Wednesday, May 29, 2019

My Favorite Game: A Personal Story

Originally posted 3/22/15

Nope, none of these 5,070 words are about #gamergate.
Nope, just talking about my favorite game.
Prologue: From Day One, I knew what I was going to write about for this week’s post. Ever since I saw that this week’s first class was going to be on the subject of #Gamergate, I knew I was going to do a evisceration on that group of people. I knew that I was going to go neck deep into that cesspool of cruelty and cowardice. I even posted several articles on the subject of that group prior to writing this post, as a reminder to what this has all been about. But I also knew that this would require an anger towards that group. An anger that would be able to combat the horror that is the culture that spawned it. But then I looked at the culture of that hashtag; that culture spawned from 4chan and an angry man slut shaming his ex girlfriend and I looked at this week’s course load, and I decided to do something else with my time, something that did not involve combating something terrible (or at least, not at this point in my life). Wisdom is the acceptance of what your limitations are. As such, I decided to instead focus on talking about something more personal to me: My favorite game.

“Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see...”

Chapter 1: It began, as most things do nowadays, on the Internet. More specifically, it began sometime in April of 2014, but for the sake of memory, lets say it began on April 21st, 2014. For that was the day I first heard of my favorite video game. It was on an internet analysis show called “Errant Signal”, a series I had found at a time when I believed Spec Ops: The Line to be my favorite game. The video itself was a comparison between that and another game, Actual Sunlight, which dealt with similar themes. After playing the game online, I found the game to be an interesting experience (but still not as good as my favorite game, The Walking Dead) and thought nothing more of it.

A few months later (lets say September 4th, 2014), I had returned from school after having to go home due to a minor nervous breakdown most likely caused by a mix of my roommate (who is rarely in the room) expressing a desire to not be in the room (for reasons that would be far too ramblely and require usage of my faulty memory), anxiety over the class schedule and other school related things, and the crushing realization that no one will give any work to a person who majored in English and has a focus in Creative Writing. As such, I broke down into tears and had to be taken home over Labor Day. At the time, I had since met with a therapist and was doing much better. I had talked to my roommate about the situation and everything seemed to work out in the end (I even able to get my overall GPA up to about a 3.4 in the end so yay). Anyways, on that day, another show I watch online, Folding Ideas, did a video on my favorite game, and I was reminded of the game’s existence. As such, I played Depression Quest again and fell in love with it.

“You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it
And the clocks waits so patiently on your song
You walk past a cafe but you don't eat when you've lived too long
Oh, no, no, no, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide”

Chapter 2: When I was in eighth grade, I wanted to kill myself. I never got to the point where I was slitting my wrists or any other self damage of that type (although I did hit my head on the padded walls of the gym), but every now and then, I would look at a tie and think to myself that it would be a good idea to just tie it around my neck and attach it to the banister at my house. I don’t like that period of my life. I don’t remember many details about that time (And thank god for small miracles) but I do remember a few things. I remember my bullies trying to get me to break after a week off of school for vacation where I just stopped caring (or at least showing that I cared). I remember numerous people pronouncing my name as “Seen” which got on my nerves. I remember telling a teacher about my situation, only for her (or was it “him”?) telling me off because I wasn’t in their class. I remember during my freshmen year of High School where another student from behind asked if he could play the “finger game” in a deep voice and feeling uncomfortable. I remember, in what I now realize was group therapy, having other students be horrified by the sexual implications of that statement. I remember learning that it wasn’t a sexual reference, but another term for the game “Chopsticks”. But perhaps more pertinent to this article (which I suppose is on some level about #Gamergate) was back during middle school. Before eighth grade, way back in sixth, I was at the local library on the computer. I decided to go on the Cartoon Network website and played some of the games. In this incident, I was playing a fixed shooter with the aesthetics of the Powerpuff Girls, when some people I (somewhat) knew saw me play it. Naturally, this being middle school, they mocked me for playing the girly game despite the fact that it was clearly a fixed shooter. And they kept mocking me for years (right up until I never saw them again in eighth grade). All because I played a game with female characters and an aesthetic of a show generally seen as being for girls. Because boys can’t like things girls like, otherwise they could be friends. And no one should be friends with their prize (Sarcasm mode ended). I don’t suppose the wounds ever healed. I don’t suppose that they became better people (one of my more merciless bullies became a relatively decent person). But I do suppose that I still have issues getting to know people. I do suppose that the Powerpuff Girls game I played was fun. And I do suppose that #Gamergate would not be on my side. Because their actions speak louder than my words.

“Then come the lessons. There is no reasoning to be done with the people who want you to suffer. That in the end, they want you to suffer because they can make you suffer, and because they can get away with it, so that means it's OK. Whether because the laws that govern it are soft enough to make it de facto legal - as bullying under restitution basically was - or because they have the ability to lie effectively. When raw wealth owns the entire media then it is far too easy to say that you didn't know who's Doctor Who book it was, or that people might think a cliffhanger lasts an entire week diegetically, or that the proposed health care bill contains death panels.”

Chapter 3:The game is a text adventure in which you play as a person with depression. The goal of the game is to simply live your life. Depending on how one plays, be it in the way they think they would react or in a how the character would react (which may or may not be the same thing depending on who you ask), the depression either gets better or worse. And yet, there’s a sense of hope within the game. A sense that you can get through the depression, all you have to do is ask for help (although sometimes that’s not an option, as shown in gam via some of the options being shown, but being impossible to take). But it’s not easy and you need help. But sometimes you go to people and they’re not able to help you. Sometimes they misunderstand what you’re going through and tell you just to get over it. Other times you don’t tell them because you’re afraid that they wont be able to be there for you. And sometimes someone else notices what’s going on and tries to help you out. We all have ways of coping with the world. Not all of them are good or work out in the long run. Depression Quest is about trying to find one that works for the player. And, depending on who you are, it just might.

“Part time dreamer
Would be player
You thought fame could outrun fear
Something clearly terrified you
Did you choose to disappear?”

Chapter 4: So how did I do it? How did I get out of the cesspool that is middle school? How did I get better? In the end, I don’t think I have. I have the scars from that long and terrible period in my life, even if they never appeared on my body. I have a hard time talking to people I don’t know and don’t go out into the world unless I have to (although I believe I am getting better at it, what with Gamer’s Guild and the radio (hi Marlon [AN: Marlon was a fellow student in the course. He was a good guy])). I don’t always go out of my room at night when people hang out in front of it. And I’m nervous about who I talk to about the things I love… just in case. But how did I prevent myself from getting so bad as to self-harm in more permanent ways? Well… I’d like to believe that it was because I found an internet series called the Angry Video Game Nerd and, much like Duck Soup did for a terrible person [AN: in the original post, there was a link to a clip from Hannah and Her Sisters where Woody Allen talks about watching said movie. I have not seen either movie, but fuck Woody Allen], I found something that made me laugh on a regular basis. And I watched the series, and many others, and over time I got less and less miserable. I got out of that toxic environment and got into the surprisingly less toxic environment of High School (I have long since come to the conclusion that High School movies are talking more about middle school than high school (at least in terms of this generation)). I introduced and reintroduced myself to the stories I love even today. I regained my love of comics and video games. I found joy. And I realized something near the end of high school and the beginning of college: it’s ok to be silly. It’s ok to like girly things like games with female protagonists or stories about ponies [AN: since then, I've grown less... forgiving of liking stories about ponies]. We live in a mad, absurd, cruel, uncaring, and amazing world. Why not have fun? You only live once (from my knowledge).

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”

Portrait of a man in front of a forgedPortrait of the Mona Lisa
Chapter 5: When I started writing this entry, I wanted to wait to do this bit while I was in Paris for Spring Break. However, sensible people pointed out that it would be very likely for someone to steal my computer from my hotel room while I was gone. As such here is a personal walkthrough of “Depression Quest” written the day after I returned from Paris.

The game opens with a quote by David Forest Wallace and a trigger warning. I, as always, ignore it.

(There’s a cold piano in my head. It feels like a fog or static. It’s just the same notes every time. It feels like there should be a point to it. Like a tome poem or a game. But there isn’t. There’s no point to any of it. no point)

It’s Monday morning. I just spent the previous night contemplating my lot in life. It’s not that I have a bad life or anything, Alex, my girlfriend is there, my parents are there as well (though they, like me, would like it if I did more with my life <how>) and I have a job that pays the bills. It’s a good life. But… I feel like I don’t need any more than that. But I should, shouldn’t I? I should probably stop thinking about it, all it’s done is given me a lack of sleep, but…

It’s Wednesday evening. I went through the motions as I usually do. (God I hate my job) It rained recently. (God I hate the rain) Alex is at class for a few hours, so I could use those hours to get some of that project done. But what if it’s not all that great. I can’t just hunker down and do it. I feel tired. Maybe I should go to bed.

But then, I’ll just feel shitty about myself for not working on my writing. So might as well just do it. But my ideas left me. (Why did I even tell people I hate my job <fuck>) I spent the rest of the night arguing on twitter about the ethics in games journalism before going to bed. (God I hate my bed)

It’s Friday afternoon. Alex called me from class to tell me that there’s going to be a birthday party for her roommate. (God I hate her roommate) I haven’t seen Alex in a while… but… I should go but… I don’t like peopleknow any of Alex’s friends. I tell her I’m sick (God I hate myself) but even on the phone I have never been a good liar. Alex really wants me to go… (Fuck)

As I expected, it’s just a bunch of assholes drinking. (God I hate Alex)I see her nearby, talking to her roommate. (God I hateAlex) When she sees me, she brightens up and comes over to me. (God I hate Alex) We begin to talk in a way we haven’t in a while. (God I hate Alex) But then one of the assholes comes along. (God I hate Alexthis asshole) Alex has to leave with the asshole to do stuff for the party. So I’m stuck here. Drowning. I can’t just go into Alex’s room; she’ll know I left. And she wanted me here. So I’m stuck in this party. Alone. (God I hate Alex)

It’s a shitty Saturday. Mom came over today. I don’t want to talk with her about work. But she wants to know. She always wants to know, like it’s her life I’m living. Like I know what I’m doing. I don’t want to make her feel worse than I am, so I change the subject. (God I hate Mom)

It’s Sunday. Sam from work called. She said that her cat just had kittens and thought that I would like one. (We’re friends <huh>) I think about it for a moment. On the one hand I’ve always have had a fondness for cats. (God I hate dogs they always bark at me for no reason) The best writers have cats (Neil Gaiman for one). I should have a cat. But…
Nope, I’m ok. (I’m ok <i’m ok [i’m ok {i’m ok}]>) Getting a cat. Her name is Fluffykins: Destroyer of Worlds!

It’s Friday quitting time. Alex called, some of herour friends are going out for drinks and she want me to come with. I tell her I’ve had a long day at work, but she should go anyways. She doesn’t. We watched some shitty movie on Netflix about sharks and tornados or something. I really wasn’t paying attention. I was more focused on Alex. Beautiful Alex. Gorgeous Alex. Out of my league Alex. Wasting her life with me Alex. Miserable Alex. Why should she even be here with me instead of drinking with her friends Alex. And then she looks at me. I see pity in her eyes.

I ask her if she’s happy with our relationship. She asks what I mean and I… I… I… I… I… I… I say forget about it. And she does.

It’s the afternoon. Amanda, from way back from school, is over and we talk. Amanda iswas the only girl I could talk to before I met Alex. We talk for a bit about life and whatnot. And then she asks what’s wrong. I notice my hands are shaking. We leave where we were, and I’m crying.
Oh god I’m crying.
(God hates a sissy boy)
Why can’t I stop crying?
I don’t even know
what I’m saying
to her.
I’m crying.
Amanda suggests that I go see a
therapist about
it.
(I don’t want to go <alone>)

It’s Monday. I have an appointment with the dentist today. My brother, Malcolm, is going to pick me up. (God I hate Malcolm <how>) The dentist tells me that I have been grinding my teeth in my sleep. He says it’s probably stress related, so he gives me a night guard. My brother, whose been waiting for me for over a half hour, asks why it took so long. He’s too smart to buy that it was a normal check up, so I tell him about the night grinding (not the stress). When I got home, I threw out the night guard. (I am not a sissy boy)

It’s Someday. Fluffykins was sleeping in my computer chair and was so adorable. But daddy has to check his emails, so I shoo her off. She simply waits for me to sit down and moves onto my lap. I looked at my emails, and saw one from Amanda. She has the number for the therapist, and she sent it to me. She even covered the excuse I could give by saying that I can’t afford it because it’s a pay what you want service. I don’t want to go. (I am not a sissy boy) Amanda got the info from her mother, so she’ll know if I don’t… (God I hate Amanda <fuck>)
I slept on it.
-God hates a sissy boy
˙uᴉɥʇᴉʍ ɯoɹɟ pǝʌᴉǝɔǝɹ puɐ pǝᴉlddɐ ɥʇoq sᴉ ʇuǝɹɹnɔ ǝɥʇ :ʇᴉnɔɹᴉɔ pǝsolɔ ɐ s,ʇᴉ :ssǝuᴉlǝuol ǝɥʇ snɥʇ
I don’t want to go
Malcolm
Mom
>how<
.noitulos on si ereht dna ,melborp eht fo trap si gnihtyreve
Alex
>why<
sᴉʇʇᴉuƃ oɹ sʇɐupᴉuƃ' poᴉuƃ oɹ ɹǝsʇᴉuƃ' sdǝɐʞᴉuƃ oɹ ʞǝǝdᴉuƃ sᴉlǝuʇ' lᴉʌᴉuƃ oɹ pʎᴉuƃ
Help!
I need somebody
That dead-eyed anhedonia is but a remora on the ventral flank of the true predator, the Great White Shark of pain.
Help!
Not just anybody-
HELP! I shout in the middle of the night. I don’t go back to sleep.
The email is still in my inbox. The number is still in the email. The kitten is on my lap. The phone is in my hand. (i am a sissy boy God hates me) I am in my car. I am in my car. (I don’t want to go) I was in my car. I am in my car. I am talking to the therapist in a place that is no longer my car. We talk and I pray I’m not whining. (How could this happen to me I made my mistakes) Her name is Dr. Susan Melville. She’s nice. I made another appointment to see her. I feel like I’m going to like her. As I drove back to my home, I realized that I would have to tell the people close to me about this. I cry myself to the calmest sleep I’ve had in months.

It’s Wednesday. Once again I wake up before my alarm does. The window in my room has a shitty view, so I can’t even have the decency of looking at the sunrise. (God I hate the west wing of my apartment complex) I don’t want to go to work. My alarm blares the word Whatbefore I hit the snooze button. I look at my shitty celling for another bit before I hear Ever. I hit the snooze button. I look at the celling. Gets. I hit the snooze button. I look at the celling. You. I hit the snooze button. I look at the celling. Through. I hit the snooze button. I look at the celling. The Night! It’s all right! It’s all right!Finally, I decide to just go to work so I won’t have to deal with that song anymore. (God I hate Los Lonely Boys) But I notice that by the time I got to work, I would be late. And they would hate me for it. They always find ways to hate you for things. I go to work anyways. (God I hate my job)

No one cares that I was about five minutes late. (God I hate no one caring)

It’s 2 AM on Sunday, and I can’t sleep. As such, I did what I normally do when I can’t sleep: I went onto the computer. As I looked at all the news stories (#GamerGate is a Bunch of Wankers Part 2: What is Ethical Journalism?), an Internet friend of mine contacted me. He’s noticed that I’ve been thinking when I should be sleeping, and asks what’s wrong. Somehow, even more than Alex, I’m able to talk to this stranger, whose name I don’t even know (he goes by attic). We talk for a bit about my feelings and then he plays Wikipedia DoctorTMand tells me that I might have depression. I tell him about Susan and how well our sessions have been going. His words made it easier for me to relax and go back to sleep. Sometimes all you need is a good bedtime story.

It's Thursday night, and I’ve just gotten out of work. It was a long day. Like, dear god, nothing happened. But it just. Wouldn’t. End. (God I hate my job) I’m just so tired from all the people in the streets bumping into me. But I don’t want to go to sleep. Susan said that the feeling I have could cause me to spiral unless I tell someone about it. She’s been a good deal of help, so despite my reservations on putting my woes onto others, I call Alex. We meet at a small diner a few blocks from my apartment and we talk. Or rather, I talk.  I talk about how much I hate my job, how shitty I’ve been feeling, how shitty my writing is, just talking. And when I finished, I looked at Alex, and I thought that maybe my fears of Alex being bored of me were unfounded. Maybe she wanted to be around me. And then I began to cry. Not like with Amanda. I was happy. In that moment, I was happy.

It was a typical Wednesday when Susan brought up the topic of drugs. Some time ago, back in College, I had a girlfriend named Jane. Now Jane was a nice girl, lots of fun to be around. There was a time when we were at the Drive in and she giggled like a catholic schoolgirl while I gave her the third act surprise. Anyways, it was a few months into our relationship when she was diagnosed with depression and her doctor gave her a boatload of drugs. She was never the same after that. Her beautiful blue eyes looked dead inside, she moved as if she was one of the undead, and it looked like they were making her worse. Like it was just another way of pushing her feelings down the hole and out of public eye. Regardless, it wasn’t enough. I told Dr. Melville that I’d stick to therapy.

It’s Wednesday evening. I went to my parent’s house for a family get-together. I’m not in my hometown as often as I would like to be. Malcolm is there with his wife (lovely Karen) and mom brings up the old J-O-B question. I excuse myself to the bathroom. I really don’t need another one of her “get a job” rants. Malcolm’s more understanding. (I wish he would tell me how he did it)

I didn’t want to go out tonight. It’s raining outside, but Alex wanted me to come over for some reason. Maybe she’s pregnant. (I hope she isn’t) When I got up to her room, she was dressed in a robe. Only a robe. Turns out her roommate’s out of town and she has that smile on her face, the one she has when she wants to make the night magical. Well, I’ve always been one to believe in magic, so after we share some wine…

It’s an early winter evening and I have at long last said one of the major thoughts that had crossed my mind for a while. I HATE MY FUCKING JOB!!!!!!! To deal with my hatred for my job, I decided to look for another job, hoping to find one that would be a better fit for me. Fortunately, I found a section on Craigslist about writing positions within the area (publishing houses and whatnot). So I applied for the position. Somehow, despite my reservations about the possibility of actually getting a job from those places, I felt content.

It's a little past 8pm on a Tuesday night. I have a work project that I have to do. Naturally, I hate it. It’s as banal as it is asinine. As I was nearing completing one of the many steps of the piece, I got a message from attic. He needed someone to talk to. And, after all the times I poured my soul out to him, I answered. Turns out his boyfriend cheated on him. Said that he wasn’t a real man. That attic was just a girl pretending to be a man. Before this, I hadn’t known attic was trans. But now wasn’t the time to ask him about his experiences. Now was the time to be there for attic, the nicest guy in the world. After we talked, I went back to working on my shitty project. Being there for my friend when he needed me most seemed to make the project seem easier.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I was with Alex, and I was thinking about things. She was fast asleep unlike I was. I just couldn’t. What if I told her? Would she be there for me in my depressive state or would she flake out like… But I was turning in bed so much that I woke her up. She asked me what was wrong.

I figured that a relationship like ours wouldn’t work if half the dancers didn’t know all the things the other dancers knew, so I told her. I told her everything. I told her about the hatred I felt for her at the party. I told her about my break down with Amanda. I told her about Susan. I even told her about Jane (whose name I hadn’t said since she…). And when I finished, the first thing she asked if there was anything she could do to help. I told her I had no idea what to do.  Then she said that she’d just have to live it with me. We didn’t go back to bed for a long time that night.

On Friday night, I was stressed out. Some of my coworkers came and asked if I wanted to go out to the bar. Being someone who is really terrible in social outings, I politely declined their offer. This made me feel miserable. Fortunately Fluffykins: Destroyer of Worlds leaped to the rescue. She landed on my back n order to get my attention. She wanted to play. Perhaps cats, especially black cats like mine, have the innate ability to figure out when humans are miserable and even the desire to make it less so. This is probably hogwash and I should just accept that cats just want to have what they want. We played for a half hour (the god old laser pointer game) before she tired herself out. It felt good playing.

On a cold Saturday afternoon, Alex asked me to sit down. Before the thoughts of “OH SHIT, WE’RE BREAKING UP” even crossed my mind, she promised that it was nothing bad. Alex wants to move in with me… I’m still nervous about my depression, and I tell her again. She tells me that she knows all of this and will be there for me. We hold each other for a long time.

It’s Christmas and I decided to bring Alex with me to my parents. We have been living together for the past few weeks and everything is great (though she is still getting used to the idea of our cat being named Fluffykins: Destroyer of Worlds). Susan has said that I’m doing better (though some days it feels like its been getting worse). I told my family about my issues shortly after moving in with Alex, and they have mostly understood. I heard back from one of the writing jobs and I have an interview set up with them in the New Year. Fluffykins is in the halls of my old childhood home playing with my old teddy bear (Sir Bear Bearington). As we eat our turkey and drink our wine and laugh at each other’s terrible jokes, my mom asks me “So how are you doing these days?”
I looked back at my life up until that question. That shitty party, my terrible job, breaking down with Amanda, playing with Fluffykins, moving in with Alex, meeting attic, and I looked out the night sky window of our house, where the full moon glinted perfectly onto the snow covered backyard and I told her.
“I’m good, mom.”
She smiles the way only a parent could smile.

(There’s a piano in my head. I cannot grasp the full meaning in its melody, though I know that it is a melancholic one. But I also hear something else.
I hear its beauty.)

“And in the end,
The love you take
Is equal to the love
You make”

Epilogue: I've decided to change the epilogue for this one. Originally, it was a dedication to a person on tumblr I barely knew who may or may not have committed suicide. Instead, I'll simply say thank you to all of you who have supported the blog over these past few years. Even if it's just to read the blog itself, it means the world to me. I hope I can be worth your support. Also, since I didn't credit her in the original post, thank you Jane Campbell for that amazing .gif. Sorry for not crediting you before this.

Goodbyeee
“Your
Doctor
Really did
Get held up,
Regan.

It’s
Never as
Bad as it
Seems.

You’re much
Stronger
Than you think
You are.

Trust
Me.”

(This post… this post was brought to you by me. Because I am here. I’m still talking. I’m still alive. I’m still playing. And in that, I won.)

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

ICU (Free Churro)

Commissioned by Aleph Null

Bojack seen.
Bojack Horseman is another example of a show I’ve been told to write about that I don’t feel I can do justice with the limitations of the commission process for the Patron Tier of $5. It’s a show I haven’t watched much of and what I have watched makes me not want to watch it. Not because it’s a bad show or anything, just… look, I’m working on a book that’s largely about a guy coming to terms with his failed suicide. The major project I worked on prior to that (that has been released to the public) was in large part about me coming to terms with the death of my grandfather and was about a guy having a near death experience to come to terms with a depressive period of his life. Bojack Horseman is a show about a depressed actor who is self-destructing. There are loads of reasons for me not to write about it.

And yet, here I am writing about it. More specifically, Free Churro, the best episode of the whole series… the one where Bojack gives a eulogy for his mother, a woman who died not even knowing who he was because of a stupid disease. It’s structured like a joke. “A man goes to a funeral to give a eulogy for his mother. He had a complex and depressing relationship with her, one that didn’t end well, and yet he had to give a final statement on her. He doesn’t know what to say, so he starts rambling, as we’re wont to do. Then, an epiphany happens. He realizes the nature of his mother’s relationship to him and looks at her body. But she’s not there. He went to the wrong funeral.”

Not funny when told in that context, but still. It’s the structure that matters. We are all trapped by the structures we find ourselves in. The face we’ve given ourselves, our style. I’m going to change things up once I finish One Must Imagine Scott Free Happy. I just can’t stand doing the same kind of writing over and over again. Being stuck in that rut ultimately has me saying the same five or six points about myself. I need to shake things up and do something new. I’m not in a place where I can actually write about what I want to write about when it comes to Free Churro. It hasn’t ended yet and so it’s too soon to actually talk about it.

I have it planned out though, probably… five years from now? I have the next project and a Chris O’Leary riff to get through first. But for now, I’m writing about something else… Why do I write, I sometimes ask myself. Why do I write the way I do. These stories about the things I watch and read. The ways I talk about myself through them. There are many reasons for that, but the one relevant to this one is… I want to be seen. I want people to be able to see me for me. Not the whole of me, there are some things that I don’t bring up in the very personal old post that’s coming up on the 29ththat make me look worse. I don’t talk about what I did to compensate for my failings. Or, rather, “failings.”

I’ve done things I regret. Things I wish I never did. Things too recent to just throw them under the rug as the actions of a dumb teenager in high school. I’ve said the wrong word, done the wrong action, made the wrong call. And I don’t want to talk about them. Not yet, not here. Even though Bojack Horseman, a show about imperfect people trying their best to be better despite doing some truly horrible things, would be a fitting place to talk about them. I keep trying to find the right place for them, but they’re too raw at the moment.

Because that’s the thing about being seen, it’s different from being shown. To be shown is to not have agency in being looked at. We all want to be seen, but part of that is a level of agency. We decide what other people see. A corpse can never be seen, for a corpse has no agency in being looked at. An author, likewise, cannot truly be seen through a text. For even in my honesty, there’s still a level of artifice to such things. I can say that my name is Sean Joseph Dillon, a 23, soon to be 24, year old man who writes and edits for a living. But that doesn’t tell you much. Even when I talk about personal things, memory cheats and makes them seem better or worse than they actually were.

There is one thing I could tell you, something that’s relevant. When I was a kid, I was bullied. Frequently, and I didn’t take it well. I’d do a lot of things that were, for lack of a better word, awful. I won’t go into specifics, but there were times when I was a genuine creep who thought my loner status put him above the rest, even as I was self aware enough to know that such archetypes were a bullshit artifice to hide my own insecurities. One of the ways my bullies would torment me was through calling me “Seen.” That would always get to me because I didn’t want to be “Seen.” Because I wasn’t “Seen.” I was Sean. I am Sean.

Over the years, I’ve contemplated a lot of the implications of that statement. What it means to be Sean and whatnot. There are times when I don’t like being me because I’m a fuck up, an ass, and a jerk. Sometimes, I wonder about aspects of myself, if and how I should change my behaviors and outlooks. I try to look at myself through the lens other people, other versions of myself. I’ve even pondered my gender, especially after two major influences came out as trans within a month of each other. (I still haven’t come to a full conclusion, but being trans myself doesn’t feel right for me. I’m comfortable in my masculinity, but not in traditional masculinity, if that makes any sense.) I’m a bit too anxious about how people see me, intentionally or otherwise. And that anxiety causes me to sometimes lash out at people. But ultimately, I try to be better. I sometimes fall back into bad habits and attitudes, but in spite of that, I feel like I’m a better person than I was when I was younger.

I’m trying to be, at least. That’s the best we can do really.

Thursday, May 9, 2019

My God! My God! There’s Duck Guts Everywhere! (Ducktales (2017))

Commissioned by Aleph Null

The second most bitter Doctor Who cast reunion.
My history with watching cartoons has always had a preference towards those of Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and KidsWB than those of the Disney Channel. There are, to be sure, good Disney cartoons I watched as a kid: Fillmore, The Emperor’s New School, The Proud Family. But more often than not, I’d find myself watching Courage the Cowardly Dog or Fairly Odd Parents or Johnny Test than any of those. Even during the television cartoon renaissance, I’d lean more towards Steven Universe and Archer than Phineas and Ferb or Star Vs.

Ducktales is no different. I can certainly see its quality as a show and I do try to watch it every so often, but there isn’t that oomph to actually watch the series that I get from any of the other shows that I do watch. That’s not to say the show is bad per say, merely that it’s not go to television. There are a few reasons why that is: the vast amounts of orientalism for one. In particular, the episode that introduces Gladstone Gander where, as Jen Blue notes in a vlog, it could have easily been a riff on Las Vegas, but because they decided to set it in Macaw, ends up being about how Asian cultures aren’t as real as western ones and ultimately suck the life essence (i.e. money) out of those who travel in them.

I’m not sure if I’m fond of the characterization of Scrooge as being an adventurer who’s incidentally a billionaire rather than a billionaire adventurer. The distinction is notable in the series’ general focus on Scrooge’s money. It simultaneously wants being a billionaire cheapskate to be core to his character (such that Glomgold’s motivation is partially due to Scrooge stiffing him on the bill) as well as being not core enough to his character that he will spend vast portions of his money on seemingly frivolous things like saving his niece from being lost in space. The vultures effectively act as his “I’m a billionaire, why should I help” side that I feel is vital to his character at that point in the narrative of his life.

Around the time the show started, I did what every single comics scholar has done before me and started to get into Duck Comics. There, Scrooge’s character becomes a bit clearer and one the show doesn’t get despite trying to be a holistic exploration of the entirety of Duck comics such that it literally has Fethery, Fergus, and Della Duck in it. (The only way it could be more holistic is if there was an entire episode devoted to Donald Duck running around the city as a superhero calling himself the Duck Avenger while everyone else calls him Paperinik.) Scrooge’s character at the point in the narrative the show starts at is, shall we say, a bit of a bastard. For the past 30 some odd years, Scrooge has worked his way into becoming the richest duck in the world, be it through buying out businesses hurt by the financial crash, bamboozling native tribes and destroying their homes pushing them to send a zombie after him in the name of revenge, or evicting a group of children from their Boy Scout base because he wants to house his billions of dollars. Even when he’s with the kids early on, he’s still a bit of a bastard, unwilling to let go of even a miniscule portion of his vast wealth to feed a homeless shelter and let them have a good Christmas (as is the case with many a billionaire).

But as the years go on, he starts being less of a bastard. He’s not the kind of person who would give up his for the sake of a village he burnt down, but he’s also no longer the kind of person who would burn down said village. His growth is becoming someone who cares about people, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. The problem is that the show wants to start at the point where he cares about people rather than build up to it.  It’s not a bad take per say, there are many a hero who start from that point. But Scrooge feels like the kind of character who needs that arc. He shouldn’t be patting Webby on the back of the head after one minor adventure is what I’m saying.

But, again, that’s just a personal point of contention. It’s not an objective “Ducktales (2017) is Garbage and Here’s Why” claim. It’s just a factor within my preference for other versions of the characters I like. The season arc, likewise, is part of a genre of “main characters keep secrets from one another for their own protections only for it to blow up in their faces” stories that I personally don’t like. I get why they didn’t tell their family what was going on, but there comes a point when such storylines get tiresome and drab.

However, there are reasons why I watch the show. The voice acting is phenomenal, the animation is delightful, I like the ways the characters bounce off one another (when they’re not keeping secrets from each other). The bit with Donald getting a voice change is hilarious and I hope that they actually do a crossover episode with the actual Duck Comics version of the cast and there’s a gag where Donald sounds like a normal person because his words appear clearly in a word balloon. The action scenes are always a delight with my favorite being the musical Three Caballeros reunion. Most of all, it’s a fun kids show that’s not fully catering to my tastes as a fan of Scrooge McDuck comics. There are worse things it could do, like the aforementioned orientalism it does a lot in the show. I mean, how hard is it to not be “evil foreigners are evil because they’re foreign and not as real as us westerners” when it comes to your one off baddies?

Also, I would really love it if there were a three cousins episode where Donald, Fethry, and Gladstone had to go on an adventure together. Those were always fun comic stories to read.

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

If You Were a Better Person, You Wouldn't Be Here: A Close Reading of Jimi Hendrix’s 1983…(A Merman I Should Turn To Be) in Context of Spec Ops: The Line

Originally posted 2/11/15.

Gameplay footage from Ender's Game: The Video Game
(Warning, there will be spoilers for Spec Ops: The Line. I will try to be as vague as possible, but it is still best to play the game before reading this article.)

The Game: Released in 2012, Spec Ops: The Line is a Third Person Shooter developed by Yager Development in which you play as a soldier who is part of a three man team known as Delta Force who get embroiled in a war between the CIA, a rouge squadron of soldiers, and a bunch of brown people who are stuck in this conflict because they just so happen to live in Dubai. It starts out as a typical modern day military shooter (hey white guy, here are some brown people, shoot them in the face) that slowly peels its layers to reveal that, at it’s core, the game is a deconstructionoutright evisceration of our recent military exploits in general and how we as a society frame them in the public lexicon (in particular how video games portray the subject). The game ends, like so many games, with a choice. Unlike most games however, the choice is quite simple: do I put down the controller, or do I keep playing?

The Song: Released in 1968, 1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be) is a psychedelic rock song written by Jimi Hendrix and preformed by the Jimi Hendrix Experience about the end of the world after a long and bloody war that never ends (Vietnam) in which our main speaker attempts to escape the dying desert for the peaceful ocean. It ends with the hope that the power of music will be enough to save us.

The Song in relation to The Game: Regardless of what you chose, the game ends with the same basic plot beats: a gun is fired and a message is broadcast over the apocalyptic landscape of Dubai. The credits open and the song begins with a rattle. A death rattle of a dying land murdered by you. The guitars kick in with a somber tone. Not funeral like death would suggest, but still a sense of death is in the air.

A cymbal crashes and the lyrics begin. The first quatrain consists of “Hurray, I awake from yesterday/alive but the war is here to stay./So my love, Catherina, and me/decide to take a walk through the noise to the sea.” When contextualized by the game, the first couplet can be read as referring to both the PTSD subtext the characters experience in the game (in particular the main character who repeatedly goes through numerous dream sequences and hallucinations) and highlight the cynical nature of one of the characters (possible) final words (No matter what happens next, don’t be too hard on yourself. Even now, after all you’ve done, you can still go home. Lucky you) in that, despite no longer fighting, the war is still with the main character. The next couplet continues with “not to die, but to be reborn/away from lands so battered and torn” with an echo on the word “torn”. The second line gives the motivation for the speaker to go to the ocean: to escape the hardships of this desert war. Given that the game ends at an aquarium at the heart of the hellscape that is this game, it can be read as not being attainable. But, more interesting, is the first line. When contextualized by the game, it can be read as another metafictional allusion to the genre. In nearly every video game, you end up dying at some point. And then you come back. And those you’ve killed also die and come back. Just because you are reborn away from lands so battered and torn, that doesn’t mean you reawaken to lands that aren’t battered and torn. (Also every time you die, you receive a loading screen with text. Initially, the text is generic game info (X gun shoot best, kill wounded enemies to get extra ammo) but gradually, the text becomes more and more confrontational (my personal favorites are “Can you even remember why you came here”, “If Lugo were still alive, he would likely suffer from PTSD. So, really, he’s the lucky one”, and “To kill for yourself is murder. To kill for your government is heroic. To kill for entertainment is harmless.”))

After Hendrix wails “Forever” twice, we have our second instrumental piece, shorter than the first. Combined with the drums, the guitars have a machine like quality that evokes the marching of soldiers.

The next stanza continues with “Oh say can you see, it’s really such a mess./Every inch of earth, is a fighting nest./Giant pencil and lipstick-tube shaped things/continue to rain and cause screamin’ pain./And the artic stains, from silver blue to bloody red,/as our feet find sand/and the sea is straight ahead!” The opening line evokes the Star Spangled Banner (a twisted version of the song already used in the menu screen as preformed by Hendrix) and thus the United States of America. And, much like the game preceding it, it turns the blame of the horrifying war on said country’s (possibly well intentioned) imperialistic nature that leads to more and more death and destruction. In particular, the lines “…continue to rain and cause screamin’ pain./And the artic stains, from silver blue to bloody red,” evoke a previous sequence in the game (pictured above) where you play the typical “press x to shoot the dehumanized white blobs” mini game found in most modern FPS’s only to then have to walk through the carnage of your deployment of White Phosphorus, seeing the human cost of it all. And then the game reveals that you just murdered the civilians you were attempting to rescue which kicks off the deconstructionist bent of the game. The final line evokes the railroaded nature of the game: you have to keep going forward. You can’t call for reinforcements, question what you are doing, or surrender once you’ve realized what you have done. All you can do is obey the orders given by the game or turn the game off.

The specific lyrics of next stanza is irrelevant to the context of the game, which is bound to happen when pulling a song written 44 years prior to the release of the game. The theme of the stanza, however, is relevant to the core of the game. The theme presented by the stanza is about people questioning the possibility of there being a better world than the one that exist with the eternal war. In turn, the game before questions the validity of the genre of military shooters (or, as most of them are nowadays, spunkgarglewewe). However, I question the plausibility of this being an intentional connection between the game and the song given that, unlike the song, the game doesn’t offer an alternative to the death and the violence (and I’m positive that the opening line of the stanza (Well it’s too bad, that our friends, can’t be with us today) is not a critique on the multiplayer aspect of the game that was forced into the game and developed by a different developer entirely).

After an extended instrumental piece, the song continues with another relatively irrelevant stanza aside from the powerful line “Before our heads go under, we take our last look at the killing noise” which evokes the player bidding farewell to the game itself and returning to the real world (which is just as violent as the game world, but lacking in the player agency of wartime events given by the game). 

As the song goes on and on, the instruments become more and more chaotic, with the drums beating faster and faster, the guitar riffs becoming less and less workmanlike, all of which builds to the chaotic instrumental piece lasting the majority of the song. Here, contextualized by the game, we see the song giving metaphorical representation once again to the slow, painful, and bloody demise of those you have murdered (the earlier death rattle returning and being used throughout the instrumentals (particularly in the drum bits)). From the mad Radioman (who earlier rhetorically asks the characters “What are the eight scariest words in the English language”), to the nameless soldiers you killed when going guns blazing (A: We’re Delta Force, and we’re here to save you), to the innocent lives you killed when faced with a blood mob you doomed to dehydration by destroying the water supply (DO YOU FEEL LIKE A HERO YET?).

After the instrumental climax, Hendrix returns, with an oceanic instrumental, to sing “And down and down and down and down we go./Hurry my darlin’, we mustn’t be late/for the show./Neptune champion games to an aqua world is so my dear/”right this way, smiles a mermaid,/I can hear Atlantis, full of cheer”/Atlantis full of cheer/I can hear Atlantis full of cheer!” After the credits, there is, potentially, an epilogue to the game. In this epilogue, after you descend the skyscraper you’ve been searching for throughout the game, you are confronted by a troop of US soldiers who see you armed and, once more, you are given an choice: lay down your arms or start shooting. If you choose the former, then the final stanza can be read as hope for both the main character and the player. That perhaps the main character can get the medical attention required to help him with his PTSD and we can find a genre of games that isn’t as racist, sexist, homophobic, or downright offensive as the modern day military shooters. All we have to do is create it ourselves.

Of course, there are still three other endings to consider (two of which involve killing yourself (be it by yourself or by soldier), the third being a return to the battlefield, forever fighting your endless war against yourself (at least until you die from dysentery)) and something else that’s important: the title of the song. Take away the subtitle, and you’re left with “1983…”. In video game history, 1983 is perhaps the most important year of them all. 1983 was a year in which video games went through a narrative collapse and were nearly destroyed due to the influx of licensed titles and cash grab games, which caused the console market to nearlycollapse in on itself. It was only saved by the creation of the Nintendo Entertainment System and changed the nature of video games forever. While Hendrix would most assuredly not know about this event, the people at Yager most certainly did. As such, the song, with the context of the three other endings, could be read as one final critic/warning provided by the game: if we continue on this path, if we never question what we are doing in games like these, if we let the picture of gaming be defined by those who unquestionably play these games, then we might be facing yet another collapse of the narrative subgenre.

And with that, the song closes with the flute playing bird noises. But are they doves or vultures? 
Portrait of a a man who believed himself to be the hero but
proved a villain and now hates the idle pleasure of these days.
(This post was brought to you by The Protomen; a fantastic band who are one of the few bands that can pull of preforming Queen songs and currently writing Act 3 of an apocalyptic rock opera based on the Mega Man games. Their music can be found on iTunes, but listened for free here)