The Content Mill

Now, the Emptys. Where exactly they hail from is a matter of confusion. To us, of course, but to them as well. I've mentioned before that Earl is from out in the Pacific Northwest. From the oldest money around. So he says. Where, or how Earl got it, is unknown. Hell, Earl didn't exist until 1917 on any records. No draft records, no nothing. He doesn't carry tags and, even if you press him, won't m...

Until now, we have little discussed the Emptys. Earl Empty and Winston Empty, no relation. Well, not like that anyways. Just by cosmic coincidence they shared the same name…and it was cosmic. They were quite nondescript; conjure what a drummer and a sax player in a 1920s jazz band looks like to you and that’s them. Quite literally. They rarely looked the same to the people in the crowd, but that w...

The Blue Room—for that is what it was—roiled, its light charged with a cosmic anticipation. The Printed Room—for that is what it was—roiled, its letters surging like waves upon the wall. The Empty Room—for that is what it was—was hungry. Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch Social Links Eric is MrTheHuman Gianni is GianniDiCrosta Nate is HeroicHeadgear Phil is Phil Bothun Cre...

Well, dear reader. It appears we’re at a crossroads of sorts. A convergence point where our story takes a turn for the cosmic—as if it hadn’t already. So hold on tight to something, anything that reminds you of home or who you used to be. I’d hate for you to be left Empty for this next leg of the journey. ———— Follow Kate on BlueSky Follow Emily on BlueSky Go listen to No Small Games! ———— Visit t...

The door creaked open slowly, blue light thrumming from around the jamb. Letters and text and illustrations of the Big Bad Wolf dissolved in the air; childhood lamps twinkling like stars in the sea of blue. There was no one here. Not now. But she still felt what this place was, what it will be. What it could be. The letters finished moving, some of them still hanging in the air. ”Remember me,” sus...

Mr. Ree leafed through an old, worn children’s book. Illustrations and text floated in the air in a particle fizz, swirling into his eyes. The pages were left blank. He had seen it all, just hadn’t consumed it all quite yet. He was waiting. For the knock on the door that had happened just then, but now. Ah. There it was. Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch Social Links Eric...

Dust drifted in the entrance, decay's snow dancing in the headlights streaming through the doorway. Two stairways flanked the foyer, curving to a second-story balcony. Framed portraits hung on every wall, barely an inch of curling wallpaper visible between them. Every face by scratched out or crossed out with black paint. All but hers. Blue light pulsed from above, beckoning her. Visit the website...

Coming out of the stupor is always the worst part. It’s a come down mixed with the head shattering rattle of artillery shells. The Empties milled about, snapping their instrument cases closed, then shouldering them out of the smoke filled den. Another show, another underground club that won’t want to see them in the morning. There was just one problem: that nagging feeling that he had learned some...

Red lines like tail lights traced ovals around my face in dingy newsprint. The lines raced across the countrysides of text, undulating over photos of mountains, casualty reports, and turn-of-the-century industrial fires. I followed them, tiptoeing over Mr. Ree until somewhere between the bathroom and the galley kitchen I found it. The ink had run dry in the red pen, its bleeding turned to scratchi...

Cosmically, he was awake. For the first time in a decade. Ellington walked among the forest, their twinkling fruits burning brighter than the stars. He saw it all. The Mystery. Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch Social Links Eric is MrTheHuman Gianni is GianniDiCrosta Nate is HeroicHeadgear Phil is Phil Bothun

Ether-soaked and lost among the trees, Ellington drifted. Floated? Well, either way, he was among the limbs, each thought, each character, pluckable like apples. Who were they all...and why were they among his forest? The Dame? The Detective? The Emptys. Always the Emptys. Hollow cored and rotten. Planets orbiting his dying sun. He tugged on an apple, its face obscured by his hand...well, the bone...

Mr. Ree was, in fact, not his given name. He was known to many—millions even—by many names, none of which we shall disclose today. Mr. Ree was, indeed, someone who enjoyed a little pageantry, after all. It was all in the name, wasn’t it? We watch Mr. Ree—well, do we watch or does he?—travel from here to elsewhere. The city to the country. A blue house. Two red lights. One fated meeting that had ne...

Blue light pulsed to a different beat, flashing the towering pines in an ethereal glow. The ivy snaked higher than she remembered, but it had been years since she had been this deep into the forest. Centuries even. No one had been home since that fateful day, so she let herself in. Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch Social Links Eric is MrTheHuman Gianni is GianniDiCrosta N...

Red taillights streaked through the countryside, crisscrossing the forest and vales like lines on a map. The drum beat echoed in her head, pounding out a staccato rhythm piercing through the rev of the engine. A house. The house. His house. A facade she remembered from a lifetime ago. —— Thanks to AJ Fillari for joining us this week! Go listen to their show Dot Zip , or hire them to edit your audi...

In this episode of the Content Mill, we dig into the latest news and happenings in the games industry. Today's big story is the talk of the town: the games industry is taking a big old break. So sit down, relax, and hang out as we talk about the backlog games that will be filling up this year of no new releases! Visit the website | Join the discord | Follow us on Twitch Social Links Eric is MrTheH...

Mr. Ree was not having a great time. Did not have a great time. He'd been dead for at least a week. But, in a room filled to the brim with newspapers, the body was only the second most unexpected thing. The place had stunk to high Heaven, but I couldn't tell anymore. This wasn't my first rodeo. No, what grabbed my attention was the organized chaos of the newspapers and the red pen circling words a...

Predator. Prey. Stars. Smoke. A drum beat. Pounding. Quarter notes, then eighths. Urgency and danger. And then she blinked. The Dame—that's who she was now—couldn't shake the hollow gaze and incessant beat of the Emptys' drums. Even miles away, pushing the accelerator to the max, she could still hear them...getting louder, somehow? Predator. Prey. Stars. Smoke. Predator. Prey. Stars. Smoke. What d...

From the first days in the trenches when he found the first, Ellington’s Bones spoke to him. It took him weeks to determine that the dissonant whispers nagging at the back of his mind, edging in from his periphery, were emanating from the bone of unknown origin in the mud. A rat femur. Or rabbit, perhaps. The whispers never calmed though, not until he found more. Overlaying tones coalescing into s...

Mr. Ree's apartment door was loosely swinging on rusted hinges. The dial tone of a phone echoed through the hall, an incessant ringing too loud to make any sense. I shoved the door open with a gloved hand and stood in the doorway, my eyes unable to settle on what I saw. Newspapers covered everything. Stacks of every rag and sheet available between the rivers teetered like funhouse skyscrapers. The...

There were a lot of things that Ellington brought back from the War. Scars, callousness, his crew, and his Bones. Few things in his life were as hard-won and cherished as that vibraphone, built piece by piece over his years in the trenches. When he played, they sang. When they talked, he listened. And right now, they were telling a very interesting story. Visit the website | Join the discord | Fol...

Ten years ago. A soirée at War’s end. Combat boots and heels gliding along floors slick with champagne suds and gin. The sound of lost loves and newfound ones pounding in rhythm to the exuberant roars of a band letting loose. Romance was in the air and Ellington was loving it. Four long years and he was back; back in front of a crowd, and backed by his newfound friends: The Emptys. Visit the websi...

The Dame. The Broad. Madame Noir. The Woman with Black Hair. She had so many names and came from so many places it was hard to keep track. Behind the facade, who she truly is was hard to say anymore. They were like oil, glistening and swirling together, a rainbow of identity that only coalesces in unity when looked at the right way. She sipped her drink, waiting for Ellington to say something. Ice...

I peeled off a handful of bills and handed them to the cabbie, tipping my hat and pulling the collar of my coat close. The weather had not improved since I left Ellington and the Emptys on the boardwalk and I was grateful for the stack of cash the Dame had handed me. The case made no sense, but in this city the difference between reality and fantasy was blurry on a good day. Trash flanked the entr...

The Empty fortune hails from the Pacific Northwest somewhere. There's no real defined story and you'd never be able to nail Earl down on a real answer anyways—believe me, I've tried—but it really doesn't matter. This outfit was masquerading as a normal down-on-its-luck jazz troupe playing dives all up and down the east coast, when at least three of them had generational money from families they we...

Patinated brass and well-worn sheets of music. Blue light reflected off the chipped keys of the piano as Earl hammered out some melodious racket. It all blurred together for Ellington, the sound, the lights and the smoke. So much smoke. But through it all, there she was. Ellington—if that was his real name—had never seen a woman quite like her before. Indescribable, but desirable nonetheless. And...