the perfect one-liner
forever trying for the perfect one-liner to make me famous
dehydrate the muse
scrolling characters into reverse waterfalls dehydrate the muse
My Time in Arcadia
Listen to the audio version here.
I: Et in Arcadia Ego
“The passing of time, and all of its crimes, is making me sad again.” – Rubber Ring by The Smiths, Louder Than Bombs (1987)#1
I.I: Summer in Arcadia
Betwixt red maple and palm sat Arcadian youth transfixed by dancing light.
Two boys sat on a small bed and another on the floor nearby. They were crammed in a tiny porch remodeled into a makeshift bedroom; the walls were windows and a sliding glass door revealed the living room while a patio door revealed the backyard and anything even resembling glass was covered by thick blackout curtains. The sun set, but the room was kept aglow by the epileptic flashing of a gray Magnavox cathode-ray tube actively working hypnotism upon the boys. Wires sprawled across the room like laser trip-mines while sounds of fiction and war – consecutive booming, warp and whoosh, ringing shrapnel, and screaming, both human and extraterrestrial – were occasionally drowned out by the uncontrollable laughter and expletive-ridden taunting of Arcadian youth.
All was well because school was out forever, and the extra-large thin-crust pepperoni pizza had just arrived. The boys had just torn into a new case of Diet Cherry Coke, and the only thing that mattered in that tiny pocket of the universe was dual-wielding pop and Xbox controllers, and, of course, the score in the Halo 2 deathmatch playing out on split-screens reflected in the eyes of Arcadian youth.
When the blue splashed into view and the guitar rang out like an engine’s rev before a Slash solo,#2 every teenage trouble melted away like ice on a warm summer day and the boys were transfixed and true. The boys would then proceed to argue over who received the prestigious title of player-one; a luxury typically afforded to the home team, which bestowed the advantage of a larger screen-slice for the cutthroat deathmatches so seriously considered by these Arcadian youth.
Lockout was the go-to fan-favorite map: a blue-gray maze of open steel pathways mysteriously suspended midair. Lockout devolved into a race of who-gets-the-shotgun-and-sword-first, culminating in one player dominating the match by camping the central gravity-lift for easy kills – a tactic the boys called “hoarding the power weapons,” which was ridiculed severely, yet the lust for winning was so strong that they continued to do it despite the shame.
Ivory Tower was another popular choice, a tropical multi-leveled indoor jungle park with plenty of places to play hide-and-seek; the game-mode of choice was something the boys called “GoldenEye,” in which shields would be disabled and only magnums could be used; this resulted in a one-shot-instant-kill playstyle that relied on reaction-time and skill rather than hoarding power weapons. GoldenEye was very serious business often used to settle insipid disputes and one of the boys would usually end up stomping home in a huff afterwards.
Every flaw; every virtue; every vulnerability; every strength; every weakness – all would be revealed when dancing light reflected in the eyes of Arcadian youth.
*Lockout on the cathode-ray tube.
When the last slice of pizza was eaten and the bodies stopped respawning, and the boys got bored, they sneaked out of the backyard gate and walked to the neighborhood pool – which had closed hours ago. They swam chaotic before the neighbors called the police for noise ordinance violations, and when the police arrived, all they found were unused towels and a green shirt adorned with the words “The Smiths” – the only evidence left behind at the scene of the crime of Arcadian youth.
This was summer break in Arcadia between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. This was before cigarettes, before drugs, before alcohol, before nine-to-five, and before bills.
This was my time in Arcadia – my golden years.
I.II: The Arcadian Tribunal
Miles was a local youth of Arcadia and he was exalted.
Miles, also known as TauntButton, was younger than your not-so-humble narrator by only months. He lived three yards behind my grandma’s Arcadian summer-home. We met when I was ten years old; I ventured to the fishing pond behind grandma’s house and there he was sitting on a big rock with his tackle box: fishing.#3 I asked if he wanted to play Super Smash Bros. and it was instant kinship.
Miles was of average height and had hair like a sifting pan full of gold with most of the dirt filtered out. His favorite song was “Helicopter” by Bloc Party.#4 He was the most popular boy within a fifty-mile radius and seemed to be friends with the entire county and then-some. Lithe and handsome, Miles was built like a triathlon wonderkin. He could run up a tree without his hands and dunk a basketball with such force that the ball would burst at the seams. Late at night, when we played cops-and-robbers with the other neighborhood youth, Miles would hide in tall trees and never be found; I would lambaste this behavior, but he kept doing it out of pure contrarianism. He was charming and defiant in his own way. He had type-2 diabetes – the doctors said it was genetic – and he would prick himself with an insulin pen every few hours to charge up like a Sangheili energy shield; we would joke that he was shooting up heroin and this was peak comedy when sneaking-the-joke on those not-in-the-know.
Miles had a keen interest in computer games, but his parents were strict on the when-and-what; his mom wouldn’t let him play Super Smash Bros. because she believed it gave him nightmares; so he used my grandma’s house as a safe haven from his parents’ prying eyes. Miles’ parents would go on to claim that I corrupted him with rebellion and computer games, but our relationship was much deeper than that. I was different from his neighborhood friends, who were more interested in sports tournaments and fishing, and I was exotic by virtue of being a cynical nerd full of computer-game-and-anime knowledge. I had just enough charm to be intriguing instead of creepy.
Miles was practical, outdoorsy, and naive but very curious. I was isolated, reclusive, cynical, and a know-it-all-while-knowing-very-little. Miles and I were opposite and magnetic, but we had one thing in common: we were contrary to the core, very competitive, and, most importantly, we were obsessed with each other.
*Arcadian fishing pond.
The third of the Arcadian Tribunal was Matt, also known as SupaSmallSlice.
Matt’s house shared a yard with my grandma’s summer home, a fact unknown until Miles and I stumbled upon him at the pond; he was fishing by himself, and – just like Miles – I asked him if he wanted to play computer games and it was instant kinship.
Matt was different; he was far less youthful than the rest of us, being four years older. Matt’s old age combined with his adamantine meekness gelled into a predatory aura that neither Miles nor myself picked up on immediately. Our youthful naivety paid off because Matt’s predatory aura never materialized into anything other than a very tall, slightly awkward-looking older boy just sort of standing there silently waiting for you to tell him what to do. Being alone with Matt was like playing host to a forever-bored-and-undecided person that would not leave because they were too coy to speak up; this was the primary reason I strived never to be alone with him.
Matt was the ultimate third wheel, someone for Miles and I to direct our adolescent rage and mockery toward. Whenever we wanted a third player in a computer game, we would get his attention by throwing rocks at his upstairs windows because we were scared of his father – a short, bulging man with a toad-like face that possessed the charisma of a goblin – opening the front door and killing us. Miles and I would secretly team up against Matt in Halo 2, and if Matt noticed, his meekness prevented him from telling us. If the tables turned and Miles or Myself teamed up with Matt: it was a good sign that some deeply extrasensory interpersonal angst was bubbling up in Arcadia.
Miles and I were unfair and cruel to Matt; we never treated him with the respect he deserved, something I regret because we were Matt’s only friends. Matt introduced us to Japanese Role-Playing Games, starting with Final Fantasy VIII, which threw us down a path of geekdom that we still travel to this day. Matt was always nice and polite and would do anything we asked of him; drive us to Wendy’s late at night or to the computer game store or the movie theater. Matt was forever eager to please, and perhaps this was due to the eldritch weirdness which prevented him from making friends his own age.
To these Arcadian youth, Matt was a sideshow, a freak, a weirdo; but he was our friend. And after years of friendship, my aunt – who eventually moved into my grandma’s home – would frequently ask Matt to babysit her teenage son.
And that completed the Arcadian Tribunal: Miles, Matt, and Myself.
But there was a fourth Arcadian youth, my aunt’s teenage son; my cousin.
Jake.
II: Et in Arcadia Insciens
“Drowning here in summer’s cauldron.” – Summer’s Cauldron by XTC, Skylarking (1986)#5
II.I: Jake, Pongo, and Perdita
His life up until this point had been Pongo and Perdita, and when it flashed before his eyes he remained instinctual and unawares.
Every Tuesday night betwixt red maple and palm, Matt babysat Jake at my grandma’s Arcadian summer home. My aunt had just divorced and moved in with my grandma, bringing along her son, Jake; and since I only lived there during summers and Jake was now a permanent resident, my room was given to Jake, and I was moved to the porch. The porch had recently been remodeled into a makeshift bedroom, now covered in blackout curtains and the epileptic flashing of a Magnavox cathode-ray tube and the sounds of The Smiths’ “Louder Than Bombs” and occasionally John Mayer’s “Room for Squares” and The Strokes’ “Is This It?”
My aunt didn’t trust me to watch Jake, so she chose Matt instead – the older and more outwardly mature of the Arcadian Tribunal – and he was paid handsomely for his services. Miles and I sat in front of the Magnavox transfixed by dancing light while Matt was off making sure Jake wasn’t hurting himself with kitchen utensils or breaking glass on his head or smearing feces on the walls or urinating in grandma’s bed or wandering outside into oncoming traffic or removing his dirty diaper before hiding it somewhere that wouldn’t be discovered until weeks after it had permanently stunkified the house – which was already stunkified and only getting more stunkified by the day. The sounds of clapping, screaming, banging on the walls, and door slamming were cacophonous during these babysitting sessions as Jake made it clear he did not like being away from his mama.
The doctors said Jake was autistic; they said he had always been this way, but his mom insisted otherwise: “He was a normal baby before the vaccines – he was even saying words like ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ before those damn shots.”
Explaining Jake through vaccine conspiracy was easier to process than the truth, and in the end: it doesn’t even matter.#6 Jake was Jake; he yelled, moaned, clapped, and enjoyed watching Disney films – and only Disney films – on repeat. There was nothing behind his eyes except complacency and primal rage in cycles, and if you handed him an Xbox controller, he would likely swing it – hard – into your face before clapping loudly and wandering off. Jake couldn’t speak a word, yet he was older than me by a year, incredibly handsome with a distinct pudginess to his face, blue-eyes-to-die-for, and dark waves of hair. Jake was the apple of many eyes – until he started screaming and taking his diaper off.
Jake was Arcadian and kin but impossible to connect with. The thought often crossed my mind: in an alternate universe, Jake would have been hoarding power weapons with us on Lockout, but instead: One Hundred and One Dalmatians one hundred and one times and counting.
*Pongo, Perdita, and pups transfixed by dancing light.
Jake lived in Arcadia unawares – but, maybe, we all did.
One thing was certain: this was it for Jake – all he would ever know. I accepted this about Jake; Miles accepted it; Matt accepted it. This acceptance brought us closer together. We were comfortable being around someone who smeared feces on walls; acceptance of this mental handicap was the measure-of-a-man in our Arcadia. The Arcadian Tribunal protected Jake; we loved Jake and he was exalted. And if Jake was too much for a person to handle: that person had a ways to go before they were allowed into our Arcadia – they were not even willing to step through the front door to begin with.
And on the topic of front doors …
II.II: Diaper Pyre
Jake would often open the front door and wander around lost in Arcadia, and because of this: his mom installed a second door ahead of the front door. The second door’s knob was installed backward, the locking mechanism was on the outside facing the elements, preventing Jake from unlocking the door from the inside and thus escaping into the Arcadian wilds. The Trick Door – as we would come to call it – would require some arm-contortionism to lock from the outside after you had already entered the home but before the door fully closed; this was followed by a quick twist on the doorknob from the inside to make sure it locked properly. This Trick Door Lock Procedure was a crucial courtesy when entering the home; a life-or-death version of taking your shoes off.
One warm Arcadian summer night, my aunt and grandma left the house – dancing – and Matt was babysitting Jake. Miles and I were tagging along, playing Halo 2, until Jake started slapping himself on the legs and moaning as a wet gurgling emanated from his lower half.
This was a portent; the warm summer night was about to become much warmer.
Jake had diarrhea – bad diarrhea – and it would not stop. Jake was flowing foul for what seemed like forever; diaper after diaper after diaper of filth. We started to panic as the three of us repeatedly exited the front door to dispose of diapers in the garbage and the trash cans were nearing maximum capacity and the smell – my god, the smell.
The Arcadian Tribunal was defeated – we didn’t know what to do.
Fifteen years old and full of foolish ideas: I suggested we burn the diapers in the backyard. This idea was met with great fanfare; like most jaded millennials, we had pyromaniacal urges that were waiting to be fulfilled, and this was the perfect excuse to fulfill them. We secured a lighter and some gasoline from the backyard and this was how we started down the path of flame.
We piled the dung-drenched Depends#7 atop stray wood, poured gasoline all over, and tossed a burning piece of paper onto the uncontained pile of incredibly stupid ideas. The diapers burst into flames like the flared farts of a burning man. Stool flavored shit smoke escaped the confines of the backyard and spread a putridity so potent that it was a pox upon the entire neighborhood.
*Jackals and grunts huddle around bonfire of questionable origin.
The diapers burned in effigy to our intoxicating Arcadian innocence but, like youth, they didn’t burn for long; the gasoline and wood did most of the burning, and we quickly learned that diapers are mostly fireproof – most of the fecal matter burned away, the absorbent turned to mush, and the outer material had charred to black. We ended up exactly where we started, only now with a big ball of rancid goop.
Crickets and crackling were the only sounds penetrating the now-much-warmer Arcadian summer night.
Until Miles spoke up: “Where’s Jake?”
II.III: Wandering Around Lost
There was a boy drowning in emotions beyond his understanding; water filled his lungs while he flailed wildly in the ankle-deep waters of a kiddie pool.
I could see a nervous smile forming on Matt’s face – it dawned on him that he had defaulted on babysitting duties in pursuit of pyromania and he was visibly distraught behind his eldritch weirdness. “I’ll go check on him,” Matt said as he stood from his chair and made a beeline for the patio door.
My mind was preoccupied with figuring out how to explain the rat-king of warm diaper goop to my grandma and aunt, but also with Miles’ simple question repeating in my mind. And due to a certain incident involving girls in middle school, I had developed a sixth sense for calamity that was often way-off-the-mark,#8 but I was feeling it now and it felt like bullseye. The gastrointestinal black hole, reminiscent of a trust-fall with someone you wouldn’t trust at all, grew as I watched Miles prod charred fecal matter with a stick. The feeling of doom grew so strong that I stood up and followed Matt into the house to check on Jake myself.
As I entered the back porch, Halo 2 was idling on the campaign section we had left idle in favor of pyrotechnics and a soldier kept repeating, “At this rate, we’re never gonna win this war!” and this transfixed me briefly until Matt approached me with a look of Holy Terror painted across his face. He said two words: “Jake’s gone.”
My transfixation broken – “What do you mean, he’s gone?”
Matt’s timbre trembled in barely-contained panic, “The door’s unlocked. I checked everywhere.”
My aunt’s worst fear was becoming reality; Jake was wandering around lost in the Arcadian wilds. My eyes grew wide at the very thought, “Who was the last to go out the front door?” My teenage brain instantly jumped to the blame-game as to proactively deflect punishment from myself when my aunt arrived home and realized her son was missing.
Then Miles walked in – looking smooth as always – only to see us standing there arguing about who left the door unlocked. “What’s up?” Miles said, only to be met with the faces of the might-as-well-be-dead. “Jake’s gone, isn’t he?” He said without a shred of fear in his voice, “well he couldn’t have made it far, let’s go look for him.”
My aunt and grandma wouldn’t get home for another hour, so maybe we could fix this before anyone noticed – maybe we could find Jake ourselves.
We wouldn’t bother to check the neighborhood pool because it was locked at eight o’clock and would require Jake to climb over a fence to get in – something he couldn’t do. And it was doubtful that Jake would get hit by a car, as it was late and there weren’t many cars out at this time of night. The worst possibility was that Jake fell into the pond and drowned, but the pond was shallow, and if he had fallen in, we should be able to drag him out before he hurt himself – if the neighborhood crocodile didn’t get to him first.
We decided to take a three-pronged approach. Miles would check the fishing pond; if Jake fell in, Miles was the most well equipped to get him out. Matt would rev up his Toyota Celica and drive every side-street and cul-de-sac; if Jake was wandering the roads, Matt would find him. I would go through a side-path near the house that led to a playground; Jake loved going there so maybe he wandered there instinctively.
*Night; Arbiter searches the Arcadian fishing pond; clubhouse and pool seen in the distance.
But it was hopeless – each path was a dead end, and Jake was nowhere to be found.
The Arcadian Tribunal came full circle and regrouped betwixt red maple and palm; defeated and dejected. The soldier on the Magnavox repeated the words, “At this rate, we’re never gonna win this war!” before I forcefully silenced him by kicking the power button on the Xbox – the games were over, and my aunt would be home any minute now, and then my life would be over too. I would be banished from Arcadia forever.
Matt suggested we call the police. The police would illuminate Arcadia with flashlights and find the missing boy within minutes but then our paradise would crumble and the game would truly be over.
As if living in a ‘90s slasher-film, I decided for us: we would not be calling the police, at least not yet. “I’m going to check the pool,” I said after a round of thoughtful pacing – my words were deflated and blue but belayed a sense of seriousness that was rare in these parts of Arcadia.
“Matt, stay here – if they get home before us, try to keep them distracted; say Jake’s asleep in his room or something.” I said as I scoured for a flashlight in a nearby cabinet. Matt’s eldritch awkwardness would deflect any suspicion as it made him impossible to read even when lying, and he was immediately amiable – as always.
“Miles, come with me; I’m going to need you to jump the fence and unlock the gate.” Miles was contrary as usual, “What’s the point? The gate’s locked – no way Jake could climb that fence.” I found the flashlight then glared at him with a graveness he had never seen from me before, and as I made my way toward the patio door, Miles followed suit without a word.
Spontaneously, the plan had taken form, and I strode out of the backyard with a feigned confidence so convincing that I appeared like the leader of an Arcadian Battle Regiment or: The Arcadian Youth League.
Miles and I had to travel through four yards, around the rim of the fishing pond, and over a fence to get to the clubhouse pool. I flicked on my flashlight as we crept through the verdant alley between my grandma’s house and Matt’s house. A black cat ran from one bush to the next. It looked like Chips, my grandma’s rescue, but I couldn’t be sure. Through our creeping, we made it beyond the second yard, but the third house had an open yard with a dog pacing back and forth. I took a gamble and bolted across the edge. The yard was on the border of the fishing pond, and I was so focused on not falling into the water that my foot snagged a root, and my flashlight went flying into the air, and my face went headfirst into the dog’s dominion.
Miles yelled something out as he caught up with me and grabbed at my shirt, but it was too late; the dog had arrived. There was no barking, no snarling, only wetness on my cheek followed by a thick layer of slobber. The dog was licking my face and wagging their tail. I got to my knees and cupped the dog’s head in my hands; it looked like a Golden Retriever in the summer moonlight, and I pet the dog’s head before nudging them away. The dog sauntered off into a nearby shadow and returned with something thick in their mouth – a bone? No, it was my flashlight; the glass was broken, and the switch was in the off position, but it still turned on when flicked, albeit with the flashlight equivalent of a whimper: a flicker. I pointed the cone of light at the dog – a Golden Retriever, confirmed – and then to Miles, who was standing there with a blank look on his face: “Are you the dog whisperer or something?”
*Jake’s home in Arcadia.
We took the incident with the dog as a sign of good fortune and crept with newfound confidence through the final yard. We made it to the clubhouse and walked toward the pool courtyard gate. I felt a nudge on my leg and looked down; it was the dog. They followed us. I patted the dog on the head and gave them a “Good dog” and then placed my hand on the top of the gate. “Alright, Miles, go ahead and –” I paused as the gate slowly opened with just a gentle touch.
Miles and I looked at each other, our eyes widening in revelation. Someone forgot to lock the gate – just like we forgot to lock the Trick Door.
All three of us rushed into the poolside courtyard and looked around frantically. I circled the edge of the pool, shining my flashlight into the water, but there was nothing except pennies and pool toys. Then the dog raised their wet nose to the sky and sniffed with purpose before bolting off into a corner of the courtyard consumed by dense shadow.
Miles and I followed the dog with purpose. The flashlight was dimming but still caused shadows to shiver and flee with some hesitation. Once we got close enough, we saw the dog standing on the edge of a kiddie pool, extending their head over the water as if signaling at something with their nose. I pointed my flashlight beyond the dog’s snout, and that’s when I saw it.
Jake’s body; floating; eyes closed and moonward. He was naked, and a diaper was floating near his head. The leaked contents of the diaper contaminated the waters around him. There was a gloom in the gravity so powerful that it stopped the Earth’s rotation.
The dog whimpered. Miles was staring at the frozen Earth beneath him. There were no words. He slowly removed his phone from his pocket and handed it to me – “you do it.” Neither of us knew CPR, so it was the only option. I nodded solemnly and started dialing the three numbers we had been avoiding this whole time.
But just then, there was a cough. I stopped dialing and looked over to Miles. “Are you fucking with me?” I glowered. But no, there was another cough, the sound of disturbed waters, and a moan like the moan of a boy obsessed with Pongo and Perdita. I swung the flashlight toward the kiddie pool, and there he was in all his naked glory.
He clapped loudly while walking circles in the ankle-deep waters of the kiddie pool, and his manhood swung wild like the wind. Jake was alive. Miles and I turned to each other, both stupefied, and we started laughing louder than we had ever laughed before.
When the laughter stopped, I grabbed Jake’s wrist and led him out of the courtyard. Before exiting through the gate, Miles turned to me and said, “hey, where did that dog go?”
The dog was gone, and as we returned home through the yards of Arcadia, the Golden Retriever was nowhere to be found.
III. Mea Aurea Annos
“The only thing true is nothing can last.” – My Golden Years by The Lemon Twigs, A Dream Is All We Know (2024)#9
Betwixt red maple and palm sits a man in his thirties transfixed by dancing light.
When I decided to replay Halo 2 in January of 2024, it was because I wanted to prove to Miles – and my younger self – that I could beat the game on Legendary difficulty – something I was never able to do during My Time in Arcadia. And when the marine in Chapter 1 said, “standard formation – little bastards up front, big ones in back”,#10 I knew I was in for a ride, and for a moment, I was fifteen again.
I soon found out that Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty is an ouroboros affair of trial-and-error and pure rage. Every encounter is death, and every respawn only takes you a centimeter closer to victory. If it had bonfires, character builds, and a third-person perspective, it would be Dark Souls – just far more frustrating and tedious and just not fun at all. Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty is only two weapons – the Plasma Pistol and the Battle Rifle – because everything else is a pea-shooter that doesn’t do sufficient shield damage; without the Plasma Pistol, every enemy turns into a minute-long bullet-sponge demonspawn that actively casts hair-loss magic on the player through the monitor; and since the Plasma Pistol can’t actually kill anything, the Battle Rifle has to be on swap to finish the job. Halo 2 on Legendary is why male-pattern baldness exists. Halo 2 on Legendary is why I pray for early onset Alzheimer’s so I can forget about all the time I wasted charging up Plasma Pistols and game-overing to grunts because every enemy has perfect aim and the jackals – my god – the jackals.
Alzheimer’s – that’s a strange thing, isn’t it? Just forgetting. Arcadia, lost…
If I were a masochist, I would consider Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty to be the greatest computer game of all time.
I did complete Halo 2 on Legendary, but I had no fun doing it – so why did I actually do it?
The truth is: when I decided to replay Halo 2 in January of 2024, it was because I wanted to be on the porch-turned-bedroom in front of the Magnavox. I wanted to hear my autistic cousin clapping and groaning behind the sounds of warp and whoosh. I wanted Miles and Matt to walk through my office door and sit down next to me as if no time had passed at all. I wanted to see the fishing pond through the eyes of fifteen-years-old. I wanted to return to Arcadia – my golden years.
It’s not just me – I see it everywhere. The computer game community, especially, is full of people just like me, obsessed with their youth – ignoring the present.
Nostalgia trespasses our minds like children with flashlights; highlighting the good, leaving the bad covered in shadow. So many of my preferences are formed from nostalgia’s sweet embrace, and I can point to the exact moment that I am trying to recreate each time. The existence of this essay is evidence of the fact that I am obsessed with the past; I could have written about my daughter, or my son, or my wife, but no – it’s not nostalgic enough yet. They say midlife crisis kicks in between the ages of forty and sixty, but it feels like I have a midlife crisis every day. And every time I try to recreate these treasured experiences, the magic becomes less potent – the feeling slips further away, and the thing is a little more bastardized than it once was.
My childhood is wandering around lost, and I am in the dark with a dying flashlight looking for Jake.
*Master Chief overlooks fading Arcadia.
Miles went to college for mechanical engineering. He works in an automobile factory now. Occasionally, I still play computer games with him online, and we talk on Discord. He’s still into anime and computer games – maybe because of my influence. We live multiple states apart, and our friendship isn’t nearly as strong, but every time we talk, one of the stories in this essay inevitably comes up. I went to his wedding back in 2018. I don’t think his wife has ever liked me.
Matt moved back in with his parents; the same house in the same room with the same window we used to throw rocks at. Matt hasn’t changed much, if anything: his weirdness is even more eldritch than ever before. He’s gone from ultra-fit to mirroring his father to somewhere in-between, and he’s still as meek as ever. It seems like I’m still his only friend, as every time I visit my grandma’s house, he’s up there in his room. I’m not scared of his dad anymore. I walk right in and go upstairs, and there’s Matt: sitting in front of a few computer monitors playing old episodes of Quantum Leap while peculiar new-age music plays softly in the background and incense form a thick smoke throughout the room. It’s all very Lovecraftian, but my aunt still trusts him enough to let him drive my grandma to her ballroom dancing every Tuesday night.
My grandma can’t drive anymore – she has Alzheimer’s disease now.
And Jake, he still lives in Arcadia unawares. Clapping, moaning, taking his diaper off, and watching Pongo and Perdita. But one day, he too will change just like the rest of us. The doctors say his condition will only get worse – he’ll start forgetting; one day, he won’t even know who his mama is. But that’s not so different from everyone else – is it? Alzheimer’s: Arcadia just slipping away.
Some say the only thing true is nothing can last; everything fades away and nothing is forever. If the only thing true is nothing can last – then maybe we should treat every year like our golden years; maybe we should live in the moment.
This essay exists not only to wallow in nostalgia, but also to chronicle my life – in case I forget.
This essay will function as a Golden Retriever in the dark.
Footnotes:
#1. https://youtu.be/GG1ZYByvfqQ #2. https://youtu.be/4bMoHIllZOc #3. https://howdoyouspell.cool/forrest/tactics-ogre-reborn-ruminations-on-resentment-regret-and-retribution #4. https://youtu.be/2R6S5CJWlco #5. https://youtu.be/3DRUnkkjkds #6. https://youtu.be/eVTXPUF4Oz4 #7. https://www.depend.com/en-us/incontinence-products/protection-with-tabs #8. https://howdoyouspell.cool/forrest/no-disc-1998-seatbelts #9. https://youtu.be/jnylB5ylyw4 #10. https://halo.bungie.org/misc/h2dialogue/marines/cairo_littlebastards.mp3
—
(Originally published on 2/11/2024)
Gods Among Men and Mer or: SOTHA SIL IS DEAD
Listen to the audio version here.
I: Vivec as Computer Game – Toonami’s Official Review – Contextualizing Soul Sickness
“I watch. I wonder. I build. I tear down. Am I a god? As surely as any are.” ― Sotha Sil
In the beginning there were four Gods Among Men and Mer: Almalexia, Sotha Sil, Vivec, and Dagoth Ur; five if YOU are considered: the reader, the player, the Nerevarine, the everything, or the fool. For the benefit of the potential Nerevarine, we will cover – in some short detail – the computer game in which they will be participating: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind; a computer game designed to be as hostile to new players as mechanically possible, with role-playing systems that require forty-page manuals to be understood resulting in the first twenty-hours of play being slow crawls across all-brown-landscape and visibly striking rats yet missing-with-whoosh because easily-frangible-character-building and hidden-dice-rolls that do not belong in role-playing-games-that-are-actually-action-games are all working against you and the manual was much too long to hold your smartphone-addled attention span much like every article in this publication.
The Egg | Chapter 1: Star Touched & Sophical
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
The contrast of the sky was tuned to the highest setting, and a filter of glittering blue like the waters of Old Earth accented all things. The watermark stamped upon the skybox was obscured by gold ultraviolet, which was blinding to the eyes but upon second thought felt like nothing at all.
A young woman—hair like fresh rust, skin like that of a white sheet discolored by the faintest of coffee stains, all draped in white robes trimmed with gold—crossed a dirt path leading to a small bridge resembling something out of a fairy tale, complete with hung lanterns of curled wood and wax longing for fire; the bridge hung suspended over a brook teeming with yellow-spotted trout bouncing above the bubbles to gulp skeeter bugs off the water’s surface. The shade from the tree canopy obscured the dithering of atoms like pixels vibrating at a frequency only slightly uncomfortable to the human eye.
The young woman paused at the middle of the bridge; she observed the stream as if it were something she had never seen before. She saw fishermen far down the bank, but everything beyond faded into a thick fog. A curious wrinkle scrunched her freckled face before she banished it with a shrug and pushed onward down the path. Her arms held books across her chest as her dark messenger bag spit a trail of paper in her wake, only for that trail to vanish moments later.
A serene grove gradually rendered into the young woman’s view. The grove surrounded a marbled institute of higher learning; untouched narcissus, daisy, and poppy sprouted along the path leading to the foyer, itself shadowed by the ancient wood of laurel, sycamore, and cypress. Everything was immune to filth and decay. Deer trotted in the distance and simply faded away. Gorgeous youth buried their heads in thick tomes between secretive scribblings in little notebooks that rested upon chiseled tables placed symmetrically around the courtyard; the courtyard itself enclosed by white columns taller than the trees they stood with in solidarity. Beyond the novices’ soft chatter was only the cooing of doves and the pecking of woodpeckers and the occasional caw of massive ravens which perched atop the columns, watching for something edible to drop, but there was no food in this place. None at all.
As the young woman walked through the courtyard toward the massive double doors adorned with engravings of lions, eagles, bears, and lion-like bears and bear-like lions and lion-like-bear-like eagles and at least a few horned horses, she overheard a small circle of students:
“Hope she’s not in my class today.” “Doesn’t know when to shut up.” “Ellie’s pretty much a textbook know-it-all.” “She acts Star Touched when we all know she lives in a complex.” “Tragic, really.” “So funny how she tries to hide it too.” “What’s she even doing here?” “Wasting her time.” “Who would pick that nose for their sim?” “Right? I wonder what she actually looks like.”
Ellie hid her vexation poorly behind the turning up of her jagged hook nose and the uncontrollable tip twitch of her oddly pointed ears. Besides casting an emerald glare at the circle of students as she passed and accidentally catching the stare of one golden-haired young man, she swallowed her pride and pushed through the entrance of the grand hall with only a few sheets of loose paper spiraling in the displaced space behind her.
A decorative stone plaque trimmed with gold hung on the marbled wall facing the entrance; it was impossible to miss. Engraved were the words “The Polytechnic of Chrysame – Founded by Chrysame of Thessaly – 43AH,” and below that was an electronic marquee with the words “LATTICE 8 – BLOCK 12” scrolling in lurid green from right to left.
Ellie’s footsteps echoed throughout the halls before she settled upon a pair of double doors, at which she stopped to gather herself. She ran her hands through her hair, parting her bangs to the left (her left) as she liked to do, before placing her carried books on the floor nearby and rummaging through her bag. The bag seemed lighter than before, and she worried for a moment that her thirty-thousand-word essay had been lost to the insensate winds that blew through this place, but she realized that her fears were misplaced as she removed a solitary paper from the depths of the bag. She relieved anxious pressure from her lips as she held the paper to her nose, reading the only visible words:
An Exegesis on Hecatinium: Disentangling the Quantum Genesis of Hecatinium Within a Pseudo-Anarcho-Capitalist Milieu and Its Multifaceted Sociopolitical, Ethical, and Psychosensual Consequences on the Population of a Dying Planet and Those Above It
Upon reading the title, Ellie’s lips curled into a smile that revealed a full set of lightly-yellowed teeth. Then a subtle nod, as if validating herself. She had forgotten all about her floor books.
Ellie pushed through the double doors and entered a lecture hall composed of layers upon layers of seats that extended into a fog unto itself. Sunbeams, like pillars of heaven, shone through massive open-air apertures. There was no visible ceiling; only a hazy cloud alongside the occasional zipping of small birds as if their nests were built far above within the massive hall. Soft birdsongs filled the room. Down a steep flight of steps, a gray-haired man stood before a whiteboard the size of an Old Earth tennis court. The man was flicking his wrist here and there, which swirled color and text across the board like little tornadoes of educational material that appeared incomprehensible upon first glance but were instantly understood by Ellie—due to her cerebrum implant—who patiently waited for the man to finish what she assumed to be a file query through a lesson plan folder. The man was so calm and serene in his electric dalliance that a small titmouse of tufted gray fur landed upon his shoulder and began pecking softly at his tangled wiry barely locks.
An impatient minute passed before Ellie cleared her throat and broke the elderly man’s serenity. “Socrates?”
The man turned to Ellie, his youth wrinkled beyond recognition, and his chestnut-colored eyes analyzed Ellie up and down in a who-are-you kind of way before something snapped a smile onto his face. “Ah, Ellie. Just the young woman I wanted to see. And don’t call me by my title; Mr. Telas is fine. There’s no need for all the honorifics.”
Ellie gave one of those faux smiles that produced artificial dimples, none of her teeth showed. “Why did you want to see me, Soc–” She cleared her throat, “Mr. Telas.”
“It’s about your paper.”
“What about it?” Ellie fidgeted. “And why do I have to hand it in in person? I’ve already sent you the file. And it seems you’ve already read it!” Ellie held up the single paper she had removed from her bag earlier, lightly waving it.
“The same reason you carry bags and books upon your simulacrum; we could simply store those away in a database to be drawn upon later, but that would defeat the purpose. Writing the paper is but one part of the ritual; handing in the paper—in person, on time—is another. This was the way of the Ancients, and this is the way now. It is a matter of punctuality and responsibility, key traits needed for those seeking higher office.”
Ellie considered objecting to the “higher office” bit but decided against it because Socrates was correct: she did want to run for higher office; she had made this clear many times to anyone who would listen to her. She felt a deep-seated corruption in all parts of society, even in the beautiful bird that picked at Socrates’ hair; there was something unnatural about it—about everything—something fake; she could feel it in her bones; the beauty was superficial, a cover for something nasty; and to answer the students’ question from earlier: she didn’t choose this sim; the sim looked identical to her. She had nothing to hide; in fact, she was morally opposed to having something to hide at all. Fixing the world started with the truth. Transparency is the first step. This is what Ellie believed.
Socrates’ wise response reminded Ellie that she had left her books outside the hall, near the double doors, and furthermore prompted her to recall why she continued to call Mr. Telas by his Polytechnic title of Socrates—which was officially granted by the Thessalonian Council for his decades of service in the field of higher learning, combined with an intelligence quotient that was far to the right of the bell curve. She respected him not because of his official rank or numbers on a graph but because of his ability to turn stubborn questioning into little proverbs that pierced right to the heart of things. Socrates could part storm clouds, revealing the gods behind them—even when those gods were questions themselves.
“You also assume that I read your paper. I have not. I could not get past the title.”
Shocked at how stoically this line had been delivered, Ellie snapped back, respectfully incensed: “How do you mean? The title perfectly sums up the entire paper!”
“So does ‘Hecatinium's Effect on Society,’ or a number of shorter titles that do not exude the sense that the author has her head up her own rear end.”
Socrates' mouth curled like that of a child who had just swiped a credit chip, only to reveal the chip to the victim and give it back to them—just to prove they could do it.
Ellie’s face flushed red; her nose and ears could have been billowing dragon’s breath.
“Appearances are important, Ellie. First impressions matter. You can write the most astute essay that has ever graced the planet Thessaly, but if the title comes off so high-minded, you will be viewed as pretentious regardless of the content of the essay. Frankly, the title is off-putting. You are an incredibly gifted young woman with one of the most analytical minds I have had the pleasure to teach, but none of this matters if you cannot get through to people. The truth is, the average person is not like you or I. If you want to connect with a wider audience, you have to meet them at their level; you must be willing to put aside your ego. It is all about rhetoric, young Ellie.”
Socrates lifted his finger to his nose and closed his eyes, a note flashed upon the whiteboard: “Incorporate rhetoric into next week’s lesson plan.”
The figurative dragon’s breath from Ellie’s nose and ears turned to a thin haze, then to wisps, then to nothing; it must have been the compliment that Socrates snuck into his miniature lecture. “You make a good point. I’ll change the—”
“I fibbed somewhat. The title should indeed be reworked, but I did read your essay—What kind of teacher would I be if I hadn’t?—and it was quite well written, particularly the analysis of the origin of hecatinium and its initial discovery, the surrounding mystery, and the corporations that perished in the resource wars that followed. However, considering the reality of our current situation—namely, the Thessalonian Triumvirate, which you’re undoubtedly aware of from the basic primaries that have been processed through your cerebrum implant—is a collective of three corporations that have agreed to share the planet’s supply of hecatinium and abide by the rule of a central higher authority. This arrangement was made out of the necessity to continue the cycle of demand and innovation that would otherwise stagnate without competition; given this fact, your conclusion of—as you put it—‘logically, the first corporation to secure the supply of hecatinium would dominate the market, drive all competition to ruin, and turn the planet into their own personal playground,’ comes under some scrutiny.”
Socrates paused for a moment to cast a chestnut glare at the now-squirming Ellie. His lips furrowed into a cracked line, like a seasoned warrior having confidently thrown the gauntlet. To hide his subtle pride, Socrates contrived other things to do, flicking his wrist toward the board once more. With each flick, the name of a different corporation and logo flashed: HypnoSims, a blue silhouette of an abstracted person with the letter “H” imposed over the face—which the neurotypical mind might flip-flop between seeing as a long pair of eyes and the letter itself—all enclosed in an otherwise voidant sphere; Aides Animatronics, a series of gears colored pink, green, and black casting shadows the color of oil as they turned slowly like the hour hand of an ancient clock; TatNos Heavy Industries, a royal purple surrounding a deep maroon helmet that could double as an ancient computer’s power button.
The corporate colors played psychedelics across Ellie’s face as she let her professor have his little moment before composing herself: “I would say that the war for hecatinium is not yet over. We’re in the cold war stage.”
Socrates stopped, and the swirl of colors stopped with him. His stoicism faded, replaced by a twinkling in his old eyes.
Ellie matched the aggression of Socrates' initial critique. “There may be three corporations now, but there won’t be for much longer. Besides, they already function as a single governmental body under the guise of the Thessalonian Triumvirate, and they even share a council and a military! And I would also argue that this so-called ‘necessity to continue the cycle of demand and innovation’ is a false necessity—a manufactured demand, a self-inflicted need for innovation imposed only to drive profits for those Star Touched above the planet. What’s more surprising is that someone such as yourself would use such matter-of-fact language! And then I would end my rebuttal with one final question for you: are you trolling me right now?”
Ellie’s youthful flourish prompted a chuckle from Socrates that morphed into a weak cough. The old professor then walked up to Ellie and placed a hand on her bony shoulder. “Well done. Well done. Class starts in five. Go now, take a seat.”
Ellie placed the solitary paper on Socrates' massive lectern with verve. “Does that mean I passed the assignment?”
Socrates only smiled his wrinkled smile before turning his attention back to the whiteboard, twirling pixels once more.
Before Ellie could take a seat, she needed to gather the books she had forgotten outside the lecture hall, so she headed up the stairs and out the double doors, passing dozens of robed students along the way. She backtracked her steps but found nothing; her books were gone. A sigh pouted from her thin lips. “There’s no way I was talking to Socrates for more than twenty minutes,” she mumbled to herself as she narrowed her eyes, observing every possible checkered tile of marble flooring. She winced at the absurd prospect of having to fork over another week’s worth of credits to repurchase the books, which were just copy-pasted data from one database to another. She closed her eyes for one meditative moment, then exhaled what she imagined was all the negativity in her body. Ellie resigned herself.
“Looking for these?” A young man appeared from around the corner of a nearby hall. He was alone. He was holding a stack of books. His eyes were icy, his hair golden, his jaw immaculate, and his glare wretched. It was the same young man she had accidentally locked eyes with earlier. “Did you think they despawned or something?” he scoffed. “I’ll give them back.”
“You’ll give them back, but …” Ellie’s scrunched hook indicated visible annoyance.
“Show me what you really look like under that sim.”
“This is what I really look like, Arc. Maybe you should show me what you really look like? A sim trying to be that handsome must be hiding some real ugliness underneath.”
A flame sparked in Arc’s eyes; simultaneously, the books he held erupted into a blaze of blues and reds; ashes spilled through the space between Arc’s fingers, scattering through the stale air. “You will call me by my proper name—Archon—as do all the Complexers.” The flame lingered in Arc’s hand for a moment before he flung it at Ellie with a snap of his fingers; the flame bounced and fizzled off a pellucid emerald barrier. The barrier then dissolved into digitized dust, revealing Ellie with outstretched hands; her cheeks flushed; her eyebrows attack mode.
Ellie’s voice was soft, but there was a storm brewing underneath. “Not only was that entirely pointless,” she moved a hand behind her back as she spoke, “but it also cost me two weeks’ worth of credits.” She clenched her hidden fist, and a pair of emerald tethers whipped from the floor beneath Arc, wrapping around both of his legs.
“You forgot about my hands,” Arc grinned; but as he went to raise those forgotten hands, two more emerald wires whisked from the ceiling, locking his arms in place. Ellie then motioned her index finger in the air, and the tethers stretched themselves, lifting Arc’s body, pushing him against the ceiling, and tugging at his limbs.
Robed students gathered around.
“What did you think would happen – using hecatomes here? What are you – 12? Star Touched Idiot, more like.” Ellie brushed red hair out of her eyes but the red of anger was still deep in her speckled cheeks. She no longer needed to maintain the tethers as they now seemed to have a mind of their own; swirling and squeezing Arc’s appendages. The young man made no sound, he was blank, either too incensed or too stunned to react. “You Star Touched are all the same. This is what happens when you throw credits around and cheat to pass all your classes. You don’t learn anything. You can do your little basic hecatome parlor tricks, but you will never compare to someone who has actually practiced and studied for hundreds—thousands—of hours.” Ellie was grandstanding, losing herself in the moment as she talked up at Arc’s body, which was more like a ceiling fan at this point. “All you did today was reveal how envious and angry you are – but I can’t imagine why, considering you’re up in one of those starships and I’m down here in a complex.”
Ellie paused for theatrics, then flashed a toothy grin. “How’s the view now?”
Before she had time to react, something crashed into Ellie’s back, disrupting her focus. The emerald tethers vanished, and so did Arc’s body. Ellie toppled to the floor and wrestled to turn over. As she did, she found herself staring up at Arc, who was no longer on the ceiling but on top of her. How? Ellie’s grin had transferred to Arc, but the grin was now dripping with saliva and murder. He held Ellie down with his left hand while lifting his right into the air before slamming it down toward Ellie’s face. Ellie caught the blow in her palm, her hand glowing with the same emerald green from the barrier before, as if the color itself was empowering her grip. Arc’s hands flared with a mixture of blue and red in turn. A duel of colors was playing out before a gathering of students.
“Submit!” Arc screamed as he pushed his full weight onto Ellie; their fingers interlocked; their colors mixing into a bright white.
Ellie twisted and slipped out of Arc’s unstable hold. As she got to her feet, she immediately extended both arms and stretched her palms, and as she did this, a semitransparent emerald box surrounded her. The barrier threw greens onto the marble walls, which reflected onto all around, accenting the faces of the onlookers who were cheering for both of the combatants. And although Arc was standing directly in front of her, Ellie looked around as if checking for any other Arcs she should be worried about.
“What was that? An ersatz proxy? I’m impressed. Did you buy that one too?” Ellie rushed her speech as she tried to mentally compose herself whilst maintaining the barrier.
“You’re not the only one who seriously practices hecatomes,” Arc’s words flared like the fires he was accustomed to throwing.
“Whatever.” Ellie said between bated breathing.
“Do you want to know why I practice?”
“Whatever.”
“It’s because I hate you.”
“Whatever.”
“And everyone else down there too. You shouldn’t even be here.”
“Whatever.”
“You hate us too—I can hear it in your voice. You hate the rich snooty Star Touched just as I hate the poor little Complexers. We’re the same, Ellie. Just reversed. The only difference is that I’m willing to admit it.”
Arc’s critique caused Ellie’s nose to twitch, but she pretended to ignore the irritant with another detached, “Whatever.”
This feigned indifference enraged Arc. He shrieked, and as he did so, a pillar of flame erupted from his palms. He directed the flames toward Ellie; the fire wrapped around the emerald barrier; swirling vortices; vicious rumblings; the emerald cracked down the middle but still held. Sparks flickered and bounced meters away. The surrounding students, who had once been cheering, fell silent, backed off, dispersed into the lecture hall.
Ellie was obscured behind the blinding yellow mixture of hecatonic reds and greens, which hid her visible trembling as she felt the barrier begin to give way.
“That’s enough!” The flame vanished as Socrates' voice echoed throughout the hall, leaving nothing but a translucent emerald box with Ellie inside it.
The emerald barrier dispersed into particles as Ellie lowered her hands. As her vision cleared, she saw Arc immobilized on his knees beneath the frail figure of Socrates, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and had the young man’s ear in a grip that must have been stronger than the pull of a black hole. “Class started three minutes ago, and you’re out here causing fires without even a proper Hoplite Decree!” The old professor’s voice was tinged with a mixture of amusement and disgust, a unique combo that Ellie had only had the privilege of hearing once before. “You will pay for the books, Arc—and you will take a deduction in both standing and grade.”
“I could pay for thousands of those books, and my father—” Arc let out a pitiful yelp as he felt his ear twist even further. (Socrates must have turned off the pain dampeners, Ellie thought.)
Socrates then turned his focus to Ellie. “And you indulged the fool. For shame. I expected better. Your standing will be impacted as well.”
“What? That’s not fair! He started—”
“He started it?” Socrates completed the sentence as he loosened the twist on Arc’s ear. “It matters not.”
Socrates shook his head and then vanished through the double doors.
“Today we are going to skip hecatome practice. We already saw enough of that earlier in the hall. Instead, I want all of you to imagine for a moment: Imagine that there is a child; the child is standing on the edge of a pool of water; the child cannot swim; the child slips, falls into the pool, and starts flailing their arms and screaming until water fills their mouth and they become nearly submerged. The child is drowning. You are standing nearby watching this scene unfold. You have a choice: save the child or leave them to drown. Of course, you choose to save the child. You reach for the child, grab them by the arm, and pull them to safety; the child is grateful, hugs you, and says they'll never forget your kindness. The child gives you their name; it is saved in your implant; you don't overwrite it. Twenty years later, you're watching a news holo; the anchor begins recounting the crimes of a recently captured serial murderer: twenty-nine victims. They say the name of the murderer: it's the name of the child you saved twenty years earlier. It suddenly dawns on you that you had saved one life in exchange for twenty-nine. Did you do the right thing? How could you have known? Was saving the child a positive or negative moral act? Does it matter? Note these questions down, as we will come back to them later on.”
The lecture hall went silent minus the faint chirping of distant birds.
“Now, I want you to imagine a second scenario: you just left your residence to attend to some chores. The type of chore doesn't matter, just imagine for a moment that you are doing this. A man stops you; he appears to be carrying a package; he asks if you know the address of a certain neighbor—we'll call that neighbor Zed—and you just so happen to know where Zed lives. You have two options: tell the truth or lie—well, maybe three options, including walking away silently, but I would consider this tantamount to lying. Being an honest person, you decide to tell the truth and give the man Zed's address. The man thanks you and you both go on your way. An hour later, on your way back from your chores, you pass Zed's residence. The Thessalonian Guard has surrounded the front portcullis; there are civilian onlookers some distance away and you ask one of them what's going on; they say that someone broke into Zed's house, killed Zed and his entire family, and the killer is now holed up in the residence threatening to detonate an explosive if they are not allowed to walk free. It dawns on you that this must have been the man you gave Zed's address to. An innocent gesture of honesty cost the lives of an entire family. Should you have lied? Did telling the truth result in this terrible massacre? You slink away into your residence, curl up on your bed, and cry yourself to sleep—a somewhat dramatic flourish, but the point remains. I hope you're taking notes.”
Chirping. Rustling. Scribbling.
“I have just presented two examples of key ethical dilemmas that arise when trying to determine which normative system of ethics one ought to follow; which cuts to the heart of today's lesson. I want to examine the ancient system of ethics so aptly titled utilitarianism; from utility. Utilitarianism is the doctrine that an action is morally righteous only if that action maximizes the overall well-being of the majority. There are many branches of utilitarianism, but the most important branches are 'rule utilitarianism' and 'act utilitarianism.' 'Rule utilitarianism' dictates that firm rules should be followed, and these firm rules should benefit the majority; in the 'save a drowning child' example, a rule utilitarian may say that we should always save a drowning child because it typically results in greater well-being for the majority, because if you were drowning you would want someone to save you in turn and so on; however, it fails to account for the possibility that the child could grow up to be a mass murderer; similarly, a rule utilitarian may say that you should never lie because honesty typically produces good outcomes—and, after all, you would not want to be lied to yourself—but this fails to account for those who would use the truth to do great harm, such as kill Zed and his family. Alternatively, followers of 'act utilitarianism' believe that a person's actions are morally righteous only if those actions produce the best possible results in that specific situation; this allows for a bending of the rules, for example, you could lie to the man who asked for Zed's address if you suspected that the man was a killer, or you could refuse to save the drowning child if you knew they would grow up to be a murderer—but that begs the question, how would you possibly know that at the time? And here lies the crux of the problem with the utilitarian system of ethics: we cannot know the future. Please ponder on these questions for a moment before we move on.”
There was a pause—twenty seconds at least—before Socrates pointed to a student in the far back of the hall. A gentle spotlight highlighted a young woman with august locks and sleepy eyes. “Ginese, which system do you subscribe to?” Socrates' voice was magnified to the perfect volume for everyone to hear, and this magnification switched between speakers.
Surprised, Ginese shot up, rubbed her eyes, wiped drool from her mouth, and mumbled, “Wait—what?”
Socrates shook his head. “Leave my hall. Return once you’ve had some rest.”
Ginese gathered her things and vanished.
Socrates then pointed to Arc. “Which system would you pick, young man?”
Arc was prepared with his wits about him. “Just going by basic math, it seems most logical to support a rule-utilitarian system. This would—theoretically—maximize well-being most efficiently, even if we had to make some sacrifices along the way. I think this is proven out in our current society, as we’ve seen what happens when we integrate Complexers into Star Touched spaces—” Arc stopped for a moment, turning his attention to Ellie, who sat two layers away. Ellie knew where this was headed, and as such, her ire was already aroused and her eyes were already rolling. Arc continued, “Complexers like Ellie are violent and can’t integrate, causing a ripple effect in Star Touched society that cannot be cured without excising the cancer with fire. The utilitarian rule should be obvious: total and complete segregation.”
Socrates then pointed to Ellie, “your rebuttal?”
“Everyone saw it. He attacked me first. If he’s trying to say that we shouldn’t abide by violent people, then we shouldn’t abide by Arc.” Faint snickering bubbled up throughout the hall. Then there was a brief pause. Birds danced and sang high above the fog.
Ellie continued with eyes like daggers pointing at Arc, “Nonsense aside, we have rules for a reason—law and order must be maintained—but sometimes we have to break those rules; otherwise, we’ll let ourselves get trampled by those who will use the rules to their advantage or just break them outright. No rule is a one-size-fits-all solution. We do not have to be constrained by one rigid ethical system; we should be able to adapt as the situation calls for it.” Ellie paused before slipping in a sneaky, “and that’s why my standing should not be impacted; I was only defending myself.”
There was a brief silence before it was broken by a bluebird landing on the back of Ellie’s seat. Twee, twee. Ellie turned her body to catch a glimpse, but a loud cough from Socrates frightened the bird, which fluttered off and faded away.
“Excellent discussion.” Socrates stroked his chin. “And you’re right, Ellie. Your standing shouldn’t be impacted.” This prompted a groan from Arc, which could be heard throughout the hall even without magnification.
Socrates flicked his wrist, and the board was suddenly consumed by black lettering that outlined a lengthy assignment. “This week, I would like you to complete two essays; the first on which utilitarian system of ethics you think leads to the most positive outcomes, and the second being being being being being being being being be be be be be be being being be be be be—”
Ellie was taking a note on the assignment when the repetition started. She stopped and looked up to process what was happening. Socrates' mouth was moving and his wrist was flicking again and again. She turned to observe the students, who were all in various stages of repeating their own last actions. A nearby bird seemed to be teleporting from one side of the room to the other with a recurring hum. The combination of all the repeated sounds built into a cacophonous hurricane of noise that grew exponentially louder with every passing moment until Ellie couldn’t take it anymore; she could feel a pressure swelling inside her head, vibrating her brainstem as if the cerebrum implant could erupt silicon shards into the gooey gray matter of her brain at any moment. She worried that her head would explode from the inside out.
“Not again,” Ellie groaned as she flipped her left hand and tapped her palm six times in an odd rhythmic pattern; the final tap brought complete silence and total darkness. It was as if all human senses had been turned off. After a moment of nothing, bright green text faded into view:
“You can now safely eject.”
And underneath that, in a slightly smaller font:
“HypnoSims is dedicated to our customers’ user experience. As such, if this was a wrongful eject or there was a problem with your simulacrum—please think or say ‘bug report’ to bring up the bug report menu. If you would like to speak to an AI representative, please think or say ‘Allison,’ ‘Alex,’ ‘Pluto,’ ‘Garfield,’ or ‘Random’ depending on preference. If you would like to report a crime, please think or say ‘Thessalonian Guard.’”
Ellie raised both hands to either side of her head, gripping the smooth headset that covered her eyes and nose and wrapped around her skull. She used her thumbs to press two buttons on either side of the device, which sent a tingle down her spine as the HypnoConnector disconnected from the port in the back of her neck. The wire, which had sent packets of data directly into her brain via the HypnoSim Implant grafted into her cerebrum at birth, now dangled from the headset.
As Ellie lifted the headset over her head, the void slid from her vision as if a child were removing a disc from an Old Earth View-Master. She opened her eyes—her biological eyes—and took a good long look at the steel-gray ceiling directly above her. She was lying on her back, on a bed. She let out a deep yawn as she stretched out her lanky appendages.
Ellie’s room was a small ten by twelve, clean but messy, with one door and no windows, gunmetal walls, creeping rust from the corners where the walls and ceiling converged, a single faux-porcelain sink with a spotted mirror, and the place pulsed soft blue like a deep-sea jellyfish dying; there were band posters taped on each wall with names ranging from The Phantoms to Haruko and the Fools to Rectal Debaser; Old Earth computer monitors waterfalling text lined the walls; keyboards and wires seemed to grow out of the floor; and the only place to sit was on a spring-exposed mattress that rested on synthetic-wood pallets.
“The HyperNet must be down again,” Ellie thought as she swung up on her bed and turned to the keyboard nearest her. She clicked a few keys which prompted a three-dimensional bump-mapped projection to consume the space between the bed and the farthest wall.
The projection was a holographic bird's-eye view of a vast desert that could moonlight as a wasteland. The title “Thessaly” marked the top left of the three-dimensional space. The hologram zoomed out to reveal a number of massive black superstructures throughout the desert; megaliths yearning for the stars but never quite reaching them; encircling these megaliths were mechanical gray obelisks like the swords of titans stabbed deep into the earth. The projection drew a blue circle around one of these megaliths, with an arrow extending from the megalith to the words “Complex 42.” Additional information then poured in underneath:
// Date: Gamelion 8, AH386 // Complex Status Module Version: CreditlessV7.4 // Main Power: Down // Resolution Status: Aides Repair Automatons Dispatched // TatNos Security Sphere The Sphere That Protects-And-Serves You And Only You 2483C // Current Status: Auxiliary Power 98% // HyperNet Status: Down // Probable Cause: Ash Storm W/ High Radiation (Source: Unknown) // Hecatonic Shield Holding At 75% // Neutron Wave Performing New Hit Single “StarLoveNovaKill” Live Gamelion-24 9 PM Floor-46 // Range Of Incident: Entire Northern Hemisphere // Incident Start Time: 8:43 PM // Estimated End Time: 12:35 AM // Show Your Lover You Care With The HS-Affection Add-On Free 30-Day Trial // NOTE: All Air Vents Have Been Locked For Complex Residents’ Safety. Secondary Air Reserves On. Please Do Not Leave The Complex Until The Incident Has Been Marked As Resolved // HS 24/7 Complex Status Monitoring // Have You Heard About The New Aides Auto-Cat? Fully Programmable W/ Free HS Auto-Animal App: Recreating Your Favorite Pets One Earth Animal At A Time Only 1773C Or Three Payments Of 591C //
Ellie clicked three keys on the keyboard; the hologram vanished. “Maybe an Auto-Cat wouldn’t be so bad,” she thought as she sat up and made her way to the sink. She peered into her own emerald eyes, which were accented with deep bags like those of the Old Earth raccoons that she had only seen in the HyperNet. Her rust-colored hair was frizzy all over, and her freckled skin was ghostly pale. She looked identical to her simulacrum, only more haggard. She twisted the handle of the faucet to splash some water on her face, but the sink only produced a weak stream of light brown liquid, which then turned into a slow drip and eventually nothing at all. “Water’s not working either,” she mumbled as she went to the corner of the room and started digging through a loose bag of metal tools.
As Ellie was digging and tossing tools to her side, she heard the metal door clang and footsteps behind her. The rasp of an elderly woman rang out, “Elpis? What are you doing? You know the HyperNet is out again? The holos keep playing that warning message. I don’t like it. Scares me. Lenny next door says there’s some sort of freak radiation storm going on out there.” No response, only the clinking of metal mixed with the rustling of cloth. “Elpis, what are you doing? Talk to me.”
Ellie continued to rummage through the tool bag as she replied in a tone that could only be described as single-minded dismissiveness, “Damn storms kicked me out of Polytechnic again.” After another moment of sifting through the bag, she pulled out a crowbar-sized metal spanner with DIY cranks and levers and switches of all sorts welded upon it. “I’m going to fix the HyperNet, Gigi. All I have to do is route the auxiliary power into the third-floor modem facility. Then I’ll jack back into school and find out what that second essay is about.” Ellie stood confidently, one hand resting upon the curve of her hip, the other waving the oversized spanner.
Concern was threaded through the ancient tapestry that was Gigi’s face; Ellie sensed this and placed a hand on her grandmother’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Gigi. It’s not a big thing. I did this during the last ash storm—remember?”
Gigi shook her head. She couldn't remember. She couldn’t remember much at all.
Ellie flashed a toothy smile meant to inspire confidence and then strutted out of the bedroom carrying her spanner. She walked through the living room—which was also gunmetal-chic and only a few feet wider than her bedroom, yet more claustrophobic due to the bare-necessities kitchen in the far corner—and grabbed a dark messenger bag hanging from a hook by the heavy-metal portcullis that doubled as the front door, slinging the bag around her shoulder; she then grabbed a pair of black-lensed circular glasses from the kitchen counter and hurriedly pushed them over her bent nose using her index finger.
Before turning the key that would seal the portcullis, Ellie poked her head through the archway, “I’ll be home soon! Don’t wait up for me! I love you!”
And then she was gone.
Artwork by ComicFarm.
The Boy and the Brown Bear
Five o’clock, morning dew, and the fireball rises like a wizard’s cantrip ricocheting off the wild wind. Fully clothed in rip-worn blues and whites earth-stained from angling adventures of days gone by, I fish my tackle box of seen-better-days from behind the sliding screen that is my makeshift closet. Tiptoeing through the house so as not to wake Big Sis from her sickly sleeps, I head straight to the cupboard to collect my lunchbox generously filled to the brim with Mom’s perfectly wrapped rice balls. I sneak a quick bite off the largest ball; it’s luscious, as usual, and crumbles out of control when placed back into the metal box for future snacking.
I tiptoe silently towards the front door, where my trusty companion awaits: the child-sized fishing rod propped against the thin wooden wall of the flimsy shack we lovingly call home. The tatami mat below creaks loudly, but it wasn’t me this time; it was Mom: “Up early again to catch the Guardian Fish?” I nod vehemently, grab my pole with Sisyphusian determination, bear hug Mom, and close the front door behind me as I exit into God’s great and bountiful gift: nature.
I’m going to catch that Guardian Fish and rip its guts out.
When Mom told me Big Sis was sick and could only be cured by eating the innards of the Guardian Fish, it all clicked for me. This is my calling. I love to fish; to sit on the side of my chosen stream, cast my line, and contemplate the nature all around me as I wait for a bite; crickets chirping, fish splooshing once calm waters, bees bumbling buzzed-up flowers, limbs creak-cracking as squirrels play their tree games – the ecosystem: God’s great and bountiful gift.
And how do I fit into it all? God’s gift cares for me, provides for me, as long as I do my part; I catch the fish, I eat the fish – bones and all. The fish, with their hearty charred flesh and soup-flavoring bonemeal, sustains me and my entire village; no different than how the fish is sustained by smaller fish and the lion is sustained on the elk’s bloody, mangled carcass. I am not above it, merely momentarily on top.
I am the ecosystem.
So when Mom told me that Big Sis was sick and that I needed to catch the Guardian Fish, I took up the challenge with the determination of the dung beetle I observed while waiting for a tug on my fishing line this morning. The dung beetle was rolling its precious dung up an incline, which, from their perspective, must have been a very steep hill but appeared to me as an impressive anthill teeming with fire ants. The little ones were creeping all over the beetle, slowly but surely consuming it as hundreds of little ants injected their acid into its protective shell; yet, the beetle persisted.
*our hero; one with nature
“That is one determined dung beetle,” I thought as my line suddenly became taut and my nose twitched and my ears perked up. A bite!
Instantaneously flipping my baseball cap into serious-mode: backwards, I jolted up like a reverse thunderbolt and took on a sumo stance before clasping both hands on the grip of my fishing pole and pulling back with all my might. The line became tighter and tighter before reaching critical tension – a fierce tug of war then played out between myself and my submerged prey. “This one’s tough – maybe it’s the Guardian Fish!” I thought as I gave some slack on the line in an attempt to tire the great beast; Dad taught me well, and the fish immediately stopped tugging the line. “Now’s my chance!” I reeled in and pulled back as hard as I could, and… snap!
The line broke; my bait lost along with the hook now forever destined to be impaled in the fish’s mouth – a grizzly fate for a fish, trailing blood through water, attracting all manner of deep-water predators more deadly than the predator it was lucky enough to escape from – me.
Searching through my tackle box and suddenly I see: I’m out of bait. I have all manner of hooks but no bait. Then it dawns on me, Dad always said, “The perfect predator must be resourceful.” So, I look to the anthill; the ants had not yet managed to penetrate the dung beetle’s carapace of iron will, but the beetle’s body was obscured now: merely a moving ball of ants, likely in excruciating pain – I know! I’ll put it out of its misery!
I carefully pick up the dung beetle with two fingers, put it up to my lips and blow real hard; most of the ants go wild on the wind and I wipe the stragglers off with a few swipes of my index finger. The beetle’s legs continue to move, like when I used to hold my old dog over the tub before bath time – habitual movement, already paddling and still climbing up that hill.
Quickly, so as not to cause too much Suffering, I take my fishing hook and thrust it into the beetle’s soft white underbelly; it takes some small amount of force before I’m met with a satisfying crunch, what sounds like a sudden release of pressure, and a hydraulic stream of brown goo splashing upon the tips of my fingers.
The brown of the beetle drips down the hook as I sit down on the soft soil of the riverbank; lodging the grip of my pole into the dirt, as to keep it in place for a moment while I opened my metal lunchbox to take another bite – or three – of the crumbled rice ball from hours ago. But before I can take a bite, I hear something from behind me, a short huff of air, a low growl, and the pop of a jaw. My body stiffens and I freeze for a moment, a chill running through the entirety of my nervous system.
More big huffs, this time closer. It felt like another hour had passed in this terror-stricken state but in reality: only seconds. Dad always taught me to swallow my fear and deal with life head-on. So I take a big gulp of false-courage and twist my neck and I see it: fur so-brown-its-black fills my vision as my eyes creep upward, now staring directly into the hungry eyes of a brown bear intent on flesh, fish flesh or otherwise – me.
I must save Big Sis, even if it takes a miracle; and if God were a fish, He’d be the Guardian Fish. I’m fishing for God. This brown bear is not going to stop me.
The bear, with a demonic glint in its eyes, lifts its gigantic paws and quickly lunges at me. I think of my sister, and suddenly great courage is bestowed upon me from on high. I clumsily dash to the right, falling and rolling a few times on the verdant riverbank before catching my balance, one foot on the ground, one knee too. I remember the dung beetle; its determination. I grin to myself as I gather a clump of dirt in my right hand. The bear turns to me with surprising haste for such a big thing and starts at me once again. I throw the dirt into the beast’s face, halting it for a moment as it snarls loudly out of pure annoyance.
I take this opening to rush the bear head-on, ramming into its furry stomach before raising my fist and punching it right between its momentarily dirt-addled eyes. The bear flinches with a quick jerk of its head and then growls differently this time, a roar of pure malice; animal language more transparent than humans’, but I don’t care: I launch another punch into its stomach with my entire being; the bear counters, but I’m lithe, ducking and weaving so well that I catch only the tip of its longest claw on my shoulder, ripping my shirt and drawing a swirl of blood through the air.
I don’t feel a thing.
Determined to finish this, I push the full weight of my small body into the bear, which falls over with me into the grass below. I take my hands and put them around the bear’s neck, squeezing as hard as I can. The bear flails its claws wildly before settling on its signature attack: the bear hug; driving all ten of its claws into my back as if to absorb my very lifeforce. It must have missed my vitals because I was unfazed, and this only served to motivate me further.
I think about all the bears my Dad must have killed in his time as the River King. I must make him proud. I must save Big Sis, so I dig desperately into the bear’s neck, find the hard part – the windpipe, I hope – and squeeze as tightly as I possibly can. The bear intensifies its own squeeze in kind and I feel every inch of my clothes become wet with blood. I start screaming viciously as the fog starts to settle in; my vision blurs, my head fills with clouds.
Is this it?
Just then, God must have intervened: the bear’s grip loosens, and its growl becomes less murderous and more miserable before settling into a light gurgle. My face fills with foam as the bear tries, pathetically and in vain, to snap its great teeth into my face. Filled with a contradictory mixture of indignant courage, fear, and adrenaline, I loosen my grip on the bear’s neck and go all-in on its terrible visage, slamming the beast’s face repeatedly with my clenched fists; blood erupts like a primordial volcano with each blow. After what feels like minutes, I am crimson covered completely in bear blood.
Rolling off the beast onto the vermilion – once green – grass, I stare up at the clouds above, gasping for air.
My vision goes in and out as I lay splayed out on the riverbank. I hear crickets chirping, fish splooshing, bees bumbling, and limbs creak-cracking as squirrels play their tree games. I am reminded that I am still alive, and just as that revelation hits me, I feel a drip of liquid hit my cheek from on high – rain?
I open my eyes and the brown of the bear obscures my view once again. I hear – feel – the vibrations of the bear’s low, guttural growl. The beast is above me, looking down on its prey, a mixture of saliva and blood dripping from its mouth and onto my face.
Suddenly, it dawns on me: I never stood a chance.
(Originally published on 11/19/2023)
Fishing for God
I: The Boy and the Brown Bear
Five o’clock, morning dew, and the fireball rises like a wizard’s cantrip ricocheting off the wild wind. Fully clothed in rip-worn blues and whites earth-stained from angling adventures of days gone by, I fish my tackle box of seen-better-days from behind the sliding screen that is my makeshift closet. Tiptoeing through the house so as not to wake Big Sis from her sickly sleeps, I head straight to the cupboard to collect my lunchbox generously filled to the brim with Mom’s perfectly wrapped rice balls. I sneak a quick bite off the largest ball; it’s luscious, as usual, and crumbles out of control when placed back into the metal box for future snacking.
Stories About Building Giant Robots
(Note, this is a chapter from an Armored Core VI essay, that context is somewhat important but not necessary to understand this piece.)
I: Giant Robots: The Origin
It’s easy to see the giant robot as a metaphor for nuclear bombs; they both leave a big impression and return a lot of people to Nature. The giant robot genre, for the most part, started in Japan and became popular after the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and while some later media will use giant robots in this manner, in reality: the first giant robot in animation was debuted on a Japanese street corner in 1931 in front of pale firelight glowed from a paper lantern. I use the term “animation” here super-loosely because artists on this street corner were simply flipping inked panels back and forth on a canvas and telling stories, which, in my mind, is animation in its purest form. This method of street corner storytelling was called kamishibai, or “paper theater,” and was very popular in Great-Depression-Era-Japan; I know this because I have a device connected to the internet and read Wikipedia (we live in a contradictory time in which access to information is so abundant yet people are still so lost, perhaps endless knowledge is more confusing than clarifying). The particular paper theater referenced here is “Ogon Bat,” or “Golden Bat,” a superhero conceived to be “more science than mythology” yet still ended up a skeletal thing from ancient Atlantis sent from ten-thousand-years in the future to protect the present-day which, depending on your perspective, would be the future Golden Bat came from in Golden Bat’s perspective and September 30, 2023, at 4:40 pm eastern time from my perspective, or something (time travel never actually makes sense in science fiction, you’re supposed to just accept it and move on for the purposes of the plot); the Golden Bat has an exposed golden skull and wears a Nature-themed pirate outfit with a flowing Coral cape; he also lives in a fortress in the Japanese Alps. The Golden Bat is not the giant robot in question here; Golden Bat is the hero; the giant robot was a one-shot villain named Dai Ningen Tanku, the first human-piloted giant robot. The point being, someone somewhere in Japan came up with giant-human-piloted-robots and came up with them before the bombs dropped and if that person had not come up with them I would not be able to tell you the following story.
II: Hobby Lobby and the Mark of the Beast
On September 4th, 2023, I drove my family: wife, daughter, and 4-month-old son to Hobby Lobby to shop for paintings and a wall-mounted-shelf for coffee cups. That was, of course, a pretense; I had been watching Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam for months until this point, so the true reason for this excursion was to purchase Gundam model kits; the most popular being Bandai’s “Gunpla” kits, which come in a number of different “grades,” namely: Entry Grade (for beginner modelers), High Grade (the next step up, with more parts, detail, and poseability), Real Grade (similar to High Grade but includes an internal frame; a skeleton of sorts), Master Grade (even bigger High Grades), and Perfect Grade (“the highest end of Gunpla, this series of ultimate avatars always packs in the latest technology” according to the official Gunpla packaging, “latest technology” roughly translates to “more plastic”; these are also really big) and a few other Offbeat Grades that aren’t worth mentioning in this essay. If you’re confused, I apologize, the term “gundam” and “mobile suit” refer to specific types of giant robot, popularized by the 1979 anime series Mobile Suit Gundam. Hobby Lobby had some of my favorite giant robots, and everything was 40% off: the original RX-78-2 Gundam, Amuro Ray’s mobile suit in the original anime; MS-06S ZAKU II, Char Aznable’s red Zaku (also from the original series); and, finally, the MS-07B-3 Gouf Custom, my childhood-favorite mobile suit, a blue Zaku-like with spiked shoulder pads, a heat saber (a sword that heats up to cut through metal, most importantly: not a beam saber), a gatling gun that doubled as a shield, and an extendable-magnetic-wire-hook-shot-thing for picking up weaponry that may have been dropped in the heat of battle or performing creative acrobatic violence all of which is captured beautifully in the 1996 OVA (Original Video Animation) Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team; arguably, in this writer’s opinion, the greatest Gundam media of all time and, along with the original series, the only series one needs to watch to “get it.” It being a subjective state of understanding, like watching the aforementioned Gundam series on a 14-inch CRT television set in your garage with the volume turned up so loudly as to drown out the sound of mom and dad screaming at each other in the other room or going over to a friend’s house after school to watch Gundam Wing on Toonami together before having to go home because it’s now 6:30 pm and you have a curfew and lots of homework to do.
I’ll do a line break here to allow you to catch your figurative breath before we move on with the story. I’ll also throw in an image for good measure.
*Hobby Lobby, model kit aisle, circa 2023.
Hoarding three Gunpla model kits into the shopping cart like a raccoon obsessed with shiny, alongside three or four paintings and a wall-scroll of an ocean view to hang in the barren-walled corner of the garage where I do all the midlife-crisis-bits (including this essay), I pushed the cart across the cheap linoleum flooring up to the short line at the cash register and waited my turn like a good consumer. Eventually, it got to my turn; I took the items out one by one and put them at the end of the conveyor belt, closest to the cashier, because I am a nice guy (sometimes), and she picked them up one by one, checked a sticker on the back of each item, and then keyed in the eight-digit code on the sticker. Then, I watched as the computer asked her, “What type of item are you ringing up?” and she selected “model kit,” which applied the 40% discount, and then she bagged the item. Confused, I asked her, “Why not just scan the barcode?” to which she responded, “Hobby Lobby doesn’t use barcodes.” She paused, then added, “For religious reasons.” The cashier had a hole where a nose ring should be and the sides above her ears shaved (an undercut?), so I trusted her bitterly-mumbled “for religious reasons” because she obviously had a chip on her shoulder if the Black Sabbath pin on her lanyard strap was any additional indication, and she clearly wanted to talk about it. She went on, “Hobby Lobby thinks barcodes are the Devil’s mark and won’t let us use them, even though they are on all the boxes, the computers won’t accept them.” I smiled wryly but did not laugh, as this wasn’t laughter-funny; it was stupid-funny, like a Year-2023-Conservative preaching for freedom but then saying anyone who burns the American flag should be locked up for life. Hobby Lobby thinks barcodes take them too close to Hell, and they have already decided that “Corporate Hell” is a compromise they’re willing to make for manifest destiny or whatever it is we’re calling “make as much money as possible” these days. I ended up spending $87.58 in total. The 40% discount was store-wide.
III: Plastic Passion
I opened the Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gunpla Kit as soon as I got home, closing out my family when I closed the office door behind me. It took three full listens of The Crib’s “In the Belly of the Brazen Bull,” a 47 minute long album, to finish building the kit. It would have taken longer if I had not had the foresight to purchase a “nipper,” a spring-loaded tool resembling blunt scissor blades attached to two rubber handles, used for cutting the plastic parts from runners; runners being the plastic assembly that all the parts are attached to in the packaging. Using these nippers, I was able to make clean cuts of most pieces, but some plastic excess was left on each piece, which annoyed me to no end. When it was over, I had a fully assembled RX-78-2 Gundam kit sitting on my desk, and I was proud of myself. I made the High Grade Zaku II three weeks later after watching several videos on how to efficiently build Gunpla kits; each video said to “panel line,” the practice of dripping colored (usually black) ink inside the small indentations of each part to give the model more definition. The videos also recommended using an x-acto knife to cut off excess plastic on the pieces left over from the runner, a phenomenon I learned was either called “nubs” or “stress marks” or both; regardless, I purchased all the necessary equipment. I took all the recommended steps, and during the process of building the Zaku II, I accidentally sliced open my fingers multiple times due to slips with the x-acto knife; in my haste to become a master builder, I had soaked the Zaku II in my own blood; serendipitously, the Zaku II matches the color of blood, and now stands posed with its huge bazooka pointed at its forever-rival: the RX-78-2. The final model kit, the MS-07B-3 Gouf Custom, still sits on my desk unopened, taunting me to open it, taunting me to spill blood in the name of giant robots and I think I will do just that before writing another word of this essay.
*Zaku II, Gouf Custom, and RX-78-2 gunpla
The Zaku, the Gouf, and the Gundam; the Holy Hobby Lobby Trinity of No-Barcodes-But-Some-Other-Eight-Digit-Code-That’s-Less-Demonic-Somehow. Balteus is the girdle of a Jewish priest and a papal garment, and the sword belt of a Roman legionary; perhaps the same Marcus Valerius Corvus who used the Raven to overcome incredibly low odds; incredibly low odds like the early-game-boss of Armored Core VI, Balteus. With enough practice, pattern recognition, and perseverance – the three Ps of passing AP literature (which this essay would surely produce a failing grade) – you will overcome. Three parts were broken on the RX-78-2 (requiring super glue); instant death from the initial missile barrage on the first Balteus run; blood was spilled on the Zaku II (staining the already red plastic); Balteus was half-health on the second run, and I learned the key to weakening his shield (energy weapons, of which I only had a weak energy missile equipped); nothing but fun was had building the Gouf Custom on a bright Sabbath morning: I let the panel ink dry before cleaning the excess and I clipped the runners so carefully that no unnecessary stress marks were left on the parts, and so delicate were my hands that no part was cracked in the snapping-of-the-pieces. I switched my AC’s build, equipped an energy weapon in the left hand to quickly deplete Balteus’s shield and a shotgun in my right hand for pure hull domination. Balteus was destroyed easily. I am certainly no modeling master and no master AC pilot, but I am much better than I once was. I am competent and more adaptable, “he roars as he smuggles in a bit about perseverance, poorly.”
(Originally published on 10/7/2023)
I'm Not an Addict
My wife says I’m an alcoholic; she’s wrong. I think about drinking alcohol constantly, but it’s okay because I’m high-functioning, and it doesn’t impact my work or the way I treat my family; I only drink after the sun goes down, and I try to drink only on the weekends, but also sometimes when I have a stressful day at work or when I’m really happy or when a great thing happens (like a promotion) because I deserve to treat myself to a good time once in a while. I also write better when I’m drunk, and it makes me more sociable; that last part is key because I would be an insufferable loser if I didn’t drink at social outings. It’s sad but true: people only like me when I’m drunk. I’m outgoing, witty, and fun to be around when I drink; more articulate. I don’t hate my friends when I drink, and I don’t get frustrated as much, and other people drink way more than I do. If I was a true alcoholic, I would be like my neighbor, who once tried to choke me for telling a tongue-in-cheek-joke about calling the cops on her (“What did you just say? You’re going to do what? Are you serious? How could you even say that?”) but really it was because she mixed vodka and risperdal which the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) officially advises against: “you should know that alcohol can add to the drowsiness caused by this medication. Do not drink alcohol while taking risperidone.” I think it’s safe to say that I’m not like her; she got so wasted one night that, after a vicious fight with her husband, violently backed the car out of her driveway into a mailbox then proceeded to drive around the neighborhood nearly hitting a child before having the police called; the police got her out of the car after much effort and arrested her after she called them all manner of racial epithets and generally not-nice-stuff. Somehow she got out of jail the same night, and two months later the same thing happened, and then it happened again, and again. During the course of writing this essay, I heard her screaming seven times (so far); our houses are close but not that close. She is loud. I am not like her. She can’t even hold a job. If I stopped drinking, I would likely lose my job because alcohol helps me deal with the crippling reality of nine-to-five-all-the-time; besides, how is drinking any different than needing your spouse to be home at 6 pm eastern so you can watch the next episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit together every Wednesday? How is drinking any different than waking up in the morning and needing that special cup of coffee with two sugars? Is that not an addiction as well? We stare at screens all day: smartphones, televisions. It’s all an addiction and if I’m an addict – you are too, so it’s OK.
(Originally published on 10/7/2023)
Forrest’s Totally Official Review of Armored Core VI W/ Numerical Score Value
I could start this piece with a clever joke about how “Armored Core is back,” but it was never really “here” to begin with. Armored Core has always been a niche computer game series with a niche audience of mecha-head nerds who really like big robots, which in America is a surprisingly low number of people when compared to Japan (per capita). While it may surprise you to know that Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is actually the 259th game in the series, it never really caught on until its developer, FromSoft, made a computer game series that IGN decided was a “9/10,” whatever that means: the forever-emulated-once-in-a-lifetime-beautiful-nasty-masterpiece: Dark Souls.
For all intents and purposes, the director of Dark Souls, Hidetaka Miyazaki, turned everything around for FromSoft, which was consistently creative but not on the mental radar of the average Cheeto-stainer (that’s what we’re calling “gamers” from now on). FromSoft went on to milk the formula of Dark Souls (as is their right), including Dark Souls 1 through 4 (4 being Open World Dark Souls: Elden Ring). One got the impression FromSoft was trepidatious in their willingness to revisit any of their older series until the overwhelming success of Elden Ring pretty much allowed them to do whatever they wanted. And do whatever they wanted they did, hence: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon.
Armored Core VI is the type of game that forum elitists will tell you is “much worse than Armored Core 4” but also “much better than Armored Core: Verdict Day” but also “a perversion of the series that you shouldn’t play” yet these same elitists are playing it non-stop on Steam in “invisible” status with “game history” turned off so you won’t know they are actually playing it non-stop in “invisible” status with “game history” turned off, a fact that they would absolutely never admit even if clear evidence was brought forward to prove it; a window into the soul of the 21st-century-gamer who bases their entire identity on their “Top 10 Best Games of All Time” list.
*Raven, piloting EDWARD-4, firing two gatling guns at an enemy outside of the frame
Armored Core VI is the type of game you can play while listening to heavy guitar music. No need to worry about The Cribs ruining the mood because they are the mood. This is an action game with serious moonlight action; combat in Armored Core VI Glitters Like Gold as gravity dances around me and I am rhythmically flowing to the violence beat. Combat is the Raven: fly away, approach from behind, leave and come back, or simply ignore; it’s your choice; gather those wings and fly. Picture being the most athletically fit human being in existence who is actually a robot that can also fly and is a master of all-weapons-ever; on the ground, you are a figure-skater with strawberry-switchblades and military-grade artillery, and in the air, you are dash-blasting at supersonic-speeds while simultaneously launching rocket salvos and sharpshooting enemies below with pinpoint accuracy (thanks to the game’s generous but only-sometimes-slightly-annoying lock-on system), and if that doesn’t sound appealing, simply change your robot’s build and do something else. You are Raven; as slow or as fast as you want, as bulky or as fragile as you want, as strong or as weak as you want, as stupid or as smart as you want; change the mechanical parameters of the computer game simply by changing your robot’s build, and while the variety is excellent and presented in the most stupid-cool way possible, there are drawbacks.
For how “fun” Armored Core VI plays (and it is incredibly “fun”; one of the most fun games I have ever played mechanically in terms of exhilaration, sitting on the edge of your seat, jumping a bit when you fire a high-impact weapon because it’s just “that cool” and heavy), it’s easy to say there is a “right” and a “wrong” way to play if the goal is efficiency. The mainstream gaming press pressured FromSoft to add a difficulty slider to their earlier games, an “easy mode,” and FromSoft caved and actually did it with Armored Core VI; except, the difficulty slider isn’t a slider: it’s baked into the weapons and the builds, and it’s not esoteric, it’s not something you have to look up online. Do you like shotguns, immediately equipping them on your robot the moment they become available? Congratulations, you have discovered the most powerful build in the game: two SG-027 ZIMMERMAN shotguns. Do you like Gundam Wing and want to make a Heavyarms Custom build with two gatling guns? Congratulations, you have just discovered the second-best build in the game. Defenders of this easy-to-break-ness will tell you that “you have to look up the best builds” or “why did you look up how to break the game,” and this is simply not the case if you have good taste (which I do and my horn is loud). I’m sure, as this essay ages, these specific examples will become outdated and wrong as FromSoft is continuously patching the game for that ever-elusive-dream called “balance,” but some variation of this will remain true, and to be clear: all computer games have some version of this problem, just not as many computer games have this problem so clearly pronounced and easy to find.
Even with this incredibly easy-to-break gameplay, the game manages to be difficult when it wants to be; certain bosses are especially brutal. The first boss, a big helicopter, is such an immediate jump in difficulty that you can find over 800 articles and fan reviews complaining about it, but this boss’s purpose is to teach the player how to pilot their robot and other key techniques, including boosting and dodging enemy attacks; which is, apparently, lost on the writers of said articles and fan reviews. Boss difficulty is partially due to the stagger bar, a feature taken from FromSoft’s earlier game Sekiro, the stagger bar is a gauge that builds up as an enemy takes damage and once topped-off staggers the enemy, stunning them for a moment and allowing for massive burst damage. For random-mook-enemies, this stagger meter is inconsequential, two shotgun blasts kill everything, trivializing almost every non-boss fight, but bosses take considerably longer to stagger and take very little damage until they are staggered. On the one hand, this prevents powering through bosses and facilitates learning boss attack patterns and adapting, but that requires actual effort, and actual effort is hard. Thankfully, Armored Core VI is never too hard, unless you’re using energy weapons and the stun baton, but even with the worst build possible: you can beat anything the game throws at you with enough effort, and that’s part of what makes Big Robot Game 6 so engaging; if you don’t want to be optimal, you don’t have to be. It took this writer 12 tries before beating the final-final-final boss, and yes, there are three final bosses, and I had fun every second of the journey.
*Raven, piloting the BURU–SHIKI V.1, boosts toward a PCA battleship at supersonic speeds; two shotguns at the ready
This is the crux of the matter: the gameplay. I could write about the setting, the plot, and the themes, but I’ve already written over ten thousand words inspired by those three topics in the other chapters of 621: Quoth the Raven.
In conclusion, I give Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon a solid [redacted].
(Originally published on 10/7/2023)