-wide. You cannot even mention Jason Bryan on the /r/vancouver sub without getting banned yourself. Try it.

>>22905325
Would you trust a ride across the ocean on a battered looking old boat that still floats, or a pristine vessel that has never left the harbour?

>>22905359

I don't understand the analogy. I just find it odd that you judge people by a seemingly vapid standard that you yourself no longer meet, and then turn around and then say that stuff doesn't matter anymore. If it didn't matter to you, you wouldn't be bragging about it, and thus trying to convince people that you were once someone worth knowing.

>>22903634
I meant that it's fine but everything else inside is poop

>Nirina-Lazy Rations.txt
7/10
I don’t really know what to make of this. It is a good story and I like the rhythm and bouncing along as we go. This is what I would encourage the A Stick of Incense author to strive towards even though I think it’s not perfect either and still does obfuscate some of the details with its style. I have to be honest I think it’s a good story but I don’t know if I want to read it again or a longer form of it. I think you can do more or less with this style and that involves taking a hold of it better. I give it a 7 because I see your clear intent and delivery and I am more likely to have been filtered by the important parts.

>2023-07-25 Burger Septet
4/10
Too fixated on romance and girl-boy. I don’t find it very profound. It’s never a good idea for a story or a poem to soft-break the 4th wall by confessing something self-deprecating about itself.

>The Dhark Whizard’s St-have
10/10 or 6/10 depending on how you want to put it.
It does what it does flawlessly. But it is all that it is and does not claim to be more. The St-have is his penis?Hilarious.

>Ecofreak
DNF
I do not care for Lucas Bineville’s work.

>>22905372
>I don't understand the analogy.
The battered boat has proven itself against the ocean at the cost of its appearance

>I just find it odd that you judge people by a seemingly vapid standard that you yourself no longer meet
There is a certain respect you have to give to someone or something that has pushed their own limits and survived at a cost, compared to someone who has played it safe, in some circles they would call that "balls"

Of course, people who die trying are mostly forgotten

https://www.ladbible.com/news/john-edward-jones-nutty-putty-cave-death-wife-20221103

I still can't believe buddy had the biggest balls, or insanity, to push him to attempt such insane shit. I've been caving, and when you reach a squeeze point that makes you have to breath out just to squeeze into a location, that is fucking insane. I went into a cave on Vancouver Island and there was a "birth canal" like tunnel that felt like I was going to die and the space was only 5 feet long until it expanded into a much bigger area. This dude went head-first into a tunnel that was much, much, MUCH more dangerous like it was nothing.

>and then turn around and then say that stuff doesn't matter anymore.
The motivation I had to achieve those material things is different than the motivation I have today, but I wouldn't have the "enlightened" motivation I have today without those experiences. We're human, we're conditioned and programmed, and to break out of our programming, we each need to find our breaking point. For me, it was having all the fast cars, the hot women, the cool places, and seeing how it is just an expression of how to navigate a system that uplifts people who follow the current and punishes people who resist the flow. The current does absolutely rely on some people must fail so a small minority can extremely profit. Ultimately, I have understood that our system is cruel and unfair in many ways, and I've chosen for the last couple years to barely participate out of frustration that things are, in general, so unfair, yet so few people speak out.

>If it didn't matter to you, you wouldn't be bragging about it, and thus trying to convince people that you were once someone worth knowing.
I don't think I was worth knowing in my most material, most "successful" time, I'm more worth knowing in my failure than in my success, for the very reason that consumerism drives us so hard. We are nothing without the things that give us status, prestige, and acclaim, if you have compassion and a sense of self-consciousness, you'd see the world as a meat grinder designed for you to step on others to rise up, and to be conscientious of this would have you question your very place in this society where you can witness the highest achievements of capitalism and the finest dinners, impressive architecture, and near limitless expressions of humanity, while some people sleep under blankets on the streets mere blocks away.

>Maybe I'm a furry into gay scat and rimjobs, like scat on my face, big huge
logs of shit in my mouth from an aids-infected butthole. All while a dwarf
midget female-to-male transexual nazi is fucking me in the ass with a dragon
purple strap on 2 foot cock, but I love it because I'm a slam pig and just
injected a .2 gram point of meth straight into my cock while in a ceiling swing
where a platoon of bikers are going to breed my bussy so I can become a
nazi satanic pedophile transgender eskimo freemason convoyer!
This is the /lit/ we need in 2024

>Maybe I'm a furry into gay scat and rimjobs, >like scat on my face, big huge
>logs of shit in my mouth from an aids-infected >butthole. All while a dwarf
>midget female-to-male transexual nazi is >fucking me in the ass with a dragon
>purple strap on 2 foot cock, but I love it >because I'm a slam pig and just
>injected a .2 gram point of meth straight into >my cock while in a ceiling swing
>where a platoon of bikers are going to breed >my bussy so I can become a
>nazi satanic pedophile transgender eskimo >freemason convoyer!
This is the /lit/ we need in 2024

>>22905246
it's like bukowski with out the wit, charm, or personality

>>22906103
I've danced with flames hotter than your gaze,
Sprinted through streets faster than your fleeting charm,
Dwelled in corners cooler than the places you name.

>>22906119
He's come inside skanks whose pussies are rank
Then lived on the streets taking dick for the pay
And neglected his daughter and forgotten her name

BIG DICK, IN MY ASS
I'M JASON BRYAN, YOU JUST HAVE TO ASK
COCK IN ME, I TAKE IT GOOD
I MAKE SLANT RHYMES
AND WHORE FOR FOOD

i am jason shitkicker
i sit on the street and lick dick quicker
than billy the kid or jimmy the kidfucker

baby momma, take me back
it's been so long since i washed my crack
these streets are mean, oh baby please
it's been so long, my dick's all cheese
this is the cost of no covid shots
without my drugs i'm so damn lost
so here i am doin meth in a tent
baby momma, could you pay my rent?

>>22906147
>>22906142
>>22906127
Yeah yeah, I know I made a mistake banging your ex, but she spent $180 on drinks at the fucking Clough Club on me, brought me back to my place and proceeded to take her pants off and bend that giant ass over and spread her pussy. I wasn't particularly excited by that, so she sucked my dick furiously for like 15 minutes until I was hard enough to fuck her tight innie waxed pussy, and I came inside her. If I could go back in time I would have told her to fuck off, but I was wasted and depressed at the time, so, you know, shit happens.

You only have yourself to blame since you let yourself go so hard around 2009-2012, you were a top bro before that but let your power slide. It happens to the best of us at one point or another.

>>22906204
jason jason jason
bryan bryan bryan
i ain't that guy so why you lyin?
i think you gay but you keep tryin
i'll still be here so slick n rhymin

>>22906204
In the depths of your persecution-complex-tainted bragathon you just admitted to having a limp dick.
Was this the own you imagined it to be?

>>22906215
Whiddedy whack crab tryna clap back
J-Bry all warm and posting on /lit/ from his shack
Feelin' tight and protected by that divine light
Bout to submit to that &amp and do what's right
Not for the money, the girls, or the fame
But because to stop writing would be lame
Out here just slangin' verbs, no more losing myself in a cloud of herbs
Murdering you on this post, cracking your legs, throw your body in a hearse
But not before I dip you in butter and garlic, no need to call a doctor or a nurse
And with your body now barely goin' cold I walk away with no jail and no fine
Tick tock, tick tock, that's the vaxx my homie, you've got very little time
So I suggest you write a book my bottom-crawling clawed friend
Because crustaceans like you are about to meet your end
With your 10 legs and crew of dipshits in your flock
You call out /lit/ writers, accuse us of writing schlock
But the only thing you got is a tiny cock

>>22906221
I wasn't turned on by this bitch because she's a major cunt, it took direct deepthroating to even get excited. She once pushed me into a lake fully clothed and fucked up my phone and soaked my wallet and shoes. Very manipulative.

>>22906270
if you say so, limpdick

>>22906275
If you viewed a woman as a friend for years it is much more difficult to get an erection for her than you might think, but you'd know that if you ever had women throwing themselves at you that you hadn't been previously attracted to.

>>22906259
>I'm so mad
>very very very mad
>you make me mad
>I'm so mad because I know it's true

t. you

I could beat all of you fake edgy tryhard faggots up so hard

>>22906333
you'd have to beat up jason soft.

&AMP-SANCTIONED BUM FIGHTS
TOMORROW 2 PM
EAST HASTINGS
ALLEY BESIDE STREET CHURCH

BE THERE
OR BEWARE

>>22906346
This would actually be a fucking amazing event, even the AI agrees. However, 2 PM is not golden hour for that extra level of KINO.

>>22904969
I actually went on a date with her

>>22906501
Where did you take her?

Why is are leaf anons like this?

>>22906555
If you only knew how bad things really are

>>22887292
sucks dick

>>22906609
Wow

>>22906215
Jason believes some boogeyman from his past is responsible for any shitpost flung in his direction as it's inconceivable that he isn't universally adored. I'm not sure that person actually exists but it's a good indicator of him starting to melt down. Keep going.

>>22906879
I ate a tub of hummus and I am definitely melting down, if melting down means having explosive garlic-reeking farts. Enjoying the latest Overnight episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H9yGJpTPhA

Whenever I feel unmotivated to write, I picture a bucket of crabs ready to drag me down. Got 2k words done today and outlined what I'm going to write for &amp 20.

>>22907226
if you have crabs it's because you trade sex favors for crack at Vancouver Station

>>22907226
I only write for reasons related to personal fulfilment, never for revenge.

>>22907325
Sounds very progressive to me!

wife kicked me out again this arvo and now i'm walking kangaroo road in me cork hat
struth, kiss my arse I miss her

>>22908607
>wife kicked me out again this arvo and now i'm walking kangaroo road in me cork hat
>struth, kiss my arse I miss her
Ehh... not a very good prompt

So, now that the dust has settled. &amp Issue #020. What did we think?

>>22909160
>issue #019
terrible stories, awful design. worst &amp release yet
>issue #020
unlikely to ever happen

>>22909188
>19
Not the best but not the worst either (probably better than 18)
>20
By the resilience shown will, despite all naysayers, probably eventually come around

>>22909188
I liked the design of 19. It has a real chaotic vibe.

>>22909204
the stories in #018 and #019 are at about same level of quality imo. the design of #018 looks good tho, whereas #019 looks like ass, plus the formatting is so fucked that it basically makes the whole thing unreadable

>>22909246
What resolution are you running on your PC you use to view the PDF?

>>22909262
by formatting i meant layout, no issues with the resolution

>>22909246
I wouldn't want the continuation formatting to become a mainstay but it's an interesting enough switchup whereas 018 was just meh-re of the same. Better poems thobeit.

>>22909246
This issue didn't even have a table of contents, which sucks for anyone who wants to go back and read a specific story. I get they probably didn't include it because of the "continued" format, but they could have at least listed where each one starts (and I think all the scattered ones start on the same page anyway). It's really annoying and lazy.

>/pol/ is talking about Kabbalah of the Crocodile and F Gardner

Fucking Kek.

>>22904889
atlas is in jail now, you retard

While the stories in this issue are nothing special and the design is a travesty, I do think there's a larger issue. In my impartial opinion, this is the worst issue of &amp for one simple reason: this is the first time an issue of &amp feels like an extension of the drama rather than the drama being an extension of &amp. The drama has resulted in irreparable repercussions on people directly involved with the creation of the magazine and that has mangled both the immediate quality of this issue and the foreseeable outlook of all issues to come, not to mention that our once humble editor is now all the more cringe, what with the semen eating and all that.
As someone who has contributed to &amp multiple time in the past, I find it hard to play hype man when my fellow cheerleaders are the likes of Jason Bryan and RJC, someone who has further cemented the fact that he does not know how to write, and with what I am hyping falls to a new low with each passing month.

>>22909631
Cry harder bitch &amp 20 is going to be dope and I'm loving the chaotic vibe of &amp 19

>>22909631
>I find it hard to play hype man when my fellow cheerleaders are the likes of Jason Bryan and RJC
He never felt the joy of parking a big turbo MKIV Supra outside of his big tiddy girlfriend's house

>>22909160
You mean 019 and it was mid though I blame the issue/design and not the stories

>>22909955
What about the issue design? How would you make it better? Legit would like to hear your feedback.

>>22910106
Just do a normal zine where you don’t punish online readers i.e 99% of the people reading your stuff. That would be a good start

>>22910343
Do you have any examples that you like?

>>22910343
indeed. lose the pdf shit and make it a webzine. PDF is an ancient, dead format that needs to stay dead.

>>22909631
The crackhead rejects good stories in favor of publishing banal vanilla trash, pages and pages and pages of it from the likes of LA Talentless and Lewis Arse Woolston. For that reason I refuse to submit.

>>22911120
>LA Talentless
Okay dipshit, pick out two shitty paragraphs and list'em. Let's see.

>>22911120
>The crackhead rejects good stories in favor of publishing banal vanilla trash, pages and pages and pages of it from the likes of LA Talentless and Lewis Arse Woolston. For that reason I refuse to submit.
Sick prompt bro

>>22911128
fuck off with your AI crap

>>22911124
Forget paragraphs, not a single thing you've ever written has evoked any feeling beyond contempt. Your writing is on the level of a 4chan post and not even a good one.

>>22911134
>not a single thing you've ever written has evoked any feeling beyond contempt.
Yeah but I know pretty good prompts, so fuck you

>>22911172
>he's an AI nigger
figures

>>22911134
>not a single thing you've ever written has evoked any feeling beyond contempt.
Yeah but I know pretty good prompts, so fuck you

>>22911175
AI is based

>>22911130
It was tolerable when people had to at least figure out discord to use midjourney, but ever since DALL-E has moved to Bing, it's become a mass garbage content generator for midwits and boomers. It's the cancer killing /pol/, and it's spreading here thanks to those bereft of talent or discernment. If anything should ever be banned from 4chan, it's this fidget spinner for the unskillful.

>>22909631
this anon is correct. the drama is killing &amp, but it never had to be that way. the editors should've kept their heads down and carried on, not gotten all tangled up in controversy. it's tainted these threads and the mag, and I doubt it'll recover.

the constant faux-buzz around named writers who plainly have no talent, like RJC and Woolston, has also turned the readership quite rightly bitter. was it that hard just to keep it an anonymous magazine in the spirit of /lit/? egoes in a literary magazine are like vermin, they'll creep in through the pipes and multiply unless you do something about it.

I guess the editors just didn't see the danger of it, but every other post on these threads is a manifestation of that bitterness. The guitar general thread on /mu/ went the same way. its funny to track the overarching mechanism that leads these creative threads to implode. Namefags are ALWAYS at the root of it.

such a shame, honestly. &amp was so good in its prime.

>>22911264
>such a shame, honestly. &amp was so good in its prime
Anonymous quality content will often fall victim to those who crave the spotlight but lack the talent to earn it on their own merit

nü thred
>>22911676

>>22911264
The editor has been acting like a retard since his Message in a Bottle meltdown, so you can't act like he's got nothing to do with it when he's caused half of it. Dude got a big head and started believing people would lap it up no matter what he did.