New! Our translation of Djuna’s short story “Where’s Your Dad?” is forthcoming (fall 2026) in the collection Memoir of a Joseon Bride, along with many stories translated by Adrian Thieret, and published by Honford Star. Preorder a copy here.
New! South Korean SF author Djuna’s Not Yet Gods in a new English translation by Jihyun Park and me, coming soon (2027?) from Kaya Press. Click here to visit the Kaya webpage for the book and preorder it from the publisher!
New! Further Strangeness: Twelve New Knights, Seers, and Myths for Mythic Bastionland is an unofficial and unlicensed supplement for Chris McDowall’s wonderful new game, and my entry for the Mythic Bastionland Game Jam. Available for free over on my itch.io webpage.
New! Circe’s Grin is a system-agnostic old-school RPG adventure, and my entry for the Appx. N 2025 game jam. Available for free (for now) on my itch.io webpage.
New from Knight Owl Publishing: Isle of Joy is a harrowing old-school adventure on a mysterious island full of secrets and stories. Order a copy on Knight Owl’s website.
Something Tookish! is a Brindlewood Bay RPG hack for those who want to solve mundane, cozy mysteries in a halfling village. With art by Justin Howe! Get your copy on itch.io!
Now available: FERMENTVM NIGRVM DEI SEPVLTI (Black Yeast of the Buried God) from LotFP! Text by me, illustrations by Gonzalo Æneas, layout by Jacob Hurst, editing by Joshua Blackketter, maps by Alex Mayo. OSR adventure set in a brewing abbey in historical Westphalia.
EU Webstore | US Webstore | PDF at DTRPG
My OSR Conversions Guide for the Koryo Hall of Adventures 5E setting book is now available over at DriveThru RPG.
My short story “Sojourn” appeared in A City of Han, available on Amazon.com.
See a complete list of my publications and forthcoming work.
Okeeey.
Right.
What IS a good service, though, is the one where you go into a florist with a list of birthdays/anniversaries/etc. and pay in advance to have appropriate flowers delivered on the appropriate day. Especially if you can’t remember your mom’s birthday and don’t have a wife to keep track of that for you. :)
(Not that I’m married to someone who would forget his mom’s birthday, but I’ve known of mothers that were really hurt that their grown sons forgot them.)
I suck at this. I call too late. I still have to call my Dad for a birthday several weeks ago. I’m not good at this being a good son stuff. But my old man knows I don’t mean it personally. I hope…
If you’ve never been involved with a modern-day workaholic, you’ll never understand the necessity for this kind of service. True, the name might seem a little condescending, but I’ve spoken with the guy who founded the site personally and I believe he has only the best -albiet hilarious- intentions at heart. No foul, really.
Perhaps. I don’t think I could stand to be be involved with someone who was a workaholic to the degree that they needed such a service. I think part of me suspects such people shouldn’t date, because really, like monks and bounty hunters, their work pretty much precludes any kind of functional relationship. So I don’t think I could understand it, no.
Something about it just seems… dishonest to me. I don’t think the founder has necessarily bad intentions, but there’s something kind of icky about the idea, to me. I don’t think I would appreciate receiving flowers in this way either, though I suppose I would never necessarily know. But it just seems to me fundamentally dishonest, because it presents an illusion that you were thought of, and the thought provoked a spontaneous act of giving. When in fact your name came up at the company office random-timer and flowers were purchased and sent as a matter of fulfilling a business transaction.
Perhaps I sound like Holden Caufield ranting about fakes and phoneys, but I’m really touchy about any kind of fundamental, sustained self-misrepresentation in relationships. Nobody’s 100% on the table all the time, but convincing someone you’re spontaneous, thoughtful, and able to set aside enough time to send her flowers when you really don’t have time to be spontaneous, thoughtful, and send flowers to her just smacks of a lie, and the setup for a big disappointment.
And yeah, it’s also funny. It’s the kind of thing I’d expect to encounter in a Charlie Kaufman film, though. Some mixup in accounts and some poor wife discovers her “big success” husband has these automated thoughtfulness simulators sending out things to his wife, his mom, his girlfriend-on-the-side, his daughter, and so on when she receives all the gifts meant for his mom, his girlfriend, his daughter, and his wife all at the same address on Valentine’s Day. That’d make for some funny movie viewing, if written right.
“… because it presents an illusion that you were thought of, and the thought provoked a spontaneous act of giving…”
Again, I disagree with this point because the fact of the matter is it directly implies that someone WAS in fact thinking of you, and they certainly had to have some kind of weighted thought to want to buy a MEMBERSHIP to a flower-delivery club on your behalf! If anything, this is exactly the kind of thoughts women want men to have of them – long term, committed thoughts that aren’t pronounced by the spontenous infatuation of a new relationship.
Granted, I don’t like the whole Valentines-Day-cliche-red-roses crap, but I want to know that whoever I’m involved with – workaholic or not – has got me in their calendar for the long haul. Planning to send “just because” flowers five months down the line says a lot about a guy.
That’s interesting… in a way I simply don’t *get*, but which makes me go, hmmmmmm.
I think we’re talking about different things, though. Long haul, I read as “implied quantity of relationship”, whereas my concerns with “authenticity” are more qualitative. And for some reason, for me, “authenticity” and “difficulty” are linked. Paying someone to send flowers on semi-random days, if it’s done up front and honestly, looks like a bit of an easy way out. You don’t even have to think about it, someone else does it for you. Kind of like setting up an email generator to send randomly-timed loving messages (pulled from a massive love quotes file) during the day when you’re away from your computer.
And even that’s interesting, since I bet for you “long haul” is also factored into quality, whereas I distrust that… since one can, for example, be tepidly in it for the long haul. I know several guys like that with their girlfriends or wives… “Ah, we’ve been dating a long time. Let’s just stay together [or get married], even if I’m completely bored with you and not fulfilled in this relationship.” Come to think of it, I know a few women who seem to be that way, too.
And I imagine someone tepidly in it for the long haul would love to have some of thosee “duties” taken off his shoulders in exchange for a little money. Anyone that busy can easily afford it. (Again with the difficulty thing.) Planning to send flowers is different (to my mind) from paying someone to plan to send flowers, through a service contract which can be canceled at any time. It’s not a real long-term investment, it’s the illusion of one… or that’s how I’d see it.
But you know, in relationships, I think I am a very demanding person. Deceptive-seeming inauthenticity is a relationship-killer for me. Most people don’t think this way, I know.
… while I was drifting off, an example came to mind: it feels to me like the guy who hires a someone else to write a song or a poem for his girlfriend. Which, even though it sounds dreadfully inauthentic to me, probably sounds pretty nice to a lot of people.
But I guess for most people, it’d be closer to a guy hiring a band to play a lovesong for her, which perhaps seems more romantic and less inauthentic… not every guy can be a good singer.
On the other hand, calling and sending “just because flowers” at semirandom times is well within the abilities of just about any man, if he’s really into the woman and that’s what she wants from him.