Author Archives: vmalesh

Dr. Vytautas Malesh (MFA, PhD) is a writer and professor living and working in Miami, Florida. He has moved so many times that it’s difficult to say where he’s actually from, but he always, enthusiastically, claims Detroit. Content added on a need-to-write basis.

The Metapocalypse

Everything about metaverse looked awful from the onset, and its ad campaign has done nothing but hint at the inevitability of some sort of bleak, sexless dystopia in which human beings, desperate for real interaction, walk around with plastic boxes strapped to their faces seemingly unaware that what they seek requires them only to breakContinue reading “The Metapocalypse”

Intimidation and Persuasion in Dungeons and Dragons

[A] persuaded NPC can be trusted because they act in their own self-interest in addition to whatever communal interest has been established. An intimidated NPC cannot be trusted because they act only in their own self-preservation and share in no communal benefit in so doing.

Race and Dungeons and Dragons: An Unsolicited Opinion – Part 2

When someone’s response to “Black Lives Matter” is “there’s no such thing as race,” you can go ahead and move on with your life because that person literally farts in the bath tub and bites the bubbles.

Race and Dungeons and Dragons: An Unsolicited Opinion – Part 1

The scholarship and culture to which I personally am responding… is still undergoing earth-shaking change. Tolkien… was being quite progressive by suggesting elves, humans, dwarves, and shire-folk could live happily together… but…that is through a contemporary lens problematic. I come here not to bury Tolkien, but to contextualize him…