The most dramatic game of Werewolf ever played, part 2: a story of ages
If you’re asking yourself “what’s Werewolf?” then you need to read part 1 of this story, in which I describe Werewolf and my feelings about the game. If not, then I hope your body is ready.
To recap: this is an epic tale of deception, of security guards, of teenagers, of drunkenness, of meltdowns, of suspicion, of betrayal, of murder, of mystery. And I must set the stage with the cast. Read More…
The most dramatic game of Werewolf ever played, part 1: a Werewolf primer
I must tell an an epic tale of deception, of security guards, of teenagers, of drunkenness, of meltdowns, of suspicion, of betrayal, of murder, of mystery. I must tell the tale of the most dramatic game of Werewolf I have ever played.
I feel that it is extremely important to communicate my exact feelings about Werewolf in order to help you fully comprehend the gravity of the drama that transpired during this legendary game, so I have broken up this tale into two parts; this, the first, shall focus on the mechanics of the game as I perceive them:
Werewolf, which you may know as Mafia, is the best party game ever invented (yes, even better than Cards Against Humanity). The rules are simple: a bunch of people sit in a circle, and they’re all villagers. But 1-3 of them are secretly werewolves. A “caller,” who runs the game, narrates when the village sleeps at night (closes their eyes) and announces whom the werewolves have decided to kill each morning, once the villagers have opened their eyes and risen from their slumber. The object of the game is for the villagers to deduce, through various methods, which of their neighbors are the werewolves… before they are all eaten.
Archive footage of a Werewolf game at Gen-Con 2011
Actual advice for writing poetry, plus a poem that utilizes none of it
First off, you’re welcome for the ABSOLUTELY FREE NOTES I’m about to give you from my Very Professional Public High School Education. It’s your (or your parents’) tax dollars that paid for this, and I’m nothing if not completely willing to help you maximize your return on investment. Read and learn, then be completely befuddled by whatever may follow:
It’s like I just assumed my teacher wasn’t going to read this
This post is kinda sorta the direct sequel to a real cliffhanger of a post, but while I’m sure you’re chomping at the bit to get to today’s (re: ~12 years ago’s) poetry, I’d like to first hastily explain what is about to happen in the three poems below:
- The first “poem” is total garbage. It’s a reluctant apology for doing something I did not consider wrong; I don’t know exactly what it was, but I am clearly just being whiny.
- The second “poem” is a continuation of the first, mostly because we’d just learned about Emily Dickinson, and apparently my major takeaways were “she capitalized seemingly random words” and “she used dashes seemingly at random,” leading my parodic slant to what we’ve got here (other than failure to communicate).
- The third poem was probably something I wrote in 2 minutes to show to Brynn, my awesome/hilarious friend who sat by me in class and laughed at most of the things I said/did, which is a thing that made her (and frankly anyone else) worthy of my attention, as I was (am) a charismatic young teenager who was always fond of a little extra ego boost.
Hopefully that introduction will alleviate somewhat the horror art you are about to experience:
Poetry about enigmatic smiles and offending everyone
This one’s gonna be a doozy.
You see, back on March 26, 2003, I apparently offended someone. This officially puts me Ahead of My Time, as these days, literally everyone is constantly offended all the time always, forever. In fact, I’m ONE HUNDRED PERCENT SURE that the previous sentence just offended someone. And my use of caps lock very likely triggered at least half a dozen people, who will now go blog about it on Tumblr and talk about how I oppressed them by thinking independent thoughts. Ha ha, just kidding—both you and I know that fewer than half a dozen people will ever actually read this.
To be clear, I was actually not even being that hyperbolic in the previous paragraph: in the image you are about to see below, I had to actually crop out half of my “apology,” because even MY APOLOGY would be too offensive for people in a hyper-politically-correct 2015, where Internet Peoples’ skin is about as thick as a sheet of tissue paper wrapped tightly around a blazing pile of firewood.
That having been said, here is the latter half of my apology, followed by a poem about… well, you’ll see (that’s what we call a “tease” in THE BIZ):
That time I felt the need to explain the concept and use of satire to my Creative Writing teacher, because High Schoolers
Thotes (or, “oh dear God, he’s back”)
Photo credit: J.J. Abrams
So, like two years ago or something, I had this awesome idea: a “creative reunion” of sorts, if you will, as it were, so to speak, if you like, as it please, and so on, et cetera. The idea was that I’d take my high school notes and upload them to this site along with commentary exactly ten years after writing them.
Unfortunately, at the time of my stroke of genius in identifying a somewhat unique outlet for my creativity, I didn’t have what you’d call “any support” from what you’d call “my heinous ex-girlfriend” whom you could say “everyone hated because she was a monster”—and I mean that less as a judgment of character and more as an efficient way to describe her physical scales, tendency to breathe fire, and flailing tentacles made out of lies and betrayal. But I digress.
The “creative reunion,” as I called it, fell apart, because when you spend most of your time with someone who validates neither you nor your creative works, you get discouraged and abandon them. And thus, The Internet was spared for over two years, and there was peace.
Well now I’m back… TO RUIN THAT.
I’ve got an itch to write again. Unfortunately, due to the popular convention commonly known as the “calendar,” it is no longer chronologically possible for me to resume a ten-year reunion, as it is now over 12 years later, and “dozen-year reunion” sounds like a stupid Dunkin Donuts marketing scheme, and “twelve-year reunion” employs a number which is a multiple of neither five nor ten, and it’s not amateur hour, so NO THANKS. I also lost my place in terms of where I left off, as I’d scanned literally my entire notebook (which only cost about $1,367.81 at Kinko’s, because Kinko’s) at the time of the reunion’s conception. So now I’ve got to figure out naming conventions and trying not to post multiple times and a bunch of other stuff that literally only matters to me because I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and which you will literally never notice. Or care about. I’m glad, then, that I just devoted an entire paragraph to discussing it.
Speaking of paragraphs, my point is that I’m going to change some names, and here’s what I’ve come up with:
Thotes.
I took notes in high school, and now I’m going to tell you my thoughts on them, and so when you combine the two words, you get a stupid portmanteau that both looks and sounds utterly stupid. Which is why it’s perfect for this site!
So prepare for some thotes. Unless I wake up tomorrow and change my mind on a whim, in which case disregard this entire post.
In the meantime: prepare your body. It’s gonna be quite a ride.
Why I’m not going to see the new Godzilla movie
The new Godzilla movie is fine or whatever. I guess a bunch of people are going to see it or have already seen it, but I am not one of those people.
See, a lot of kids these days forget that TriStar Pictures released a Godzilla movie in 1998. A lot of people in general also seem to forget that TriStar Pictures is a thing that exists. In fact, I didn’t know that fact until I looked it up on Wikipedia, but that’s beside the point.
The 1998 Godzilla movie had something that this Godzilla movie does NOT have, and I think we all know exactly what I’m talking about:
Cody Gough in Arts & Crafts: A Web Series
HEY LOOK I’M IN A WEB SERIES:
I play nerdy college student Ray, one member of an ensemble cast of characters trying to navigate their way through college. Did I mention that I play a college student? Ha ha yeah, I’m awesome that way.
This series started as a successful Kickstarter project and grew into a huge part of my life in the latter half of 2013 and early 2014. I’ve become close friends with many members of the cast, and I can honestly say that the people both on- and off-camera are some of the most talented people I’ve worked with… and they’re so young (most are actually Columbia College Chicago students)! It was a blast to shoot the first season of the series, and I’m pumped about the possibility of having a second season. But we’ll see.
In the mean time, enjoy the episodes on this playlist, and please subscribe to the series’ YouTube channel to stay up-to-date on future content!
Cody, Brian’s producer, featured in Hottest Geek Guys of Winter 2014
Here’s what I’ve been up to lately!
Cody Gough (dot com) 
That time I analyzed my creative writing class
I’m back from my summer vacation—and boy, are my arms tired!
But seriously, folks: it’s been a long year. Let’s celebrate the fact that we’ve nearly reached the end of our annual trip around the sun by reviewing that one time I analyzed my creative writing class:
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